Ostensibly this is a story about nuclear war bunkers, but I don’t think that is what is really driving this trend in the rich building bunkers. As the article points out and as any one able to think about nuclear war rationally, should realize a nuclear bunker may keep you alive a few more weeks, but modern nuclear war would be a civilization-destroying event. I think is the wealthy response to humanity’s precognition about what climate change is going to do to every country in the world.
The dining area inside an underground nuclear bunker in Southern California Credit: Jae C. Hong / AP
When Bernard Jones Jr. and his wife, Doris, built their dream home, they didn’t hold back. A grotto swimming pool with a waterfall for hot summer days. A home theater for cozy winter nights. A fruit orchard to harvest in fall. And a vast underground bunker in case disaster strikes.
“The world’s not becoming a safer place,” he said. “We wanted to be prepared.”
Under a nondescript metal hatch near the private basketball court, there’s a hidden staircase that leads down into rooms with beds for about 25 people, bathrooms and two kitchens, all backed by a self-sufficient energy source.
With water, electricity, clean air and food, they felt ready for any disaster, even a nuclear blast, at their bucolic home in California’s Inland Empire.
“If there was a nuclear strike, would you rather go into the living room or go into a bunker? If you had one, you’d go there too,” said Jones, who said he reluctantly sold the home two years […]
Mark Bowden, Contributing Writer - The Atlantic | msn
Stephan:
This is the best assessment I have ever read about how a military-industrial complex so expensive that it costs you and me almost a trillion dollars a year, more than the nine next biggest military national budgets combined, yet cannot meet the needs of even the Ukrainians because of poor planning and corporate greed. Imagine what those billions properly spent could have achieved, and what the remaining billions could have done to foster wellbeing.
At the Scranton facility, 155-millimeter howitzer shells drying on a conveyor belt Credit: Aimee Dilger / SOPA / Getty)
I. Supply and Demand
Here, in the third decade of the 21st century, the most sought-after ammunition in the U.S. arsenal reaches the vital stage of its manufacture—the process tended by a young woman on a metal platform on the second story of an old factory in rural Iowa, leaning over a giant kettle where tan flakes of trinitrotoluene, better known as the explosive TNT, are stirred slowly into a brown slurry.
She wears a baggy blue jumpsuit, safety glasses, and a hairnet. Her job is to monitor the viscosity and temperature of the mix—an exacting task. The brown slurry must be just the right thickness before it oozes down metal tubes to the ground floor and into waiting rows of empty 155-millimeter howitzer shells, each fitted at the top with a funnel. The whole production line, of which she is a part, is labor-intensive, messy, and dangerous. At this step of the process, both the steel shells and the TNT must be […]
I spent several hours of my afternoon looking for good news trends, because I wanted to do at least one edition this week that was positive. It wasn’t easy because this is not a happy time in human history. But I was able to find these.
Synhelion’s industrial-scale solar fuel plant DAWN – Credit: Synhelion
From Switzerland comes a new technology that aims to decarbonize the transportation methods we use right now.
Through a thermochemical process driven 100% by solar power, the energy startup Synhelion can synthesize gasoline, diesel, kerosene, or any other fossil fuel currently in use.
Their colloquially termed ‘solar fuels’ are carbon neutral, as they emit only as much CO2 as was used in their production, compared to fossil fuels that come from deep underground and add to the global carbon cycle.
The technology that powers the DAWN solar fuel plant pictured above relies on concentrated solar radiation reflected from a bank of mirrors into a receiver that creates temperatures as high as 1,500C°. This not only powers the production of fuels through synthesizing H20 and CO2, but also is fed into a storage system that powers the production after dark.
Launched in 2016, Synhelion has needed some time to get its feet under itself, but with its first industrial-scale plant in operation, transportation services are starting to take notice.
In September, Swiss aircraft manufacturer Pilatus Aircraft signed a five-year agreement with Synhelion that includes a commitment to […]
Here is some good news about EV batteries. If you drive an EV you will find this reassuring that your batteries will last longer than you were originally told they would which may save you a lot of money. This means that EVs are cheaper than was thought compared to the cost of buying and operating a petroleum-powered vehicle.
Electric cars charging in a parking lot under solar panels in Duluth, Minnesota on Oct. 11, 2024. Credit: HABesen / iStock / Getty
A new study has revealed that modern batteries in electric vehicles may last up to 40% longer than expected thanks to stop-and-go driving patterns that help recharge batteries on the go.
According to researchers, the common lab testing methods to determine battery life may not be the most accurate way to estimate how long EV batteries will last. In lab testing, batteries are often discharged at an ongoing rate, then recharged all at once.
But as the researchers pointed out, EV drivers experience different discharge rates in long spans of driving or stop-and-go traffic. These more frequent cycles of discharging the battery and recharging during braking could help preserve battery life.
Researchers tested 92 commercial lithium-ion batteries for a 24-month period, using both the constant discharge method as well as real-driving scenarios. The batteries tested under real driving methods had a better life expectancy, with about 38% improvement, compared to those tested under common lab testing scenarios. The team
The Republicans have been trying to take over the nation’s judiciary for several decades led by Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society. This “unretiring” of Democratic judges, blocks Trump as this article describes. This isn’t getting much media attention, but it is going to have an interesting positive effect.
A circuit court judge out of North Carolina rescinded his planned retirement, prompting GOP outrage.
With little more than a month to go before Donald Trump’s second term in the White House, a set of federal judges who previously announced retirements are pulling back those decisions. And Republicans are none too pleased.
Most prominent among the federal jurists to reverse a retirement announcement is Judge James Wynn of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. His name vanished from a list of pending vacancies over the weekend, joining two district court judges in North Carolina — Algenon Marbley and Max Cogburn — in pulling back their decisions once it became clear President Joe Biden would not be able to appoint their successors.
In a letter to Biden, Wynn wrote “that, after careful consideration, I have decided to continue in regular active service” on the bench. All three were appointed by Democratic presidents.
Their decisions serve to deny Trump further bench vacancies to fill as he hopes to capitalize on his push to move the federal judiciary rightward. Though judges routinely time […]
