The persistence of fossil fuels: The Reengineer Monitor #49

Solar-powered coffee, cool science - and more!

Photo by Pixabay.

Just a quick note, in case you missed it, that yesterday’s story on churches installing heat pumps was republished by Wired!

Heating and cooling

This is not your average heat exchanger. In Switzerland, engineers are installing giant new cooling devices on particle detectors at Cern (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), which is home to the Large Hadron Collider. The particle detectors work best when kept below -25C and the heat exchangers will be used to reduce the temperature of CO2 in their cooling systems to -53C.

A new DC-powered water heater has launched in the US, which can connect directly to solar panels – including off-grid. The device has a machine learning component, which helps decide when to heat up the water based on energy availability.

Buildings and infrastructure

I can report that the rain here in Northern Ireland has been fierce of late. But not so in England, where concerns over drought conditions remain, even as we get into winter. So bad is the situation that emergency planning is now underway regarding how the country might cope with severe drought in 2026, should dry conditions continue over the coming months.