Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
The sad end to Concord’s unique biomass district-heating system
Concord Steam, the company that has generated steam heat in the state's capitol city for eight decades, shut down Wednesday at midnight due to financial and technical issues. I had a look back at its tumultuous history in the Sunday Monitor (you can read it here) and...
What led Northeast precipitation to suddenly get more extreme in 1996?
From Dartmouth News Service: Over the past century, the Northeast has experienced an increase in the number of storms with extreme precipitation. A Dartmouth-led study finds that the increase in extreme Northeast storms occurred as an abrupt shift in 1996,...
Ranked-choice voting, approved by Maine ballot initiative, is unconstitutional
"Maine’s Constitution calls for candidates to be selected by plurality, in which the candidate with the most votes wins, even if the vote total is less than a majority." That sentence is at the heart of this Portland Press-Herald story, which details how that state's...
The Chevy Bolt could be a very important car – no offense to you Tesla fans
I am a Baby Boomer, which means I grew up with the Chevy Vega and Chevy Chevette, two of the all-time worst cars ever made, and I sneered at all GM models as they nose-dived during the '80s and '90s. The idea that I'd ever be excited about a new car from Chevrolet...
Fans of small hydropower really love small hydropower
The Valley News has a nice profile of the new owner of a 1,35 megawatt hydropower dam in Claremont. Among other issues in resurrecting it was fixing gear boxes ("Gear boxes are notoriously finicky") and getting permission from grid operator ISO-New England to be part...
Next step toward a ‘smart road’ is coming to NH turnpike
We’re all familiar with streets and roads, and turnpikes and highways – but are we ready for the “highly instrumented roadway”? We’d better be, because it’s coming to the F.E. Everett Turnpike. That's the start of my story today in the Monitor, about a communications...
U.S. electricity use is declining – but will it last?
Probably due to the adaption of LED lighting, electricity use in the U.S. is declining, separate from the bigger economic picture. The question is whether it will last, and this article from UCal-Berkeley says it's too early to tell, if for no other reason than...
Vermont utility and Tesla making Powerwall battery available to homes, pretty cheap
In the latest installment of their interesting collaboration, Vermont's Green Mountain Power and Tesla have announced a low price for home backup batteries ($15 per month) with the utility hoping to recoup the cost partly by linking all the batteries into a virtual...
“Gravity wave” – that word does not mean what you think it means
Terminology can have different meanings in different scientific disciplines ... which is why I was very excited to read this Vermont Public Radio story about a freak storm in Rutland, Vt., that was partly caused by gravity waves. Gravity waves?! Cool! Alas, turns out...
Looks like we won’t be switching time zones
The New Hampshire state Senate on Thursday put the kibosh on one of the silliest (IMHO) ideas floating around these days: Improving our health and productivity by moving coastal New England states into Atlantic standard time, the zone used by Nova Scotia and most...
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