№ 728. Renewable Energy

 

Our World in Data

A cleaner, more sustainable form of energy, renewables draw power from natural sources such as the sun (solar), wind (aeolian), ocean (marine), rivers (hydroelectric), and the Earth’s internal heat (geothermal). However, this also means they can be affected by environmental, seasonal and daily cycles that can limit their use or efficiency. As such, renewable energy cannot always consistently produce energy at all hours of the day – this is called intermittency. 

Solar and wind farms energy production in Europe have been known to fluctuate between 0 to 23 and 24GW of energy respectively during peak times. While these peak production periods provide a large share of energy, the sometimes unpredictable lulls are what define the intermittency of renewables. This intermittency is contrasted by the constant power output that can be generated by fossil fuel-based power plants using coal or natural gas, this has often been referred to as base-load energy. These power plants are able to provide a constant source of energy but do so at the cost of the environment. 

 Intermittency has always been an issue limiting the growth of renewable energy, but the development of high-capacity batteries capable of storing large quantities of power has changed that. Being able to store excess energy produced by renewable energy during peak cycles, storage provides power grids with the ability to tap into those reserves when the cycles dip – negating the intermittency of renewables. Recent studies have shown that the use of large-scale batteries in the United States could both help reduce renewable energy infrastructure costs and provide over 80% of the nation’s power demands through sustainable energy.

№ 650. Legitimacy

The Lord Chamberlain, the most senior official in the royal household, will break his ‘Wand of Office’, signifying the end of his service to the sovereign, and place it on the casket.

 

Why is Vladimir Putin failing to win his war in Ukraine? The answers multiply: hubris, corruption and incompetence on the Russian side; military valor, canny leadership and American munitions on the Ukrainian side.

But the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the wave of antique pageantry help illuminate one of the Russian president’s important weaknesses. He has been hobbled in his fight because his regime lacks the mystical quality we call legitimacy.

Legitimacy is not the same thing as power. It’s what enables power to be exercised effectively amid trials and transitions, setbacks and successions. It’s what grounds political authority even when that authority isn’t delivering prosperity and peace. It’s what rulers reach for when they call their societies to sacrifice.

 

 

№ 623. Election 2022: Politics of Bread and Circus

 

In a political context, the phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace, by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses).

Juvenal, who coined the phrase, used it to decry the "selfishness" of common people and their neglect of wider concerns. The phrase implies a population's erosion or ignorance of civic duty as a priority.

This phrase originates from Rome in Satire X of the Roman satirical poet Juvenal (c. 100 CE). In context, the Latin panem et circenses (bread and circuses) identifies the only remaining interest of a Roman populace which no longer cares for its historical birthright of political involvement. Here Juvenal displays his contempt for the declining heroism of contemporary Romans, using a range of different themes including lust for power and desire for old age to illustrate his argument.^[6] Roman politicians passed laws in 140 CE to keep the votes of poorer citizens, by introducing a grain dole: giving out cheap food and entertainment, "bread and circuses", became the most effective way to rise to power:

"... Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."

Juvenal here makes reference to the Roman practice of providing free wheat to Roman citizens as well as costly circus games and other forms of entertainment as a means of gaining political power. The Annona (grain dole) was begun under the instigation of the popularis politician Gaius Sempronius Gracchus in 123 BCE; it remained an object of political contention until it was taken under the control of the autocratic Roman emperors. 

Charot

Charot

 

 

 

 

№ 569. Artificial Intelligence & Capitalism

Student News Daily

 

TED CHIANG: I tend to think that most fears about A.I. are best understood as fears about capitalism. And I think that this is actually true of most fears of technology, too. Most of our fears or anxieties about technology are best understood as fears or anxiety about how capitalism will use technology against us. And technology and capitalism have been so closely intertwined that it’s hard to distinguish the two.

Let’s think about it this way. How much would we fear any technology, whether A.I. or some other technology, how much would you fear it if we lived in a world that was a lot like Denmark or if the entire world was run sort of on the principles of one of the Scandinavian countries? There’s universal health care. Everyone has child care, free college maybe. And maybe there’s some version of universal basic income there.

Now if the entire world operates according to — is run on those principles, how much do you worry about a new technology then? I think much, much less than we do now. Most of the things that we worry about under the mode of capitalism that the U.S practices, that is going to put people out of work, that is going to make people’s lives harder, because corporations will see it as a way to increase their profits and reduce their costs. It’s not intrinsic to that technology. It’s not that technology fundamentally is about putting people out of work.

It’s capitalism that wants to reduce costs and reduce costs by laying people off. It’s not that like all technology suddenly becomes benign in this world. But it’s like, in a world where we have really strong social safety nets, then you could maybe actually evaluate sort of the pros and cons of technology as a technology, as opposed to seeing it through how capitalism is going to use it against us. How are giant corporations going to use this to increase their profits at our expense?

And so, I feel like that is kind of the unexamined assumption in a lot of discussions about the inevitability of technological change and technologically-induced unemployment. Those are fundamentally about capitalism and the fact that we are sort of unable to question capitalism. We take it as an assumption that it will always exist and that we will never escape it. And that’s sort of the background radiation that we are all having to live with. But yeah, I’d like us to be able to separate an evaluation of the merits and drawbacks of technology from the framework of capitalism.

№ 354. Trumping the World