Official BBO Hijacked Thread Thread

[pilowsky]

those who do not learn from history are doomed to be unable to repeat and iterate on its mistakes

Mark Rendle - according to himself - is the developer of the worst programming language ever.

[y66]

A nuclear fusion start-up backed by Silicon Valley investor Sam Altman and Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital has secured $500m to demonstrate commercially viable power by 2024 in the largest capital raise yet by a private fusion company.

 

The investment in US-based Helion is the latest sign of growing private sector confidence in the potential of nuclear fusion to provide clean, cheap power that would fundamentally transform the world’s ability to cut carbon emissions.

 

“On the whole, fusion has been missing from the global conversation about what we’re going to do about the climate crisis, but that is rapidly changing,” Altman, who will join Helion’s board as executive chair, told the Financial Times.

 

The newly formed Fusion Industry Association said last week that at least 35 different companies were now pursuing nuclear fusion around the world and predicted that fusion energy would be connected to the grid in the 2030s.

 

The prospect of fusing atoms to generate almost unlimited power from minimal fuel has tantalised scientists for decades. Soviet scientists pioneered the development of the first fusion machine, known as the “tokamak”, in the 1950s but no group has been able to achieve fusion while producing more electricity than the system consumes.

 

Unlike the traditional tokamak approach, which uses energy from the fusion reaction to drive steam turbines, Helion’s system enables it to generate electricity directly from the fusion reaction as the fuel expands.

 

David Kirtley, Helion’s chief executive, compared it to the regenerative breaking system in a Tesla electric car, where the kinetic energy from the vehicle is used to recharge the battery system.

 

“The key there is that we can bypass all the capital cost and all the complexity of all those steam turbine systems . . . and focus on getting fusion as small and fast as possible.”

 

The $500m investment, led by Altman, fully funds Helion to build by 2024 what would be the first fusion demonstration plant to generate net electricity. If successful, the investors, who also include Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and sustainability-focused Capricorn Investment Group, have committed to a further $1.7bn to fund future manufacturing.

 

Rather than building a large single fusion plant, Helion wants to produce shipping container-sized 50 megawatt fusion generators that can be transported to a site and plugged in. Sufficient to power 40,000 homes, the company initially hopes to power data centres and other industrial sites.

 

“With a small amount of fuel you can generate a tremendous amount of energy,” Kirtley said. The company’s approach uses the hydrogen isotope deuterium, which can be extracted from seawater. It is combined with helium and heated to more than 100m degrees Celsius, causing the atomic nuclei to fuse, releasing vast amounts of energy in the process.

 

One glass of the fuel is equivalent to the energy potential of 1m gallons of oil and could generate 9m kilowatt hours of electricity, enough to power a home for 865 years, according to Helion.

 

Not only would the energy be carbon-free and almost limitless, it would also be cheap. While some technical hurdles remain, Kirtley estimated that Helion’s system could produce power for less than $0.01 per kilowatt hour. That compares with average residential power costs in the US today of roughly $0.13 per KWH.

 

Sceptics remain unconvinced given fusions’ many false dawns but its proponents are increasingly optimistic.

 

“In addition to being our best path out of the climate crisis, less expensive energy, I think it is transformational for society,” said Altman. “If the company can accomplish that it will be one of the most important moments in the history of energy and just a massive transformation of how the world works.”

If the company can achieve one or more massive breakthroughs that no one has been able to achieve in the last 70 years, it will be massive.

[Gilithin]

If the company can achieve one or more massive breakthroughs that no one has been able to achieve in the last 70 years, it will be massive.

70 years ago, fusion was 20-30 years away. It probably still is despite Helion's claim of "the early 2030s". There are some strong signs it might perhaps be different this time but until we get a working, commercial fusion reactor that can be rolled out in a massive way, I won't worry too much about it.

[y66]

70 years ago, fusion was 20-30 years away. It probably still is despite Helion's claim of "the early 2030s". There are some strong signs it might perhaps be different this time but until we get a working, commercial fusion reactor that can be rolled out in a massive way, I won't worry too much about it.

I will believe the hype when Gerben42 says fusion is for real.

[Winstonm]

I will believe the hype when Gerben42 says fusion is for real.

Steely Dan has been fusion for years .

[y66]

Rolls-Royce secures £450m for mini nuclear reactors venture

 

Very happy to see RR taking this on. Do they still have the right stuff engineering-wise?

 

Also in today's news, GE is splitting itself up into 3 public companies, one of which will focus on energy, taking a clue from their company name apparently.

[pilowsky]

Rolls-Royce secures £450m for mini nuclear reactors venture

 

Very happy to see RR taking this on. Do they still have the right stuff engineering-wise?

 

Also in today's news, GE is splitting itself up into 3 public companies, one of which will focus on energy, taking a clue from their company name apparently.

 

So long as it comes with leather upholstery, a cocktail cabinet and has a little metal statue on top, who cares if it works or not.

[Gilithin]

So long as it comes with leather upholstery, a cocktail cabinet and has a little metal statue on top, who cares if it works or not.

Most assuredly also the right attitude to take with RR's main business of aircraft engines.

[pilowsky]

Most assuredly also the right attitude to take with RR's main business of aircraft engines.

 

A subsidiary of BMW - btw, how does Brexit affect them?

[y66]

Most assuredly also the right attitude to take with RR's main business of aircraft engines.

I once read a book by the RR engineer in charge of civil power plant technology at the time, Michael J. T. Smith. The concepts were not super complicated but I was still blown away by how clearly he explained them. That's a rare gift IMO. If RR's engineering culture is anything like the one in Smith's day, I would not bet against them to pull this off.

[y66]

Here's David Roberts explaining why we should not get too bummed out about COP26:

 

https://www.volts.wtf/p/dont-get-too-bummed-out-about-cop26?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo3NTkzNjUyLCJwb3N0X2lkIjo0NDA0OTE5NiwiXyI6IlFBcEZlIiwiaWF0IjoxNjM3MDAyNTcyLCJleHAiOjE2MzcwMDYxNzIsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0xOTMwMjQiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.jpdCOqZocYLcPOOT8uKLceD2saOPMbEtjRddcOFBV4k

[y66]

The chase for fusion energy

 

The ancient village of Culham, nestled in a bend of the River Thames west of London, seems an unlikely launching pad for the future. But next year, construction will start here on a gleaming building of glass and steel that could house what many people consider to be an essential technology to meet demand for clean energy in the twenty-first century and beyond.

 

Long derided as a prospect that is forever 30 years away, nuclear fusion seems finally to be approaching commercial viability. There are now more than 30 private fusion firms globally, according to an October survey by the Fusion Industry Association (FIA) in Washington DC, which represents companies in the sector; the 18 firms that have declared their funding say they have attracted more than US$2.4 billion in total, almost entirely from private investments (see ‘Fusion funding’). Key to these efforts are advances in materials research and computing that are enabling technologies other than the standard designs that national and international agencies have pursued for so long.

 

The latest venture at Culham — the hub of UK fusion research for decades — is a demonstration plant for General Fusion (GF), a company based in Burnaby, Canada. It is scheduled to start operating in 2025, and the company aims to have reactors for sale in the early 2030s. It “will be the first power-plant-relevant large-scale demonstration”, says GF’s chief executive Chris Mowry — unless, that is, its competitors deliver sooner.

 

Designed by British architect Amanda Levete, GF’s prototype plant illustrates the way fusion research has shifted from gargantuan state- or internationally funded enterprises to sleek, image-conscious affairs driven by private companies, often with state support. (GF will receive some UK government funding; it has not disclosed how much.)

 

In this respect, advocates of fusion technology say it has many parallels with the space industry. That, too, was once confined to government agencies but is now benefiting from the drive and imagination of nimble (albeit often state-assisted) private enterprise. This is “the SpaceX moment for fusion”, says Mowry, referring to Elon Musk’s space-flight company in Hawthorne, California.

 

“The mood has changed,” says Thomas Klinger, a fusion specialist at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald, Germany. “We can smell that we’re getting close.” Investors sense the real prospect of returns on their money: Google and the New York City-based investment bank Goldman Sachs, for instance, are among those funding the fusion company TAE Technologies, based in Foothill Ranch, California, which has raised around $880 million so far. “Companies are starting to build things at the level of what governments can build,” says Bob Mumgaard, chief executive of Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 

And just as private space travel is now materializing, many industry observers are forecasting that the same business model will give rise to commercial fusion — desperately needed to decarbonize the energy economy — within a decade. “There’s a very good shot to get there within less than ten years,” says Michl Binderbauer, chief executive of TAE Technologies. In the FIA report, a majority of respondents thought that fusion would power an electrical grid somewhere in the world in the 2030s.

 

Several fusion researchers who don’t work for private firms told Nature that, although prospects are undeniably exciting, commercial fusion in a decade is overly optimistic. “Private companies say they’ll have it working in ten years, but that’s just to attract funders,” says Tony Donné, programme manager of the Eurofusion consortium which conducts experiments at the state-run Joint European Torus, established at Culham in the late 1970s. “They all have stated constantly to be about ten years away from a working fusion reactor, and they still do.”

 

Timelines that companies project should be regarded not so much as promises but as motivational aspirations, says Melanie Windridge, a plasma physicist who is the FIA’s UK director of communications, and a communications consultant for the fusion firm Tokamak Energy, in Culham. “I think bold targets are necessary,” she says. State support is also likely to be needed to build a fusion power plant that actually feeds electricity into the grid, adds Ian Chapman, chief executive of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).

 

But whether it comes from small-scale private enterprise, huge national or international fusion projects, or a bit of both, practical nuclear fusion finally seems to be on the horizon. “I’m convinced that it’s going to happen”, says Chapman. Chris Kelsall, chief executive of Tokamak Energy, agrees. “Sooner or later this will be cracked,” he says. “And it will be transformative.”

[pilowsky]

Why I lose at Bridge.

[Gilithin]

Why I lose at Bridge.

If this really were the reason you lose constantly, the answer would be easy - stop taking high doses of drugs before playing! I looked at the link but already on page 1 I have enough issues with the paper that I wonder it got past peer-review. First the study says it is double-blind but the doses are provided with different flavourings, meaning that the tester has an easy means of discovering whether a subject is active or control, thus negating one of the points of this. Then they report that from the active group, 46.6% correctly guessed their state and conclude that this is not significant from 50%. But this is disingenuous. You would not expect a 50%-0%-50% distribution and using that as your null hypothesis is just wrong. Rather, people who are extremely impaired through the drug, or know the effects and can recognise them, will choose "yes", those with little to no noticeable effect will choose "no" and those with some effects, or who just prefer not to state a preference, will choose "don't know". Now they do not mention the "don't know" portion for the active group but for the control it is 41% so presumably it is fairly high. If the figure was also 41% for the active group, this would leave only 12.4% saying "no" - 46.6 : 12.4 sounds rather significant to me.

 

Which brings me to the next issue. When I started writing this, I thought I would quickly check for the actual "don't know" figure in the active group of Study 1. So where is it? I cannot ever remembering reading a peer-reviewed paper like this that reported on data and just did not publish that data at all in any form. Quite often they hide the specifics of the data - that's a major issue in certain fields - but just not showing it at all? What this looks like to me is that someone has a hypothesis and rather than trying to design the best possible trial, instead tried to design the trial with the best chance of "proving" the hypothesis. And they did not even manage that for every trial - hidden away towards the end, one of the trials has a 61.2% "yes" response in the active group. 61.2% for Option 1 in a 3-option trial! Yet that result gets no commentary at all, while 2 other observations get entire paragraphs! Funnily enough though, in trying to pass off the results of this trial as not so relevant, the researchers rather give the game away as to what happened. "(in subject did not guess condition)". Only 1 from 215. The real conclusion then - if you get rid of the "don't know" response, subjects are very likely to notice their impaired state to a significant degree.

 

To some extent, I feel like the real theme of this paper should be: "we tried to cook the numbers but we managed to find out something interesting anyway". Study 3 has, I think, a second interesting point buried within it. The researchers point out that the number of balloons was significantly lower in this trial than the other 2. What they do not mention is why - basically the trial was stopped halfway through for subjects to answer questions, and then continuing for the second half. What does that mean? Well it breaks the rhythm, thus reducing the number of balloons popped in a given time. But it is a little more than that. If I were a researcher in this field and I read this paper, my immediate reaction would be to wonder if taking a short break every X minutes might be a way of reducing the impact of acetaminophen when doing generally monotonous tasks. Rather than research of the generic "drugs are bad and we can prove it" type, this sort of trial could actually produce recommendations on best procedures for those that need to take the drug. But is there funding in that? Most academic research is only done to get funding for a department to do more academic research. If there is money in it someone will probably do this; if not, noone will care.

[kenberg]

Why I lose at Bridge.

 

I did not get as far with this, not nearly as far, as Gil did.

I got to " In this latter study, acetaminophen also blunted affective reactivity to positively valenced images, suggesting that it may reduce affective reactivity more generally, rather than solely influencing negative experiences. " and thought I really should work my way through this to understand it but maybe later.

Maybe give me a hint: What is a positively valenced image? Would I enjoy having one? It sounds good. Let's hear it for positively valenced images. Same as "pleasant view" maybe?

[Gilithin]

Maybe give me a hint: What is a positively valenced image? Would I enjoy having one? It sounds good. Let's hear it for positively valenced images. Same as "pleasant view" maybe?

It means you show a subject lots of "nice" images - relaxed family gatherings, cute animals, smiling faces, etc - and "bad" images (violence, pollution, disasters, etc) and see how they react to them. The former category are the positively-valenced images. In normal parlance, it just means good or bad.

[kenberg]

It means you show a subject lots of "nice" images - relaxed family gatherings, cute animals, smiling faces, etc - and "bad" images (violence, pollution, disasters, etc) and see how they react to them. The former category are the positively-valenced images. In normal parlance, it just means good or bad.

 

Fair enough. That full moon in the evening sky the other night was a positive valenced image. Becky agreed that it was very positively valenced.

 

The cited paper is of course for professionals writing for professionals so I don't really object to calling a full moon a positively valenced image, but I did find it amusing.

[Winstonm]

Fair enough. That full moon in the evening sky the other night was a positive valenced image. Becky agreed that it was very positively valenced.

 

The cited paper is of course for professionals writing for professionals so I don't really object to calling a full moon a positively valenced image, but I did find it amusing.

 

“Shine on, shine on positive valenced image up in the sky “- I don’t know if that will catch on. 😏

[pilowsky]

I did not get as far with this, not nearly as far, as Gil did.

I got to " In this latter study, acetaminophen also blunted affective reactivity to positively valenced images, suggesting that it may reduce affective reactivity more generally, rather than solely influencing negative experiences. " and thought I really should work my way through this to understand it but maybe later.

Maybe give me a hint: What is a positively valenced image? Would I enjoy having one? It sounds good. Let's hear it for positively valenced images. Same as "pleasant view" maybe?

 

The bottom line of this study is that taking acetaminophen/Tylenol (paracetamol in Australia) causes optimism.

The students (it's always students in psychology experiments) that took the Tylenol were more prepared to take greater risks.

One obvious concern is that if Tylenol relieves discomfort does this simply mean that a person is more likely to take risks if they are not experiencing pain.

"affective reactivity to positively valenced" - I think affective reactivity is code for how it made them feel. positive=good. valence=enjoyableness.

So I think it means "doing X makes me feel good as opposed to doing Y" - My valence reacted positively when I bid and made 6♠ but my "affect" reacted negatively when I saw that everyone else made 7.

[pilowsky]

If this really were the reason you lose constantly, the answer would be easy - stop taking high doses of drugs before playing! I looked at the link but already on page 1 I have enough issues with the paper that I wonder it got past peer-review. First the study says it is double-blind but the doses are provided with different flavourings

The drug solution consisted of acetaminophen (100 mg/ml) suspended in Ora-Plus suspension liquid and flavored with Fagron Simple Syrup. The placebo solution consisted of Avicel Microcrystalline powder (100 mg/ml) dissolved in Ora-Plus suspension liquid and flavored with Ora-Sweet Syrup.

The flavourings are the same, but one has acetaminophen and the other has "Avicel Microcrystalline powder (100 mg/ml)" whatever that is.

I suspect that the sweet syrup overwhelms the (to me) unpleasant taste of crushed acetaminophen.

the "Avicel powder" is presumably an inert white powder that looks a bit like crushed acetaminophen.

But yes, like you, I take these kinds of studies with a grain of Avicel.

[Gilithin]

Fair enough. That full moon in the evening sky the other night was a positive valenced image. Becky agreed that it was very positively valenced.

 

The cited paper is of course for professionals writing for professionals so I don't really object to calling a full moon a positively valenced image, but I did find it amusing.

It is a funny term, primarily because it comes from the efforts of a German, Kurt Lewin, to convert subjective aspects of psychology into mathematical forms. As he was writing in German, he used the word Valenz for the value of an object at a given standpoint. Since this paper turned out to be highly influential, it was naturally translated into English and Valenz was translated literally to valence. Thus translated, the term became used across many areas, most typically (but not exclusively) associated with the mathematical representation of emotional responses. It is quite an interesting field but one probably best left to the real experts in this area. Unfortunately there are plenty of hacks along for the ride who conduct bad faith experiments to produce a pre-designed outcome, usually with the hope of gaining attention and/or funding. Separating out the good from the bad research is an art most PhD students learn in the first year of research while doing their paper review.

[Gilithin]

The flavourings are the same

The drug solution consisted of acetaminophen (100 mg/ml) suspended in Ora-Plus suspension liquid and flavored with Fagron Simple Syrup. The placebo solution consisted of Avicel Microcrystalline powder (100 mg/ml) dissolved in Ora-Plus suspension liquid and flavored with Ora-Sweet Syrup.

If you tell me that Fargon (presumably a typo for Fagron?) Simple Syrup and Ora-Sweet Syrup are precisely the same thing I will believe you. On the surface though, these sound like different products.

[pilowsky]

If you tell me that Fargon (presumably a typo for Fagron?) Simple Syrup and Ora-Sweet Syrup are precisely the same thing I will believe you. On the surface though, these sound like different products.

 

You may be right. it must be an inadequacy of Ora sweet syrup that makes me overly optimistic and causes me to lose at Bridge.

[pilowsky]

[kenberg]

 

Always good to see I am in with the crowd.