Month: November 2018

Tesla Powerpacks in South Australia. (credit: Tesla)

A community storage pilot project using Tesla batteries went live this week in Western Australia, three months ahead of schedule. The 105KW/420KWh pooled storage will act as a sort of locker for excess power produced by homes with solar panels.

The project is an unusual one because it pools battery capacity for homes with solar panels. It was funded by energy company Synergy and government-owned Western Power, which sought 52 customers with solar panels on their homes as participants. The 52 shares of the project were snapped up in two weeks, far more quickly than expected, which accelerated the project's timeline.

Participants will each be allotted 8kWh of storage, which they will "fill" with excess power created by their rooftop solar panels during the day. (This is in theory, of course. Solar-generated electricity can flow back onto the grid, but there's no guarantee that the battery will be charged with solar-generated electrons.) In the evening, customers will "be able to draw electricity back from the PowerBank during peak time without having to outlay upfront costs for a behind-the-meter battery storage system," says a press release from the government of Western Australia.

Enlarge / Right now, we don't have a big enough magnifying glass to spot the electron's dipole moment. (credit: Adam West/Harvard)

Last week, or maybe the week before (the days fly by so fast), reporters were all agape with surprise that the electron was round. Very round. I put it on my list of things to write about, took a deep breath, and dived back into the painful process of grading. Grades are now done, and the electron is still round.

What makes a round electron so important? And what do we mean by round anyway?

It’s all about symmetry

The electron is, in most conceptions, a perfect point particle. It has no internal structure—it is simply a point with a negative charge, some angular momentum, and a tiny magnet.

Enlarge / Right now, we don't have a big enough magnifying glass to spot the electron's dipole moment. (credit: Adam West/Harvard)

Last week, or maybe the week before (the days fly by so fast), reporters were all agape with surprise that the electron was round. Very round. I put it on my list of things to write about, took a deep breath, and dived back into the painful process of grading. Grades are now done, and the electron is still round.

What makes a round electron so important? And what do we mean by round anyway?

It’s all about symmetry

The electron is, in most conceptions, a perfect point particle. It has no internal structure—it is simply a point with a negative charge, some angular momentum, and a tiny magnet.

Valentina Palladino

The $249 Kindle Oasis injected a lot of change into Amazon's e-reader lineup when it came out in 2016. It was the first to deviate from the standard slab design, and it became the first waterproof Kindle when it was updated one year later. It quickly gained the ability to play Audible audiobooks as well, making it a one-stop shop for all reading endeavors in almost any environment.

But the Kindle Oasis was, and still is, the most expensive e-reader Amazon offers. Meanwhile, the Kindle Paperwhite continued to capture the hearts and eyeballs of many readers who didn't want to shell out the money necessary for the Oasis or the now-retired, $199 Kindle Voyage.

Valentina Palladino

The $249 Kindle Oasis injected a lot of change into Amazon's e-reader lineup when it came out in 2016. It was the first to deviate from the standard slab design, and it became the first waterproof Kindle when it was updated one year later. It quickly gained the ability to play Audible audiobooks as well, making it a one-stop shop for all reading endeavors in almost any environment.

But the Kindle Oasis was, and still is, the most expensive e-reader Amazon offers. Meanwhile, the Kindle Paperwhite continued to capture the hearts and eyeballs of many readers who didn't want to shell out the money necessary for the Oasis or the now-retired, $199 Kindle Voyage.

Enlarge / Roscosmos Head Dmitry Rogozin gives a press briefing after the failure of the MS-11 mission. (credit: Alexei FilippovTASS via Getty Images)

Dmitry Rogozin is not having the best year. Earlier, he was essentially demoted from his position as deputy prime minister over defense and space to a position managing Roscosmos, the Russian space corporation. And since then he has had to grapple with a number of embarrassing spaceflight problems, including an errant drill hole in a Soyuz spacecraft and an emergency landing of another one after a rocket exploded mid-flight.

But Rogozin is nothing if not a fighter, and he now appears to be taking steps to address the deteriorating situation at Roscosmos—and the Russian aerospace companies that build rockets and spacecraft for the country.

The Kommersant newspaper obtained a copy of a directive that Rogozin has issued to the leaders of companies and facilities that serve Roscosmos. The purpose of the letter, the newspaper reports, is to help the companies root out "poor manufacturing culture and negligent attitudes of staff toward their work." (This article was translated for Ars by Robinson Mitchell, a former US Air Force Airborne Cryptologic Language Analyst.)