This is a pretty remarkable breakthrough. Shell has developed a means to cut EV charging time down to 10 minutes, which would be much closer to the time to gas up a car.
Excellent. Hopefully they can prove this in the field.
Friday, September 12, 2025
Study links frequent, severe heat waves to pollution from major fossil fuel producers
Worth a minute of your time:
A new study has determined that 55 heat waves over the past quarter-century would not have happened without human-caused climate change
Why a non-Pride mural in West Palm Beach remains untouched by the Florida Department of Transportation
Funny how this works. The FDOT is inconsistent in its effort to "remove all murals" from the streets.
Here's a large mural that isn't about pride - and they haven't said a thing about it.
I guess it really is about attacking gays after all.
Exclusive: US warns hidden radios may be embedded in solar-powered highway infrastructure
Apparently, we've reached a point where "the powers that be" are seeing the boogeyman everywhere.
Hidden radios in solar power led highway signs … for what purpose? And of course we have tools to intercept and disrupt radio waves. So are we trying to understand (if these exist) how these are being used?
Or is it just "hey it's a problem" with nothing to back it up?
I'm quite certain it's the latter. Dumbassery is alive and well.
Thursday, September 11, 2025
Did the Perservance Rover find life on Mars?
The headlines would certainl;y suggest that they did.
But the truth (as always) is a little more complicated. What they found were possible bio signatures.
"The combination of these minerals [ iron-containing minerals vivianite and greigite], which appear to have formed by electron-transfer reactions between the sediment and organic matter, is a potential fingerprint for microbial life, which would use these reactions to produce energy for growth."
These samples were collected after analysis, and will be part of the payload that NASA intends to return to Earth at some point in the not-too-distant future. These samples will then be analyzed here on Earth, and we can decide if they do, in fact, indicate there is life.
So for now, set aside the hyperbole. It may be that these are building blocks. But we won't know for at least a few years.
I'll take victories, large and small
Two groups - PennEnvironment and Three Rivers Waterkeeper - filed a lawsuit against a company called Styropek, for the dumping of plastic particles in the waterways around their factory near Pittsburgh.
The National Environmental Law Center handled the suit, and said this:
Concerned citizens first found plastic pellets floating in the Ohio River and nearby Raccoon Creek. They eventually traced the plastic upstream to a Styropek facility that manufactures plastic pellets. Outside the facility, they documented the pellets floating in the water and covering aquatic vegetation and the banks of the creek.
Now, with this settlement, Styropek is agreeing to completely redesign its stormwater collection to capture all of its pellet waste. This will have a direct impact on the Ohio River Basin and help protect clean water in western Pennsylvania.
After the redesign, Styropek must install new, cutting-edge monitoring technology to track and capture any plastic pellets that otherwise would have escaped the property and entered local waterways like Raccoon Creek and the Ohio River. The settlement imposes an automatic fine if that tech should detect even a single pellet.
In addition, Styropek will pay a $2.6 million penalty for violating the Clean Water Act. That penalty is one of the largest of its kind in Pennsylvania history, and will support efforts to clean up the plastic pellets that are already polluting the Raccoon Creek and Ohio River watershed.
Plastic pellets, frequently referred to as "nurdles," are typically about the size of a lentil. Once released into the environment they act as "toxic sponges," absorbing toxic substances from the surrounding water, including pesticides, heavy metals, and even bacteria and viruses. Fish, birds and other wildlife can then accidentally swallow these toxic plastic bits.
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
I object to stupidity
I am no fan of Elon Musk. But, moon landing conspiracy theorists taking his comments about starship out of context and saying he just proved the moon landing is fake are really extraordinary. And ridiculously stupid.
The actual context is that musk sees that to get to the moon with starship, the craft will have to refuel in space. This was always part of the plan for starship (though of course the goal was and is to get to mars).
While it is the most powerful spacecraft man has ever made, it is also very heavy and very large. This is intentional to carry large payloads to a high orbit.
In order to achieve orbit, it uses its 33 rockets and burns all of the fuel it can carry. To get out of earths orbit would take more fuel, and therefore a refueling is required. How much refueling (and how many times in orbit it would need to dock up) would depend on the mission. His estimate to get to the moon would be 4 refueling stops, as I understand it; that would allow that spacecraft to land on the moon and have enough fuel to return to earth.
There is a significant amount of science and math that goes into the calculations, much as there was for Apollo.
Apollo was purpose built to launch, get out of earths atmosphere, then have a burn that sent it toward the moon, a burn to get "lunar insertion," and a burn to get home. There was some fuel expenditure to do adjustments, but that was mostly planned. It carried enough fuel for this purpose - and remember that the capsule did not land on the moon, only the lander did, and carried enough fuel for the weight of the craft in order to descend and launch again.
The math here was on paper, and done to the point of precision, using momentum and gravity pulls to their advantage. And remember that on Apollo 13, the fuel situation was such that a simple return to earth once they encountered the problem was not possible. They had to continue to the moon and around it, in order to return to earth. That's how precise the calculations were.
Anyway, the moon landing hoax idiots are taking what musk said out of context. Essentially "If he says it would take refueling, then he is also saying that the Apollo moon landings could not have happened."
That's really drawing with a broad brush and not understanding the math and science. And not caring about it because they simply have to be right.
That's not what he said, at all. Though to be fair, he hasn't really disputed it either (he does like to stir the pot). But why let facts, the hard work of men (and women!) who got us to the moon, or science get in the way of a good story?!
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