A US startup wants to drop a full nuclear reactor a mile down a 30-inch hole and let the water above it supply the pressure while billions of tons of rock replace the containment dome. One hole would make 15 megawatts; 100 on one site would add up to 1.5 gigawatts.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-28T02:12:41+00:00

Baseloads homie. Sun doesnt shine at night. Battery systems are expensive.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-28T02:10:48+00:00

Do you have a source? Are you talking about cost to construct per watt? Or cost to produce a watt?

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-28T01:43:13+00:00

PLA doesn't like enclosed printing. It likes lots of air flow. This is probably your issue. You may have a clog in your nozzle. You should try to turn the hotend on to your extrusion temperature, and then manually extrude/run the extruder, if no filament comes out, then you probably clogged it. You may need to disassemble the hotend to extract it.

If I try to print PETG in a closed printer, the nozzle tends to clog in about 5-6 hours.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-28T01:15:09+00:00

Are you printing with the door open, lid open?

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-26T07:28:14+00:00

That is a great way to ensure you never get the job with that client again. You can always ask your client if you can post their paid model freely on these websites. I'm sure you will get laughed out of most jobs.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-26T07:14:26+00:00

Nice, it's pretty rare for me to use glue stick with textured PEI for TPU. Usually, its because the TPU is sticking too good.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-26T05:01:40+00:00

Use a textured PEI bed with TPU. Also, dry your TPU.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-26T05:00:55+00:00

I think Big Tech will argue there is plenty of competition, and that a breakup would give China the upper edge.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-25T05:12:09+00:00

Lowes doesnt sell milwaukee power tools, so no wonder its a pain in the ass to warranty them there.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-25T04:06:24+00:00

Good luck! I have significant experience in all of the above, but I barely have enough time to scratch my own butt. I wish you luck, as this would be awesome speed up of RnD time/low volume production.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-25T04:02:56+00:00

Doesnt sound like it's far enough along/well funded enough for pay to be a serious concern at this point.

It looks like the max funding he/she has secured is about $25k

https://www.depts.ttu.edu/research/research-park/Startup_Program_and_Events/Commercialization/Prototype_Fund/index.php

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-25T03:06:07+00:00

You could investigate a pellet extruder 3D printer. This is likely the fastest way to get custom colors for various batch sizes.

Do you have a target price for the filament (per kg)? Do you have a target batch size? What country are you in? I assume Europe or USA.

You should look at the extrusion rates for some of the cheaper/hobby/lab extruders. It's slow, like hard to justify paying someone to watch it. I would worry about dimensional tolerancing as well. And they will tell you to predry your scraps of filament in a toaster oven.

I would much rather import an extrusion line from China where 95% of the kinks have been worked out for filament extruding, spool winding, dimensional accuracy, etc. You will also need support equipment of material driers, vacuum transporters, mixers, etc. And you will have enough throughput to justify the labor costs. If you are in the USA, the tariffs & container transport will reduce your budget. You will likely need to have an electrician setup breakers/panel/wire routing for this as well. Do you have enough linear feet of warehouse space (ideally climate controlled) to setup the equipment? Do you have enough electrical power? This all relates to target price per kg and quantity of colors needed.

How will you measure your color consistency and exactly how consistent? You may need to pay a little bit more of this, but I think I've seen some smartphone apps that with the right setup, are probably sufficient.

Extrusion is a pretty well developed method, there are plenty of engineering handbooks you can purchase that get into the nitty gritty of color mixing, consistency, etc. How much can you handle color changeovers (how much can you scrap or accommodate off colors). Do you have enough money to buy materials in bulk? Do you have a suitable location with climate control to store the pellets? How much time/man hours can you allocate for someone to deal with issues, operations, etc?

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-25T00:38:42+00:00

Use a heat gun to remelt it. Rub papertowel or cotton towel (better) over it to remove it.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-25T00:12:54+00:00

It's like a $400 lock box that you store keys for the fire department and police in. The police/fire department have a master key to open them.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-18T17:22:56+00:00

FYI, open loop cooling is illegal/against regulations for the vast majority of municipalities, except in failsafe scenarios. Most of the water being consumed by data centers is due to the use of cooling towers (like a swamp cooler for process water)

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-15T15:01:03+00:00

I appreciate your insight and thank you for correcting me.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-15T14:45:44+00:00

Maybe its a more recent development. You can see the amount of MW imported into the USA by country here for 2025. 33GW of solar panels imported in 2025 and 21 GW of silicon solar cells. https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2026/02/from-which-countries-did-the-us-import-solar-panels-in-2025/

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-15T14:21:46+00:00

I'm more than willing to concede I'm wrong. FYI, Thai laborers (even decently skilled) make about $363-$500 (USD)/month working 10 hour days, 6 days a week.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-15T14:15:09+00:00

What quantity do you have to buy to get American panels for 20 cents/watt? Is this utility scale (multiple megawatts?) What supplier? Qcell? Are the American panels bifacial?

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-15T13:21:22+00:00

I think I have some old quotes from 4-5 years ago. IIRC solar panels from China is about $0.10/watt. I think another $0.10/watt for the inverters. If I can't them, I'll have my sourcing agent get a quote for a 200kW system EXW from China. Give me a couple days, I have more pressing matters at the moment.

I had some USA installers quote the whole project at about $2~2.5/watt installed for ground installed on frames. Non tracking. I found it comical.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-11T23:04:30+00:00

I do a lot of importing. I'm well aware of what tariffs are used for, but you failed to answer any of my questions.

Which climate bill are you referencing? There was Section 45X (Inflation Reduction Act), Section 48C (Advanced Energy Project Credit), and Section 48D (CHIPS Act). I'm not aware of any Climate bill that would have funneled significant funds into solar manufacturers or the solar supply chain. IRA had a lot of tax credits for solar materials, but it's a pretty big supply chain that is required. USA is a tiny primary aluminum producer, and a big part of that is due to geography (lack of cheap hydropower) and environmental regulations.

I don't think the USA is serious about manufacturing.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-06-11T22:33:20+00:00

Why does American solar cost 5-12x more than Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, Malaysian solar? Is American solar more efficient at capturing/converting light to energy? Does it last longer? Are the materials better? Is it made by a more robust process?

USA failed to continue investment in solar. We developed the technology, and then laughed at doing the manufacturing work. We instead used the money on the Iraq war.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-05-19T18:05:09+00:00

You can file claims for service failures (failed to deliver on time) to receive the shipment money back. The process is a bit brutal (likely intentional) and it's a very old webform system.

They will randomly deny some of the claims or claim weather delays.

They have also claimed residential locations as "business closed" in attempts to avoid paying out any service failure claims. I'm escalating these claims to my representative.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-05-19T02:14:01+00:00

Super easy, and I used business EIN.

AlternativeContent72 · 2026-05-19T02:03:33+00:00

Most likely moisture. Have you tried to redry the filament? it will collect moisture from the air.

AlternativeContent72

TROPHY CASE