Ottolay

I am just saying what the typical install is in the South East US. The heat pumps installed may produce some heat at 5F but they can't keep the temperature to the set value, so there are resistive elements (Aux heat) to make up the shortfall.

It's pretty common for people with heat pumps to have Aux Heat kick in during cold spells, which cause power grid overload issues.

I realize you can insulate a house well enough and have a good enough heat pump to avoid backup heat, but 5F or 0F days are rare enough that the codes do not enforce this.

The issue with heat pumps is that most of the ones currently being installed in South East of the US don't work well below +20F let alone 0F or -20F. Most of them are being installed with an electrical resistive backup heat, which is incredibly inefficient.

The problem is when a cold spell like Christmas 2022, with temperatures down towards 0F. All the heat pump users switch to resistive backup heat and it overloads the electric grid and we get rolling blackouts.

In my opinion, heat pumps are amazingly efficient at moderate cold temps, but they really need propane or wood heat backup for the really cold temperatures instead of resistive heaters.

I disagree with the cold part. It is easier to dress to stay warm in a cold place than to dress to stay cool in a hot place. Both adults and kids bike in Scandinavia in the winter.

Here is a good video on it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU

I use public/private with the private key handled by Yubikey PIV functionality.

Feels like there is a business case for people willing to pay to reduce trip times for trans continental flights.

The problem is that the greenhouse gas impact will be higher for a supersonic trip compared to a subsonic one. This is on top of the issue that we don't really have a good low carbon alternative for longer range air travel (batteries don't have anywhere near enough specific energy). The best option we have is synthetic jet fuel produced from green electricity. Producing jet fuel that way is many times more expensive than fossil fuel jet fuel.

You can take precautions to avoid the oxidation. This is already done reliably on airplanes and in overhead power distribution, where aluminum wire is the standard.

There are also a new aluminum alloys (aa-8000) with better mechanical properties. The biggest issue is that that the trades/DIYers need to learn new processes. Treating aluminum wiring like copper wiring is a disaster. Also need to overcome the stigma from the aluminum experiment 50 years ago.

It makes a ton of sense to switch to aluminum in housing though. For the same current capability the wire is significantly cheaper, lighter, and stronger.

On a personal level, this reminds me of a concept called normalization of deviance. [1]

Every time we do something which we know may be risky, but we do not have a catastrophic result, we further reduce the perceived risk that the catastrophic result will occur to us.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance

Generally agree, although I think it is largely an illusion. Many people die in car accidents they did not cause.

Lithium Ion batteries degrade very little with low C mid range charge cycles. The time/temperature/SoC degredation is greater. Hence why you don't want to leave a battery sitting at 100%.

RoHS does not just restrict lead. It also restricts use of mercury, cadmium, and several toxic compounds.

This is so cool. Viable for LED lighting in an off-grid situation when there is little sunshine for solar panels.

It's a known hypothesis. Additionally when there is less traffic, drivers feel safer and are more likely to tune out by checking their phones, etc.

The book,Confessions of a Recovering Engineer(1), talks about this.

(1) https://www.confessions.engineer

To me, Bungie is associated with Apple and the amazing Marathon game series for Mac back in the 90s.

Wish there was a way to block everything and whitelist allowed channels. There are some really quality ones but there are also a bunch of really creepy content, even in the kids app.

What if you use multiple browsers?

Saw this movie last night. One of the tougher movies I have watched. Being a satire, it exaggerates a bit, but still hits pretty close to home.

The HN algorithm will de-front page stories where the comment section starts looking like a flame war. If you look up the stories which were removed from the front page, there is quite a bit of toxicity in the comments.

I personally like that they try to play down controversies instead of optimizing for engagement from them.

I wonder sometimes if I have just gotten more ADD in my middle age or if it is a general trend many struggle with today.

You should checkout a land value tax.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok2uR3btMrE

These days the online version of Office365 Word is pretty good. I would 100% pay for and use Office365 over LibreOffice on Linux.

My bad, I forgot what "TFA" was.

Found some articles claiming this but also others disputing it. France does not appear to get much Uranium from Mali.[1] Although I would not put it past them having an interest in future Uranium prospects.

[1] "France uses some 12,400 tonnes of uranium oxide concentrate (10,500 tonnes of U) per year for its electricity generation. Much of this comes from Areva in Canada (4500 tU/yr) and Niger (3200 tU/yr) together with other imports, principally from Australia, Kazakhstan and Russia, mostly under long-term contracts. Areva perceives the front end of the French fuel cycle as strategic, and invests accordingly." https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...

Citation?

If only the world would have followed Sweden and France [1] and largely de-carbonized their electrical grid by the 90s using primarily nuclear, we would be in a much better situation when it comes to global warming.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_France#/...

It's 30 years later and countries which push renewables heavily like Germany still have over 40% of their electricity produced from carbon producing sources. [2]

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:...

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor

Japan and India also have them.

The problem seems to be that at least the Sodium type are more expensive to operate than traditional nuclear plants, so even though the technology has been around for a while, no countries are building very many of them.

Lower hospitalization rates also reduces the issue of not being able to get treatment for non-covid issues when the hospitals are full of covid patients [1].

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/icu-non-covid-patients-wait/

The problem is not petroleum products themself, the problem is burning the petroleum products. Even if we move the whole energy economy away from fossil fuels we'll still be using oil for lubrication, plastics, asphalt, and a bunch of other things. That is fine.

Checkout [1]. Easier to say "motor glider" or "powered glider" than "powered airplane with glider like configuration".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_glider