Category: Travel

The company, led by chief executive and chairman Ryan Morris is commercializing technology that was developed initially at the Illinois Institute of Technology.Turntide’s basic innovation is a software controlled motor, or switch reluctance motor, that uses precise pulses of energy instead of a constant flow of electricity. “In a conventional motor you are continuously driving current into the motor whatever speed you want to run it at,” Morris said. “We’re pulsing in precise amounts of current just at the times when you need the torque… It’s software defined hardware.” The technology spent eleven years under development, in part because the computing power didn’t exist to make the system work, according to Morris.Morris was initially part of an investment firm called Meson Capital that acquired the technology back in 2013, and it was another four years of development before the motors were actually able to function in pilots, he said. The company spent the last three years developing the commercialization strategy and proving the value in its initial market — retrofitting the heating ventilation and cooling systems in buildings that are the main factor in the built environment’s 28% contribution to carbon dioxide emissions that are leading to global climate change.“Our mission is to replace all of the motors in the world,” Morris said.He estimates that the technology is applicable to 95% of where electric motors are used today, but the initial focus will be on smart buildings because it’s the easiest place to start and can have some of the largest immediate impact on energy usage. “The carbon impact of what we’re doing is pretty massive,” Morris told me last year. “The average energy reduction [in buildings] has been a 64% reduction. If we can replace all the motors in buildings in the US that’s the carbon equivalent of adding over 300 million tons of carbon sequestration per year.”That’s why Downey Jr.’s Footprint Coalition, and Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures and the real estate and construction focused venture firm Fifth Wall Ventures have joined the Amazon Climate Fund, Tony Fadell’s Future Shape, BMW’s iVentures fund and a host of other investors in backing the company.The company has raised roughly $180 million in financing including the disclosure today of an $80 million investment round, which closed in October.Buildings are clearly the current focus for Turntide, which only yesterday announced the acquisition of a small Santa Barbara, Calif.-based building management software developer called Riptide IO. But there’s also an application in another massive industry — electric vehicles.“Two years from now we will definitely be in electric vehicles,” Morris said. “Our technology has huge advantages for the electric vehicle industry. There’s no rare earth minerals. Every EV uses rare earth minerals to get better performance of their electric motors,” he continued. “They’re expensive, destructive to mine and China controls 95 percent of the global supply chain for them. We do not use any exotic materials, rare earth minerals or magnets.. We’re replacing that with very advanced software and computation. It’s the first time Moore’s law applies to the motor.”

Source: Firms backed by Robert Downey Jr. and Bill Gates have funded an electric motor company that slashes energy consumption | TechCrunch

Every year, the U.S. imports billions of dollars worth of seafood from countries that may be using forced labor on distant water fishing vessels. A growing cadre of tech companies and non-governmental organizations are playing a central role in identifying the most likely violators.

Source: How new technology is helping to identify human rights abuses in the seafood industry

Half Dome isn’t a ski objective. The gentlest slope off the iconic 8,839-foot summit in Yosemite National Park is a 45-to-60-degree granite wall—usually hiked over the course of a long, summer day via the 800-foot Cables Route—and it rarely has enough snow on it to set a ski edge.“It’s steep and exposed,” says professional skier and BASE jumper JT Holmes. “There’s nothing for the snow to bond to except for itself and granite. It’s pretty hardcore. It comes down to your motivation to steep-ski and to understand when the snow is right.”On Sunday, February 21, Yosemite locals Jason Torlano and Zach Milligan took advantage of “here today, gone tomorrow” conditions to become the first people to ski the iconic feature from its summit to the Valley floor, a 4,640-foot descent. (In 1981, using ropes and a belay, filmmaker Eric Perlman and skier Bob Bellman descended the Cables Route. On March 13, 2000, big-mountain snowboarding pioneer Jim Zellers rode the line to make the first un-roped solo descent. But none of them continued on to the Valley floor.)On the day of the feat, the line consisted of half an inch of névé bonded to blue ice. “I’m sure it’s melted out already,” Torlano said Monday.Early last week, Torlano scouted the line from a Cessna 182 with a few friends. As they buzzed the northeast face of Half Dome, Torlano’s eyes zeroed in on the ski line. High on the face, a swath of golden stone poked through the snow. Aside from this obvious crux—bare rock and clear ice—it was as close to “in” as he’d ever seen. When Torlano returned to his home in Sugar Pine, California, a small community near the park’s south entrance, he called Zellers for beta, gleaning what he could. Torlano also called Milligan in nearby El Portal. The two had climbed together for years but had only skied together once. “I had no business being on Half Dome,” Milligan says. “I’m not a real skier.” Milligan packed an ultralight ski-mountaineering setup. Torlano used skis that were nearly a decade old and were mounted with heavy, outdated alpine-touring bindings. On Saturday morning, they pulled into Yosemite’s Curry Village and hiked the John Muir Trail for nine miles to a bivy site on Half Dome’s shoulder. At 6 A.M. they strapped crampons to their ski boots and kicked their way up Sub Dome, a mini version of Half Dome scattered with a few Jeffrey pines, and then the Cables Route. Near the top, Milligan climbed past the section of bare ice Torlano had spotted from the plane. “It was spooky because it was so thin and blue ice was showing,” Milligan says. “Some of the downed cables were just barely sticking out of the snow, and it was steep enough that if an avalanche cut, there would be nothing you could do.” He decided that it was too dangerous and he wasn’t up for the risk.Once on top, though, he instinctively clicked into his bindings and started down. Torlano followed. “I did one jump turn and then sideslipped most everything,” Milligan says. “I thought I would be able to ski across the cables, but when my ski edges hit the first one, I fell.”He stabbed the wall with the ice picks on his Whippet poles. “Luckily, the tools were holding—barely,” he says. “I wasn’t in a survivable situation. Then I found the cable and lunged for it. Using my Whippet as a stick and pole, I leveraged the cable out and grabbed it.” Now past the crux, Milligan continued on his skis. Torlano successfully negotiated the icy section and led past Milligan to reach a 60-degree section covered with quarter-inch névé, the steepest section of the line. It was coated in “the finest of powder snow,” Milligan says. The névé was hard as concrete. Torlano took a total of five turns down the face.After finishing the Cables Route, the snow quality improved. The men wrapped around the shoulder to reach the base of the imposing 2,000-foot northwest face of Half Dome, where they connected to a climber’s trail. Linking ribbons of snow, they side-skied over thick manzanita. At small sections of cliff, they rappelled from trees with four-millimeter tech cord. In total, they rappelled less than 300 feet. Just after noon, they bushwhacked to Mirror Lake. “Since I was a kid, I dreamed of one day skiing from the summit of Half Dome to Mirror Lake,” Torlano says. “Yesterday a dream came true.”

Source: The Historic Ski Descent of Half Dome | Outside Online

2. InvestiGators: Off the Hook, by John Patrick Green.3. Apeirogon: A Novel, by Colum McCann.4. How to Change Everything, by Naomi Klein, Rebecca Stefoff.5. Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That A Movement Forgot, by Mikki Kendall.6. The Desolations of Devil’s Acre, by Ransom Riggs.7. We Are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing, by Jillian Horton.8. The Pegan Diet, by Mark Hyman.9. Journey of the Pharaohs: A Kurt Austin Adventure, by Clive Cussler, Graham Brown.10. The Kaiser’s Web: A Novel, by Steve Berry.FICTION1. The Four Winds: A Novel, by Kristin Hannah.2. The Vanishing Half: A Novel, by Brit Bennett.3. A Court of Silver Flames, by Sarah J. Maas.4. A Town Called Solace, by Mary Lawson.5. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens.6. Indians on Vacation: A Novel, by Thomas King.7. The Pull of the Stars, by Emma Donoghue.

Source: International: 30 bestselling books for the week of Feb. 27 | Vancouver Sun

The B.C. government will continue constructing the Site C dam even though it will be delayed by a year and the budget has more than doubled to $16 billion.ANNOUNCEMENTS, EVENTS & MORE FROM TYEE AND SELECT PARTNERSLet’s Talk About The Tyee’s Impact Browse our report to see what we were able to do with reader support in 2020.The Tyee Is Hiring Its Fifth Emerging Indigenous Reporting Fellow This is an eight-week paid position offered through a partnership with Journalists for Human Rights. Come join our team!“The project is facing new challenges, and we are committed to managing it in the best interests of British Columbians,” Premier John Horgan said in a press release provided to reporters ahead of a public announcement.“Cancelling it would cause people’s electricity rates to skyrocket, and we will not burden people with additional financial stress during these difficult times with nothing to show for it,” he said. “Site C is already 50-per-cent finished, and our government will complete this project, ensuring British Columbians have clean and affordable power for decades to come.”The government attributed the delay and budget increase to a combination of geotechnical issues and measures put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Cancelling the project now would still cost $10 billion that would need to be covered by either BC Hydro ratepayers or taxpayers, it said.Background materials on the decision point to various benefits, including the economic stimulus of an undertaking that employs some 4,500 people and the role of hydro power in helping B.C. meet its carbon emission reduction targets.The government also released two reports on the project.Bad News on Site C: Budget, Schedule at RiskREAD MORE One was from Peter Milburn, a former deputy minister, who the government appointed last July as a special advisor to work with BC Hydro and the Project Assurance Board and advise the government. He made 17 recommendations in his 40-page report dated Oct. 10, 2020 to improve governance, all of which the government said it has accepted and is implementing.The other report was from John France and Kaare Høeg, technical experts the Project Assurance Board appointed to advise on geotechnical issues.They found that BC Hydro’s plans to enhance the foundation on the right bank of the river will make the structures safe and serviceable over Site C’s operating life and that the dam can be safely constructed in a way that meets all Canadian Dam Association safety and reliability guidelines.Milburn’s appointment came following an update to the BC Utilities Commission last year in which BC Hydro flagged “serious concerns” about the Site C dam’s schedule, scope and budget.The Site C Mess: Notes for the InvestigatorREAD MORE There were delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the utility said, but also a problem discovered on the right bank of the river requiring stronger foundations under the powerhouse, spillway and core areas of the future dam.BC Hydro couldn’t say what it would cost to fix it.The third of a series of dams on the Peace River, Site C would flood an 83-kilometre-long stretch of the river to generate enough electricity to power 450,000 homes.There has been steady opposition to the project. Ahead of the October election a group of 18 prominent British Columbians released a statement urging the government to reconsider continuing with construction. They included former BC Hydro CEO Marc Eliesen, former ICBC CEO Robyn Allan, the Union of BC Indian Chiefs’ Grand Chief Stewart Phillip and Harry Swain, who chaired the Site C Joint Review Panel that completed its work in 2014.Site C’s Radical, Risky MakeoverREAD MORE “The prudent course of action — one that respects Indigenous and treaty rights as well as the interests of all taxpayers and hydro ratepayers — is to immediately suspend all construction activities at the project,” they wrote. “This includes the imminent and critical river diversion. It’s folly to allow that diversion to occur when geotechnical woes of unknown magnitude abound at the construction site.”Before the NDP formed government in 2017, the previous BC Liberal government had pledged to get Site C past the point of no return. The incoming government ordered a review of the project and consulted with professionals who were for and against continuing. It ultimately decided to keep going, saying it would cost too much to cancel the project.The budget for Site C was $7.9 billion in 2010. By the time the NDP decided to continue construction it had grown to $10.7 billion. It was to begin power generation in 2023 and be completed by 2024.It is now expected to be in service in 2025.

Source: Horgan Pressing on with Site C as Budget Soars to $16 Billion | The Tyee

It was beaten to the top by the likes of Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island in Australia, which came first globally; and Spiaggia dei Conigli (Rabbit Beach) in Sicily, which ranked highest in Europe and eighth overall.Bournemouth’s golden sands did, however, beat the white sand and turquoise waters of Balos Lagoon in Kissamos, Greece, along with the wildlife paradise of Playa Manuel Antonio in Costa Rica.

Source: Bournemouth beach ranks 5th best in Europe and among the top 25 in the world | UK News | Sky News

Nuclear energy will “absolutely” be politically palatable, billionaire philanthropist, technologist and climate change evangelist Bill Gates recently told Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”Nuclear power has to overcome a baneful reputation garnered by association with the atomic bomb and radioactive disasters, but it’s a necessary, worthy and surmountable challenge to correct the naysayers, according to Gates.That’s because the need for clean energy is dire, and the operation of nuclear power plants produces no greenhouse gas emissions. According to Gates, new innovations in nuclear technology (in which he is an investor) are making nuclear energy safer and more affordable, and countries around the world are starting to adopt nuclear power.

Source: Bill Gates: Nuclear power will ‘absolutely’ be politically acceptable

People tend to be extremely nostalgic about the music they listened to when they were young. If you were a teenager in the 1970s, chances are you will love Queen, Stevie Wonder or ABBA. And if you were young in the 1990s, Wannabe by the Spice Girls probably still gets you on the dance floor.But why is that? Do we genuinely think music from the past is better, or has it got something to do with the memories we have of that time?Our recent study, published in Music and Science, has come up with an intriguing answer.Music is closely linked with memory and emotion. There’s a reason for the popularity of the long-running BBC radio programme, Desert Island Discs, in which celebrity guests share the soundtrack of their lives. Or why the recent video of a retired ballerina with Alzheimer’s disease being spontaneously brought back to her past through music went viral.

Source: Why we’re obsessed with music from our youth