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Submission + - Startup discovers hidden abundant, clean energy and did it in an unusual way (cnn.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: It’s a “classic needle in the haystack problem,” said Joel Edwards, co-founder and CTO of Zanskar. “There’s no one type of data that tells you that a system is below you, even if you’re right on top of it.” Instead, there are multiple indicators which are really hard for humans to put together to figure out if a system exists.

That’s where AI comes in.

The AI models Zanskar uses are fed information on where blind systems already exist. This data is plentiful as, over the last century and more, humans have accidentally stumbled on many around the world while drilling for other resources such as oil and gas.

The models then scour huge amounts of data — everything from rock composition to magnetic fields — to find patterns that point to the existence of geothermal reserves. AI models have “gotten really good over the last 10 years at being able to pull those types of signals out of noise,” Hoiland said.

Once a potential location has been found, the next step for the company is to drill down to confirm the reserve exists and is hot enough to produce utility-scale power.

That’s exactly what they did at Big Blind over the summer, drilling wells to depths of around 2,700 feet where they found porous rock at 250 degrees Fahrenheit. They know the site is at least the minimum size needed to support a power plant, but don’t yet have a sense of how big it could be.

There is also work to be done to navigate permitting processes and grid interconnection, but the company estimates the first electricity could be produced here in three to five years’ time.

Comment Re:Conservatives cause this (Score 1) 116

When you say "STEM vs pretend degrees", you clearly don't know what you're talking about. There is a near continuum of "hardness" of subject, and even that's not well defined, and the quesiton of whether EE is harder than pure math doesn't have a clear answer, but which way you answer definitely affects what the opposite is.

E.g., "German" is not a STEM major, but it's also not a pretend degree. OTOH, Philosophy is often a fluff major, but some of them attempt to be as rigorous as any experimental physicist. (Most don't succeed, because it's a really difficult thing to do.)

Comment Re:TL;DR: Gotta keep the bubble going (Score 1) 127

Yes, it belongs to Congress, not the President. Executive orders are literally orders given by the President to the executive branch of the federal government.

So the effectiveness of an executive order is very questionable in this case. If a state passes a law, what's the executive order going to do? Send the Army to invade? What could go wrong?

Comment Re:Conservatives cause this (Score 1) 116

Outlawing home schooling is too dangerous. Also MOST homeschooling is destructive, but some is the exact opposite.

I'll agree that home schooling is destructive to society, even when making accommodation to geniuses and other "special needs" students, but it's destructiveness isn't even the same order of magnitude as that of "social media". (I'll agree that social media needn't be destructive, but just about all of it is.)

Comment Re:China has to subsidize. (Score 1) 158

That's not going to apply to factories that are built for full automation. And it's reported that that's the way the Chinese build auto manufacturing plants.

Full automation is probably an overstatement, but nearly full automation will still mean that health insurance isn't a major part of the expense.

Comment Focus. (Score 5, Interesting) 116

China wanted to lead on science, and made the effort. Now that's paying off, and relatively fast as well it seems. China sent out promising students to foreign universities, to return with valuable learning. They court scientists to move to China, and fund a lot of research. And they have a decent school system with highly motivated students. They have plans and policies in place that work.

What does the West have? Science is beginning to have a bad name here. They tell you you're a sucker if you take a STEM major in college, except perhaps if you study to be a doctor or a dentist, or "something something AI". You're even dumber if you actually pursue a career in academia. Meanwhile we have New Math (a US thing, I know, but here in Europe schooling in mathematics is just as dire), or whatever new nonsense they cooked up. In my country, they are again lowering the nr. of hours per week spent on STEM subjects in high school. More focus on humanities and civics... as they say: "teaching children to be good citizens". Dumb AF, but... good citizens, sure. Taught to challenge everything, and not given the tools or knowledge to do so effectively. One in three kids aged 15 here is functionally analphabetic. Because even reading comprehension and accurate spelling are now optional. Chinese kids work and study hard, ours are taught that being on time is a "white construct", and that STEM education needs to be "decolonized".

No, we're not going to catch up with China. Unless we change our focus.

Comment How it probably went down (Score 4, Insightful) 33

PHB1: "We have to do something AI-ish, everyone else is!"

PHB2: "Here's one, have bots compile podcasts from our news articles."

PHB1: "Brilliant! Make it so."

[months later]

PHB2: "Um, the podcast bot has been making silly errors. Should we keep it?"

PHB1: "How is our competition doing with their AI?"

PHB2: "They suck also."

PHB1: "Okay, let's keep it so we can have AI on our brochures and resumes."

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