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Tonight will be the perfect evening to stay up late in the United States, because the moon is going to put on a spectacular show. In the wee hours of the morning, night owls can witness a full blood moon, supermoon, “worm” moon, and a total lunar eclipse. In addition to Americans, parts of Europe, Australia, Asia, South America, and Africa can also get in on the action. Lets take a deeper look at what that means and how you can see the spectacle: The March 2025 full moon is many things According to NASA, in the 1930s the Maine Farmers’ Almanac started publishing names for the full moons based on Native American traditions. This took off and became the preferred monikers for the celestial phenomenon. Each tribe had its own unique name. Northeastern and Southern tribes called the full moon in March the Worm Moon, because of the worm castings (worm waste) found during the month. Northern tribes called it the Sap or Sugar Moon, because it was time to tap maple trees. What is a total lunar eclipse? There are different types of lunar eclipses, NASA says. The Earth orbits the sun and the moon orbits the Earth. When these three line up, the moon enters the Earths shadow, creating a lunar eclipse. When the whole moon is in the darkest part of Earths shadow, called the umbra, a total lunar eclipse occurs. What is a blood moon and why is it red? During a total lunar eclipse, the moon appears to have a red tint. This is where the term “blood moon” comes from. A blood moon gets its hue from the light in Earths atmosphere. During a total lunar eclipse, Earth is positioned between the sun and the moon. Even though the suns direct light is blocked, the Earth refracts some light, which travels to the moon. Because of red lights longer wavelength, it has an easier time traveling to the moon, giving it the red tint. What makes this moon a supermoon? While this is marvelous to look at, there are no superheroes here. A supermoon means the moon is at its closest point to the earth during a full moon. How and when can I see the eclipse and blood moon? The moon will be in totalityor completely eclipsedfor around 65 minutes on Thursday night, although it will technically be in the early-morning hours of Friday, March 14, for most time zones. According to Space.com, this will occur: Eastern Time: 2:26 a.m.3:31 a.m. Central Time: 1:26 a.m.2:31 a.m. Pacific Time: 11:26 p.m.12:31 a.m. Diehard skygazers can make the most of the experience by heading outside around 75 minutes before totality to witness the moon travel fully through Earths shadow. It is best seen away from the bright lights of the city. One advantage of a lunar eclipse is that viewers dont have to worry about hurting their eyes, unlike their solar counterparts. No special equipment is needed, but binoculars and telescopes would help you see the moon in greater detail. Happy viewing!
Category:
E-Commerce
Identifying which companies you hope to work for is one of the biggest hurdles job seekers face. I know this because I was a search consultant for over 25 years. Now, I have an executive résumé and LinkedIn profile writing practice. And my clients almost always ask questions about how to find future employers. I advise them to use AI chatbot platforms like ChatGPT, Claude AI, and Perplexity. To help the platforms work their magic, I encourage them to use NAICS codes in their prompts. Heres how to do this: What are NAICS codes? NAICS is the acronym for the North American Industry Classification System. It assigns six-digit codes to companies as follows: The first two digits in a NAICS code identify economic sectors (e.g., 23 for Construction). NAICS has 20 sectors. The third and fourth digits divide economic sectors into subsectors. Example: 23 becomes 2382 for Building Equipment Contractors, a type of construction company. NAICS has 99 subsectors. The fifth and sixth digits divide economic subsectors into industries. Example: 2382 becomes 238220 for Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors, a type of building equipment contractor. NAICS has 1,000-plus industries. Thus, you can use NAICS codes at different levels to identify where you want to work. Once you know that, you can ask AI chatbot platforms to find companies in those NAICS codes. How AI chatbots can help find companies I asked ChatGPT how it finds companies. It searches for and analyzes public information from filings, directories, and the internet. It does in a minute or two what would take a job seeker hours, days, or weeks. I ran several searches on different platforms to show you how to use these chatbots to speed up your job search. You can see my prompts and results below. Prompts to find target companies I used these prompts to find companies by industry, location, and size: Prompt 1: Please list all the companies in NAICS code 713210 (Casinos) in Nevada. Claude AI provided a list of 55 large casinos. When I asked it to limit its results to Reno, it gave me 20 casino and gaming establishments. Prompt 2: List the 20 largest companies in the US in NAICS code 221115 (Wind Electric Power Generation). Perplexity listed 20 companies. When asked, it also shared locations, descriptions, and the 21st through 40th-largest companies. Prompt 3: List the companies in NAICS code 441110 (New Car Dealers) in Washington States King County. Perplexity named 17 dealerships, which was a good start but not comprehensive. ChatGPT wouldnt answer my query. Instead, it suggested I use Data Axle Reference Solutions, which I have recommended for years. DARS has a database of almost 100 million U.S. businesses. Its the ultimate resource if you hit a dead-end finding target employers, and its searchable by NAICS codes. Prompts to find recruiting, private equity, and venture capital firms Job seekers also want to find potential sources of opportunities, such as recruiting and private investment firms. To identify these targets, I used the following prompts. They included a subsector, industries, and specific investment strategies: Prompt 1: Please list search firms that recruit executives for companies in NAICS code 3254 (Pharmaceutical & Medicine Manufacturing). ChatGPT provided a list of 25 firms, although I had to re-prompt it with Any more? several times. Prompt 2: List venture capital firms that invest in AI start-ups (NAICS code 541745). ChatGPT provided a list of 28 firms. While I had to re-prompt it with Any more? several times, I stopped asking before it was done sharing firms. Prompt 3: Please list private equity firms that acquire turnaround clothing retailers (NAICS code 458110). ChatGPT provided a list of 17 firms. Again, I re-prompted it several times. Perplexity, prompted and re-prompted, gave me a list of 18 firms. You can use different platforms and variables at will. Doing so enables you to assemble lists of potential target companies in minutes.
Category:
E-Commerce
Across the U.S., dozens of proposed solar, wind, and battery projectsencompassing thousands of gigawatts of potential powerare backlogged as they wait to be allowed to plug into the power grid. And, even in areas where renewable energy projects are already online, their output is often heavily curtailed. This clean energy bottleneck stems from the fact that, as demand for renewable energy rises, the U.S. isn’t building new transmission lines fast enough to transport large amounts of clean energy from point A to point B. Now, theres a company looking to address that problem with a simple yet radical solution: Putting renewable energy into giant batteries and transporting those batteries by train. SunTrain is a San Francisco-based company founded by green energy developer Christopher Smith, who now serves as the companys president and chief technology officer. The idea, he explains, is to use the existing U.S. freight train systemwhich covers around 140,000 miles of terrainto bring renewable energy thats being curtailed by transmission bottlenecks to the areas that need it most. SunTrain is currently working on a pilot project that would run between Pueblo, Colorado, and Denver. If its approved by regulators, Smith says, he expects the pilot could be off the ground in just two years. [Photo: SunTrain] Current challenges to transporting renewables Clean energy is the fastest-growing source of electricity in the U.S. According to a report from American Clean power, 93% of the new energy capacity last year was solar, wind, and battery storage. The issue, Smith says, is that transmission line infrastructure lags far behind the rate of clean energy growth. The United States needs 300,000 miles of new transmission lines, like, right now. That’s the amount that we need immediately to keep up with current demand, Smith says. It’s also estimated that, to reach 100% renewables, as well as the electrification demand that we’ll have by 2050, well need over a million miles of new transmission lines by 2050. Currently, we’re building less than 1,000 miles a year. [Image: SunTrain] Building new transmission lines is challenging for a number of reasons, including environmental regulations, the time it takes, and the fact that any new lines would have to cross thousands of miles of privately owned land. In Colorado, for example, Smith says theres a lot of renewable energy in the states southeast corner, which flows through the grid to Pueblo. However, because theres not enough transmission line capacity between Pueblo and Denver, much of that power can’t ultimately be used. Once that renewable energy gets to Pueblo, there’s not enough transmission line capacity to get it into downtown Denver, Smith says. So that energy basically gets curtaileda fancy word for being wasted. Until now, the costly construction of new transmission lines has been the main solution that’s available. But Smith says this discussion overlooks a resource thats been used to transport energy for almost 200 years: railroads. The freight railroad network already moves virtually every single form of energy known to man that’s used in a real way: natural gas, coal, oil, ethanol, biomass, spent nuclear waste, various fossil fuels, and the list goes on and on, Smith says. So there’s this huge amount of overlap of our great railroad network and our electrical systems already. There is no reason why we cannot be moving battery trains over the freight rail network like we move every other form of energy. [Photo: SunTrain] SunTrain’s solution For its pilot project, SunTrain is partnering with Xcel Energy, Colorados largest electric utility. Xcel owns a coal plant in Pueblo (Comanche Generating Station) and a natural gas plant in Denver (Cherokee Generating Station) that are both set to be decommissioned within the next several years. Through a collaboration with SunTrain, these plants could potentially be re-powered with battery stored energy. Smith says SunTrain would use the existing substation inside Comanche Generating Stationwhich already has extensive railroad infrastructure from its history as a coa plantto charge its batteries from Pueblos bottlenecked grid. During the day, Smith says, the energy will likely be 100% renewable. Then, the batteries would be transported to Denver and the energy offloaded at the Cherokee Generating Station onto Denvers grid. (Charging and discharging take between four and six hours each, and the 139-mile trip from Pueblo to Denver takes about five hours by train.) A substation can turn energy into a format that can cover long distances without losing much energy, Smith says. A substation can also turn electricity generated from a power plant into a format that can be used by local homes and businesses. For SunTrain’s purposes, the Pueblo substation allows us to get the electricity formatted properly for our batteries while also collectively accessing all the various renewable energy generators in the region. [Photo: SunTrain] SunTrains proposed railcars will be made of 20-foot shipping containers, each of which will hold about 40 tons of batteries. The company designed proprietary charging and discharging systems that allow the energy to flow right from where it’s generated, whether it’s a solar array or a substation, right under the batteries on the railcar, Smith says. Then, once the train arrives at its destination, the discharging system would similarly allow the energy to flow right off the batteries. The whole process is designed so that the batteries never actually need to be removed from the train. [Image: SunTrain] In an interview with the podcast In the Noco, Smith said SunTrains first generation railcars are designed to match the freight railroads existing standards for coal trains, to ensure that the system itself doesnt need to change anything in order for SunTrain to come to market. Based on those parameters, each train will be built at between 8,000 and 9,000 feet long, with the capacity to carry around two gigawatt hours of power in total. Thats enough to power a city of 100,000 for a full day. Smith says the team has already tested a proof-of-concept train on several trips amounting to more than 10,000 miles on the Union Pacific network, traveling from SunTrains San Francisco testbed to discharge locations across California, Nevada, and Colorado. Now, the company is waiting for Colorados Public Utilities Commission to approve Xcels expenditure of about $125 million to begin construction on the pilot project. We tested the technology, the feasibility, made sure the mechanical standards were there, Smith says. Our manufacturing partners can deliver entire unit trains of thesemeaning 200 rail cars of batteries that could carry about 1.75 gigawatt hours of energy. So this isn’t something that’s far away, coming in the pipeline, or needing some kind of technological breakthrough. This is an immediately executable idea. It just needs the capital.
Category:
E-Commerce
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