Where “doing everything” involves making investments that are slower or less cost effective, which divert resources away from preferable options, or which in some other way impede them, the result would be potentially disastrous for carbon emissions mitigation.
Amidst many uncertainties, the real questions we should be addressing are about which investments offer the most cost-effective and beneficial ways forward.
Our new paper, Differences in carbon emissions reduction between countries pursuing renewable electricity versus nuclear power, seeks to contribute towards this debate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00696-3 //
Our research explores this dilemma retrospectively, examining past patterns in the attachments (i.e. investments) of different countries to nuclear or renewable strategies. Our paper addresses three hypotheses:
A “nuclear climate mitigation” hypothesis: that countries with a greater attachment to nuclear power will tend to have lower overall carbon emissions.
A “renewables climate mitigation” hypothesis: that countries with a greater attachment to renewables will tend to have lower overall carbon emissions.
A “crowding out” hypothesis: that countries with a greater attachment to nuclear will tend to have a lesser attachment to renewables, and vice versa.
Across the study countries as a whole we found that the “nuclear climate mitigation” hypothesis is not sustained by the evidence at an appropriate level of statistical significance. The renewable climate mitigation hypothesis is confirmed with substantial significance. And the crowding out hypothesis is also significantly sustained.
Put plainly – if countries want to lower emissions as substantially, rapidly and cost-effectively as possible, they should prioritise support for renewables rather than nuclear power. Pursuit of nuclear strategies risks taking up resources that could be used more effectively and suppressing the uptake of renewable energy.
Argonne scientists look to 3D printing to ease separation anxiety, which paves the way to recycle more nuclear material. //
We can recycle waste from nuclear reactors in several ways, including one method developed by Argonne scientists in the 1970s. With these approaches, nuclear engineers can recycle 95 percent of the spent nuclear fuel from a reactor, leaving only five percent to be stored as long-term waste. But now, for the first time, Argonne scientists have printed 3-D parts that pave the way to recycling even more nuclear waste, as detailed in a Sept. 6 article in Scientific Reports.
At first glance, recycling another two percent of nuclear waste may not sound like much. But it would dramatically reduce both the amount of waste stored and the time it remains hazardous.
“Rather than store five percent for hundreds of thousands of years, the remaining three percent needs to be stored at a maximum of about one thousand years,” said Andrew Breshears, an Argonne nuclear chemist and co-author. “In other words, this additional step may reduce the length of storage almost one thousandfold.” And breaking down that nuclear material in a fourth generation fast reactor would generate additional electricity.
We develop Generation IV high-temp gas cooled nuclear reactors & the TRISO-X fuel to power them.
We are designing the safest, most efficient and most advanced small modular reactors for a wide range of global markets & applications.
We use TRISO particle fuel. We manufacture our own proprietary version (TRISO-X) to ensure supply & quality control.
Xe-100 is a 80 MWe reactor that can be scaled into a ‘four-pack’ 320 MWe power plant—with our modular design, the scale can grow even larger as needed.
Toyota is selling the Mirai fuel cell vehicle running on hydrogen, and plans to boost tenfold the global sales of the Mirai with the second-generation Mirai.
The new Toyota Mirai will have a 30% increase in driving range to around 650 kilometers (404 miles), the carmaker said at the end of November. //
The average price for hydrogen fuel in California is about US$16/kg — gasoline is sold by the gallon (volume) and hydrogen by the kilogram (weight).
To put that in perspective, 1 gallon of gasoline has about the same amount of energy as 1 kg of hydrogen.
Sorbom has his doctorate from MIT and is co-founder and chief scientific officer of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a rapidly growing company spun out of Sorbom and his co-founders' research. CFS aims to commercialize fusion, a safe and virtually limitless source of "clean energy," to combat climate change. The company is funded by the likes of Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates by way of energy innovation investment fund Breakthrough Energy. //
Creating and capturing the energy of the sun is delicate. A special form of hydrogen has to be heated until it gets to the fourth state of matter, plasma.
"If you heat a solid up, it turns into a liquid. If you heat that liquid up, it turns into a gas. If you heat that gas up, it turns into a plasma," he says, and "you get a charge soup of particles."
Plasma is an extremely fragile state of matter. If interrupted, the fusion reaction stops. So scientists developed a machine known by the Russian acronym tokamak, which uses magnetic fields to hold a doughnut of plasma safely in a container.
ИТЭР РФ | ITER RUSSIA
@iterrf
#DidYouKnow that the word "#tokamak" stands for "ТОроидальная КАмера с МАгнитными Катушками" (TOroidal'naya KAmera s MAgnitnymi Katushkami) - "toroidal camera with manetic coil" in english? #DYK #FusionEnergy @iterorg //
Research by Sorbom and his colleagues focuses on improving the tokamak, specifically by "making better and better magnets," Sorbom says.
Better and stronger magnets mean better insulation for the plasma, and the more efficiently the plasma can be heated up, the more energy that can be generated, eventually producing net energy. In the machines CFS is working on, temperatures will be around 100 million degrees Celsius, which is roughly 180 million degrees Fahrenheit.
In the modern world, countries need a reliable electricity grid to prosper. Globally, demand for electricity is growing as a result of population growth, new ways to use electricity, and the effort to spread access to electrical power to a greater portion of the world’s population.
For the past four years, Robert Bryce has been intensively studying the electricity business, which he describes as the world’s second largest industry by revenue, trailing only the fossil fuel industry. He calculates that global annual electricity sales total approximately $2 trillion. He traveled to a number of different locations to learn how countries, states, cities and even individual businesses are creating, transmitting and using electricity.
His resulting book, A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations, was released on March 10, 2020. By the time it had been released, the world was in the throes of responding to the coronavirus and his well-planned book tour had been essentially cancelled.
By Seton Motley | Jan 27, 2021 8:27 AM ET
I appreciate Senator Ted Cruz’s effort – and his many other efforts – but his bill ending endless Congressional terms isn’t a solution.
I am loathe to question Senator Cruz on Constitutional questions – but his bill raises Constitutional questions. We had to amend the Constitution to term-limit presidents. I would imagine we’d need to do the same thing to do the same thing to Congressmen.
And it almost certainly isn’t a practical solution. How many members of Congress will vote to limit their time as members of Congress?
Meanwhile, term limits just turn more elected officials more rapidly into more lobbyists.
And term limits accidentally, massively over-empower residual Hill staffers – who aren’t elected and aren’t term limited.
All of which is demonstrably worse than what we have now.
To solve the problems – we must address the actual problems. Implementing term limits doesn’t do that.
In the House – that means ending gerrymandering. For the Senate – we must repeal the Seventeenth Amendment.
In the House:
Gerrymandering?:
“(A) practice intended to establish an unfair political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries….
“Two principal tactics are used in gerrymandering.
“‘Cracking’ (i.e. diluting the voting power of the opposing party’s supporters across many districts).
“And ‘packing’ (concentrating the opposing party’s voting power in one district to reduce their voting power in other districts).”
Gerrymandering is government officials choosing us – rather than us choosing them. //
Term limits replace old Nancy Pelosis with…young Nancy Pelosis. Because 80+% of Congressional districts are gerrymandered to an overwhelming Democrat or Republican advantage. //
In the Senate:
Seventeenth Amendment?:
“(E)stablished the direct election of United States senators in each state. The amendment supersedes Article I, §3, Clauses 1 and 2 of the Constitution, under which senators were elected by state legislatures.”
We must return to the pre-Seventeenth Amendment status quo. Because it served as a massive check on federal spending – and myriad other overreaches. //
Term limits is a top-down, DC-centered “fix” – to problems caused by top-down, DC-centered “fixes.” That actually fixes nothing. And actually makes things worse.
The real solution is to fix the actual, original problems.
End gerrymandering – and repeal the Seventeenth Amendment.
And restore the proper accountability, roles and responsibilities of government at every level.
One of the first acts of the new Biden Administration is cancelling the permits for the Keystone XL Pipeline, a project of Canadian energy giant TC Energy that would have moved 800,000 barrels per day of heavy crude from Alberta to Cushing, OK, providing easier access to Gulf Coast refineries. The project was originally killed in the Obama Administration due to State Department objections, later to be revived and fast-tracked by President Trump. Cancelling the project, well into its construction, will cost 11,000 union construction jobs, the ongoing pipeline jobs and revenues, and $2 billion of future investment. //
HISTORICAL NOTE: Joe Biden is a long-standing opponent of domestic energy infrastructure. In 1973, a deadlocked Senate nearly blocked the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, sorely needed in reaction to the first OPEC embargo. Biden, then a back-bencher, joined the opposition. Vice-President Spiro Agnew broke the Senate’s tie vote, and the pipeline went in service in 1977. Sixteen billion barrels later, America remains free of OPEC domination, thanks in part to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The boon to the economy, foreign policy, and the State of Alaska has been immeasurable.
If you read ebooks a lot, you may have noticed that EPUB is the most widely adopted ebook format. Almost all mainstream eReaders, computer operating systems or ebook reader apps support this format except some Kindle devices (If you have epub books that you want to read on your Kindle, you can send epub to Kindle). In this article, I will share with you the best 10 free epub readers for Android smartphones or tablets to help you read epub ebooks on the screen with the most pleasant reading experience.
Outdoor models AOU18RLXFZH, AOU24RLXFZH and AOU36RLXFH allow you to connect 2 to 5 indoor units, depending on the outdoor unit selected. These systems provide both heating and cooling for year-round comfort. //
The Inverter component allows the outdoor unit to vary its speed and output to match the required capacity of the indoor unit. Thus, the Inverter model can achieve 30% more operating efficiency than conventional models and therefore, is much less expensive to run. //
The XLTH outdoor units are engineered to operate in temperatures down to -15°F, lower than any other mini-split available today. These outdoor units also include base drainage holes, a large heat exchanger, and a high capacity compressor.
dolsh
David Murphy
1/06/21 10:08pm
all of my personal data sits within my main C:\Users folder
Rookie mistake. If you’re seriously going to re-install Windows regularly, or as I’d prefer it, if you’re going to use Windows 10 regularly, do not use your boot drive as User storage. Most purchased PC’s support this now (though not all laptops). I have another disagreement with the article, but I’ll get to that at the end.
Your boot drive should be windows and applications only. A separate physical disk is your User folder, Documents, Media, Games, etc.
This makes backup really easy... //
With the above, it only takes about a half hour to reinstall, configure, and kick off restoring applications and games. I used to do this quite often. Now, it’s really only when I have a significant enough hardware upgrade to warrant it.
So my main disagreement is that you need to reinstall Windows 10 at all. There was a time when applications embedded themselves in system startup, and even a technical Windows user would find their Windows installation slowing down over time. This just doesn’t happen with Windows 10. My current installation dates back to the Windows 7 to Windows 10 upgrade. The IT departments of my last two companies have experienced the same thing across thousands of desktops. The tools built into Windows 10 allow for managing application installs and determining what’s running much better than several years ago. I’ve found that when applications slow Windows down, I can remove them and preformance returns. That wasn’t always possible. There was a time when you needed to know what sysinternals and hijack-this were to keep it all running well.
It could mean a "negative" leap second.
Even time did not escape 2020 unscathed.
The 28 fastest days on record (since 1960) all occurred in 2020, with Earth completing its revolutions around its axis milliseconds quicker than average. That's not particularly alarming — the planet's rotation varies slightly all the time, driven by variations in atmospheric pressure, winds, ocean currents and the movement of the core. But it is inconvenient for international timekeepers, who use ultra-accurate atomic clocks to meter out the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) by which everyone sets their clocks. When astronomical time, set by the time it takes the Earth to make one full rotation, deviates from UTC by more than 0.4 seconds, UTC gets an adjustment.
Here are seven key moments that occurred before and after lawmakers were forced to suspend their debate of evidence of voter fraud and other election irregularities and shelter in place. //
- Cruz Offers ‘Door Number 3’
Also before the rioters breached the Capitol, Cruz made the case for naming an Electoral Commission as a “credible, impartial body to hear the evidence” as part of an emergency 10-day audit of six disputed states. //
After the 1876 presidential election, Congress appointed an Electoral Commission to decide the dispute between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden.
The panel was made up of five House members, five senators, and five Supreme Court justices. The commission decided four disputed states–South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and Oregon–in favor of Hayes.
A newly found inscription has forced archaeologists to rethink their dating of a fortification wall, and high-tech analysis is building a clearer picture than ever of the site //
With the fortress’s iconic round tower jutting into the sky behind us, Re’em recounted a thrilling discovery of a dated inscription located in secondary use, meaning it had been recycled from some earlier use, in the foundations of an outer western wall.
“We all thought that this was from the time of the Crusaders, the 12th century. It appears in the books! But now, when we conducted this excavation, we have a large question mark. Because right here we uncovered an Arabic inscription in secondary use that belonged to one of the great Ayyubid rulers of Jerusalem, his name is El-Melek El-Muatem Isa,” said Re’em.
Jerusalem was conquered by the Crusaders in 1099 and retaken by a Muslim dynasty, the Ayyubids, in 1187. By 1212, the city was ruled by the nephew of Saladin, El-Melek El-Muatem Isa, also commonly known in English as Al-Mu’azzam Isa.
According to Re’em, Al-Mu’azzam Isa erected the fortifications of Jerusalem in approximately 1212, “and on every tower he put a large sign in Arabic, ‘I’m the great ruler El-Melek El-Muatem Isa.'” Alongside his name on this stone was the year, 1212.
Rarely do archaeologists hit the jackpot of a securely dated inscription. This one, explained Re’em, also sheds light on the mindset of the Muslim ruler as he faced down encroaching Crusader forces, who moved toward the city in 1217.
Re’em said that as the Crusaders made their way to the Holy Land, the sultan did not have a standing army available in Jerusalem, so he decided to tear down the city’s fortifications, thinking it would be easier to retake that way after the Crusaders presumably entered the city.
“So he demolished all his walls and those inscriptions,” said Re’em, “but the Crusaders never came to Jerusalem.”
Eventually, the walls were rebuilt, and the stone with his name and date was used in the foundation of the walls of the western fortification of the citadel. There it would sit for centuries until being found by Re’em and his team, helping rewrite what we know about the citadel.
Until Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, recently stood up as the voice of reason, and blocked a museum dedicated to those Americans the government hives off as “Hispanic” or “Latino,” it looked like conservatives had learned all the wrong lessons from their recent success with those voters.
“I understand what my colleagues are trying to do and why. I respect what they’re trying to do. I even share their interests in ensuring that these stories are told. But the last thing we need is to further divide an already divided nation with an array of segregated, separate-but-equal museums for hyphenated identity groups,” said Lee in a statement from the Senate floor about the Smithsonian Institution museum that up to that point seemed all but a fait accompli, having gathered bipartisan support.
“At this moment in the history of our diverse nation, we need our federal government and the Smithsonian Institution itself to pull us closer together and not further apart,” the Utah Republican went on.
The Smithsonian, a taxpayer-funded institution, “should not have an exclusive museum of American Latino history or a museum of women’s history or museum of American men’s history or Mormon history or Asian American history or Catholic history. American history is an inclusive story that should unite us.”
Wind and solar decommissioning costs are trivial. That’s yet another reason why nuclear is dead, but pretending it’s not.
Smaller, cheaper reactor aims to revive nuclear industry, but design problems raise safety concerns //
Engineers at NuScale Power believe they can revive the moribund U.S. nuclear industry by thinking small. Spun out of Oregon State University in 2007, the company is striving to win approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for the design of a new factory-built, modular fission reactor meant to be smaller, safer, and cheaper than the gigawatt behemoths operating today. But even as that 4-year process culminates, reviewers have unearthed design problems, including one that critics say undermines NuScale’s claim that in an emergency, its small modular reactor (SMR) would shut itself down without operator intervention. //
Normally, convection circulates water—laced with boron to tune the nuclear reaction—through the core of NuScale’s reactor (left). If the reactor overheats, it shuts down and valves release steam into the containment vessel, where it conducts heat to a surrounding pool and condenses (center). The water flows back into the core, keeping it safely submerged (right). But the condensed water can be low in boron, and reviewers worried it could cause the reactor to spring back to life.
The best method for electing the president of the United States, debated by the Founding Fathers, is a bone of contention generations later. Today, many call the Electoral College outdated. But Carly Terry, a new high school graduate from Nassau County, Florida, argued in an award-winning essay that the Founders settled on the Electoral College for a reason, and it remains the best way to elect the president.
Terry was awarded a $10,000 scholarship from the U.S. Constitution Scholarship Foundation for her essay as a senior in defense of the Electoral College. She and Howard Pines, a founder of the organization, join the podcast to discuss precisely why we shouldn’t abandon the Electoral College.
Daily Caller
@DailyCaller
Sen. Dick Durbin describes Sen. @TimScottSC's police reform bill as a "token, half-hearted approach" //
Scott, who is black, had slammed Democrats and others last week for their attacks on him, according to the Daily Caller.
“Not surprising the last 24 hours have seen a lot of ‘token’ ‘boy’ or ‘you’re being used’ in my mentions. Let me get this straight … you DON’T want the person who has faced racial profiling by police, been pulled over dozens of times, or been speaking out for YEARS drafting this?” Scott said on Twitter. //
Tim Scott
@SenatorTimScott
Y’all still wearing those kente cloths over there @SenatorDurbin? //
It also happens that the kente cloth they wore was connected to the slave trade. //
RNC Research
@RNCResearch
Sen. Tim Scott: for Sen. Dick Durbin “to call this a token process hurts my soul for my country”
https://youtu.be/z5WnM9ZBrQw
Congressman and Wounded Vet Dan Crenshaw has always riled up conservatives.
But this latest video that has almost a million views at the time this article is written takes the cake for the most badass commercial I have ever seen. In the video, Dan Crenshaw skydives into locations to pick up his “team” to save Texas.