UPower (YC S14) Is Building Nuclear Batteries - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/18/yc-backed-upower-is-building-nuclear-batteries/

<comment><USER2> I am one of the UPower founders. The key takeaways here are that the main hindrances to novel nuclear are (1) meeting regulatory and safety necessities without huge testing costs, which also require a customer interested in purchasing, and (2) competing with the grid, (3) huge scientific/technical risks if not yet proven.

UPower meets these by (1) being small enough to build a very tough, full scale emulator for testing, never before done in nuclear. (2) not competing on the grid, which gives immediate, in need customers which is also necessary for regulatory process to complete in (1). (3) using technologies and materials with decades of experience, in a new way, eliminating the huge uncertainties of many startups you see in the news.

<comment><USER2> A couple side notes on TC article specifically for those interested:

1) NO reprocessing as somewhat indicated in article ("processing"). We use the _low enriched_ used fuel from the reactor to make new fuel for the next deployment. We don't isolate dangerous parts as done in reprocessing which is the main concern with reprocessing.

2) True waste elimination- it's not just "less of a pain", which is definitely good: the reactor actually eliminates waste instead of just using it for fuel as some thermal types do (eg some startups seen in the media). Without fast neutrons, a reactor cannot burn the longest-lived parts of waste.

3) History on reactor regulatory process: Never before has a reactor been fully built and operated before licensing as somewhat indicated in final paragraph. That would cost $Bs. So, in all history of nuclear, they have built scaled models and spent hundreds of millions in scaled testing and modeling to prove that the scaled tests are accurate to what the full reactor will be like.

The UPower test reactor can be built to full scale for on the order of single digit $millions, which can be said with confidence because even a national lab built a similar reactor and produced electricity with tons of red tape for $100s k.

The heat transfer process has no moving parts and can be shown at full scale and tested to failure on the order of just $thousands, unlike the big boys with outrageously complicated flow loops, pumps, valves, secondary pumps, etc etc etc.

This means the UPower reactor has a chance at being the first commercial reactor able to use the streamlined "license by test" process.

<comment><USER3> Hi. First of all, best of luck with your startup. I'm all for better nuclear technology.

However, I'm related to a nuclear engineer (who is currently in a senior position at IAEA, thus the anonymous account), and I understood that both steps you're currently undertaking were commonly know to be viable and efficient, BUT contravened most non-proliferation agreements (note: I'm not a nuclear engineer or physicist. Just interested).

So, you're "disrupting" an industry in dire need of disruption (due to the massive amounts of red tape), but you're also walking a tightrope.

I believe what you're doing is safe and needed, but if public opinion or perception turns against you (any article hinting at terrorist use, for example, or concerns over breaking the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), it might end your company.

You probably have taken all of this into account, and I hope you have a strategy in place on how to deal with this :) .

Once again, I wish you best of luck and I hope to use your generators in the future !! :)

EDIT: I haven't talked with my relative yet, all what I wrote above is my (probably misinformed) opinion.

Second edit: It seems several others have already raised most of my concerns, and better than I have. I've also

See: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8195589](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8195589) (regulatory concerns)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8195642](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8195642) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8196075(the](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8196075\(the) tech being commonly known)

and, most important, the "dirty bomb" factor

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8195495](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8195495)

<comment><USER2> Thanks so much for the luck wishes! We will try to make the most of this luck. ;)

I'm glad you brought up the dirty bomb factor again.

The perpetuation of the myth of the dangers of the dirty bomb is truly sad. We all intuitively realize that the dangers of chemical warfare, biological dispersion (especially because it is transmissible long after the incident), and the dangers of bombs themselves are so much greater than some amount of radiation that decays rapidly and, by the nature of a bomb, is highly dispersed.

As an example of the worst possible radiological contamination (which would not practically be achieved by a dirty bomb to scale), read about the story of the "Atomic Man". In an instant, he received _500 times_ the "lethal _lifetime_ dose." He died at 75 of unrelated causes. The atopsy showed zero cancer. The chemicals were terrible. the explosion was terrible. Ultimately the radiation itself was not as bad as expected.

In another example, studies showed mice fed _plutonium dust_ had their lives expanded by 120%. See here for an overview of these types of studies and natural effects of hormesis. [http://www.radpro.com/641luckey.pdf](http://www.radpro.com/641luckey.pdf)

It's my belief this disproportionate fear is really a tragedy, a play on the fears of uneducated people (again, fed by media since anything nuclear is like sex or plane crashes) that may ultimately cheat them from peace of mind and clean, reliable energy sooner. What if people refused transportation:vehicles, trucks, and planes because gasoline is highly combustible and kills so many per year? Our economy exploded with oil at the turn of the last century.

But that's a side point, sorry for digression.

Could this be blown up? 1) it's underground 2) it's surrounded by concrete that has been tested to be safe to drop from hundreds of feet in the air 3) it's a solid metal block. It doesn't have dispersion capabilities like other forms.

Unrelated fact since we aren't reprocessing: It's a common misconception that reprocessing is not legal in the US. It is. Also for instance, France does it and has been doing it for a while.

<comment><USER3> Thank you :)

It is not me who you have to convince! :) It's the general public (and fighting decades of propaganda).

Maybe a YouTube viral video or something, I don't know :)

I wouldn't go showing the plutonium dust article. Reminds me too much of Alexander Litvinenko.

And your point about reprocessing in France actually reinforces my point: it required multiple inter-governmental agreements at the highest diplomatic levels, and complying with EURATOM, very especially (as it applies to you) the 2001 Joint Convention, OSPAR (?) and I'm sure plenty more of red tape (source: IAEA publications).

Being U.S. based is obviously a benefit to you, since they're the most likely to shrug international oversight (and you say you're not reprocessing anyways).

Plus, France is the most pro-nuclear country in Europe.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Convention_on_the_Safety_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Convention_on_the_Safety_of_Spent_Fuel_Management_and_on_the_Safety_of_Radioactive_Waste_Management)

[http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/1997/inf...](http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/1997/infcirc546.pdf)

I saw the diagrams on your website, it does look like a very unlikely target for being blown up, but the likelihood doesn't enter the equation when irrational fears are bandied around (they might say you're lying, etc..).

I just want you to be very aware of the stigma and irrationa l fears, and the regulatory hazards, because I very much want you to succeed.

I've talked to politicians (outside the U.S.), and they tell me that pushing a nuclear agenda, while economically sound, is political suicide. Some countries have a "stealth" approach (simply by not calling attention to media and quietly "expanding" current facilities), while others, like Germany, caved in to public pressure.

<comment><USER2> Absolutely. We talked to German energy heads that said they would invest but wouldn't tell anyone. :)

One thing we could use a favor from you. So, so so many people are saying "I support nuclear but I'm the only one"... you aren't! Believe me you're in the majority (70% in US support, although nuclear _especially_ needs people like you, in the top of that group in knowledge/education to speak out and help educate) and that even this is changing... and just come out of the closet already. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I studied energy at Stanford and joined the team that spun TerraPower (www.terrapower.com) out of Intellectual Ventures with Bill Gates' backing. I spent a lot of time looking at these nuclear batteries and economically it's very hard to see them working out as anything close to competitive to natural gas, coal, or wind. The amount of security, containment, etc. that you need for a large plant vs. a small plant doesn't vary much, so the costs per kWh don't scale down as you move down in total plant size, they scale up - and the idea as the techcrunch article suggests that you could sell just a "thermal" battery and let the utility or whoever add the actual steam-to-electric conversion on their own is laughable. Utilities don't do anything on their own.

I do hope these guys figured out something novel about the economics -- and I certainly applaud YC for going into energy.

<comment><USER5> They're aiming at niches where they won't be competing directly with more conventional power plants. Their web site claims [1] that it's intended "for remote and distributed generation where energy costs can exceed 30 cents/kWh, and power is needed 24/7".

[1] [http://www.upowertech.com/p/technology.html](http://www.upowertech.com/p/technology.html)

<comment><USER6> Precisely right. Traditional utilities want something with a long operating track record, something hard for new designs to do off the bat. But going where the reactor is 5x cheaper than the next best option changes that. Plus many of these places want combined heat and power, so the design needs to be flexible on the thermal end.

<comment><USER4> there's definitely an opportunity in providing thermal at factories. lots of remote sites in India and China have their own purpose-built coal plants that could potentially use something like that...I have a harder time seeing the financing line up for serving remote villages that can't afford any power today. In those cases finance will always flow to smaller increment technologies, even if they're higher $/kWh, like solar + battery or diesel

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are size and efficiency the most pressing issues to solve in nuclear power? I don't know a thing about nuclear issues but from the layperson's perspective, it seems like security is the biggest problem that keeps nuclear power from being used everywhere. These containers are essentially dirty bombs without detonators and must be protected as such. This might work for the military, where you could secure one on a restricted section of a FOB, but how would this work for a small town in Alaska, as the article suggests? Securing the site is only half of the problem, too. You also have to secure the supply chain for the nuclear material, as well as the disposal. The cost of disposal is another challenge. Imagine the difficulties of transporting the spent fuel from the Alaskan village.

These guys have a big challenge ahead of them but it would be quite awesome if they can pull it off. Prime power generation and the supply chain issues that its fuel entails is a huge and extremely expensive problem for the military. If you could safely build this in a CONEX, that would be impressive.

<comment><USER8> > essentially dirty bombs without detonators and must be protected as such.

No, it's completely wrong. That's not how a nuclear plant works. And as you can see, a nuclear plant does not "explode" when it goes amok. The chain reaction is very tightly controlled and there are multiples redundancies in case things don't work as expected.

<comment><USER9> Except you just have to look at Fukushima to see that things can still go badly wrong, resulting in a meltdown of 3 reactors. And this happened in arguably one of the most tightly regulated and technologically advanced countries in the world.

<comment><USER8> I live in Japan and I don't consider that the outcome was as catastrophic as the media said it was (they are always ready to jump on the apocalyptic trigger). Everything went wrong (even the backup generators as they were blown away by the tsunami) and it was still reasonably contained and the levels of ambient contamination are nowhere as high as they initially predicted.

EDIT: > most tightly regulated and technologically advanced countries in the world.

Let's drop this kind of argument here, there are many things which are not technologically advanced at all in Japan. Like the fact you can't even use a credit card to pay in most places. This is really old.

<comment><USER10> Also if there's any lesson here, it's that government intransigence is the real threat here. They don't want to build new reactors, they don't want to shut down old ones, but they still need electricity too.

And of course consider the scale - something like 8,000 people died from that tsunami. Oil refineries burned for hours (how much heavy metal got dumped into the ocean and soil?)...how many people did Fukushima actually kill?

<comment><USER8> > how many people did Fukushima actually kill?

Hey, we already know the answer. No-one. Not even the guys who went and exposed themselves to high doses of radiation to keep the reactor under control. And people who may have been contaminated are being strictly followed for potential leukemia and other cancers. Following the events, I'd say the risks regarding the nuclear power were relatively well managed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> \- Nuclear-powered electricity source

\- Touted as a "battery"

\- Solid state

\- Can be cooled by heatpipes and ambient air

\- Can use multiple fuels

\- Cheap

\- Small

I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that they're commercializing a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (or multiple connected in a series), like the ones sitting abandoned all over the former Soviet Union (and occasionally spewing radiation when some fool disassembles them for scrap metal)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_gen...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator)

Note that it's also touted as "Always On", probably whether you like it or not, because you can't switch radioactive decay on and off.

<comment><USER12> It's a reactor, not an RTG. One reason I don't like the term "nuclear battery". The term is also annoying here because it's clearly an attempt at spin. The cultural situation with nuclear is beyond spin, and requires direct confrontation.

<comment><USER5> The term "nuclear battery" here refers to the operational model: the modules are shipped out from a factory, hooked up on-site, run with minimal intervention, and then shipped back after several years for refurbishing and refueling. This centralizes construction and maintenance, which is important when the reactors themselves are so small.

<comment><USER12> I know. I'm arguing against this use of terminology. Nuclear batteries are things, and nuclear reactors are things. Describing your (excellent) operational model should be straightforward and should not require calling a reactor a battery. What you are really doing is demurring from confronting misunderstandings about nuclear energy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really think it's awesome that all the latest YC backed start ups seem like they can make this world a better place, as opposed to being some electronic variant of "Bread and Circus" ([http://jolieodell.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/bread-and- circuse...](http://jolieodell.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/bread-and-circuses-the- state-of-web-app-startups/))

</comment><comment><USER6> Hey HN I'm Jake, one of the co-founders of UPower. Some good discussion here. I've posted a few responses below, happy to answer some questions here. Thanks!

<comment><USER14> Hey Jake, congrats on S14!

I see it's described as a battery -- does this mean you're focusing on keeping everything as small as possible? How small do you think the whole operation can get? Could it fit in a semi truck and be driven around?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Details are scarce on the website and in the articles I've found, but this seems similar to the 4S project Toshiba has been working on for over a decade [1,2]. Between the full-size plants they've built in Japan, and their acquisition of Westinghouse, Toshiba owns a respectable chunk of the nuclear engineering talent and experience on the planet. It doesn't seem to have gone much further [3] than the last time I read about it.

What is UPower going to do differently?

Nuclear engineering strikes me as one of those areas where exuberant inexperience and simulation prowess are not selling points. Youngsters work ok for software because (1) business inexperience can be offset by deep technical experience, and then rapid product iterations - both made possible by low entry barriers; and (2) screwing up (most) software has negligible negative externalities. Neither of those apply to nuclear engineering.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_4S](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_4S) [2] [http://www.toshiba.com/tane/products_4s.jsp](http://www.toshiba.com/tane/products_4s.jsp) [3] [http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/advanced/4s.html](http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/advanced/4s.html)

<comment><USER2> The 4S is an order of magnitude larger, uses complicated flow, and has significant materials issues left to prove out.

You're absolutely right- this is completely different than high school dropouts coding.

How can a startup disrupt a large, established, stodgy industry?

For example, I studied automotive engineering before MIT nuclear grad school and worked in marketing for almost every auto manufacturer: how did Tesla do what the Big guys didn't?

It always starts with a simple, proven product and a niche market in need/willing to pay a premium.

That being said our team does have wide ranging experience. Our CEO worked at GE on their revolutionary reactor they more or less shelved years ago and are now restarting. He served on the board of directors of the American Nuclear Society and has a PhD from MIT. He has seen and worked in the industry from operations of a real reactor to fuel sales to weapons design at national labs to naval reactor design to big industry since high school.

The other good news is that the old dudes approve. We will probably soon publish our advisory board including retired regulatory high ups, industry folk who have successfully licensed, and retired high ranking army energy people. We are leveraging the decades of experience of fuel makers and materials experts... It's fun to see the gleam in their eye when they get excited to really build something.

Ultimately the question of why hasn't this been done before and wasnt possible before has several clear answers, but no answers for those convinced only large, established, old companies can be in these big spaces ripe for disruption. Maybe they are right, maybe not us, maybe not now. It's not easy but it seems inevitable at some point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> First off: I'm very pleased to see that YC are backing startup concepts _other_ than an endless stream of privacy-invading "social" surveilices, games, and new forms of intrusive and annoying advertising. I'd posted something of a rant on that subject about 7 months ago which didn't go over hugely at the time:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7063690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7063690)

Secondly: this is actually what I'd consider a "Big Problems" start-up, a field which has been notoriously hard to crack. Kleiner Perkins' failure in cleantech over the past 7 year or so has been humbling.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6906635](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6906635)

But that said: nuclear's got quite a few issues with it, most particularly the abundance of fuel, and long-term safety.

Outside a 6-80 year window in which existing reserves would last (the low-end estimate is "run everything on nuclear", the high is "continue with modest growth at present levels of energy output"), where and/or whether there's enough uranium, plutonium, or thorium to provide energy over the long term is a very real concern.

Even beyond that is the safety profile in a world in which a large fraction of human energy production is derived from nuclear power. If _present_ electrical generation needs were to be met, the number of reactors required would grow from the present TK to over 15,000. With a lifetime of 40 years, plus ten years for construction, and 20 for decommissioning, you're looking at _bringing a new reactor online, and an old reactor offline, every day._ At any given time there would be 3,750 rectors under construction and another 7,500 being decommissioned. Given the US NRC's estimates of 125 paramilitary security personnel per nuclear plant, you'd nave an army, literally, of 1,875,000 security personnel (all highly vetted) worldwide. Not to mention your supply of nuclear engineers and other highly skilled staffing requirements.

See Derek Abbott's "Is Nuclear Power Globally Scalable": [http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?reload=true&arnum...](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?reload=true&arnumber=06021978)

SG Collins, "Nuke Skeptic" [http://fixyt.com/watch?v=IHYpYB2vUjM](http://fixyt.com/watch?v=IHYpYB2vUjM)

The video makes a few points, but the primary one is this: Nuclear proponents are, in their beliefs, not essentially more scientific than nuke skeptics. That they're also influenced by ideals and desires, and even persuasion. Discussions of benefits and risks are usually scoped locally: here and now. The civilization that we have right now. That's short-sighted.

I'm not fully opposed to nuclear power. But I'm _exceptionally_ skeptical that it will serve us well in the long run.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2awjj2/thoughts...](http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2awjj2/thoughts_on_nuclear_energy/)

<comment><USER2> I love that you bring up the global scale. It's in the global scale things sound daunting. But it's in the global scale that what is really important becomes clear.

Maybe the most important fact it all boils down to is energy density. Nuclear is literally _millions of times more energy dense_ than any other energy source. Practically, that means millions of times less waste. (See let's talk about physics baby [http://www.thingsworsethannuclearpower.com/2013/02/energyden...](http://www.thingsworsethannuclearpower.com/2013/02/energydensityphysicsbaby.html) )

Envision a world powered entirely by coal. Not pretty. Entirely by solar? Appealing PR, but besides being not at all possible it has it's own immense ewaste issues and those _never_ decay away and that waste certainly cannot produce energy. Entirely by hydro? That means destruction of perhaps the largest swaths of ecosystems in the world. Etc. Take any qualms about a globe powered by nuclear and then multiply it almost by millions of times for the other sources.

Land use is another huge factor. See this graphic for comparison. [http://newenergyandfuel.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/06/LandU...](http://newenergyandfuel.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/06/LandUseforEnergy-ClintonAndrews.jpg)

As far as security forces, etc, it wouldn't likely scale like that but let's assume it does. Are numbers like a million well paying jobs spread worldwide actually daunting? How many military folk end their service time in the US alone each year? I was an intern in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Economics and Manpower so I should remember but I looked it up. There are hundreds of thousands of former service members looking for jobs each year. ( [http://www.civilianjobs.com/careeradvice/related.aspx](http://www.civilianjobs.com/careeradvice/related.aspx)) Thats leaving out more than 6 billion in other people.

<comment><USER17> Something to take note of.

Different types of energy production are useful for different roles.

Nuclear tends to fall into the category of base load - it costs (close enough to) just as much to run it at 5% capacity as at 100%.

Most traditional fossil-fuel steam turbines (coal, oil) have spin-up times on the order of several hours to a day. As such, they tend to be used to compensate for longer-timescale variations, but cannot really cope with very short term spikes.

There are fossil-fuel power stations with shorter lag times, but they tend to be relatively inefficient, and as such only get used for unexpected high loads.

Hydro is really good in a lot of ways, at least where hydro power stations can be built. The biggest reason is that it can be adjusted on really short timescales. Read: minutes or less. Longer lag time for larger power stations - the biggest limitation tends to be preventing cavitation and water hammer.

Solar and wind are both extremely variable, and unpredictably so (you can predict, but there is enough inaccuracy in the predictions that you cannot trust them). As such, they are practically useless without at least one of power storage, fast-responding power generation, or fast-acting power usage cuts when necessary. (Read: hydro or paying aluminum smelters to only run in the back shifts. (First thing that came to mind))

As there is no efficient and decently long-lasting power storage at grid scales (Vanadium-redox batteries are good, but have issues. Molten-salt storage leaks heat quickly. Etc.), effectively: you can forget about solar and wind for grid-scale power without hydro.

Nuclear power for everything is a waste unless society changes. And good luck with that.

<comment><USER16> Quite.

Hydro, hydro pumped storage, tidal impounds (essentially low-head but large- area reservoirs), and geothermal (wet field) are all highly dispatchable.

Solar thermal is expensive but among its benefits it has is a built-in storage capability. For most present plants that's only a few hours, but several days worth of banked heat might be viable.

There are a number of storage options, of which the prospect of synfuels, in particular seawater-based Fischer-Tropsch fuel synthesis, which as been studied by Brookhaven National Labs, MIT, and the US Naval Research Lab for over 50 years, looks fairly promising. It starts with hydrogen electrolysis, to which CO2 is added, sourced from seawater. Outputs are analogs of present day diesel, gasoline, natural gas, or other hydrocarbons. Most of the energy cost is in the electrolysis. Net energy return in terms of fuel is about 50-60%, round-trip net of generation would be fairly low (~20%), but the energy storage is _very_ long-term stable, and dense by weight or volume (for liquids). We've got a lot of experience burning hydrocarbons, and these are carbon-neutral (the source CO2 comes from the present biosphere).

[http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28nqoz/electric...](http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28nqoz/electrical_fuel_synthesis_from_seawater_older/)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/22k71x/us_navy_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/22k71x/us_navy_electricitytofuel_synthesis_papers_and/)

There's also work by some (including a recent video by Amory Lovins) suggesting that there are relatively modest requirements for dispatchable generation, though I suspect those are a tad optimistic.

[http://www.engineering.com/ElectronicsDesign/ElectronicsDesi...](http://www.engineering.com/ElectronicsDesign/ElectronicsDesignArticles/ArticleID/8272/Is- Storage-Necessary-for-Renewable-Energy.aspx?ENGCOM=)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsgrahFln0s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsgrahFln0s)

<comment><USER17> Dispatchable. That's the term. Thanks.

The thing is, by the time you talk about the design lifetime power output of wind in particular, and couple in the 20% figure you quote for the round trip, one has to wonder if it is worth it.

It's a lot of metal (and in particular the "weirder" metals - rare-earths and the like) to smelt and move around to get a relatively small amount of power. And the increased power losses due to having to put them where the wind is. And the power cost of building the storage capability.

Synfuels are indeed interesting, for bunches of reasons, chief among them that they are the most power-dense storage solution we've got. Personally, it's about the best option for personal vehicles. Yeah, electric vehicles are neat, but they suffer from short ranges and long recharge times, as well as using bunches of relatively rare elements (and elements that are mined using techniques that are abysmal in environmental terms).

<comment><USER16> There are a few people who've done calculations of the EROEI (energy returned on energy input) of various renewable energy technologies, most notably the guy who came up with the term, Charles A.S. Hall. I've had a few discussions with him on this.

Wind power has a modestly high EROEI, around 18. For solar PV, his numbers are _far_ lower -- around 2.6. The problem comes in when you account for whether there's a minimum EROEI necessary to sustain an advanced civilization, and just what that might be. Hall's view is that it's around 6-10, after which you pretty much fall off a cliff -- you've got to get a sufficient return on your energy investment to make _other_ economic activity possible.

For the synfuel path I discussed, the point is that there are a few things for which having hydrocarbons (liquid or gas) is really, really useful, and as I've noted elsewhere in this discussion, there's simply not enough net biological productivity ("photosynthetic ceiling" to use Jared Diamond's term, or HANNP, human appropriation of net primary productivity, another formulation) to provide fuels in the quantities humans are presently accustomed to -- some of the acreage requirement estimates get stunningly large and rapidly:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2cvap7/the_intr...](http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2cvap7/the_intractable_problem_of_biomass_for_fuels_is/)

In particular (the table on that page is a bit prettier than it will appear here on HN):

        Crop        Yield (gal/acre-yr)     Acres required (millions)
        soybeans    50      5,670
        canola      100     2,835
        canola      300     945
        algae       1000    283
        algae (high est)    10,000  28

Note that total arable land in the US is about 410 million acres, and total _land_ area of the US is 2.4 billion acres. You'd have to overplant the US _twice_ to get enough fuel-from-crops via soybeans.

Note that "rare earths" aren't actually all that rare, though there are plenty of minerals which are limited in abundance:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/267901/global_r...](http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/267901/global_resources_stock_check_bbc_june_2012/)

As for synfuels: since you're converting _surplus_ generating capacity, your marginal energy cost is nil. Even assuming you're building capacity specific to the need, what you're trading is a non-storable, non-mobile, non- dispatchable form of energy for one which has all of those properties. That can be a good trade.

The fact that it's a drop-in replacement for the existing energy system is an added bonus.

Will it work? I really don't know, though the answer to that question's been occupying me for some time.

<comment><USER17> Thanks for the detailed response!

If you're talking about an EROEI on wind of 18, and a 20% storage efficiency, that brings down the EROEI to 3.6. Probably more, as not all energy will pass through the storage. Still well below replacement. Or is that already factored into the EROEI? Does that include the unmetered power usage of windmills? If so: how? Does that factor in increased power-line losses, and the cost of building and maintaining those power lines? What are the details of the windmills measured? Is that real-world data, or simulations? If real-world, where?

I agree that current foodstuffs are _not_ suitable for biodiesel. And raises food prices. But two things. One, I was talking about synthetic production. And two, that's assuming current plants. Personally, we shouldn't be looking at land-based solutions anyways. We already have space issues, at least at that scale. Look at sea-based ideas instead. Algae farming on megascales, that sort of thing. Much more efficient, much more land available, and can be situated closer to the equator.

I knew I shouldn't have just said "rare-earths and the like". I am aware that rare earths are a misnomer in general. Although... Neodymium isn't rare, but the bulk of the world's production thereof is in China. Has that energy cost been factored in? Much less the other costs? (Amount of radioactive release, etc.)

> As for synfuels: since you're converting _surplus_ generating capacity, your > marginal energy cost is nil.

Wrong. Your marginal energy cost is the cost of building and maintaining the plant and supporting infrastructure. And even just that may be less than unity overall. It may be useful, but I'd want to see the numbers.

As for the trade you mention ("Even assuming you're building capacity specific to the need, what you're trading is a non-storable, non-mobile, non- dispatchable form of energy for one which has all of those properties"), I agree partly, but the question remains: what energy input should we use? Is it worth it to build wind generators or solar power stations? Should we stick to nuclear? Or what?

Fundamentally, we currently have a couple of different energy _sources_. Geothermal, direct solar, indirect solar (wind, hydro), tidal, "biological solar", nuclear energy, and potentially fusion. Everything else is just energy storage. (Well, to be pedantic, so is fission and fusion, but by the time we're worrying about those running out we'll have worse issues.)

Current biological solar solutions are not exactly efficient. Your figures show direct solar isn't either. Wind is iffy for various reasons - maybe not insurmountable, but still. Geothermal is great, but only in limited areas. Same with hydro and tidal. Nuclear is great, but the political climate is rather iffy to put it mildly.

<comment><USER16> Taking a look at the full-cycle EROEI is something I'd like to do, but haven't. It's _not_ necessary for any given element of a power cycle to be EROEI-positive. In fact _any_ given energy transform will represent a net energy _loss_. But _for the total effective cycle_ you've got to get more than you give. Note that at present agriculture in the US represents a 10:1 energy _cost_ \-- you get 1 unit of energy for every _ten_ units of fossil-fuel energy you input. In Europe it's about a 1:5 ratio. Again, _negative_ EROEI. The saving grace is that fossil fuel energy has such a high EROEI.

On marginal cost of energy: if the alternative is to discard the generating potential entirely, then the marginal cost _is_ zero. If you're building excess capacity specifically to provide fuel synthesis capabilities, you _do_ have real costs. The US Naval Research Lab's estimate is $3-6/gallon for aviation fuel, though I'm not sure if they assume a gratis reactor. I've specced out $9/gallon with solar input. Not cheap, but a long-term stable price, vs. constantly rising fossil fuel costs.

As for input energy: my assumption is generally for solar + wind -- they're simply the largest available long-term sustainable energy sources we've got (I've got my doubts on how long nuclear fuel will last, and terrestrial fusion's still unproven). The initial scheme for large-scale F-T synthesis was based on a presumption of nuclear energy input. M. King Hubbert proposed this in 1964, and the idea was picked up by Meyer Steinberg of BNL pretty much immediately. The initial proposal was that CO2 come from, e.g., limestone, but seawater was identified as a reservoir pretty early on. Steinberg's a nuclear engineer, and most of his work assumes nuclear power supplying electricity.

Incidentally: in a nuclear economy, you'd _still_ need liquid fuels, though most proposals focus on hydrogen alone. Given difficulties with its chemistry, I doubt this will prove effective.

Compared with alternatives, I really see solar as the backbone of any future energy system. The only questions are how large the supported population will be, and how advanced its technology. Solar energy is what humans relied on _before_ finding fossil fuels. And there's no assurance that we'll retain our present tech levels.

Nuclear's problems are not merely political, though that's a significant hurdle of its own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Three advantages of building very small reactors:

1) Because heat output scales with the cube of the size and passive thermal dissipation scales with the square, small units can be more easily designed to stay within thermal bounds when active cooling fails.

2) One of the biggest cost for nuclear construction is interest costs during the construction process, reducing that time makes a big difference.

3) When you build 20 small units you get 20 chances to make small enhancements and 20 chances to get better and faster at building them. When you build one large unit (which is almost definitely more cost effective on paper) you get one chance to do it and it takes so long that even if you build more than one of the same design, you'll never have the same team building multiple units.

</comment><comment><USER12> I almost pitched a similar reactor in the last YC round, since they asked for energy. I assumed they'd never fund fission because of the crazy regulatory risk, and anyway I wanted to wait until I got a simulation working.

I'm glad uPower pitched and succeeded. With the possible exception of Radix/Dunedin, they're the only folks working on appropriate-size reactors today.

However, I doubt they'll get 28% thermal efficiency with heat pipes, and I doubt they'll get a 12-year core with pragmatic enrichments.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's really nice to see non web based startups.

<comment><USER16> Agreed. I'd written something of a rant on that about seven months back which wasn't particularly well-received at the time:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7063690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7063690)

I do hope to see more Big Problem startups. Even if I'm not much of a fan of nuclear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> There is a company called Gen4 Energy (formerly Hyperion Power Generation) that has been pursuing the "nuclear battery" concept for 7 or so years: [http://www.gen4energy.com](http://www.gen4energy.com) Regulatory approval has been elusive, and that's for a team of 30+ year nuclear industry veterans. The challenges in this industry are brutal, I hope UPower has deep enough pockets and extreme patience to shake up the industry.

<comment><USER12> They started with a good-sized design, but have scaled it up a couple times since then. They're no longer in mass-production territory.

<comment><USER20> So Gen4 Energy started with a similar sized "nuclear battery" concept. After burning through many millions of dollars of investment and years of hard work from a highly skilled team, they decide that prospects are better for larger scale reactors. That ought to give these guys food for thought. I hope these guys know something the Gen4 team doesn't, but the basic trajectory UPower on has been followed before without paying dividends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> As soon as I saw "nuclear", I was put off. Not because I have anything against nuclear power (in fact I am fully convinced of its potential), but because of the way people perceive the word nuclear. Whenever "nuclear" is mentioned, people get negatively predisposed.

Case in point - Magnetic Resonance Imaging was initially called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging. The word nuclear was causing anxiety amongst the patients. The healthcare practitioners dropped nuclear and patients did not mind undergoing the MRI scan.

I think a massive rebranding exercise needs to be undertaken while pitching nuclear technologies. It could be atomic technology, it could be some other words that "click" with people as opposed to scaring them off. Unless the psychological battle is won, I am of the opinion that no amount of tech progress would convince people. Perception greatly matters with humans more than the merits of the product/service/technology/initiative.

edit - Not sure why this was downvoted. I was against the use of word "nuclear". Not anything else.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is super exciting. Highly-reliable, off-grid power is amazing. Today, datacenters have to buy massive diesel generators, and ensure they have diesel supplies in case of grid power failure. This infrastructure is surprisingly difficult to maintain.

It sounds like UPower's devices are always-on, and although they're not directly competitive with grid power, it sounds significantly simpler to power your datacenter off of N+1 of these devices, and then potentially pump power back into the grid during high-demand, and use the grid during outages of the UPower system, and to bridge periods of maintenance.

There are many datacenters that are in not very populated towns. These sound like great places to put generators.

Datacenters are everywhere, even in countries with less regulation than the US. I don't know what the export laws are around these "nuclear batteries" (small scale reactors), but I for one am very excited!

</comment><comment><USER23> From the website: "waste products that have to be buried for hundreds of years"

Wow, that is... inaccurate. Let's have a look.

(EDIT: to clarify, format is substance (% present in used fuel): half life

U238 (~94% of used nuclear fuel): ~4.5 billion years

Pu (~1% of used nuclear fuel): 24 000 years

Sources:

[http://www.techniklexikon.net/d/abgebrannte_brennelemente/ab...](http://www.techniklexikon.net/d/abgebrannte_brennelemente/abgebrannte_brennelemente.htm)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium)

[http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Isotope/7._Periode#92...](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Isotope/7._Periode#92_Uran)

<comment><USER24> Just because it is a long-lived radioactive isotope does not mean it is dangerous. I'm referring to U238. It decays by alpha radiation, so unless you are literally eating it or inhaling it, those alpha particles will not penetrate your skin. Additionally, U238's long half life is why it remains as the most plentiful naturally occurring (on Earth) radioactive isotope. I'm tired of people trying to fear-monger radiation by throwing big numbers around. It would be instead be helpful discussing how to get roughly 4 alpha particles to decay per day inside them someone needs to eat roughly 1,000,000,000,000g of pure U238 that day.

<comment><USER23> U238 decays to (among others) Polonium which will kill your very fast from inside you body.

I think your estimate is off by a few orders of magnitude.

Edit: "pure U238" is another point where you go wrong. There is no such thing in nuclear waste, nor will there ever be when it decays. So if i grant you that pure U238 on it's own is not that dangerous, that does absolutely not make nuclear waste less dangerous. The U238 decays to other radioactive substances, then those decay and so on. The long half life of the U238 guarantees that you have a very toxic mix for tens of thousands of years.

<comment><USER24> That's what I get trying to balance rough numbers in my head. I was using roughly the number of atoms, not grams. Here's the math laid bare:

        Frac Remain In 1 Day = 0.5 ^ ((1/365)/4,500,000,000 years)
        Frac Remain In 1 Day = 0.999999999999578

        Frac Decay In 1 Day = 1 - Frac Remain In 1 Day
        Frac Decay In 1 Day = 4.22 * 10^-13

        Have 4 Decays In 1 Day = Total U238 * Frac Decay In 1 Day
        4 = Total U238 * 4.22 * 10^-13
        4 / (4.22 * 10^-13) = Total U238
        Total U238 = 9.48 * 10 ^ 12 atoms

I stand corrected, thanks for catching that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So in 5 years it will be possible to buy a nuclear box that can power 2,000 homes?

I bet there will be "startup cities" made from scratch using these containers that will power a small community and help people live off the grid. Sounds like something I'd be down to try out

<comment><USER26> Think our next frontier -- Martian colonies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Quote from [http://www.upowertech.com/p/technology.html](http://www.upowertech.com/p/technology.html): "carbon-free and emission-free"

You're telling me that you get enriched fuel, plant production, transport and waste management (plant and fuel) emission free?!? How do people fall for things like this? "I doesn't produce emissions if you only count the parts that don't produce emissions". Brilliant.

And don't even get me started about the super secret "nano-nuclear" tech they claim to have or the cooling using "proprietary technology".

<comment><USER2> nuclear fuel is 2 million times more energy dense than any other fuel (even more energy dense than that for solar or wind), and this reactor is 30 times more efficient than conventional reactors.

that means roughly 2 million times less transportation, less land use and less waste. (Land use comparisons: [http://newenergyandfuel.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/06/LandU...](http://newenergyandfuel.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/06/LandUseforEnergy-ClintonAndrews.jpg))

How can we factor in the amount of CO2 removal lost by removal of millions of trees for wind farms? ([http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10546071/Millions-o...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10546071/Millions- of-trees-chopped-down-to-make-way-for-Scottish-wind-farms.html)) Or millions less train use in transport of coal?

It's a good point though. We should count not just that the reactor itself saves 200,000 tons of CO2 during operation, but also the frequently 10x that of fuel burnt to transport that diesel in conventional generators. So each reactor deployment may save 2 million tons of CO2.

Nuclear facilities are also much longer lived than many. Eg solar panel life degrades significantly after a decade. Wind turbines generally have a life of 15 years of so. So that's less concrete, construction, etc.

You're right it's tough or impossible to quanitfy. Intuitively, it all comes back to the energy density number. 2 million times more energy dense, no emissions or pollution in operation, and the "waste" is actually useful fuel which produces energy.

<comment><USER23> Chopping down trees to make room for wind farms is certainly dumb. If you take a closer look that is yet another story about the dangers of subsidies.

"nuclear fuel is 2 million times more energy dense than any other fuel"

Citation needed. Also i don't think energy densitiy is what we are looking for here. Remember the thorium car? A drop of water (in principle) also contains all the energy needed to power a car for years. Now if you could just get the H-atoms to fuse... The point is, it matters how much energy you can (efficiently, at all, ...) get out of it.

"How can we factor in" \- Calculate it.

"We should count not just (...) CO2 during operation, but also (...)"

Yes, PLEASE make a complete calculation based on solid numbers taking every aspect of the whole lifecycle of a power plant into account INCLUDING fuel production, fuel transportation and waste management. The publish it please.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> _Are size and efficiency the most pressing issues to solve in nuclear power?_

You'd think the greatest problem facing a potential buyer is getting planning permission and insurance. Who wants a nuclear reactor down the road, even if it's a scaled-up TRIGA design? From what thin details are there in the Techcrunch writeup ("spent fuel from it can be reused in another reactor with some processing") it could almost be a pulse reactor, the design is well- understood.

Another worry is getting rid of the used fuel rods. With all the 70-odd TRIGAs operating around the world, the United States will take them back, but who can tell with a startup?

</comment><comment><USER28> >with some processing

Weasel words. Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel introduces a MASSIVE regulatory boondoggle.

<comment><USER2> Great, great call to point out.

The author very unfortunately did not understand that there is NO "reprocessing" necessary for our reactors to _reuse_ fuel. Why, oh why, don't we get to preview what they write. Wording is so important in such a massively misunderstood space.

It is a proven process utilized previously in fuel manufacture, and simply adds a little new fuel to existing used fuel. It does not involving isolating any portions of the fuel as done in reprocessing (which is the main "proliferation hazard" of reprocessing).

-COO UPower

<comment><USER12> Can you be a little more descriptive here? I suspect you really are reprocessing, and shouldn't be afraid to say so.

<comment><USER2> In the fuel manufacture for redeployment, it's more or less as simple as melting down and recasting. The distinction is reprocessing is generally way more complicated, frequently involves chemicals, and could separate out plutonium which gets people worried.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wonder why nuclear radiation can only be harnessed indirectly through heat. Couldn't things like the photoelectric effect be used for something similar to photovoltaic cells?

</comment><comment><USER16> Is there more detail on just how the energy is being generated here? All I see is "battery" and intimations that there are no working fluids.

</comment><comment><USER30> Hmm. 2MW/reactor means you'd need 500 of the things knocking about the country to equal one regular power station. Not that great for keeping things secure.

<comment><USER6> Right, the goal is to start very small, and off grid. Then we scale and grow to grid size.

<comment><USER31> And there's nothing that would preclude you guys from simulating geothermal with them.

1\. Dig down 50-100 feet

2\. Make a foundation and catch pan

3\. Put in an elevated platform to hold containers

4\. Lower 5-50 containers onto elevated platforms

5\. Install first order heat exchangers downstairs

6\. Put "roof" on

7\. Cover with 30 (or more) feet of dirt or whatever you prefer

Perhaps install a bridge crane and a shaft to the surface so that you can swap power units out without digging down again. Just make incredibly massive covers (like 10ft thick concrete) without cranes on-site at the surface so that terrorists wouldn't be able to hijack stuff once they made it through the front gate.

It might look something like this: [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/10/google_data_center_v...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/10/google_data_center_video/)

The idea of simulating geothermal is that you'll have a bunch of power generation equipment on the surface that runs on heat. It just happens that it's not a "natural" geothermal well but a man-made one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The idea of a start-up that does not try to re-invent Twitter/Facebook/Flappy Bird is amazing ... I would love to be involved in such an endeavor.</comment>


Mont Blanc: Glacier in danger of collapse, experts warn - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49820542 <comment><USER2> It's depressing. I recently finished a hike from Chamonix to Zermatt, which passes near a ton of glaciers in the Pennine Alps. They are _all_ dying. Moraines exposed everywhere. What is supposed to be a glorious celebration of the beauty of the Alps turns instead into sombre contemplation of whether the next generation will ever know such beauty.

Mer de Glace, near Chamonix, is a particularly tragicomic example because the authorities need to add more and more steps _each year_ in order to take the tourists down to the glacier. It's receding that fast.

<comment><USER3> At risk of prodding at a hornets' nest here, I'd like to raise a controversial question:

Mostly everyone here agrees (including myself), that human contribution to global warming is going to have severe consequences and the rapid impact on glaciers is an early and visible symptom of this problem.

However, I think most people also agree that the planet would be warming even without human involvement (albeit at a considerably slower pace). I don't know whether the glaciers would melt also during the natural warming of the planet, but I assume so given that there were periods in the geological history when it was much warmer in general and were no glaciers at these latitudes.

Yes it is sad that in one or two generations the glaciers will be gone, but glaciers will come back when the next ice age comes around. On the other hand, there are living organisms which could likely survive the natural and more gradual warming, but will be driven to extinction by specifically the human contribution. These species are not coming back, ever. Certainly not naturally.

So perhaps rather than ruminating about whether the next generation can look at large amounts of ice, we should concentrate on saving the parts of the ecosystem which once lost, cannot be recovered.

<comment><USER4> Glaciers are the charismatic megafauna of climate. They're easy to see and feel attachment to.

Anybody paying attention to the science already grasps what is wrong and has at least some ideas about what to do. But an awful lot of people don't pay attention to the science -- not least because an enormous number of people deliberately obfuscate it -- and so you need other methods of persuasion.

It's easier to get people to pay attention to large, attractive animals than to concern themselves with small, ugly ones even if the latter are more crucial to the food chain. We may not "need" the Alps glaciers, but they're easier to understand than a 0.1 pH drop in the oceans, and they have the same root cause.

Among scientists it may feel dishonest to focus on truthful but not-critical aspects of climate change. Scientists were almost universally persuaded decades ago, yet action fails to come because scientists are only a tiny fraction of the population. Even a huge number of people calling for action against climate change don't really understand the science. Getting anything done, however, requires getting the attention of a majority of Americans, who produce massively-disproportionate carbon and are disproportionately likely to reject the evidence (or remain unpersuaded by it.)

So yeah, I'd rather "concentrate on saving the parts of the ecosystem" that need to be saved. I'd rather be doing a lot of things. Instead, people focus on what is possible rather than what is needed.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is not about "picking" glaciers to save, they are probably beyond salvation by now.

And _that_ is the point. If people can't be startled by the emblematic "victims" like glaciers and polar bears, can we even hope for urgency? :/

<comment><USER4> I personally am really pessimistic -- cynical, even -- and you kinda don't want to hear my answer. I admire people who are trying and feel it's worth trying to understand their tactics and strategy. Of necessity that means non- rational arguments to appeal to non-rational people, so that means there might be a rationale to be learned.

As I said, I doubt it. But it's just as well that somebody is trying, if that's how they wish to spend their time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your pessimism may be due to a common human bias that occurs in coordination problems of this kind. Some call it the "drop in the ocean" effect.

I hope this encourages you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The thing I always think of when seeing coverage of disappearing glaciers is all of the places that rely on them for clean water. [1]

1: [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/17/climate/melti...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/17/climate/melting- glaciers-globally.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> And energy. Hydro-power generation is big in mountainous areas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> On the bright side, maybe we'll find more Ötzi's!

<comment><USER7> That's actually a very good point.

Given that the glaciers are in retreat and permafrost that has been stable for at least thousands of years is melting, are there any coordinated efforts to seek out, document, and preserve the archaeological and paleontological discoveries that are no doubt being exposed to the air for the first time in modern history?

<comment><AUTHOR> The discoveries are not always so romantically ancient.

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war- one/10562017/M...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war- one/10562017/Melting-glaciers-in-northern-Italy-reveal-corpses-of- WW1-soldiers.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As of now, posted four hours ago and only one comment.

For a community that prides itself on disruption and global impact, HN sure is quiet on solutions.

<comment><USER9> Maybe because solutions that are actually required are not in the area of expertise of the HN crowd.

<comment><USER10> HN doesn't have answers because individually most of us have particularly massive carbon footprints that we're busy ignoring. Every computer, monitor, phone and peripheral carried a huge environmental cost to extract the resources and manufacture the goods. If you have a few laptops and desktops and some old phones and a wall of records your carbon footprint is a crater.

In the last 6 years a lot of Apple users weren't inspired by the newer laptops and just clung to their old hardware for an unprecedented amount of time. This is how we can help but it's just not what we want!

<comment><USER11> Compared to the environmental impact of transportation those environmental costs are absolutely negligible.

<comment><USER10> This data is from Apple last year. It simply is not negligible and they're one of the few trying to improve their processes.

[https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/13-...](https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/13-inch_MacBookPro_PER_June2019.pdf)

13-inch MacBook Pro = 210 kg carbon emissions, 77% during manufacturing and just 16% for transport

[https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/desktops/iMac...](https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/desktops/iMac_Pro_PER_June2019.pdf)

iMac Pro = 1468 kg carbon emissions, about 1/2 during manufacturing and just 4% for transport

<comment><USER7> I don't think that's what the parent was saying. I think they were referring to the cost of transportation for the consumer, not for the product itself.

The carbon emissions of burning a gallon of gasoline is about 11 kg - that's an estimate, from a random website, so I don't attest to its accuracy. It's just a starting point for the following:

I drive a 2000 Jeep Wrangler that gets 14 MPG. I drive about 20k miles per year, which works out to 1,430 gallons of gas or ~15,500 kg of carbon emissions.

Based on this estimate, my vehicle's fuel alone is equivalent to 75 10" MBPs per year.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wouldn't it be great to have the CO2 kg equivalent noted on the price tags of items/services?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Meet the 'Refrigerator Ladies' Who Programmed the ENIAC - <AUTHOR> http://mentalfloss.com/article/53160/meet-refrigerator-ladies-who-programmed-eniac?bypass=1

<comment><USER2> (somewhat) Interesting sidenote: "Women in refrigerators" has been a big meme in the world of comic books the last several years. Begat by writer Gail Simone (the name of her old and long-running blog) to comment on the excessive examples of brutal to the point of blatant misogyny that exists in mainstream comics. Females, whether romantic interests or heroines themselves, have the curious tendency to meet with extremely violent ends, with the case that prompted Simone being a superhero's girlfriend found murdered and packed away in a fridge.

Just thought the terminology, while in a different context, was notable for yet sharing a derogatory inclination.</comment>


Show HN: Map of Related Books for "Designing Data Intensive Apps" - <AUTHOR> https://anvaka.github.io/greview/ddia/1/ <comment><AUTHOR> I think the book is truly awesome. So I've made a visualization to see where it stands in Amazon's "also-bought" graph.

I used Amazon's product advertising api to fetch the graph.

Visualization was created with my own algorithm that tries to embed a graph into city-like grid. It routes paths between nodes, so that paths that were taken before are more preferable for new paths.

The thickness of a road gives rough estimate of how many paths went there.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions!

<comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing and making this! I see other books I've read elsewhere on the map (and have this book) so this is very cool to see. How hard was the API to work with? It could be awesome to see "for <my amazon product> show me this graph".

<comment><AUTHOR> The documentation for Product Advertising API is great: [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/We...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/Welcome.html) \- wasn't to hard to get started.

Long time ago I've mad a service to show the graph - [https://www.yasiv.com/#/Search?q=designing%20data%20intensiv...](https://www.yasiv.com/#/Search?q=designing%20data%20intensive%20applications&category=Books&lang=US) \- but the layout is very different there.</comment></comment></comment>


Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea's War Plan - <AUTHOR> http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/04/25/thunder_run_to_seoul_assessing_north_koreas_war_plan_111241.html <comment> charles-salvia The assessment predicts: "Tens or hundreds of thousands could become casualties" ... in the event of an all-out DRPK/(US+ROK) conflict.

One factor to consider here is what happens if _no conflict_ occurs? In that case, there are ... _still_ likely tens of thousands of civilian deaths happening as the status quo in North Korean labor camps[1]. Allowing the regime to continue to exist also has a major cost in human lives. I'm not saying war is clearly a superior option - I'm saying this whole situation is mostly losses.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisons_in_North_Korea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisons_in_North_Korea)

<comment><USER2> "Allowing the regime to continue to exist" is a backwards way of looking at things that serves to legitimate invasions. The US is a superpower, but that doesn't mean that other nation-states exist because we deign to suffer their existence—that's a very colonialist way of looking at the world. Invading the north (or provoking it with special operations) would be a positive action for which the US would be responsible. North Korea is a bad state, and bad for its people, but the unspeakable carnage that would result from major ground warfare on the Korean peninsula is something else entirely.

<comment><USER3> >The US is a superpower, but that doesn't mean that other nation-states exist because we deign to suffer their existence—that's a very colonialist way of looking at the world.

This is a question of international consensus, not US will. Under the definition of sovereignty agreed upon by the international community, DPRK has forfeited its' right to sovereignty by repeated human rights abuses, WMD development, and aggression toward it's neighbors. Essentially, if a state fails to uphold it's responsibility to its' citizens, sovereignty is forfeited. Admittedly this is a hard thing to judge, but a line must be drawn somewhere.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingent_sovereignty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingent_sovereignty)

<comment><USER4> It is Trump making the decision now, not the international community. I'll also remind you, that the only country in the entire world that has extensively used WMDs is the US. The US has used Nukes (WWII), and is also responsible for the most extensive use of chemical weapons of any county (Vietnam). NK has never used a WMD.

<comment><USER5> Lots of countries had widespread Chemical weapons usage.

Iraq used chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_program)

Israel used white phosphorous till 2013: [http://www.bbc.com/news/world- middle-east-22310544](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22310544)

the Soviet Union was accused of using chemical weapons in afghanistan: [http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/afghan/report.pdf](http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/afghan/report.pdf)

The UN stated that Cuban units used VX as well as Sarin: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare#Angola](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare#Angola)

even the vietnamese used chemical weapons: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_border_raids_in_Tha...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_border_raids_in_Thailand#1985)

None of these examples include the use of chemical weapons in WWII or WWI. During these wars most major european countries used chemical weapons of some kind.

these instances don't excuse their usage, But I don't believe much is gained by pretending the rest of the world is blameless.

<comment><USER4> My point was, that OP was saying that countries that have and use WMDs are not legitimate. I agree. I don't think most governments are legit. But it seems NK is rather mild when it comes to WMDs. The US has far far more of them than NK and actually uses them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's an interesting read if you're into the nuts and bolts of modern warfare. The key assumption is that the DPRK actually has any ambition of attacking the ROK though. They'll scream and carry on until they get their sanctions lifted and, in their minds, come out of the whole thing a nuclear power.

Now those running tomorrow's senate briefing on the other hand...

Edit: it's also worth noting that they're playing a somewhat "smart" long game here. They won't likely do much until they're confident that they can _convince the world_ they have ICBM capabilities. At that point, they no longer have to just menace the ROK or Japan but can realistically extort anyone they want.

<comment><USER7> I don't think DPRK really wants to nuke anyone. They just look at countries in the last 30 years and look at their options:

Libya: Gave up their WMDs, Libya government gone.

Ukraine: Gave up their nukes, Russia invaded (I admit this is a bit contrived)

Iraq: Didn't have nukes, Iraqi government gone.

Pakistan: Has nukes, is incredibly unstable, still there!

<comment><USER6> That's pretty much my point. Short range nukes = a few countries forced to cooperate. Long range nukes = all countries forced to cooperate.

Edit: interesting comparison with the noted countries BTW.

<comment><USER7> There is a Twitter account from a right leaning Westerner(as in he occasionally favors a military solution to NK politics, writes policy papers for a think tank) in Seoul who speaks and reads Korean, reads all of the North Korean press releases, he claims that the NK government is the sanest government around. They want to stay in power. Everything they do, in their mind, furthers this goal. They don't want to be regime-changed! I'll see if I can find his URL again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _local breakthroughs on the major routes towards Seoul—their first operational objective._

Playing devil's advocate: How do we know Seoul is the operational objective? It seems obvious (capital city located near the border) but what if DPRK went for something not so obvious? i.e. "Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected" (classic Sun/Mao approach)

Also, what if Pyongyang tries to draw in a sympathetic third party that would also give the US/ROK pause? China is the obvious choice, but there is also Russia ...

 _An interesting feature of this war is that since both sides look and speak more or less alike, covert insertion and operation is easier for each side—but especially so for North Korean agents who may move freely within South Korea's open society._

In the 1990s I remember reading an account of North Korean special forces landing by submarine and trying to infiltrate ... and immediately being tripped up by unfamiliarity with modern technology. One of the captured agents had no idea every farmhouse had a phone, and was therefore surprised that the alarm was raised as soon as they were spotted.

There is still a huge technology divide, not to mention social giveaways relating to accents and other behavior. Sure, they can be trained, but it won't make them impervious to detection.

<comment><USER3> >Playing devil's advocate: How do we know Seoul is the operational objective? It seems obvious (capital city located near the border) but what if DPRK went for something not so obvious?

Such as what? Taking control of Seoul under the element of surprise is the only conceivable endgame for a DPRK invasion. Anything else would end in a protracted fight where US air superiority would absolutely demolish them.

>In the 1990s I remember reading an account of North Korean special forces landing by submarine and trying to infiltrate ... and immediately being tripped up by unfamiliarity with modern technology. One of the captured agents had no idea every farmhouse had a phone, and was therefore surprised that the alarm was raised as soon as they were spotted.

This sounds like propaganda. North Koreans are not stupid.

<comment><USER8> It was this incident:

[http://www.newsweek.com/reds-rocks-178000](http://www.newsweek.com/reds- rocks-178000)

Other accounts did mention the agent was surprised that farmers would have a telephone.

He also did not or could not hide his North Korean accent, as the article states.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This reporter, who grew up in Korea but doesn't read Korean, and was given honorary citizenship by a city in South Korea, writes that ordinary South Korean citizens think the military threat of North Korea is really a North Korea versus United States thing, and not really a conflict between North Korea and South Korea.

South Koreans are more focused on what sort of government will be in power after elections on May 9th, after the craziness of the most recent government.

[https://www.thenation.com/article/in-south-korea-war- hysteri...](https://www.thenation.com/article/in-south-korea-war-hysteria-is- seen-as-an-american-problem/)

</comment><comment><USER9> The key thing here is the geography. Seoul is only 20 miles from the border with North Korea. It's within artillery range, and North Korea has the necessary artillery. If there's a war, Seoul gets clobbered in the first minutes.

Few countries have their capital that close to a hostile border. Syria does. Look where Damascus is.

<comment><USER10> I think the key thing is history. The UK developed the nuclear bomb with no help from the USA. As a consequence the UK was not part of the Marshall Plan and as well as enduring a 'rebuild from nothing' there was also the phenomenal cost of Windscale and all of the rest of the infrastructure, a cost borne without the industrial base the USA had - ruins vs. vast and intact. The Manhattan Project was a similar cost to the moon landings. Sadly the UK invested in their own version of the former rather than the latter. But nobody else had the bomb apart from the USA and the USSR so having the bomb was the UK's ticket to being a world power rather than entirely under the sphere of influence of one superpower or the other, directly or by proxy.

The Kim family stepped in for Japanese Emperor as far as being divine father figure for the nation, at one level the 'world power' rationale is the same as what the UK had to play post WW2. Much like it has been in other parts of the world the enemy is the USA and it is quite clear that the goal of the North Korean programme is to be able to get some missile with some nuclear weapon at least as far as a big city in the continental USA.

I am no defender of the crazy kid, however, there is some serious stuff behind the attitude of North Korea. They do not want their culture to be Americanized, they do not want advertising and they do not want to be yet another consumer society. A whole smorgasbord of Western beliefs are just not wanted by them. There is also the matter of unification. Their idea is to have a federation, one country with two states, governed by their respective leaders and with the one seat for the federation at the UN. That is what they want and without any outside interference. So those nuclear weapons are pointing outside of the Korean peninsula and that would be the situation of a Korea united on the North's terms - 'without outside interference'. A unified Korea with weapons of the nuclear flavour would keep all the neighbours at bay on the MAD basis so a unified, federated Korea (which sounds reasonable to some in the South) is just not going to happen.

Seoul is not going to get annihilated by the North. Ignore the Kims for a moment and look at what the Koreans could achieve. A united Korea would be second on the stage after the USA in terms of GDP+population+trade+influence and if you add the nukes then they are totally deserving of taking the UK seat or anyone else's except the Americans in the security council. That might sound far fetched, but I believe that this is an obvious prize in Korea and destroying Seoul goes against that.

<comment><USER11> The UK received quite a lot of Marshall Plan money. Nearly $3.2b of it, in fact.

<comment><USER12> Yes, but blew most of it trying - and failing - to prop up the pound as the world's reserve currency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A reasonable, if somewhat short, overview of the topic, although a bit generous when discussing the air power situation over Korea. Smashing older Russian SAM sites is almost an American pastime at this point, and I have serious doubts the KPAF would put up anything beyond token resistance in the air. The author also skims over the massive leaps in lethality on the modern battlefield. It's difficult to stress this enough, but T-54's and T-62's do not have a long life span under these conditions.

So the DPRK would need to achieve total surprise, fight ~20 miles to Seoul against an opponent who is equipped with mostly modern weapons, and who has planned for this very attack. They also need to do this with no air support, little to no armored support, and limited night fighting capabilities.

<comment><USER14> Indeed, all of those tanks will be pretty useless against an array of modern anti tank, see javelins [https://youtu.be/wrhybKEzb-0](https://youtu.be/wrhybKEzb-0)

The primary concern is the use of artillery and multi barrel rocket launchers devastating any ROK ground forces. Russia demonstrated their long distance lethality in Ukraine.

I'm also curious at the quality of DPRKs SAMs. The new S400 ones definitely pose a problem even for modern American planes. I've heard even the 90s model S300 could still be a serious concern.

I remember hearing the War Nerd talk about a couple of war hawks who wrote a series of articles about intervention in Syria totally glossing over the real threat they pose. And these guys apparently had a lot of influence in Washington among the establishment neocons and Clinton types. These SAMs are apparently very underrated. We just assume America has the best tech but real world combat is quite different.

<comment><USER15> Serbian S-125s were pretty effective against F117s during the war in Yugoslavia. They targeted the planes using long range radar.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_F-117A_shootdown](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_F-117A_shootdown)

<comment><USER13> We may have different definitions for the word "effective".

I'm not disparaging what Colonel Dani was able to accomplish using outdated equipment, but it's important to note how little the Yugoslavian air defense was able to achieve as a whole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is a pretty reasoned article. One thing I have never understood: why can't China and the US join forces and militarily overrun DPRK? I know they fought each other in the Korean war, but the world has changed so drastically since then. From what I've read so far, DPRK is a source of dangerous instability for everyone involved. Wouldn't having a more stable regime on the Korean peninsula serve the interests of all neighboring countries?

<comment><USER17> DPRK is a buffer state for China.

The United States lost its mind when communism established a foothold in Cuba. Russia did likewise when Ukraine began aligning towards NATO.

China would prefer to have a stable regime in DPRK - but it would also prefer to not have US military bases on the other side of the Yalu river. The last time that happened, the two countries went to war.

Also, arguably, the DPRK regime is extremely 'stable'. The same royal family has ruled it for what, seven decades, now?

<comment><USER18> Should some of the stunts they have pulled during that time be considered when defining "stable?"

<comment><USER17> Well, unlike some other nuclear powers, they managed to restrain themselves from invading a few sovereign nations in the past few decades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This leaves out some issues such as likely targeting of Japan by DPRK, but otherwise a clear-headed analysis of the dark and sobering reality there.

</comment><comment><USER19> North Korea, like the Sow jet Union, has fought a war that the US can not imagine. They fought a war in which they lost 10% of the population. If the US would lose 32 Million in a war maybe the US would lose the taste for war too.

Not going to judge their outdated equipment. But they will fight. This a not Arabic troops from tribal societies who will run as soon as they are given the chance. In fact, North Korea CAN NOT lose this war. They have not lost the last one, they won't lose the next. North Korea is too important for both, China and Russia as a buffer country. Both countries have moved a lot of troops recently near North Korea. If there is a conflict we may seem a regime change (supported but Russia and China). What we are not gong to see is a US occupied united Korea.

One risk with Trumps pressure is they it works two ways. North Korea could reasonably assume that they will loose most equipment if the US attacks. So why not attack first? Use it or lose it. The safest place for a rocket or artillery shell is still in the air....

<comment><USER20> North Korea DID lose the war in 1950, in a way. After Incheon Landing, the North Korean army never really recovered. The majority of fighting power for north side was from Chinese army.

The reason UN Forces got pushed back and couldn't advance was because of the human wave attacks from Chinese army.

<comment><USER19> Well, so it did definitely NOT lose. The same reason why it won't lose the next war. A Chinese/Russian brokered Regime change is still a possibility. But Kim is not an idiot. He had his brother killed just to eliminate one of the options for a regime change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> "The final element in the DPRK plan is an extensive deep battle across the entire South Korean depth using some one hundred thousand special operations forces (SOF). An interesting feature of this war is that since both sides look and speak more or less alike, covert insertion and operation is easier for each side—but especially so for North Korean agents who may move freely within South Korea's open society. ... As with artillery strikes, fighting by SOF on objectives in Seoul will be aimed at heightening panic and demoralizing political leadership, and will be exploited by DPRK information warfare agencies to give the impression that the front has already reached the ROK capital."

This is an interesting point: every major terrorist attack of the Twitter age sees wild rumors flying. An actual DPRK invasion combined with cyberwarfare could yield a campaign of information warfare like nothing we've seen before.

<comment><USER21> I'm not sure that's still true based on the stories of malnutrition in NK, even for their own military. Considering the cultural differences, a few pop quiz questions might be enough as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I found this article to be an interesting read on what a war with NK might look like [http://defconwarningsystem.com/2017/03/25/what-a-korean- war-...](http://defconwarningsystem.com/2017/03/25/what-a-korean-war-could- look-like/) Essentially NK would use every weapon they can and China would be the only winner.

<comment><USER11> This and the OP both discount the small, but very real possibility of conflict escalation with China, completely unintended by both sides. If China enters militarily(big if, given recent statements) on the side of DPRK and the conflict has escalated to using nukes, it will be very hard for it to not spiral out of control into a full-on regional, if not worldwide, war.

<comment><USER23> It's important to note as well that Chinese intervention isn't a binary, fully-on or fully-off kind of thing; it's possible to imagine various degrees of intervention.

One that seems likely to me in this kind of scenario, for instance, would be for Chinese forces to move in to uphold the integrity of the pre-war border. Allied forces would be free to push the North Koreans out of South Korean territory; but if they tried to push beyond that towards Korean reunification or some kind of territorial gain at the North's expense, they'd have to fight Chinese troops to do it. This would let the Chinese get involved but still pose as a neutral arbitrator rather than a direct combatant or contributor to escalation, since their nominal goal would be resumption of the _status quo ante bellum._

<comment><USER11> I think this is probably how the Chinese intervention, if they choose to intervene, would start, to restore the current DPRK/ROK border after a ROK/US incursion into the North. It seems likely that if that happens, DPRK would escalate with nukes in order to force China's hand into full intervention on their behalf, as USA's current doctrine, to the best of unclass knowledge, is to respond in kind to nuclear aggression. Once that happens all bets are off, unfortunately. I don't see how it ends well for anyone once China decides to get involved, given the current doctrines and state of military technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The bottom-line seems to be there's a huge range of plausible outcomes, from a relatively contained, short war to multiple WMD strikes on cities (Seoul, Tokyo, NYC, etc..) with prolonged fighting for months (years?) to finally defeat all DPRK forces.

And this is why the situation persists. No sane person will risk the consequences of "the war is not going as well as we hoped it would"

</comment><comment><USER2> Clearly North Korea's strategy here is deterrence of an invasion rather than an invasion. Looks like deterrence is effective.

</comment><comment><USER25> A bit OT: does anyone have recommendations for textbooks or other resources that teach basic military strategy and tactics? Whenever any military discussion comes up that even touches technical aspects, I feel pretty lost. Similar to how with certain sports, I just can't see the movement patterns or how the plays develop.

<comment><USER2> I guess everybody's supposed to read Clausewitz and play wargames. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_War) [http://www.consimworld.com/](http://www.consimworld.com/)

<comment><USER11> A more accessible wargame simulator would be the recently released Hearts of Iron IV([http://store.steampowered.com/app/394360/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/394360/)), a very realistic WW2-era military grand strategy game. Playing a game or two and you will quickly realize how shallow basic analysis and games such as Civilization, in terms of warfighting, are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The article surprisingly leaves out Russia altogether. In essence, Russia is the "father" of DPRK and its hard to think that it would sit around quite when DPRK is losing.

Another big factor is that DPRK would have no qualms in attacking civilian population in Seoul using missiles and artillery and in fact that's what they would focus on in order to terrorize and put RPK+US on defensive. A single bomb can do much more damage in Seoul then in Pyongyang. Air supremacy is irrelevant more or less as the distances are small and war on ground would be much more deciding factor. They can probably use chemical weapon warheads as well. All these things RPK+US won't be at liberty to do to DPRK but even if they could the DPRK would care less about its civilian population perishing en-mass.

Finally, atomic threat is very real one for RPK. If everything is going in the ditch, they can try to transport one single warhead in to a city using even ground vehicles (if missiles aren't working yet). On the other hand, using nukes on DPRK by US would have almost no impact on its leaders mindset.

<comment><USER27> Well the USSR was the father of North Korea -- and the two had a falling out in the 1980's. North Korea was much closer to China for most of it's history.

<comment><USER26> Russia is the more friendly country than China according to DPRK's own assessment. Russia has very significant vested economic and political interests in DPRK remaining in place. China and Russia are the two major countries that do not technically participate in sanctions against DPRK (although they may agree on "paper") and which is why DPRK is able to survive at all. It would be hard to think of Russia just sitting quite when US is taking over one of the major sized country with tons of natural resources right on its border.

See [http://thediplomat.com/2017/02/russias-love-affair-with- nort...](http://thediplomat.com/2017/02/russias-love-affair-with-north-korea/)

<comment><USER27> Yes, modern Russia has economic interest in NK (specifically providing energy in return for hard labor). But pretending Russia is the patron of North Korea is simply disingenuous. USSR/DPRK relations were broken after the USSR/China split, and then again after the USSR dissolved Russia cut all ties to NK.

Do you have a source for USSR providing military equipment to NK? I'm skeptical.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Are there open source news aggregators? - <AUTHOR>

What infrastructure do news aggregators typically use to do the crawling, parsing, indexing, extracting, storing/format in database, etc.? Are there open source news aggregators so that I can learn how those problems are solved? <comment><USER2> Hi! I'm just developing one at [http://github.com/msmuenchen/skynetrss](http://github.com/msmuenchen/skynetrss) (demo instance at [http://dtmp.vm-dg.de/rss/](http://dtmp.vm-dg.de/rss/) \- don't rely on this one working 100% of the time;)).

The only other FOSS project I know about is TinyTinyRSS aka TTRSS.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are a few still active or not : Gregarius, Lilina, TinTinyRSS, RSSLounge and the more recent selfoss from the same developper. More generally you would search for new informations on the topic with something like "self hosted rss reader" in a search engine

</comment><comment><USER4> I am working on one: [https://github.com/mikejsavage/rssd](https://github.com/mikejsavage/rssd)</comment>


The Hidden Art of Fore-Edge Book Painting - <AUTHOR> http://foreedge.bpl.org/gallery <comment><AUTHOR> I guess this doesn't make much sense unless you've seen this image:

[http://imgur.com/rG8tPUD](http://imgur.com/rG8tPUD)</comment>


Skype is down? - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/09/21/monday-monday/ <comment><USER2> It is down indeed ([http://heartbeat.skype.com/2015/09/skype_presence_issues.htm...](http://heartbeat.skype.com/2015/09/skype_presence_issues.html) and Twitter [https://twitter.com/Skype/status/645919917510914048](https://twitter.com/Skype/status/645919917510914048)). Desktop client might be working for some people, and I don't know if the mobile apps are affected too.

</comment><comment><USER3> The desktop client isn't working for me, but [http://web.skype.com](http://web.skype.com) seems to work.

</comment><comment><USER4> Same here, can't log in.</comment>


How to Launch a Cool Looking Viral Launching Coming Soon Page - <AUTHOR> http://launchitnow.co/hub/blog/how-to-launch-a-cool-looking-viral-launching-page

<comment><USER2> oh no another launchrock. I hate these pages, with generic image and incredibly vague product description.</comment>


Show HN: My Snake-implemetation, how I taught myself GLSL - <AUTHOR> http://bitbucket.org/maghoff/snygg/wiki/Home

<comment><AUTHOR> Apparently, the wiki on bitbucket won't work if you are not logged in :(

Anyway, the video works: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBy6sxSB8vw>

Edit: Hm. Now it seems to work.

<comment><USER2> Looks nice! I would just make one change, that is to give a texture to the white "apples" (that's what they are in the original game I think).

Just one other comment, did you notice that all shaders mover around constantly? For example, the texture of the border of the playing field is turning anti-clockwise constantly. This also happens with the obstacles in the center.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Looks nice!

Thanks :)

> I would just make one change, that is to give a texture to the white > "apples" (that's what they are in the original game I think).

Yes, I would like to do that. I haven't decided on how I want them to look, but apples might be a good idea. Now I just need the texture and the time to implement it ;)

> Just one other comment, did you notice that all shaders mover around > constantly? For example, the texture of the border of the playing field is > turning anti-clockwise constantly. This also happens with the obstacles in > the center.

This is intentional, to make it less boring :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> that looks really great, nice going. I'm really interested in learning some high level graphics coding, and wondering if GLSL and openGL are the way to go or if a framework that sits above openGL/direct3D would be better, does anyone have any advice of where to start for a beginner?

<comment><USER4> I am in no way a game developer, but I can tell you that using XNA + C# is by far the easiest way to develop games in my experience. I implemented versions of both "Snake" and "Pong" this year in a little more than a day or two per game.

Seriously, give it a try. You won't regret it!

<comment><USER5> I'm actually playing around with XNA+C# right now, and I agree that it is (in general) very easy to develop with.

Just - for the love of God - if you're going to get into doing reflection in C#, understand that you are about to stare into the void, and mentally prepare yourself for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Brilliant!

Looking at the video it feels like the black spots on the snake can be given a little bit more contrast to distinguish it from the background.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Brilliant!

Thanks :)

> Looking at the video it feels like the black spots on the snake can be given > a little bit more contrast to distinguish it from the background.

Yes, that's true. I don't have the proper tools to make the textures I want, though, so I just went with this one :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Boring features such as scoring, menus and a nice user interface are not implemented. Also, any other non-implemented feature is deemed boring."

Heh.</comment>


Veedback – curated, bitesize video guide app for London - <AUTHOR> http://veedback.co.uk/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! Haroun here - founder of Veedback.

Happy to take any questions :)</comment>


The 17 Designs That Bell Almost Used for the Layout of Telephone Buttons - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/08/the-17-designs-that-bell-almost-used-for-the-layout-of-telephone-buttons/279237/

<comment><USER2> The C column comes from the rotary dial pattern - but only VI-C mimics the counter-clockwise number layout of the rotary dial (the dial was pulled clockwise and rotated counter-clockwise to make the on/off-hook clicks to dial.)

Were these C/circle layouts early skeuomorphics, or included as several 'duck' alternatives? (included but intended to be rejected).

II-A and VI-B appear to be the same layout, but one has a "significantly shorter keying time" and the other is "significantly more preferred" Honest error in duplication, or pushing a desired result?</comment>


Ask HN: Is email the best option for enterprise? - <AUTHOR>

Is there an more efficient and effective means of workplace communication then email? <comment><USER2> I've seen companies use in-house ticketing systems for tracking work quite well, unfortunately no-ones built a good generic ticketing system for the enterprise.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yammer is great for groups of all sizes. The advantage is that the information is public and searchable.

</comment><comment><USER4> IM works great</comment>