Interesting Links for 11-06-2022

[andrewducker]

1. Watch from Inside the Nest as a Pair of Kestrels Raise a Family

(tags:birds video )

2. The COVID Event Horizon (or: How many Covid infections can a person have?)

(tags:pandemic disease doom )

3. There are early signs of Covid infections trending back up the way

(tags:pandemic doom )

4. Jacob Rees-Mogg refuses to debate why he blocked bill that would have spared elephants from torture

(tags:elephants torture conservatives OhForFucksSake )

5. 40% of the UK is heading for fuel poverty

(tags:heating poverty electricity gas )

6. Green light for £21m Scottish plastic-to-hydrogen plant

(tags:plastic hydrogen energy )

7. The best book ever about computers is getting a second edition. I may need to update

(tags:books computers )

8. The Sriracha Shortage Is The Next Harbinger of Climate Change

(tags:globalwarming food )

9. Sex with your distant ancestors: bestiality or not?

(tags:bestiality sex prehistory evolution )

10. The perception of rhythm in language (read it out loud)

(tags:poetry language research awesome )

11. How Tesla tries to avoid its autopilot being on for crashes

(tags:Tesla automation OhForFucksSake cars driving )

Comments

[armiphlage]

6. The plastic-to-hydrogen plant is interesting. It's easy to turn plastic into hydrogen (same way Victorian-era gas plants turned coal into town gas, then run your producer gas past hot iron plates and separate it out). Dealing with the petcoke, tars, acids (i.e. HCl from vinyl), and brominated phenols from fire retardants is the hard part. Depending on local regulations, it may be cheaper to landfill the relatively inert plastic than to safely store the hazardous waste products.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, hopefully they have methods for dealing with all of that. Fingers crossed they can make it work cost effectively.

(Personally I'd be fine with it all being buried where it can't do any harm)

[danieldwilliam]

I suspect they might incinerate the waste products at very high temperature to power the plant.