Um, it means that the (maximal) combined output of all the batteries produced in one year of full operation will meet the 'instantaneous' energy demand of 300,000 average US houses.

I'd suggest it means that the 50 (temporary) jobs created to construct the additional production lines will be union jobs. Not really 'a thing' over in the UK, but ./shrug. Each to their own...

No, it takes 650 guys to run the factory's full set of production lines (and perhaps install the batteries they produce). Lines which will (or are intended to, at least) run for far longer than just one year. And each year those lines will produce batteries with the ratings given.

Do you perhaps need another coffee?

While the effect was the same, this is incorrect, or at least misleadingly simplistic. The concrete was absorbing, and sequestering, carbon dioxide, not oxygen [Equation: Ca(OH)2 + CO2 => CaCO3 + H2O]. The oxygen levels dropped as a result of microbial activity, basically the decay of organic material in the soil, but the additional carbon dioxide this produced was then absorbed by the concrete, which resulted in a net drop in oxygen levels. There were also large daily and seasonal swings in both carbon dioxide and oxygen levels, because of the day / night difference in photosynthetic activity, which caused concern.

This is somewhat incorrect. To quote one of many sources on the subject: "Builder’s sand, also known as plasterer’s, bricklayer’s or mason sand, is soft sand used for a range of building and construction applications. Builder’s sand is usually found in riverbeds, lakes, ocean floors and beaches, formed over thousands of years, and is composed of silica from decomposed pieces of rock, coral, minerals, and shell, with the exact composition and colour depending on the local rock sources. The end result is soft, angular sand that interlocks well, making it especially useful in building applications."

You might be thinking of desert sand, which is 'rounded' by friction, caused by the constant rubbing of grains against grains, caused by winds, making it wholly unsuitable in construction. Most undersea sands do not experience the same forces, at least not in the same timeframe (waves are more of a surface feature).

Sure, there are exceptions (e.g. the fine 'shell' sands, as opposed to particles of weathered rock, found on the best beaches), which is why I say "somewhat incorrect", but, for example, most of the sand dredged from the English channel ends up being used in concrete.

The plural of "lorry" is actually "lorries".

On the other hand, when referring to ownership of an item by someone called "Lorrie" the word "Lorrie's" would be used.

Use it to make tarmac?

(Disclaimer: I am not an industrial / organic chemist. There may be limitations when converting 'bunker fuel' into tar.)

I fear they've drawn the wrong conclusion from the data.

What it actually shows is that Republicans change their views with the wind (one reason they've drifted so far, so fast, and are swayed by meaningless rhetoric spouted, scattergun, by orange fools), whilst Democrats are closed minded and unwilling, or unable, to listen to reason.

</troll>

</jk>

I believe this was somewhat intentional. Think of the wording of the pledge of allegiance: "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands..." It's propaganda and 'brainwashing' in it's purest form. When you know what's best for the country everything else takes second priority, including individuals who hold different beliefs about what the right thing to do is. The extremes of this can be seen in those who perpetrate violence on those who would dare to deface their revered Stars and Stripes, i.e. flag burners. To them it's not just destruction of an object, no big deal, it's violation of a sacred oath, and therefore violence, even murder, is a perfectly justified response. Madness, but then the law of unintended consequences has a habit of cropping up where one might least expect it.

And prevent the removal of prior moderation.

And to prevent one's employers claiming 'guilt by association'.

And to express 'controversial' (often social / political) views that someone would rather not have associated with their pseudonym.

And, for the paranoid (justifiable or otherwise), to make it more difficult for the government to gather more information about the poster.

My bad. I've re-read your original post, and see how you arrived at your figure of $553. So, using your construction cost and their traveller numbers, the ticket price works out at ~$36. Do I think people would pay that? Yes, absolutely.

Well maybe you're right. Or maybe you're being overly cynical. After all, it's possible they're on to something. No-one is going to change their travelling behaviours if no other options exist.

That said, and as you point out, there are clearly other issues than just building this project's infrastructure, and it may be that these are insurmountable, for now at least. People tend to be resistant to change, social conservatives more so than the rest, and the idea of 'giving up' our cars (freedom!) is a particularly unconscionable idea to most. It will probably take a 'reasonable' carbon tax on fuel alongside a full generational shift (or two) for the wisdom of investing in effective mass transit to become apparent.

I was simply going by the figures given in the article. There's no need to be rude.

Whilst I accept that there are 'cultural' differences between people's travel behaviours on each side of the Atlantic, planes and trains tend to occupy different roles in travel infrastructure. Considering that London has ~1 million train passenger arrivals per day, (that's over 35 times the estimated passenger figures given for 2050 in the article), the figures don't, at first blush, seem too astonishing to me.

Hmm, I'd suggest that this question is one of those times that the 'average' conceals more than it reveals. And even then, given the number of just sporting events between teams based in the two cities, the average doesn't seem to outrageous. Of course, to ignore the main purpose of the train, moving daily commuters who work in the other city, strikes me as deliberately misleading to say the least.

I'm not sure what exactly it is I fell for. I simply provided a 'corrected' ticket price, based on the numbers provided. Since you didn't actually provide whatever additional assumptions you used in calculating your figure it's not possible for the rest of us to see how you arrived at the $600 you did. Of course it might be a 'scam', though given that high speed rail works elsewhere this is a questionable claim. Of course their assumptions and numbers might be unreasonable, and given that yearly passenger numbers between London and Birmingham (UK) are currently maybe 4 million (down by ~25% since the pandemic) on older slower trains, their 16 million passengers per year does seem a trifle high; their 2% yearly growth assumptions seem entirely reasonable though. As a final thought, given that 'gross' railway infrastructure tends to last for over a hundred years (albeit the passenger rolling stock less than half that) trying to calculate / amortise the construction costs over ~25 years would seem to be something of an unreasonable assumption on your part.

It's somewhat unfortunate that most of your post is based on a misunderstanding of the quoted figures (and / or an incorrect calculation - I honestly have no idea how you arrived at that $553 figure). When it says "Ultimately, the L.E.K study concludes that this project’s ridership is anticipated to ramp up to over 6 million passengers by 2029 and 13 million by 2050" they're talking about passenger numbers per year not total passenger numbers by that date.

Sheesh!

(And I mean, did you really think that 1,300 passengers per day was a reasonable figure given the nature of the project?)

Admittedly this still leaves the ticket price as ~$175 (assuming linear passenger growth between 2029 & 2050, and that their start and end point estimates of passenger numbers are correct), with the same caveats re: running costs etc. that you gave, which does call some of their claims into question.

It's certainly not clear cut. There was a recent article that suggested it's not just the wavelength, but also the intensity of the light that causes us difficulties in falling asleep. There are additional links from within the article but, honestly, I haven't followed them all, or taken the time to deep dive the research, so maybe take this post with a pinch of salt...

There's one by Clay Bennet, seemingly tagged as (first?) appearing in The Christian Science Monitor, that closely matches your description, but there are others, such as this one by Jon Carter, of a similar, if more individual, nature.

Not surprisingly it's a rich vein for cartoonists to mine.

The spring that Perrier is bottled from, apparently.

"Perrier managing director Frederik Zimmer said the contamination was caused when workers at the Perrier plant in Vergeze in southern France failed to change a filter that is supposed to catch small amounts of benzene found naturally in the spring."

I should probably add, for those who aren't going to read the article, that the article does include the claim that "a cancer specialist ... said a consumer would have to drink a quart of contaminated Perrier a day for life before he or she would have consumed a minimally dangerous level of benzene...", so we're not talking large quantities here.

Let's look at the costs to construct a standard (fission) power station:

"The [Sizewell C nuclear power station] project had been expected to cost £20bn and take 10-12 years to build. Stephen Thomas, a professor at Greenwich Business School, said the average forecast put the cost at £35bn over 15 years, or £2.3bn a year."

"The revised operating date for the site [of the Hinkley Point nuclear power station] in Somerset is now June 2027 and total costs are estimated to be in the range of £25bn to £26bn."

Now granted these are for 'production' power stations but, in theory at least, fission is a mature technology. Spending a roughly equivalent sum on an experimental reactor which was envisioned to test multiple aspects of fusion technology doesn't strike me as money wasted. While I might take issue with the simple torus design, and while I question the continued reliance on 'old' magnetic technologies it's certain that changing either of these after project commencement would have significantly added to the cost whilst not really adding to the scientific outcomes. <- assuming it gets finished and functions as intended, that is...

The suggestion of a 'cover-up' is troubling though - but I wonder how much of this is FUD being spread by those who'd rather sling mud, than concede that the project itself is not actually a 'terrible' idea.