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- The First Exa-Transistor Computer
- Every Thing Can Be Improved – GRK Fasteners
- The Really Dangerous Tech is Really Old
- Good News on Backstopping Renewables (3) – Eavor Advanced Geothermal
- Good News on Backstopping Renewables (2) – Closed-Loop Pumped Hydro
- Good News on Backstopping Renewables (1) – Ambri
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- H P Lovecraft Had At Least One Black Fan
- 2020 Is Already the 2nd Worst Year in US History
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Tag Archives: energy-ish
Good News on Backstopping Renewables (3) – Eavor Advanced Geothermal
The last posts were about batteries and pumped-hydro storage, which will be used to handle excess energy from variable renewables. But what happens when there’s no sun or wind for weeks on end? There still needs to be something to … Continue reading
Good News on Backstopping Renewables (2) – Closed-Loop Pumped Hydro
The Ambri batteries mentioned in the last post are fine for storing some energy for a couple of days, but suppose you need a lot of storage for a week or more. That’ll be necessary when all the fossil fuel … Continue reading
Good News on Backstopping Renewables (1) – Ambri
Wind and solar at this point are cheaper than any other form of electricity, and are getting steadily cheaper still. Coal plants are getting shut down because it’s just not worth it to run them, and even natural gas is … Continue reading
The Carboniferous and the Anti-Carboniferous Eras
Here’s a cool recent discovery – the reason the earth has so much coal is that it took fungi 60 million years to figure out how to digest lignin, the compound that gives wood its strength. Before that the trees … Continue reading
MIT On Climate Change
Every year MIT has a Technology Day on its alumni reunion weekend where faculty discuss what they’re working on. These are consistently interesting, and I’ve written about them before: The Oceans Are Dissolved Information and Print Your House and … Continue reading
Warming Harms the US More Than the Northeast
I’ve been looking at the recently released Fourth National Climate Assessment, the US government’s considered opinion on what climate change will do to the country. This program has been running since 1990, and is protected from hostile Administrations by legislation. … Continue reading
How Did Wind Get So Cheap?
Rather surprisingly, wind power is now the cheapest form of electricity in the US: This comes from the tree-hugging socialists at Lazard Asset Management. Unsubsidized wind comes in at $32 to $62 per MWh, depending on the site. Natural gas … Continue reading
Rebecca Leaf, Engineer Heroine from MIT
I recently came across a striking set of stories about leftist women who attended MIT. The school has had female graduates longer than any other major US university (their first was in 1873), and they’ve done remarkable things. It turns … Continue reading
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Tagged energy-ish, mit-ish, political-ish, Tech life in New England
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Solectria – Achieving Goals By Lowering Them
A few days ago some good news finally came to a guy who has been trying to save the world for a very long time. James Worden is the founder of the Massachusetts company Solectria Renewables, and it just got … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged electric-cars, energy-ish, mit-ish, solar inverters, Tech life in New England, tech-culture
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Antarctica Will Save Us All, Maybe
Just in time for the start of winter, NASA scientists have identified the coldest place on Earth: -93.2 C (-136 F) on a high ridge in Antarctica. Full story here. That beats the previous record of -89.2 C (-128.6 F) … Continue reading
