Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
King Canute couldn’t hold back the tides, but UNH thinks beach grass might do it
It’s expensive to build a wall to keep out the rising ocean. Maybe a better idea is to get nature to do it for you.
Manchester city flag celebrates one of the coolest inventions from the Industrial Revolution – happily, they won’t change it
UPDATE: This item, my column in the Concord Monitor, ran Tuesday morning, on election day. Manchester voters soundly rejected any change, choosing the original flag by a margin of 15-1 over any other choice, reports the Union-Leader. I didn't realize I had such sway...
Solar panels & energy efficiency mean N.E. power plants are going to be selling less power in years to come
Forecast: Total annual use of electric energy declines 0.6% per year. Without solar and energy efficient, it would grow by 0.9% annually.
It’s not easy to replace utility poles if you have to get there by boat
A week after a windstorm caused more power outages than any previous storm in the history of New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, the utility’s last few hundred customers were still being hooked up on Monday – but there’s a reason it’s taken so long: They’re on islands in Lake Winnipesaukee.
A trio of science cafes next week: Lobsters, Narcan and the power grid
There’s an embarrassment of riches for science cafes next week: Due to scheduling issues, both Nashua and Concord will hold their Science Cafe NH on the same night. The following night will see the Piscataqua Science Cafe in Portsmouth.
As bitcoin’s price goes insane (bubble? what bubble?), N.H. gets its first two-way bitcoin vending machine
New Hampshire has long been a bitcoin hotbed: we probably have the highest per-capita number of public bitcoin vending machines of any state. And now, reports Free Keene, the first two-way machine (you can get cash for bitcoin, not just bitcoin for cash) has opened at a convenience store in Manchester.
This device looks like a toy you’d give a Mensa kid, but it has really interesting applications
Inspired by a color changing mechanism found in cephalopods, like squid, cuttlefish and octopus, researchers at the University of New Hampshire have conceived a design for a unique sequential cell-opening mechanism that has many potential applications from drug delivery to color altering camouflage materials.
There’s a lot of solar power coming to NH – because Conn. and Mass. are demanding it.
Bob Sanders of NH Business Review has an excellent look at why a lot of very large (by NH standards, anyway) solar projects are being proposed in the states: All the projects being proposed in New Hampshire total 210 MW of capacity, triple the state’s solar capacity...
Redesigning the power grid is no job for the faint of heart
Utilities make money by building more equipment and selling more electricity, but the amount of electricity used in New England is largely unchanged since 2005 even as the economy has grown. Such changes have led many to hope that our supply of electricity could become cleaner, more resilient and cheaper, and have led to other fears that it will become erratic, unreliable and more expensive.
Figuring out how to live up to the hopes rather than living down to the fears is driving the discussion.
Salmon aren’t returning to spawn in New Brunswick – that doesn’t bode well for New England
We’ve given up getting salmon to spawn again in the Merrimack River, and our hopes to bring them back to the Connecticut River are slim. News that they’re doing poorly in New Brunswick, where the population is more robust, is not good.
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