Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Electric plane coming to Cape Cod-based airline
The power-to-weight ratio of batteries and electric motors doesn't seem like they'd work for aviation, but who knows: An Israeli company called Eviation says that by 2022 it will deliver a 9-passenger electric airplane to Cape Air, a small airline that connects Cape...
N.H. patents through Nov. 6
By Targeted News Service The following patents were assigned in New Hampshire from Nov. 1 to Nov. 6 *** Hypertherm Assigned Patent for Cooling Plasma Cutting System Hypertherm, Hanover, New Hampshire, has been assigned a patent (No. 10,827,600, initially filed April...
If true geothermal arrives here, it’ll have to be around Conway
Every few years attention returns to geothermal power in the U.S. - as with this excellent recent overview from Vox's David Roberts, who says it is ""poised for a big breakout." - which gives me an excuse to talk about how the Conway region is one of the most likely...
Right-to-repair expansion wins big in Massachusetts
Massachusetts has the country's best right-to-repair law, although it only cover certain aspects of automotive repair information. On Tuesday it got better: Voters overwhelmingly enlarged it by a 75% to 25% margin, which is getting close to North Korea levels of...
Problems at our first offshore wind farm: Overly shallow wires
Offshore wind farms - even dinky ones, like Block Island off Rhode Island - are very big engineering projects. And with very big engineering projects, you can get very big expensive mistakes. They've got one at Block Island, reports E&E News: The rocky saeabed...
Ranked-choice voting just might decide the future of America (Update: Or not)
Wednesday morning note: This was written Monday and I should really rewrite it, since Collins won pretty handily in Maine and the push failed in Massachusetts, 55%-45%. But I'm beat and frazzled from the endless election, so it'll have to stand. It’s not entirely out...
COVID tracker: More cases enter the hospital, a really bad sign
Ever since COVID-19 arrived and turned us all into amateur epidemiologists poring over hospital reports and debating antibody counts, we’ve really just wanted the answer to one question: “How worried should we be?” Right now, unfortunately, the answer is: Increasingly...
Dam removal in northern N.H.
New Hampshire, like much of the country, is full of small, no-longer-used dams that chup up streams and rivers into semi-connected pieces. this is bad for a lot of ecological reasons. Removing old dams can be expensive and often causes other problems, such as release...
Maine firm will (maybe) make biofuel from wood waste
A firm in Bangor, Maine says it is "close" to building a biorefinery that will turn wood waste from paper and lumber mills into liquid fuel that would be sold by New Hampshire's Sprague Resources. As reported by the Portland Press-Herald's Tux Turkel (story is here),...
Science fiction and pandemics & other online discussions
I am old enough to remember when "The Andromeda Strain" came out in 1969; it caused quite the sensation although "Jurassic Park" has overshadowed it since then among casual Michael Crichton fans. So I'm happy to be part of a panel discussion about the book, sponsored...
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