In Between Times 1-19-2023
Zero emissions concrete, The EV price war, The political biases of the most visited websites by state, The 2022 carbon capture report
EarthxAction Alert - TAKE ACTION!
Sublime Systems has developed a "kilnless" method for making concrete, thereby radically reducing the carbon needed to produce a ton of the all important substance. The product is as strong or even stronger than concrete as we now know it. This technology could be revolutionary for the construction industry in the years to come.
Click here to sign the petition!
Zero emissions concrete
(From The Carbon Herald)
The company’s technology is unique and revolutionary as it replaces kilns – the most energy and fossil-fuel-intensive part of the traditional cement manufacturing process. It uses an electrolyzer instead of kilns that makes cement at ambient temperature from a variety of abundant calcium sources.
The company makes calcium in a form that is ready to react with silicon – the key element in sand. Normally limestone that contains calcium is superheated inside a kiln to about 2,700 degrees using normally coal for fuel – a process that releases tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Click here for the article.
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Tesla has started an EV price war
Competition is good. It is particularly good for consumers. As new car companies have come into the electric vehicle market Tesla has watched. Elon Musk has waited. Now he’s pulled the trigger.
Tesla is cutting prices by 6-20% on the 3 and Y models and is igniting what some are calling an EV price war. Add in the newly extended subsidies available for EV buyers and Tesla EVs are starting to compete with gas vehicles on price. We knew the day would come, but it has come a little more quickly than most of us expected.
Telsa is putting GM, Ford, VW and the like on notice. Musk’s company has a large market share and it intends to defend that share.
The biggest winners in this “war”? You and me the car buying public and ultimately the environment. (If and when we solve the lithium/cobalt challenges that come with EV adoption.)
(From The Business Insider)
The Model 3's price now compares to GM's Chevrolet Bolt, which starts around $30,000. The Chevy Blazer EV, coming this summer, is expected to start at $44,995. Ford recently hiked the starting price on its F-150 Lightning electric truck to $56,000, up from the original starting price of $40,000…
…"This is a clear shot across the bow at European automakers and US stalwarts (GM and Ford) that Tesla is not going to play nice in the sandbox with an EV price war now underway," he wrote in a Friday note.
Click here for the article.
From The Visual Capitalist
Swedish mining company discovers Europe's largest deposit of rare earth elements
Rare earths are key to a digitized future. From phones to electric car batteries they are in almost all of the tech that we use. One of the problems with these rare earth minerals is that they usually come from places where human rights are an issue such as China and The Congo. Additionally, having the world reliant on these suppliers represents a serious potential security risk. Other sources need to be found.
In Sweden, they just found some (rare earth deposits). It’s not enough, but some.
(From EuroNews)
“This is the largest known deposit of rare earth elements in our part of the world, and it could become a significant building block for producing the critical raw materials that are absolutely crucial to enable the green transition,” LKAB’s CEO Jan Mostrom said in a statement.
While it's believed to be the biggest in Europe, the site remains small on a global scale, representing less than one per cent of the 120 million tonnes estimated worldwide by the US Geological Survey.
Click here for the article.
The state of ‘carbon dioxide removal’ (CDR)
One of the great trends in tech for 2023 is “carbon capture”. This can happen at the source (think smokestack scrubbers), and it is starting to happen using tech that pulls legacy carbon directly from the atmosphere.
In the attached article and report we see the current state of things. Our advice? If you are stock market inclined take a close look at the firms in this space. Some of them are poised to grow quickly.
But even if you have no interest in investing this tech will likely change your life in the years ahead. If CDR can be made economical it will change the carbon equation fundamentally.
(From CarbonBrief.org)
For the first time, we are able to estimate the total amount of CDR currently being deployed around the world and compare it to what is in modeled pathways that meet the Paris climate goals.
We find a gap between how much CDR countries are planning in the coming decades and what is required to limit warming to 1.5C or 2C above pre-industrial levels. But alongside this “gap”, we also find rapid growth in innovation, academic research and public attention on CDR.
Below, we explain – via seven charts – what light the report sheds on the current state of CDR:
All pathways that meet global climate goals involve additional CDR.
CDR research is concentrated on particular methods and regions.
Public awareness is low, but CDR is becoming more of a talking point.
Click here for the article.
The political bias of the most searched media outlets in each state
This is an excellent analysis of the online political landscape put together by our friends at AllSides.com.
It shows that left leaning media continues to dominate. The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, NPR all prominently featured in the Apple News feed (assuming one has not adjusted one’s feed), dominate collectively. Right leaning publications have always had a lesser footprint with Fox News and The New York Post the only real first tier (in terms of broad reach) conservative news outlets.
It is worth noting that many right leaning publications had been gathering market share until the “great chilling” of the media during the Trump years. There was great pressure to marginalize these emerging outlets. Some will debate this but the chilling is something your editor saw up close.
Regardless, the online media status quo remains mostly as it has for the past few years.
It looks to us to be a market that at least in some ways is primed for disruption.
(From AllSides)
The media landscape is largely dominated by left-wing outlets. Many outlets many would consider to be “mainstream” – such as The New York Times (Lean Left), ABC News (Lean Left), CNN (Left), NBC News (Lean Left) – are rated by AllSides as being Left or Lean Left. Not as many outlets analyzed were on the right, simply because they were searched less and didn’t meet the criteria to be included (see below for methodology). Furthermore, some major outlets, such as The Associated Press and NPR, moved from a Center to Lean Left Media Bias Rating in 2022, which may have contributed to the leftward shift among many states.
This analysis measured 19 outlets on the left, 6 rated Center, and 12 on the right, all of which are national news outlets on the Media Bias Chart. The reason for disparity in left and right outlets is due to national media dominance on the left. Read more about our methodology here.
Click here for the article.
EVENT
February 6 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm EST
America’s Soul Community
Institute for Global Leadership
Location: Online
We restore faith in American Leadership by training Reconciliation Leaders (www.global-leader.org) and hosting first Monday monthly America’s Soul Community from 7-8:30 pm eastern time.
RSVP at virginiaswain.com/upcoming-events for zoom link and/or make a voluntary donation.
Bring paper and colored markers to doodle.
Drawing on 30 years’ experience training Reconciliation Leaders in the United Nations, Virginia is now focused on American leaders. We must regain the collective spiritual and moral essence in American leaders. In resources provided by studies at the Fetzer institute, the link between spiritual development and the healing of our democracy is established. See our blog posts here. and here. Our action research for America’s Soul Community Vision and Strategy shows how engaging in deep dialogue, reflection, and collaboration will: Reduce fear, blame, projection and challenge division, racism, and oppression. Increase love, inquiry, trust, respect, humility, inclusiveness, and connectedness. Foster a just and sustainable America as a partner on the world stage.
Virginia Swain, the founder of America’s Soul Community, was in New York City during the attacks of 9/11 and had a dream that evening in which a Phoenix rose from the ashes of Ground Zero. The Phoenix identified itself as our collective soul and offered a message of hope to people who wished to heal themselves. Each person in America can recover, cultivate, and nourish their spiritual and moral essence.
We found we could co-create a community to take us beyond individual and group egoism and overcome the fear and mistrust that keeps us separate and isolated from each other and from the rest of the world. Read more by reading and hearing Virginia’s latest book on audible and in print: My Soul’s Journey to Redefine Leadership: A New Phoenix Rises from the Ashes of 9/11 (Xlibris 2016 and Audible 2022).