Interesting Links for 19-08-2018
Aug. 19th, 2018 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewducker- Warhammer figure making awkward small talk with Sylvanian family bears
- (tags: children toys funny warhammer viaJane )
- Woman punched man who grabbed her genitals in nightclub
- (tags: UK assault gender )
- I hadn't realised you could now get your complete genome sequenced for £400
- (tags: genetics money )
- Pregnancy and birth in Japan: a cultural primer for foreign mothers
- (tags: pregnancy Japan childbirth society )
- Stacking concrete blocks is a surprisingly efficient way to store energy
- (tags: energy battery storage )
- Interview With A Diagnosed Psychopath
- (tags: psychopath interview )
no subject
Date: 2018-08-19 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-19 05:57 pm (UTC)Psychopath
Date: 2018-08-19 07:54 pm (UTC)I have assumed that caring enough about someone to fake the appropriate response is, in itself, an emotional response. Yes, one may not feel sorrow in empathy with another's sorrow, but wishing to show a socially-appropriate response to their sorrow is still more than just "thinking sorry". Isn't it?
Okay - this is a spectrum, so variation, but caring whether or not your response is sufficient is still caring, yes/no?
Re: Psychopath
Date: 2018-08-19 11:31 pm (UTC)Re: Psychopath
Date: 2018-08-20 09:51 am (UTC)Stacking concrete blocks
Date: 2018-08-20 09:25 am (UTC)Re: Stacking concrete blocks
Date: 2018-08-20 09:49 am (UTC)(I may have misunderstood it, of course)
Re: Stacking concrete blocks
Date: 2018-08-20 10:20 am (UTC)Re: Stacking concrete blocks
Date: 2018-08-20 11:05 am (UTC)Gravity energy storage is tempting and pumped-storage using water is actually in use around the world, depending on water availability and geography (high and low reservoirs close to each other). Solid-mass storage is something else. There's a "train up a slope" system being trialled in the US but the economics are not good, requiring a lot of infrastructure, rolling stock, land etc. to store three or four MWh (wholesale grid cost about 200 bucks or so). It takes a lot of mass moved vertically a large distance to store a small amount of energy, comparatively speaking. In contrast a 1GW nuclear reactor produces enough electricity to lift a mass of 3.6 million tonnes to a height of 100 metres every hour, day in and day out.
Another giveaway is the bit in the article about "secret commercial contracts to build Real Tower Energy Storage Systems next year!" Why keep it secret if someone's plunked down millions of bucks to build such a unit? Where is it being built? etc. etc. See "carburettor that runs on water" stories and, well, pretty much any previous Biggest Battery Breakthrough Since Breakfast story you've ever read over the past dozen years.
Re: Stacking concrete blocks
Date: 2018-08-20 11:11 am (UTC)I agree about the secret sales not being a good sign.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-20 10:18 am (UTC)Unless those concrete tunnels are made by robots which themselves are very, very cheap.
It will be a fascinating competetion between applied physics and applied computer science.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-20 04:22 pm (UTC)Lithium-chemistry batteries are flavour-of-the-week for this sort of static power role because of Elon Musk since he's got several battery factories but they're optimised to produce batteries for mobile applications and when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail, so to speak.
There are other storage battery chemistries such as sodium-sulphur which are in operation around the world, including installations larger than Musk has ever built but they don't get the fawning press that Elon's every utterance receives. Still pricey though at about a million Eu per MWh pricetag.
https://www.ngk.co.jp/nas/case_studies/rokkasho/
no subject
Date: 2018-08-21 08:14 am (UTC)Totally agree that renewables don't need small, mobile, energy dense batteries so much as they need cheap and large batteries.