Posts Tagged ‘energy’
“Energy is essential for development, and sustainable energy is essential for sustainable development”*…
Adam Tooze on the challenges of a transition to clean energy…
As far as we are currently able to judge, our best chance to halt the further escalation of the climate crisis through decarbonization of the economy depends on electricity and electrification. Given the current horizon of technological expectations, electric power and electric technology offer us the best chance of reconciling the insatiable desire for energy with the stretched and frayed environmental envelope.
Electricity today is still a major driver of environmental disaster. This is because it is overwhelmingly generated by burning fossil fuels and coal in particular. It is in fact, the largest single source of pollution, more than fossil-fueled powered transport or agriculture. Not only do they contribute to climate change, emissions from coal-fired power stations around the world are so toxic that they kill millions of people annually. But electricity is one form of energy that we do know how to generate without CO2 emissions, most obviously by solar, wind, hydro or nuclear generation. So, the path to a low-carbon future depends on greening the electricity generation system and at the same time expanding the total volume of electric power generated so that we can apply clean electric power to more purposes than we currently do.
This will involve accelerating and redirecting the process of electrification that has proceeded unevenly across the globe for one hundred and forty years…
“Repowering the world- the challenge of electrification,” from @adam_tooze in his newsletter Chartbook.
See also Electrify- An Optimist’s Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future, by Saul Griffith (@GriffithSaul) and “Mapped: Asia’s Biggest Sources of Electricity by Country.”
* Tim Wirth
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As we plug in, we might spare a thought for Hans Christian Ørsted; he died on this date in 1851. A physicist and chemist, he discovered that electric currents create magnetic fields– the first connection found between electricity and magnetism… the foundation on which electric motors operate. Considered the “father of electromagnetism,” Oersted’s law and the oersted unit (Oe) are named after him.
“To create something from nothing is one of the greatest feelings”*…
Something from nothing? Not exactly. As Charlie Wood explains, it’s even weirder…
For their latest magic trick, physicists have done the quantum equivalent of conjuring energy out of thin air. It’s a feat that seems to fly in the face of physical law and common sense.
“You can’t extract energy directly from the vacuum because there’s nothing there to give,” said William Unruh, a theoretical physicist at the University of British Columbia, describing the standard way of thinking.
But 15 years ago, Masahiro Hotta, a theoretical physicist at Tohoku University in Japan, proposed that perhaps the vacuum could, in fact, be coaxed into giving something up.
At first, many researchers ignored this work, suspicious that pulling energy from the vacuum was implausible, at best. Those who took a closer look, however, realized that Hotta was suggesting a subtly different quantum stunt. The energy wasn’t free; it had to be unlocked using knowledge purchased with energy in a far-off location. From this perspective, Hotta’s procedure looked less like creation and more like teleportation of energy from one place to another — a strange but less offensive idea.
“That was a real surprise,” said Unruh, who has collaborated with Hotta but has not been involved in energy teleportation research. “It’s a really neat result that he discovered.”
Now in the past year, researchers have teleported energy across microscopic distances in two separate quantum devices, vindicating Hotta’s theory. The research leaves little room for doubt that energy teleportation is a genuine quantum phenomenon.
“This really does test it,” said Seth Lloyd, a quantum physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not involved in the research. “You are actually teleporting. You are extracting energy.”…
“Physicists Use Quantum Mechanics to Pull Energy out of Nothing,” from @walkingthedot in @QuantaMagazine.
Vaguely related (and fascinating): “The particle physics of you.”
* Prince
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As we demolish distance, we might send insightful birthday greetings to Brain Cox; he was born on this date in 1968. A physicist and former musician (he was keyboardist for Dare and D:Ream), he is a professor of particle physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester, and a fellow at CERN (where he works on the ATLAS experiment, studying the forward proton detectors for the Large Hadron Collider there).
But Cox is most widely known as the host/presenter of science programs, perhaps especially the BBC’s Wonders of the Universe series, and for popular science books, such as Why Does E=mc²? and The Quantum Universe— which (he avers) were inspired by Carl Sagan and for which Cox has earned recognition as the natural successor to David Attenborough and Patrick Moore.
Science is too important not to be a part of a popular culture.
“Seek truth from facts”*…
China’s property sector is enormous, under tremendous financial strain– and, as Jeremy Wallace explains, a very big contributor to climate issues (e.g., construction on China accounts for 5% of global energy consumption)…
China has ended zero-Covid. The resultant viral tsunami is crashing through China’s cities and countryside, causing hundreds of millions of infections and untold numbers of deaths. The reversal followed widespread protests against lockdown measures. But the protests were not the only cause—the country’s sagging economy also required attention. Outside of a few strong sectors, including EVs and renewable energy technologies, China’s economic dynamo was beginning to stutter in ways it had not in decades.
Whenever global demand or internal growth faltered in the recent past, China’s government would unleash pro-investment stimulus with impressive results. Vast expanses of highways, shiny airports, an enviable high-speed rail network, and especially apartments. In 2016, one estimate of planned new construction in Chinese cities could have housed 3.4 billion people. Those plans have been reined in, but what has been completed is still prodigious. Hundreds of millions of urbanizing Chinese have found shelter, and old buildings have been replaced with upgrades.
The scale of construction has been so prodigious, in fact, that it has far exceeded demand for housing. Tens of millions of apartments sit empty—almost as many homes as the US has constructed this century. Whole complexes of unfinished concrete shells sixteen stories tall surround most cities. Real estate, which constitutes a quarter of China’s GDP, has become a $52 trillion bubble that fundamentally rests on the foundational belief that it is too big to fail. The reality is that it has become too big to sustain, either economically or environmentally….
The “Chinese real estate bubble” is the world’s problem: “The Carbon Triangle,” from @jerometenk in @phenomenalworld. Eminently worth reading in full.
Analogically related (and at the risk of piling on): “China must stop its coal industry“
* Chinese maxim, popularized by Mao, then Deng Xiaoping
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As we get real about real estate, we might spare a thought for Deng Xiaoping; he died on this date in 1997. A Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander, and statesman, he served as the paramount leader of the People’s Republic of China from December, 1978 to November, 1989. Deng led China through a series of far-reaching market-economy reforms, earning him the reputation as the “Architect of Modern China”.
The reforms carried out by Deng and his allies gradually led China away from a planned economy and Maoist ideologies, opened it up to foreign investments and technology, and introduced its vast labor force to the global market, thus turning China into one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.
But China’s real estate bubble is a reminder that every solution can all-too-easily turn into the next problem.
“The use of alternative energy is inevitable”*…
Contemplating the unintended– or at least not-yet-widely-anticipated– consequences of a move to green energy…
It is not hard to understand why people dream of a future defined by clean energy. As greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow and as extreme weather events become more frequent and harmful, the current efforts to move beyond fossil fuels appear woefully inadequate. Adding to the frustration, the geopolitics of oil and gas are alive and well—and as fraught as ever. Europe is in the throes of a full-fledged energy crisis, with staggering electricity prices forcing businesses across the continent to shutter and energy firms to declare bankruptcy, positioning Russian President Vladimir Putin to take advantage of his neighbors’ struggles by leveraging his country’s natural gas reserves. In September, blackouts reportedly led Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng to instruct his country’s state-owned energy companies to secure supplies for winter at any cost. And as oil prices surge above $80 per barrel, the United States and other energy-hungry countries are pleading with major producers, including Saudi Arabia, to ramp up their output, giving Riyadh more clout in a newly tense relationship and suggesting the limits of Washington’s energy “independence.”
Proponents of clean energy hope (and sometimes promise) that in addition to mitigating climate change, the energy transition will help make tensions over energy resources a thing of the past. It is true that clean energy will transform geopolitics—just not necessarily in the ways many of its champions expect. The transition will reconfigure many elements of international politics that have shaped the global system since at least World War II, significantly affecting the sources of national power, the process of globalization, relations among the great powers, and the ongoing economic convergence of developed countries and developing ones. The process will be messy at best. And far from fostering comity and cooperation, it will likely produce new forms of competition and confrontation long before a new, more copacetic geopolitics takes shape…
The new geopolitics of energy: “Green Upheaval,” by Jason Bodoff (@JasonBordoff) and Meghan L. O’Sullivan (@OSullivanMeghan) in @ForeignAffairs.
See also: “The Geopolitics of Energy in the 21st Century.”
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As we think systemically, we might recall that it was on this date in 1925 that Arthur Heineman opened the Milestone Mo-Tel in San Luis Obispo (on the road from San Francisco to Los Angeles)… the first “motel.” Heineman had abbreviated motor hotel to mo-tel after he could not fit the words “Milestone Motor Hotel” on his rooftop.
“Energy is liberated matter, matter is energy waiting to happen”*…
In 2019, Americans used less energy than in 2018, according to the most recent energy flow charts released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).
Each year, LLNL releases flow charts that illustrate the nation’s consumption and use of energy. Americans used 100.2 quads (quadrillion BTU) of energy, which is 1 quad less than last year. The highest recorded energy use in American history was in 2018, when 101.2 quads were consumed. A BTU, or British Thermal Unit, is a unit of measurement for energy; 3,412 BTUs is equivalent to 1 kilowatt-hour, which is the amount of energy it takes to light an efficient LED light bulb for a week.
For the second year in a row, the largest increases in energy supply came from natural gas, wind and solar energy, with jumps of 4 percent, 10 percent and 8 percent, respectively. Solar energy supply exceeded 1 quad for the first time ever as more users turned to renewables. Wind and solar combined now produce more electricity than hydroelectric power, which dominated renewable energy for decades…
One notes that just over two thirds of the energy consumed is “rejected” (lost to heat or other dissipation; not converted to its intended use)…
The shift from coal to gas also has contributed to a drop in rejected energy, because natural gas power plants are more efficient than the coal-fired units they replace. All energy use and conversion results in some losses, shown on the charts as rejected energy. Last year saw 1 quad less in rejected energy than in 2018. This energy most often takes the form of waste heat, such as the warm exhaust from automobiles and furnaces. The efficiency of the nation’s cars, light bulbs and factories determines how much waste heat is produced and how much fuel and electricity can be put to productive use…
More at “Americans used less energy in 2019.” For a larger version of the chart above, go here (or here for all of the charts over time). See also “Visualizing America’s Energy Use, in One Giant Chart.”
* A Short History of Nearly Everything
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As we emphasize efficiency, we might recall that it was on this date in 1869 that the first U.S. Transcontinental Railway was ceremonially completed with the driving of the “Golden Spike.” Known as the “Pacific Railroad” when it opened, it served as a vital channel for trade, commerce, and travel– for the first time, shipping and commerce could thrive away from navigable waterways– and it opened vast regions of the North American heartland for settlement.
(In fact, while not “transcontinental” in the same sense, the first railroad to connect two oceans directly, the Panama Rail Road, opened in 1855, when a locomotive made the first trek from the Atlantic to the Pacific.)
At the ceremony for the driving of the “Golden Spike” at Promontory Summit, Utah, May 10, 1869
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