Consumption Week 19
My notes from some of the media I consumed this week.
This Genius Shape-Shifting Wing is the Future of Flight
- No need for flaps when the entire wing can move and morph!
- And this can be applied to wind turbines for greater efficiency there also.
NIO: 10 Billion Kilometers, 20 Million Battery Swaps
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/05/12/nio-10-billion-kilometers-driven-20-million-battery-swaps/
- The speed and scale of China is incredible.
None of the world’s top industries would be profitable if they paid for the natural capital they use
- The majority of unpriced natural capital costs are from greenhouse gas emissions (38%), followed by water use (25%), land use (24%), air pollution (7%), land and water pollution (5%), and waste (1%).
- The total unpriced natural capital consumed by the more than 1,000 “global primary production and primary processing region-sectors” amounts to $7.3 trillion a year.
- Of the top 20 region-sectors ranked by environmental impacts, none would be profitable if environmental costs were fully integrated.
An A to Z Of Fossil Fuel Industry Deception
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/05/10/an-a-to-z-of-fossil-fuel-industry-deception/
- A is for American Petroleum Institute
- B is for Beyond Petroleum
- C is for Customer Emissions
- D is for Divestment of Dirty Assets
- E is for (Anti)-ESG
- F is for Front Groups
- G is for Greenwashing
- H is for Hydrogen
- I is for Intensity Targets
- J is for Just Transition
- K is for Kafkaesque
- L is for Lies
- M is for Methane
- N is for No-Action
- O is for Offsets
- P is for Paltering
- Q is for Quest
- R is for Redacted
- S is for Social License
- T is for Time for Energy
- U is for US Chamber of Commerce
- V is for Victory Memo
- W is for Windfall profits
- X is for eXXchange
- Y is for You
- Z is for (Net) Zero
Yet Another Problem With Recycling: It Spews Microplastics
https://www.wired.com/story/yet-another-problem-with-recycling-it-spews-microplastics/
- Even with filtering, they calculate that the total discharge from the different washes could produce up to 75 billion particles per cubic meter of wastewater. Depending on the recycling facility, that liquid would ultimately get flushed into city water systems or the environment.
- The good news here is that filtration makes a difference: Without it, the researchers calculated that this single recycling facility could emit up to 6.5 million pounds of microplastic per year. Filtration got it down to an estimated 3 million pounds. “So it definitely was making a big impact when they installed the filtration,” says Brown. “We found particularly high removal efficiency of particles over 40 microns.”
Newly discovered Arctic microbes may make recycling plastics carbon-neutral
- Currently available models only work at temperatures above 30°C, requiring a heating process that is not carbon-neutral.
- “Here we show that novel microbial taxa obtained from the ‘plastisphere’ of alpine and arctic soils were able to break down biodegradable plastics at 15°C,”
Captura facility could remove gigatons of carbon dioxide from the ocean
https://newatlas.com/technology/captura-carbon-dioxide-ocean/
- The process begins by bringing a filtered stream of ocean water into the facility, where the electrodialysis technology is used to create acid. This acid is then added to the ocean water, triggering a chemical reaction that extracts CO2 from the water. The process is accelerated using a gas-liquid contactor and vacuum pump, resulting in a purified stream of carbon dioxide that can be reused or sequestered.
Reusable sponge can remove heavy-metal pollutants from water, resulting in safe, drinkable water
- Northwestern University engineers have produced a new sponge that can remove toxic heavy metals, like lead, and critical metals, like cobalt, from contaminated water. The end result is safe, drinkable water.
Whole. to bolster WINX technology with $1.5m raise
https://futurealternative.com.au/whole-to-bolster-winx-technology-with-1-5m-seed-raise/
- The WINX (Whole Ingredient Nutrient Extraction) technology uses ultra-high pressure to ‘explode’ the cells of the input ingredient, which according to Whole., significantly enhances its nutritional value and makes it more bioavailable in the body.
Why Lightbulbs Might Be The Best Invention Ever
- The history of how lightbulbs became computers. Pretty incredible.
[Modern Wisdom] #626 - Richard Shotton - 8 Psychology Hacks Behind The World’s Biggest Businesses
- If >£100, state £ discount; if <£100, state % discount.
- Default is to go for the middle option, so have at least three (with the middle being the one you want to sell most). Show high to low (anchoring).
Why kids don’t get as cold as adults
- More brown fat = more cold tolerance
- More brown fat = less heart disease, diabetes
- More cold tolerance = more brown fat
The Insane Biology of: Slime Mold
- A single-celled brainless organism designed the Tokyo subway system, one of the most complex on the planet.
The Tokay Lizard (fuck you lizard)
https://youtu.be/X2c23-1rVQs?t=9
Why Kiribati Is Always In The Future
- The video itself was average, but the comment from Kim Jong-un (yes really) was fascinating:
We used to have our own time zone called Pyongyang Standard Time (UTC+08:30). Everyone likes to think we started that thing in 2015 and ended it in 2018 to return to UTC+09:00 as a step in unifying the peninsula, but the history behind it is much older!
Before modern clocks were introduced into Korea, Koreans kept time with the help of a sundial during the daytime and a water clock at night. In 1434, Jang Yeong-sil, a Joseon scientist and astronomer with other scientists, developed Korea’s first sundial, Angbu Ilgu and was put into service as standard time-keeper of the kingdom and began the standard time at Hanyang (Seoul) which was calculated to be UTC+08:27:52. The Korean Empire adopted a standard time of 8½ hours ahead of UTC around the beginning of the 20th century. This changed in 1912 to UTC+09:00 during Japanese control so Korea could align with Japan Standard Time.