New York Times reporter Eduardo Porter has an excellent piece about how ideology shapes our embrace/rejection of science. The left loves to harangue about the "anti-science" right when in fact the left participates just as much in the same anti-science behavior, and the left's anti-science behavior is every bit as destructive.
“The left is turning anti-science,” Marc Andreessen, the creator of Netscape who as a venture capitalist has become one of the most prominent thinkers of Silicon Valley, told me not long ago.
He was reflecting broadly about science and technology. His concerns ranged from liberals’ fear of genetically modified organisms to their mistrust of technology’s displacement of workers in some industries. “San Francisco is an interesting case,” he noted. “The left has become reactionary.”
Still, liberal biases may be most dangerous in the context of climate change, the most significant scientific and technological challenge of our time. For starters, they stand against the only technology with an established track record of generating electricity at scale while emitting virtually no greenhouse gases: nuclear power.
Only 35 percent of Democrats, compared with 60 percent of Republicans, favor building more nuclear power plants, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center.
It is the G.O.P. that is closer to the scientific consensus. According to a separate Pew poll of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 65 percent of scientists want more nuclear power too.
He goes on to note:
Research suggests that better scientific knowledge will not be sufficient, on its own, to overcome our biases. Neither will it be mostly about improving education in STEM fields. To defeat our scientific phobias and taboos will require understanding how the findings of science and their consequences fit into the cultural makeup of both liberals and conservatives.
Explaining in more detail:
It is not hard to figure out the biases. People on the right tend to like private businesses, which they see as productive job creators. They mistrust government. It’s not surprising they will play down climate change when it seems to imply a package of policies that curb the actions of the former and give a bigger role to the latter.
On the left, by contrast, people tend to mistrust corporations — especially big ones — as corrupt and destructive. These are the institutions bringing us both nuclear power and genetically modified agriculture.
“When science is aligned with big corporations the left immediately, intuitively perceives the technology as not benefiting the greater good but only benefiting the corporation,” said Matthew Nisbet, an expert on the communication of science at Northeastern University.
So when assessing the risks of different technological options, the left finds the risk of nuclear energy looming the highest, regardless of contrary evidence.
This doesn’t affect only beliefs about climate change and energy policy. The research identified similar distortions in people’s beliefs about the scientific consensus on the consequences of allowing concealed handguns. Biases also color beliefs in what science says and means across a range of other issues.
In the context of climate change, this heuristic presents an odd problem. It suggests that attitudes about climate change have little to do with education and people’s understanding of science.
Fixing it won’t require just better science. Eliminating the roadblocks against taking substantive action against climate change may require somehow dissociating the scientific facts from deeply rooted preferences about the world we want to live in, on both sides of the ideological divide.
And it is the last sentence that is key. How do we do that! It seems to me we have to create spaces for productive conversations. No matter how emotionally satisfying it may be to engage in tribal disdain for those of another tribe for being "anti-science," it is precisely this behavior that entrenches those we may wish to persuade. And the glaring truth is that very very few of us are pro-science. We are pro-ideology and pro-heuristics, and happy to embrace science when it meets these prior concerns. The reality is that there are multiple ways to frame an agenda. So another piece of the puzzle is to enter the mind of opponents and to figure out how to frame concerns in a way that resonates with things they value. But research shows, unsurprisingly, that we nearly always attempt persuasion from the angle that is most persuasive for us, projecting our values on to others. It usually has the effect of driving the opponent in further away.
I think the answer lies with these considerations. I didn't say it was an easy answer. What thoughts do you have?
If billions of impoverished humans are not offered a shot at genuine development, the environment will not be saved. And that requires not just help in financing low-carbon energy sources, but also a lot of new energy, period. Offering a solar panel for every thatched roof is not going to cut it.
“We shouldn’t be talking about 10 villages that got power for a light bulb,” said Joyashree Roy, a professor of economics at Jadavpur University in India who was among the leaders of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
“What we should be talking about,” she said, “is how the village got a power connection for a cold storage facility or an industrial park.”
Changing the conversation will not be easy. Our world of seven billion people — expected to reach 11 billion by the end of the century — will require an entirely different environmental paradigm....
... The “eco-modernists” propose economic development as an indispensable precondition to preserving the environment. Achieving it requires dropping the goal of “sustainable development,” supposedly in harmonious interaction with nature, and replacing it with a strategy to shrink humanity’s footprint by using nature more intensively.
“Natural systems will not, as a general rule, be protected or enhanced by the expansion of humankind’s dependence upon them for sustenance and well-being,” they wrote.
To mitigate climate change, spare nature and address global poverty requires nothing less, they argue, than “intensifying many human activities — particularly farming, energy extraction, forestry and settlement — so that they use less land and interfere less with the natural world.”
As Mr. Shellenberger put it, the world would have a better shot at saving nature “by decoupling from nature rather than coupling with it.”
This new framework favors a very different set of policies than those now in vogue. Eating the bounty of small-scale, local farming, for example, may be fine for denizens of Berkeley and Brooklyn. But using it to feed a world of nine billion people would consume every acre of the world’s surface. Big Agriculture, using synthetic fertilizers and modern production techniques, could feed many more people using much less land and water.
As the manifesto notes, as much as three-quarters of all deforestation globally occurred before the Industrial Revolution, when humanity was supposedly in harmony with Mother Nature. Over the last half century, the amount of land required for growing crops and animal feed per average person declined by half. …
… Development would allow people in the world’s poorest countries to move into cities — as they did decades ago in rich nations — and get better educations and jobs. Urban living would accelerate demographic transitions, lowering infant mortality rates and allowing fertility rates to decline, taking further pressure off the planet.
“By understanding and promoting these emergent processes, humans have the opportunity to re-wild and re-green the Earth — even as developing countries achieve modern living standards, and material poverty ends,” the manifesto argues. …
Read the whole thing. Decoupling is essential. We have already seen this with land use. We are using no more land for agriculture in the United States than we were 100 years ago. Before that time it took a fixed amount of land to feed each person. That same decoupling is developing worldwide but it could be accelerated. The amount of energy consumed per unit of GDP has now begun to decline. We see this decoupling with other resources. Add a move to solar and nuclear power in combination with decoupling and we have a real chance to drive down carbon emissions drastically.
I haven't yet read the whole EcoModernist Manifesto linked in the article, but the parameters and reasoning laid here is the best articulation of my views on economic development and sustainability that I have read.
Revolutions used to be few and far between. James Watt’s steam engine, developed in 1781, set the stage for the first industrial revolution. But it wasn’t until a century later that the widespread adoption of electricity and the internal combustion engine brought about the second industrial revolution.
The information age didn’t really get going until the 1970’s and that’s led to what to what many are now calling the new industrial revolution, which incorporates computer aided design and advanced fabrication techniques like 3D printing. However, the next revolution, in energy, is already underway.
While the drop in price for fossil fuels has grabbed most of the headlines lately, Citibank predicts that the shale boom will merely serve as a bridge to get us to a new era of renewable energy. This revolution, if anything, will be more far reaching than the others. While the earlier revolutions empowered large enterprises, this one might very well undo them. ...
... The last century was in large part driven by scale advantages. The bigger you were, the more efficient you would become. Those efficiencies would enable enterprises to own and control more resources, which would increase bargaining power and enhance the dominance of the firm.
Initially, information technology bolstered these trends. Only large organizations were able to afford computer systems that could help them administer resources by tracking accounting, maintenance and human resources. However, with the rise of personal computing and the Internet, that began to change. ...
Most of the populist support for renewable energy comes from concern over climate change. I am not someone who is persuaded that apocalyptic doom is certain without swift and radical restructuring of the global economy. I am persuaded that increasing CO2 at present rates has the potential to create highly undesirable, but imprecisely understood, consequences down the road. I see CO2 as a risk management issue. All things being equal, changes that minimize risk are a good thing. But since things are not equal, other considerations must be weighed as well.
Equally important to me, if not more so, is human freedom and well-being. Decentralized renewable energy would create enormous opportunity around the world while simultaneously reducing much of the geopolitical strife that emerges from the energy sector. Expanded opportunity has a way of translating into greater prosperity. Prosperous people are better equipped to handle climate change adaptations that may be required. Decentralized renewable energy both reduces the amount of CO2 emitted while improving the chances of smooth adaptation to changes in climate.
Critics are prone to look at renewable energy - and I'll add new generation nuclear power - as incapable of having a significant impact for many decades if at all. Yet I keep imaging myself in 1895 looking at expanding U.S. cities and the problem of horse transportation. There is a guy welding a frame between two bicycles and motorizing the contraption so he can become auto-mobile. How many would have predicted what transportation would look like in 1920 and later?
Prior to the industrial revolution, economies of scale were usually marginal or nonexistent. The Industrial Revolution made centralization, and the economies of scale that come with it, possible. The Information revolution is decentralizing the economy in some fundamental ways, but it is a networked decentralization. That is why I am skeptical of the doomsayers about the world 50 and 100 years into the future. We tend to overestimate how much change can happen in the near term - say five years - but radically underestimate what can happen in twenty years.
... Industry experts told them it was a fool's errand. For good reason. Scientists had spent decades trying to capture carbon and use it to make plastic but couldn't do it cheaply enough. The two friends cracked the code by developing a ten-times more efficient bio-catalyst, which strips the carbon from a liquefied gas and rearranges it into a long chain plastic molecule.
The result? Today, the 31-year-old co-founders of California-based Newlight Technologies have two factories that take methane captured from dairy farms and use it to make AirCarbon — plastic that will soon appear in the form of chairs, food containers and automotive parts. Coming next year: cellphone cases for Virgin Mobile. ...
Video at 1:56:
"... The idea is these products are actually able to match on the performance of oil based plastics but in fact out compete on price, so what we have is a market driven carbon capture process, which is really exciting for us....
... We recently had a third party independent analysis done that verified that each on of our grades of plasctic actually sequester more carbon in the production process than they emit. So every single grade that we make is a carbon sink. So this product here, and this product here ... this is all actually pulling carbon on a net basis, including the energy, out of the air."
This is a very important story that is easily overlooked. Why?
People genuinely concerned about global economic growth frequently default into a Malthusian thought process. It goes something like this. We have X amount of economic activity today and that economic activity requires Y amount of energy and resources. If the whole world grows to our level of economic activity, then there must also be proportional growth in the amount of energy and resources consumed. (Economic growth and resource use are perfectly coupled.) It will exhaust the earth's reserves of energy and resources. The global economy will collapse. We must stop growth and embrace natural limits. Now this is true only given one very huge assumption that most people make without thought. The assumption? GDP (economic output) and the rate of energy/resource consumption are inextricably linked. Is this true?
Economic records for the United States show that food production and acreage of land devoted to food production were strongly linked prior to 1910. There were 310 million acres in production in that year. The United States population would triple over the next century. If you took Dr. Who's Tardis back to 1910 and told them this tripling was coming, they could easily tell you how much land would be needed to feed the extra mouths: 300 million multiplied by 3 equals 900 million acres … equivalent to all the land area east of the Mississippi. How many acres were in production 2010? There were 310 acres, just as in 1910. Food production and acreage usage decoupled. Improvements in farming techniques and technology not only fed the extra mouths with the same amount of land but created surpluses that could be shipped abroad.
What this chart suggests is that the same thing is happening with energy usage. The things we use are becoming more energy efficient. For instance, appliances use half the electricity of their counterparts from thirty years ago. Energy used in manufacturing and distribution just keeps getting more energy efficient. As shown in the graph, GDP and energy use were coupled until about the 1980s. Since that time, it appears they are decoupling. It is conceivable that in the next century or so that we could have a growing economy while actually having stabilization, even decline, in energy usage. (I don’t totally dismiss the objections by environmental economist like those mentioned in the article but I am skeptical that the limitations are as severe as they claim.)
I suspect that before very long we will see a similar decoupling of GDP from natural resources. Technology like 3-D printing, still in its infancy, holds the promise of reducing waste in the manufacturing and construction processes. Nanotechnology, using robots about 15 times bigger than an atom, is capable of breaking down substances and recombining the pieces into new substances at the molecular level. It is possible to imagine a day when almost everything we use comes from renewable substances or from nonrenewable substances that are endlessly reconfigured. Furthermore, it is likely that more of the global economy will be about services and digital products instead of physical products.
Now here the growth opponents will raise concerns about the impact these changes will have on the nature of work and on our communities. There are questions about endless consumerism, attempting to fill our lives with stuff and evermore exhilarating experiences. These are important questions but they are questions apart from the question of unsustainability, the idea that accelerated growth will of necessity lead to exhaustion of energy and material resources, as well as destruction of the environment. The latter is true only if you assume no innovation and creativity, the very traits that have been the hallmark of the global economy in recent generations. Moralists may be right that we should reign in our desires and change our relationship to possessions but we need not do so because of inevitable collapse. Appreciating this is critical to useful reflection on what it means to be the church in the twenty-first century.
Our friend and colleague Max Fisher over at Worldviews has posted another 40 maps that explain the world, building on his original classic of the genre. But this is Wonkblog. We're about charts. And one of the great things about charts is that they show not just how things are -- but how they're changing.
So we searched for charts that would tell not just the story of how the world is -- but where it's going. Some of these charts are optimistic, like the ones showing huge gains in life expectancy in poorer nations. Some are more worryisome -- wait till you see the one on endangered species. But together they tell a story of a world that's changing faster than at arguably any other time in human history. ...
As the author notes, we have challenges but we hardly descending into some global dystopia. I think these charts give a pretty holistic view. Here are a three examples. It was commonly believed that primitive societies were more peaceful and that modern civilization gave rise to unprecedented violence. This chart compares death rates by war in primitive societies as calculated by anthropologists to the death rates for Europe/USA in the 20th century. And then there is this:
The graphs point to environmental protection and adaptation as the biggest problems in the days ahead. Those challenges are not insurmountable. Energy sources like natural gas and nuclear power can be used in the interim on the way to practical renewable technologies. Genetically modified crops can help to reduce water consumption, increase yield, and improve hardiness. Innovations in fields like biotechnology, nanotechnology, and 3-D printing hold the promise of revolutionizing the world economy into a less wasteful and more affordable human existence for everyone. There is work to do but there is also much reason for hope of a better world.
More than $1 trillion has been spent on biomedical research over the past 20 years. These investments should soon start yielding longevity dividends.
The number of scientists working on extending the life span worldwide has increased exponentially as computer and communications technologies have entered the mainstream and China and India have joined the race.
The life spans of some laboratory animals have already been extended more than tenfold.
Innovations have already started: vital organs have been grown from patients’ own cells and several stem-cell therapies are being proven.
Cancer survival rates have increased steadily over the past few years. A diagnosis is no longer a certain death sentence.
Advances in laboratory diagnostics and biometrics are already providing valuable insight into disease prevention.
Fast-food outlets have started offering healthier dishes and displaying caloric content and smoking rates in developed countries have declined.
Many people would not interpret these seven facts as a single trend leading to dramatic increases in life expectancy because the long-term effects are so unpredictable. But just two decades ago, nobody could imagine the possibility of the technology we use daily now. ...
University of Adelaide researchers have developed a process for turning waste plastic bags into a high-tech nanomaterial.
The innovative nanotechnology uses non-biodegradable plastic grocery
bags to make 'carbon nanotube membranes' – highly sophisticated and
expensive materials with a variety of potential advanced applications
including filtration, sensing, energy storage and a range of biomedical
innovations.
"Non-biodegradable plastic bags are a serious menace to natural ecosystems and present a problem in terms of disposal," says Professor Dusan Losic, ARC Future Fellow and Research Professor of Nanotechnology in the University's School of Chemical Engineering.
"Transforming these waste materials through 'nanotechnological
recycling' provides a potential solution for minimising environmental
pollution at the same time as producing high-added value products." ...
(Nanowerk News) Drexel University nanotechnology researchers
are continuing to expand the capabilities and functionalities of a
family of two-dimensional materials they discovered that are as thin as a
single atom, but have the potential to store massive amounts of energy.
Their latest achievement has pushed the materials storage capacities to
new levels while also allowing for their use in flexible devices. ...
BELLEVUE, Wash. — In a drab one-story building here, set between an
indoor tennis club and a home appliance showroom, dozens of engineers,
physicists and nuclear experts are chasing a radical dream of Bill
Gates.
The quest is for a new kind of nuclear reactor that would be fueled by
today’s nuclear waste, supply all the electricity in the United States
for the next 800 years and, possibly, cut the risk of nuclear weapons
proliferation around the world. ...
... But now Net Power, based in the US state of North Carolina, believes
it can redesign the power plant so it can still run on coal or natural
gas, but without releasing harmful fumes.
Rodney Allam, chief technologist at 8 Rivers Capital, which
owns Net Power, says: "The perception has been that to avoid emissions
of [carbon dioxide] CO2, we have to get rid of fossil fuels.
"But unfortunately, fossil fuels represent over 70% of the
fuel that's consumed in the world and the idea that you can get rid of
that in any meaningful sense is a pipe dream."
The Net Power system is different from currently operating power plants
because carbon dioxide, normally produced as waste when making
electricity, would become a key ingredient when burning the fuel. ...
MOFFETT FIELD, California (AP) — NASA is preparing to launch a 3-D
printer into space next year, a toaster-sized game changer that greatly
reduces the need for astronauts to load up with every tool, spare part
or supply they might ever need.
The printers would serve as a
flying factory of infinite designs, creating objects by extruding layer
upon layer of plastic from long strands coiled around large spools.
Doctors use them to make replacement joints and artists use them to
build exquisite jewelry.
In NASA labs, engineers are 3-D printing
small satellites that could shoot out of the Space Station and transmit
data to earth, as well as replacement parts and rocket pieces that can
survive extreme temperatures. ...
... In the '90s computers invaded our homes. In the 2000s computers invaded our pockets. This decade, all our clothing, accessories, vehicles, and everything (?!) appear on the verge of computerization.
Welcome to the Internet of Things (IoT).
Currently the idea of the IoT has many definitions. Most include a
world in the not-too-distant future where most objects are computerized
and seamlessly integrated into our information network, creating "smart"
grids, homes, and environments. ...
... This presents a big opportunity for someone who can devise a tasty and
affordable plant-based substitute for meat. That is exactly what Ethan
Brown, the founder and chief executive of a California-based startup
called Beyond Meat,
aims to do, and he has persuaded some smart people to put their money
behind him. Beyond Meat makes vegan "chicken-free" strips that it says
are better for people's health (low-fat, no cholesterol), better for the
environment (requiring less land and water), and better for animals
(obviously) than real chicken; most important, if all goes according to
plan, they will cost less to produce than chicken. Fortune has
learned that Bill Gates is an investor; he sampled the product and said
he couldn't tell the difference between Beyond Meat and real chicken.
"The meat market is ripe for invention," Gates wrote in a blog post
about the future of food. Kleiner Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture
capital firm, made Beyond Meat its first investment in a food startup.
"KP is looking for big ideas, and this qualifies as a big idea," says
Amol Deshpande, a former Cargill executive and a partner at the venture
firm. "The single biggest inefficiency in agriculture is how we get our
protein." Other investors include Evan Williams and Biz Stone, the
founders of Twitter; Morgan Creek Capital Management; and the Humane
Society of the United States, an animal-welfare group. ...
The Internet is disappearing. And with it goes an important part of our recorded history. That was the conclusion of a studyTechnology Review
looked at last year, which measured the rate at which links shared over
social media platforms, such as Twitter, were disappearing.
The conclusion was that this data is being lost at the rate of 11% within a year and 27% within two years.
Today, the researchers behind this work reveal that all is not lost.
Hany SalahEldeen and Michael Nelson at Old Dominion University in
Norfolk, Va., have found a way to reconstruct deleted material, and they
say it works reasonably well. ...
Earlier this week we presented the thesis from Credit Suisse that not only is 3-D printing not a flash in the pan, existing market research
reports have actually understated its potential market. 3-D printing is
exactly what it sounds like: making 3-D objects from a device that's
conceptually more like a printer than from a typical manufacturing
process.
But we wanted to get a little bit more specific about where exactly this is going to happen.
So with the help of an excellent report from consulting firm CSC,
we now present five industries that are already feeling the effects of
3-D printing's imminent dominance — for better or worse. ...
... The WAND Foundation has developed several dry composting toilet models, some of which were recognized at the 2011 Tech Awards at Santa Clara University. At the conference, Cora Zayas-Sayre, executive director of the WAND Foundation, explained
that by using local materials, the organization has been able to build
275 toilets at a cost of US$30 per toilet. She added that this
innovation has already impacted the lives of 3,000 people.
This innovation simultaneously addresses two challenges that prevail
in developing countries: the unsustainable and costly use of
water-sealed toilets, and the hygienic management of human waste.
Water-sealed toilets require pumping mechanisms to transport water and
sewage between 300 and 500 meters away from the home, a method that is
economically and environmentally unsustainable. Inadequate management of
human waste can lead to a host of health problems in developing areas, and dramatically impact quality of life. ...
... The green-roof movement has slowly been gaining momentum in recent
years, and some cities have made them central to their sustainability
plans. The city of Chicago, for instance, that 359 roofs are now
partially or fully covered with vegetation, which provides all kinds of
environmental benefits — from reducing the buildings' energy costs to
cleaning the air to mitigating the
Late this summer, Chicago
turned a green roof into its first major rooftop farm. At 20,000 square
feet, it's the largest soil-based rooftop farm in the Midwest, according
to the Chicago Botanic Garden, which maintains the farm through its program. ...
8. Interesting piece using driverless cars as an example and the inability of some people to see the potential innovations: The third industrial revolution
... In fact, these possibilities are only the tip of the iceberg.
Autonomous vehicles' most transformative contribution might be what they
get up to when people aren't in the vehicles. One suddenly has
access to cheap, fast, ultra-reliable, on-demand courier service.
Imagine never having to run out for milk or a missing ingredient again.
Imagine dropping a malfunctioning computer into a freight AV to be
ferried off to a repair shop and returned, all without you having to do
anything. Imagine inventories at offices, shops and so on refilling
constantly and as needed: assuming "shops" is still a meaningful concept
in a world where things all come to you.
The really remarkable thing about such possibilities is that the technology is basically available today. It isn't cheap
today, but that may change very quickly. If the public lets it, of
course. When it comes to AVs stagnation, if it occurs, will be the fault
of regulatory rather than technological obstacles.
... The numbers tell the story: U.S. oil production has reversed its 30-plus
year decline; U.S. imports from OPEC producers have fallen more than 20
percent in the past three years; U.S. natural gas reserves and
production are up significantly and prices have dropped 75 percent in
the past five years. The International Energy Agency forecasts that the
United States could become the world’s largest oil producer by 2020 and
may be energy self-sufficient by 2035. That’s a game changer.
While this is not a free lunch, it should not be feared. The production
process is complicated and expensive, and if the industry is not careful
there can be risks to the environment. But the potential is staggering.
Significant domestic job growth and economic expansion has begun.
But let’s look beyond the impact on the United States and consider a few
of the more profound implications for the rest of the world, because
this revolution is also a game changer for international politics and
the global economy. ...
... Like all revolutions, America’s new energy bonanza raises some
fascinating questions. How might a lighter U.S. presence and heavier
Chinese involvement change the world’s most volatile neighborhood? What
can the next generation of Saudi leaders expect for their country’s
future in a world where OPEC has lost much of its market power? Will
Qatar’s support for Muslim Brotherhood governments in other Arab states
and China’s interest in using the United Arab Emirates as an offshore
trading center for its currency leave the Saudis dangerously isolated?
Can Iran’s revolution survive the need to build a more modern economy?
A world in which the United States is less involved in answering these questions is a new world indeed.
"... Eliminating 99 percent of the pollution from coal, the Coal-Direct Chemical Looping (CDCL) technique will have a significant impact on the rate of global warming. The Environmental Protection Agency has found that in 2010, coal-burning power plants were responsible for about one-third of the country's carbon dioxide, equivalent to 2.3 billion metric tons. If energy can be obtained from coal without burning it, this number should drop considerably.
Liang-Shih Fan, a chemical engineer and director of Ohio State's Clean Coal Research Laboratory, explains the process, "We found a way to release the heat without burning. We carefully control the chemical reaction so that the coal never burns--it is consumed chemically, and the carbon dioxide is entirely contained inside the reactor." The metal from the iron-oxide is recyclable and the only waste products are coal ash and water. If everything goes according to plan, Fan is confident that his discovery can be used to power energy plants within the next 10 years. ..."
Researchers have found a way of using microorganisms to turn atmospheric carbon dioxide into energy, Ingram writes, essentially replicating the processes found in plant life. Fuel from carbon dioxide has promise, he adds, but isn't yet developed into something that can work on a large scale.
... Biomass Magazine reports
the researchers have found a way of using microorganisms to turn
atmospheric CO2 into energy--essentially replicating the processes found
in plant life.
During photosynthesis, plants use sunlight to transform water and carbon dioxide into sugars that the plants use for energy.
The
same process takes place in a microorganism called Pyrococcus
furiosus--the poetically-named "rushing fireball". Its name stems from
its preferred home--next to super-heated geothermal vents in the oceans.
By
manipulating the rushing fireball's genetic material, the Georgia team
has created an organism that is able to feed at much lower temperatures,
on carbon dioxide.
"We can take carbon dioxide directly from the
atmosphere and turn it into useful products like fuels and chemicals
without having to go through the inefficient process of growing plants
and extracting sugars from biomass," explains the University of
Georgia's Michael Adams. ...
1. The Economisthas an interesting graph showing the captialism has led to greater happiness in member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (former Soviet Union countries excluding the three baltic countries.)
There are two ways to define economic mobility: 1) absolute mobility, whether each generation is financially better off than the one before; and 2) relative mobility,
whether you can change your income rank vs. your parents. Most
Americans probably think both measures important. We want to be more
prosperous than mom and dad, but also be able to change our
circumstances and make our dreams come true. ...
... A San Francisco Fed study –
using data tracking families since 1968 — looks at both versions of the
American Dream, finding one healthier than the other. Looking
at absolute mobility, researchers Leila Bengali and Mary Daly find the
United States “highly mobile.” Over the sample period, 67% of US adults
had higher family incomes than their parents, including 83% of those in
the lowest birth quintile, or bottom 20% (versus 54% for children born
into the top quintile, or top 20%.) ...
... It’s true that conservatives’
standard proposals for privatizing Social Security and
voucherizing Medicare would shift risk onto beneficiaries -- but
this plainly isn’t a necessary consequence of the basic
principle. I agree with Konczal that adequate insurance against
economic risk, underwritten by the government, is essential. I
also agree that most conservatives aren’t interested in
providing that guarantee. That’s exactly why liberals ought to
take up the ownership society themselves.
Ownership entails risk, it’s true, but insurance can
minimize it. Ownership also provides control, independence and
self-respect -- things it wouldn’t hurt liberals to be more
interested in. And when it comes to inequality and stagnating
middle incomes, ownership can give wage slaves a stake in the
nation’s economic capital.
Done right, an equity component in government-backed saving
for retirement could be the best idea liberals have had since
the earned-income tax credit (oh, sorry, that started out as a
conservative idea as well). ...
FMRI scans of volunteers' media prefrontal cortexes revealed unique brain activity patterns associated with individual characters or personalities as subjects thought about them.
Researchers already knew humans, animals and plants have evolved in
response to Earth's gravity and they are able to sense it. What we are
still discovering is how the processes occurring within the cells of the
human and plant bodies are affected by the more intense gravity, or
hypergravity, that would be found on a large planet, or the microgravity
that resembles the conditions on a space craft.
According to estimations, engineers expect the the store to generate
around 265,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) per year. Store operation will only
require 200,000 kWh, so perhaps that extra wattage could be pumped back
into the grid or used to power nearby utilities.
When people can browse potential dates online like items in a catalog, geo-locate hook-ups on an exercise bike just seven feet away, arrange a spontaneous group date with the app Grouper or arrange a bevy of blind dates in succession with Crazy Blind Date, it makes me wonder if all this newfound technological convenience has, in fact, made romance that much more elusive. Now, we may be more concerned with what someone isn't rather than what they are. And as that twenty-something entrepreneur reminded me over coffee, services like OkCupid, and even Facebook, sap a lot of the mystique out of those first few dates. So, sure, it may be easier than ever to score a date, but what kind of date will it really be?
Many of us have read the Bible as if it were merely a mosaic of little
bits – theological bits, moral bits, historical-critical bits, sermon
bits, devotional bits. But when we read the Bible in such a fragmented
way, we ignore it’s divine author’s intention to shape our lives through
its story. All humanity communities live out some story that provides a
context for understanding the meaning of history and gives shape and
direction to their lives. If we allow the Bible to become fragmented, it
is in danger of being absorbed into whatever other story is
shaping our culture, and it will thus cease to shape our lives as it
should. Idolatry has twisted the dominant cultural story of the secular
Western world. If as believers we allow this story (rather than the
Bible) to become the foundation of our thought and action, then our
lives will manifest not the truths of Scripture, but the lies of an
idolatrous culture. Hence the unity of Scripture is no minor matter: a
fragmented Bible may actually produce theologically orthodox, morally
upright, warmly pious idol worshippers! (p. 12).
I wish someone had taught me basic leadership skills.
“I was well grounded in theology and Bible exegesis, but seminary did
not prepare me for the real world of real people. It would have been
great to have someone walk alongside me before my first church.”
I needed to know a lot more about personal financial issues.
“No one ever told me about minister’s housing, social security,
automobile reimbursement, and the difference between a package and a
salary. I got burned in my first church.”
I wish I had been given advice on how to deal with power groups and power people in the church.
“I got it all wrong in my first two churches. I was fired outright from
the first one and pressured out in the second one. Someone finally and
courageously pointed out how I was messing things up almost from the
moment I began in a new church. I am so thankful that I am in the ninth
year of a happy pastorate in my third church.” ...
1. The United States had its financial bubble. Europe is having one too. Is China next? If it is, it could reshape the global economy and radically reshape Chinese government. Here is an interesting piece about China's real estate bubble.
... I like the idea of a breaking the Industrial Revolution into stages,
but I would define them in more fundamental terms. The first Industrial
Revolution was the harnessing of large-scale man-made power, which began
with the steam engine. The internal combustion engine, electric power,
and other sources of energy are just further refinements of this basic
idea. The second Industrial Revolution would be the development of
interchangeable parts and the assembly line, which made possible
inexpensive mass production with relatively unskilled labor. The Third
Industrial Revolution would not be computers, the Internet, or mobile
phones, because up to now these have not been industrial tools;
they have been used for moving information, not for making things.
Instead, the rise of computers and the Internet is just a warm-up for
the real Third Industrial Revolution, which is the full integration of information technology with industrial production.
The effect of the Third Industrial Revolution will be to collapse the
distance between the design of a product and its physical manufacture,
in much the same way that the Internet has eliminated the distance
between the origination of a new idea and its communication to an
audience. ...
... Eventually all of the creative ferment of the industrial revolution pays
off in a big “whoosh,” but it takes many decades, depending on where
you draw the starting line of course. A look at the early 19th century
is sobering, or should be, for anyone doing fiscal budgeting today. But
it is also optimistic in terms of the larger picture facing humanity
over the longer run.
5. What are the contours of income inequality in the United States? This 40 minute video by Emmanuel Saez offers some important insights.
6. Futurist Ray Kurzweil is a little too sensationalist for my taste but this vid offers interesting food for thought about nanotechnology and the future sports. We will even be able to have meaningful sports competition?
The recovered wealth - most of it from higher stock prices - has been
flowing mainly to richer Americans. By contrast, middle class wealth is
mostly in the form of home equity, which has risen much less.
Issue 104 examines the impact of automation on Europe and America and the varying responses of the church to the problems that developed. Topics examined are mission work, the rise of the Social Gospel, the impact of papal pronouncements, the Methodist phenomenon, Christian capitalists, attempts at communal living and much more.
"Despite the tough economy, many of the nation’s largest churches are
thriving, with increased offerings and plans to hire more staff, a new
survey shows.
Just 3 percent of churches with 2,000 or more attendance
surveyed by Leadership Network, a Dallas-based church think tank, said
they were affected “very negatively” by the economy in recent years.
Close to half — 47 percent — said they were affected “somewhat
negatively,” but one-third said they were not affected at all. ..."
... It's not surprising that younger entrepreneurial firms are considered more innovative. After all, they are born from a new idea, and survive by finding creative ways to make that idea commercially viable. Larger, well-rooted companies however have just as much motivation to be innovative — and, as Scott Anthony has argued, they have even more resources to invest in new ventures. So why doesn't innovation thrive in mature organizations? ...
... First, he says, the focus of an established firm is to execute an existing business model — to make sure it operates efficiently and satisfies customers. In contrast, the main job of a start-up is to search for a workable business model, to find the right match between customer needs and what the company can profitably offer. In other words in a start-up, innovation is not just about implementing a creative idea, but rather the search for a way to turn some aspect of that idea into something that customers are willing to pay for. ...
... discovering a new business model is inherently risky, and is far more likely to fail than to succeed ...
... Finally, Blank notes that the people who are best suited to search for new business models and conduct iterative experiments usually are not the same managers who succeed at running existing business units. ...
5. A fascinating, if sobering, look at the conflict over islands off the coast of East Asia. Trouble at sea
"President Barack Obama's proposed tilt of U.S. priorities toward the Pacific – and away from the historical link to Europe – represents one of the most encouraging aspects of his foreign policy. Although welcome, we should recognize that this shift comes about three decades too late and that it may miss the rising geopolitical centrality of sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. The emergence of these longtime historically impoverished backwaters has been largely missed as American policy-makers and businesses are now obsessed with the challenges and opportunities posed by the emergence of China and, to a lesser extent, India. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, over the past decade has produced six of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies. Through 2011-15, according to the International Monetary Fund, seven of the fastest-growing countries will be African, and Africa as a whole will surpass the slowing growth rates in Asia, particularly China.
This growth has caused the region's poverty rates, still unacceptably high, to fall from 56.5 percent in 1990 to 47 percent today. Further growth will likely push poverty levels down further."
8. New Geography also asks, Is the Family Finished? Some interesting thoughts about the impact of declining birthrates in the U.S.
Pew Research Center has compiled key findings from a new analysis of the
nation’s foreign-born population, based on U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011
American Community Survey.
With more than half the population of many U.S. cities who are
multicultural and Hispanics comprising more and more of the
U.S. population, when does it become meaningless and redundant to
execute marketing strategy that is directed to a general market and a
Latino market perceived to be homogenous?
11. Committee on Economic Development has an interesting piece looking at both the ideological and economic aspects underlying the debate about the minimum wage. Raising the Minimum Wage: “Which Side Are You On?”
"It is an easy call if you are either (a) a strict libertarian or (b) an
enthusiastic advocate of the less fortunate with limited concern about
the scarcity of resources. (If you belong to both of those groups,
there is little advice that I can offer.) However, in between those
poles of opinion, things become rather murky, rather quickly."
... Comparing the Democrat and Republican participants turned up differences in two brain regions: the right amygdala and the left posterior insula. Republicans showed more activity than Democrats in the right amygdala when making a risky decision. This brain region is important for processing fear, risk and reward.
Meanwhile, Democrats showed more activity in the left posterior insula, a portion of the brain responsible for processing emotions, particularly visceral emotional cues from the body. The particular region of the insula that showed the heightened activity has also been linked with "theory of mind," or the ability to understand what others might be thinking. ...
... The functional differences did mesh well with political beliefs,
however. The researchers were able to predict a person's political
party by looking at their brain function 82.9 percent of the time. In
comparison, knowing the structure of these regions predicts party
correctly 71 percent of the time, and knowing someone's parents'
political affiliation can tell you theirs 69.5 percent of the time, the
researchers wrote. ...
STERLING, Va. - Perched by a computer monitor wedged between shelves of cough drops and the pharmacy in a bustling Walmart, Mohamed Khader taps out answers to questions such as how often he eats vegetables, whether anyone in his family has diabetes and his age.
He tests his eyesight, weighs himself and checks his blood pressure as a middle-aged couple watches at the blue-and-white SoloHealth station advertising "free health screenings." ...
... As Americans gain coverage under the federal health law, putting increased demand on primary care doctors and spurring interest in cheaper, more convenient care, unmanned kiosks like these may be part of what their manufacturer bills as a "self-service healthcare revolution." ...
Recent developments in the field of nanotechnology might give new
meaning to the phrase “nothing gold can stay.” Atoms and bonds developed
not by Mother Nature, but by scientists, are gaining momentum as the
building blocks for cutting-edge materials.
Using nanoparticles as “atoms” and DNA as “bonds,” Chad Mirkin, the
director of Northwestern University’s International Institute for
Nanotechnology, is constructing his very own periodic table. So far Mirkin has built more than 200 distinct crystal structures with 17 different particle arrangements. ...
"The Easterlin paradox suggest that in terms of human happiness -- a
squishy concept to be sure -- there is a limit to economic growth beyond
which there really is just no point in attaining more wealth. Further, a
decoupling between income and happiness at some threshold would imply
that GDP would not be a good measure of welfare, we would need some
other metric.
A recent paper (PDF) by Daniel Sacks, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers argues that the Easterlin paradox is also wrong. ..."
"Why isn't there more outrage about the president's unilateral targeted assassination program on the left?"
5. Arnold Kling with an interesting piece on the role of Jews in the rise of the modern urbanized economic order. The Unintended Consequences of God
"In those days, most people were farmers, for whom literacy’s costs
generally outweighed its benefits. However, in an urbanized society
with skilled occupations, literacy pays off. As urbanization gradually
increased in the late Middle Ages, Jews came to fill high-skilled
occupations. Botticini and Eckstein argue that literacy, rather than
persecution, is what led Jews into these occupations."
"But while progressives would clearly mock this policy [trickle-down economics], modern day
urbanism often resembles nothing so much as trickle-down economics,
though this time mostly advocated by those who would self-identify as
being from the left. The idea is that through investments catering to
the fickle and mobile educated elite and the high end businesses that
employ and entertain them, cities can be rejuvenated in a way that
somehow magically benefits everybody and is socially fair."
8. Mark Perry excerpts a quote from green libertarian John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market.
“Capitalism is the greatest creation humanity has done for social cooperation. It has lifted humanity out of the dirt. In statistics we discovered when we were researching the book, about 200 years ago when capitalism was created, 85% of the people alive lived on $1 a day. Today, that number is 16%. Still too high, but capitalism is wiping out poverty across the world. 200 years ago illiteracy rates were 90%. Today, they are down to about 14%. 200 years ago the average lifespan was 30. Today it is 68 across the world, 78 in the States, and almost 82 in Japan. This is due to business. This is due to capitalism. And it doesn’t get credit for it. Most of the time, business is portrayed by its enemies as selfish and greedy and exploitative, yet it’s the greatest value creator in the world.”
9. Economist Gavin Kennedy with some interesting thoughts on the relationship between the state and the economy in developing nations:
The problem is to achieve the right balance between a competitive market economy and an effective state: markets where possible; the state where necessary.
11. Great piece about yet another way family life is changing. Yes, I’m a Homemaker
I’m a guy. My wife works. We’ve got no kids. I’m a stay-at-home dude.
"... What a sweet picture this conjures: the stay-at-home dad nurturing his
children, looking after the house and helping support his wife in her
budding career and shelving his own big ambitions for later. Now it gets
a little awkward. There is no adorable kid, nor plans to have one. No
starter home that needs knocking into shape. I'm not just doing this
temporarily until I find something meaningful to do. I’m
actually a full-time homemaker ... not stay-at-home dad but stay-at-home
dude. A conversational pause. Where do you mentally file this guy?
Usually I just change the subject. ..."
A new study shows that high-earning women are more likely to let their houses be messy than to hire a housekeeper or get their husbands and kids to pitch in. ...
... "You can purchase substitutes for your own time, you can get your husband to do more, or you can all just do less," Killewald says. "Whether women outsource housework in particular has less to do with resources, but whether or not paid labor is viewed as an appropriate strategy for undertaking domestic work.
Doing less housework seems to be a popular option. ...
Psychiatrists have
concluded that males take longer to assess facial expressions as their
brains have to work twice as hard to work out whether another person
looks friendly or intelligent.
In particular, researchers found that 40% of people say they would avoid someone who unfriended them on Facebook, while 50% say they would not avoid a person who unfriended them. Women were more likely than men to avoid someone who unfriended them, the researchers found.
... Libraries are responding to the decline of print in a variety of creative ways, trying to remain relevant – especially to younger people – by embracing the new technology. Many, such as New York’s Queens Public Library, are reinventing themselves as centers for classes, job training, and simply hanging out. In one radical example, a new $1.5 million library scheduled to open in San Antonio, Texas, this fall will be completely book-free, with its collection housed exclusively on tablets, laptops, and e-readers. “Think of an Apple store,” the Bexar County judge who is leading the effort told NPR. It’s a flashy and seductive package.
But libraries are about more than just e-readers or any other media, as important as those things are. They are about more than just buildings such as the grand edifices erected by Carnegie money, or the sleek and controversial new design for the New York Public Library’s central branch. They are also about human beings and their relationships, specifically, the relationship between librarians and patrons. And that is the relationship that the foundation created by Microsoft co-founder’s Paul G. Allen is seeking to build in a recent round of grants to libraries in the Pacific Northwest. ...
3-D printers can produce gun parts, aircraft wings, food and a lot more,
but this new 3-D printed product may be the craziest thing yet: human
embryonic stem cells. Using stem cells as the "ink" in a 3-D printer,
researchers in Scotland hope to eventually build 3-D printed organs and
tissues. A team at Heriot-Watt University used a specially designed
valve-based technique to deposit whole, live cells onto a surface in a
specific pattern.
Fear-mongering exaggeration about effects of global warming distracts us from finding affordable and effective energy alternatives.
In his second inaugural address on Monday, President Obama laudably
promised to "respond to the threat of climate change." Unfortunately,
when the president described the urgent nature of the threat—the
"devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more
powerful storms"—the scary examples suggested that he is contemplating
poor policies that don't point to any real, let alone smart, solutions.
Global warming is a problem that needs fixing, but exaggeration doesn't
help, and it often distracts us from simple, cheaper and smarter
solutions.
For starters, let's address the three horsemen of the climate apocalypse that Mr. Obama mentioned.
Historical analysis of wildfires around the world shows that since 1950 their numbers have decreased
globally by 15%. Estimates published in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences show that even with global warming proceeding
uninterrupted, the level of wildfires will continue to decline until
around midcentury and won't resume on the level of 1950—the worst for
fire—before the end of the century.
Claiming that droughts are a consequence of global warming is also
wrong. The world has not seen a general increase in drought. A study
published in Nature in November shows globally that "there has been
little change in drought over the past 60 years." The U.N. Climate Panel
in 2012 concluded: "Some regions of the world have experienced more
intense and longer droughts, in particular in southern Europe and West
Africa, but in some regions droughts have become less frequent, less
intense, or shorter, for example, in central North America and
northwestern Australia."
As for one of the favorites of
alarmism, hurricanes in recent years don't indicate that storms are
getting worse. Measured by total energy (Accumulated Cyclone Energy),
hurricane activity is at a low not encountered since the 1970s. The U.S.
is currently experiencing the longest absence of severe landfall
hurricanes in over a century—the last Category 3 or stronger storm was
Wilma, more than seven years ago. ...
... In the long run, the world needs to cut carbon dioxide because it causes
global warming. But if the main effort to cut emissions is through
subsidies for chic renewables like wind and solar power, virtually no
good will be achieved—at very high cost.
Instead of pouring money into subsidies and direct production support
of existing, inefficient green energy, President Obama should focus on
dramatically ramping up investments into the research and development of
green energy. Put another way, it is the difference between supporting
an inexpensive researcher who will discover more efficient, future solar
panels—and supporting a Solyndra at great expense to produce lots of
inefficient, present-technology solar panels.
When innovation eventually makes green
energy cheaper, everyone will implement it, including the Chinese. Such a
policy would likely do 500 times more good per dollar invested than
current subsidy schemes. But first let's drop the fear-mongering
exaggeration—and then focus on innovation.
... To better understand
the impact of technology on jobs, The Associated Press analyzed
employment data from 20 countries; and interviewed economists,
technology experts, robot manufacturers, software developers, CEOs and
workers who are competing with smarter machines.
The
AP found that almost all the jobs disappearing are in industries that
pay middle-class wages, ranging from $38,000 to $68,000. Jobs that form
the backbone of the middle class in developed countries in Europe, North
America and Asia.
In the United States, half
of the 7.5 million jobs lost during the Great Recession paid
middle-class wages, and the numbers are even more grim in the 17
European countries that use the euro as their currency. A total of 7.6
million midpay jobs disappeared in those countries from January 2008
through last June.
Those jobs are being replaced in many cases by machines and software that can do the same work better and cheaper.
"Everything
that humans can do a machine can do," says Moshe Vardi, a computer
scientist at Rice University in Houston. "Things are happening that look
like science fiction." ...
... So machines are
getting smarter and people are more comfortable using them. Those
factors, combined with the financial pressures of the Great Recession,
have led companies and government agencies to cut jobs the past five
years, yet continue to operate just as well.
How is that happening?
-Reduced
aid from Indiana's state government and other budget problems forced
the Gary, Ind., public school system last year to cut its annual
transportation budget in half, to $5 million. The school district
responded by using sophisticated software to draw up new, more efficient
bus routes. And it cut 80 of 160 drivers. ...
... -In South Korea, Standard Chartered is
expanding "smart banking" branches that employ a staff of three,
compared with an average of about eight in traditional branches. ...
... -The
British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto announced plans last year to
invest $518 million in the world's first long-haul, heavy-duty
driverless train system at its Pilbara iron ore mines in Western
Australia. The automated trains are expected to start running next year.
The trains are part of what Rio Tinto calls its "Mine of the Future"
program, which includes 150 driverless trucks and automated drills.
Like
many technologically savvy startups, Dirk Vander Kooij's
furniture-making company in the Netherlands needs only a skeleton crew -
four people ...
... -Google's driverless car and the Pentagon's
drone aircraft are raising the specter of highways and skies filled with
cars and planes that can get around by themselves. ...
... "Trying to keep it from happening would have
been like the Teamsters in the early 1900s trying to stop the
combustion engine," Lavin says. "You can't stand in the way of
technology."
The upside of emerging technology is that most will make goods and services
less expensive. That improves our living standard. The downside is that much of
the work we used to do in order to earn the wages to buy goods and services is
rapidly changing. As the last sentence of the article notes, this is not the
first time we have been in these circumstances. Years ago I read that in 1885,
approximately 80% of everything we consumed in the U.S. was produced at home.
By 1915, 80% was produced outside the home. It created massive economic
dislocations. Each time these disruptions occur it has been hard for the people
living at that time to foresee what the new economic order would look like.
It is critical that Christian thinkers wrestle with the challenges of technological
innovation. Creative destruction (the market dynamic where jobs and industries
are destroyed in the wake of creating new ones) has always been a difficult one
for ethics. It is painful but the social cost of other alternatives is also
quite high. Anti-technological calls to abandon consumerism or, conversely,
just saying that “the market will sort it all out,” are not legitimate
responses. I think topics like this should be at the center of our theological
reflection about human labor and the economy.
… FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Despite billions of dollars in new
infrastructure, power interruptions are chronic in India. Consumers large and
small rely on backup systems, at huge cost to both the environment and economy,
says energy expert Kirit Parikh. He traces the problem to policies that never
really took into account the cost of power and gave it away to some consumers.
KIRIT PARIKH, energy expert: We started out with saying
that farmers should get cheap and free electricity. This was 30 years ago, when
we wanted farmers to really adopt more modern technologies. It was considered a
good way to promote green revolution.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Power was distributed cheaply or free
to farmers and other groups whose votes politicians courted. Little effort was
made to meter it. That prompted many people to hook themselves up illegally.
Parikh says a third of all power is stolen off the grid. …
… FRED DE SAM LAZARO: … But to anywhere from a third to a half
of them, it really didn't matter, because they have never been hooked up to the
electric grid.
Vast swathes of rural India remain off the grid or get minimal,
unpredictable service from it. …
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Ratnesh Yadav has tried to tackle at
least this part of the problem. He and a partner founded a company called Husk
Power. Their idea? Village-based micro-grids.
At this one in the village of Patelli (ph) in the northeastern Bihar state,
tractors arrive with rice husks, the byproduct of milling this region's staple
crop. It is poured into a hopper, about 100 pounds per hour, and gassified to
run a simple turbine. Each evening, 700 customers have access to power for five
hours. …
… MAN (through translator): We used to work with a gas
light. This is much cheaper. We used to stay open until 9:00 in the evening.
Now we stay open until 10:00 or 10:30, so it's a benefit. …
… FRED DE SAM LAZARO: In five years, Husk Power has
installed 75 of these simple plants. Their networks cover an area no bigger
than a couple of square miles, with wires strung on poles made from bamboo, a
renewable resource like the rice husk fuel.
RATNESH YADAV: The good thing about this rice husk is, it
has no alternate uses. It doesn't burn easily, so you can't use it for cooking.
You cannot feed it to cattle because it has high silica in it. So it is a
waste. It has no value for anybody else. And that is why -- and it is in
plenty. …
… ERIC BERKOWITZ, investor: As people increase income,
which hopefully they will, that will create new livelihood opportunities, they
will have opportunities to incrementally increase electricity that they will
take from these kind of solutions, and maybe add maybe two lights, three
lights, a radio, a TV, a refrigerator.
It's not the only solution. There's other solutions that involve solar
technologies. And Husk Power is actually looking at those kind of solutions as
well.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Renewable fuel plants also qualify for
subsidies from India's government and possibly credits in a global carbon
trade. Power expert Parikh appreciates what micro-plants can provide, but he
doesn't see them as a long-term solution. …
The Chinese are running away with thorium energy, sharpening a global race for the prize of clean, cheap, and safe nuclear power. Good luck to them. They may do us all a favour.
... The aim is to break free of the archaic pressurized-water reactors fueled by
uranium -- originally designed for US submarines in the 1950s -- opting
instead for new generation of thorium reactors that produce far less toxic
waste and cannot blow their top like Fukushima. ...
... The thorium story is by now well-known. Enthusiasts think it could be the
transforming technology needed to drive the industrial revolutions of Asia
-- and to avoid an almighty energy crunch as an extra two billion people
climb the ladder to western lifestyles.
At the least, it could do for nuclear power what shale fracking has done for
natural gas -- but on a bigger scale, for much longer, perhaps more cheaply,
and with near zero CO2 emissions. ...
... The beauty of thorium is that you cannot have a Fukushima disaster. Professor
Robert Cywinksi from Huddersfield University, who anchor's the UK's thorium
research network ThorEA, said the metal must be bombarded with neutrons to
drive the process. "There is no chain reaction. Fission dies the moment
you switch off the photon beam," he said. ...
... Yet it leaves far less toxic residue. Most of the mineral is used up in the
fission process, while uranium reactors use up just 0.7pc. It can even burn
up existing stockpiles of plutonium and hazardous waste.
Cambridge scientists published a tantalising study in the Annals of Nuclear
Energy in February showing that it is possible to "achieve near
complete transuranic waste incineration" by throwing the old residue
into the reactor with thorium.
In other words, it can help clean up the mess left by a half a century of
nuclear weapons and uranium reactors, instead of transporting it at great
cost to be encased in concrete and buried for milennia. It is why some
`greens' such as Baroness Worthington -- a former Friends of the Earth
activist -- are embracing thorium. Though there are other reasons.
The thorium molten salt process takes place at atmospheric pressures. It does
not require the vast domes of conventional reactors, so costly, and such an
eyesore.
You could build pint-size plants largely below ground, less obtrusive than a
shopping mall, powering a small town the size of Tunbridge Wells or
Colchester. There would be shorter transmission lines, less leakage, and
less risk of black-outs. The elegance is irresistible....
3. Four Harvard and MIT grads are experimenting with direct aid to the poor. "GiveDirectly, the brainchild of four Harvard and MIT graduate students, is so simple, it's genius. Give poor Kenyan families $1,000 -- and let them do whatever they want with it." Can 4 Economists Build the Most Economically Efficient Charity Ever?
"... Despite
its reputation as a leftwing utopia, Sweden is now a laboratory for
rightwing radicalism. Over the past 15 years a coalition of liberals and
conservatives has brought in for-profit free schools in education, has
sliced welfare to pay off the deficit and has privatised large parts of
the health service.
Their success is envied by the centre right
in Britain. Despite predictions of doom, Sweden's economy continues to
grow and its pro-business coalition has remained in power since 2006.
The last election was the first time since the war that a centre-right
government had been re-elected after serving a full term.
As the
state has been shrunk, the private sector has moved in. Göran Dahlgren, a
former head civil servant at the Swedish department of health and a
visiting professor at the University of Liverpool, says that "almost all
welfare services are now owned by private equity firms". ..."
"... We
have reached a point in our economy where it is becoming increasingly
clear that businesses are being measured not just for their profit, but
also for their impact. And I’m not just talking about writing a check or
funding a charity; I’m referring to business models for which community
involvement and inspirational brand building are the profit centers.
(Think Warby Parker, TOMS, and startups such as SOMA.) I recently went
to a conference where the founders of a startup posited a powerful idea:
the future of marketing is philanthropy. But I think the even bigger
idea is the future of business is morality. My grandfather saw this
early on.
At a time when the moral framework of America appears
to be fractured – or at the very least confused – businesses are in the
propitious position to espouse cultural standards that can help restore
values that our youth can use to build the next generation of positive
enterprise. In fact, whether businesses succeed in creating and
promoting positive cultures might determine whether they stay in
business at all. The future of business is morality, and the future is
now.
Whether it’s the job of the corporation or not to set the
moral tone for society, the expectation is trending towards companies
setting the right example for others to follow. With the sharp rise in
entrepreneurship, young companies have the opportunity to establish
strong cultures early on and share them with their communities. Money
must have a moral center, and from greater consciousness in business,
greater profit will follow. ..."
"New data show an increasing contribution of mental and behavioral disorders to deterioration in the health-related quality of life among teens in the U.S. and Canada over the past two decades, and increases elsewhere around the globe."
More people moved out of California in 2011 than moved in, according to the latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau, signaling that the Democrat-run state’s economic woes continue to drive residents away.
Most statisticians attribute California’s net loss of 100,000 people last year to its high cost of living, increased population density and troubling unemployment rate.
The widening middle class in Mexico is also encouraging some immigrants to remain in that country instead of moving to California.
Texas — home to lower taxes, less regulation and what the Manhattan Institute calls a “labor pool with the right skills at the right price” — is one of the most attractive destinations for companies departing from California, according to the Census Bureau. ...
"The country reported 85 executions in 2000 but only 43 in 2012, according to a new report released by the Death Penalty Information Center. Plus, far fewer people are being sentenced to death row in the first place. The year 2000 saw 224 new inmates sentenced to death, while 2012 saw only 78, according to the report."
15. Conor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic had a great piece Why 'If We Can Just Save One Child ...' Is a Bad Argument, referring to a statement President Obama made at Newtown, CT. When we deal with complex topics like gun control, we are always
talking about tradeoffs. For instance, I know how we can save more
than 30,000 lives. The were 32,367 traffic fatalities last
year. Let's set the speed limit to 5 miles per hour. Nearly all those lives would be saved. Should we do this "if we can save just
one more life"? I, like Friedersforf, am not advocating any particular
policy. I'm just pointing out the absurdity of making statements like this, as politicians often do.
"I found that the structural supports of evangelicalism are quivering as a
result of ground-shaking changes in American culture. Strategies that
served evangelicals well just 15 years ago are now self- destructive.
The more that evangelicals attempt to correct course, the more they
splinter their movement. In coming years we will see the old
evangelicalism whimper and wane."
He speaks of an Evangelical "collapse" having happened. That may be a bit premature but I think his articulation of trends is right.
(Like the Kruse Kronicle at Facebook if you want links to daily posts to appear in your Facebook feed.)
1. Pray for Egypt Today!
More than 50 million Egyptians are voting today on a constitution that would be a giant step backward for Egypt and much of the Middle East, marginalizing women and religious minorities. A nation that has historically been a voice of moderation, the largest Muslim nation in the region, will likely move toward becoming an Islamist state. Remember to pray for Egypt. (See the Economist'sThe Founding Brothers)
2. Our prayers are with families of the victims at the Sandy Hook elementary school. Grace and peace to the entire community.
Traffic deaths in the USA continued their historic decline last year,
falling to the lowest level since 1949, the government announced
Monday.
A total of 32,367 motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians died in 2011,
a 1.9% decrease from 2010. Last year’s toll represents a 26% decline
from 2005, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
said. ...
... The trend has emerged in big cities like New York and Los Angeles, as
well as smaller places like Anchorage, Alaska, and Kearney, Neb. The
state of Mississippi has also registered a drop, but only among white
students.
“It’s been nothing but bad news for 30 years, so the fact that we have
any good news is a big story,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, the health
commissioner in New York City, which reported a 5.5 percent decline in
the number of obese schoolchildren from 2007 to 2011....
....The experiment, in April, used a disabled form of the virus that causes AIDS to reprogram Emma’s immune system genetically to kill cancer cells. ...
... The research is still in its early stages, and many questions remain.
The researchers are not entirely sure why the treatment works, or why it
sometimes fails. One patient had a remission after being treated only
twice, and even then the reaction was so delayed that it took the
researchers by surprise. For the patients who had no response
whatsoever, the team suspects a flawed batch of T-cells. The child who
had a temporary remission apparently relapsed because not all of her
leukemic cells had the marker that was targeted by the altered T-cells. ...
....In 2011, 1.4 million chlamydia infections were reported to the CDC.
The rate of cases per 100,000 people increased 8%, to 457.6 in 2011 from
423.6 in 2010.
The CDC reported 321,849 gonorrhea infections. The
rate increased 4% to 104.2 cases per 100,000 in 2011 from 100.2 in
2010. Like chlamydia, gonorrhea can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease,
a major cause of infertility in women.
Last year, 13,970 primary and secondary syphilis cases were reported. The rate of 4.5 cases per 100,000 was unchanged from 2010. ...
7. You may be bilingual but can you write in two languages, one with each hand, at the same time?!
10. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones speculates on why liberals have more exaggerated perceptions of political differences. We Are More Alike Than We Think
11. A surprising "right to work" bill was signed into law in Michigan, of all places. That has spurred a lot of debate about unions and the right to work. Michael Kinsley wrote a thoughtful piece opposing RTW, The Liberal Case Against Right-to-Work Laws. David Henderson has piece in support of RTW, The Economics of "Right to Work".
12. Slate has a piece about The Great Schism in the Environmental Movement.
Keith Kloor opines on the division between mondernist environmentalists
(or eco-pragmatists) and conservation traditionalists.
...
Modernist greens don't dispute the ecological tumult associated with the
Anthropocene. But this is the world as it is, they say, so we might as
well reconcile the needs of people with the needs of nature. To this
end, Kareiva advises conservationists to craft "a new vision of a planet
in which nature—forests, wetlands, diverse species, and other ancient
ecosystems—exists amid a wide variety of modern, human landscapes."
This
shift in thinking is already under way. For example, ecologists
increasingly appreciate (and study) the diversity of species and
importance of ecosystem services in cities, giving rise to the
discipline of urban ecology. That was unthinkable at the dawn of the
modern environmental movement 50 years ago, when greens loathed cities
as the antithesis of wilderness. ...
13. One of the creepiest Twilight Zone episodes I remember from my
childhood was when this woman ends up trapped in a department store at
night. The mannequins begin calling to her. She discovers she is actually a mannequin who
has over stayed her time out in the world and it is time for the next
mannequin to spend some time outside the store. This story confirms my worst nightmares: In Some Stores, the Mannequins Are Watching You
15. One of the biggest concerns about fracking technology is the enormous amount of water it uses. A company has figured out how to recycle water so that far less water is used in the fracking process. Solving fracking's biggest problem
... 3D printing represents the latest version of what industry experts call
"additive manufacturing" — a way to turn practically any computer
designs into real objects by building them up layer-by-layer using
plastics, metals or other materials. The technology could end up
affecting every major industry — aerospace, defense, medicine, transportation, food, fashion — and have an even bigger impact on U.S. manufacturing than the robot revolution. ...
20. Michael Cheshire has a great piece in Leadership Journal on "What I learned about grace and redemption through my friendship with a Christian pariah." Going To Hell with Ted Haggard
".... A while back I was having a business lunch at a sports bar in the
Denver area with a close atheist friend. He's a great guy and a very
deep thinker. During lunch, he pointed at the large TV screen on the
wall. It was set to a channel recapping Ted's fall. He pointed his
finger at the HD and said, "That is the reason I will not become a
Christian. Many of the things you say make sense, Mike, but that's what
keeps me away."
It was well after the story had died down, so I had to study the screen
to see what my friend was talking about. I assumed he was referring to
Ted's hypocrisy. "Hey man, not all of us do things like that," I
responded. He laughed and said, "Michael, you just proved my point. See,
that guy said sorry a long time ago. Even his wife and kids stayed and
forgave him, but all you Christians still seem to hate him. You guys
can't forgive him and let him back into your good graces. Every time you
talk to me about God, you explain that he will take me as I am. You say
he forgives all my failures and will restore my hope, and as long as I
stay outside the church, you say God wants to forgive me. But that guy
failed while he was one of you, and most of you are still vicious to
him." Then he uttered words that left me reeling: "You Christians eat
your own. Always have. Always will."
He was running late for a meeting and had to take off. I, however, could
barely move. I studied the TV and read the caption as a well-known
religious leader kept shoveling dirt on a man who had admitted he was
unclean. And at that moment, my heart started to change. I began to
distance myself from my previously harsh statements and tried to
understand what Ted and his family must have been through. When I
brought up the topic to other men and women I love and respect, the very
mention of Haggard's name made our conversations toxic. Their reactions
were visceral."
21. Leonardo Bonucci got a yellow card for faking collision during a
soccer game. It should have been a red card. No one deserves to be a professional soccer player with acting skills
this bad!
... From 2009 to 2013, key changes in the AEO [Annual Energy Outlook] include:
Downward revisions in the economic growth outlook, which dampens energy demand growth
Lower transportation sector consumption of conventional fuels based on updated fuel economy standards, increased penetration of alternative fuels, and more modest growth in light-duty vehicle miles traveled
Generally higher energy prices, with the notable exception of natural gas, where recent and projected prices reflect the development of shale gas resources
Slower growth in electricity demand and increased use of low-carbon fuels for generation
Increased use of natural gas
Power sector transformation, based on decarbonization of the generation mix, occurs because natural gas and renewables gain market share at the expense of coal, reflecting:
Resource economics—high domestic production of natural gas at historically low prices, reflecting increased production of shale gas
Regulation—updated state renewable portfolio standards and efficiency standards, and cap-and-trade provisions of California Assembly Bill 32, as well as implementation of federal policies to reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards and other policies and measures at local, state, and federal levels
The first crack in a firewall that has protected big coal for decades.
Since the 1990s, small bands of Appalachian residents, regional environmental groups, and more recently the EPA have fought what often seemed like a futile battle against mountaintop-removal mining, the radical practice of blowing the tops off mountains to get at the coal seams underneath. The coal companies, backed by local political establishments and conservative jurists skeptical of possible regulatory overreach, have fended off multiple attempts to shut down mountaintop operations. As a result, an ever-widening swath of Appalachian peaks and valleys has been obliterated: approximately 2,200 square miles, according to the EPA, in what is likely a conservative estimate because the footprint often extends beyond the permit zones. That’s an area almost the size of Delaware.
That expanse kept growing as the battles mostly went in coal’s favor. Until this month, that is, when environmental groups won a decisive legal victory over a coal company. It may prove to be turning point in the war over the mountaintops, and for the future of coal.
On Nov. 15, St. Louis-based Patriot Coal agreed to phase out its mountaintop excavations and redirect its efforts back to underground mining. Adding a symbolic punch, Patriot agreed to decommission its two draglines—enormous boom excavators that do the actual mountaintop demolitions—and can sell them only on the condition that they’re never used in the Appalachian coalfields again. Coal executives usually shrug off complaints about mountaintop-removal impacts as the grumbling of dilettantes and naysayers who don’t understand the need for mining jobs. Yet here was the practically unheard-of spectacle of Patriot’s CEO, Ben Hatfield, acknowledging that mountaintop removal affected both people and ecology: “Patriot Coal recognizes that our mining operations impact the communities in which we operate in significant ways, and we are committed to maximizing the benefits of this agreement for our stakeholders, including our employees and neighbors," Hatfield said in court. "We believe the proposed settlement will result in a reduction of our environmental footprint." ...
As you can see, some of the worst declines in life expectancy are in moutain top mining areas of Kentucky and West Virginia. Allen Johnson of Christians for the Mountains makes the, as does this article, that this strongly connected to the mining operations.
Finally, the United States is beginning to take energy efficiency seriously. ...
... The Negawatt is the general principle of cutting electricity
consumption without necessarily reducing energy usage through things
like energy efficiency. Lovins first introduced it in the keynote
address to the 1989 Green Energy Conference in Montreal:
Imagine being able to save half the
electricity for free and still get the same or better services! … You
get the same amount of light as before, with 8 percent as much energy
overall—but it looks better and you can see better. … In the space
conditioning case—heating and cooling—you get improved comfort. ... It
is doing more with less.
The Negawatt itself is a theoretical unit of power measuring energy
saved—Lovins came up with the idea after seeing megawatt misspelled with
an n and deciding that this was a potentially useful
conceptualization. It sounds self-evident now that you could reduce
electricity consumption not by cutting back on energy usage but by
improving energy efficiency standards and modernizing antiquated power
sources. But the concept was revolutionary at the time. A major problem
with getting people to understand the environmental and cost-savings
benefits of energy efficiency was a perverse incentives structure that
rewarded power companies based on amount of electricity sold, not for
how much of a needed service it was providing. Lovins described the
dilemma as such:
There isn't any demand for electricity for
its own sake. What people want is the services it provides. …
Nonetheless, most of our utilities have gotten into the habit of
thinking they're in the kilowatt-hour business, so they should sell
more. … For some reason, it's hard for them to get used to the idea that
it's perfectly all right to sell less electricity, and so bring in less
revenue, as long as costs go down more than revenues do.
Though Lovins brought the idea to the fore of the environmental
policy discussion, he wasn’t the first to articulate the issue: In 1982,
California devised an inspired solution, called decoupling,
to this problem. The idea was that the state would reverse the
incentive structure by establishing the revenue rate that the power
company would need to meet in order to return a profit, along with a separate
target for electricity production needed. Any revenue over the target
amount would be returned to customers, while anything below would be
added on to the following year’s bills. This meant that greater
efficiency could actually return greater profit.
Decoupling is largely credited
with making California the most energy efficient and environmentally
friendly state in the country. But a mere disincentive to keep utilities
companies from pegging profits to electricity usage was not enough, so
the state launched a second program called “decoupling plus” in 2007 in order to incentivize
power companies to lower their electricity production. Through this
program, regulators set savings targets, and customers are asked to pay
fees to help provide the down payment for power companies to meet these
targets. Regulators then calculate long-term economic savings of this
efficiency. If the utilities meet or surpass their targeted electricity
savings, they get a cut of the projected savings. If they don’t meet the
targets, the utilities pay a fine.
In 2007, California was still the only state in the union to have even a
basic decoupling system in place. In the last five years, though, there
has been a decoupling revolution across the country. By the start of
2011, 27 states and the District of Columbia
had adopted gas decoupling, electric decoupling, or both. While the
incentive programs are not yet in place in the vast majority of these
states, at least the initial roadblock of the bad incentive structure
has been largely removed.
What energy technology is portable, powerful and prefabricated? Small modular reactors are generating buzz as federal officials co-fund a project that could transform the U.S. nuclear industry.
12:26PM EST November 27. 2012 - A
new generation of nuclear reactor is scheduled to launch in the United
States within a decade, potentially transforming the U.S. nuclear
industry. But critics question its safety, given last year's meltdown
of Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant and recent flooding
from Superstorm Sandy.
These small modular reactors (SMRs), about a
third the physical size of traditional ones, would be portable and
built mostly in factories. They got a boost last week from the
Department of Energy, which announced it would pay up to half the cost
to design and license the first ones for the U.S. commercial market. ...
... "You can put them together like Legos on a job site," Mowry says.
"The industry likes building blocks of this size," he says, likening the
heft of each to a tanker truck. He expects a two-reactor plant
generating a total of 360 megawatts of power to cost $1.5 billion to
build — about a tenth of the projected cost of a two-reactor,
2,000-megawatt plant the NRC approved earlier this year for Georgia.
Another
benefit, Mowry says, is safety. He says it can operate for two weeks
without outside power and has fewer parts and pipes so is less likely to
malfunction. "Our reactor is totally underground," he says, adding it's
not disturbed by hurricanes and tornadoes. ...
... TerraPower, a start-up partially funded by software mogul Bill Gates,
is developing a larger, 500-megawatt, "traveling wave" reactor.
Company CEO John Gilleland says it's on track to deploy its first
reactor in the 2020s.
Genoa says U.S.-based companies are furthest
along in developing small reactors, which he says many countries want.
He says the U.S. has a chance to recapture its lead in nuclear
technology, adding, "'This race is ours to lose."
After the loss of 10 million American lives in the Three-Mile Island
calamity in 1979, the death of 2 billion in the Chernobyl holocaust in
1986 and, now, the abandonment of all of northern Japan following the
death of millions in last year's Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, it is
hardly surprising that the world's biggest users of nuclear power are
shutting their plants down.
Oh, wait a minute. Nobody died in the Three-Mile Island calamity, 28
plant workers were killed, and 15 other people subsequently died of
thyroid cancer in the Chernobyl holocaust, and nobody died in the
Fukushima catastrophe. In fact, northern Japan has not been evacuated
after all. But never mind all that. Governments really are shutting down
their nuclear plants. ...
She explains that Japan has closed their 50 nuclear reactors for inspections and the government promises to close them permanently by 2040, replacing them with renewable energy. Angela Merkel wants to close German plants by 2022. France is proposing to scale back their nuclear sector.
She concludes:
The Greens prattle about replacing nuclear power with renewables,
which might happen in the distant future. But the brutal truth for now
is that closing down the nuclear plants will lead to a sharp rise in
greenhouse gas emissions.
Fortunately, their superstitious fears are largely absent in more
sophisticated parts of the world. Only four new nuclear reactors are
under construction in the European Union, and only one in the United
States, but there are 61 being built elsewhere. Over two-thirds of them
are being built in the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China), where
economies are growing fast.
But it's not enough to outweigh the closure of so many nuclear plants
in the developed world, at least in the short run. India may be aiming
at getting 50 percent of its energy from nuclear power by 2050, for
example, but the fact is that only 3.7 percent of its electricity is
nuclear right now. So the price of nuclear fuel has collapsed in the
past four years, and uranium mine openings and expansions have been
cancelled.
More people die from coal pollution each day than have been killed by
50 years of nuclear power operations – and that's just from lung
disease. If you include future deaths from burning fossil fuels, closing
down nuclear power stations is sheer madness. Welcome to the Middle
Ages.
Many of
the existing plants, like Fukushima, are second generation nuclear power. Third
generation nuclear power is much safer. Fourth generation, projected to come
online in about twenty years will be even safer, more efficient, and generate
wasted that must be protected a few hundred years instead of millennia. There
is reason to believe that even better methods are in the offing. What an irony
that those countries that have been the most adamant about reducing greenhouse
gas emissions may become the biggest stumbling block to curbing them.
In recent months, I've linked a graph that shows that CO2 emissions from energy production have dropped to 1990 levels in the United States, mostly because of natural gas replacing coal power. That's the good news if you want to reduce CO2. But here is the challenge presented in the two graphs by Jordan Wiessmann.
Each week I spend considerable time scanning headlines as I look for stories to blog about at the Kruse Kronicle. I clip them into an Evernote Notebook and usually twice a day I select one or two to link and discuss. A number of interesting stories never make it on to the blog.
So this week I'm beginning what I hope will be a regular Saturday feature. Each Saturday I will post links I did not use the previous week. For now I will call it "Saturday Links." Happy clicking!
3. Icon of the American Libertarian movement, Murray Rothbard, once asked, "Why won't the left acknowledge the difference between deserving poor and
undeserving poor. Why support the feckless, lazy & irresponsible?" Chris Dillow gives a libertarian response affirming the need to Support the undeserving poor.
"I can easily imagine my graph in a Julian Simon or Steven Pinker chapter
on human progress and the decline in violence. Even though I have no
philosophical objection to the death penalty, it's hard not to interpret
this 400-year pattern as a strong sign of human betterment."
MIT Professor Donald Sadoway’s lectures were good enough to convince Bill Gates to invest in his startup called Liquid Metal Battery. Now you can watch a glimpse of a mini lecture by Sadoway, because the TED conference just released Sadoway’s 15 minute TED talk. It’s worth a watch!
... So, what do we do? One path forward for the nuclear industry is through the construction of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). SMRs are nuclear reactors that are intentionally designed to be less than 300-megawatts, or about one-third of the size of conventional large reactor. By making them small, they have several key benefits not available to large reactors. These issues are discussed at length in a
new American Security Project (ASP) report, “Small Modular Reactors: A Possible Path Forward for Nuclear Power.”
First, SMRs offer flexibility. Since they are small, they can be added to the electric grid incrementally. Slow incremental additions better match the slow energy demand growth in the United States, which is projected to be less than 1% per year. Utilities have little interest in building a huge nuclear reactor when demand is not rising quickly enough to justify the investment.
Second, SMRs are designed with several safety features that are an improvement over large reactors. By using simpler designs with fewer coolant pipes and components, the risk of a safety accident declines.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, SMRs have an advantage in cost over large reactors. While a typical large reactor can cost between $6 and $9 billion, an SMR has an estimated price tag of only $250 million for a 100-megawatt reactor. With smaller
upfront costs and shorter construction timeframes, utilities can get loans with lower interest rates.
Despite these advantages, no SMR has been constructed to date. Why isn’t the industry building SMRs right now? The biggest obstacle for SMRs is that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has licensed no SMR design.
A second impediment is the lack of a track record on performance. Without an example to point to, the burden is on the nuclear industry to prove that the advantages of SMRs discussed above are indeed an improvement over conventional reactors. Until the first plant moves ahead, uncertainty remains.
A third problem is low natural gas prices. The nuclear industry remains bullish on their prospects over the long-term, and with assets that last 60 years, it is essential to not get swept up in the latest hype. However, low natural gas prices present real problems for industry, at least in the near-term. ...
Many have been inspired by Star Trek to become scientists, and some are starting to make its gadgetry a reality.
Destination Star Trek London has kicked off at the ExCeL exhibition centre,
and I'm willing to bet that among those heading down for a weekend of
pointy-eared fun, there'll be a high proportion of scientists and
engineers.
Many have been inspired by Star Trek to take up a career in science, technology or engineering.
I think the franchise deserves more respect as a science popularisation
medium – how many other prime-time TV shows would allow their
characters to toss out phrases like "I performed a Fourier analysis on
the harmonics, Captain"?
Since its inception in 1966, Star Trek
has familiarised us with the lingo and applications of science. At
least, that was the case for me. I felt pretty disenfranchised from
science at school: it wasn't until I discovered science fiction that I
realised I could understand "difficult" technical concepts.
Since
the show began, many of us have become more tech-savvy than we could
possibly have imagined at school. More than that, we're now seeing
emergent technology here on Earth that was once little more than a Star
Trek scriptwriter's dream. To get you in the mood for this weekend's
festivities, here's a roundup of some of the best Star Trek-inspired
technology.
Replicators - ... Three-dimensional printers have been on the open market commercially for most of the 21st century. ...
Transporters - Earlier this year, Nature reported that photons had been teleported 89 miles, between La Palma and Tenerife. OK, it wasn't exactly transportation ...
Bioneural circuitry - ... And in February of this year, the Scripps Research Institute published details of a DNA-based biological computer based on an original design by Alan Turing. ...
Nanites - ... They've constructed a set of nanorobots, with inbuilt chemical sensors, that can silence genes within cancerous cells. ...
Androids - Japanese scientists have created some remarkably human-looking androids,
though they wouldn't beat Data in a game of three-dimensional chess. ...
Of course, we all ready have personal communication devices. But as someone recently pointed out, while we all have communication devices, we don't see people in Star Trek constantly looking down at them and running into things. ;-) Warp drive would be pretty cool. Any other Trekkie devices that you want to see?
PRAGUE – Campaigners on important but complex issues, annoyed by the
length of time required for public deliberations, often react by
exaggerating their claims, hoping to force a single solution to the
forefront of public debate. But, however well intentioned, scaring the
public into a predetermined solution often backfires: when people
eventually realize that they have been misled, they lose confidence and
interest.
Last month, there were two examples of this in a single week. On
September 19, the French researcher Gilles-Eric Séralini attempted to
fuel public opposition to genetically modified foods by showing the public
how GM corn, with and without the pesticide Roundup, caused huge tumors
and early death in 200 rats that had consumed it over two years. ...
Lomborg highlights the throughly bogus nature of the study and it funding and notes:
Moreover, Séralini’s results contradict the latest meta-study
of 24 long-term studies (up to two years and five generations), which
found that the data do “not suggest any health hazards” and display “no
statistically significant differences” between GM and conventional food.
Why is this important?
This debacle matters because many GM crops provide tangible benefits for
people and the environment. They enable farmers to produce higher
yields with fewer inputs (such as pesticides), so that more food can be
produced from existing farmland. That, in turn, implies less human encroachment into natural ecosystems,
enabling greater biodiversity. But, of course, Séralini’s pictures of
cancer-addled rats munching GM corn have instead been burned into the
public imagination.
Then there was a climate change report:
The Séralini fiasco was only a
week old when, on September 26, the Climate Vulnerability Forum, a
group of countries led by Bangladesh, launched the second edition of its
Global Vulnerability Monitor.
Headlines about the launch were truly alarming: Over the next 18 years,
global warming would kill 100 million people and cost the economy
upwards of $6.7 trillion annually.
These
public messages were highly misleading – and clearly intended to shock
and disturb. The vast majority of deaths discussed in the report did not
actually result from global warming. Outdoor air pollution – caused by
fossil-fuel combustion, not by global warming – contributed to 30% of
all deaths cited in the study. And 60% of the total deaths reflect the
burning of biomass (such as animal dung and crop residues) for cooking
and heating, which has no relation to either fossil fuels or global
warming.
In
total, the study exaggerated more than 12-fold the number of deaths
that could possibly be attributed to climate change, and it more than
quadrupled the potential economic costs, simply to grab attention. ...
He goes on:
Likewise, overcoming the
burden of indoor air pollution will happen only when people can use
kerosene, propane, and grid-based electricity. If the Global Vulnerability Monitor’s
recommendation to cut back on fossil fuels were taken seriously, the
result would be slower economic growth and continued reliance on dung,
cardboard, and other low-grade fuels, thereby prolonging the suffering
that results from indoor air pollution.
Generally, technologies are judged on their net benefits, not on
the claim that they are harmless: The good effects of, say, the
automobile and aspirin outweigh their dangers. ...
He goes on to explain that despite sensationalist stories about the negative impact of GM foods, the scientific peer-reviewed scientific data doesn't support it. The substantial benefits get short shrift:
... So to redress the balance [of negative coverage], I thought I'd look up the estimated
benefits of genetically modified crops. After 15 years of GM
planting, there's ample opportunity-with 17 million farmers on
almost 400 million acres in 29 countries on six continents-to count
the gains from genetic modification of crop plants. A recent comprehensive report by Graham Brookes and
Peter Barfoot for a British firm, PG Economics, gives some rough
numbers. (The study was funded by Monsanto, which
has major operations in biotech, but the authors say the research
was independent of the company and published in two peer-reviewed
journals.)
The most obvious benefit is yield increase. In 2010, the report
estimates, the world's corn crop was 31 million tons larger and the
soybean crop 14 million tons larger than it would have been without
the use of biotech crops. The direct effect on farm incomes was an
increase of $14 billion, more than half of which went to farmers in
developing countries (especially those growing insect-resistant
cotton). ...
He goes on to note benefits like less fuel usage, better health and safety for workers, shorter growing cycles, better quality of food, and nearly 1 billion less pounds of pesticide being used. Furthermore, because of several factors, there is less carbon-diosice emission. His final paragraph is the kicker.
There is a rich irony here. The rapidly growing use of shale gas
in the U.S. has also driven down carbon-dioxide emissions by
replacing coal in the generation of electricity. U.S. carbon
emissions are falling so fast they are now back to levels last seen
in the 1990s. So the two technologies most reliably and stridently
opposed by the environmental movement-genetic modification and
fracking-have been the two technologies that most reliably cut
carbon emissions.
And to that final paragraph I might add the observation that many of those
who are the most adamant about catastrophic anthropogenic climate change being
unassailable science are most resistant to science that points the great
benefits and relatively small downsides of things like GM crops and fourth
generation nuclear power.
South Carolina’s Savannah River Site (SRS) located in Aiken, along with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), have announced three partnerships to develop three small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) at the SRS
facility; SMRs produce less energy than a regular reactor, but they
produce enough energy to power small cities and remote areas.
South Carolina’s Savannah River Site (SRS) located in Aiken, along with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), have announced three partnerships to develop three small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) at the SRS facility. ...
... Helen Belecan, DOE’s deputy assistant manager for infrastructure and environmental stewardship at the SRS facility, toldGovernment Technology the
goal of the reactors are “to apply the nuclear knowledge and expertise
that we have from over 60 years of supporting the nation in its
defense-type operation in nuclear material production and help these
companies develop the technology and manufacturing capability in the
United States so that the United States can take on a leadership role in
the manufacturing of these small modular reactors.”
DOE will focus on the advancing SMRs in the
United States. $450 million “will be made available to support first-of
its kind engineering, design decertification and licensing for up to
two SMR designs over five years, subject to congressional appropriations,” DOE says. ...
... A SMR is about one-third the size of a regular
nuclear reactor and is built at a fraction of the cost. A traditional
single-unit nuclear reactor costs roughly $8 billion dollars to build
and that number jumps to $14 billion for twin reactors. SMRs produce
less energy than a regular reactor, but they produce enough energy to
power small cities and remote areas.
Thomas Sander, an associate laboratory director for the Clean Energy Imitative and the Savannah River National Laboratory, told Government Technology the first SMR will cost almost $1 billion, but the price will drop down the line.
“If you are talking about the 100th, my expectation is that cost is
going to be reduced significantly as a result of advance factory
manufacturing and just a learning process and the licensing process.”
“If you are going after the old coal replacement market, you are
looking at 150 to 200 megawatts on average,” Sander said, “but if you
are looking at the Alaskan market for small cities or island market or
export market for developing countries, you are talking 45 to
100 megawatts.” ...
... A team at Rice University has made a battery from paint. They created a
lithium ion battery which they are able to paint onto virtually any
surface.
In tests they combined the battery with a small solar
cell and found that the system worked as a perfect energy generating
unit. In one test the batteries were even able to power light-emitting
diodes that spelled out "RICE" for six hours, with a steady 2.4 volts.
Neelam Singh, the team leader, said that she can already imagine integrating paintable battery technology with paintable solar cells.
They
have already filed for a patent, and are now looking to use the
technology to create batteries that can be connected together like LEGO
and attached to anything.
... Sanergy, for example, is a company launched by a group of students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Sloan School of Management.
The group has designed low-profile sanitation centers that can be
constructed anywhere to provide hot showers and clean toilets. These
facilities can be built quickly and easily with affordable materials.
Waste from the centers is deposited into airtight containers that are
collected daily. Then it’s brought to processing facilities that can
convert it into biogas. The biogas generates electricity, while the
leftover material is made into fertilizer.
The company won a USD $100,000 grant from MIT and has been building
its first units in Nairobi. It charges a low pay-per-use fee and hopes
to grow by franchising the operation of its units, creating an income
opportunity for enterprising residents. As the number of toilets
proliferates, so too will the amount of energy the company is able to
generate from its processing facilities. It hopes to eventually generate
enough energy that it can sell its power to the national grid.
The company’s unique and innovative approach is notable for the way
it combines the decentralization of waste collection with the
centralization of waste processing. Retrofitting the slums with proper
sewage drains is a near impossibility and can be an expensive and
potentially politically volatile effort in areas where landownership is
at best ambiguous. The self-contained units grant access to sanitary
facilities to even those far off the grid. But by centralizing the
processing of waste, Sanergy’s facilities will take advantage of the
economies of scale present in the waste conversion process. ...
Carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. are at their lowest level in 20 years. It’s not because of wind or solar power.
... But, beyond this well-trodden battlefield, something amazing has
happened: Carbon-dioxide emissions in the United States have dropped to
their lowest level in 20 years. Estimating on the basis of data from the
US Energy Information Agency
from the first five months of 2012, this year’s expected CO2 emissions
have declined by more than 800 million tons, or 14 percent from their
peak in 2007.
The cause is an unprecedented switch to natural gas, which emits 45
percent less carbon per energy unit. The U.S. used to generate about
half its electricity from coal, and roughly 20 percent from gas. Over
the past five years, those numbers have changed, first slowly and now
dramatically: In April of this year, coal’s share in power generation
plummeted to just 32 percent, on par with gas. ...
... The reduction is even more impressive when one considers that 57 million
additional energy consumers were added to the U.S. population over the
past two decades. Indeed, U.S. carbon emissions have dropped about 20
percent per capita, and are now at their lowest level since Dwight D. Eisenhower left the White House in 1961. ...
... This flies in the face of conventional thinking, which continues to
claim that mandating carbon reductions—through cap-and-trade or a carbon
tax—is the only way to combat climate change.
But, based on Europe’s experience, such policies are precisely the wrong
way to address global warming. Since 1990, the EU has heavily
subsidized solar and wind energy at a cost of more than $20 billion
annually. Yet its per capita CO2 emissions have
fallen by less than half of the reduction achieved in the U.S.—even in
percentage terms, the U.S. is now doing better. ...
... Climate economists repeatedly have pointed out that such energy
innovation is the most effective climate solution, because it is the
surest way to drive the price of future green energy sources below that
of fossil fuels. By contrast, subsidizing current, ineffective solar
power or ethanol mostly wastes money while benefiting special interests. ...
(Reuters) - The European Union will impose a limit on the use of crop-based biofuels over fears they are less climate-friendly than initially thought and compete with food production, draft EU legislation seen by Reuters showed.
The draft rules, which will need the approval of EU governments and lawmakers, represent a major shift in Europe's much-criticized biofuel policy and a tacit admission by policymakers that the EU's 2020 biofuel target was flawed from the outset.
The plans also include a promise to end all public subsidies for crop-based biofuels after the current legislation expires in 2020, effectively ensuring the decline of a European sector now estimated to be worth 17 billion euros ($21.7 billion) a year. ...
Growing installations of rooftop
solar panels are increasing concern that U.S. utilities may
refuse to buy power generated by the systems, according to the
Solar Energy Industries Association.
Utilities are required to purchase electricity generated by
solar panels installed on consumers’ homes under so-called net-
metering policies, an arrangement that may become less viable as
solar systems become more common, said Rhone Resch, chief
executive officer of the Washington-based trade group.
California, the largest solar market, capped the amount of
panels utilities are required to connect to their grids and
other states are considering similar policies. Some utilities
see the requirement to buy solar power from every rooftop system
as a threat to their profitability, Resch said.
“Net metering works for us now, but we’re going to see a
backlash from utilities as solar penetration increases over the
next few years,” Resch said today in an interview at the Solar
Power International conference in Orlando, Florida.
California regulators capped the amount of rooftop solar
that may be connected to the grid at 5 percent of a a utility’s
power needs, and is studying the long-term impact upon their
profits. ...
From California to New Jersey, the summer sun was hot this year — and so
was the solar industry. While the business of solar energy is still
small enough and young enough to record firsts at the fearsome pace of a
toddler, the milestones are getting more substantial. ...
... The number of megawatts installed in the second quarter of this year
was around 742, more than double the 343 megawatts installed in the
first quarter of 2011, according to a report released Monday that was commissioned by the Solar Energy Industries Association.
The same report, showed that the United States now has 5.7 gigawatts of
installed solar capacity, enough to power one million homes, according
to the the report, which was prepared by GTM Research, a Boston-based consulting company.
Then
again, even in California, where more than one-third of the new
installations were located, the new high-water mark for daily solar
power production represents only 1 percent of total demand. Wind energy
— which is counter-cyclical with solar energy, as the wind is weakest
when the sun shines brightest — represented 3.7 percent of demand on the
day of peak solar-energy generation. ...
... It may be worth noting that amid all the news about solar expansion
and milestones, the federal Energy Information Administration reported on Monday that energy-related carbon dioxide emissions declined 2.5 percent from 2010 to 2011.
“Electric power generation from natural gas,
the least carbon-intensive of the fossil fuels, increased by 3 percent,
while generation from coal declined by 6 percent,” the agency reported,
noting that carbon dioxide emissions from burning natural gas are
around half those that result from burning coal.
“Power generation
from renewable sources continued to rise, mostly because of
record-breaking supplies of hydroelectricity and increasing generation
from wind, solar, and other renewable sources,” the agency’s report
added.
More evidence of the Kruse Plan at work. Switch to natural gas as a near-term intermediate step, while giving alternative energy and nuclear power a chance to emerge.
In my previous blog post,
we discussed the potential and need to drive the adoption of hybrid
solar energy systems to empower remote communities in developing nations
with reliable access to electricity.
In this blog, I will focus on some communities who have successfully implemented such hybrid solar energy systems.
Mali is a landlocked country in Western Africa, and suffers from
acute electricity shortage. Although a number of generation plants are
planned, most of these plants will only start generating after 2017 due
to constraints. However, Ouelessebougou city in the Koulikoro region of
the country decided to take matters in their own hands to assuage this
issue. The city used two diesel generators that generated 440 kilowatts
of electricity to power a water pumping station and scores of
surrounding households. To reduce their reliance on costly diesel and
increase power generation capacity, the city invested in a 216-kilowatt
solar energy system.
The results were remarkable as the city managed to reduce their reliance on diesel generators by 75%.
... Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing have been around for years, but over the last five years, engineers have fine-tuned these and other techniques, even as many environmentalists worry about their impact on water and air.
Computer programs have been developed to simulate wells before they are even drilled. Advanced fiber optics permit senior engineers at company headquarters to keep track of drillers on the well pad, telling them when necessary where to direct the drill bit and what pressure to use in injecting fracking fluids. Seismic work has become far more sophisticated, with drillers dropping microphones down adjacent wells to measure seismic events resulting from a fracking job so they can more accurately determine the porosity and permeability of rocks when they drill nearby in the future.
Just a decade ago, complete wells were fracked at the same time with millions of gallons of water, sand and chemical gels. Now the wells are fracked in stages, with various kinds of plugs and balls used to isolate the bursting of rock one section at a time, allowing for longer-reaching, more productive horizontal wells. A well that once took two days to drill can now be drilled in seven hours. ...
... But new adhesives and harder alloys have made diamond cutters and drill bits tougher in recent years. Meanwhile, Apache experimented with powerful underground motors to rotate drilling bits at a faster rate. Now, a well that might have taken 30 days to drill can be drilled in just 10, for a savings of $500,000 a well. ...
... “We’re having a revolution,” said Steve Farris, Apache’s chief executive. “And we’re just scratching the surface.” ...
... Environmentalists are critical because burning more fossil fuels contributes to climate change.
“Life needs to be protected and global warming is the most profound threat to life on earth.” said Jay Lininger, an ecologist at the Center for Biological Diversity, which is pushing the federal government to protect wildlife from the effects of drilling in the Permian Basin, the Gulf of Mexico and the Alaskan Arctic. ...
Ever since cold fusion flopped spectacularly, the idea of finding an affordable way of replicating the sun's method of generating energy has become almost a joke. That may be about to change. Yes, the two major fusion reactor designs being explored in the research world -- one is called a tokamak and the other is inertial confinement systems -- show promise, but they are 20 to 30 years off. Also, they require either gigantic superconducting magnet systems or extra-fierce laser arrays and will cost tens of billions at best.
A small Canadian company called General Fusion has a new technology called magnetized target fusion, which could end up costing a fraction of what the other designs do. ...
... General Fusion's design shares aspects of the other two but aims to pull off fusion reactions using far simpler and cheaper hardware. The company's reactor draws on work begun more than 30 years ago at the U.S. Naval Research Lab. It uses 200 very powerful pneumatic pistons inserted through holes in a spherical metal vessel that Richardson compares to a "wiffle ball." Firing the pistons at precisely the right moment creates an acoustic shock wave that compresses hot liquid lead and lithium swirling around inside. Then, the injected deuterium-tritium gas encounters such heat and pressure that a fusion reaction briefly occurs. General Fusion brought the Navy's original idea to life by engineering control systems for the pistons that weren't possible a few decades ago. ...
... The toilet they threw open is Sanergy, a year-old for-profit social enterprise that manufactures high-quality, yet low-cost and compact toilets for urban slums in the developing world and then uses human waste to produce energy and fertilizer. It is an “affordable, accessible and hygienic sanitation” solution for millions that live in places without sewage or electricity. They are places where the street is the bathroom. And that’s precisely the problem.
According to the World Toilet Organization, (yes, there really is one) 2.5 billion people worldwide lack access to a toilet. Relieving themselves in rivers, roadsides and impromptu and poorly built latrines, this results in high levels of disease, notably diarrhea and cholera. The recent cholera scourge in Haiti that killed thousands is sobering evidence. It is estimated that 1.6 million children die as a result of these diseases. Statistics show that hundreds of millions lose approximately 60 days of work.
David Auerbach and Ani Vallabhaneni, two of Sanergy’s young entrepreneurs, didn’t need stats to know how the absence of toilets affected the poor. The two graduating MIT-Sloan of Management school students experienced first hand the challenges of no sewage or sanitation when they lived and worked in rural China and India respectively. “Going to the bathroom isn’t a popular topic that comes up at the dinner table in the West,” Auerbach, a former policy hand at the Clinton Global Initiative (and my former colleague at Endeavor), says. “It’s flush and forget for us. That’s not the case in much of the developing world.” ...
... What they found was that Kenya’s poor were interested in having compact stalls that could fit into the tight spaces of their usually one-room homes, rather than large community outhouses. They wanted a “permanent” feel to the stalls rather than the flimsy feel of a porta-potty. As a result, Auerbach, Vallabhaneni and their Sanergy team that includes engineers, architects and designers drew up plans for a 3×5 toilet made out of thin shell cement that is locally produced for $200 per unit. Each toilet is designed for a 100 uses per day. They are units, which also collect waste in double-sealed 30L containers, rather than pits, or septic tanks “that are then drained into waterways.” It is this waste collection that is key.
More than where to go to the bathroom, how to dispose of human waste is, as Auerbach points out, a primary reason that no one touches the issue of toilets. That was Sanergy’s opportunity. Recognizing that, though “messy,” human waste can be converted through anaerobic digestion to produce fertilizer or electricity. It is also where the Sanergy team recognized that it could generate revenue.
Sanergy produces toilets that are franchised to local operators who charge around $0.06 per use. Currently the company has two toilets serving approximately 150 each day. One is at Bridge International school (a for-profit school supported by the Omidyar Network), the other in Kibera, Kenya’s largest slum. These local operators keep all revenues. That, Auerbach says, is an incentive for them to clean, maintain and “market” the toilets. The operators then work with groups who collect the waste daily and bring it to facilities where it is converted to energy. “The waste from each toilet generates Sanergy revenues of $1250 per year.” The waste from 10 million creates a potential market of $178 million per year. Brown gold. ...
... One emerging option [for aircraft fuel] is artificial photosynthesis – after all, if fuel is a better way to store energy, then why not turn sunlight directly into fuel instead of electricity?
Nathan Lewis, a chemist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, has built PV cells that split water molecules to generate hydrogen gas, a fuel. His cells convert sunlight into chemical energy 10 to 40 times more efficiently than most crops.
"It's reasonable to say that within our first five years we will have working prototypes that can be manufactured at scale," says Mr. Lewis.
The challenge will be combining that hydrogen with carbon dioxide to form hydrocarbons found in diesel or jet fuel. It's chemically possible, but might require a dozen steps. ...
The 9.0 Japan earthquake was dire but the current meltdown might have been avoided by new advances in nuclear plant technology.
The latest nuclear reactor designs could help avoid the overheating and explosions that have occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan following the powerful earthquake and tsunami that struck on Friday. Newer reactor designs propose the use of passive cooling systems that would not fail after a power outage, as happened in Japan, as well as other novel approaches to managing reactor heat. ...
... The reactors at the nuclear plant, built in the early 1970s, rely on active cooling systems that require electricity. Newer plant designs would lessen or eliminate the need for active cooling, making use of natural convection or a "gravity feed" system to cool reactors in the event of an emergency.
In one design, for example, the relatively new Westinghouse AP1000, water is suspended over the reactor housing. If pressure within the system drops, this allows the water to fall into the reactor area, submerging it in enough water to keep it cool.
While passive systems could be better in the event of electrical failures, they might not always be the safest systems. Kadak says that in an active system, it's easier to ensure that coolant gets exactly where it needs to be—it's simply pumped to the right location. Designing passive systems, on the other hand, requires complex models of how fluids will behave in a system that could be rendered incorrect if the system is damaged.
Kadak says that even more advanced reactor designs could overcome these issues. ...
The world may have twice as much natural gas than previously thought, according to the rich nations' think tank the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The world may have 250 years of gas usage at current levels thanks to "unconventional gas" from shale and coal beds, Anne-Sophie Corbeau, senior gas expert at the IEA told BBC News.
Estimates may even be revised upwards.
Studies are underway into newly-recoverable sources, Ms Corbeau said.
But she stressed that the totals were highly uncertain, and depended on price, technology and the accessibility of supplies.
"The gas story is huge," she told BBC News.
"A few years ago the United States was ready to import gas. In 2009 it had become the world's biggest gas producer. This is phenomenal, unbelievable." ...
