This story is NUTSO. Who knew that a Canadian inventor had created working solar panels as early as 1905 – and that him being KIDNAPPED is what possibly derailed the evolution of solar tech for decades?
(I thought the story might be exaggerating that last point until I saw the kidnappers' conditions for his release... 😲)
WAIT WHAT?!
We are capable of pulling energy straight out of (humid) thin air now?! 🤯
"“To be frank, it was an accident,” says the study’s lead author, Prof Jun Yao. “We were actually interested in making a simple sensor for humidity in the air. But for whatever reason, the student who was working on that forgot to plug in the power.”
The UMass Amherst team were surprised to find that the device, which comprised an array of microscopic tubes, or nanowires, was producing an electrical signal regardless.
(...)
However, 20,000 of them stacked into a washing machine-sized cube, they say, could generate 10 kilowatt hours of energy a day – roughly the consumption of an average UK household. Even more impressive: they plan to have a prototype ready for demonstration in 2024."
When you think you know 20th-century #energy history fairly well, and then @sugandhasri digs up the story of Canadian inventor George Cove, who invented 'modern' solar panels in 1905: "Then, on 19 October 1909, Cove was kidnapped. The condition for his release required forgoing his solar patent and shutting down the company."
Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row. For nearly a week, the country of 10 million met customer needs with wind, hydro and solar — a test run for operating the grid without fossil fuels. #energy#news#renewableenergy
Six Flags Magic Mountain in California is building a massive canopy of solar panels over its 30-acre parking lot that will power all of the rides and offset 100% of the amusement park’s energy usage while providing shade to the cars parked beneath.
When completed, it will be California’s largest solar energy project & the world’s largest renewable energy site built by a for-profit organization.
Globally we produce A LOT of #energy, but did you know the majority of fossil energy gets wasted? In the US alone, two-thirds of that energy is wasted as heat.
As Hannah Ritchie has pointed out, we don’t actually need to produce a low carbon equivalent of all of the coal, oil & gas we currently use.
That means we can decarbonize quickly by being less wasteful & more efficient. #ClimateChange#science
"If you fly from Paris to Barcelona the #airline not only pays no VAT, but is also exempt from kerosene #tax. If you make the same journey by #train, the rail company will pay an #energy tax and passenger #VAT. This means higher costs for the company which are usually reflected in ticket prices."
Tech giants are building massive data centers around the world that require a ton of water and energy. The AI boom will only accelerate it, but local opposition is growing.
I spoke to @slehuede about a group in Chile that fought a Google data center and why the tech industry’s plans must be challenged.
Researchers at Stanford University have published a new study in the journal Energy & Environmental Science that claims 145 of the world’s nations could switch to 100% renewable energy in a few years using renewable energy technologies available today.
The research team says switching to renewable energy would create more jobs than would be lost and save consumers trillions of dollars.
"Generative AI’s environmental costs are soaring — and mostly secret
Last month, #OpenAI chief executive Sam #Altman finally admitted what researchers have been saying for years — that the artificial intelligence (#AI) industry is heading for an #energy#crisis."
Whenever I need cheering up about the climate, things like this really help:
"During the 2010s the levelised cost (that is the average lifetime cost of equipment, per megawatt hour of electricity generated) of solar, offshore wind and onshore wind fell by 87%, 62% and 56%, respectively"
And that dramatic fall in costs isn't stopping.
Even the most short-term thinkers must be convinced by that!
Sam Altman’s vision for AI proliferation will require a lot more computation and the energy to power it.
He admitted it at Davos, but he said we shouldn’t worry: an energy breakthrough was coming, and in the meantime we could just use “geoengineering as a stopgap.” That should set off alarm bells.
And for anyone who still thinks that nuclear power is automatically the best way to a low-carbon future, I encourage you to read the brilliant description of what happens to nuclear waste in Wasteland by Oliver Franklin-Wallis and consider whether it really is worth it.
Also read the rest of the book - it's essential stuff for understanding the modern world.
Right now, could you prepare a slice of toast with zero embodied carbon emissions?
Since at least the 2000s, big polluters have tried to frame carbon emissions as an issue to be solved through the purchasing choices of individual consumers.
Yet, right now, millions of people couldn't prepare a slice of toast without causing carbon emissions, even if they wanted to.
In many low-density single-use-zoned suburbs, the only realistic option for getting to the store to get a loaf of bread is to drive. The power coming out of the mains includes energy from coal or gas.
But.
Even if they invested in solar panels, and an inverter, and a battery system, and only used an electric toaster, and baked the loaf themselves in an electric oven, and walked/cycled/drove an EV to the store to get flour and yeast, there are still embodied carbon emissions in that loaf of bread.
Just think about the diesel powered trucks used to transport the grains and packaging to the flour factory, the energy used to power the milling equipment, and the diesel fuel used to transport that flour to the store.
Basically, unless you go completely off grid and grow your own organic wheat, your zero emissions toast just ain't happening.
And that's for the most basic of food products!
Unless we get the infrastructure in place to move to a 100% renewables and storage grid, and use it to power fully electric freight rail and zero emissions passenger transport, pretty much all of our decarbonisation efforts are non-starters.
This is fundamentally an infrastructure and public policy problem, not a problem of individual consumer choice.
Königswinter Germany reduced annual electricity consumption for street lighting from 1300 MWh to 385 MWh from 2017-2022, including turning off many streetlights during midnight to 5 am. The result was a savings to the city of 80,000€ per year.
The police of Bonn did a crime study, and found that there was no measurable change.
Incandescent lightbulbs are now banned in the US (qz.com)
The Biden Administration's rules seek to make lighting cheaper and less polluting