Elephants and trains in India, a self-recharging solar drone, captive-breeding zebra sharks, the hyenas of Harar, America's green bank and grid-scale battery boom, and more!
Lots of good stuff here! Referring back to an earlier conversation, I learned why the EIA counts battery storage as generation, separate from other sources like wind and solar. I had been thinking this was double counting. It’s because it can provide energy at peak when all other sources are also producing. It’s not just backup, which is how I was thinking of it.
Amazing.. those "starry sky" geckos! Just as interesting, the Brits with their hands-free microcopters-- just site and forget! I ❤️ Batteries and the grid scale batteries are wonderful to hear about! We are making progress on so many fronts, Sam! It's rather like dark matter and the acceleration of the universe's expansion at rates beyond the predictions of Newtonian mechanics. Our correlative expansion is that of human knowledge which is accelerating at a non-linear rate and is being employed to good ends. Is there any problem we can't surmount?
I'd say give us two hundred more years and we'll be an unstoppable force for good- well able to even protect the planet from external threats as well as creating a new Eden here. In that sense I am a utopian optimist.
But the flip side is that I worry that we aren't going to be given that time. In that sense I am a pessimist!
We will have the time we _make_ (by cost effective reduction in net CO2 emissions). We will not be "given" anything. I remain a policy optimist that we WILL adopt those cost-effective policies.
Well said, but your comment suggested we are in complete control of our destiny. It assumes that forces and processes already set in motion will be within our capacity to manage and that our own warlike proclivities won't erupt yet again into irrational devastating warfare. Remember the "War to End All Wars?". How many have we had since that time? It's okay to be an optimist and a believer in human rationality, but not so safe to think we are yet the masters of the future or even the present. Forecasting even three days in advance is parlous, much less two centuries.
There was this Victorian era belief in human agency overcoming all obstacles. My father was a firm believer, as children of fortunate backgrounds often are. I remember him reciting a short poem, "Invictus" by Henley that meant a lot to him and he thought might inspire me as well.:
"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul."
Ask the children of poverty, of war torn regions how that poem relates to their struggles and how far the use of their sheer will and ingenuity, with no recourse to crime, violence, or connections can take them.
I reject the fundamental premise of Invictus and the political thought that stems from the misreading of it.
Assessing the CO2 emissions avoided at the rate of taxation of net CO2 necessary to get to net zero by 2050, what is the NPV of the projects financed by the US "Greenhous Gas Reductin Fund?" If it is less than zero, is this good news?
Love all this good news!! Thank you, Sam.
Thank you so much!
Lots of good stuff here! Referring back to an earlier conversation, I learned why the EIA counts battery storage as generation, separate from other sources like wind and solar. I had been thinking this was double counting. It’s because it can provide energy at peak when all other sources are also producing. It’s not just backup, which is how I was thinking of it.
Makes sense!
Amazing.. those "starry sky" geckos! Just as interesting, the Brits with their hands-free microcopters-- just site and forget! I ❤️ Batteries and the grid scale batteries are wonderful to hear about! We are making progress on so many fronts, Sam! It's rather like dark matter and the acceleration of the universe's expansion at rates beyond the predictions of Newtonian mechanics. Our correlative expansion is that of human knowledge which is accelerating at a non-linear rate and is being employed to good ends. Is there any problem we can't surmount?
Heck yes, Michael! I think we have at least a good shot at surmounting *any* problem!
I'd say give us two hundred more years and we'll be an unstoppable force for good- well able to even protect the planet from external threats as well as creating a new Eden here. In that sense I am a utopian optimist.
But the flip side is that I worry that we aren't going to be given that time. In that sense I am a pessimist!
I think we'll make it, Michael! I think 2224 is going to be truly amazing.
I agree, given that proviso. The human/AGI partnership should produce astounding scientific advances.
We will have the time we _make_ (by cost effective reduction in net CO2 emissions). We will not be "given" anything. I remain a policy optimist that we WILL adopt those cost-effective policies.
Well said, but your comment suggested we are in complete control of our destiny. It assumes that forces and processes already set in motion will be within our capacity to manage and that our own warlike proclivities won't erupt yet again into irrational devastating warfare. Remember the "War to End All Wars?". How many have we had since that time? It's okay to be an optimist and a believer in human rationality, but not so safe to think we are yet the masters of the future or even the present. Forecasting even three days in advance is parlous, much less two centuries.
Forecasting and optimism are perilous, but less so than the alternatives.
There was this Victorian era belief in human agency overcoming all obstacles. My father was a firm believer, as children of fortunate backgrounds often are. I remember him reciting a short poem, "Invictus" by Henley that meant a lot to him and he thought might inspire me as well.:
"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul."
Ask the children of poverty, of war torn regions how that poem relates to their struggles and how far the use of their sheer will and ingenuity, with no recourse to crime, violence, or connections can take them.
I reject the fundamental premise of Invictus and the political thought that stems from the misreading of it.
I know it well. As did Mandela in prison.
Assessing the CO2 emissions avoided at the rate of taxation of net CO2 necessary to get to net zero by 2050, what is the NPV of the projects financed by the US "Greenhous Gas Reductin Fund?" If it is less than zero, is this good news?