Accepting the 2006 TED Prize, Dr. Larry Brilliant talks about how smallpox was eradicated from the planet, and calls for a new global system that can identify and contain pandemics before they spread.
Corona Virus
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Sitting in rural Victoria, sky obscured by bushfire smoke, I am reminded that I have said [and written] many times, that climate and energy transitions are the greatest challenges of our [and our children’s children] time. It would appear most of the Federal Government disagrees with me.
What are the arguments against a more sustainable future? What are the arguments against using reason and logic?
M.I.T wunderkind Alex Fridman [ @lexfridam ] reflects on the work, life and times of Elon Musk [ @elonmusk ] during an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience [ @joerogan ].
Fridman on Musk
Research
Lex Fridman’s assessment of Tesla vehicles delivered and Autopilot miles driven can be found here. Worth thinking about in the context of the true innovation and exponential changes we will witness in the decade of the 2020’s.
Over 100 cities now get at least 70% of their electricity from renewable sources such as hydro, geothermal, solar and wind.
This includes Reykjavík, Iceland where geothermal and hydro-power are powering much of the city, and Basel, Switzerland where 100% of renewable power comes from the city’s own energy supply company.
In the US, where some 58 cities and towns have now committed to transition to 100% renewables, cities such as Burlington, Vermont are showing what’s possible with all electricity now coming from wind, solar, hydro, and biomass.
In an age of “likes”, “friends”, virtual business, “disruption” and automation, it appears there is still room for the genuine steel-bending industrialist with a bold vision, committed to building real assets with genuine ingenuity and innovation.
“Look, you who think the gods have no care of human things, what do you say to so many persons preserved from death by their especial favour?”, to which Diogenes replied: “Why, I say that their pictures are not here who were cast away, who are by much the greater number.”
Things really have improved. Perfect? Not by a long-shot.
Could you imagine the largest manufacturer in the world, even a decade ago, investing capital and recurrent resources in this level of innovation to recycle the products they produce?
The cynical amongst us [I count myself as one] have always looked closely [and with scepticism ] at the “triple-bottom-line” commitments of manufacturers.
There is, however, a new breed of steel-bending industrialists [who also works in silicon] and they genuinely view the entire product cycle as their responsibility. Yes, labour laws and working conditions are not to be ignored…
[Source: #clickclean GreenPeace Report ]As recently as 2012, according to Greenpeace, Apple used 55% coal at the time to power many operations. By 2014, Greenpeace was praising the company as the most aggressive and innovative in Silicon Valley. In its most recent report, Apple scored 100% on Greenpeace’s green index.
Apple’s own report shows:
The wars of the twenty-first century
I recall the words of the head of the United Nations Environment Program [UNEP], Dr. Noel J. Brown, when a guest of ours in Broadford, in the early 1990’s, speaking to a group of students and community leaders. He said:
…the wars of the twenty-first century may well be fought over access to and the cost of water
Perhaps prescient.
The importance of renewable energy sources and the central role of “full-cycle” product management was clear to him twenty-five years ago. It only appears now, even with the level of controversy and debate over global warming and long-term energy solutions still raging, that a new breed of industrialist is taking matters in to their own hands and “walking the talk”.
“LIAM” is simply another example of the paradigm shift occurring in plain sight.
Five frogs sitting on a log, four decide to jump in, how many are left?
The answer? Five! … because deciding and doing are two very different things…
The Wendelstein 7-X fusion device at Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald produced its first hydrogen plasma on 3 February 2016. This marks the start of scientific operation. Wendelstein 7-X, the world’s largest fusion device of the stellarator type, is to investigate this configuration’s suitability for use in a power plant.
A 2-megawatt pulse of microwave heating transformed a tiny quantity of hydrogen gas into an extremely hot low-density hydrogen plasma. This entails separation of the electrons from the nuclei of the hydrogen atoms. Confined in the magnetic cage generated by Wendelstein 7-X, the charged particles levitate without making contact with the walls of the plasma chamber.
“With a temperature of 80 million degrees and a lifetime of a quarter of a second, the device’s first hydrogen plasma has completely lived up to our expectations”,
states Dr. Hans-Stephan Bosch, whose division is responsible for operation of Wendelstein 7-X.
The Guardian reports:
While critics have said the pursuit of nuclear fusion is a waste of money that could be better spent on other projects, Germany has forged ahead in funding the project, which in the past 20 years has cost €1.06bn if staff salaries are included.
Over the coming years, W7-X, which isn’t designed to produce any energy itself, will test many of the extreme conditions such devices will be subjected to if they are ever to generate power, said John Jelonnek, a physicist at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany.
