humanspiral
@humanspiral@lemmy.ca
- Comment on New fuel cell could enable electric aviation 19 hours ago:
bio fuels are not scalable. Much more solar energy (15x+ factor) is created by PV than by ethanol per area, and more efficiently turned into H2 (or e kerosene, btw) than the bio route. Bio route is airline PR to do something, but would make food scarce at scale.
- Comment on New fuel cell could enable electric aviation 1 day ago:
300atm compressed H2 has more energy than batteries. 1500wh/L electric. 2.5kwh/L heat. LH2 is equivalent to 1100atm compressed. LH2 is right for aviation because the tanks are light/simple, and they are filled shortly before takeoff. It’s a big weight savings over kerosene.
- Comment on New fuel cell could enable electric aviation 1 day ago:
Article says whole system is 1000wh/kg (including support machinery). There are 5 (including intermediate step) reactions of air and sodium. I’d guess they are using 100% humidity air. H2 is part of the reaction with humidity, and is a much more rapid and “exothermic” reaction than transformation to SaO.
- Comment on New fuel cell could enable electric aviation 1 day ago:
Hydrogen is clean electrolysis too. Would cost less.
- Comment on New fuel cell could enable electric aviation 1 day ago:
1200 Wh / kg of sodium
That is about the H2 energy release from sodium reacting with water (perhaps just humidity in air).
however gasoline is a whole 3800 Wh / kg
H2 has 33000wh/kg, and so if you were starting with sodium, might as well pour water on it on the ground, and fill the plane up with automatic high pressure H2.
There are no emissions other than water vapour from the sodium process because the reaction leaves solid byproducts other than H2.
- Comment on New fuel cell could enable electric aviation 1 day ago:
It’s a red flag that they don’t compare to H2, which has significant aviation FC prospects/research, and has even higher energy density by weight, and the advantage of exhausting water vapour and so fuel weight goes down during trip.
Sodium is also produced by electrolysis. It can make a lot of H2 and heat by reacting with water. In fact, the reaction of 1 ton makes 1.8mwh of heat, + 1.4mwh of H2 heat value (900kwh electric), where hot H2 might have extra energy potential for electricity or combustion (not sure).
Sodium metal costs $2000/ton. Reaction with water makes 42kg of H2, and so about $46/kg of H2 is too high. The heat would improve the efficiency of SOFCs (described matches article) by getting the heat for free, and maybe 1.2mwh/ton electric. SOFCs have always had the advantage of working with polluted fuel blends.
Perhaps if sodium or H2 production was combined with desalination process, then cost of green sodium or H2 could be lowered.
- Comment on China's first 6nm GPU boots up, targets performance parity with RTX 4060 3 days ago:
Huawei has sold a lot of phones last year based on “surprising advances” from SMIC. They have shipping AI chips that are benchmarked based on announcements that drew skepticism at the time. Not sure about this company’s product or how close it is to shipping.
- Comment on Spread of sexual deepfake images created by generative AI growing in Japan 5 days ago:
clicked link about a dead pigeon… was expecting/hoping to see some deepfake examples.
- Comment on What games are just objective master pieces? 6 days ago:
Nethack
- Comment on Geologists doubt Earth has the amount of copper needed to develop the entire world 6 days ago:
Aluminum is a substitute for copper in any straight wiring application.
- Comment on Allies lift Ukraine's restrictions on long-range weapons, says Merz 1 week ago:
Terrorist attacks on Russia will not help Ukraine. Listening to them complain about retaliations, is opposite of resolving this conflict.
Decision can result in Russian strikes on the west, and you will all cheer for the new warmongering opportunities from your consensus victimization.
- Comment on Zelensky says US silence over Russian attacks encourages Putin 1 week ago:
Takes article a long time to mention that attack on kyiv was retaliation for similar attack on Moscow.
Zelensky is one encouraging Russia to attack.
- Comment on Trump says a 25% tariff "must be paid by Apple" on iPhones not made in the US, says he told Tim Cook long ago that iPhones sold in the US must be made in the US 1 week ago:
Volume matters for automation. Us made market would be only for us. 15 to 20% of cell market. Less by volume.
India afaik only assembles. Its the components that are highly automated.
25% tariffs on all phones in us because all are made outside of us, is just a sales tax on a modern necessity. Will still be hard to invest on us manufacturing or assembly
- Comment on The World's First Mass-Produced Flying Car Is Here and It Costs $1 Million 1 week ago:
At Shanghai 2025 car show, there were at least 5 flying car models from major auto players.
- Comment on The most powerful laser in the US recently produced 2 quadrillion watts of power 2 weeks ago:
could this boil one molecule of water?
- Comment on Why are solar panels and batteries from China so cheap: It's more to do with automation and state-of-the art manufacturing processes than cheap labour. 2 weeks ago:
Policy for abundance and competition matters a lot for China success. It starts with abundant raw material and processing. Steel and construction materials matters to factory building costs in addition to new energy production costs. It’s unclear how much of abundance outcomes is the result of direct incentives to material producers/refiners vs “build it and they will come” attitudes that includes confidence in supporting clean energy/vehicles downstream.
In the west, oil oligarchy protectionism drives policy. History of oil companies patting themselves on the back with PR on clean energy while doing nothing. Funding massive disinformation and politicians for climate terrorism, and the solutions/progress that is made outside of oil companies is just extremely slow. Meant for PR and scarcity, and the hopes that high scarcity profits can be dressed up as rewarding national champions doing a little bit against global warming. Most of the IRA is not about creating US abundance, but rather setting up US monopolies in US supply chain, that have caused projects to stall because they are not competitive by US ROI standards, and the lack of confidence in usurping oil oligarchy for US only market.
Article starts off with “do we need domestic industry?” before not making any conclusions about it later. If Aliens came to earth to trade us cheap stuff, US oligarchy would insist on losing a war against the Aliens instead. Cheap energy and materials further makes jobs. Solar especially has up to 90% of its costs as local deployment spending. Cheap energy and materials is core to competitive manufacturing, and low consumer cost of living. The political reaction to go to war with competitive goods to protect domestic oligarchy profits, and pretend to support uncompetitive domestic upstarts with subsidies, is a net social loss. We end up with a high subsidy per job level, where UBI (full society redistribution) would enable more affordability of better products instead.
- Comment on Texas Senate passes bill requiring solar plants to provide power at night 2 weeks ago:
Very sad. I get that the grid does need backup/resilience power and someone needs to pay for it, but adding a new FF plant of equal capacity is going well beyond backup needs. A simpler solution would be to tax renewable power in wholesale market such that it funds “payments for backup readiness” as needed, and tax goes down as less of it is needed.
- Comment on GOP sneaks decade-long AI regulation ban into spending bill - Ars Technica 2 weeks ago:
The process itself must serve evil. As a process, single issue bills permit a clear stand on good/evil with debate on the issue to convince/justify vote. Multi issue bills permit a horse trade of my evil interests to be included for your evil interest to also be included.
It can backfire though. Too big a deal can get some to leave the corruption consensus over 1 provision included. Everyone is given more power to grandstand against evil.
- Comment on Texas Senate passes bill requiring solar plants to provide power at night 3 weeks ago:
Providing power at night is much more reasonable than forcing an equal/backup gas plant.
Requiring solar to have 2-4 hours battery backup power is a great way to expand grid while still keeping existing plants around. Peaker/backup plants have always had a business model based on high rates. If the law says a solar project must buy into a legacy plant and promise to keep it ready for backup, it’s not totally crazy, as long as it can charge extortionist rates when it is needed. It doesn’t reduce benefit of battery storage, paired with larger solar array.
inventive new ways to store energy.
100 hour storage, like iron air batteries, is cheap but not as economic as mature battery technologies for power arbitrage. Still, if there is a regulation to have 18-48 hours of power reserves, then it is an ok solution. The problem with long term storage with solar is that if you get 6 hours of sun in a day, half to charge, half to sell directly, you only add 6 hours, even if most days you wouldn’t draw down 6 hours at night due to lower demand.
Hydrogen electrolysis is another solution to monetizing overproduction. It can be done more cheaply with methane than water, and still be zero emissions, zero capture and sequestration, with marketable carbon black solid as byproduct. Keeping a bit of H2 onsite, with a fuel cell as backup, or NG electric plant, can be profitable, but all depends on how much you have to pay for backup, and how much profit from use.
Introducing V2G service that pays EV owners to be “the backup” in addition to battery arbitrage revenue is another path, that will happen soon enough, but where some kind of regulatory obligation to have it, makes it happen with more commitment.
- Comment on GOP sneaks decade-long AI regulation ban into spending bill - Ars Technica 3 weeks ago:
The bill that makes it illegal for precautions is snuck inside megabill with 100 other bad provisions so no debate occurs on it.
FYI, the US empire is evil. Like media, AI must be used to protect the Empire’s evil.
- Comment on Exclusive: InventWood is about to mass produce wood that’s stronger than steel 3 weeks ago:
we’re focused on skin applications
Seems weird for ultra strong wood, but another property is that it is pretty.
- Comment on i broke 3 weeks ago:
Your misery cannot possibly be the result a structurally oppressive society, look at how well I’m doing. Now go kick your mom in the vagina and suck dick for therapy fares, and come back next week.
- Comment on Chinese Trade Flow Resilient at End of April Despite US Tariffs 3 weeks ago:
7% sea cargo increase and 30% air cargo increase.
Trans shipments isn’t a great argument considering that most of South East Asia that is used/accused of being hubs have rail links to China.
- Comment on China has introduced a drone that flies like a bird. The new invention could turn the drone industry upside down 3 weeks ago:
OP isn’t even new. This is a special forces video that is 1-2 years old. It’s hard to make them land “gracefully”.
- Comment on Ukraine, US sign minerals deal 4 weeks ago:
Seems like they setup an empty shell corporation. It is ready for contributions. Unclear that Ukraine got anything, or US gave anything yet. Though maybe future mineral/resource licences get paid into this fund and US gets 50% of it even without giving anything.
Restriction against Russia is no good for limiting Ukraine’s future under reaonable/peace governance, and Zelensky’s constitutional authority to sign anything is expired.
- Comment on Trump Blames Biden for Disastrous Q1 Economic News: ‘NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS’ 4 weeks ago:
On Nov 20th, Goldman Sachs expected 2025 growth to be 2.5%, and had just a 15% chance of recession. Now recession is likely, and the most optimistic forecasts for the year are 1.1%-1.2%.
- Comment on Trump tells Canadians to Elect the guy who'll make them the 51st State of US [Canadian elections today] 5 weeks ago:
FYI, this is unpopular among Canadian voters. Conservative underdog, tries to deny being a lapdog, or supporting the idea, but this unfiltered BS doesn’t help him. It’s just a sign that Trump is completely out of control surrounded only by people who must restrain themselves on pushback to only far stupider things he might say.
- Comment on Hundreds of smartphone apps are monitoring users through their microphones 5 weeks ago:
Good thing everyone diligently reads the T&A of Pool 3d before using it. You are reading every line of text before you hit agree, and then uninstall, right?
- Comment on If I snapped you back in time 650 years right this very second, how would you use your current knowledge to succeed? 5 weeks ago:
Electricity is a pretty easy concept. Steam power driving magnets and copper. That rare earths make better magnets should be easy enough to search for them. Copper wires to deliver the electricity easy AF. Can help jump start progress to late 21st century for some things.
- Comment on If I snapped you back in time 650 years right this very second, how would you use your current knowledge to succeed? 5 weeks ago:
I don’t know how to refine oil, but knowing that its refinable into diesel/gasoline is a pretty good start to looking for it. A head start on murdering some sperm whales for lighting industry seems easy enough to figure out. Partnering with metal smiths who might have a clue on making gun barrels, and pipe’s in general that could be used for advanced weaponry, would be an easy path to get governments to give me a ton of money for weapons research by just showing them some drawings. Doesn’t really matter if I ever figure out how to do it, just the vision of what is possible would make me richer than Musk. Richer if I can help enslave all of humanity to one empire.