Trying to make sense of it all
4th February 2019 – Brian’s Musings – Trying to make sense of it all
People Change:
The Green Book of Population and Labour published by the China Academy of Social Sciences predicts that China's population will peak at 44 billion people in 2029 and then decline.
Climate Change
Arctic ice loss has tripled since the 1980s. Antarctica is losing around 219 billion tonnes of ice a year, a trajectory that would contribute more
than 25cm to total global sea level rise by 2070. Glaciers in western North America, excluding Alaska, are melting four times faster than in the previous decade. Greenland is melting faster than scientists previously thought, with the pace of ice loss increasing four-fold since 2003, with the largest ice loss occurring in the southwest region of the island, which is largely glacier-free.
The level of climate-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is forecast to rise by a near-record amount in 2019, according to the Met Office. Levels of the greenhouse gas have not been as high as today for 3-5m years, when the global temperature was 2-3C warmer and the sea level was 10-20 metres higher.
A Rhodium Group analysis calculated that U.S. carbon emissions from energy increased by 3.4% in 2018 after years of declines.
Delhi’s state-run Central Pollution Control Board’s air quality index, which shows the concentration of PM 2.5 particulate matter, was measured at 440, about 12 times the US government recommended level of 35.
The European Chemicals Agency is proposing a ban on the use of some 90% of microplastics.
Low Cost Renewable Energy
In January 2018, Hitachi cancelled a Welsh nuclear power plant project on which is had already spent more than US$ 2 billion.
TrendForce predicts the world will install another 111 GW of solar this year, following a record 103 GW in 2018. pv magazine estimates that American solar generation capacity could increase from 34 GW at the end of 2018 to 173 GW by end 2019.
China installed 43.6 GW of solar in 2018 taking the total to 174.63 GW. Solar Energy Corporation of India has invited solar power developers to construct 7.5 GW grid connected projects in Jammu and Kashmir under a competitive bidding process. Indian Railways plans to tender for 4 GW of solar.
According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance Global clean energy investment totalled US$ 332.1 billion in 2018, down 8% on 2017. Although solar commitments declined 24% in dollar terms even there was record new photovoltaic capacity added as prices continued to drop.
According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, corporations around the globe purchased a record 13.4 GW worth of clean power through Power Purchase Agreements in 2018, more than double the previous year’s record.
Wind, solar, hydro and biomass produced just over 40 percent of Germany’s electricity in 2018, overtaking coal’s 39 percent share, according to the Fraunhofer Institute. This was a result of an almost 20 percent increase in solar capacity, the shuttering of older coal plants and favourable weather conditions. Germany is proposing to close all its coal fired power stations by 2038.
The US Government’s Energy Information Administration, whose forecasts are widely relied on by government policy makers, has conducted of its forecasts over the past ten years and found that coal consumption has been consistently over estimated, often by as much as 70%.
Arizona State University researchers have set a new record for solar efficiency, 25.4 percent.
A consortium made up of renewable energy developers from France and Saudi Arabia, EDF Renewables and Masdar, successfully won the tender to build the 400MW Dumat Al Jandal wind farm at a record-low price of 2.13 cents per kWh – a project that will be Saudi Arabia’s first wind farm and the largest in the Middle East.
The Indian government launched a universal household electrification project in September 2017 and subsequently announced the electrification of all villages in April 2018 and more than 90% of households by end 2018.
The government of Bangladesh is to legalize around 100,000 electric three-wheel vehicles currently operating on its rural roads.
Uganda-based off-grid solar installer SolarNow has received US$ 9 million in funding from Sunfunder, responsAbility, and Oikocredit to fund 17,500 off-grid solar systems, amounting to around 2.5 MW of new off-grid solar capacity.
Mass Data Mining and Storage
China’s Social Credit System announced a new app allowing Chinese to identify anyone on a debtors blacklist who is nearby.
Automation Based Unemployment
According to a study from the Brookings Institute, around 25 percent of U.S. jobs are at “high risk.” Roles in transportation, food prep, production and office admin are among those at highest risk, with robotics and artificial intelligence threatening to automate some 70 percent of tasks. Automation is expected to have an outsized impact in certain regions in the country, and among less well educated workers.
Sears is preparing for bankruptcy as a result of Amazon.
Finland has launched an online artificial intelligence education program aiming to teach 1 percent of the country's population the basic concepts at the root of artificial technology initially and gradually build on the number over the next few years. (There is a free English version available)
Autonomous Electric Vehicles
A new report from Deloitte predicts there will be 21 million electric vehicles on the road by 2030 and price parity with ICE vehicles by 2022.
After a record year for EV adoption in 2018, the report forecasts that the transition will continue, doubling the number of EVs worldwide from 2 million in 2018 to 4 million in 2020. By 2025 there will be 12 million electric cars on the road and all-electric car sales will account for 70 per cent of EV sales.
Sweden has passed legislation banning the sale of new ICE cars after 2030.
Google’s Waymo is to open the world’s first factory dedicated to making autonomous vehicles in Michigan later this year. The company launched its first commercial robotaxi service in Phoenix in December 2018.
Daimler Trucks will invest EUR 500 million and create more than 200 new jobs in its global push to bring highly automated trucks to the road within a decade.
Boeing has completed the pilotless test flight of its electric autonomous passenger air vehicle.
Rolls Royce in partnership with YASA, the Aerospace Technology Institute and Electroflight plans to launch the world’s fastest all-electric plane in 2020. The plane will be able to reach speeds of at least 480 km per hour with a range of 360 km.
Israel’s Eviation is building the first of its nine seater, all-electric passenger aircraft with a range of 1,000 km in France and plans to launch the aircraft at the 2019 Paris Air Show.
Increasing Inequality
India’s main opposition Congress party plans to implement a variation of a universal basic income (UBI) targeted at the poor if it wins the country’s upcoming election.
People Change:
The Green Book of Population and Labour published by the China Academy of Social Sciences predicts that China's population will peak at 44 billion people in 2029 and then decline.
Climate Change
Arctic ice loss has tripled since the 1980s. Antarctica is losing around 219 billion tonnes of ice a year, a trajectory that would contribute more
than 25cm to total global sea level rise by 2070. Glaciers in western North America, excluding Alaska, are melting four times faster than in the previous decade. Greenland is melting faster than scientists previously thought, with the pace of ice loss increasing four-fold since 2003, with the largest ice loss occurring in the southwest region of the island, which is largely glacier-free.
The level of climate-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is forecast to rise by a near-record amount in 2019, according to the Met Office. Levels of the greenhouse gas have not been as high as today for 3-5m years, when the global temperature was 2-3C warmer and the sea level was 10-20 metres higher.
A Rhodium Group analysis calculated that U.S. carbon emissions from energy increased by 3.4% in 2018 after years of declines.
Delhi’s state-run Central Pollution Control Board’s air quality index, which shows the concentration of PM 2.5 particulate matter, was measured at 440, about 12 times the US government recommended level of 35.
The European Chemicals Agency is proposing a ban on the use of some 90% of microplastics.
Low Cost Renewable Energy
In January 2018, Hitachi cancelled a Welsh nuclear power plant project on which is had already spent more than US$ 2 billion.
TrendForce predicts the world will install another 111 GW of solar this year, following a record 103 GW in 2018. pv magazine estimates that American solar generation capacity could increase from 34 GW at the end of 2018 to 173 GW by end 2019.
China installed 43.6 GW of solar in 2018 taking the total to 174.63 GW. Solar Energy Corporation of India has invited solar power developers to construct 7.5 GW grid connected projects in Jammu and Kashmir under a competitive bidding process. Indian Railways plans to tender for 4 GW of solar.
According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance Global clean energy investment totalled US$ 332.1 billion in 2018, down 8% on 2017. Although solar commitments declined 24% in dollar terms even there was record new photovoltaic capacity added as prices continued to drop.
According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, corporations around the globe purchased a record 13.4 GW worth of clean power through Power Purchase Agreements in 2018, more than double the previous year’s record.
Wind, solar, hydro and biomass produced just over 40 percent of Germany’s electricity in 2018, overtaking coal’s 39 percent share, according to the Fraunhofer Institute. This was a result of an almost 20 percent increase in solar capacity, the shuttering of older coal plants and favourable weather conditions. Germany is proposing to close all its coal fired power stations by 2038.
The US Government’s Energy Information Administration, whose forecasts are widely relied on by government policy makers, has conducted of its forecasts over the past ten years and found that coal consumption has been consistently over estimated, often by as much as 70%.
Arizona State University researchers have set a new record for solar efficiency, 25.4 percent.
A consortium made up of renewable energy developers from France and Saudi Arabia, EDF Renewables and Masdar, successfully won the tender to build the 400MW Dumat Al Jandal wind farm at a record-low price of 2.13 cents per kWh – a project that will be Saudi Arabia’s first wind farm and the largest in the Middle East.
The Indian government launched a universal household electrification project in September 2017 and subsequently announced the electrification of all villages in April 2018 and more than 90% of households by end 2018.
The government of Bangladesh is to legalize around 100,000 electric three-wheel vehicles currently operating on its rural roads.
Uganda-based off-grid solar installer SolarNow has received US$ 9 million in funding from Sunfunder, responsAbility, and Oikocredit to fund 17,500 off-grid solar systems, amounting to around 2.5 MW of new off-grid solar capacity.
Mass Data Mining and Storage
China’s Social Credit System announced a new app allowing Chinese to identify anyone on a debtors blacklist who is nearby.
Automation Based Unemployment
According to a study from the Brookings Institute, around 25 percent of U.S. jobs are at “high risk.” Roles in transportation, food prep, production and office admin are among those at highest risk, with robotics and artificial intelligence threatening to automate some 70 percent of tasks. Automation is expected to have an outsized impact in certain regions in the country, and among less well educated workers.
Sears is preparing for bankruptcy as a result of Amazon.
Finland has launched an online artificial intelligence education program aiming to teach 1 percent of the country's population the basic concepts at the root of artificial technology initially and gradually build on the number over the next few years. (There is a free English version available)
Autonomous Electric Vehicles
A new report from Deloitte predicts there will be 21 million electric vehicles on the road by 2030 and price parity with ICE vehicles by 2022.
After a record year for EV adoption in 2018, the report forecasts that the transition will continue, doubling the number of EVs worldwide from 2 million in 2018 to 4 million in 2020. By 2025 there will be 12 million electric cars on the road and all-electric car sales will account for 70 per cent of EV sales.
Sweden has passed legislation banning the sale of new ICE cars after 2030.
Google’s Waymo is to open the world’s first factory dedicated to making autonomous vehicles in Michigan later this year. The company launched its first commercial robotaxi service in Phoenix in December 2018.
Daimler Trucks will invest EUR 500 million and create more than 200 new jobs in its global push to bring highly automated trucks to the road within a decade.
Boeing has completed the pilotless test flight of its electric autonomous passenger air vehicle.
Rolls Royce in partnership with YASA, the Aerospace Technology Institute and Electroflight plans to launch the world’s fastest all-electric plane in 2020. The plane will be able to reach speeds of at least 480 km per hour with a range of 360 km.
Israel’s Eviation is building the first of its nine seater, all-electric passenger aircraft with a range of 1,000 km in France and plans to launch the aircraft at the 2019 Paris Air Show.
Increasing Inequality
India’s main opposition Congress party plans to implement a variation of a universal basic income (UBI) targeted at the poor if it wins the country’s upcoming election.
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