Finland has become the first country to build a complete underground geological storage facility for its spent nuclear waste

The scars and pockmarks of the growing older flats and housing units underneath the purview of the New York Town Housing Authority really do not instantly connect the notion of innovation. The greatest landlord in the city, housing almost 1 in 16 New Yorkers, NYCHA has seen its properties literally crumble right after a long time of deferred upkeep and weak stewardship. All explained to, this forsaken backed housing is in the midst of what local planners have known as “demolition by neglect.” It would need an believed $40 billion or more, at least $180,000 for each device, to return the properties to a condition of very good maintenance.

A long time ago, there was evidence of innovation hidden inside of these units—in the kitchens. By the late ’90s, NYCHA realized that the current fridges in several units have been hugely inefficient, getting older, and high priced to the agency. It held a effective contest for appliance companies, asking them to develop scaled-down, much more successful apartment-dimension units. The winner, Maytag, was awarded access to NYCHA and other housing authorities, and offered 150,000 units of its novel Magic Chef product, concerning 1995 and 2003.

Now NYCHA wants to do the exact with heating and cooling. The Thoroughly clean Warmth for All Problem is asking producers to produce lower-cost, simple-to-install heat-pump systems for setting up retrofits. The stakes for the company, the winning business, and for society alone could be huge—and superior for the earth. 

Just after all, it’s significantly additional sustainable to retrofit existing buildings than to tear them down and establish new ones. Read the full story.

—Patrick Sisson

The need to-reads

I have combed the online to come across you today’s most enjoyable/critical/scary/fascinating stories about technologies.

1 Amazon would like Alexa to mimic the voices of your deceased loved types
Sure, it seems like a leaked Black Mirror script. (CNBC)
+ How your life’s knowledge suggests a edition of you could live endlessly. (MIT Engineering Assessment)

2 Finland is sealing its spent nuclear fuel deep underground
It is the initial place to make a complete deep geological storage facility. (Economist $)
+ Zap Vitality, a fusion startup, statements to have injected plasma into a reactor core. (NYT $)
+ Can the US’s photo voltaic panel field bounce again? (Slate $)

3 Economic downturn? What economic downturn?
The overall economy is slowing, but if we do suggestion into economic downturn, it might not be as bruising as beforehand thought. (New Yorker $)
+ Defining a economic downturn isn’t already uncomplicated, but we’ll know once it is listed here. (Bloomberg $)

4 Funds is dying
But even though much less people today use it, it’s still a lifeline for susceptible people today. (NY Mag)
+ An elegy for funds: the know-how we might in no way exchange. (MIT Technological innovation Evaluate)
+ In praise of the dollar bill. (MIT Technological know-how Critique)

5 How a team dedicated to canceling missionaries obtained canceled
No White Saviors has been accused of comparable misdeeds to the aid personnel it qualified. (Input)
+ How the AI sector profits from disaster. (MIT Technologies Review)

6 Mark Zuckerberg need to not be allowed to rule the metaverse
And his current monopolies must be examine as warning signals. (Time $)
+ Meta is no for a longer period sponsoring the US’s anniversary commemorations. (WSJ $)
+ Facebook’s Oversight Board is pushing for higher transparency. (WP $)

7 Alibaba has set its sights on south Asia
Having conquered China, it’s seeking to expand into pastures new. (FT $)

8 How Bored Apes eclipsed its crypto origins
And grew to become a cultural motion in the method. (The Block)
+ Crypto video game Axie Infinity could advantage from the Apes’ excellent fortune. (Rest of Planet)
+ At least GPU costs are dropping, at past. (Motherboard)

9 These little, robotic fish remove microplastics from the ocean
But we would have to have a Ton of them to make a big difference. (The Guardian)

10 Disassociation new music demonstrates the bleak state of our globe ideal now
Admirers are reveling in detaching themselves from reality. (Pitchfork)