10th October 2019 – Another tour of the issues
10th October 2019 – Another tour of the issues
Dear
Welcome to the forty third of Brian’s Musings. Apologies for the long gap since my last musing but I have been travelling around South Africa, in the process visiting many drought stricken areas, including tiny Kenhardt on the edge of the Kalahari desert which has not had rain for six years, Upington, which has one of the most advanced solar generators in the world, Zithulele, where my family sun an education project in one of the poorest districts of the country, and many poor settlements where litter abounds, not surprising when the people can’t afford food, let alone garbage bags. All in all it gave me an opportunity to compare what I saw with what I include in my musings.
As usual there’s plenty in this musing to stimulate your thinking about where our world is headed so take your time to read it all.
My thanks to those of you who provided feedback on my previous musing and apologies if I did not acknowledge your E-mail. I find your comments and references to websites and books most useful.
People Change:
Vaccine trials in Burkina Faso by the Kenya Medical Research Institute and global health partners proved that Ivermectin, a conventional drug used for parasitic diseases including river blindness and elephantiasis, reduced malarial transmission rates by making the blood of people, who were repeatedly vaccinated, lethal to mosquitoes. The study also found that Ivermectin can kill plasmodium falciparum, the malaria parasite carried by female mosquitoes, when administered to humans.
Americans 65 and older are now 16% of the population and will make up 21% by 2035. At that point, they will outnumber those under 18.
Climate Change and the Environment:
The European summer heatwaves caused close to 1,500 deaths in France, according to the country's Health Minister.
Russia is warming at more than twice the pace of the world average. Temperatures in Arctic Yakutia have risen 2.5C in ten years and in July 2019 were 6C above average in some parts. Higher temperatures are leading to melting permafrost and more forest fires.
The government of New South Wales is relocating thousands of fish from the climate stressed lower Darling River. Some rural towns in Australia are forecast to run out of water by the ned of November as a result of the drought.
Birds numbers have dropped 30% in the USA since 1970.
Food and Water
A concern in many countries is the amount of valuable agricultural land being covered by solar farms. Now, researchers from the University of Arizona have claimed growing crops in the shade of solar panels can lead to two or three times more vegetable and fruit production than conventional agriculture.
A similar pilot study carried out by Germany’s Fraunhofer ISE research institute in Maharashtra, India, showed shading effects and reduced evaporation resulted in yields up to 40% higher for tomatoes and cotton crops grown under solar panels. And the benefits of agricultural PV use reportedly go beyond crop yields to include the prevention of wind and soil erosion, shade for livestock, improved pollinator habitats and market opportunities for shade-tolerant crops.
https://www.pv-magazine-india.com/2019/09/27/india-prepares-to-embrace-agrivoltaics/
Low Cost Renewable Energy
Global energy intensity – the amount of energy required to produce one unit of economic output – improved by just over 1% last year, well below the 3% needed to meet global sustainable energy goals.
The IEA expects renewable capacity additions to grow by almost 12% this year, the fastest pace since 2015, reaching almost 200 GW additional, mostly thanks to solar PV and wind. Global solar PV additions are expected to increase by over 17%. Rapid solar power adoption across EU member states, particularly Spain, Vietnam, India, the USA and Japan, will more than offset the dip in China, the world’s biggest market. Last year was the first time since 2001 that growth in renewable power capacity failed to accelerate year on year, largely due to changes in Chinese government policy.
Germany has sourced 47% of its electricity generation from renewables so far in 2019, and for the last 7 months renewables have outstripped fossil fuels. Greece’s prime minister and the Hungarian president announcing their countries will phase out coal-powered electricity by 2028 and 2030.
Ethiopia’s Public-Private Partnerships Directorate-General has selected Saudi Arabian firm ACWA Power to build the Gad and Dicheto solar projects. Each will have a 125 MW generation capacity and the solar farms will be developed in Ethiopia’s Somali and Afar regional states, respectively. The winning final price bid for the electricity generated by the projects was $0.02526/kWh, which applies to both facilities and is the lowest ever tariff for a PV project in Africa, and among the lowest in the world (you should look at your electricity account to see how this compares!!).
Two major green hydrogen projects are about to start in Western Australia. Vestas, Intercontinental Energy, CWP Energy Asia and the Macquarie Group have banded together on the 15 GW Asian Renewable Energy Hub which is intended to export power to Southeast Asia via subsea cables as well as supplying miners and green hydrogen projects in the Pilbara region. In the second project, Hydrogen Renewables Australia has joined forces with Siemens to deploy the latter’s Silyzer electrolyzer at the Murchison project to produce green hydrogen powered by up to 5 GW of solar and wind generation capacity.
The latest edition of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report gives the nuclear power little hope in the race against fast, widespread, job-friendly, popular renewables. The report reiterates clean power is taking the lead in the world’s energy system and nuclear is not only too costly a remedy for carbon emissions but too slow to deploy. Nuclear output grew only 2.4% last year while solar and wind power volumes grew 18% and 29%, respectively.
EDF Energy reports that the construction bill for Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in Somerset had climbed by between £1.9 billion to £2.9 billion from the company’s last estimates. As a consequence, the total cost has risen from £19.5 billion to between £21.5 billion and £22.5 billion. Meanwhile the cost of renewable energy has plummeted.
A joint report from 350.org and Divest Invest has estimated that the total value of funds divested from fossil fuel companies worldwide has now exceeded US$11 trillion, following divestment commitments of more than 1,000 organisations. This is becoming one of the fastest divestment movements in history.
Japanese conglomerate Marubeni Corporation has pulled out of the proposed 300 MW extension to the Morupule B coal-fired power plant in Botswana.
At the same time, Carbon Tracker records that oil and gas companies have approved US$ 50 billion of investments for new projects that undermine climate targets and threaten shareholder returns.
Mass Data Mining and Storage
We like to think of John Deere as simply a manufacturer of agricultural equipment. However, the company has created a massive database and is one of the largest users of cloud computing services in the world, gathering between 5 and 15 million measurements per second from 130,000 connected machines globally. (This is more than is collected by Twitter, for instance). The company has over 150 million acres in their databases. The data is not only coming from a wide variety of John Deere machines, but also includes data from some 100 other companies that have access to the platform, including weather information, aerial imagery, and soil analyses.
With Mark Zuckerberg decrying Elizabeth Warren’s plans to break up the big tech companies, it will be interesting to see how balanced the advertising and fake news on their websites is going to be in the upcoming American presidential election. As it is, Google is facing an antitrust probe from 50 state attorneys general, while the EU is taking a closer look at their practices.
Automation Based Unemployment
A study from Wells Fargo Bank forecasts that technology, including artificial intelligence, will destroy more than 200,000 US bank jobs in the next decade as robots and other technology bring about the “greatest transfer from labour to capital” the industry has seen.
This week, HSBC announced plans to cut 10,000 jobs worldwide.
Autonomous Electric Vehicles
There are more than 1,400 self-driving vehicles being tested in 36 American states.
Shanghai has become the first Chinese city to let self-driving cars carry people
The Federal Aviation Administration has granted UPS’s drone business a Part 135 certification, meaning it is treated as a fully-fledged airline, able to operate as many drones in as many locations as it wishes
Increasing Inequality
10% of the richest Americans held 70% of the wealth in 2018. The richest 1% has seen nearly a 300% increase in wealth since 1989, while the bottom 50% experienced no net growth in wealth.
According to a report from Wealth-X, a further 2,124 people joined the ranks of the world’s super-rich last year, taking the total number of ultra-high net worth individuals with personal fortunes of more than $US 30 million 265,490. The number increased by 0.8% in 2018, down from the 12.9% rise in 2017, when the very rich benefited from booming stock markets.
Southern Africa
The South African government, desperate to cut electricity costs, has offered renewable power project owners the option of voluntarily reducing the payments they receive per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated in return for longer deals and upgraded projects boasting more generation capacity.
According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, two-thirds of the world’s population already live in countries where wind or solar (or both) are the cheapest source of new power generation. By 2030, new wind and solar will be cheaper than running existing coal- or gas-fired plants virtually everywhere. This is already the case in India. This is particularly meaningful for South Africa as it is so dependent on India as a coal export destination. In 2018, 48% of all South African exports out of Richards Bay Coal Terminal went to India and in the first half of 2019 that rose to 60%. India has a clearly stated policy aim to reduce reliance on coal imports and to cut coal imports by one third, or around 85Mt, by 2024.
Dear
Welcome to the forty third of Brian’s Musings. Apologies for the long gap since my last musing but I have been travelling around South Africa, in the process visiting many drought stricken areas, including tiny Kenhardt on the edge of the Kalahari desert which has not had rain for six years, Upington, which has one of the most advanced solar generators in the world, Zithulele, where my family sun an education project in one of the poorest districts of the country, and many poor settlements where litter abounds, not surprising when the people can’t afford food, let alone garbage bags. All in all it gave me an opportunity to compare what I saw with what I include in my musings.
As usual there’s plenty in this musing to stimulate your thinking about where our world is headed so take your time to read it all.
My thanks to those of you who provided feedback on my previous musing and apologies if I did not acknowledge your E-mail. I find your comments and references to websites and books most useful.
People Change:
Vaccine trials in Burkina Faso by the Kenya Medical Research Institute and global health partners proved that Ivermectin, a conventional drug used for parasitic diseases including river blindness and elephantiasis, reduced malarial transmission rates by making the blood of people, who were repeatedly vaccinated, lethal to mosquitoes. The study also found that Ivermectin can kill plasmodium falciparum, the malaria parasite carried by female mosquitoes, when administered to humans.
Americans 65 and older are now 16% of the population and will make up 21% by 2035. At that point, they will outnumber those under 18.
Climate Change and the Environment:
The European summer heatwaves caused close to 1,500 deaths in France, according to the country's Health Minister.
Russia is warming at more than twice the pace of the world average. Temperatures in Arctic Yakutia have risen 2.5C in ten years and in July 2019 were 6C above average in some parts. Higher temperatures are leading to melting permafrost and more forest fires.
The government of New South Wales is relocating thousands of fish from the climate stressed lower Darling River. Some rural towns in Australia are forecast to run out of water by the ned of November as a result of the drought.
Birds numbers have dropped 30% in the USA since 1970.
Food and Water
A concern in many countries is the amount of valuable agricultural land being covered by solar farms. Now, researchers from the University of Arizona have claimed growing crops in the shade of solar panels can lead to two or three times more vegetable and fruit production than conventional agriculture.
A similar pilot study carried out by Germany’s Fraunhofer ISE research institute in Maharashtra, India, showed shading effects and reduced evaporation resulted in yields up to 40% higher for tomatoes and cotton crops grown under solar panels. And the benefits of agricultural PV use reportedly go beyond crop yields to include the prevention of wind and soil erosion, shade for livestock, improved pollinator habitats and market opportunities for shade-tolerant crops.
https://www.pv-magazine-india.com/2019/09/27/india-prepares-to-embrace-agrivoltaics/
Low Cost Renewable Energy
Global energy intensity – the amount of energy required to produce one unit of economic output – improved by just over 1% last year, well below the 3% needed to meet global sustainable energy goals.
The IEA expects renewable capacity additions to grow by almost 12% this year, the fastest pace since 2015, reaching almost 200 GW additional, mostly thanks to solar PV and wind. Global solar PV additions are expected to increase by over 17%. Rapid solar power adoption across EU member states, particularly Spain, Vietnam, India, the USA and Japan, will more than offset the dip in China, the world’s biggest market. Last year was the first time since 2001 that growth in renewable power capacity failed to accelerate year on year, largely due to changes in Chinese government policy.
Germany has sourced 47% of its electricity generation from renewables so far in 2019, and for the last 7 months renewables have outstripped fossil fuels. Greece’s prime minister and the Hungarian president announcing their countries will phase out coal-powered electricity by 2028 and 2030.
Ethiopia’s Public-Private Partnerships Directorate-General has selected Saudi Arabian firm ACWA Power to build the Gad and Dicheto solar projects. Each will have a 125 MW generation capacity and the solar farms will be developed in Ethiopia’s Somali and Afar regional states, respectively. The winning final price bid for the electricity generated by the projects was $0.02526/kWh, which applies to both facilities and is the lowest ever tariff for a PV project in Africa, and among the lowest in the world (you should look at your electricity account to see how this compares!!).
Two major green hydrogen projects are about to start in Western Australia. Vestas, Intercontinental Energy, CWP Energy Asia and the Macquarie Group have banded together on the 15 GW Asian Renewable Energy Hub which is intended to export power to Southeast Asia via subsea cables as well as supplying miners and green hydrogen projects in the Pilbara region. In the second project, Hydrogen Renewables Australia has joined forces with Siemens to deploy the latter’s Silyzer electrolyzer at the Murchison project to produce green hydrogen powered by up to 5 GW of solar and wind generation capacity.
The latest edition of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report gives the nuclear power little hope in the race against fast, widespread, job-friendly, popular renewables. The report reiterates clean power is taking the lead in the world’s energy system and nuclear is not only too costly a remedy for carbon emissions but too slow to deploy. Nuclear output grew only 2.4% last year while solar and wind power volumes grew 18% and 29%, respectively.
EDF Energy reports that the construction bill for Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in Somerset had climbed by between £1.9 billion to £2.9 billion from the company’s last estimates. As a consequence, the total cost has risen from £19.5 billion to between £21.5 billion and £22.5 billion. Meanwhile the cost of renewable energy has plummeted.
A joint report from 350.org and Divest Invest has estimated that the total value of funds divested from fossil fuel companies worldwide has now exceeded US$11 trillion, following divestment commitments of more than 1,000 organisations. This is becoming one of the fastest divestment movements in history.
Japanese conglomerate Marubeni Corporation has pulled out of the proposed 300 MW extension to the Morupule B coal-fired power plant in Botswana.
At the same time, Carbon Tracker records that oil and gas companies have approved US$ 50 billion of investments for new projects that undermine climate targets and threaten shareholder returns.
Mass Data Mining and Storage
We like to think of John Deere as simply a manufacturer of agricultural equipment. However, the company has created a massive database and is one of the largest users of cloud computing services in the world, gathering between 5 and 15 million measurements per second from 130,000 connected machines globally. (This is more than is collected by Twitter, for instance). The company has over 150 million acres in their databases. The data is not only coming from a wide variety of John Deere machines, but also includes data from some 100 other companies that have access to the platform, including weather information, aerial imagery, and soil analyses.
With Mark Zuckerberg decrying Elizabeth Warren’s plans to break up the big tech companies, it will be interesting to see how balanced the advertising and fake news on their websites is going to be in the upcoming American presidential election. As it is, Google is facing an antitrust probe from 50 state attorneys general, while the EU is taking a closer look at their practices.
Automation Based Unemployment
A study from Wells Fargo Bank forecasts that technology, including artificial intelligence, will destroy more than 200,000 US bank jobs in the next decade as robots and other technology bring about the “greatest transfer from labour to capital” the industry has seen.
This week, HSBC announced plans to cut 10,000 jobs worldwide.
Autonomous Electric Vehicles
There are more than 1,400 self-driving vehicles being tested in 36 American states.
Shanghai has become the first Chinese city to let self-driving cars carry people
The Federal Aviation Administration has granted UPS’s drone business a Part 135 certification, meaning it is treated as a fully-fledged airline, able to operate as many drones in as many locations as it wishes
Increasing Inequality
10% of the richest Americans held 70% of the wealth in 2018. The richest 1% has seen nearly a 300% increase in wealth since 1989, while the bottom 50% experienced no net growth in wealth.
According to a report from Wealth-X, a further 2,124 people joined the ranks of the world’s super-rich last year, taking the total number of ultra-high net worth individuals with personal fortunes of more than $US 30 million 265,490. The number increased by 0.8% in 2018, down from the 12.9% rise in 2017, when the very rich benefited from booming stock markets.
Southern Africa
The South African government, desperate to cut electricity costs, has offered renewable power project owners the option of voluntarily reducing the payments they receive per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated in return for longer deals and upgraded projects boasting more generation capacity.
According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, two-thirds of the world’s population already live in countries where wind or solar (or both) are the cheapest source of new power generation. By 2030, new wind and solar will be cheaper than running existing coal- or gas-fired plants virtually everywhere. This is already the case in India. This is particularly meaningful for South Africa as it is so dependent on India as a coal export destination. In 2018, 48% of all South African exports out of Richards Bay Coal Terminal went to India and in the first half of 2019 that rose to 60%. India has a clearly stated policy aim to reduce reliance on coal imports and to cut coal imports by one third, or around 85Mt, by 2024.
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