30th October 2019 - where are we headed now?
9th October 2019 – Where are we headed now?
People Change:
Forecasts are that the population of the world is going to increase by another several billion. Under this heading I always look for clues as to whether birth rates are coming down or life expectancy going up to change this forecast. This month’s snippets ponder the quality of a longer life.
Dutch researchers have forecast that the number of people worldwide suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s will reach 75 million by 2030 – more than the population of some major countries - by which time it will be a major cause of death and cost more than US$ 1 trillion in care costs each year.
On the positive side, Biogen will shortly set to seek approval for Aducanumab, their new drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease. At the same time, doctors in the US have launched a clinical trial to see whether exposure to flickering lights and low frequency sounds can slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
Climate Change and the Environment:
The news on the environmental front is seldom good, despite the worldwide clamour for action.
Statistics show that in the last 12 years alone, 9 of Africa’s 12 largest baobab trees and 5 of the 6 tallest have suddenly died. The Panke tree, the oldest in the world at 2,500 years, once towering over the Zimbabwe bush, died in 2011. The Holboom baobab of Namibia, with a girth of 35.1m, also died a few years ago and the Sunland Boabab of South Africa, at 1,000 years of age, collapsed in 2016 and died finally in 2017. The reason for these deaths is not known.
On the other side of the planet, Californian wildfires are being attributed to climate change.
Research shows that the five biggest oil and gas companies, and their industry groups, have spent at least € 251 million lobbying against European Union climate mitigation policies since 2010. In the United States a congressional hearing saw climate experts disclosing that Exxon was given accurate predictions of the impact of increased carbon dioxide levels on global temperatures more than thrity years ago.
Low Cost Renewable Energy
Each newsletter, the renewable energy sector can be relied on to provide some positive rays of light on an otherwise bleak situation. This time is no different.
Germany announced plans to double solar capacity to 98 GW by 2030.
India announced plans for 30 GW of new wind generation capacity in the state of Gujarat and 25 GW in Rajasthan, all of it along a 20-25 kilometres strip of semi-arid land on the Pakistan border.
The IEA produced several publications in the past few weeks. Here are some of the highlights. Global electricity capacity from renewables will grow by 50% over the next five years. Solar PV is expected to account for the majority of that growth as costs fall another 30% in the next five years, after falling by 90% over the past decade. The amount of distributed PV – located mostly on the rooftops of homes, business and industry – is expected double to 600GW by 2024. Wind, which has also fallen sharply, is expected to also fall by around 30%. The cost of offshore wind energy is forecast to drop 40% in the next decade and could be Europe’s largest electricity source by 2040.
According to the IEEFA global offshore wind power capacity has nearly doubled in last three years from 12 gigawatts in December 2015 reaching 23GW by the end of 2018. China took the global lead in annual offshore wind capacity installations in 2018 with 1.8GW installed compared to 1.3GW and 0.9GW from earlier leaders UK and Germany respectively.
According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, battery costs have come down by more than 80% in nine years. Battery manufacturing capacity has increased more than 200-fold in 15 years. In 2020 more new capacity will be added than the global manufacturing capacity’s total in 2016. By 2023, total capacity will have more than doubled.
Another report from the IEA shows renewable energy generation technology uses just a fraction of the minerals used for fossil fuel power generation, particularly for coal power.
The European Investment Bank is moving away from investing in natural gas projects.
The Indian coal ministry has received valid expressions of interest for only six coal mines out of the 27 which were offered for the iron & steel, cement, and captive power plant end-use. Auction of 21 coal mines has been cancelled by the ministry as it received less than three bids for them.
Automation Based Unemployment
Although artificial intelligence (AI) continues to generate headlines, good, bad and downright scary, I’ve not found much new research on automation induced unemployment.
According to Moody’s Analytics, American shopping mall vacancies have reached their highest level in eight years, mostly as a result of eCommerce. (It would be interesting to find research comparing the CO2 emissions of shoppers driving to malls compared to those of the trucks delivering goods ordered online. And then, of course, there’s all that unnecessary plastic and cardboard packing involved in wrapping goods already packaged by the manufacturer…)
Google researchers claim to have attained “quantum supremacy” for the first time when their 53-bit quantum computer took 200 seconds to perform a calculation that, according to Google, would have taken the world’s fastest supercomputer 10,000 years. Marry that kind of computing power with artificial intelligence and who knows what could emerge?
Autonomous Electric Vehicles
Tesla and others continue to generate headlines with their latest electric vehicle releases but they don’t seem to be making the dent in the market we need. In fact, the growth in the number of SUVs on the road in recent years is calculated to be the second biggest contributor to carbon dioxide levels.
Meanwhile, French power company Engie and mining company Anglo American have announced a partnership to develop the world’s first hydrogen powered mining haul truck. The first hydrogen trucks are due to roll into the mines in 2020. A testing and validation phase will be conducted at Anglo American’s Mogalakwena Platinum Group Metals mine in South Africa before the project is scaled up. Solar arrays at mining sites will power electrolyzers for hydrogen production. The use of hydrogen trucks in underground mines could also lead to significantly lower ventilation costs, adding value for mining companies and improving health and safety.
In recent months, news from the autonomous, self-piloted transport sector has dwindled to a mere murmur. Maybe it’s proving more difficult than anticipated. Now, imagine the next generation of Tesla SUV with a quantum computer on board….
Increasing Inequality
I am looking forward to reading Thomas Piketty’s new book on inequality when the English version is published early next year as he looks much more widely than just at the USA where much of the research is being done.
For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans last year paid a lower total tax rate — spanning federal, state and local taxes — than any other income group, according to newly released data. The overall tax rate on the richest 400 households last year was only 23 percent, meaning that their combined tax payments equalled less than one quarter of their total income. This overall rate was 70 percent in 1950 and 47 percent in 1980.
This could well be a generational issue as total American student debt is US$ 1.52 trillion owed by 44.2 million people. Total credit card debt is above US$ 1 trillion, owed by 128 million households. Some 40% of Americans do not have US$ 400 they could use in an emergency.
One of the dangers of embedded AI is the bias that is frequently embedded into systems when they go live. For instance, an algorithm that many US health providers use to predict which patients will most need extra medical care is biased towards white patients, according to researchers at UC Berkeley. The researchers found that white patients were given higher risk scores than black people who were equally sick, and were therefore more likely to be selected for extra care. The use of AI systems in the justice system has disclosed similar bias against black and Hispanic citizens.
It will be interesting to read what Piketty has to say about Chile where violent protests against inequality have been the order of the day for several weeks now.
Globalisation
We tend to think of globalisation in terms of trade but there are all those other things moving around the world as well. Alien purple sea urchins are decimating the kelp beds along the North American Pacific coast, along with the sea life that depends on the kelp.
Southern Africa
The South African government has finally published – correctly at the second attempt – its Integrated Resource plan setting out the country’s energy future. It was something of a damp squib with both coal and nuclear in the mix despite the clear economic advantages of wind and solar. No doubt it was a sop to the coal mining unions and the Russians purportedly signing nuclear power contracts left and right across impoverished Africa.
South Africa plans to allocate at least 6 GW of large scale solar by 2030. That would take the country to 8.28 GW of generation capacity by the end of the next decade with the government stating up to 6 GW of small scale capacity could be required on top. By that stage, however, coal would still amount to 43% of generation capacity and gas and diesel a combined 8.1%.
Currently, South Africa’s coal-fired power plants account for over 90% of electricity production in the country, helping it to the seventh rank in the list of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters. The water consumption of coal fired plants is often lost sight of, not a good thing when parts of the land are in the middle of multi-year droughts. Water withdrawals for thermal power generation in 2015 came in at 0.346 km³, 12.7% of South Africa’s total water withdrawal of 2.72 km³. (At least Cape Town’s dams are at 83% after the late winter rains, the best in several years. Maybe I won’t have to use my rainwater tanks to keep my garden green this coming summer.)
People Change:
Forecasts are that the population of the world is going to increase by another several billion. Under this heading I always look for clues as to whether birth rates are coming down or life expectancy going up to change this forecast. This month’s snippets ponder the quality of a longer life.
Dutch researchers have forecast that the number of people worldwide suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s will reach 75 million by 2030 – more than the population of some major countries - by which time it will be a major cause of death and cost more than US$ 1 trillion in care costs each year.
On the positive side, Biogen will shortly set to seek approval for Aducanumab, their new drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease. At the same time, doctors in the US have launched a clinical trial to see whether exposure to flickering lights and low frequency sounds can slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
Climate Change and the Environment:
The news on the environmental front is seldom good, despite the worldwide clamour for action.
Statistics show that in the last 12 years alone, 9 of Africa’s 12 largest baobab trees and 5 of the 6 tallest have suddenly died. The Panke tree, the oldest in the world at 2,500 years, once towering over the Zimbabwe bush, died in 2011. The Holboom baobab of Namibia, with a girth of 35.1m, also died a few years ago and the Sunland Boabab of South Africa, at 1,000 years of age, collapsed in 2016 and died finally in 2017. The reason for these deaths is not known.
On the other side of the planet, Californian wildfires are being attributed to climate change.
Research shows that the five biggest oil and gas companies, and their industry groups, have spent at least € 251 million lobbying against European Union climate mitigation policies since 2010. In the United States a congressional hearing saw climate experts disclosing that Exxon was given accurate predictions of the impact of increased carbon dioxide levels on global temperatures more than thrity years ago.
Low Cost Renewable Energy
Each newsletter, the renewable energy sector can be relied on to provide some positive rays of light on an otherwise bleak situation. This time is no different.
Germany announced plans to double solar capacity to 98 GW by 2030.
India announced plans for 30 GW of new wind generation capacity in the state of Gujarat and 25 GW in Rajasthan, all of it along a 20-25 kilometres strip of semi-arid land on the Pakistan border.
The IEA produced several publications in the past few weeks. Here are some of the highlights. Global electricity capacity from renewables will grow by 50% over the next five years. Solar PV is expected to account for the majority of that growth as costs fall another 30% in the next five years, after falling by 90% over the past decade. The amount of distributed PV – located mostly on the rooftops of homes, business and industry – is expected double to 600GW by 2024. Wind, which has also fallen sharply, is expected to also fall by around 30%. The cost of offshore wind energy is forecast to drop 40% in the next decade and could be Europe’s largest electricity source by 2040.
According to the IEEFA global offshore wind power capacity has nearly doubled in last three years from 12 gigawatts in December 2015 reaching 23GW by the end of 2018. China took the global lead in annual offshore wind capacity installations in 2018 with 1.8GW installed compared to 1.3GW and 0.9GW from earlier leaders UK and Germany respectively.
According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, battery costs have come down by more than 80% in nine years. Battery manufacturing capacity has increased more than 200-fold in 15 years. In 2020 more new capacity will be added than the global manufacturing capacity’s total in 2016. By 2023, total capacity will have more than doubled.
Another report from the IEA shows renewable energy generation technology uses just a fraction of the minerals used for fossil fuel power generation, particularly for coal power.
The European Investment Bank is moving away from investing in natural gas projects.
The Indian coal ministry has received valid expressions of interest for only six coal mines out of the 27 which were offered for the iron & steel, cement, and captive power plant end-use. Auction of 21 coal mines has been cancelled by the ministry as it received less than three bids for them.
Automation Based Unemployment
Although artificial intelligence (AI) continues to generate headlines, good, bad and downright scary, I’ve not found much new research on automation induced unemployment.
According to Moody’s Analytics, American shopping mall vacancies have reached their highest level in eight years, mostly as a result of eCommerce. (It would be interesting to find research comparing the CO2 emissions of shoppers driving to malls compared to those of the trucks delivering goods ordered online. And then, of course, there’s all that unnecessary plastic and cardboard packing involved in wrapping goods already packaged by the manufacturer…)
Google researchers claim to have attained “quantum supremacy” for the first time when their 53-bit quantum computer took 200 seconds to perform a calculation that, according to Google, would have taken the world’s fastest supercomputer 10,000 years. Marry that kind of computing power with artificial intelligence and who knows what could emerge?
Autonomous Electric Vehicles
Tesla and others continue to generate headlines with their latest electric vehicle releases but they don’t seem to be making the dent in the market we need. In fact, the growth in the number of SUVs on the road in recent years is calculated to be the second biggest contributor to carbon dioxide levels.
Meanwhile, French power company Engie and mining company Anglo American have announced a partnership to develop the world’s first hydrogen powered mining haul truck. The first hydrogen trucks are due to roll into the mines in 2020. A testing and validation phase will be conducted at Anglo American’s Mogalakwena Platinum Group Metals mine in South Africa before the project is scaled up. Solar arrays at mining sites will power electrolyzers for hydrogen production. The use of hydrogen trucks in underground mines could also lead to significantly lower ventilation costs, adding value for mining companies and improving health and safety.
In recent months, news from the autonomous, self-piloted transport sector has dwindled to a mere murmur. Maybe it’s proving more difficult than anticipated. Now, imagine the next generation of Tesla SUV with a quantum computer on board….
Increasing Inequality
I am looking forward to reading Thomas Piketty’s new book on inequality when the English version is published early next year as he looks much more widely than just at the USA where much of the research is being done.
For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans last year paid a lower total tax rate — spanning federal, state and local taxes — than any other income group, according to newly released data. The overall tax rate on the richest 400 households last year was only 23 percent, meaning that their combined tax payments equalled less than one quarter of their total income. This overall rate was 70 percent in 1950 and 47 percent in 1980.
This could well be a generational issue as total American student debt is US$ 1.52 trillion owed by 44.2 million people. Total credit card debt is above US$ 1 trillion, owed by 128 million households. Some 40% of Americans do not have US$ 400 they could use in an emergency.
One of the dangers of embedded AI is the bias that is frequently embedded into systems when they go live. For instance, an algorithm that many US health providers use to predict which patients will most need extra medical care is biased towards white patients, according to researchers at UC Berkeley. The researchers found that white patients were given higher risk scores than black people who were equally sick, and were therefore more likely to be selected for extra care. The use of AI systems in the justice system has disclosed similar bias against black and Hispanic citizens.
It will be interesting to read what Piketty has to say about Chile where violent protests against inequality have been the order of the day for several weeks now.
Globalisation
We tend to think of globalisation in terms of trade but there are all those other things moving around the world as well. Alien purple sea urchins are decimating the kelp beds along the North American Pacific coast, along with the sea life that depends on the kelp.
Southern Africa
The South African government has finally published – correctly at the second attempt – its Integrated Resource plan setting out the country’s energy future. It was something of a damp squib with both coal and nuclear in the mix despite the clear economic advantages of wind and solar. No doubt it was a sop to the coal mining unions and the Russians purportedly signing nuclear power contracts left and right across impoverished Africa.
South Africa plans to allocate at least 6 GW of large scale solar by 2030. That would take the country to 8.28 GW of generation capacity by the end of the next decade with the government stating up to 6 GW of small scale capacity could be required on top. By that stage, however, coal would still amount to 43% of generation capacity and gas and diesel a combined 8.1%.
Currently, South Africa’s coal-fired power plants account for over 90% of electricity production in the country, helping it to the seventh rank in the list of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters. The water consumption of coal fired plants is often lost sight of, not a good thing when parts of the land are in the middle of multi-year droughts. Water withdrawals for thermal power generation in 2015 came in at 0.346 km³, 12.7% of South Africa’s total water withdrawal of 2.72 km³. (At least Cape Town’s dams are at 83% after the late winter rains, the best in several years. Maybe I won’t have to use my rainwater tanks to keep my garden green this coming summer.)
Proudly powered by Weebly