Fuel from space debris

 In the sci-fi thriller "Gravity" (2013), an American astronaut finds himself in outer space after the destruction of the ship due to the fact that Russia explodes a spy satellite with a rocket and creates a rapidly expanding cloud of space debris. Ironically, this scenario has recently been repeated in reality, when Russia shot down an old Soviet satellite, as part of tests of an anti-satellite missile. The probability that debris from space debris can penetrate a spacesuit during a spacewalk is usually 1 in 2700, but Russian tests have increased this risk by 7%.

Space debris is a danger to active satellites and spacecraft. Presumably, Earth's orbit will become impassable when the risk of collision is too high. Today, when most of the space debris is cataloged, there is no particular problem with this so far. All the world's space powers scan outer space for the presence of debris, of which there is a lot in low orbits: idle satellites, upper stages and spacecraft debris. It is very difficult to solve the problem of space debris quickly because of financial and political problems. Old satellites that have served their time should either be introduced into the Earth's atmosphere for disposal at the "spaceship cemetery" in the Pacific Ocean, or put into a "burial orbit" if the device is far from Earth.

Scientists have asked the question: why not develop a spacecraft that will dispose of space debris directly in space? And there is a prototype of such a device. The idea of creating a spacecraft for the disposal of space debris is based on the processing of space debris into fuel.

Not to litter will not work

Space debris is non-functioning artificial objects in near-Earth orbit that no longer perform a useful function. These include non-functional spacecraft and launch vehicle stages, as well as ih debris, color spots, solidified liquids ejected from the spacecraft, and unburned particles around solid-fuel rocket engines. NASA has announced 20,000 artificial objects in orbit above the Earth, including 2,218 active satellites. As of January 2019, there were 128,000,000 pieces of debris smaller than 1 cm in orbit, about 900,000 pieces between 1 and 10 cm in size, and about 34,000 pieces larger than 10 cm. Meteoroids in Earth orbit should also be added to artificial debris, which can be grouped with artificial debris and increase the risk of collision. This poses a danger to spacecraft: even the smallest objects cause damage, especially to solar panels, telescope optics and star trackers, which cannot be easily protected by a ballistic shield.

Over the years, the Earth's orbit has become more and more littered. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), humanity has launched 12,170 satellites since the beginning of the space age in 1957, and 7,630 around them remain in orbit today, but only about 4,700 are still operational. This means that almost 3,000 non-functional spacecraft are flying around the Earth at great speed along with other large and dangerous debris. For example, the orbital speed at an altitude of 400 kilometers (the altitude at which the ISS operates) is 27,500 km/h. At such speeds, even tiny fragments of debris can cause serious damage to the spacecraft. According to ESA estimates, there are at least 36,500 debris larger than 10 cm wide, 1 million objects from 1 to 10 cm across and more than 300 million objects from 1 mm to 1 cm in size in the near-Earth orbit.

The "cascade effect" (Kessler syndrome), which in the long term may arise from the collision of objects and particles of space debris, can be considered to be already making itself felt, although the cataclysm of the scale of "Gravity" is still far away. Evidence of this may be the collision of two satellites with each other. The most famous such incident occurred in February 2009, when the non-functioning Russian satellite Kosmos-2251 crashed into the operational communications ship Iridium-33, forming over 2,000 fragments.

Under the existing conditions of clogging of low Earth orbits, when measures to reduce man-made space clogging remain only theoretical, the cascade effect can lead to a catastrophic increase in the amount of space debris in low orbit, and as a consequence, to the practical impossibility of further space exploration.

General cleaning

As the problem escalates, organizations around the world are trying to find solutions - from magnets to "space claws" and harpoons. There are different ways to counteract space debris: crushing of large space debris, removal of debris from orbit or removal of a spacecraft from the orbit of debris, knocking down debris with a laser or processing it into fuel. It is not possible to use only one counteraction method for all types of garbage. For example, it is impossible to catch small space debris with a net, and it is useless to stop large space debris with gas.

Basically , there are two directions for combating space debris:

crushing of space debris directly in orbit;

deceleration and removal of large space debris from low orbits for subsequent combustion in the atmosphere or removal of space debris from geostationary orbit to a burial orbit.

Moreover, both methods have disadvantages associated with the formation of fragments of a smaller fraction, the fall of unburned debris to the Ground and the clogging of higher orbits.

The easiest way to clean up outer space is to suspend space activities for a decade until the Earth's gravity does its job, but then humanity will stop developing. If nothing is done, then at the current rate of growth of space activity, soon we will simply not be able to launch spacecraft due to debris in orbit and will also stop developing.

The American company Cislunar Industries is developing a space "foundry" for melting debris into homogeneous metal rods. And the propulsion system from Neumann Space can use these metal rods as fuel — their system ionizes metal, which then creates thrust to move in orbit. It's like making a gas station in space. The SCM processes garbage into fuel, which allows the spacecraft to gradually ascend to higher orbits, up to the burial orbit (over 40 thousand km), clearing outer space.

Most space propulsion systems use gas as fuel. Even in liquid form, fuel takes up a lot of space and is not suitable for space travel. And if there is a problem, as happened with the mission of the Challenger spacecraft, the results can be disastrous. It is better if the propulsion system will run on solid fuel, which is much safer than explosive liquid or gas.

Electricity is applied to metals such as titanium or magnesium, or to any solid conductive fuel rod, to produce plasma and burn the charged gas through the rear of the engine, creating thrust.

Simplified scheme of the Neumann engine

Paddy Neuman himself

The author of the project, Dr. Paddy Neuman, as a student, participated in a project on plasma diagnostics, which consisted in diagnosing how hot it is, how dense it is, how fast it moves, etc. Analyzing his results, he was able to determine the average effective plasma velocity, which was 23 km/s. He said that you can make a rocket out of it.

One of the efficiency metrics that engineers like to talk about in this field is called specific impulse. The specific impulse is, in fact, the amount of push that can be obtained from a given fuel weight. Thus, a higher specific impulse means that the fuel is used more efficiently. This is just one element that should be taken into account when developing a space engine. In addition, since it is very expensive to put something into orbit, it is very convenient to have fuel that allows you to do this with a smaller mass or volume. The specific impulse is measured in seconds. When Dr. Neuman began testing his engine, the existing ion engines produced 3,500 seconds of specific impulse. NASA's HiPEP experimental system can work a little better, 10,000 seconds. After testing several different fuels, Dr. Neuman published his results: magnesium as fuel and had a specific impulse of 11,000 seconds. So, three times better than what is used today.

Although the Neumann engine will not be able to compete with chemical-fueled internal combustion engines to take the ship into space, it can be installed on smaller ships or satellites to keep them in orbit. The Moon and the Sun will always pull the satellites a little behind them, so a small engine will be needed to keep them in the correct orbit.

Last year, Neumann Space received $2 million in seed funding from government grants. They say they plan to test the Neumann engine in space in the near future.

Now a kind of ecosystem is emerging in near-Earth outer space. In this ecosystem, as in any other, there are "creatures" that "live", "feed", perform their functions and, "dying", give food to other creatures. And the creatures that "feed on carrion" can and should become space debris collectors in the broadest sense of the word.

Taiwan's Problem: Why has the worldwide microchip workshop become problematic?

 The year 2020 has hit humanity not only with the Covid-19 epidemic. The global economy, as well as consumers of electronic devices, has been shaken by the microchip crisis. They became desperately lacking, prices rushed to unknown distances. Once publicly available — just pay! - the devices suddenly turned out to be a shortage, which we have to chase and which we have to "get". Just like in the old Soviet times.

The reasons are generally quite simple. The need for microchips and processors has already continued to grow over the past years — but the pace was approximately understandable, and production could be increased smoothly. The coronavirus pandemic has made the growth in demand for electronic devices that allow remote work, entertainment and communication explosive and unprecedented.

Production was increased in all possible ways, especially since it became possible to earn much more on this — but a problem arose. Microchip manufacturing plants are the most expensive, complex, demanding production personnel and equipment of all currently existing in the global economy. You can't stick them in quickly and anywhere, like a toy assembly shop or tailoring, or even an oil refinery. It takes at least three years and billions of US dollars to build, launch and reach normal capacities of new chip production from scratch, even under the most favorable conditions. So there was a gap in supply and demand for microchips, which turned out to be impossible to close quickly and simply. By the beginning of 2021, the shortage of chips on the world market was about 30%.

The situation has been aggravated by politics — and the importance of this factor may in the coming years turn out to be such that the current crisis of chips for production and consumer reasons will turn out to be a minor misunderstanding against the background of a full-fledged global catastrophe.

In 2020, the United States and China finally and clearly entered the political clinch, escalating into Cold War 2.0. The economic and trade war of the two most powerful economies is already in full swing — and also hits the chip market. Back in the summer of 2020, the United States banned Chinese Huawei from outsourcing chip development to Taiwanese TSMC: the absolute global leader in this field. Other sanctions measures followed.

TSMC was caught between two fires. The company's management chose the US side. The problem for the entire global economy — and politics — turned out to be that most of TSMC's production facilities are located in Taiwan: an island off the coast of mainland China. Now more than 50% of the world's products are produced there, and the most advanced and advanced - even under 90%.

TSMC chips, mainly made in Taiwan, are present in almost everything: smartphones, high-performance computing platforms, PCs, tablets, servers, base stations and game consoles, IoT devices, digital consumer electronics, cars and almost all weapons systems built in the twenty-first century. For decades, this suited everyone - but before our eyes, the situation has changed dramatically. New factories in Taiwan - despite the acute shortage and the ideal infrastructure for them on the island — are not even planned.

Officially, even from the point of view of the United States, Taiwan is part of the PRC. However, the island still has its own political system, the "Republic of China", which does not obey Beijing and dates back to the anti-communist forces that evacuated to the island in 1949. The mood of its residents for the second decade has been moving further away from the idea of reunification with the mainland, which was popular by the 90s - especially after the "tightening of the screws" in China and the defeat of protests in Hong Kong. Residents of Taiwan now prefer the traditional patronage of Washington and cooperation with Tokyo.

Beijing, on the background of its confrontation with the United States and neighbors from India to Japan, increasingly wants to subdue the "diamond" of global microelectronics that is eluding "reunification". He is spurred on by the realization that the factors that provided the Chinese economic miracle are already in the past, growth is declining, citizens demand freedoms instead of tightening the screws, and plans for domination in the XXI century may turn out to be as impossible a dream as the world communist revolution for the USSR. There are more and more competitors standing in the way of unrestrained economic expansion, as well as political opposition from the United States and other countries.

Therefore, now the PRC is strengthening its military power, especially the fleet, and unequivocally hints at the possibility of a forceful solution to the issue with the "rebellious island" through a rapid amphibious operation. Taiwan is no less clearly demonstrating its readiness to repel the invasion. He is supported in this by the United States, Japan, and other opponents of Beijing with its ambitions of domination in the "south seas" and the global economy.

Not only the war, but even a serious aggravation around Taiwan can put supplies from the island of microchip semiconductors that are critical for the modern world at risk, fraught with a worldwide economic crisis of a huge scale. The United States has already deployed a contingent of military advisers on the island, which is reported loudly and publicly. Washington and its allies are clearly determined to prevent a situation in which the flagship of global chip production will be in the hands of China and President Xi. It is quite possible to assume a situation in which — in the event of war and invasion - TSMC plants will be destroyed quite deliberately and purposefully.

Secondly, the island has been hit by a changing climate.

Taiwan is considered an extremely humid place, it is flooded with monsoon rains and typhoons. However, in 2020-21, Taiwan experienced the worst drought not seen in more than half a century. The 2020 monsoon simply did not come. By the spring of 2021, rivers began to dry up on the island and water reserves in reservoirs were coming to an end. And plants for the production of modern semiconductors for microchips require huge volumes of ultrapure water. It used to be enough - now not so much.

It got to the point that by the summer of 2021, the authorities had to take radical steps: throw the remaining water supplies to semiconductor factories, cutting off its issuance to citizens and even farmers - despite the fact that agricultural production on the island was on the brink of disaster. Only these draconian measures prevented the decline in the production of semiconductors, from the lack of which the world microelectronics is already suffocating.

The monsoon of 2021 turned out to be more decent, and somewhat eased the situation — but no one will give accurate forecasts for the next years. The climate becomes very unpredictable with a general tendency to increase aridity. And there are simply no powerful rivers that allow organizing an uninterrupted supply of water even in dry times on a small island.

Therefore, TSMC has already announced the construction of a new plant for the production of the latest minimum-dimensional chips in Arizona in addition to the existing one in Washington state. The Americans themselves are going to deploy a program of subsidizing the semiconductor industry on their territory — but so far the amounts for this look conservative and modest relative to the scale of the problem, only a few hundred billion US dollars. And the production facilities in the USA are still mostly lagging behind the Taiwanese ones in terms of the quality and dimension of the chips.

The Europeans also do not stay away from the problem of microchips. In the summer of 2021, EU countries announced a goal to double their share in the global microchip market by 2030. Intel is going to build a new semiconductor plant in Europe worth $20 billion, and is considering Germany, the Netherlands, France and Belgium as potential production sites. The EU's problem is that their capacities are very outdated. The best factory in Europe is Intel's enterprise in Ireland, which collects 14-nm chips, whereas in Taiwan they are already making 3 nm, and Samsung and IBM just yesterday announced a technological breakthrough and overcoming the threshold of 1 nm.

The PRC's plans are also by no means limited to the idea of achieving the subordination of Taiwan. In addition to the two TSMC plants in the country, which are facing increasing problems, in 2021 Beijing decided to allocate one and a half trillion US dollars for the deployment of its own production and import substitution of technologies by the efforts of Hauwei, Alibaba, SenseTime companies instead of increasingly inaccessible solutions from IBM, Oracle, EMC. There is a campaign to lure TSMC engineers, who are promised a two- or three-fold increase in salaries on the continent — to which the Taiwanese company itself responded with a sharp increase in employee salaries, and the government of the Republic of China banned the publication of vacancies in the PRC.

We decided to make a breakthrough in the field of chip production in South Korea — where previously Samsung and other chaebols preferred purchases from the same TSMC. Now Seoul wants to deploy a full production cycle in the country in the coming years. However, South Korea is also located near the PRC, and in the north it is threatened by nuclear missiles of northern cousins friendly with Beijing.

The government of India, which has its own powerful IT sphere, also decided to take care of competition with its Himalayan neighbors - relations with which New Delhi is getting worse, and clashes on the border are becoming more frequent. Just this week, India announced the allocation of $ 11 billion to attract chip manufacturers to the country.

However, many economists question the distribution of microchip production outside Taiwan. In their opinion, if — which is still more likely - the military crisis around the island does not happen, the enormous forces and resources of many countries will be thrown to the wind, and when the chip market normalizes again, it will already come to excess supply.

Time will tell who is right in this dispute. But still, the idea of not putting eggs in one basket, especially lying in a fire-hazardous building, seems wiser.

Noctua, in partnership with Drop, is releasing keyboard caps in their classic color palette

 

Noctua collaborated with Drop to release a key set of Cherry MX switches. The keycaps are manufactured using Noctua's corporate color scheme. There are a variety of kits to choose from for different keyboards and layout factors. Pre-orders have already started, and prices start at $115. The basic key set includes all the keycaps required for a standard American layout keyboard and several additional keys for customization. For each group, users will receive a keycap with the Noctua logo and fan image. 

In addition to the basic kit, you can also order keycap kits for digital modules for use in Colevrak, Ortho, ISO UK and other layouts. There is also a set of separate space keys with different keycap sizes. The provided kit allows you to install the keycaps into various custom keyboard configurations. 

The keycaps are made of double-layer ABS plastic, which is fade-resistant and durable. In addition, the button adopts an arc-shaped design, which makes the contact between the fingers and the button more comfortable. It should be noted that the keycaps use the proprietary color scheme of Noctua fans.

The Oxford Institute found an association between fun and mental well-being

 Video games can be beneficial for mental health, recent evidence from the University of Oxford demonstrates. As scientists have found, people who play video games for a long time, in most cases, experience themselves more happy than those who do not.

The study used data that Oxford professionals earned through Nintendo and Electronic Arts. Nintendo gave information about the time that investors cheated in Animal Crossing: New Horizons; EA, in addition to the time provided, shared yes the achievements and behavior of investors in Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville.

This data was combined with the results of a survey in which the players considered their location and well-being. The survey involved 3274 people, always over 18 years old.

Educator Andrew Przybylski, who was in charge of the study, said he was stunned by the results.

“If you play Animal Crossing for four hours a day, you're probably feeling fundamentally happier than someone who doesn't,” he said. "These numbers are at odds with past research, which has shown that the longer people play, the more unhappy they feel."

The reader has suggested that one of the reasons for the discrepancy may have been the social peculiarities of Animal Crossing and Plants vs Zombies, in which investors interacted with other people.

“I don’t think people will spend a lot of time to play with the public aspect if they don’t like it,” declared Przybylski.

That said, people who feel “compelled” to present themselves — for example, to avoid stress in other areas of their lives — reported feeling less satisfied.

The peculiarity of this research was the application of realistic data on the time spent in games. The Oxford Institute was able to combine the results of the polls with the truthful information given by the publishers. In previous studies, players, in most cases, judged how much they played. Scientists think that this criticism may exist inaccurate.

Experimenters strive to emphasize that the acquired materials are not carte blanche for the sake of games.

“I’m sure if the testimony continues, we will be testing about the toxic aspects of video games and find enough evidence of their existence.”

For example, they orientate in Oxford, in the search they studied only two fun for all ages, and other fun may be less useful. The uncle's disposition for the game affects the mental impact it has. Scientists point out that "internal" well-being seems to be the main fundamental moment - sometimes a person plays a game, elementary causation is fun.

“Our results show that video games are not unconditionally harmful to your health. Consume the rest of the mental factors that dramatically affect human well-being. In fact, the piece of iron can become an activity that unconditionally affects the mental well-being of people, and regulation of video games may lose investors of these benefits, ”the researchers concluded.

Oxford Institute found association between fun and mental well-being

 Video games can be beneficial for mental health, recent evidence from the University of Oxford demonstrates. As scientists have found, people who play video games for a long time, in most cases, experience themselves more happy than those who do not.

The study used data that Oxford professionals earned through Nintendo and Electronic Arts. Nintendo gave information about the time that investors cheated in Animal Crossing: New Horizons; EA, in addition to the time provided, shared yes the achievements and behavior of investors in Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville.

This data was combined with the results of a survey in which the players considered their location and well-being. The survey involved 3274 people, always over 18 years old.

Educator Andrew Przybylski, who was in charge of the study, said he was stunned by the results.

“If you play Animal Crossing for four hours a day, you're probably feeling fundamentally happier than someone who doesn't,” he said. "These numbers are at odds with past research, which has shown that the longer people play, the more unhappy they feel."

The reader has suggested that one of the reasons for the discrepancy may have been the social quirks of Animal Crossing and Plants vs Zombies in which investors interacted with other people.

“I don’t think people will spend a lot of time to play with the public aspect, if they don’t like it,” declared Przybylski.

That said, people who feel “compelled” to represent — for example, to avoid stress in other areas of their lives — reported feeling less satisfied.

The singularity of this research was the application of realistic data on the time spent in games. The Oxford Institution managed to combine the results of the polls with the truthful information given by the publishers. In previous studies, the players, in most cases, judged how much they played. Scientists think that this criticism may exist inaccurate.

Experimenters strive to emphasize that the acquired materials are not carte blanche for the sake of games.

"I'm sure if the testimony continues, we'll be testing about the toxic aspects of video games and find enough evidence of their existence."

For example, they orientate in Oxford, in the search only two fun were studied for the sake of all ages, and other fun may be less useful. The uncle's disposition for the game affects the mental impact it has. Scientists point out that “internal” well-being seems to be the main fundamental point - sometimes a person plays a game, elementary causation is fun.

“Our results show that video games are not unconditionally harmful to your health. Consume the rest of the mental factors that dramatically affect human well-being. In fact, the piece of iron can become an activity that unconditionally affects the mental well-being of people, and regulation of video games may lose investors of these benefits, ”the researchers concluded.

Public logo - as if the street can be predicted almost always

 The corporate outlook of a broad category of unintentionally organized people is probably more executive than the opinion of one person, even if this person seems to be a specialist in the given issue. This concept is not classified as new. Even Aristotle in 350 BC. e wrote in "Politics":

“It is possible that many, although not excellent people apart, but when they come together, can exist better, not individually, but collectively, unswervingly, just as if the collective dinners, to which some write their contributions, are better than when they were delivered after one person's letter of credit ”.

In 1906, an experiment was deceived in the city of City (Great Britain) at a rural fair. Francis Galton, as an amusement of the fair's clients, recommended approximately setting the authority of the bull outlined for a general survey and compiling this figure for a specific ticket. The organizers of the show promised prizes for the correct conclusions. In the end, around 800 people participated in the vote - both inveterate farmers, that way, and people distant through pastoralism. After compiling all the tickets for analysis after this fair, Galton calculated the average digital property for the entire collection - 1,197 pounds. The apparent weight of the bull turned out to be 1198 pounds (543.4 kg). In a kind of incomprehensible manner, all kinds of crowd let out an answer that was extremely summed up to a realistic indicator. the protest of the public was more accurate than the answer of one expert, say a butcher or a cattleman. Galton, some earlier unshakably believed in the selection and superiority of some people over others, could not do anything to change the polyvector of his research.

Under certain conditions, the mind of a gang is much more gnawing and reliable than the specialized information of every guy in it. This paradox was reproduced many at a time in different areas.

The USS Scorpion (SSN-589) is a high-powered single US Navy wagon, one of six Skipjack boats. Workings for water took place on December 29, 1959. Well, in 1968 the submarine, together with a crew of 99 people, sank. The root cause of the death of the ship has not yet been established, mainly a seizure of a Mark-35 torpedo is considered a potential version. Initially, they could not determine the space of the submarine's death. The final display of radio communications with the boat took place, sometimes it was sought immaculately 2,100 miles across Norfolk in the Atlantic pivot. The problem was not easy.

Eugene Piña Craven (John Piña Craven), the general course of the service, which was the search and raising of sown items by military personnel in the abyssal lobes of the universal ocean and other specific actions using carts, made up an endless community (i.e. a crowd) for the search, consisting of mathematicians, professionals after submarines, oceanographers, military. Craven asked them all to come up with an idea of ​​where the Scorpion sank, based on the likely scenarios for the submarine's death. After analyzing the protest of everyone, Craven oriented the position of the search for the sub, and ... he was right.

One question arises: “If the street can get so smart, why don't we recycle it in all aspects of life?

The paradox of crowd wisdom is frozen in business strategies and marketing spaces. Companies and companies collect customer responses and develop advertising in accordance with the data. This paradox has been brought into the spotlight of social networks such as Quora, Stack Exchange, Wikipedia, and the rest of the web resources created for corporate human knowledge. Well, or the initial example, you can hardly follow the film if the mediocre criticism for Kinopoisk is IMDB further 7. Public reason is used in the election of the president and other favorites (well, the final example is not the most successful).

And it would seem that one booth is good, but two are better. Quickly for that matter, three heads are even better than two, and four are all the more. The presence of a hundred rubles, that is, a thousand, the Logos is elementary obliged to triumph. But why do we have economic bubbles, godly sects and Hitler?

What makes a mob of sentient beings? Unanimously with correspondent and writer James Surowiecki, public logos is grounded on two factors: multitude and independence. The crowd, consisting of representatives of diverse professions, ages, nationalities, is more reasonable than the street, consisting of "the same" people. Different people react to different "details", and if they are specifically connected, corporate art will be more extensive (and more detailed) than the information of any separate person. The independence of the mob is important. Let's remember the fun “Who wants to be a millionaire?

The statistics show that if a call to an erudite comrade, an impeccable protest was preferred only in 65% of cases, and sometimes a tennis player picked up the support of the audience, the protest of the majority was unchanged in 91% of cases. But now imagine that during the audience's prompt, someone shouts: “The correct protest is B! How much does this affect the final result? And that when, during the Plymouth Fair, someone would tell people how much the bull pulls? ! When the street listens to the opinion of one separate person, the street ceases to exist as a "collective mind"

A jury trial, consisting of 12 diverse independent people, it is possible to cast down like an example of "collective intelligence". And if 11 of them begin to listen attentively to the view of one, then this judgment is no different from when one person condemns. The film "12 Angry Men" (1957) convincingly shows how the fate of the jury depends on the view of one well-versed gossip in a jury (by the way, the movie has a rating of 8.9 in the IMDB).

Freshly baked media every minute connects with the popularization and enhancement of the quality of corporate intelligence. The ability of freshly baked media to preserve and use information with airiness, mainly through databases and the Internet, allows it to be easily broken up. Hence, by interacting with new media, art moves freely from first hand to source, eventually delivering a variation of corporate intelligence. The use of interactive, fresh media, such as the Internet, rewards online interaction and this arrangement of information between users.

There are two types of people to consume in a team: cognitively basic - who understand exactly this, that almost all other members of the group, and cognitively peripheral, possessing original information. To perform well, groups need to use the knowledge of cognitively distant people. But in most companies, cognitively core team members play first fiddle when discussing conclusions. The explanation is simple: people choose to feel the well-known information and listen to those who can provide it. Therefore, cognitively, the main members of the category are believed more than, cognitively, peripheral.

In brainstorming, the most important thing is to help the team verify all the information that its members have, and to upset the wrong informative signals and the reputation factor to influence the decision.

Consequently, the street intends to accept the best decisions, if it consists of different views and ideologies. Averaging is possible to eliminate chaotic errors, which affect the protest of any guy in different ways, but not systematic errors, which affect the opinion of the whole mob in a certain place. However, it is impossible to expect that the "wisdom of the crowd" method will compensate for cognitive biases.

The crowd, as a rule, functions the best, sometimes consuming an impeccable protest to a question posed, for example, the question of geography or mathematics. Sometimes there is no executive response, the street may come to his senses to random conclusions. The mob's wisdom special effect is free to subvert. The social impact can be led to the fact that the average property of the conclusions of the mob will be completely inaccurate, while the geometric mean will be much more reliable. Experiments drawn by the Swiss Federal Institute of Science and Technology have shown that sometimes a team of people was supposed to respond to a question together, they tried to come to their senses to a consensus, some every minute led to a decrease in the punctuality of the answer. how long is the value between the two countries? One way after a war with this outcome is to ensure that the team has a population of diverse backgrounds.

How to improve the punctuality of the conclusions of a mob - a human swarm, whatever you call Human Swarming. In 2015, Oscar Night, a team of hectic moviegoers fit into the history of the predictions of the award, overlapping the monitoring of the majority of film industry professionals, starting with the New York Times and FiveThirty Eight. They created this using a new, remarkable figure of non-natural intelligence called Swarm Intelligence. It works well to combine the knowledge, wisdom, emotion and insight of realistic people in a realistic timeline.



But this was not interrogation - it was a living system, united by swarming methods, allowing groups of online users to group their minds in such a way that it far exceeded the abilities of separate members. Without going into lengthy speculations, Swarm Intelligence allows groups to fruitfully join forces, turning ordinary fans into super experts. The team foreshadowed the favorites of the top 15 awards after just 15 minutes. As reported by Newsweek and Discovery, the mediocre person who participated in the study, acting alone, earned only 3 out of 15 fair conclusions (40%). They did a little better, sometimes the experimenters combined the materials into an unassuming survey, picking up a predominantly recognized protest for each category. Acquired 7 out of 15 fair conclusions (47%).

But when the team functioned together like a swarm using the UNU software platform, they foreshadowed 11 out of 15 fair (73%). It was much better than even the most productive guy in the group, some specifically recognized only 9 categories. He also did better than the New York Times, earning some 9 out of 15 fair answers. It is clear that some intelligences are better than one ...

Revealed by these key results, the Unanimous A. experimenters tested the capabilities of these swarms in various fields, through the bazaars to the NFL playoffs. And these swarms continue to impress, beating ESPN specialists week after week and overtaking 99% of the players for the Super Bowl.

How absorption schemes are adapting in the energy sector

 From that moment on the origin of energy as an independent service of the industry, its fundamental problem was the issue of generating, first of all, galvanic energy. Once, the idea of ​​cogeneration (district heating) gained popularity, and the general chamber of galvanic and thermal energy, freezing with a freshly baked turn of the industry's generation, acquired the status of a classic one. The next step in the evolution of energy was the production of frost along with hot and electricity.

If it is more and more less clear with cogeneration, then trigeneration (a simultaneous chamber of electricity, heat and cold), however, has not pretended to be innovative for a long time, it still activates every minute, if not questions, because there is some misunderstanding in the sense of using it for huge enterprises heat power engineering. In this note, I will consider where and for which not so much cold is used, but also in a holistic absorption scheme for a power plant (ES).



The formation of technologies and the general trend for energy efficiency in the industry also hooked the energy industry, in which warmth and electricity spent for personal needs were constantly considered an inexhaustible resource due to low cost and availability, valid in undivided quantities.

Using the example of power plants with which the First Engineer brotherhood operates, the employees and I can indicate the unconditional progress of interest in resource conservation. As recently as 3-4 years ago, most of our plans in the energy sector were focused on increasing the strength of systems, but today most of the calls are combined with the tasks of increasing productivity and reducing energy consumption for their own needs. One of the most promising, in our opinion, methods to reduce the use of initial energy resources are absorption technologies, which allow more comprehensive utilization of heat generated in the cycle of power plants (heat and power generating enterprises of the industry are always symbolically included in the material: from simple hot water boilers and small CHPs to Station and already nuclear power plant). This applies to both high-potential flows (superheated steam, exhaust winds of jet plants), as well as low-potential flows (recycled water, used steam, outgoing boilers winds).

ABHM and frost generation

Absorption circuits are, first of all, a frost chamber with the use of ABCM (absorption lithium bromide freezers). The principle of the ABHM service is based on the use of thermal energy, but not electrical energy. Since for energy items it is warmly available to fill up with something like a parasha of various parameters, more passionate than water, in other words, combustion provisions, it is precisely this intelligibility that reveals extensive abilities for the sake of connecting ABHM into the ES cycle.

Naturally, the production of frost for power plants (with temperatures lower than that of atmospheric air) is performed on a relatively small scale and, as a rule, for the following purposes:

air conditioning of premises with constant or periodic presence of people;
air conditioning of premises with increased heat generation from equipment located in them.


With all this, galvanic air conditioners and steam jet freezers are usually used.

Cooling down of scientific and technical equipment using water circulation cycles with cooling towers cannot be relegated to cold generation systems, since they do not produce cold, but release additional warmth into the environment. With all this, the outgoing fever of cold water does not exceed the temperature of the spirit on a wet thermometer.

Above all, a soothing cooling tower pattern is needed for the service of the absorption chiller (dumping excess low grade waste heat). But since there is no flaw in the cooling vane for energy enterprises (especially in the summer, sometimes the energy equipment is underutilized, and the cooling towers are not functioning at full capacity), because the device of additional cooling towers is maliciously not required for ABHM, they use the existing circulating water (cooling water), choosing freezing car near its parameters.

Increasing the boundaries of conventional methods of using freezing equipment for power plants, it is possible to distribute three general methods of using ABCM at energy enterprises:

cooling of scientific and technical equipment and air conditioning of premises;
cooling the spirit at the inlet to the gas turbine compressor;
concentrated refrigeration supply.

Cooling of scientific and technical equipment and air conditioning of premises

In accordance with the fact that freshly baked circuits and equipment are arriving in the energy sector, the conditions for the conditions of its operation are increasing, for auxiliary systems ensuring its trouble-free operation, including the cooling system. Cooling down is required both for the executive elements of scientific and technical equipment, as well as for equipment that owns a noble level of heat release, located in separate rooms with maintaining a microclimate (automation systems, control systems, server equipment, and so on.

In industrial buildings in places of long-term stay of operating personnel, in administrative and utility rooms, providing a comfortable temperature can be maintained by a concentrated arrangement of refrigeration on the basis of ABHM.

Personnel of similar systems:

absorption chiller,
construction of sorting pipelines,



Cooled in the ABHM solvent (for the needs of conditioning, an ordinary thermal diagram is held for a level of 7-12 ° C) by means of a branching bond of pipelines is supplied to the internal blocks of industrial conditioning (fan coil units) located in the premises. The cool solvent is heated in the fan coil heat exchangers, cools the air passing through them, and is returned to the chiller for secondary cooling.

Cooling down the spirit at the entrance to the GTU compressor

To maintain the course of combustion, the combustible in the combustion chamber of a reactive design (GTU) requires continuous oxygen delivery. A weightless compressor, installed on the same shaft as a gas turbine, guarantees the compression of oxygen-concentrated atmospheric air supplied to the gas turbine combustion chamber. Initially, the spirit studies a fair amount of filtration steps in a complex air-cleaning device (KVOU) for filters for advanced and fine cleaning.


In relation to the electrical overload of the turbine in its combustion chamber, food is required for a certain amount of air. However, at an unheated moment, the fever of the encircling sphere soars that the saturation of the atmospheric spirit clearly falls, and which leads to the "starvation" of the fuel combustion, to a decrease in the size of the exhaust gases turning the blades of the gas turbine. As a result - the fall of the galvanic power of the GTU by 20-30% through the nominal one.

The forcible cooling of the cyclic spirit in the KVOU allows the turbine service to be returned to its regular schedule with the release of great power even during abnormally noble temperatures of the surrounding environment. With this target, additional heat exchange planes are inserted into the KVOU (or the existing heat exchangers are modified for new ones), inside which the solvent circulates, that is, the water-glycol mixture cooled in the ABCM.

It is possible to utilize not only hot water and steam from the turbine extraction, but also the heat of the exhaust gases of the GTU itself, as a heating spring ABKhM. The analysis of the heating spring depends on its availability, features and constructive implementation of the general equipment, cost price. Finally, the desirability of introducing the cooling cycle spirit of the gas turbine unit is determined by the size of the underproduction of electricity and the related national economic consequences (fines, shortfalls came through the sale of electricity, etc.), the scheme for connecting the ABHM, the frequency of its service and some autochthonous agreements (including climatic ).

Concentrated refrigeration supply

In the last 10-15 flights, the use of absorption freezers for the purpose of concentrated refrigeration supply to external customers with the use of additional heat from enterprises has developed rapidly in Sweden, Finland, France, Germany, Half-Day Korea, China and many other countries. In most cases, a cool solvent (with a temperature of 5-7 ° C) is used for the needs of air conditioning office buildings, hospitals, malls, sports and exhibition complexes, and some public infrastructure items. For newly designed plots with residential buildings, the design of a concentrated refrigeration supply is often worked out.

A similar entrance makes it possible to drastically reduce the load on the electrical infrastructure of megalopolises in the summer, sometimes a fundamental amount of energy consumption is required for the equipment of air conditioning and refrigeration systems. Consequently, the authority of local power systems of sections and whole cities increases, the risk of the origin of car accidents is lowered due to overloads in the power grids during the hours of maximum loads. That's all this without significant costs and modernization of the existing power system.

In operation, such arrangements are not at all more difficult than an ordinary heating network: the same main pipelines (direct and return lines), autochthonous points for regulating frost parameters and business accounting, sorting ties (by consumers), instead of heating radiators, fan coil units.

if sometimes separate buyers are asked for more perfect cooling (5 ° C and below), the buyer is asked to organize an internal circulation silhouette with electric chillers, which will cool the coolant in the silhouette before sufficient parameters.

In order to dismiss the length of installations of refrigeration systems, ABHM can be installed closer to customers - in district boiler houses, that is, thermal points, using hot network water near this as a heating source.

ABTN and heat generation

Another area of ​​the ABHM is plowing in the system of the thermal pump. Absorbing temperature hose (ABTN) by the type of service is no different from ABHM. In short, it is possible to correct the low-potential of the warmly flue gases of boiler structures and even warmly circulating water in the ABTN and broadcast more to the heated clot (network water), saving in this manner for fuel. Taking into account the fact that a calming pattern is not required for the operation of a thermal pump (its significance is carried out by a low-potential flow, which is warmly used to heat the heating network), the energy consumption for its operation is even lower than that of ABHM.

As you know, the production of heat in the power industry, given to the side, is usually performed in two forms:

something like warm water for the needs of heating and hot water supply (with the use of mesh water heaters and steam taken from the flow path of steam turbines, that is, with the use of hot water boilers);
something like a parasha for the need for industrial enterprises (directly from boilers with preliminary reduction, that is, from the turbine industrial sampling).


By utilizing the worked-out heat, which is naturally thrown off into the environment, absorption thermal pumps allow to increase the overall efficiency of the power plant, increasing the unlimited use of the heat of the combusted fuel. With all this, the following goals are being achieved, blocking the planting of ABTN at the enterprise:

reduction of the flue gas temperature of boilers,
multiplying the heat output of the ES,
deepening of the temperature strength of the existing heating network.


Reduction of boiler flue gas temperature

Cooling down of flue gases beyond 100 ° C is not carried out in a standardized manner due to the precipitation of acidic condensate in the convective part of the boiler and further along the path (in the gas ducts and chimney), which leads to their corrosion and premature failure. Naturally outgoing winds of the boilers erupt into the atmosphere with a temperature of 120-180 ° C.


When performing a system of measures that will allow you to turn off the negative counteraction of corrosive processes (more about this in my previous article "Ecology with benefit: Processing of flue gas heat"), the cooling of flue gases to the dew point temperature and then leads to the loss of NOx and SOx from them into condensate option. Consequently, the cleaning of flue gases from harmful emissions into the surrounding environment is performed, the environmental friendliness of production is increased and an extremely perfect and beneficial use of the heat of the exhaust gases is achieved.

Gas cooling with the use of ABTN can be quite perfect - up to 30 and even 20 ° C. The acquired heat is sufficient, in order to fool some water for the various needs of the power plant, including heating grid water.

In addition to fuel economy, which is possible to connect 5 ÷ 10%, the efficiency of the boiler device also increases - up to 2 ÷ 3%.