In Between Times 2-16-2023
AI and clean energy, Nikki Haley likes carbon capture, Kelp is our friend, What happened with the train derailment in Ohio?
Tesla is opening 7,500 charging stations to non-Tesla vehicles!
In a move praised by president Biden, Elon Musk has pledged to make at least 7,500 automotive charging units available to anyone who wants to use them regardless of whether the motorist uses a Tesla vehicle. This is seen as a major move toward the goal of 500,000 charging stations by 2030. Let's encourage more actions like this by congratulating Tesla on this important decision by signing this petition.
Click here to sign!
Biden praises Musk for promise to open 7,500 Tesla chargers to other EVs
*Our philosophy on “action” petitions
In Between Times counts on its readers for support. If you enjoy In Between Times and you are not yet a PAID subscriber please consider becoming one now.
For less than a cup of coffee you can help promote civil discussion at a time when the world desperately needs it.
AI and future of clean energy
Artificial Intelligence is in all likelihood a legitimately revolutionary technology. 2023 has already proven a transformational year with Chat GPT taking the globe by storm over the last 2 months. It is not over the top to say that we may be entering into a new technological era, if not epoch. AI will change how we do all sorts of things. It will change how businesses make money. It will change how governments structure themselves. It will change how we play, develop technologies, and fundamentally how we see the world itself.
The emergence of widespread AI will come with many new challenges. But it will also bring new solutions and opportunities. Some of these solutions will be in sustainability. Consider how AI might be able to help us manage a much more decentralized (and greener) electrical grid.
(From GreenBiz.com)
"I think AI is the answer that we've been waiting for to make clean energy sing. If you think about a distributed future, where we have renewables and the grid coexisting with the buildings and the load, the only way we can really manage that is with AI. Humans should be taken out of the equation. We can do better interaction than manually turning on and making these loads work amongst themselves."
This would be only one application. Soon solar panels will be able to adapt to the angle of the sun to maximize energy yield. Highly fuel efficient cars will soon be able to talk to one another to minimize traffic and fuel use. We are just starting to think about these things. 2023 will prove a pivotal year.
Click here for the article.
We are at a tipping point with AI
Nikki Haley wants to address climate change by capturing it
Carbon capture will be a part of the future. The technology exists and now it is a matter of scaling it. It has far to go to make an impact. Carbon capture is in its infant stages right now but it will grow in the years to come.
There are those who fear this technology. They fear that if carbon can be sucked straight from the atmosphere that efforts to reduce the creation of emissions in the first place will be hampered. But this is shortsighted in the extreme.
Carbon capture technology will take a while to come online so other efforts will forge ahead on the carbon front. But if this technology becomes robust, scalable, and measurable it could be an example of how a technology can come in and change things on a fundamental level. This happens now and then in history.
Again, it must be said however that we are far from a scaled carbon capture reality now.
But the climate challenges we face should be addressed on all fronts. Carbon capture is a logical pursuit if we want to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. It seems foolish not to pursue it.
It is particularly interesting that Nikki Haley, a Republican who wants to be president, is taking this position publicly. She likely feels that her position is the moderate one (on climate) and one that can appeal to the general public. It is also likely that she has done polling on the subject.
Additionally, Haley is taking this position early in the 2024 presidential race and so does not believe that addressing climate issues in a serious way will hurt her in the primaries.
We bet that her assessment is mostly correct. That is a good thing and those who are naturally accustomed to demonizing Republicans on climate issues would be wise to see Haley’s position as progress and to look for potential collaborative opportunity.
(From The Washington Post)
Conservative environmental groups have applauded Haley’s willingness to discuss climate change, saying it could win over younger conservative voters, who polls show are more concerned about the issue than older generations.
But liberal green groups have slammed her support for carbon-capture technology, calling it incompatible with warnings from leading scientists, who say the world must rapidly cut emissions to avert catastrophic warming.
Here’s a closer look at Haley’s approach to climate policy…
Click here for the article.
Amazon invests $1.5 million in a seaweed carbon sequestration effort
It’s not as “out there” as one might think. In this space we have reported on recent research that identifies the world’s kelp forests, particularly off on the coasts of Africa and Australia, as “lungs” of the planet, on par with rain forests.
What is particularly interesting is that kelp grows very quickly, inches a day, and as such sequesters carbon relatively rapidly. Planting vast swathes of seaweed could be a simple and low cost part of solving the carbon equation. It’s not going to solve everything, but it can be part of the solution.
(From BusinessGreen.com)
By building the farm in previously unused space between turbines, the project is designed to expand seaweed cultivation in the otherwise heavily used North Sea, Amazon said.
The company said that if seaweed farming covered the entire space occupied by offshore wind farms - expected to be approximately one million hectares by 2040 - it could sequester millions of tonnes of CO2 every year.
Zak Watts, director EU sustainability at Amazon, said that while seaweed could be a key tool in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, it is currently farmed at a relatively small scale in Europe.
As such, he said he hoped the North Sea Farm 1 would help to create a replicable blueprint to scale the nascent offshore seaweed farming sector and create jobs through the farming and production of seaweed-based products.
Click here for the article.
Kelp, our climate friend
What actually happened with that train derailment in Ohio?
One thing is for sure, it was and is an environmental disaster of significance (yes that is an understatement), and it should be getting much more attention than it has gotten to date. We think that that this happened in the middle of the country, in a relatively poor section of the country, is one of the reasons why it is not getting the attention it deserves. Be that as it may, coverage of the East Palestine spill is only one factor in this very important story. The environmental, health, and economic impacts of this accident won’t be fully known for some time.
Catastrophic is not too strong a word, sadly.
(From Allsides)
The response to the accident from mainstream media, Norfolk Southern, and the federal government is facing heavy criticism. Some have accused national media and leadership of ignoring the crisis since it occurred in a small, Midwest town and have deemed the response from national leadership, such as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, to be inadequate.
Some left-rated media have also accused the right of using the disaster to falsely claim bias against rural conservatives. A HuffPost (Left Bias) piece cited de-regulatory efforts under the Trump Administration as having contributed to the accident, placing blame on Norfolk Southern for allegedly cutting corners on safety precautions. Some right-rated media have framed mainstream news networks as biased for purportedly forgoing coverage of the story.
Click here for the article.
Listen to an encore edition of A Moment of BS with Bill Shireman
Event
The EarthX Expo is the world’s largest green gathering held annually around Earth Day in Dallas, Texas. Our Congress of Conferences highlights a wide range of environmental & sustainability-related topics.
It has grown to become the largest event of its kind in the world, bringing together environmental organizations, businesses, academic institutions, government agencies, speakers, interactive programming, and subject matter experts.
EarthX Expo also features live music, art and food to help create a fun and engaging atmosphere for thought and experiential learning.