Published

8 months ago

February 25, 2026

Alice Rush

My doctor, who knows that I understand physics and renewable energy in particular, asked me today what I thought about wind turbines on boats.

I explained that, since boats need their own ways to generate electricity, what is called “small wind” may make sense. Most ships have diesel-powered generators, and that’s an option for smaller craft as well, and solar is not an attractive option because of the small area.

Doctors generally don’t have time to kill, but he asked me further about small wind, to which I explained:

Because the area of a circle is proportional to the square of the radius, big is better. If you can build a turbine with a radius 100 times larger than a small one, you’re going to generate 10,000 time more power.

Because the power generated by a turbine is proportional to the cube of the wind’s velocity, if you can site a turbine in wind conditions that are 10 times those on your rooftop, with trees and other buildings slowing the wind down, you’re going to generate 1000 times more power.

So, as usual, the answer resides in physics and math. 1000 times 10,000 is 10 million, which is why we see huge turbines on structures that lift huge turbines high above the ground, and it’s why the small wind industry has essentially disappeared.

If you don’t understand elementary school math and high school science, and you have money to burn, the investment offered at left may be right for you.

Rooftop Wind

Renewable Energy

Celebrating American Ignorance

Published

8 hours ago

November 1, 2026

Alice Rush

There are so many tragic aspects to life in today’s United States that it’s hard to name them all.

For my money, one of the saddest elements to the American zeitgeist is its glorification of ignorance.

Up until recently, if you wanted to know what science believes about anthropology, climate change, or particle physics, you asked a scientist in the relevant discipline, who not only has a college degree, but normally a ton of education on top of that.

Now, you ask a congressional Republican, preferably, an evangelical Christian.

Celebrating American Ignorance

Renewable Energy

How and Why We Conduct Science

Published

9 hours ago

November 1, 2026

Alice Rush

To the author of the meme here (if it’s an actual human being, vs. a Russian bot): to the best of my knowledge, the only actual major “scientific fraud” in world history was “Piltdown Man.” In 1912, a pseudo-anthropologist attempted to fool the scientific community into believing he had discovered the “missing link” between apes and humans.

Now, are there examples of instances when the science of the day turned out to be incorrect?

Of course, and new instances of this surface every day.

Think of how little when scientists believed 200 years ago is still intact today. Perhaps most obviously, Newtonian mechanics has fallen to relativity and quantum physics, but there are hundreds of other paradigm shifts in health and medicine, psychology, cellular biology, chemistry, and particle physics.

Contrary to what conspiracy theorists want you to believe, science is not a set of facts; it’s a methodology whereby we come to learn more about ourselves and the world around us.

Are there other methods by which we “learn?” Sure. Some uneducated guy goes on YouTube and becomes convinced that our consumption of fossil fuels is not causing the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans to rise. I would argue that this conduct is inferior to the scientific method.

How and Why We Conduct Science

Renewable Energy

Trump’s Only Real Talents: Attracting Attention and Controlling Morally Weak People

Published

1 day ago

October 31, 2026

Alice Rush

Trump is not an idiot. His IQ may not be too high, but he’s smart enough to know how to conduct himself in his lifelong quest to amass more wealth and power at the expense of everyone else on Earth.