andrewducker | Interesting Links for 08-12-2022

1. Support for Independence hits 56%, 51% of people to vote SNP (53% if it's a defacto referendum): (tags:scotland independence polls )
2. Transphobes are now attacking...The Samaritans.: (tags:lgbt transgender bigotry OhForFucksSake suicide )
3. BBC plans to switch off broadcast TV and move to internet-only programmes: (tags:bbc thefuture streaming broadcasting )
4. Discovery of world's oldest DNA breaks record by one million years: (tags:genetics dna prehistory )
5. The Art Game and the Money Game and how the ending of Minecraft was set free: (tags:games art money copyright Microsoft contracts )
6. Sats: MPs and peers fail tests for 11-year-olds as campaign groups call for overhaul of 'high-stakes' exams: (tags:exams children politics )
7. First UK coal mine in decades approved: (tags:UK coal environment globalwarming )
8. Europe First: Brussels gets ready to dump its free trade ideals (because the USA and China both already have): (tags:Europe China USA trade )
9. Two inhaled covid vaccines have been approved. Here's what you need to know.: (tags:vaccines pandemic )
10. AI learns to precisely manipulate individual atoms: (tags:ai atom physics research )
11. How Many Fundamental Constants Does It Take To Explain The Universe? (26, at the moment): (tags:physics )
12. People expect identical twins to be *really* identical: (tags:twins genetics statistics )
13. Humans are surprisingly poor at picking up cues of aggression in dogs: (tags:dogs behaviour psychology )

One of the most interesting comments I read as part of the debate on the new coal mine was this:

In the UK we use steel. In the UK we make steel. Not all the steel we use. We also buy steel from abroad. If we did not make steel we would buy it from abroad in greater numbers.

There is currently no good alternative to coking coal for making steel. Coking coal is how you get very high heat *and* controlled injection of carbon in to the iron to make the steel alloy. So for the next period of time any steel used in the UK will use coking coal dug up somewhere and burned somewhere.

It is hypocritical of us to ban coalmine in our country and then import CO2 emitted in some other country in the form of steel we use. It is hypocritical to import coking coal from abroad to use in our steelmills. Also, it is dumb to miss out on the coal mining and steel milling jobs that our demand for steel creates.

I'm not convinced but by the argument but it has given me some pause for thought.

Thank you, interesting, and inconvenient given steel's wide utility.

See https://andrewducker.dreamwidth.org/4227632.html?thread=29527344#cmt29527344

I would agree with that, except for these snippets from the article:

1) The government's advisory Climate Change Committee (UKCCC) pointed out that 85% of the coal produced by the mine would be exported.
...
2) But the two companies that still make steel using coal in the UK - British Steel and Tata - say they plan to move to lower carbon production methods.

Steel industry expert Chris McDonald estimates that, at best, they will use less than 10% of the output of the mine and, by the mid-2030s, none at all.

That means the new mine will export virtually all the coal it produces.

If we were going to use, say, more than 2/3 of a coal mine to make steel, then it would make sense to open one up. But to open one up so that we can use 10% of it, and then sell the rest abroad, seems like a massive reach.

Which is all fair comment.

However
Re 1) We don't actually make a lot of steel ourselves. UK steel production tends to be small batch, high quality specialist steel. So, whilst we might be exporting most of the coal we are re-importing the steel it makes - we are still responsible for using the steel and the emissions they create.
Re 2) But when are they moving? I think at some point in the future everyone is going to move to low carbon emmission steel production but when?

I'm not advocating opening the mine but we also have to think about our moral obligations for creating the demand for the emissions linked to our use of steel in a way that is more nuanced than "it's made abroad, it's a foreign problem."

I'm not saying that any emissions made abroad aren't our problem - I *am* saying that moving production of everything we use that produces emissions onshore is remarkably silly. Playstations use CO2 in their manufacture, but that doesn't mean we should onshore all PS5 manufacturing.

If we want to measure embodied CO2 and charge for it when we import then *that* would drive reasonable behaviours. But "We buy in materials/products which produce negative externalities in their manufacture" isn't a bad thing automatically, and shifting manufacture doesn't feel like a great answer to me.

Interesting Links for 08-12-2022

Coal Mines

Re: Coal Mines

Re: Coal Mines

Re: Coal Mines

Re: Coal Mines

Re: Coal Mines