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Kirk Smith, PhD

kirk@social.coop

<p>🧪 Research scientist and engineer fed up with the status quo (electrochemical engineering: batteries and electrocatalysis).</p><p>⚙️ Into appropriate technology, open-source hardware, co-ops (of all kinds), solidarity economy, and that sort of thing.</p><p>🐣 Grew up across the Mississippi River from Cahokia Mounds (St. Louis, Missouri)</p><p>📍 Drôme, FR</p><p>🏕️ Distance running, bikelife, getting off-grid</p><p>🏴 In the lower left of the political compass</p><p>he/him</p><p>EN/FR</p>

Posts

  • Post #4233988

    &amp;quot;Earlier this month, the FHWA quietly removed a set of recommendations — including bike lanes and speed cameras — from a list of &amp;quot;Proven Safety Countermeasures&amp;quot; that have been vetted by agency staff and shown to improve road safety. A DOT spokesperson told NPR in an emailed statement on Wednesday that the department &amp;quot;continuously reviews its policies to ensure each promotes safety, efficiency, and common sense.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Since nearly 80% of the pop...

  • Post #4233987

    #RealTimeCAD #FreeCAD writing the freaking docs takes FOREVER but is also satisfying. Trying to follow Julian Stirling&amp;#39;s advice for OSHW docs: don&amp;#39;t have any photos, they will be quickly out of date 😆 (am very guilty of this)

  • Post #3810712

    Hmm. The unfortunate reality of the Carnot cycle and the need to not boil the fish? &quot;The latest French heatwave has forced the temporary shutdown of three nuclear power stations to avoid the discharge of warm cooling water into overheated waterways.&quot; https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clye4z168edo #Energy #NuclearEnergy #EnergyTransition

  • Post #3749763

    If this isn&#39;t bureaucracy in France in a nutshell 😅 Sign outside of a relatively small wind farm giving chronology of the project, translated to English, it reads: 1998 - project starts 2002 - applied for a construction permit 🤞 🦗 ... 🦗 2018 - construction starts 😅 2020 - construction ends 2021 - commissioning and grid connection

  • Post #3697717

    Hey #wildfire &quot;enthusiasts&quot;/community responders/concerned citizens - how do you prepare for wildfires at your home? Where I live now in France we are getting pummeled with fires at a historic rate, I have not seen any community preparedness efforts like I saw in the #California Bay Area for example since I don&#39;t think people here are really used to them in the same way... And where I grew up we didn&#39;t have wildfires, so I don&#39;t know much practical stuff. Do you have a go...

  • Post #2558534

    From a ride last week around the Forêt de Saoû #drôme #bikepacking

  • Post #2068688

    Okay it is a TEST (pardon the mess) but I can officially do charge/discharge tests on a much larger scale now! Should cover my needs for a while, can allegedly go up to 24 A/30 V/75 W (though not with this wiring setup, lol). Testing out automated charge/discharge testing as I mentioned in https://dualpower.supply/posts/lab-notebook-14/#large-cell-testing. It basically worked first try. Shout out to OSHW, this probably saves us thousands of euros on a commercial equivalent of similar precision....

  • Post #2068687

    In my hometown, in the last week or so, two cyclists have died and one seriously injured after being hit by cars, ages 33, 67, and 86... Two cases are hit-and-runs and two cases were intentional targeting of the cyclist and using the car as a weapon. In the backdrop of this, the state house legislature has passed a bill to increase speed limits and eliminate vehicle inspections. Missouri 🤦 I honestly don&amp;#39;t see the point of speed limits. Nothing will slow down drivers except radar and tr...

  • Post #2068686

    Anyway, I&amp;#39;ve made it, have you? #BikeTooter

  • Post #1785301

    @st3phvee oh I totally get the feeling 😅 grew up in one of those cities

  • Post #1785300

    @st3phvee the worst is when places install cycle/pedestrian infrastructure and then rip it out months later cause drivers complain/they can&amp;#39;t drive properly and keep running into the barriers...

  • Post #1785299

    Just watched a documentary on the Attica prison riot made up primarily of interviews with former prisoners. It&amp;#39;s free on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG1f7FzgXY8&amp;amp;feature=youtu.be It&amp;#39;s super horrific, of course, but also inspiring/powerful to hear the prisoners&amp;#39; testimonies and unity. And a reminder that it&amp;#39;s been a very long time that you cannot take at face value the word of corporate US media, law enforcement, or politicians... this is...

  • Post #1785297

    Lab Notebook Entry #16 &amp;quot;Finished&amp;quot; the argon Zn-I test, but because it leaked. Made improvements to the dev kit design. https://dualpower.supply/posts/lab-notebook-16/ #academia #OpenScience #Quarto #batteries #EnergyStorage #energy #science #electrochemistry

  • Post #1785295

    RE: https://floss.social/@danslerush/116480874311065853 #icanhazpdf @icanhazpdf Edit: found!! Y&amp;#39;all are way too fast 😂❤️ thanks! could someone with journal access pretty please send me the PDF of this paper? It&amp;#39;s in Wiley Advanced Energy Materials. Battery hype making the rounds and I want to check out the details... Paper is here: https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/aenm.202506734 My email is kirk@dualpower.supply Thanks in advance!

  • Post #1506079

    The charging cable hanging out of the top floor window lol

  • Post #1383395

    Friggin&#39; Europe, back at it again with the micromobility. Bicycle lockers are a game changer. First time using one. Love not having to take off my lights, bags, pump, and other widgets. #BikeTooter

  • Post #1367285

    #introduction for @SocialCoop - hello, all! I&amp;#39;m Kirk, an engineer researching the conversion/storage of clean energy: batteries, converting CO₂ into useful chemicals, etc. I&amp;#39;m from St. Louis, USA, did my PhD in UK, now living in France. I&amp;#39;m a lot of things but anticapitalist and antiauthoritarian are good catch-alls. I plan to transition away from academia and start a worker-owned enterprise around these technologies, with open-source at the core. Here to learn from oth...

  • Post #1144551

    I made a sub-5-minute video of myself building a flow battery and starting a test! It&amp;#39;s on PeerTube, ofc: https://spectra.video/w/dxjsd8AR2uAvnA6UMnnb8G

  • Post #886470

    Lab Notebook Entry #12 30 cycles, 133 hours, and now a UPS! Which has already saved my butt. And easier-to-read plots. https://dualpower.supply/posts/lab-notebook-12/ #academia #OpenScience #Quarto #batteries #EnergyStorage #energy #science #electrochemistry

  • Post #731536

    RE: https://chemisting.com/2026/02/13/could-we-create-a-zn-br-flow-battery-using-nicotinamide/ For the chemists and electrochemists! A proposed system by my colleague #chemistry #electrochemistry #EnergyStorage

  • Post #731535

    RE: https://loops.video/v/em2iXJ9LEc messing around with loops

  • Post #731533

    Working on improving hardware documentation for our open-source battery project made in @freecad and hosted by @Codeberg https://dualpower.supply/posts/lab-notebook-6/ #OpenSourceHardware #FreeCAD #documentation

  • Post #731532

    finally back to doing an ACTUAL EXPERIMENT woo (a standard ZnI flow cell test but still)

  • Post #731530

    RE: https://mastodon.social/@oshwassociation/116262427332387406 Woo, see you in Berlin!!

  • Post #731528

    Lab Notebook Entry #7 Back to wet lab, a crappy experiment to get the cobwebs off https://dualpower.supply/posts/lab-notebook-7/ #academia #OpenScience #Quarto #batteries #EnergyStorage #research #electrochemistry