We all keep a shotgun next to the printer in case it makes an unexpected noise here because the average HN reader knows a fridge manufacturer knows nothing about infosec and the lowest-bid contractor they farm the connection does the minimum to check the boxes. So yeah, we've been rightfully complaining about why does my icemaker need an internet connection for years.
Lets combine some testy topics: will LLMs make this any better? On the one hand, if it's easy for fridge manufacturers to churn out code, will the slop create enough cracks in the icemaker to sail the titanic through? Or will the lower barrier to pretty good security agents get more security into the IoT field (assuming it's taken advantage of?) Or will it not matter because the store manager will just set the web portal password to 123456?
The combination will be based on the proposition that AI must consume all and nothing shall get in its way (even if it AI), whilst maintaining the existing devotion to capitalism above all:
- Cheapest possible test-passing AI generated code with minimal check-box style security audit.
- Looser and broader definitions and greater penalties for hacking.
They're not levying a tax on an officer of the company, they're levying a tax on the company if the company brings assets into the state within 12 months of purchase (so the whole point is there is proof the cars are being used in the state). But since a company can't go to jail, the California officers operating the company are on the hook if the company happens to have weirdly empty balance sheets and can't collect what is owed. And this bill specifically only targets any-share owners of just "shell" companies, which tend to have those weirdly empty balance sheets. Normal companies fall under existing california laws.
I mean, we can continue to pick apart the legal language, or we can acknowledge that if people invent elaborate loopholes to avoid paying taxes, the State will adapt and create elaborate corrections to collect those taxes. This is just a cat and mouse game of greed vs. fairness being played out in real-time.
Every project has risks, of course. EGS projects are basically two wells making a circulation loop: inject cold water down one well under pressure, circulate it through hot rocks using the fracked channels, and pull out hot water up the other well.
Theoretically, a leak into groundwater aquifers would make keeping the system pressurized harder or would dillute the amount of heat they're extracting, so seems like a stronger commercial incentive not to f up the groundwater.
In oil fracking they're just trying to pull the oily goo up from underground. And in theory you could do heat extraction using just water instead of shale goo solvents so any contamination would be less impactful?
I dunno, I'm just internet armchair quarterbacking this until a real geologist chimes in, but I can see how this is a somewhat different beast that shale fracking wells.
If it wasn't, enhanced geothermal would be everywhere, which it isn't. (Yet, this company would say.)
Op is really just describing a core breakeven metric on the energy source. In the same way you measure an oil well with half-life of useful output, this is basically saying "EGS can prove to be useful if they can make sure they extract more economically useful heat than the economic costs of constantly drilling new wells."
Since no one has really made EGS widespread yet, that suggests no one has yet cracked this nut.
It is a heuristic regarding the scaling of a business idea based on conventional industrial processes presented as a technological breakthrough.
It is premised on a belief that a significant number of smart motivated professionals have been trying to solve the same problem with substantially the same budgets and technologies for many years and that experience has led them to an informed belief that more practical solutions exist.
You might say it is a stronger belief in engineering practice and economic efficiency than in press releases.
[note: I agree it would not be “everywhere” because the practicality of drilling into bedrock varies significantly between locations. But that is not a point in favor of scaling the proposed technique]
And at the time I write this, it breaks the world record for HN comments by the world’s first brudgers.
The internet expanded as the result of semi-conductor break throughs made by thousands of engineers with access to semi-conductor break throughs. There was a ‘virtuous’ cycle.
That is not the same thing as a press release. ‘World’s first,’ ‘New Record,’ and ‘Scientists’ correlate with press releases. Press releases make for easy news content and news sites are attracted to them.
This comment needs to be higher than all the "but storage is not generation!!" fud in here. Didn't realize how astroturfy hn had become. "edge cache for power" is the true spirit of what this is about
Parent was just spreading a lot of fud, half-truths, and "yeah, maybe if you squint and force an exotic framing"... they're trying to convince you to throw the baby out with the bathwater, don't lose sleep about it.
I would like for you to offer a rebuttal other than it being fud and exotic.
I would argue that Vermont is an exotic example of where batteries offer disproportionate value. A city with a single privately owned monopoly supplying power and able to import power from nearby hydro, coal and nuclear plants.
