In other news today...
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A comparatively complete Australian pterosaur!
So, debate the better genus (by name alone): Aussiedraco or Ferrodraco?
Filed under: nobody cares about Mythunga, paging @CarrieVS
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@TimeBandit said in In other news today...:
Journalist writes about science he doesn't understand. Badly.
There may be an actual breakthrough in there somewhere, but there's so much gobbledygook that I can't find it.
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@kazitor The iron dragon. It's just so much more metal than the Australian dragon/southern dragon.
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The man filed suit in a Moscow court asking for one million rubles ($15,000) after an incident this summer in which a cryptocurrency called "GayCoin" was delivered via a smartphone app, rather than the Bitcoin he had ordered.
His lawyer Sapizhat Gusnieva insisted the case was "serious," telling AFP that her client was "scared, he suffered".
The GayCoin cryptocurrency arrived with a note saying, "Don't judge until you try," according to the complaint.
"I thought, in truth, how can I judge something without trying? I decided to try same-sex relationships," the complainant wrote.
"Now I have a boyfriend and I do not know how to explain this to my parents... my life has been changed for the worse and will never become normal again," he added.
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@HardwareGeek said in In other news today...:
@TimeBandit said in In other news today...:
Journalist writes about science he doesn't understand. Badly.
There may be an actual breakthrough in there somewhere, but there's so much gobbledygook that I can't find it.
The headline is a real WTF of gibberish. Also this:
Hydrogen would be a terrific source of clean energy. The problem? It's hard and expensive to attain, either through mining it or producing it.
Mining? Are there natural sources to mine like natural gas? Never heard of that.
I guess there’s some interesting science behind the improved catalyst, but the article makes it sound like you’ll get hydrogen for cheap, ignoring that you still need to put in as much electricity as you’ll get out. Sea water also sounds idiotic, tap water is basically free and even demineralized water isn’t that expensive.
Can some of the physicists here chime in on that?
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@PJH modern Russia being as gay-friendly as it is, any excuse seems to be a welcome one.
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@PJH Original claim also uses words like "incitement to gayness".
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@topspin said in In other news today...:
Hydrogen would be a terrific source of clean energy. The problem? It's hard and expensive to attain, either through mining it or producing it.
Mining? Are there natural sources to mine like natural gas? Never heard of that.
There is some tiny fraction of H2 in oil & gas reservoirs, and there are some techniques to produce H2 directly from reservoirs (either by filtering that fraction or by transforming it in-situ). For example, I found this abstract of a presentation made in a recent geochemical international conference.
But while I said that for the , in reality, no, there are no realistic natural sources of H2 underground.
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@topspin Here's the actual paper:
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@HardwareGeek said in In other news today...:
There may be an actual breakthrough in there somewhere, but there's so much gobbledygook that I can't find it.
Eh...they claim that found a better catalyst than platinum, which of course is super expensive. And it works well with any junky water you happen to have available, like sea water.
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@boomzilla Last I heard, molybdenum is also pretty expensive. Not platinum-expensive, sure, but it's hardly steel or aluminum either.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in In other news today...:
@boomzilla Last I heard, molybdenum is also pretty expensive. Not platinum-expensive, sure, but it's hardly steel or aluminum either.
It's better and cheaper. That was the thrust of it, yes.
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@Mason_Wheeler Molybdenium is ~ $26,000 per metric ton, platinum is ~ $900 per troy ounce (31.103476 grams), that would make 1 metric ton of platinum cost $28,935,421.
Three degrees of magnitude are definitely something to consider.
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@Rhywden How much of each do you need to convert a cubic meter of water per hour (or whatever else is a relevant quantity)?
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@boomzilla said in In other news today...:
@HardwareGeek said in In other news today...:
There may be an actual breakthrough in there somewhere, but there's so much gobbledygook that I can't find it.
Eh...they claim that found a better catalyst than platinum, which of course is super expensive. And it works well with any junky water you happen to have available, like sea water.
A catalyst, though, is not consumed in the reaction. If you have an electrolytic cell with, say, $1000 worth of catalyst, that $1000 is a capital expense, not an operating expense. You can process billions of liters of water to produce hydrogen and, unless damaged somehow, you'll still have your original $1000 of catalyst. And if it is damaged, you can sell it for scrap and recover a good portion of that $1000 (at least for platinum; I don't know what the market is for used MoP).
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@PleegWat said in In other news today...:
@Rhywden How much of each do you need to convert a cubic meter of water per hour (or whatever else is a relevant quantity)?
In either case, the catalyst is a very thin coating, perhaps only a few atoms thick, on the electrode. A little goes a long way. Without actually crunching any numbers , I'd estimate 1 g of catalyst would probably be enough for quite a few square meters of electrode surface.
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@HardwareGeek that's still a big price difference when you scale it up. I'm assuming. I don't know how much you'd need to be able to make decent quantities of hydrogen. Still, from TFA:
Using an MEC, the team was able to combine the electrolysis technique with hydrogen fermentation, a low-yield process that consumes less energy. Unable to afford expensive platinum catalysts, the team needed something that could reduce production costs to approximately $2 per kilogram of hydrogen.
So again, it's not only cheaper but better, requiring less energy.
Natural gas at small scale
Uses steam reformation. Requires 15.9 million cubic feet (450,000 m3) of gas, which, if produced by small 500 kg/day reformers at the point of dispensing (i.e., the filling station), would equate to 777,000 reformers costing $1 trillion and producing 150 million tons of hydrogen gas annually. Obviates the need for distribution infrastructure dedicated to hydrogen. $3.00 per GGE (Gallons of Gasoline Equivalent)[citation needed]
Solar
Provides energy for electrolysis of water. Would require 2,500 kWh of sun per square meter, 113 million 40-kilowatt systems, which would cost $22 trillion, or about $9.50 per GGE.[citation needed]
Wind
Provides energy for electrolysis of water. At 7 meters per second average wind speed, it would require 1 million 2-MW wind turbines, which would cost $3 trillion, or about $3.00 per GGE.
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As of 2004 and 2016, 96% of global hydrogen production is from fossil fuels[24] (48% from natural gas, 30% from oil, and 18% from coal); water electrolysis accounts for only 4%.[25] The distribution of production reflects the effects of thermodynamic constraints on economic choices: of the four methods for obtaining hydrogen, partial combustion of natural gas in a NGCC (natural gas combined cycle) power plant offers the most efficient chemical pathway and the greatest off-take of usable heat energy. (needs reference)The large market and sharply rising prices in fossil fuels have also stimulated great interest in alternate, cheaper means of hydrogen production.[26][27] As of 2002, most hydrogen is produced on site and the cost is approximately $0.70/kg and, if not produced on site, the cost of liquid hydrogen is about $2.20/kg to $3.08/kg.[28]
So, still more expensive than using fossil fuels, perhaps unsurprisingly.
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@HardwareGeek Yeah, I know how catalysts work. My thought is, if you need 10g of molybdenum to achieve the same effect as 10mg of platinum, that cancels out the cost difference. Though there will be other cost impacts if the amount of catalyst needed between the two is so different, and there may be other process impacts as well (for example, because of different working temperatures of the two).
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@kazitor said in In other news today...:
Filed under: nobody cares about Mythunga
Why should anyone care about your thunga? That's very selfish smh
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@HardwareGeek Yes, but if you can get 1000 times more catalyst for the same price, that's something to consider. Also, while the catalyst is not consumed in this particular reaction it usually is subject to other aging processes.
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@topspin said in In other news today...:
Sea water also sounds idiotic, tap water is basically free and even demineralized water isn’t that expensive.
AFAIK most of the fresh water on Earth is frozen, and most of the liquid water is saltwater. So if they've really found an efficient way of getting hydrogen directly out of seawater I think that might actually be a pretty big breakthrough. But if anyone is an actual expert and knows anything, please correct me.
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Oh look, really hard things to detect are really hard to detect.
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@boomzilla said in In other news today...:
@TimeBandit said in In other news today...:
I'm glad I don't drink tea
I saw a story about this and it was the first time I'd heard about plastic tea bags. I thought they were all paper.
Must be one of those "save the trees" things.
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@abarker said in In other news today...:
@boomzilla said in In other news today...:
@TimeBandit said in In other news today...:
I'm glad I don't drink tea
I saw a story about this and it was the first time I'd heard about plastic tea bags. I thought they were all paper.
Must be one of those "save the trees" things.
Naw, it's probably because plastic is cheaper than any other fabric.
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@Rhywden Hey! Don't go bringing logic into it!
Oh wait, this isn't the garage. Carry on!
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@hungrier said in In other news today...:
@topspin said in In other news today...:
Sea water also sounds idiotic, tap water is basically free and even demineralized water isn’t that expensive.
AFAIK most of the fresh water on Earth is frozen, and most of the liquid water is saltwater. So if they've really found an efficient way of getting hydrogen directly out of seawater I think that might actually be a pretty big breakthrough. But if anyone is an actual expert and knows anything, please correct me.
Why does that matter? Considering the quantities available vs what’s needed for electrolysis, both fresh water and seawater are effectively infinite. You don’t need a whole ocean of it. That seawater is the larger infinity seems irrelevant.
Edit: not saying that the discovery is not interesting. The original article was pretty terrible though.
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@topspin From an efficiency standpoint it's relevant. A requirement for, say, demineralized water will bring down the overall efficiency down a notch. If you can use brackish water so much the better.
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"That new kind of capitalism that is going to emerge is not the Milton Friedman capitalism, that's just about making money," the billionaire co-CEO of Salesforce and owner of Time Magazine, said at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco Thursday evening.
So, after years of misunderstanding Friedman, they are going to finally start following what he actually said, but call it something else? Sounds about right. But hey, at least they will start being actual capitalists.
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@hungrier said in In other news today...:
@kazitor said in In other news today...:
Filed under: nobody cares about Mythunga
Why should anyone care about your thunga? That's very selfish smh
You've forced my hand. Have recently-named Canadian Cryodrakon:
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@error_bot xkcd metamaterials
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@kazitor said in In other news today...:
@hungrier said in In other news today...:
@kazitor said in In other news today...:
Filed under: nobody cares about Mythunga
Why should anyone care about your thunga? That's very selfish smh
You've forced my hand. Have recently-named Canadian Cryodrakon:
Canadian, eh? Looks like it's my thunga now
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@Dragoon I could have sworn I've seen a very similar article before.
My thought back then was "Well, duh?"
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@error_bot said in In other news today...:
Roses are gray.
Violets are black.
People who aren't
Colorblind are just wack.
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Just for where the fire appears to have happened...
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@pie_flavor upboat for nodosaurs!
edit: I've actually seen this before – check out this interactive 3D thing
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@kazitor There was an ankylosaur found in a similar state. It was found to be a new genus, and named Zuul crurivastator - Zuul, destroyer of shins.
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@CarrieVS said in In other news today...:
@kazitor There was an ankylosaur found in a similar state. It was found to be a new genus, and named Zuul crurivastator - Zuul, destroyer of shins.
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This could also go in the Diseducation or Nope threads.
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@Vixen Not sure if Bad Ideas Thread or Evil Ideas Thread...
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@pie_flavor Crap, I'm not a Blizzard customer so I can't boycott them.