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Cake day: January 7th, 2024

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  • It isn’t that simple. Solar power wasn’t economical until China made a push to manufacture at scale.

    Wind power received that push in Europe. Then China and India have joined in.

    Not buying the massive nuclear reactors and buying smaller units could be possible. They exist. Alternative technologies also exist.

    But nuclear generates heat, which we use to heat water into steam. Which drives a turbine to produce AC electricity.

    Massive steam turbines are massive because they are efficient. Multistage turbines range from near 70% efficient for massive ones to 25% efficient for the smallest ones in serious use.

    NTAC-TE is a technology that converts the radiation into electric current. Like solar panels converting the sun’s radiation into electric current.

    NASA uses it in space craft.

    If we can get that working at an efficient rate smaller radioactive units will produce power without the efficiency loss of small steam generators. Then we can talk about small modular nuclear energy.

    Unfortunately every pro nuclear person parrots the same gumf about nuclear being good, therefore we need to build the massive nuclear reactors.

    They only consider talking about any other technology to try and defend nuclear when you point out why they shouldn’t be built anymore.

    So in 20 years, if we stop building massive nuclear reactors with the money, we might be able to complete some research and start building the correct nuclear technology at scale.

    But that 20 years is vital and we need to spend that on carbon reduction now. That’s reducing usage through insulation. That’s renewables being added to the supply directly now. That’s grid level storage to allow us to stop relying on massive steam turbines to hold a steady grid load.

    In 20 years we can talk about nuclear again. Add an additional time for every wasted effort on a reactor like Hinckley C or Olkiluoto 3. Starting out as a thin justification and just economically viable.

    But then spending 400% of their budget meaning carbon reduction would have been much higher investing elsewhere.




  • Amazon had their walk in walk out stores.

    AI was meant to track what you put in the basket and charge you without you going through checkout.

    They launched as an AI store.

    Humans were looking at cases and were just meant to be “error correction”.

    They were doing 80% of the work of tracking the images and barcodes into actual products.

    Amazon closed the store.

    Lots of “AI” systems are currently in this state. A computer can do the easy 10 to 20% of the job. Humans are doing the rest.

    Venture capital are just investing in anything that looks like it’s working on “AI”. Even when it’s currently taking more human labour than the work did previously.

    Companies are launching now as “AI” gambling on getting that percentage up otherwise they end up late to market. Lots will fail to actually use AI and probably fold.






  • Due to a quirk of unifying 2 standards, Europe and the UK, the range is 216.2 volts to 253.0 volts.

    That encompasses infrastructure built to a tighter tolerance around 220V in Europe and infrastructure built to a tighter tolerance around 240V in the UK (and Australia).

    We expect 3150W out of a kettle most of the time. Our heaters will say 3kW.

    Usually you’ll find a few volts over 240 out of our outlets and that’s to design spec.


  • It remains to be seen what he’s actually done to benefit anyone who gave him anything.

    And he stopped accepting them once he entered the office. We found out because he told us about it all and the mistake of accepting some gifts a bit too late.

    With the only arguable benefits being publicity for the brand it’s not nothing but it really is daft the perspective tricks that have been played with that particular molehill. It’s the press that actually gave the gifters the benefits, not any actions by Starner himself.

    Being given something isn’t proof of being bought. Acting for the person who gave you something is.

    I predict that as the COVID era corruption comes to light his previous job will result in him prosecuting and recovering quite a lot of public money. Sadly I don’t think he will get a result of jail time for anyone. The laws just aren’t in place for that and he can’t get them made retrospectively.

    A UK constitution would be very interesting. But I’d just settle for some actual laws specifically against corruption rather than relying on MPs following conventions and being honourable.

    The shocking thing is that hundreds of millions of pounds worth of corruption through the “fast lane” wasn’t illegal to do. We’ll only be able to recoup from the companies who actually didn’t deliver their contracts.



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    6 months ago

    Look into the maintenance costs of Germany’s 1970s reactors before calling an entire nation brain dead.

    The cost of nuclear today is high and continues for thousands of years. Cost is the entire problem.

    Nuclear power isn’t green, it’s just at the beginning of the cycle where it’s waste is seen as a small problem because there isn’t a lot of it. Like fossil fuels were a century ago.

    Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of suitable places to put nuclear waste so the small amount we already have is already causing problems in Europe. The US being a bigger place may get to that point a little later than us. But nuclear waste stores are already oversubscribed in the UK, Germany, and France.

    Nuclear power is short sighted.

    The money spent should be on renewables and grid storage. Then more efficient heating and insulation.

    Not nuclear, not carbon capture.

    Proponents of nuclear power never look at the total lifecycle cost of a reactor. In fact it’s usually deliberately hidden.

    Nuclear reactors have always been and will always be military technology. They should be funded as military spending.

    By all means put a price on carbon so they can get a better price on energy but the military should be funding the reactors they need and dealing with the waste out of their budgets.


  • It was dead the moment we didn’t elect a low towing fop.

    Russia funded and led the conservative movement here in the past 10 years. We got Brexit, we got incompetent government, they got a place to park their wealth (a lot of it is still here), they got crimes without much fuss.

    Europe was weakened.

    As the funding for Trump’s loans and Musk’s Twitter buyout as well the moment we woke up and voted for a different party we became a target state instead of a puppet state.

    Even Boris Johnson realised we had to help Ukraine. They replaced him with Truss and Sunak, more controllable puppets.

    There are of course other factors, but the effect of global oligarchs spending fossil fuel wealth is clear in Western Democracy at the moment. Saudi is another big influence, they court both sides as long as they aren’t crossed.

    Every crisis delays climate action, every election they can influence delays action. The longer they delay the more profit they get.






  • Look at TANF.

    Give any control to states of federal funding and it’s the most vulnerable who suffer.

    And that creates a whole load of angry people suffering who tend to fall for rhetoric blaming others for their problems.

    Republicans gain votes by making people angry, poor, and powerless.

    If the Democrats want to flip a swing state the best way to do it is making people better off.

    The fact Republicans then try to get credit is irrelevant. If Republicans need to say how much “they” improved things it’s them saying how positive things are and evidence the damaging messages the party usually spews are failing. This representative is panicking because of the infrastructure bills effect.