Archive of posts with tag 'energy'

Weekend Reading: Ted Chiang, Renewable Energy, and ColorBox

September 21, 2019 • #

✍🏼 Ted Chiang Uses Science to Illuminate the Human Condition

I enjoyed this interview with author Ted Chiang. It covers his recent short story collection Exhalation: Stories with nice context and background on the ideas behind each one. I just finished the book last week, and would have to say that The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling was my favorite. A story about the fallibility of memory and what it would be like if our memories were recorded...

The Bacteria Light of the Future

July 25, 2019 • #

A French startup company called Glowee is working on being able to produce light using bioluminescence:

Glowee reinvents light production with technology nature has already created to make lighting more sustainable and healthier for both humans and the environment. Having identified the genetic coding that creates bioluminescence, Glowee inserts this code into common, non-toxic, and non-pathogenic bacteria to produce clean, safe, synthetic bioluminescence. Once engineered and grown, the bacteria are encapsulated into a transparent shell, alongside a medium composed of the nutrients they need to live and make light. This lighting solution can indefinitely and...

Weekend Reading: Wind Turbines, Bruce Sterling, and Economic Ideas

November 17, 2018 • #

⚡️ The US Wind Turbine Database

Ben Hoen from the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab gave a lightning talk at Geo2050 about this project, a map and database of the operational wind generation capacity in the US. The map currently reports the country producing around 90 gigawatts of wind power. They also publish the raw dataset for download.

🧬 Interview with Bruce Sterling

One of my favorite science fiction authors. Talks about his work, industrial design, speculative architecture, and risk models.

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Energy & Geography in 2050

November 16, 2018 • #

Another great Geography2050 is in the books. This year’s focus was on energy, and as you might expect much of the panel discussion and subject matter expertise was on renewable energy sources and climate change response issues. It’s a topic I follow loosely, but I learned a lot about the diversity of organizations working on the problem and heard a number of interesting new ideas.

Low Memorial Library

One of the best panel discussions was on energy consumption and economic growth in China — nearly an hour and a half discussion on how China got...