The renewable energy changes and policy

No amount of solar, wind or batteries can help a corrupt and incompetent government, God help the people of Texas. You vote them in, and they keep freezing your ass, killing your kids and fucking up your schools.

DIY-HP-LED said:

One issue with hydrogen apparently solved. Innovations are happening in all sectors at once globally now, technical developments that took decades are now done in months and researchers are all connected by the internet.

“Cannot Be Explained” – Scientists Unveil Revolutionary SS-H2 Steel

A team headed by Professor Mingxin Huang from the University of Hong Kong's Department of Mechanical Engineering has achieved a significant advancement in the field of stainless steel. This recent innovation focuses on the development of stainless steel designed for hydrogen applications, known as S

scitechdaily.com

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we design these (gaseous not liquid) hydrogen systems transmission lines with above ground Kevlar wrapped HDPE up to 2200 psi. Looks like some new alloys are being researched tho.

Are We the Last Generation — or the First Sustainable One? | Hannah Ritchie | TED

The word "sustainability" gets thrown around a lot these days. But what does it actually mean for humanity to be sustainable? Environmental data scientist Hannah Ritchie digs into the numbers behind human progress across centuries, unpacking why the conventional understanding of sustainability is misleading and showing how we can be the first generation of humans to actually achieve it.

More on the RethinkX think tank. They have been right in their predictions about solar, EVs and batteries so far, a good track record, but it doesn't mean they are right about other things like precision fermentation and the food revolution or about self-driving taxis, people are attached to their cars and costs are not everything, especially if cars will be as cheap as they predict. People can live in barracks cheaply too, but nobody wants to, they might be good on the technological factors but be missing some psychological ones! As for now the cost curves and S curves of adoption for solar, batteries and EVs are holding true to their predictions from many years ago, even without any dramatic improvements in batteries that are promised in the next couple of years, along with price drops.

Still, I'm keeping an eye on the precision fermentation business to see what developments and trends arise there. It would have enormous impacts on the environment and climate and earth-shattering ones for rural America and politics, not just America either. Vegetables, berries, nuts and fruits should be ok for the foreseeable future, but dairy, eggs and meat might be at risk someday in the not-too-distant future, we will see. The ethical arguments are on its side, no animals with faces and feelings are harmed, it will have huge environmental impacts, lower the cost of food and feed poor hungry people who are not as rich or as gastronomically fastidious as folks in the developed world with their dietary idiosyncrasies.

Think of the economic and especially the political implications of this technology, if it were come to pass as they predict, whole states would be up in arms as value chains collapsed in 10 years or so. Red states and rural America would be red indeed as farms went under the auction block, this time the assault would be real and, in their faces, not on foxnews and in their imaginations, but I imagine foxnews will be rabble rousing. The people however would be helpless as the economic ground shifted beneath their feet and moved them off the land and out of state to some liberal city! Forget solar and EVs, this might be earth shattering for millions of people in rural America and for American politics. There are around 300K people in Wyoming plus migrant workers in the meat packing plants, with 2 senators, how many will be left? How many states will end up like them? Oil, gas, ranching, poultry, hogs and feed stock all gone along with transport and supporting infrastructure like feed stores and truckers the list is long. Corporate farms with robots growing the bulk crops and carbs. The buffalo could roam the Midwest once more as it rewilds, but the people will be wild first, before they move away, the elderly and those on pension or who have incomes will stay.





Rethinking Food and Agriculture 2020-2030 The Second Domestication of Plants and Animals, the Disruption of the Cow, and the Collapse of Industrial Livestock Farming

Executive Summary

We are on the cusp of the deepest, fastest, most consequential disruption in food and agricultural production since the first domestication of plants and animals ten thousand years ago. This is primarily a protein disruption driven by economics. The cost of proteins will be five times cheaper by 2030 and 10 times cheaper by 2035 than existing animal proteins, before ultimately approaching the cost of sugar. They will also be superior in every key attribute – more nutritious, healthier, better tasting, and more convenient, with almost unimaginable variety. This means that, by 2030, modern food products will be higher quality and cost less than half as much to produce as the animal-derived products they replace. The impact of this disruption on industrial animal farming will be profound. By 2030, the number of cows in the U.S. will have fallen by 50% and the cattle farming industry will be all but bankrupt. All other livestock industries will suffer a similar fate, while the knock-on effects for crop farmers and businesses throughout the value chain will be severe...

Drop That Sound said:

So pot is "legal", but STILL no one is even really even allowed to grow hemp..

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I could legally grow a hemp patch on my acreage if I wanted too. Has to be certified hemp seed but Canada changed the minimum size of hemp plantings a few years back so little guys can grow it too. I can just go down the road and get all the hemp flower I want for free but if they see me taking stalks I'm in trouble.

Where are you at they can't grow hemp?

Is the hemp law in Canada still min 10 acres? I was thinking of growing some 5 or so years ago. Guy had some seed on kijiji. Bit more than I wanted haha.

OldMedUser said:

I could legally grow a hemp patch on my acreage if I wanted too. Has to be certified hemp seed but Canada changed the minimum size of hemp plantings a few years back so little guys can grow it too. I can just go down the road and get all the hemp flower I want for free but if they see me taking stalks I'm in trouble.

Where are you at they can't grow hemp?

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A grim prognosis.

cannabineer said:

A grim prognosis.

We've been 'close' to achieving fusion power for 50 years. When will it actually happen?

The latest News,/news,,news, breaking news, comment, reviews and features from the experts at Space

www.space.com

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For terrestrial power generation it would have to compete with renewables and batteries in 20 years and from a capital costs perspective alone, it would be a nonstarter by then. Carry on with the R&D though.

The Rethink X report I just posted on food was written and published some time ago in 2019 and covers a 10-year time frame we are already 4 years into. I dunno how the predictions on costs are tracking, but if they are... If I were in the business, I'd be tracking them closely! It is a hard idea for me to get my head around and I have no stake in the industry or region. I am naturally skeptical, but the implications are profound for climate change, world hunger and politics in many countries. If it works, using politics to regulate it away won't work, other countries will simply do it and move on, American export markets might dry up for agricultural products of certain types.

If the predictions and their timelines are true, then we should be seeing the impacts soon. If Joe wins this election, he will be leaving office in 2029 and the election of 2028 might have this issue and not immigration front and center. If it turns out this way the election of 2032 will have much different issues for some Midwest and agricultural states, forget the culture wars.

DIY-HP-LED said:

For terrestrial power generation it would have to compete with renewables and batteries in 20 years and from a capital costs perspective alone, it would be a nonstarter by then. Carry on with the R&D though.

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I doubt that. They will find a way, since this will be the only realistic way to bring the solar system within our reach.
Also, fusion, especially when they can burn pure deuterium, will be power on demand for industrial centers. A 5-GW plant is likely to be cheaper to build and run than a TWh of chemical storage.

cannabineer said:

I doubt that. They will find a way, since this will be the only realistic way to bring the solar system within our reach.
Also, fusion, especially when they can burn pure deuterium, will be power on demand for industrial centers. A 5-GW plant is likely to be cheaper to build and run than a TWh of chemical storage.

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Who knows, for now renewables and storage are the options and they are out competing fossil fuels on price and will more so in the future. Helion looks to be the best chance of a usable system any time soon and have a do or die contract to produce power for Microsoft in the very near future. It is a way down the road though and I like to look within timeframes of a decade for technological development from projects already under way or have been for a decade. The post on food production for instance, we are already 4 years into the predicted scenarios and the implications if true are mind blowing and near term. That is the result of the progress of biotechnology over the last 40 years of R&D, now it is rapidly moving into food production. This could have profound political and economic implications in America (Canada too) in the very near term!

I would imagine they read this food report in China in 2019 and if they verify the findings, at say this point in time, and the great leader likes it... One can only imagine what would happen as this technology evolves and China takes it up like they did with infrastructure, solar, EVs and batteries with a plan and incentives. America would have little choice really no matter how hard the red states howled, their con artist republican politicians would be working for the corporate side with the cash, con the base and serve the rich, fuck the voters! They will keep them focused on immigrants and culture wars while their value chain disappears, and the farm is on the auction block as their real threat emerges on the stage.

As I said I dunno if it will come to pass, but we are 4 years in already and anybody with a vital economic interest should be able to verify if the cost curves are on track and if they are, they might want to do some thinking and looking. 2030 is just 6 years and 2 presidential election cycles away and by 2035 there might be a lot fewer rural red districts in congress as whole regions depopulate. We have seen such things with countless industries and America has a rust belt for a reason, the ruins of former industry giants litter the landscape of the industrialized world.

OldMedUser said:

I could legally grow a hemp patch on my acreage if I wanted too. Has to be certified hemp seed but Canada changed the minimum size of hemp plantings a few years back so little guys can grow it too. I can just go down the road and get all the hemp flower I want for free but if they see me taking stalks I'm in trouble.

Where are you at they can't grow hemp?

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Well, suppose you can get a license now.. Last time I checked, only one farm in eastern WA was allowed to be the first on to grow it in the state..

If anybody wants to try and track the cost curves or other data related to the energy and food transition forecasts, this might help.

Carbon Capture and Storage. Inconvenient new data.

So, Carbon Capture and Storage then. Climate change cure-all or delusional diversion by our friends over at Fossil Fuel HQ? Well, some people much smarter than me have been investigating, so I thought we should take at look at their findings

Turpman said:

Is the hemp law in Canada still min 10 acres?

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No, but you do need a license. I grew Finola, tumbled it for trichomes - the yield was very low. Better suited for seeds. It looked pretty but I've had septoria ever since.

The author of the 2019 report about food disruption I posted, this is from one year ago.


The Great Transformation [Part 5] - Implications

Ozumoz66 said:

No, but you do need a license. I grew Finola, tumbled it for trichomes - the yield was very low. Better suited for seeds. It looked pretty but I've had septoria ever since.

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I got almost a full garbage bag of hemp tops from the field down the road with permission from the farmer. They are only growing for fibre so don't care if I want the tops so I should be able to get more every fall.

Pretty soon I'll cook 100g of flower down to oil and send a sample to a lab in Vancouver to see how much CBD I can get for free. Generally there's about 6% or more so low yield but if free it's a good deal. I could just call and see what strain they grow too.

This field is a mile deep and half a mile wide. That big white building in the upper left is the new hemp processing plant they are still setting up. The plants were at the top of that scale when they cropped it, let it ret for a few weeks then roll it up in big round bales like alfalfa.