Use 2-step verification

The moral of the following story is: use 2-step verification. If you need to log into you Gmail from a strange computer, make it call your cell phone and confirm it’s really you. It can do SMS or voice or you can carry a list of one-time-use verification codes. Oh, and use a special password on your key accounts.

Back in 2012 there was a terrible story in Wired about how a hacker broke into Mat Honan’s Gmail account and used that to gain access to all his other accounts. The goal of this hacking spree was to vandalize Mat’s twitter. However, to keep the game afoot as long as possible, they used his newly compromised online identity to get Apple to wipe Mat’s iPhone, iPad, and MacBook. Another great reason to own an apple product (remember: if you can’t open it, you don’t own it).

Too much of my life is wrapped up in my Google accounts to leave them at risk. How about you?

Cheers,

Peter

Nuclear reactor for efficient conversion of Tar Sands

I have said for years that Canada would eventually use nuclear energy to process the tar sands. It looks like Toshiba is going to make it happen. Converting tar sand to useful oil takes a lot of energy. Since there’s lots of tar on site, that’s the source of energy. A significant fraction of the energy in the tar goes into processing instead of into the consumer’s gas tank. Putting a nuclear reactor on site means that the processing energy comes from uranium instead. In some sense, it’s a conversion of uranium energy into hydrocarbon energy.

Of course, from a climate standpoint, it could be better. We could convert uranium energy (or solar energy!) into converting carbon dioxide into fuel instead of converting tar sand into fuel. But tar sand is a much more concentrated carbon source than the atmosphere.

What I think it really interesting is the funding model. Buy a nuclear reactor and plug it into your plant. That saves energy so you don’t have to burn your fuel on site. That frees up fuel for sale which pays for the reactor. How long before countries without tar sands figure it’s worth their money to convert other resources (e.g. biomass, municipal waste, natural gas) to fuel?

How grid storage can make solar work economically

A new ARPA-E startup is developing a battery improvement with a target price of $0.17 per watt-hour. I imagine that this price reflects current market prices for materials and so it might not reflect a revised demand scenario as we try to build large scale grid energy storage. However, if lithium batteries can be developed for this price, it seems likely that liquid magnesium (target price $0.05 per watt-hour), iron air (target price $0.10 per watt-hour) or some other advanced battery can get to a similar price point.

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