by nuggety goodness » Tue Dec 24, 2013 4:43 pm
by Ian » Tue Dec 24, 2013 5:05 pm
by Pseudo » Tue Dec 24, 2013 7:43 pm
nuggety goodness wrote:getting the trampoline for the little nuggets christmas present put up in less than an hour and a half by myself.
by Squids » Tue Dec 24, 2013 10:39 pm
by Footy Chick » Tue Dec 24, 2013 11:00 pm
Gatt_Weasel wrote:if they (Walkerville) dont win the flag ill run around the block of my street naked :) you can grab a chair and enjoy the view
by Spargo » Tue Dec 24, 2013 11:11 pm
by Footy Chick » Tue Dec 24, 2013 11:37 pm
Gatt_Weasel wrote:if they (Walkerville) dont win the flag ill run around the block of my street naked :) you can grab a chair and enjoy the view
by Psyber » Wed Dec 25, 2013 9:00 am
by The Dark Knight » Wed Dec 25, 2013 10:09 pm
by Jim05 » Wed Dec 25, 2013 10:23 pm
by Squids » Wed Dec 25, 2013 11:11 pm
Jim05 wrote:Pakis and Sri Lanka playing cricket on Christmas Day, need my daily sport fix
by Psyber » Thu Dec 26, 2013 3:05 pm
The consortium says the technology–rooted in research and prototype reactors that date to the 1960s–has matured to the point of achieving the twin goals that have eluded the nuclear industry in the post-Three Mile Island and Chernobyl era: affordability and inherent safety. First, a pebble bed reactor is relatively simple to build and inexpensive to operate; the consortium says construction and operating costs are expected to be “competitive” with those of coal and natural-gas plants. Second, and perhaps more crucial, they say, it is immune to today’s worst-case scenario: a loss of coolant in the reactor core that would lead to a melting of uranium fuel and a catastrophic release of radiation. That’s because the fuel is encased in billiard-ball-sized graphite “pebbles” that can’t get hot enough to melt. What’s more, this encasement may make the spent pebbles more rugged in long-term storage.
The fuel design isn’t the only thing that makes this reactor fundamentally different from the more than 430 commercial nuclear power reactors worldwide, nearly a quarter of which are in the United States.The pebble bed reactor is cooled with helium gas instead of water, operates at higher, more efficient temperatures and–thanks to the inherent safety claimed by its builders–dispenses with the containment dome and regional evacuation plan now required of U.S. nuclear facilities. Individual pebble-bed plants would also have a smaller footprint than today’s plants and produce a mere 100 megawatts or so of electrical power–a tenth as much as today’s typical nuclear behemoth. This modest scale limits the early financial losses many large plants incur by initially glutting the market with electricity, and gives utilities the option of building just what’s needed at first and then adding units later if demand warrants it.
A thin sheet of dyed plastic could cut the cost of solar power, particularly for applications that require solar cells to be highly efficient and flexible.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are using the plastic to gather sunlight and concentrate it onto a solar cell made of gallium arsenide in an experimental set up. Doing so doubled the power output of the cells.
So far, the researchers have shown that the approach works with a single solar cell, but they plan to make larger sheets of plastic dotted with arrays of many tiny solar cells. The approach could either let a smaller solar panel produce more electricity, or make a panel cheaper by reducing the amount of photovoltaic material needed.
New catalysts turn carbon dioxide into fuels faster and more efficiently.
By Kevin Bullis on December 4, 2013
Reusing carbon dioxide emitted by power plants could reduce fossil-fuel consumption.
Making carbon dioxide by burning hydrocarbons is easy. A pair of novel catalysts recently made by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago could make it far more practical to do the reverse, converting carbon dioxide and water into fuel.
Because running this reaction normally requires large amounts of energy, it has been economical only in rare cases (see “Company Makes CO2 into Liquid Fuel, with Help from a Volcano”). But if the process could be done commercially, liquid fuels could be made from the exhaust gases of fossil-fuel power plants.
The new work, described this week in the journal Nature Communications, improves on a pair of catalysts discovered last year that more efficiently turn carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide, which can then be made into gasoline and other products. Those catalysts produce carbon monoxide slowly, however, and one is made of silver, so it’s expensive. But the Illinois researchers have demonstrated that it’s possible to replace the silver with relatively inexpensive carbon fibers while maintaining about the same efficiency. And the technique produces carbon monoxide about 10 times faster.
by HH3 » Thu Dec 26, 2013 5:21 pm
nuggety goodness wrote:getting the trampoline for the little nuggets christmas present put up in less than an hour and a half by myself. I had designated much more time after hearing a couple of mates stories of how long it took them... well done NG (pats himself on the back)
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by Squids » Thu Dec 26, 2013 5:52 pm
by nuggety goodness » Thu Dec 26, 2013 6:09 pm
Squids wrote:Cold food
I think next year i'll cook christmas lunch the day before so we can have it all cold.
by Jase » Thu Dec 26, 2013 10:29 pm
by SABRE » Thu Dec 26, 2013 10:55 pm
Psyber wrote:I really like this picture of one of the contributing factors to global warming - solar activity cycles:Sunfire.jpg
There are more here:
http://www.space.com/21114-solar-flares ... -2013.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunea ... flare.html
by mighty_tiger_79 » Fri Dec 27, 2013 2:01 pm
Jase wrote:South African cameraman at the 2nd test... Faaaarking heck there are some top notch ladies at the cricket over there.... and the cameramen are finding them all....
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by Jim05 » Fri Dec 27, 2013 9:16 pm
mighty_tiger_79 wrote:Jase wrote:South African cameraman at the 2nd test... Faaaarking heck there are some top notch ladies at the cricket over there.... and the cameramen are finding them all....
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im sure young Jim05 would have an issue with that....
by Jase » Fri Dec 27, 2013 9:46 pm
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