231 Matching Annotations
  1. Jul 2022
    1. Die Wagner-Privatarmee sorgt dafür, dass mehr Migranten aus Libyen nach Italien kommen und damit die Wahlchancen der Rechten vergrößern.. Der Artikel geht aber auch auf die Öl-Interessen in Libyen ein, wo sich die Bürgerkriegs Parteien zum ersten Mal annähern und die Produktion steigern.

  2. Jun 2022
    1. Although “renewable energy promoters claim that we can replace our current energy needs without fossil fuels,” adds Berman, the truth is this: “The triumph of technology may allow that but it will do little to end the ongoing ecosystem disaster.”

      There are researchers looking at the amount of fossil fuel energy required for the transition. One research group is MIT: https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/does-concrete-needed-build-renewable-energy-negate-good

      Other researchers have estimated fossil fuel budgets that need to be reserved for building the initial renewable energy production infrastructure for the transition.

      Research is nonlinear. A recent breakthrough might circularize cement industry:

      ‘If Cambridge Electric Cement lives up to the promise it has shown in early laboratory trials, it could be a turning point in the journey to a safe future climate. Combining steel and cement recycling in a single process powered by renewable electricity, this could secure the supply of the basic materials of construction to support the infrastructure of a zero emissions world and to enable economic development where it is most needed.’ http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/news/cambridge-engineers-invent-world-s-first-zero-emissions-cement

  3. Mar 2022
    1. This is a moment that we should seize, in all seriousness, in order to take on the two huge existential plagues that face us this morning: the climate crisis, outlined in this new IPCC report, and the fact that we have a madman with nuclear weapons who’s used the revenues from oil and gas to intimidate and terrify the entire world.

      This is the critical observation - everything is interconnected. It is a nexus of problems that requires that we deal with all dimensions of the problem simultaneously.

      Putin is the nexus of so much that is wrong with the world. He is like an octopus that has its arms in multiple crisis of the planet.

      The political polarization of the US, the ascendancy of the puppet government of Trump and the blatant cognitive dissonance of the extreme right who are impervious to facts is reminiscent of the propaganda imposed upon the Russian people themselves for one reason - it was part of Putin's master plan: https://youtu.be/FxgBuhMBXSA The US population has been split by Putin's information warfare system, the same one he uses on the Russian population.

      The fake news programmed by Russian propaganda about the Ukraine war has worked effectively to mislead the Russian populus: https://youtu.be/kELta9MLOzg The same pattern of psychological manipulation has also had the same impact in the belief system of the typical hardcore Trumpist.

    2. Europe has been cowering for two decades in response to Putin’s constant provocations because it depends on his oil and gas in order to keep warm through the winter. And even now the U.S. and the EU are unable to take what would be the most devastating economic step, embargoing Putin’s oil and gas in Russia, because they fear that the price of gas will go up enough that American support for doing anything about the Ukraine will evaporate.

      Dependency on fossil fuel of authoritarian regimes has major political consequences.

    3. The same fossil fuels that are destroying the planet are precisely the thing that undermine — that underwrite the power of thugs like Vladimir Putin.

      This is the key connection between many authoritarian regimes and fossil fuel.

  4. Sep 2021
    1. With Amazon the sole customer of the substation it will (via Oppidan) pay for the 26 month-long design and construction process, with the exception of the City-owned control building. It is expected to cost $5,388,260 across three payment milestones, one of which has already been paid.After it is built, property rights will transfer over to SVP, which will operate and maintain the substation.

      OK. so it's not so much a substation owned like a block box.But Amazon is the sole customer, and it likely bought the site so :

      a) it would stop others making a datacentre there b) it could then make use of the substation, and providing extra distribution for the other DCs it wants to operate and use so it can expand further

    1. This verticalization will have the great flaw of making the real consumption of these infrastructures invisible. Today we can still retrieve some data from water and energy providers but when Amazon builds its own substations, like in Santa Clara, or Google its own pumping stations then the black box will continue to grow.

      I had no idea Amazon is building its own substations.

    2. At the environmental level, the territorial approach makes it possible to get out of the mystique of relative efficiency values to align consumption in absolute value with a local stock and a precise environment.

      Absolutt comsumption as a percentage of the local resources would be a huge jump forward here

    3. However, the possible unsustainability of the new data center project was outweighed by an $800 million project with various financial benefits to the community, so the construction project was voted 6-1 in the city council.

      It's worth comparing this to other water reservations for context. Comparing it to agriculture in the same area might help, to see the choices people are facing

    4. It also raises the point that data centers could crowd out renewable energy capacity on the grid, slowing down the country's energy transition.

      I think the arguent made here is that the load can exceed the generation coming from renewable sources, meaning that this would end up leading to more dirty power coming online to meet the demand.

      The alternative might be to adjust demand, with the virtual capacity curves proposed in the google paper,and supplemen that with storage

    5. Energy used in a mine, in freight, in the supply and production chain is much less likely to be renewable.

      It's worth considering things like how a CBAM a carbon border adjustment mechanism might affect this, as it's designed specifically to address this issue of high carbon intensity goods crossing country or trading block borders, like the EU

    6. The US giant advertises that its data center in Eemshaven in the Netherlands would be 100% powered by RE since its opening in 2016. However, on Google's electricity supply matrices we can clearly see that 69% of the electricity supply was provided by RE. The remaining 31% is offset by RECs or virtual PPAs. Google's statement in the preamble is therefore not factually correct.

      These might still be offset by RECs that are tied to a specific point in time, sometimes referred to as TEACS.

    7. In this scientific literature, it is estimated that the manufacturing phase (construction of the building + manufacturing of the IT equipment) represents on average 15% of the energy and GHG footprint of a data center in a country with "medium" carbon electricity (approx. 150-200gCO2/kWh).. To get to this figure, it is assumed that the building is new and will last 20 years and that the IT equipment is replaced every 4 to 5 years. Based on GAFAM's Scopes 3, a recent publication by researchers from Facebook, Harvard and Arizona University estimated that the carbon impact of data centers related to IT equipment, construction and infrastructure was higher than imagined. There is therefore a growing interest in better understanding these "omissions".

      This is a good point. Refresh rates can be closer to a 1-2 years in some hyperscalers. Good for use phase carbon, bad for embodied carbon

    1. The Commission found that the arrangement, as currently written, could result in annual revenue shortfalls ranging in the millions of dollars, which other customers would have to cover due to the credits that could completely zero-out Facebook’s bill.“The Commission noted this is not logical— that a customer could reduce its bill by using more resources,” it said.

      As I understand this, structuring this deal to give a a low cost for a loooong term agreement would mean bills would have to be raised on other rate payers to make sure the company with the monopoly is able to make the pre-agreed rate of return it as allowed to make each year.

    1. After techUk’s Emma Fryer released the results of the second period of the UK data center sectors climate change agreement (CCA) 2nd Period findings in 2017, I conducted some desk-based research which looked at the issue from a UK PLC perspective and included all those enterprise data centers, server cupboards and machine rooms that are largely hidden.

      John mentioned to me the the CCA notes from 2017 might be a little out. It's worth sanity checking that.

  5. Dec 2020
  6. Oct 2020
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  10. Mar 2019
    1. It’s clear that we need to make the switch to clean, reliable sources of renewable energy like solar and wind. Unlike fossil fuels, renewables don’t add greenhouse gases to our atmosphere.

      We need to change to renewable energy

    2. Humans started harnessing fossil fuels on a massive scale during the Industrial Revolution.

      Where fossil fuels started out

    3. When we burn these fossil fuels, the carbon combines with oxygen to make carbon dioxide. This extra carbon dioxide (and other GHGs like methane) traps more and more heat in our atmosphere.

      How we end up making carbon dioxide

  11. Jan 2017
    1. shale oil and gas revolution

      Fossil fuel-fired power plants are by far the largest source of U.S. CO2 emissions, making up 31 percent of U.S. total greenhouse gas emissions. Find this fact and others on the EPA site: https://www.epa.gov/cleanpowerplan/fact-sheet-overview-clean-power-plan.

  12. Oct 2016