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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • I guess I could have stated the form of energy I was talking about a little more clearly. That’s actually mostly in agreement to what I was referring to though, as we move from fossil fuel powered transport to EVs, we’ll see that demand shift and drive electrical consumption up dramatically (even if the total joules of energy required decreases from a physics perspective). Yes, internal combustion is inherently very, very inefficient but it just takes HEAPS of energy to move 3,000+ pounds (1,350+ kg) of anything and all of that will be coming from the mains rather than an oil rig. That’s why we (not just Sweden, all of us humans) need to increase our electrical generation capacity and modernize our distribution networks.


  • You can bank on energy consumption rising year over year for the next lifetime or so. We have completely run out of low hanging fruit in terms of cutting back like moving from incandescent to LED lighting, installing heat pumps to replace resistive heaters…ect. Solar, wind and other green sources ARE very much the future (assuming we want to have a future at all), but their variable output doesn’t mesh super well with how electrical grids are handled today. Batteries and other storage options are no where near ready and may never be for grid scale. This is where nuclear shines, that steady trickle over many, many decades as a bridge to a future with a redesigned distribution network and other technologies we can’t even conceive of yet. The thing is it’s a long term play, there’s a massive upfront cost and the people involved the project today may not even be alive or seeking any sort of political office in 20 years when it’s completely validated. Even if these plants can’t get online fast enough to meet the peak demands in the near-term, there’s nothing stopping them from scaling out solar and/or wind farms to pick up the slack.







  • A big issue is that we’re still quite limited when it comes to analytical methods for quantifying and classifying microplastics. I’ve seen a method from ASTM from like 2020 referenced once or twice, but the most telling one is that EPA doesn’t have one for drinking water yet. I know PFAS for example seems like a recent hot topic, but Method 537 dates back to to 2009 and UCMR3 (even if Method 533 is much more recent). Until we get a consensus on what exactly microplastic is and isn’t and a consistent way to put a number on it, we’re not really generating high quality data.


  • I think it’s fair to say that basic science in general is underfunded and adding to that academic overhead is absurd.

    That said, it’s useful to clarify some definitions in there. Basic science is anything but basic, it’s “pure research”, or projects that aim to better understand some principle and/or phenomenon (a relevant example would be the mechanisms behind superconductors).

    That and the academic overhead I’m referencing is the cut that a university takes of grant awards. Most of the departments I’ve been around take 50% of the grant award, so if you need $100,000 to complete a project, you have to ask for 200 grand (or more if you want to be paid the whole year rather than just 9 months). Now a lot of this is driven by an outrageous number of administrators with insulting salaries for what they provide (does the vice president of insert some nebulous term here really provide 300 grand worth of contributions to a university, especially so when they set the salary of teaching faculty down around 40~50K and expect applicants with PhDs and years of experience).

    So what ends up happening is that researchers tag buzzwords and trendy bells and whistles onto research projects that really don’t need them just to have a single digit percent chance at getting the finding to make them happen. Oh and if they don’t beat the odds, they are shown the door in 5 years. Academia really needs a shakeup.







  • Venting into the garage is going to lead to a very bad time (mold, lint, ect). Honestly, it may be cheaper to just go with a heat pump based dryer. They are far more energy efficient, areeasier onyour clothes, and don’t need a vent at all. Now it’s not all sunshine and roses, they are more expensive than traditional models, take longer to dry, the collected water needs dumped out afterwards, and don’t heat your clothes up (so no hot towels or wrinkle releasing). That said, I think it would be the best compromise for your situation.