Author Archives: Jaqueline2060

How do you save clean energy? This company plans to pump it underground.

by Jaqueline2060 Posted on June 30, 2020

New York. California. Hawaii. Colorado. Maine. All of these states and a few others want to get their electric grids running mostly if not entirely on renewable energy in the next few decades. As they ramp up wind and solar farm projects, they’re also going to need ways to store surplus energy to use when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.

Start-ups focused on energy storage are scrambling for the cash and opportunities to demonstrate that their system will hold more than a few hours worth of charge. Last week, Quidnet, a Houston, Texas-based company, announced that it lined up a contract with the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority to construct a pilot project for its “Geomechanical Pumped Storage” technology.

Quidnet’s system is a new take on pumped-hydro storage, an existing technology that takes excess energy from the grid during periods of low electricity demand and uses it to pump water up a hill from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir. Later, when energy is needed, the water is released back down to spin a turbine and generate electricity. Pumped-hydro accounts for 95 percent of the existing energy storage used by utilities in the U.S., but most of these systems were built in the 1970s and 1980s. That’s because it’s expensive and politically difficult to set aside enough land in the mountains to build new pumped-hydropower reservoirs.

Joe Zhou, the CEO of Quidnet, said the company’s technology depends on the same supply chains and expertise used by existing pumped-hydro systems, but gets around those stickier land-use problems by pushing the water underground. To “charge” the battery, the system draws excess energy from the grid to suck water from a holding pond into an underground well, where it’s stored under pressure in the rock. When the energy is needed, the water is released and rushes back to the surface, spinning a turbine similar to those deployed in traditional pumped-hydro systems. The pilot project in New York aims to store 10 hours worth of energy.

Zhou said that Quidnet, which is backed by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, could deploy these systems in roughly 60 percent of U.S. power markets today, based on the type and structure of rock required for the wells. The conditions are especially ripe in New York. “There’s a tremendous, tremendous energy storage resource in New York. I think it can really help the state advance its clean energy goals,” Zhou told Grist.

Quidnet is one of several companies piloting new energy storage systems across the country. In Vermont, Highview Power plans to build the first liquid air storage project in the U.S that would store more than eight hours of energy, using power from the grid to liquify air and store it in tanks. One of the most anticipated projects is Form Energy’s “aqueous air battery system” in Minnesota, aimed at storing and delivering 150 hours of power to the grid, though how it works remains a bit of a mystery.

Today, with pilot projects that store just 8-10 hours, each of these storage solutions are in hot competition with cheap, efficient lithium-ion batteries, which average around 4 hours of storage. “The closer you play to lithium-ion’s durations, the more lithium-ion can compete,” said Dan Finn-Foley, head of energy storage at the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. “The reason that all these alternative technologies think that they can catch lithium-ion is due to how the different technologies scale.”

If you have a grid that depends on wind energy and the wind slows down for weeks at a time, you might need hundreds of hours of storage. Increasing the storage capacity of a lithium-ion system is costly; to double it, you need to install another battery, hence doubling the price. Quidnet’s technology, on the other hand, might be able to scale up more cost-efficiently by increasing the size of a surface pond or the volume of a well. That’s how technology like Quidnet’s could ultimately differentiate itself, Finn-Foley explained.

“The fact that they have a pilot program is encouraging,” Finn-Foley said. “You need to be able to show your price point and show your duration and show your efficiencies and demonstrate it. So that’s the next big step, you know, it puts them into the conversation.”

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How do you save clean energy? This company plans to pump it underground.

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Anonymous’ "Op Ferguson" Says It Will ID the Officer Who Killed Michael Brown

by Jaqueline2060 Posted on August 13, 2014

Mother Jones

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Update (4:12 p.m. ET): Anonymous has obtained and posted St. Louis police dispatch tapes from the day of the shooting.

The police chief of Ferguson, Missouri, says he is withholding the name of the officer who shot Michael Brown, an unarmed African American teenager, out of concern for the safety of the officer and his family. But that might be easier said than done. Just a few hours later, the hacktivist group Anonymous announced on Twitter that it was now “making a final confirmation on the name of Mike Brown’s murderer,” adding: “It will be released the moment we receive it.”

I traded emails last night with one of the half-dozen core Anonymous members working on Operation Ferguson, as the group’s effort to pressure and shame the local police department is known. They were still working to verify the identity of the shooter. “I can only tell you that our source is very close personally to the officer who killed Mike Brown, and that this person is terrified to be our source,” said the anon, whom I will call Fawkes. He added that the source “reached out to us, we did not seek out this person.”

The claim to have outed the Ferguson shooter comes only two days after Anonymous announced the launch of Operation Ferguson in this video:

The computer-generated voice, graphics, and hacking threats are trademark Anonymous, but one aspect is unusual: a demand for federal legislation “that will set strict national standards for police misconduct and misbehavior.” Though Anonymous has a strong anarchist strain that disdains politics, Fawkes told me that the idea wasn’t controversial within the group. “We have done a few of these ‘justice ops’ and it seems there needs to be a larger solution to the problem on a nationwide level,” he told me. “There was no debate—everyone on the team embraced the idea.”

Ferguson is 60 percent black. Virtually all its cops are white. Read more stats ››

It has been a busy few days for Operation Ferguson. The hackers shut down the city’s website for a few hours on Sunday night and Tuesday morning, posted the home address and number of St. Louis County police chief Jon Belmar, and dropped an email bomb that crammed city and police inboxes with junk messages. The goal was “to get journalists like you to do interviews with us, and incidentally maybe talk about the issue at hand in the process,” Fawkes told me. “Looks like it worked.”

In previous “justice ops,” Anonymous hackers have targeted the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system to protest the Charles Hill and Oscar Grant shootings and the transit system’s attempt to dampen protests by shutting down cellphone signals. Other Anonymous ops have uncovered criminal evidence or the names of suspects. “It’s actually back to the classics,” said McGill University cultural anthropologist Gabriella Coleman, author of the forthcoming book Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous, whom I met last night in a chatroom where hackers were plotting their next moves. She added that “a lot of old-school folks came back for this,” though they’ve been careful to avoid the attention of law enforcement and other anons by using fresh pseudonyms.

But the veterans’ participation hasn’t stopped Op Ferguson from seeming unhinged at times. On Tuesday afternoon, one Anonymous Twitter account threatened to release information about the police chief’s daughter unless he disclosed the name of the officer who’d killed Brown. (The threat was later withdrawn.) And the op’s Twitter account repeated a bogus internet rumor attributing a screenshot of a racist Facebook tirade to Belmar’s wife—the tweet has since been deleted.

“We are not exactly known for being ‘responsible,’ nor for worrying overly much about the safety of cops,” Fawkes told me. “After all, they have vests and assault weapons. I think they can look after themselves. This is psychological and information warfare, not a love fest.”

Half outlaw, half idealist, Anonymous has always operated at the margins of legitimacy, its tactics ranging from gumshoe detective work to illegal hacking and shameless PR stunts. It’s hard to know whether its current claim to have ID’d Brown’s killer will be borne out. “I don’t think they have it,” Coleman told me. But, she added: “I would not be surprised if they do soon.”

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Anonymous’ "Op Ferguson" Says It Will ID the Officer Who Killed Michael Brown

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Liam Neeson is "Pissed Off" at Bill de Blasio Over Horses

by Jaqueline2060 Posted on February 27, 2014

Mother Jones

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On Wednesday night’s episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Liam Neeson (star of the Taken movies, Schindler’s List, and Battleship) revealed why he was a little “pissed off” at New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. The 61-year-old actor and New York resident wasn’t mad at the new mayor for his socialist past or his leadership during winter storms. Neeson was upset over horses.

“He wants to close this horse and carriage industry in New York,” Neeson said, referring to the mayor’s goal to replace “inhumane” carriage horses with “vintage tourist-friendly vehicles in parks.” Neeson also accused animal rights groups for spreading “false information” about the treatment of the horses in the city. (Neeson, whose close friend is a New York horse and carriage owner, previously wrote an intensely punctuated open letter to de Blasio on how he was “appalled to learn of de Blasio’s intent to obliterate one of the most deep rooted icons of our city!”)

Horse-drawn carriages have attracted controversy due to accusations of excessive harm to the animals. Carriage drivers of course vowed to fight a ban. Here is a clip of Stewart and Neeson’s mini-debate, via TMZ:

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This isn’t the only cause Neeson is passionate about. The actor—recently famous for playing a good-natured CIA torturer who massacres ethnic stereotypes who kidnap his daughter—has a long history of working with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), including his work as a Goodwill Ambassador and his participation in a campaign to combat violence against children. And he once stripped almost completely naked to raise money for breast cancer research.

But of all his causes, this one might be getting him the most press. For years, Neeson has been vocal on the issue of New York’s horse-drawn carriages, to the point that the Daily Caller asked in January, “Will Liam Neeson stand in the way of Bill de Blasio’s horse carriage ban?” PETA has slammed Neeson over this. “Liam Neeson…has PETA wondering if one of his horses might have kicked him in the head,” the organization wrote. In 2009, he issued a letter to city officials to rage against the “coordinated attempt by animal activists and a certain Queens council member to ban the industry from the city.” Here’s part of the letter, which you can read while keeping Neeson’s voice in mind:

As a horse lover and rider, I am deeply disturbed by the unnecessary and misguided political and extreme rhetoric against the horse-drawn carriage industry and feel obliged to counter this action.

The horse-drawn carriage business is an iconic part of this city, employing hundreds of dedicated, hard-working men and women, caring for well-bred, well-trained horses and attracting tourists to New York City for over 100 years.

As a proud New York resident, I have personally enjoyed the beauty of Central Park on a daily basis for many years, and these horses are an undeniable integral part of that experience. The notion that a well-nourished horse pulling a carriage through Central Park is considered cruelty may fit in with animal activists’ extremist view, but not with the rest of us. Surely we have a responsibility to protect commerce, especially one with such history, and one I truly feel helps define this city. May pragmatism prevail.

In 2009, Neeson made another appearance on The Daily Show—and discussed horses and carriages:

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Neeson was also the star of the 2012 film The Grey, which was criticized by animal rights activists for smearing wolves as brutal and ravenous human-killers.

Mayor de Blasio’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, perhaps out of fear of Liam Neeson.

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Liam Neeson is "Pissed Off" at Bill de Blasio Over Horses

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