Interesting Links for 19-11-2019

[andrewducker]

Huntington's disease: Woman who inherited gene sues NHS (massive can of worms around privacy and responsibility here)

(tags:disease genetics nhs privacy )

The World Spent $14.4 Billion on Conservation, and It Actually Worked

(tags:nature environment GoodNews money )

Teachers Show Biases Against Overweight Kids, Including Giving Them Lower Grades

(tags:weight bias Education teachers teaching )

Reminder that "The Handmaid's Tale" is based on what some people would like the USA to become

(tags:USA misogyny politics republicans OhForFucksSake )

India closer to world's first male contraceptive injection

(tags:men contraception india )

The fight to get citizenship for descendants of German Jews

(tags:Germany Jews citizenship OhForFucksSake viaMyBrotherHugh )

Two of America's biggest coal plants closed this month

(tags:coal usa )

Hugh Laurie captains a sinking space cruise ship in teaser for Avenue 5

(tags:scifi comedy trailer tv )

Comments

[rmc28]

My stepfather is one of the people affected by the German citizenship rules, and is hoping it will eventually result in him being able to claim citizenship.

American coal

[nojay]

Last year the US built out 18GW of new fossil-fuel burning gas turbine generating plant and they don't plan to stop any time soon. It's the same in most other countries such as the UK, Germany etc., fossil coal consumption is being pushed out by lower-cost fossil gas. It's cleaner, more responsive and a bit more efficient but it still dumps more CO2 into the atmosphere.

These new gas plants don't get the press coverage wind and solar do but something has to be there to keep the lights on at a reasonable price when the weather and sun aren't obliging.

Re: American coal

[andrewducker]

Yup, gas will be the supplier of last resort until we can get cheap storage up and running.

(Which I am regularly reading interesting articles about, but it's all at the "build a prototype stage" at the moment, like https://www.theengineer.co.uk/highview-power-energy-storage/ and so I'm not passing them along. That one's about as far progressed as any of them, and it's still clearly a few years from mass market, if it ever gets there.)

Re: American coal

[nojay]

There isn't any cheap storage on the horizon, ready to deploy when people put cash down on the table. There are a lot of Wired articles, TED Talks and Powerpoint presentations around but deliverable storage systems cost, minimum, £200 million per GWh (pumped hydro storage requiring lots of water and convenient geography).

No-one wants to buy storage, they'd rather sell generation capability because storage costs money, it doesn't make it except by arbitrage (buy cheap, sell dear). There's also the problem of generating excess electricity to fill that storage if it comes into existence, over and above supplying immediate need. If we have to rely on storage to keep the lights on rather than spinning up gas turbine plants then electricity-at-the-socket will be very expensive to cover those storage costs.

Right now Germany is bringing the Nord Stream II pipeline on-shore to supply them with an extra 55 billion cubic metres of Russian gas annually to replace their shut-down nuclear plants. They'll need that amount of gas and more to cover for the loss of their lignite power plants over the next twenty years or so assuming the legislation to enforce that shutdown gets passed. There are a number of entrenched (gettit? Hah!) interests, areas of Germany where the lignite mines are the only employer and source of wealth who object to such legislation so the target date of 2038 and another 10 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions is not likely to be met.

Re: American coal

[armiphlage]

Battery storage (for peaking) is taking off in my province, partially because gas peaking generation facilities became a political scandal thing a few elections ago. No politician here will admit that such technology exists, at least for the next decade.

https://www.newmarkettoday.ca/local-news/biggest-battery-energy-storage-facility-in-gta-now-live-in-newmarket-1712059

As well, nearly all companies and households in the province have had their electricity meters updated to allow time-of-day pricing, encouraging people to shift electricity usage to off-peak hours.

To counteract that, we're actually tearing down wind turbines.

https://globalnews.ca/news/6008243/prince-edward-county-wind-turbines/

[dewline]

2. Good!

4. People with such thinking guiding their actions can just go away, please. We have a civilization to protect and improve, and we need everyone who's willing and able to help. That includes most women, and apparently does not include Mr. Weaver.

5. This might be helpful.

7. This is definitely helpful.

[cmcmck]

That guy is a nutbar! For 'we don't care' read 'I don't care'.......

[agoodwinsmith]

Okay. I am tempted by Avenue 5.

Teachers biased against fat kids ...

[agoodwinsmith]

... duh.