They use resistive heating, so they can only charge it dirt cheap when there is surplus solar or wind.

It’s a pretty neat system:

• can be set up anywhere
• can supply high grade heat (process heat, not mere space heating heat)

However, heat stores are subject to scaling laws which don’t favour sand on the large scale, at least unless it’s underground (and then you have to keep groundwater out to avoid vaporizing it). Large thermal stores benefit from storing heat in water, and placing the water deep underground, so the boiling point rises. If local rock has low thermal conductivity, even better.

For comparison Helsinki (.fi) has a 10 GWh underground thermal store. Where I live, Tallinn (.ee) will soon get a 1 GWh surface thermal store. And Vantaa (.fi) will soon complete a whopping 90 GWh thermal store that’s located 100 m underground, so their water will boil at 140 C instead of the usual 100 C. Boiling points up to 300 C are attainable in practise, then the curve starts leveling out.

It was meant to be humorous framing, given the impossibility of making humans from magma or the iron core. :)

Which ethnicity’s population are we going to reduce?

I honestly believe that “we” aren’t going to do jack s**t. It’s a process which is nearly unsteerable. People are going to live longer and longer, and use resources that would otherwise be used by children they might have had. Society is going to be burdened by caring for the old, and this is going to reduce chances of caring for the young.

In nearly every developed country, population growth is slowing or population has already started decreasing. Only in the least developed regions (some areas of Africa) does the opposite still apply, but UN predictions (made by competent people) suggest the process just reaches there later.

So, every ethnicity’s population is going to be reduced. Every ethnicity can also consider if their numbers are adequate, too high or too low. If a nation feels threatened by disappearing from the maps, they can try to reorganize their society. Random ideas: a few laws that give parents various health and social security guarantees regardless of their employment status, especially in case they’re single parents, then maybe create a few dating sites that actually try to help their users find people they like, etc…

There is plenty of resources to support humanity.

I cannot say I agree, and I think I recall that some indicators currently suggest we’d need about 3 planets to keep going at the same pace.

I think we shouldn’t use up every atom on Earth to churn out more humans. Our species has experienced a massive population explosion and is at peak numbers.

Usually this kind of events are followed by a hurtful population crash. It seems considerably better if growth ends due to a (subconscious?) decision to stop expanding, rather than a war for remaining resources.

The founder of the Antinatalism International, Anugraha Kumar Sharma, argues that “there is absolutely no hope whatsoever in this world.”

Well, that’s hard to argue against. I might disagree, but I cannot artificially give him any hope, even if he wants some.

For some, the progressive embrace of antinatalism might just be a reaction to the pronatalism espoused by the Right. Because Vice President J. D. Vance wants you to have more children, the only natural reply is that we ought to have none.

Not for me. They can want all they want, but to consider children, I imagine I would need to find a society relatively free of strife, a society with lower risk. I would need to feel somewhat secure in my own future, because you have to raise children for a hefty amount of time. Most importanly, I’d have to find someone who’d like to do this together.

Some creatures respond to environmental stress by breeding earlier and faster, and trying to do that more desperately. I cannot find such a response in my own “code”. I respond to environmental stress by saving resources to overcome hardship, and focusing effort to defeat the source of hardship. If that means a decline in population by 1.7 people, so be it.

I think that in the modern times, more people have started thinking this way. Having children is expensive and can effectively put you below the poverty line, and stop you from pursuing goals, whatever they are.

I’m not even anti-natalist. I’m just not interested in reproduction - precisely because I still have a future that I might influence for the better - but not if I waste my resources on reproduction.

Also, I think a scarcity of humans might actually cause society to value humans more. In the Middle Ages, when the plague reduced populations, serfs were able to obtain better conditions and break the pattern of slavery in many lands. Feudal lords struggled because their vast empty lands could not be managed by their dwindling crew - someone could till a field or hunt game without paying taxes or asking for permission out there. Of course, this pattern might not apply in modern times, however.

the global democratic left has been incapable of developing an economic agenda that looks beyond the next election cycle.

Not sure if I can agree. Over here, the agenda looks pretty clear. Achieve progressive taxation. Achieve higher taxation of capital than labour. Achieve lower taxation of worker-owned companies. Achieve universal health insurance. Beyond the economic, achieve a governing system not disproportionately influenced by the wealthy. Preferably, achieve all this without violence.

(and reaching those goals is prevented by the disproportionate propaganda capability of the economic right, mostly financed by the wealthy)

Good to hear. :)

They have, but this does not look like a fiber optic scenario.

Guesses: either:

• autonomous navigation by terrain and compass (assuming that satnav systems are denied), or
• one swarm member using a ridiculously good (satellite?) radio to supply other swarm members with guidance from Ukraine, or
• guidance via Russian mobile phone networks.

Missile silos are sadly, ridiculously hardened. You may have to hit a single door with 10+ drones to get through.

Aircraft are perfect targets, since an aircraft must be light and cannot be hidden underground too easily.

Also, missile silos aren’t being used to attack Ukraine. Knocking one out would have no effect on the safety of people in Ukraine. Aircraft however, are used daily / weekly. Tangible benefit is immediate - less air raids, less missiles fired, less glide bombs dropped.

It would also be sweet if a shortage of radar planes occurred - Russia not knowing what’s happening in its airspace would allow Ukrainian long-range drones to reach where they must.

Clever and economical, and 100% high value military targets. I wish the guys who pulled this off, all the luck they can have. :)

It is possible that Russia’s selection of AWACS planes (about 10 left) decreased even more.

The “sheds” were more like wooden boxes. They had a fake roof, the upper layer of which a mechanism could remove. Between the roof beams - “nests” for drones. This cargo was given for transport to ordinary truck companies. There’s even a video where cops have detained a trucker while drones are taking off from his truck and heading towards Belaya airfield, ordinarily unreachable to Ukrainian drones since it’s 4000 km away. I’m afraid the trucker will be facing some hard times. I hope they understand he was deceived, though, and eventually let him go.

It’s not the range. With this technology, it’s just the combination of fuel and exhaust that makes it unlikely to reach peaceful applications sooner.

A user of this technology must be willing to tolerate (and cause) considerable inconvenience just to increase the range of their electric aircraft.

Fuel distribution would be an annoying but surmountable problem. Not the easiest, but doable. Sodium needs to be stored either in mineral oil or inert gas. Otherwise it will spontaneously oxidize quite fast. Airports would need sodium warehouses with specialized equipment (either oil baths to submerge it or some kind of lockers with an unbreathable atmosphere). Trucks with the same kind of equipment would be needed to deliver the stuff. Maybe a bottle system could be devised, whereupon sodium is solid in a bottle and the bottle is heated above 100 C to pour it out.

Fuel production efficiency would be a problem. I don’t know the efficiency of sodium production, but intuitively this is likely to be around 80% (plus road transport). Charging a battery from the grid is more efficient, so the user of this technology must either have cheap electrical energy (this might be true in future with lots of renewables) or be willing to ignore the cost of energy (military users will do that already now, just promise them a bit more flight range).

Finally, public debate about a caustic exhaust stream is likely to be non-trivial. I predict that people will be quite worried about the direct effects of NaO and NaOH air pollution - it’s one of those things which is clearly health negative, even if climate positive. Convincing people that it’s safe will require studies about how quickly NaO turns into NaOH, and how quickly the exhaust stream neutralizes and becomes safe. Unsurprisingly, military users are pretty unconcerned about being health negative - most of their tools are like that.

Thanks for the tip, both the popular and scientific article are interesting.

Short summary of the pros and cons:

• energy density: 3 x better than lithium ion

• power density: really poor (if they raise their power density by 10 times, it will suffice for cruising, takeoff will require supplementary high-current batteries)

• exhaust: sodium oxide (caustic), converted by moisture in air to sodium hydroxide (caustic), converted by CO2 into sodium bicarbonate (harmless) --> this is a tech for cruising up high, not for takeoff or flight above settlements (“don’t stick unprotected head into exhaust stream, risk of losing eyes”)

• climate impact: positive, removes CO2 from air

• operating temperature: reasonable (about 100 C)

• mass production of sodium: doable, but somewhat messy

• fire safety: sodium burns just as bright as lithium, nothing cheerful here

My personal conclusion: currently, this is a potential military technology (“electric cruise missiles / strike drones with 500 km range”), likely won’t reach passenger or cargo aviation soon due to lack of sodium handling infrastructure.

Некоторые мысли:

• скорее всего, по-русски здесь говорят немногие (но, конечно, есть автоматический перевод). Я говорю, но это не мой родной язык. Чтобы побудить людей к дискуссии, я бы порекомендовал английский.

• создание бренда, который передает какую-то информацию о продуктах (напр. “произведенный компанией, которая следует этическим и экологическим нормам”), на мой взгляд, решение проблемы не с того конца - бренды так не появляются

• типичный бренд (например, Raspberry Pi) начинается с одного продукта (часто экспериментального) и расширяется. Добавляют новые продукты. Если они лучше, бренд получает репутацию.

• в ходе жизни типичной компании в какой-то момент возникает соблазн обменять репутацию (форму социального капитала) на деньги, сделав что-то дешево и не выполнив обещаний

• однако, иногда существующие компании создают регуляторные альянсы, чтобы донести до потребителей мысль: “мы не те ребята, мы сохранили некоторые этические принципы”

Но, повторюсь, мне это кажется очень абстрактным и “высоко в облаках”.

— translation —

Some thoughts:

• most likely, few people can speak Russian here (but of course, automatic translation exists). I can, but it’s not my native language. To get people to discuss, I would recommend English.

• creating a brand that conveys useful information about products (e.g. “made by a company that follows ethical and ecological guidelines”) is, in my opinion, solving the problem from the wrong end… brands don’t appear like this

• a typical brand (e.g. “Raspberry Pi”) starts from a single product (often experimental) and expands. New products are added. If they are better, the brand gets a reputation

• a classic problem awaits then: in the course of a typical company’s life, at some point, there comes a temptation to exchange a good reputation (a form of social capital) into money, by doing something cheaply and not fulfilling promises

• sometimes, however, existing companies do establish regulatory alliances to communicate to consumers “we are not those guys, we have retained some ethics”

But I repeat, this seems very abstract and “high in the clouds” to me.

The animal on the picture is definitely not sus. ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sus_(genus)

The concept is new to me, so I’m a bit challenged to give an opinion. I will try however.

In some systems, software can be isolated from the real world in a nice sandbox with no unexpected inputs. If a clear way of expressing what one really wants is available, and more convenient than a programming language, I believe a well-trained and self-critical AI (capable of estimating its probability of success at a task) will be highly qualified to write that kind of software, and tell when things are doubtful.

The coder may not understand the code, though, which is something I find politically unacceptable. I don’t want a society where people don’t understand how their systems work.

It could even contain a logic bomb and nobody would know. Even the AI which wrote it may tomorrow fail to understand it, after the software has become sufficiently unique through customization. So, there’s a risk that the software lacks even a single qualified maintainer.

Meanwhile some software is mission critical - if it fails, something irreversible happens in the real world. This kind of software usually must be understood by several people. New people must be capable of coming to understand it through review. They must be able to predict its limitations, give specifications for each subsystem and build testing routines to detect introduction of errors.

Mission critical software typically has a close relationship with hardware. It typically has sensors coming from the real world and effectors changing the real world. Testing it resembles doing electronical and physical experiments. The system may have undescribed properties that an AI cannot be informed about. It may be impossible to code successfully without actually doing those experiments, finding out the limitations and quirks of hardware, and thus it may be impossible for an AI to build from a prompt.

I’m currently building a drone system and I’m up to my neck in undocumented hardware interactions, but even a heating controller will encounter some. I don’t think people will experience success in the near future with letting an AI build such systems for them. In principle it can. In principle, you can let an AI teach a robot dog to walk, and it will take only a few hours. But this will likely require giving it control of said robot dog, letting it run experiments and learn from outcomes. Which may take a week, while writing the code might have also taken a week. In the end, one code base will be maintainable, the other likely not.