Stephen Shankland
@stshank
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Head of Content at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, developing zero-carbon power plants. Former CNET sci-tech journo. https://t.co/eSbi5nyE1l
SF Bay Area, CA
Joined June 2007
Honking big day for @CFS_energy: We announced the site for our first fusion power plant, ARC: Chesterfield County, Virginia. 400 megawatts of clean, firm, zero-carbon power coming in the early 2030s. We looked at 100+ sites before choosing it. #Climate.
blog.cfs.energy
Today, Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) announced the location for our first fusion energy power plant, ARC. We’ll build it in Chesterfield County, Virginia...
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Relative motion.
Star trail exposure from the ISS, marked by the thick white path of the Moon, Starlink satellites flashing far right, golden city lights streaking across Earth, and arcing stars.
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From Sig Hecker, a man I covered in my early days as a journalist when he was LANL director. Harsh on Russia, harsher on Trump administration for "destroying our system of alliances and friendships" and moving US science & tech "dramatically backwards.".
thebulletin.org
Siegfried Hecker, former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, expresses concern that, 80 years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that the world is on the wrong path—instead of...
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This concept — apply lessons learned to the entire fleet — is a profound change from humans, every one of whom must learn from scratch how to drive. It's one hope I have for the difficult challenge of autonomous vehicles handling driving's abundant edge and corner cases.
The Waymo Driver offers a consistent and safe experience across cities. Skills for safety-critical situations transfer very well: what's learned in one, like handling lane-cutters in LA or Austin, applies to others.
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RT @BobMumgaard: I’ve been watching China ramp up its fusion energy efforts for years. Now the country is taking it to the next level by pr….
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This really blew my mind:. "Capex spending for AI contributed more to growth in the U.S. economy in the past two quarters than all of consumer spending, says Neil Dutta, head of economic research at Renaissance Macro Research, citing data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.".
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A good read from @mims about looking into the bits-vs-atoms balance in Big Tech. "Call it an 'age of infrastructure,' in which companies spend vast sums on actual stuff. Primarily that’s the gigantic data centers filled. but it also includes factories, real estate and energy.".
The AI infrastructure build-out is so gigantic that in the past 6 months, it contributed more to the growth of the U.S. economy than /all of consumer spending/. The 'magnificent 7' spent more than $100 billion on data centers and the like in the past three months *alone*. 1/🧵
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People today worry about data center power use, but a little computing history: "With minimal cooling technology . ENIAC raised the room temperature to 50ºC when in operation and its 160kW energy consumption caused blackouts in the city of Philadelphia."
datacenterdynamics.com
The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) was one of the world’s first general-purpose computers. And 2021 marks 75 years since it was first unveiled to the public
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This is my go-to local kayaking spot. Impressive to see it surge like this. Also, impressive that we knew it was coming — imagine a century where tsunamis or hurricanes just showed up with little or no warning. Science and sensors that monitor the Earth make that possible.
Check out this time lapse of the Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay. Notice the abrupt up and down motion of the boats. A tsunami is not just one wave. It's a packet of waves that can last for several hours. This rapid surging of water can create dangerous currents. #tsunami
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"I Saved a PNG Image To A Bird" This is amazing — both the bird's ability to record and replay the sound and the human's ability to put together the setup that yielded these results.
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We do these videos 2x a year with CEO @BobMumgaard. They're a great chance to catch up on #FusionEnergy and our effort to bring this massively important new power source online in time to matter for climate change, rising energy demand, and the transition away from fossil fuels.
Time for a new 6-month update from CEO @BobMumgaard about what we’re up to at Commonwealth Fusion Systems:.️️ .⚡️ See the site in Chesterfield County, Virginia, for our first ARC fusion power plant. ️⚡️ Hear how Google has agreed to purchase 200 megawatts of power — half of
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I love the final serial comma aka Oxford comma, but other than that and a couple nitpicks I find the @APStylebook the best style book around.
Are you the person to whom coworkers come when they have questions about using who or whom? Or do you just rewrite the sentence if you aren't sure if you should use who or whom?. We've heard it said that "whom" might just disappear because most people don't understand it. Would
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RT @BobMumgaard: Two major technology transformations came into alignment today in Washington, DC: AI and fusion energy. At an artificial….
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If anybody is feeling a little short on sleep tomorrow.
npr.org
Earth doesn't rotate exactly on schedule. Scientists believe that today is going to be about a millisecond short of a typical 24-hour day.
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Funding doesn't equal success, but funding enables success. And everything in the energy transition requires funding — new power lines for transmission, SMRs, big solar+batteries, heat pumps, EVs, etc. It's very much about real-world hardware.
The fifth annual @Fusion_Industry Association report released today shows an acceleration in fusion industry funding growth, increasing to a total of $9.8 billion. Notable trends in the report:. • Fusion companies raised a total of $2.64 billion in the 12 months leading to July
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RT @Benioff: It increasingly looks like fusion may soon be commercial—and policymakers and business executives around the world have done l….
time.com
Clean energy from nuclear fusion may soon be commercial. But leaders around the world have done little to prepare.
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Replies are worth a read. Science in action.
What's a modern minor medical treatment that is just bonkers effective, like you'd painfully die for weeks if this happened 400 years ago.
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RT @CFS_energy: Scenes of progress from around our Devens, Massachusetts, campus. ..🧲 A team member unseals a test case containing a toro….
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"Fuglabjarg" is a great literal and metaphorical word, but this piece on Iceland's geographic names becoming obsolete because of climate change is really sad.
nytimes.com
It is impossible to separate our language from its island at the edge of the Arctic.
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"Over the last 6 months, I’ve had the same conversation over & over: a policymaker, investor, or academic rejects the possibility of commercial fusion but their opinion reflects outdated information or lacks awareness of the current state of the tech."
time.com
Clean energy from nuclear fusion may soon be commercial. But leaders around the world have done little to prepare.
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