Construction Physics

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May 2023
April 2023
Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a giant geothermal power plant?
It’s become fairly common knowledge that Yellowstone National Park, in addition to being incredibly beautiful, is sitting on top of an enormous…
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Brian Potter
19
How did solar power get cheap part II
(note: all quotes are from Nemet’s How Solar Energy Became Cheap unless otherwise noted.) Welcome to Part II of “How did Solar Power Get Cheap?” To…
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Brian Potter
25
How did solar power get cheap? Part I
Solar photovoltaics (PV) have become one of the cheapest sources of electricity. Lazard’s estimate of unsubsidized levelized cost of energy (LCOE)
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Brian Potter
21
March 2023
Could ChatGPT become an architect?
OpenAI recently released an updated version of their GPT large language model, GPT-4, and have incorporated it into their ChatGPT chatbot. In case…
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Brian Potter
6
Which city builds skyscrapers the fastest?
Last week we looked at trends in skyscraper construction speed for New York and Chicago, finding that New York has gotten significantly slower at…
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Brian Potter
12
When did New York start building slowly?
(Note: the analysis below of floor plate size vs construction speed is incorrect due to autocorrelation effects. For a correct analysis, see the…
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Brian Potter
12
How much safer has construction gotten?
When talking about (the lack of) construction productivity growth, or the fact that we used to build things much faster than we do today, commentators…
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Brian Potter
10
February 2023
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