#could be a turbine?

[marzipanandminutiae]

so wait

the green energy parts of the Inflation Reduction Act have brought tons of jobs and money to mostly Republican districts?

and as a result, Republicans will pressure Trump not to gut those aspects of the law?

I am. cackling.

(I mean the man's a loose cannon, so god knows if he'll actually listen. but climate is my biggest worry with this administration, so this gives me a sliver of hope)

(that and him having made Mr. Electric Car Magnate his crony, so he's had to walk back negative statements about those, too)

[grooviestguru]

do we think neil kept the FBI hoodie?

[ladyofmelk]

such a polite looking man i hope nothing happens to him

[molagboop]

High-echelon Mawkin suit modules can be pretty wild, and the Energy conversion module in Raven Beak's suit is no exception.

When exposed to an active current or energy field, the module accounts for the level of charged particles in the local atmosphere and converts the detected matter to power. Most substantial forms of power and radiation are compatible with its function, and it's calibrated to work more efficiently when exposed to substantially powerful forms of plasmic matter.

The conversion module is similar to (but should not be confused with) the thermal charge module, which charges the power suit in extreme heat. That technology is also implemented in the protective exosuits found in Cataris' lava zone. The Mawkin use thermal energy to power a number of their facilities: that they'd implement it in their more mobile works is only natural.

Back to the subject at hand, the conversion module's practicality is twofold: to keep Raven Beak's suit sufficiently charged and to maintain his vigor in battle. His particular biometric modifications are such that his suit, combined with his level of physical fitness, can theoretically keep him fighting without fear of exhaustion in perpetuity.

Raven Beak's juiced up version of lightning armor is the inverse of this module: it absorbs charged particles for the purpose of coalescing into a projected wave. The use of lightning armor in this manner negates the function of the conversion module for restorative purposes. Additionally, lightning armor works best against oncoming projectiles, while the reactive conversion module is at its peak when the suit is exposed to ambient radiation or concentrated, consistent flows of power.

Suffice to say, Raven Beak is probably the only person who could stick a fork in an electrical socket and have it do the exact opposite of killing him.

[tvs-coach]

in DESPERATE search of Freaky Flyers fans who I can ramble to for ages about this game. I've been a fan for years and it's come back into my brain with a VENGENACE.

[purpleleafsyt]

Nearly at 400 followers,,, I should do a dtiys,,

[arolesbianism]

Ive been waiting for ages in oni for my future industrial block to be vacuumed out so I decided to doodle some furry women while I waited (it’s still not done)

[your-god-empress-lavender]

Calcium sulphur batteries (uwu)

Okay, so, i've become interested in z-pinch studies for aerospace purposes (i'm really excited about the prospects, everything works on paper, but i naturally want to actually witness p+N14 fusion for above 0.01% of available protons before i go trying to get the materials to build a real liquid fueled SSTO fusion rocket, especially since there are thousands of folks way smarter than me who have presumably thought of this before and we don't have it yet, so yeah). Anyways, if i want the extremely large electricity input without making my electricity bill higher than a whole month's rent and getting my roommates mad at me, i'll need to collect solar or wind in a battery bank. Since lithium batteries are just about all immoral and expensive (yes i am writing this on a device powered by lithium batteries, it would be lovely if capitalists would take a hint and switch to things that just objectively perform better and are cheaper, but whatever), i figured this would be a nice excuse to experiment around with some new battery designs. Since all of them will require sulphur, i won't be able to really get into it before mid may due to some concerns about the smell and risks of getting sulphur powder everywhere (it's very yellow and hard to clean out), but i felt i might as well share my preliminary ideas. First off, in order to make the organic sulphur polymer, i'm looking to explore mostly citrate based polymers, perhaps with phenylalanine mixed in in order to both give more bulk as well as providing nitrogens for sulphenamides to form. Since i'll need urea later, i was also considering partially polymerizing urea with citric acid and adding that into the molten sulphur mix, but i'm less confident in the stability of that and a bit concerned about the potential noxious fumes produced. Regardless, that's the short of the sulphur cathode, details will definitely change after i refind that paper which went over a great way of preventing insoluble polysulphide production. I'm also gonna experiment with anode material and even the ions i use. I know i said "calcium sulphur batteries" in the title, but due to how common aluminium is and how much easier magnesium is to work with (and the fact that their specific energies are higher), i'll also be considering those two. Even beyond that, there are so many potential anode materials, including even amorphous carbon and carbon nitrides which i'd love to test since there's just so much to improve on and i'd rather do a lot of experiments with cheap to make materials and potentially land on a great solution than accept something subpar because it took less effort. Anyways, of the materials i plan on using, there's magnesium sulphate, aluminium sulphate, calcium chloride, potentially other calcium salts (is the salt with taurine soluble in water? IDK, can't find an answer so i'll test it), charcoal, vegetable oil, urea, and phenylalanine. Those may seem like an unrelated hodgepodge of compounds, but they've been chosen because they're what i have/will soon have and they're also all extremely cheap. If the urea works out well in the battery, i may have to make this project a meme and attempt to make a z-pinch device with as much urine as possible (use it to make ammonia for the plasma, to make the batteries, and i'm sure there's some way to use urine in a capacitor (maybe just distilling off the water to use as a dielectric? idk, it's been a while since i tried making a capacitor)).

Anyway, i really didn't expect this long trainwreck of a post to end with discussions of urine, but what can you do? This is all probably nonsensical, even by my standards, but basically i want batteries and i think i can make them cheaper per megajoule of stored energy than the ones i could buy, even accounting for the inevitable failed experiments.

[rocals]

how would you describe coheed and cambria genre-wise? I've seen all sorts of descriptions lol

tough question! I mean they have ska songs and synth heavy dance tracks and straight up metal. so it gets complicated... but I'd call them prog rock with strong metal, emo, and pop-punk flavoring. because of that, and their symphonic elements, prog is really the easiest umbrella? plus long ass album titles and songs with multiple movements is such prog behavior

[aladdinsane26]

Anicka Yi

"In love with the world"

2021

Tate Modern

[moderatetoaboveaverage]

"Boil water to turn fan" as if multistage steam turbine generators are not one of the sexiest kinds of machines every made

nuclear power is impressive until you get up to why. "we use the most precisely engineered machinery ever created to split atoms to release energy" oh yeah how come? "boil water to turn a fan" get the fuck out

[amyriadfthings]

[shipping1addict]

On episode 3 on "Silo".

Screaming, crying, throwing up on the steam turbine thing.

Why was it installed vertically. Is there some form of cycle with a condenser or where does the steam go. How are the turbine blades not damaged after all those years getting hit by hot, accelerated water droplets. How are they just jump starting the turbine without a warm up period. Why does the turbine work without its casing and where is the steam coming from?

WHY ISN'T THERE A BYPASS?!?!

[reasonsforhope]

"The man who has called climate change a “hoax” also can be expected to wreak havoc on federal agencies central to understanding, and combating, climate change. But plenty of climate action would be very difficult for a second Trump administration to unravel, and the 47th president won’t be able to stop the inevitable economy-wide shift from fossil fuels to renewables. 

“This is bad for the climate, full stop,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at the Columbia Business School. “That said, this will be yet another wall that never gets built. Fundamental market forces are at play.”

A core irony of climate change is that markets incentivized the wide-scale burning of fossil fuels beginning in the Industrial Revolution, creating the mess humanity is mired in, and now those markets are driving a renewables revolution that will help fix it. Coal, oil, and gas are commodities whose prices fluctuate. As natural resources that humans pull from the ground, there’s really no improving on them — engineers can’t engineer new versions of coal. 

By contrast, solar panels, wind turbines, and appliances like induction stoves only get better — more efficient and cheaper — with time. Energy experts believe solar power, the price of which fell 90 percent between 2010 and 2020, will continue to proliferate across the landscape. (Last year, the United States added three times as much solar capacity as natural gas.) Heat pumps now outsell gas furnaces in the U.S., due in part to government incentives. Last year, Maine announced it had reached its goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps two years ahead of schedule, in part thanks to state rebates. So if the Trump administration cut off the funding for heat pumps that the IRA provides, states could pick up the slack. 

Local utilities are also finding novel ways to use heat pumps. Over in Massachusetts, for example, the utility Eversource Energy is experimenting with “networked geothermal,” in which the homes within a given neighborhood tap into water pumped from underground. Heat pumps use that water to heat or cool a space, which is vastly more efficient than burning natural gas. Eversource and two dozen other utilities, representing about half of the country’s natural gas customers, have formed a coalition to deploy more networked geothermal systems.

Beyond being more efficient, green tech is simply cheaper to adopt. Consider Texas, which long ago divorced its electrical grid from the national grid so it could skirt federal regulation. The Lone Star State is the nation’s biggest oil and gas producer, but it gets 40 percent of its total energy from carbon-free sources. “Texas has the most solar and wind of any state, not because Republicans in Texas love renewables, but because it’s the cheapest form of electricity there,” said Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, a climate research nonprofit. The next top three states for producing wind power — Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas — are red, too.

State regulators are also pressuring utilities to slash emissions, further driving the adoption of wind and solar power. As part of California’s goal of decarbonizing its power by 2045, the state increased battery storage by 757 percent between 2019 and 2023. Even electric cars and electric school buses can provide backup power for the grid. That allows utilities to load up on bountiful solar energy during the day, then drain those batteries at night — essential for weaning off fossil fuel power plants. Trump could slap tariffs on imported solar panels and thereby increase their price, but that would likely boost domestic manufacturing of those panels, helping the fledgling photovoltaic manufacturing industry in red states like Georgia and Texas.

The irony of Biden’s signature climate bill is states that overwhelmingly support Trump are some of the largest recipients of its funding. That means tampering with the IRA could land a Trump administration in political peril even with Republican control of the Senate, if not Congress. In addition to providing incentives to households (last year alone, 3.4 million American families claimed more than $8 billion in tax credits for home energy improvements), the legislation has so far resulted in $150 billion of new investment in the green economy since it was passed in 2022, boosting the manufacturing of technologies like batteries and solar panels. According to Atlas Public Policy, a research group, that could eventually create 160,000 jobs. “Something like 66 percent of all of the spending in the IRA has gone to red states,” Hausfather said. “There certainly is a contingency in the Republican party now that’s going to support keeping some of those subsidies around.”

Before Biden’s climate legislation passed, much more progress was happening at a state and local level. New York, for instance, set a goal to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 40 percent by 2030, and 85 percent by 2050. Colorado, too, is aiming to slash emissions by at least 90 percent by 2050. The automaker Stellantis has signed an agreement with the state of California promising to meet the state’s zero-emissions vehicle mandate even if a judicial or federal action overturns it. It then sells those same cars in other states. 

“State governments are going to be the clearest counterbalance to the direction that Donald Trump will take the country on environmental policy,” said Thad Kousser, co-director of the Yankelovich Center for Social Science Research at the University of California, San Diego. “California and the states that ally with it are going to try to adhere to tighter standards if the Trump administration lowers national standards.”

[Note: One of the obscure but great things about how emissions regulations/markets work in the US is that automakers generally all follow California's emissions standards, and those standards are substantially higher than federal standards. Source]

Last week, 62 percent of Washington state voters soundly rejected a ballot initiative seeking to repeal a landmark law that raised funds to fight climate change. “Donald Trump’s going to learn something that our opponents in our initiative battle learned: Once people have a benefit, you can’t take it away,” Washington Governor Jay Inslee said in a press call Friday. “He is going to lose in his efforts to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, because governors, mayors of both parties, are going to say, ‘This belongs to me, and you’re not going to get your grubby hands on it.’”

Even without federal funding, states regularly embark on their own large-scale projects to adapt to climate change. California voters, for instance, just overwhelmingly approved a $10 billion bond to fund water, climate, and wildfire prevention projects. “That will be an example,” said Saharnaz Mirzazad, executive director of the U.S. branch of ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability. “You can use that on a state level or local level to have [more of] these types of bonds. You can help build some infrastructure that is more resilient.”

Urban areas, too, have been major drivers of climate action: In 2021, 130 U.S. cities signed a U.N.-backed pledge to accelerate their decarbonization. “Having an unsupportive federal government, to say the least, will be not helpful,” said David Miller, managing director at the Centre for Urban Climate Policy and Economy at C40, a global network of mayors fighting climate change. “It doesn’t mean at all that climate action will stop. It won’t, and we’ve already seen that twice in recent U.S. history, when Republican administrations pulled out of international agreements. Cities step to the fore.”

And not in isolation, because mayors talk: Cities share information about how to write legislation, such as laws that reduce carbon emissions in buildings and ensure that new developments are connected to public transportation. They transform their food systems to grow more crops locally, providing jobs and reducing emissions associated with shipping produce from afar. “If anything,” Miller said, “having to push against an administration, like that we imagine is coming, will redouble the efforts to push at the local level.” 

Federal funding — like how the U.S. Forest Service has been handing out $1.5 billion for planting trees in urban areas, made possible by the IRA — might dry up for many local projects, but city governments, community groups, and philanthropies will still be there. “You picture a web, and we’re taking scissors or a machete or something, and chopping one part of that web out,” said Elizabeth Sawin, the director of the Multisolving Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that promotes climate solutions. “There’s this resilience of having all these layers of partners.”

All told, climate progress has been unfolding on so many fronts for so many years — often without enough support from the federal government — that it will persist regardless of who occupies the White House. “This too shall pass, and hopefully we will be in a more favorable policy environment in four years,” Hausfather said. “In the meantime, we’ll have to keep trying to make clean energy cheap and hope that it wins on its merits.”"

-via Grist, November 11, 2024. A timely reminder.

[todaysbird]

a share since there’s still popular belief that wind turbines are the antichrist and the absolute worst thing we could do to birds…

[arolesbianism]

My current oni playthrough is generally going well except for the fact that for some ungodly reason I chose a bionic dupe heavy save that is almost completely built around bionic dupes to go for locavore for the first time. For the first 80 or so cycles I had 1 normal dupe. I have only within the past two sessions gotten two more dupes. All three just sit at home and cook occasionally because I can't be assed to set up atmosuit docs for them. I only just today finally got access to a pip. I have been fighting for my god damn life to get any tier 3 research done my poor bionic dupes need their yummy yummy power please let me get steam turbines already so I can do that without boiling my planetoid. I need my weezeworts or I'll die.