npts2020

Ok, how large is large? 5 cm? 20? 100? What kind of volume/pressure/flow is required? Also, they say they are building some to make steam. IMO the problems with steam are being overstated, anyway. Every plant in the world that generates power with steam, and there are a lot of them, operates with the same high temperature water constraints.

Pretty interesting method of storing energy. At 500-650C, there is plenty of energy to make steam if desired, even enough to turn a turbine. The description does lack somewhat, like, how is the medium heated with electricity? Are there electrodes running through it? Also, is the medium static or does it get hot enough to partially liquify? I would be very interested in seeing blueprints but that is probably out of the question for proprietary reasons or some such.

And CEO's who fully understand only one or two parts of the business/programming/engineering equation required. ASHRAE has technical standards for cooling. This gives a general outline but the meat of it is behind a paywall.

Ambient temperature is not the temperature at which an electronic device operates, it is always much warmer. Also, the temps at which components fail is usually significantly higher (mostly in the 150C+ range) than where their operation is being affected by things like slowing computing speeds and higher energy usage. Odds are, the difference isn't significant enough for you to notice on your devices but a data center would probably notice even a percent or two change. 20C might be the recommended AC setting but it is also where most electronic devices begin to have their operation affected so engineers have designed workarounds that allow fairly efficient operation to significantly higher temps.

It may turn out that the solution is computers that operate at higher temps but that is no trivial task at present and could turn out to be impossible to change to the degree required to significantly reduce the amount of cooling needed for operation.

Pretty much.

From what I have read, somewhere around 20C or less is where operation of a data center begins being affected negatively so you have to have a sink that's cooler than 20C. Unfortunately, it is often well above that temperature in the Utah desert, especially in the summer even at 1500+ meters like much of Box Elder County. Other than a water source, it seems to me one would have to use artificial means (A/C) to get adequate cooling. this would substantially add to the center's already large amount of energy use. The problem isn't intractable but all of the current solutions push construction costs to as much as several times that of just being able to use all of the available water.

If they can figure out some way of cooling besides water or not requiring it, the project could be worthwhile IMO but is not the only environmental issue. Providing power is a relatively trivial problem compared to the water usage issue. More solar panels, windmills, turbines or whatever can be built for power but getting sustainable sources of water in the desert has always been a difficult proposition.

I don't know about that. The beaver wars between the Iroquois and Algonquins went on for around 60 years in the 17th century

I can't really comment about whether the scheme will work or not but if you are irrigating with the water from that jug, be careful. I lived off grid at around 40 N latitude for a year and my shower was similar except it was a 15 gallon carboy painted black. on a hot sunny day the water would often be so hot that it was necessary to add cold water to keep from being scalded while using it. If there is water actually flowing through it might not be a problem but I would consider it possible that the irrigation water might get too warm if used directly from the jug.

IMO a man that feels launching a brand new car into orbit to be a worthwhile use of resources is never going to find any significant waste, fraud or abuse Sometimes I wonder if the tariffs weren't done in the manner they were in order to pad corporate profits. While I don't think Mr Trump is the smartest guy in the world, it shouldn't take a genius to figure out that there was a good chance they would be found to be illegal and, if so, money (belatedly) returned and impossible to sort out fairly.

Patel has filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against the Atlantic.....

So fear is the only motivator of humans?

Can you explain to me how greed is a "subset of fear"?

Actually, I can think of 4 off the top of my head; $$$, distraction, appeasement, and resources.

probably this guy's cousin. ;)

It was my bad expression of thought using the word extinct when what I actually meant was; that in cases where evolution deviates significantly, the organism generally dies. If not, they become part of evolution and that is why I put "perverted" in quotes.

It's actually not that hard. You don't have to wait 4.5 billion years for a u-238 sample to decay to half strength, simply measure how the radioactivity decreases over a certain time and extrapolate to when it would be at half and you have just determined half life. You just need equipment capable of detecting minute changes.

I would say that human invention is part of the evolutionary process and that those inventions become part of it as well. If the evolutionary path becomes much "perverted" the species goes extinct.

Perhaps you can enlighten me as to how this is possible.Surely, whatever path gets taken is the "natural evolutionary" one?

Ya. This came about because of a 1901 deal between the shah and William Knox D'Arcy giving the Brits exclusive oil rights in most of Iran (still Persia at the time) for 60 years for basically a song. Besides being very unpopular in the country, there were questions about whether any agreement made by the shah was valid after the country transitioned to a constitutional republic in 1906-1908. After oil was found in 1908, the following year the Anglo Persian Oil Co (eventually to become BP in a couple iterations) was founded and pretty much immediately began screwing the Iranians on the terms of their deal which already was heavily weighted toward British interests. In 1933 the deal was renegotiated but the movement to nationalize the oil grew, coming to a head at the end of 1950 when the Iranians learned the Saudis were splitting profits 50-50 with the US Arab American Oi Co and they were only getting 20% from APOC. A few months later, the Prime Minister, who had been a strong opponent of nationalization was assassinated and the Parliament voted to nationalize the oil within weeks. Just prior the shah had tried taking over the government in a failed coup, resulting in widespread unrest and increasing the opposition leader's popularity to the point he got to take over the office. After the assassination, the Americans and Brits recruited every opponent of the government they could find because the new government was kicking all of the Westerners out of the country. After enough government opponents had been bribed and organized, a second coup was successful and the shah installed as head of government, which led to the situation you describe and the 1980 revolution and the present. One of the reasons the Islamic republic has survived for so long is because the previous government was so bad and many people remember.

In both degree and speed...

Funny how the proponents of this war always want to start the time line at 1980. Why not 1953? Seems to me that the only reason there is a radical Islamic state in Iran is because the US and its allies were meddling in their affairs to begin with.

I wonder what is up with Mr Trump's Bored of Peace? Or is it Board of Piece (i.e. we're taking a piece of your territory)? I thought the whole point was to prevent international conflict but I would be very (pleasantly) surprised if there was less conflict now than when that grifters' cabal was formed.