In 1995, computer scientist Niklaus Wirth published the article “A Plea for Lean Software” in the magazine Computer. Its thesis seems to suggest that AI based on neural networks may be doomed to fail, not because of a lack of electrical energy, but because of software inefficiency. The experience of … [continued]
The core of the Fat Boy bomb, which leveled two square miles of Nagasak, weighed 13.6 pounds. It was about the size of a softball. Photo by Diana Polekhina, Unsplash, cropped.
I am one of those people who hates the word “utilize.” The logic of the English language would seem to be that to utilize something is to alter it to give it utility that it didn’t originally have. One example is to punch holes in the bottom of a bucket … [continued]
Polymodular by George Harvey. A drawing seems almost impossible to understand, so I made this out of special blocks I had made up.
Every once in a while, reading articles at CleanTechnica, I feel an urge to overcome my reluctance to put myself into the spotlight by writing about my own inventions. I am afraid that Steve Hanley, who happens to be one of my favorite CleanTechnica authors, put up the straw that … [continued]
CleanTechnica has carried reviews on a number of backup battery systems in the last few years, including Anker Solix, Bluetti, and Jackery. Reading the reviews, I got ever more intrigued by what I found. These are not just batteries, but power stations with charge controller and inverter built in. They … [continued]
Zachary Shahan’s review of the Bluetti Elite 400 battery made me smile, I have to admit. Let me explain. Perhaps you might smile as well. I have been interested in getting a solar power system for a very long time. So long, in fact, that I remember talking about such … [continued]
Sometime around 1989 or the early 1990s, Carlo Rubbia, the Director-General of CERN, put together a special working group with instructions to design a way to generate electricity using radioactive materials that would be different from anything that had come before. The method had to do its work without producing … [continued]
ChatGPT generated panoramic image of a bunch of shipping containers containing grid batteries sitting on concrete pads under a shining blue sky
It has been a couple weeks since CleanTechnica published an article titled “Massachusetts’s First Big Energy Storage Tender.” The tender is a result of a law on battery storage, signed by Governor Maura Healey on November 20. Addressing the 1,500-megawatt (MW) tender, author Zachary Shahan wrote, “If you’re upset because … [continued]
But we don’t seem to want that money. Information from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs speaks to the commitments made to how interested the world is in renewable energy and human well-being. It says: “New commitments to boost renewable energy and increase access to electricity and … [continued]
When I was a kid, my grandmother’s house in New Hampshire was always ready for the electricity to go down. The kitchen range was wood-fired, though there was a newer kerosene alternative (horrible). There were two sconces in every bathroom, each with an oil (kerosene) lamp. About half the house … [continued]
They were warned not to cut NOAA funding. They did it anyway. And many innocent lives were lost. CBS published an article, dated May 5, under the title, “Former National Weather Service leaders warn about ‘loss of life’ from NOAA cuts.” The opening paragraph of the article reads, “The five living … [continued]
