Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Here’s what Concord can do with its gas holder building – make it a scuba-diving park!
(Addendum: There are two problems with this idea. One is that the Concord tank still has all its workings, including the massive cap that floated on the gas. This is what makes it quite possibly unique among the nation's gasholder buildings, but it would also make it...
Our old (WindowsXP!) ballot-counting machines are still in service
Experienced New Hampshire voters will see something quite familiar when they cast their primary ballots Tuesday: A vote-counting machine that hasn’t changed in more than two decades. The AccuVote optical reader has been part of Granite State elections since the...
On the Do Not Call list, we’re No. 1!
We may not be ready to adopt “Live Telemarketer-Free or Die” as a state slogan but we might be getting close: New Hampshire is No. 1 when it comes to registering on the federal Do Not Call list. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission says people in New Hampshire...
Have another lager – the cows are hungry
(This report is from UNH News Service. I'm a little surprised because I thought spent brewing grains were already used as farm feed - my neighbors the chicken farmers get a couple hundred pounds of them each week.) Wet brewers grains, the abundant residues of the...
That auction for future electricity had a problem: Some renewables were shut out
The annual forward capacity auction run for the six-state power grid (I wrote about it yesterday) might have produced record-low prices, but it also frustrated some renewable energy creators because of a ultra-wonky regulatory issue: whether state or federal rules...
Dartmouth-industry collaborative for power electronics
Dartmouth College is partnering with four electrical tech companies – GE Research, Analog Devices, Empower Semiconductor, and Ampt – to form a National Science Foundation-funded Industry-University Collaborative Research Center, the first one focusing on integrated...
Explaining ‘green hydrogen’ (which might be coming to the North Country)
The most intriguing clean-tech story in New Hampshire these days is the secretive-ish company moving into a closed mill in Groveton, where it says it has a new technology can use water power to create hydrogen cleanly. (Here's my last story on it.) This is cool but...
Future electricity prices in New England keep going down, down, down
Making electricity in New England is going to keep getting cheaper, judging from the results of the latest regional auction for power production three years down the road. The 14th annual Forward Capacity Auction, in which firms predict the cost of...
Looking for a better flight schedule? Math to the rescue!
Recently I flew to D.C. to visit my family and had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to make my flight in Manchester because the next flight was way too late. Between yawns, I muttered deprecations about American Airlines all day. Vikrant Vaze, an assistant professor of...
The Iowa caucus was like ranked-choice voting, except not really
(Update: In response to this piece, a former colleague noted that he has described the Iowa caucuses as "ranked-choice voting presented as performative dance" - which is such a great line that I had to include it here.) Here in New Hampshire we pretend the Iowa...
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