Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Rooftop solar turned New England’s grid profile into a ‘duck curve’ 1/3 of the days in 2025
New England has so much rooftop solar (more than 7000 MW installed) that the once-rare "duck curve" day - when we buy less electricity mid-day than at night because we're using our own solar power - is becoming ordinary. New England ISO, which runs the six-state power...
As Wikipedia turns 25, recalling a talk with a (very) early contributor
As you probably know, 4.78 percent of Concord’s total surface area is made up of water. Wait – you didn’t know that? Then you haven’t read Wikipedia in the past 23 years, because this intriguing tidbit has been part of the article about Concord since halfway...
N.H. wind farm keeps chugging along
The Monadnock Ledger has a story about the sixth anniversary of Antrim Wind Farm, a relatively small (28.8 MW, 9 turbines) operation. It faced a lot of the usual opposition and took four years to get approval, part of the reason there are only three wind farms of any...
UNH gets important research tool
It's not always easy doing public outreach for a research university. Sometimes you have to write articles about things that don't really resonate with the general audience, like Isothermal titration calorimetry. It certainly doesn't resonate with me, anyway! UNH News...
Like all engineers, beavers sometimes cause trouble
Beavers are awesome engineers, as everybody knows. Sometimes that's great. Sometimes it's not. The Monitor has a story about a long-running right in the town of Bow over a beaver dam and how it is shaping New Hampshire law - you can read it here. House Bill 1530 would...
“A.I. Trivia Time, A Classroom Game Students Will Truly Enjoy!”
Day of A.I., the MIT-backed project to educate teachers and students about the technologies misleadingly known as artificial intelligence, has a new classroom game called A.I. Trivia Time. From their press release: Think of AI Trivia Time as a brain break with a...
Home insurance is the canary in the coalmine for economic effect of climate change
You don’t have to convince Tom Morgan that sea-level rise is a real thing, not after he oversaw the sale of the family home. Two months after he lost his mother in November, 2023, Morgan was at her house when what he descibed as “the worst flood I’ve ever seen in...
NH patents through Jan. 11
Links to each patent can be found here, using the patent number or inventor’s name. By Targeted News Service WASHINGTON – The following federal patents were assigned in New Hampshire in the week through Jan. 11. Photosensor Having Range Parallax Compensation ALLEGRO...
A bill for the electricity-geekiest among you
There's a bill before the New Hampshire legislature "requiring utilities and electric grid operators to assess and report the vulnerability of high-voltage transformers to geomagnetic and electromagnetic disturbances, and to recommend mitigation measures to protect...
Maine might join the ‘balcony solar’ push
Maine is thinking about joining the "balcony solar" bandwagon, as are New Hampshire and Vermont. Hooray! Story from Maine Morning Star is here. That is an online publication, part of States Newsroom, which supports New Hampshire Bulletin and VTDigger among others.
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