Interesting Links for 05-03-2018

[andrewducker]

Fantastic story of a business doing the right thing for a staff member who developed Alzheimer's

(tags: work business alzheimers GoodNews )

Scotland’s floating wind farm is showing how powerful offshore wind can be

(tags: windpower scotland renewables )

Kezia Dugdale launches EU single market campaign for UK

(tags: UK Europe Scotland labour )

How not to be a crank: ten rules for not being a science-dick.

(tags: facts society advice science )

“More than a third of the biggest companies in the restaurant sector are losing money

(tags: UK restaurant business fail )

Japan urged to scrap law forcing transgender people to be sterilised before they can transition

(tags: Japan transgender OhForFucksSake lgbt )

Kristen Bell Recorded ‘The Good Place’ Cast’s Reaction To Season 1 ending

(tags: TV funny video )

Theresa May's plan to tackle housing crisis will fail to give Britain the homes needed, senior Tories warn

(tags: housing Conservatives fail )

Artificial intelligence could identify gang crimes—and ignite an ethical firestorm

(tags: police gangs ai )

Belief in brain myths and child development myths continues even among those who’ve studied psychology

(tags: myths brain psychology )

Strange but true: Getting pregnant when you're already pregnant

(tags: pregnancy weird )

Comments

Super Twins

[danieldwilliam]

My brothers are either superfecund or superfetate twins.

The younger twin was a complete surprise to everyone.

My mum was part of a study thereafter.

Re: Super Twins

[mountainkiss]

This would be less unexpected were your mum not a doctor.

Re: Super Twins

[danieldwilliam]

The whole episode was considered deeply embarrassing.

Hywind

[danieldwilliam]

I'm very excited about Hywind. Floating wind turbines open up lots and lots of ocean for wind generation. Lots of areas with deep water or unsuitable bottoms become workable. Useful for whole coastlines which are unsuitable. Also useful as it avoids the need to have a suitable seafloor and suitable wind. The turbines can be put where the wind is best. For a value of best that might well include relatively low capacity factors but high wind resources that are offset against other generation.

Which all means more ofshore wind and gives scale economies and learning curve effects.

It might even solve a lot of the seasonal storage problem.

Re: Hywind

[andrewducker]

What depth can their suction anchors work to?

Re: Hywind

[danieldwilliam]

The chains on Hywind are about 900m long which at a 45 degree angle gives you a depth of 450m.

This wikipedia article on suction caissons which is what I think they are using suggests depths of up to 2,000 metres are common place. (The Med averages about 1,500m depth and the Atlantic 3,600m).

Re: Hywind

[andrewducker]

So that should allow a huge number of new locations, and we can work on the mid Atlantic later!

Re: Hywind

[danieldwilliam]

Yep, lots and lots of potential before you get in to waters that are too deep. I suspect that the cost of running the cable back to the shore will be more of a limiting factor.

Re: Hywind

[andrewducker]

I suspect things like the North Sea Wind Power Hub will be useful there.

Re: Hywind

[danieldwilliam]

Very helpful.

I think there is a nice cost sharing model between offshore wind and subsea interconnectors whereby you put your floating windfarm near your subsea interconnector and split the cost and up the usage. But I don't know enough about interconnector economics to be more certain about that. It may be that they only get built if they are going to use 90% of the capacity anyway.

But if I'm right about that then interconnectors between the Sahara and Southern Europe and Iceland and North-Western Europe become a little easier.

Re: Hywind

[armiphlage]

Plus ease of transport of the hardware is a huge benefit! It's best to form the blades as a single piece rather than building them up from parts, and we're already passing the limits for easy road transport.

In Nova Scotia, wind farms have been having problems transporting blades along winding roads. Floating blades to the site on giant barges would be much easier. In an ideal world, we could repurpose oil tankers and aircraft carriers to bring them to the site.

(video of blades being carried up a mountain in China)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cnHui4pFBU

Restauranting

[danieldwilliam]

Restauranting is a hard business.

Re: Restauranting

[andrewducker]

Yeah. Seems to mostly be a great way for passionate people to lose money.

Re: Restauranting

[danieldwilliam]

Which is a shame for them but I think ever has it been thus.

I'm not sure there is anything that can be done to alter the dynamic. It's a business with lots of competition and all that implies and a business where it is difficult to build a really strong long term competitive advantage.

It's like the taxi business.

Re: Restauranting

[skington]

The thing is, though, I can totally understand restaurants struggling because (a) food prices are higher because of the anticipation of Brexit sending the pound down, and (b) there's a bubble in casual dining that's currently bursting, but people are stuck with inflated rents.

But when the Fat Duck is one of the businesses blaming a rise in the minimum wage, you have to wonder about the ethics of the restaurant business.

Re: Restauranting

[danieldwilliam]

My guess is that the Fat Duck is partly blaming the rises in minimum wage as that's convenient and partly is affected by wage differentials, that they are paying a £X or X% above minimum wage, rather than a direct of minimum wage legislation.

But, yeah, it does say something when somewhere with as high a skill as the Fat Duck is citing minimum wage increases.

[calimac]

Points to the engineer who quoted Tom Lehrer in a serious discussion of ethics in engineering.