Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Wednesdays at 11AM (CT) on KPFT-HD2, Houston’s Community Station. You can also hear the show:
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Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories.My co-host and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.
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For the purposes of this show, I operate on two mottoes:
- An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.
- You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
“There’s a reason why you separate military and police. One fights the enemy of the State. The other serves and protects the People. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the State tend t become the People.” ~ Commander Adama, “Battlestar Galactica” (“WATER”, Season 1 episode 2, at the 28 minute mark.)
POSSIBLE TOPICS: VOTETEXAS.GOV – Texas Voter Information; Montgomery County Animal Shelter limiting services starting Aug. 16 due to distemper, COVID-19; The Woodlands Township incorporation study and events leading to Nov. 2 election; Newly released U.S. Census data shows metropolitan areas drove Texas population growth; Firing Of Entire US Post Office Board Proposed By Congressman; GEOPOLITICS SURROUNDING AFGHANISTAN; Earth is warming faster than previously thought, scientists say, and the window is closing to avoid catastrophic outcomes; There’s a simple answer to climate change. But will capitalism allow it?; Long Slide Looms for World Population, With Sweeping Ramifications; Nuclear power’s reliability is dropping as extreme weather increases; Behind the Rise of U.S. Solar Power, a Mountain of Chinese Coal; California Wants Its Imperial Valley to Be ‘Lithium Valley’; The new ‘gold rush’ for green lithium; what is being done and what can be done about the emissions responsible for human-caused global warming (aka, Climate Change), and what might be possible in the future?; More.
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- Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter InformationTEXAS SoS VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION (ALL TEXAS COUNTIES) HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
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- Harris County “Vote-By-Mail’ Application for 2021
- Fort bend County Elections/Voter Registration Machine takes you to the proper link
- GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
- Liberty County Elections (Liberty County, TX)
- Montgomery County (TX) Elections
- Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
- Waller County (TX) Elections
- Chambers County (TX) Elections
- For personalized, nonpartisan voter guides and information, Consider visiting Vote.ORG. Ballotpedia.com and Texas League of Women Voters are also good places to get election info.
- If you are denied your right to vote any place at any time at any polling place for any reason, ask for (or demand) a provisional ballot rather than lose your vote.
- HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting CentersHARRIS COUNTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
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- Fill out a declaration at the polls describing a reasonable impediment to obtaining it, and show a copy or original of one of the following supporting forms of ID:
- A government document that shows your name and an address, including your voter registration certificate
- Current utility bill
- Bank statement
- Government check
- Paycheck
- A certified domestic (from a U.S. state or territory) birth certificate or (b) a document confirming birth admissible in a court of law which establishes your identity (which may include a foreign birth document)
- You may vote early by-mail if:You are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
- Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
- Sick or disabled;
- 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
- Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
- Make sure you are registered:
- Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
- CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
- CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
- Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
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- FYI: There are no elections coming up right now in Harris County, but do make sure your registered to vote! Now is a great time! Just go to VOTETEXAS.GOV – Texas Voter Information for information/instructions.
- Montgomery County Animal Shelter limiting services starting Aug. 16 due to distemper, COVID-19; By Vanessa Holt | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 6:39 PM Aug 16, 2021 CDT | Updated 6:39 PM Aug 16, 2021 CDT
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- The Montgomery County Animal Shelter announced Aug. 16 it is limiting its services for two weeks due to the presence of distemper among some shelter animals. …
- MCAS officials urged residents to have their pets up to date on vaccinations. The shelter is also dealing with cases of COVID-19 among staff members, causing staffing shortages. …
- [MIKE: there’s a lot of additional contact and care information in the article that’s too long to read here. Follow the article link from today’s show on com]
- Regarding distemper, the MCAS said individuals who have adopted a dog from the facility in the past 30 days should watch for symptoms such as thick nasal discharge, coughing, sneezing, crusting eyes, seizures, fever and tremors in the animals. Dog owners noting those symptoms in an animal they adopted should contact the MCAS for treatment or additional information.
- MIKE: If this sounds like déjà vu all over again, it’s because we discussed a similar COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM article from July 6, 2021 entitled, BARC closes public services until July 12 due to upper respiratory issues with animals. So be cautious with your pets (both cats and dogs, although distemper in cats is called panleukopenia (or FPV)), and make sure their shots are up to date. Distemper seems to be going around.
- ANDREW: Now that this is happening at multiple shelters, it may be worth looking to see if BARC and MCAS had exchanged animals before or during their respective outbreaks. It’s also possible humans got it on their clothing or person and transferred it from one shelter to another. Not saying this is definitely what happened, but it’s worth investigating.
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- TIMELINE: A look back at The Woodlands Township incorporation study and events leading to Nov. 2 election; By Vanessa Holt | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 5:55 PM Aug 16, 2021 CDT | Updated 5:55 PM Aug 16, 2021 CDT
- MIKE: The main point of the story is that The Woodlands is not yet a “proper” city, but it has spent many years enacting measures that prevent Houston from incorporating it. The Ballot Measure on the Nov. 2 general elections ballot is to make The Woodlands an actual city. Down the road, if this ballot measure passes, don’t be shocked of The Woodlands tries to annex territory before Houston or other cities do.
- ANDREW: I never realized that The Woodlands wasn’t formally its own city. Do those residents technically live in an unincorporated area?
- Newly released U.S. Census data shows metropolitan areas drove Texas population growth; By Benton Graham, Trent Thompson | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 7:32 PM Aug 12, 2021 CDT | Updated 2:56 PM Aug 15, 2021 CDT
- Of the 14 cities that grew by more than 100,000 people over the past decade, five are in Texas, according to 2020 U.S. Census data. They include Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio. The growth of Texas cities seen in the U.S. Census data released on Aug. 12 represents a continued nationwide trend toward larger concentrations of the population in urban areas. “Metro areas are even more prominent this decade as the locations of population growth, amidst otherwise widespread population decline,” said Marc J. Perry, U.S. Census Bureau senior demographer, during an Aug. 12 news conference. …
- The state also saw tremendous growth in its smaller cities and suburbs. Among the 10 fastest growing cities with more than 50,000 people, four are in Texas, including Frisco, McKinney, Conroe and New Braunfels. Overall, the Texas population grew by 16% from 2010 to 2020, picking up two additional U.S. House districts. The Texas Legislature will need to convene a special session to redraw the state’s boundaries for its now 38 districts. Gap between non-Hispanic white and Hispanic white populations shrinks While the largest racial or ethnic group in Texas remains the non-Hispanic white alone population, the Hispanic population moved within less than 0.4% of the white alone population. The non-Hispanic white alone population accounts for 39.7% of the population compared to 39.3% for the Hispanic group. The U.S. Census Bureau uses the term “white alone” to describe people who solely identify as white and no other races. …
- Population count remains incomplete While the U.S. Census Bureau aims to produce a complete picture of the U.S. population, it has historically undercounted and overcounted certain populations. The bureau’s own analysis found that Black and Hispanic populations, as well as American Indian and Alaska Native populations living on reservations, have historically been undercounted. It also found that the census overcounted the non-Hispanic white population.
- MIKE: Undercounting can be intuitively understood, but I wondered how “overcounting” happens, so I got curious and found this NOTE: [Overcounting] is apparently connected to the double-counting of certain people: children who are reported by both parents who share custody, as well as wealthy folks who have more than one home where census forms are sent. … Older people also are more likely to be overcounted because of their response habits … – from COM
- Data on overcounting and undercounting is not yet available for the 2020 Census. The pandemic also strained data collection, particularly in-person collection, as many Americans practiced social distancing. For example, a July 2020 Pew Research survey found that 40% would not answer the door for a U.S. Census worker. Last November, the bureau also raised new concerns about its collection of data for the race and Hispanic origin questions, finding that more households left the two questions blank. “Preliminary indications are that item nonresponse for questions on date of birth, sex, race and Hispanic origin are higher relative to 2010,” the bureau’s acting Director Ron Jarmin said in a blog post. With Texas’ large immigrant population, concerns also exist about the ability to capture that group due to the Trump administration’s efforts to include a citizenship question. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually blocked that question from being included in June 2019. Data on the foreign-born population has not been released yet.
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ANDREW: The Trump administration also ended the census earlier than census officials recommended, if I recall correctly. No doubt that was an attempt to help tip redistricting in favor of the Republican Party. Here’s hoping that’s not how it shakes out– and that I manage to find myself in a district that would elect a Green. (Wink!)
- MIKE: Much litigation is likely to follow before the census counts are finalized, not to mention district reapportionments.
- TAGS: Texas demographics us census
- Firing Of Entire US Post Office Board Proposed By Congressman [Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ)]; By Carissa House-Dunphy | BIPARTISANREPORT.COM | August 16, 2021
- ALSO THIS: Why Biden Can’t Fire Postmaster General Louis DeJoy; By Aaron Mak and Mark Joseph Stern | SLATE.COM | Feb 08, 20216:07 PM — “… No more than five members of the board may belong to the same political party. Once confirmed to the board, governors can only be removed by the president “for cause”; that means their jobs are safe unless the president can show that they engaged in malfeasance or extreme neglect of duty.”
- GEOPOLITICS SURROUNDING AFGHANISTAN: THIS WAS ITEM 12 ON THE JULY 7TH SHOW: US withdrawal from Afghanistan is more than 90% complete, Pentagon says; By Amanda Macias @amanda_m_macias | CNBC.COM | Published Tue, Jul 6 202112:08 PM EDT, Updated Tue, Jul 6 20213:14 PM EDT
- MIKE (Then): [But]what’s interesting is considering the geopolitical implications for the 6 countries that border Afghanistan: There are Iran and Pakistan. Then there are the former Soviet Republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. Plus, a narrow strip of Afghanistan extends to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. (Country Guide: AFGHANISTAN (washingtonpost.com))
- Afghanistan is also in close proximity to Russia and other countries.
- No matter how these countries feel about the United States, they all undoubtedly had mixed feelings about the US being there. For some, the US was a counter-balance to Russia and China. To others, it was an extension of US Imperialism at or near their doorsteps.
- To China, Russia and others, the US also acted as a check on the Taliban.
- Now, everything is changing. Russia is having to invest assets in aiding its former Soviet states in protecting their borders, although this may also serve Russia’s interest in binding them closer to Russia. Nonetheless, Russia is not a rich country. It will be costly and require diverting Russian assets from their European ambitions.
- China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region shares a small border with Afghanistan. Uygurs are predominantly Muslim, and one of China’s big concerns is a Taliban-style insurgency starting up there. The US presence in Afghanistan served China’s interests in that way.
- While Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan are mostly Muslim countries, they have no desire to be destabilized by a Taliban-inspired insurgency, so they have also indirectly benefited from a US presence in Afghanistan.
- Biden’s stated reason for quickly leaving Afghanistan is to end America’s longest war. The US did not accomplish much of what it hoped in the 20 years it’s been there. But in many complicated ways, it may now geopolitically accomplish more by leaving.
- How much of this may have affected Biden’s decision?
- ANDREW:
- MIKE (Today): The takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban is a terrible tragedy for many Afghans, especially women and girls.
- ANDREW: I’ve seen some analysis saying that the people of Afghanistan now have a real chance to beat the Taliban, as the U.S.’ economic and political gains from the war meant incentive to avoid winning, but the U.S. isn’t around to stand in the way anymore. This is not to say that the situation is good. The emotional suffering this has caused is already very high as people worry about what comes next, and Taliban rule will probably be very violent. No amount of opportunity for political change is worth mass suffering by innocent people. Unfortunately, that suffering is already happening. The best hope now, in my opinion, is the Afghan people forming a socialist guerilla movement, perhaps in a wider ideological alliance, resisting the Taliban and setting up a new government that is fair, effective, and can hold its own with foreign powers.
- As for the U.S., I think we have a serious obligation here. We started this mess by funding the Mujahideen to fight the Communists, and then funding the Taliban when they split off because we thought they might be useful. We have to try to make up for that, starting with helping anyone who wants to leave Afghanistan to do so, and making room in our borders for at least 100,000 of those refugees.
- Earth is warming faster than previously thought, scientists say, and the window is closing to avoid catastrophic outcomes; By Angela Fritz and Rachel Ramirez | CNN | Updated 4:24 AM ET, Mon August 9, 2021
- As the world battles historic droughts, landscape-altering wildfires and deadly floods, a landmark report from global scientists says the window is rapidly closing to cut our reliance on fossil fuels and avoid catastrophic changes that would transform life as we know it.
- The state-of-the-science report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the world has rapidly warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels, and is now careening toward 1.5o C (2.7o F) — a critical threshold that world leaders agreed warming should remain below to avoid worsening impacts.
- Only by making deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, while also removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, can we halt the precipitous trend.
- “Bottom line is that we have zero years left to avoid dangerous climate change, because it’s here,” Michael E. Mann, a lead author of the IPCC’s 2001 report, told CNN. …
- ANDREW: I think it’s worth remembering that a lot of the damage to our planet from climate change can be reversed if humans choose to do so. We can’t revive extinct species, but we can replant and cultivate natural areas, and if the Earth cools down, the ice caps might start freezing again. Missing these deadlines is bad, but it’s no reason to panic or give up. It just means that when we do stop climate change, we’ll have more rehab work to do on our planet. We can save ourselves the trouble later by taking serious action now.
- There’s a simple answer to climate change. But will capitalism allow it? In discussions of climate emergency, degrowth has always been the elephant in the room; acknowledged from time to time, but rarely spoken about. But it may be the only solution. By Bill McGuire | PROSPECTMAGAZINE.CO.UK | May 24, 2021
- MIKE: This article is severely excerpted.
- … Greenhouse gas emissions need to fall by 45 percent within this decade to stave off climate mayhem. So far, we are on track for a measly half a per cent.
- But …[there’s] degrowth: that is, the contraction of the global economy until it reaches a sustainable steady state that fits with a level of greenhouse gas emissions compatible with keeping rising temperatures this side of the 1.5 degrees guardrail. …
- … In advanced economies, degrowth would involve a slowdown in manufacturing, accompanied by a significant switch to green technologies and far greater focus on environmental and ecological protection and repair. …
- Numerous studies have shown that a high quality of life and improved well-being can be sustained at lower levels of energy use and GDP. Nonetheless, getting the global community to transition rapidly from hell-for-leather growth to a sustainable steady state remains a colossal ask. …
- ANDREW: This is the kind of serious action I meant in the last article. We must change this idea that growth and success mean the same thing. Infinite growth is simply not sustainable. Besides, a lot of degrowth ideas don’t sound that bad to me. Making products last longer reduces how many we need and saves us the headache of replacing them. We’ll probably lose some choice, but often the only difference between two products is the name and the logo. And we won’t necessarily lose any technology, we just might not make advancements as quickly. I can stand that if it means not drowning on land.
- Long Slide Looms for World Population, With Sweeping Ramifications; Fewer babies … More abandoned homes. Toward the middle of this century, as deaths start to exceed births, changes will come that are hard to fathom. By Damien Cave, Emma Bubola and Choe Sang-Hun | NYTIMES.COM | May 22, 2021
- … countries are confronting population stagnation and a fertility bust, a dizzying reversal unmatched in recorded history. …
- Maternity wards are already shutting down in Italy. Ghost cities are appearing in northeastern China. Universities in South Korea can’t find enough students, and in Germany, hundreds of thousands of properties have been razed, with the land turned into parks.
- [T]he demographic forces — pushing toward more deaths than births — seem to be expanding and accelerating. Though some countries continue to see their populations grow, especially in Africa, fertility rates are falling nearly everywhere else. Demographers now predict that by the latter half of the century or possibly earlier, the global population will enter a sustained decline for the first time.
- A planet with fewer people could ease pressure on resources, slow the destructive impact of climate … But the census announcements this month from China and the United States, which showed the slowest rates of population growth in decades for both countries, also point to hard-to-fathom adjustments. …
- … From Hungary to China, from Sweden to Japan, governments are struggling to balance the demands of a swelling older cohort with the needs of young people whose most intimate decisions about childbearing are being shaped by factors both positive … and negative …
- … Even in countries long associated with rapid growth, such as India and Mexico, birthrates are falling toward, or are already below, the replacement rate of 2.1 children per family. …
- [A]ccording to projections … published last year in The Lancet, 183 countries and territories — out of 195 — will have fertility rates below replacement level by 2100.
- Their model shows an especially sharp decline for China, with its population expected to fall from 1.41 billion now to about 730 million in 2100. If that happens, the population pyramid would essentially flip. Instead of a base of young workers supporting a narrower band of retirees, China would have as many 85-year-olds as 18-year-olds. …
- Many countries are beginning to accept the need to adapt, not just resist. South Korea is pushing for universities to merge. In Japan, where adult diapers now outsell ones for babies, municipalities have been consolidated as towns age and shrink. In Sweden, some cities have shifted resources from schools to elder care. And almost everywhere, older people are being asked to keep working. Germany, which previously raised its retirement age to 67, is now considering a bump to 69. …
- Demographers warn against seeing population decline as simply a cause for alarm. [but] Smaller populations could lead to higher wages, more equal societies, lower carbon emissions and a higher quality of life for the smaller numbers of children who are born.
- MIKE: Those were also some of the outcomes for the survivors of Europe’s 14th century plagues.
- ANDREW: I think the big takeaway is in that last paragraph. Population decline is not necessarily a bad thing, and isn’t necessarily caused by bad things. Personal choice is a significant factor. Plus, more and more climate analysis is coming to the conclusion that the only way to avert disaster is to reduce how much we produce (hey, that rhymes!). Obviously, overthrowing capitalism is a great way to do that because wasteful overproduction is a core tenet of a so-called “unplanned” economy, but failing that, reducing how many people are on the planet reduces the amount of consumers and should in theory reduce production. Of course, we need to make sure production actually slows and that people are dying of old age and not, you know, preventable diseases or deadly conditions, otherwise the population reduction is going to come disproportionately from the working class (and Black, brown, LGBT, and disabled people) rather than the owning class.
- Nuclear power’s reliability is dropping as extreme weather increases; A comprehensive analysis shows that warmer temperatures aren’t the only threat. E. D. Coan | ARSTECHNICA.COM | 7/24/2021, 8:00 AM
- With extreme weather causing power failures in California and Texas, it’s increasingly clear that the existing power infrastructure isn’t designed for these new conditions. Past research has shown that nuclear power plants are no exception, with rising temperatures creating cooling problems for them. Now, a comprehensive analysis looking at a broader range of climate events shows that it’s not just hot weather that puts these plants at risk—it’s the full range of climate disturbances.
- Heat has been one of the most direct threats, as higher temperatures mean that the natural cooling sources (rivers, oceans, lakes) are becoming less efficient heat sinks. However, this new analysis shows that hurricanes and typhoons have become the leading causes of nuclear outages, at least in North America and South and East Asia. Precautionary shutdowns for storms are routine, and so this finding is perhaps not so surprising. But other factors—like the clogging of cooling intake pipes by unusually abundant jellyfish populations—are a bit less obvious. …
- … The two main categories of climate disruptions broke down into thermal disruptions (e.g., heat, drought, and wildfire) and storms (including hurricanes, typhoons, lightning, and flooding). In the case of heat and drought, the main problem is the lack of cool-enough water—or in the case of drought, enough water at all—to cool the reactor. …
- Although there is relatively little research on the topic of climate effects on nuclear power specifically, some projects are already underway to adapt nuclear plants to the changing climate. For example, the US Department of Energy recently invested in a project researching methods to reduce the amount of water needed by nuclear facilities (e.g., advanced dry cooling). …
- Other nuclear technologies, such as pebble-bed, molten salt, and advanced small modulator reactors, may also provide more climate-resistant solutions, but these are all still under development. In general, the strict regulations in place for nuclear reactors make incorporating newer technologies particularly difficult. … So, at least in the short term, even nuclear power will likely contribute to the increasing frequency of climate-related power shortages.
- Behind the Rise of U.S. Solar Power, a Mountain of Chinese Coal; Reliance on coal-fired electricity to produce solar panels raises concerns in the West. By Matthew Dalton at Dalton@wsj.com | July 31, 2021 8:32 am ET
- Solar panel installations are surging in the U.S. and Europe …
- But the West faces a conundrum …: Most of them are produced with energy from carbon-dioxide-belching, coal-burning plants in China.
- Concerns are mounting in the U.S. and Europe that the solar industry’s reliance on Chinese coal will create a big increase in emissions in the coming years as manufacturers rapidly scale up production of solar panels to meet demand. That would make the solar industry one of the world’s most prolific polluters, analysts say, undermining some of the emissions reductions achieved from widespread adoption.
- … China’s low-cost, coal-fired electricity has given [them]a competitive advantage, allowing them to dominate global markets.
- Chinese factories supply more than three-quarters of the world’s polysilicon, an essential component in most solar panels [but they]consume large amounts of electricity, making access to cheap power a cost advantage. …
- Scientists say, however, that installing Chinese-made panels almost always results in a net reduction in carbon dioxide emissions over time …
- The emissions avoided after the first few years of a solar panel’s 30-year lifespan can offset the emissions required to produce it. …
- Some Western governments and corporations are attempting to shift the solar industry away from coal. Companies that buy renewable energy are laying the groundwork to favor low-carbon solar panels when financing solar projects. The U.S. federal government is drafting a policy to do the same when it buys solar panels…. And the European Union is considering whether to regulate the carbon content of panels sold throughout the 27-nation bloc, EU officials say. …
- China’s …cheaper polysilicon production has harmed U.S. producers, forcing the shutdown of several factories that use power sources with lower carbon emissions than Chinese producers. …
- … [but] China has pushed down the price of panels so sharply that solar power is now less expensive than electricity generated from fossil fuels in many markets around the world. …
- “If China didn’t have access to coal, then solar power wouldn’t be cheap now,” said Robbie Andrew, a senior researcher at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo. …
- ANDREW: This is a problem. Solar power does require precious minerals and power to produce, and that obviously has an ecological impact. Panel recycling is helping to take some of that load off, but I’m not aware of any solar panel company that is using 100% recycled materials and renewable energy in its manufacturing processes. The good news is that undoubtedly there are people looking into these problems. Carbon capture technology is making great strides– I’ve heard there are machines that can take carbon out of the air and compress it into palm-sized objects that can be put on necklaces, for instance. Many of those machines are in China, which by all the research I’ve found isn’t responsible for nearly as much of the world’s emissions as the U.S. and Canada, or even the EU. If those devices could see widespread use, that could make a considerable impact. We do need to address the reliance on precious minerals and metals, though. Recycling is good, but finding or creating renewable alternatives would be better.
- California Wants Its Imperial Valley to Be ‘Lithium Valley’; The region’s Salton Sea contains a massive trove of the metal needed for electric-car batteries. By David R Baker | COM | November 19, 2020, 6:00 AM CST
- … Hot brine trapped beneath the [Salton Sea] desert floor contains potentially one of the world’s biggest deposits of lithium. Demand for the metal is soaring as automakers worldwide shift to electric cars powered by lithium-ion batteries. Most of that lithium now comes from Australia, China, and South America. The U.S. badly wants its own supply. …
- But it’s one thing to extract lithium from the region’s brine as a test and another to do so in bulk, at a reasonable cost. …
- The new ‘gold rush’ for green lithium; By Catherine Earl| BBC.COM/FUTURE | 24th November 2020
- [In 1864 Cornwall, a hot spring is discovered… The result is the discovery of so great a quantity of lithium … that scientists suspect “it may prove of great commercial value”.
- Fast forward to autumn 2020, and … Cornwall has been confirmed as having some of the world’s highest grades of lithium in geothermal waters. … [In the 21st Century, Lithium] is found not only inside smart phones and laptops, but is now vital to the clean energy transition, for the batteries that power electric vehicles and store energy so renewable power can be released steadily and reliably.
- ` … Obtaining lithium by conventional means takes its own environmental toll, or rather three: carbon emissions, water and land. …
- Extracting lithium from geothermal waters – found not just in Cornwall, but Germany and the US as well – has a tiny environmental footprint in comparison, including very low carbon emissions. …
- The extraction of the lithium from … geothermal waters has been made possible by technological advances in both exploration and extraction, says Cornish Lithium’s senior geologist Lucy Crane. …
- [Crane also points out that,] “All the clean technologies that we need to combat climate change – whether that’s wind turbines, solar panels or batteries, they’re all really, really mineral intensive.”
- MIKE: So what is being done and what can be done about the emissions responsible for human-caused global warming (aka, Climate Change), and what might be possible in the future?
- Everything has a cost, whether monetary, environmental, climatic, or otherwise.
- Wind Energy: Large wind farms can create local microclimates and effect downwind weather.
- Photovoltaic Solar panels have a useful life, require maintenance such as cleaning, and are made in such a way that the materials are hard to recycle at the end of their useful lives.
- Geothermal includes uses for both cooling and heating. It also includes using natural hot springs for heat-intensive energy production, and much like frakking, I’m personally not sure that there aren’t potential unintended consequences to using underground magma pools for indirect energy production.
- , “Safe Nuclear” is still in the same class as “clean coal”
- Even Orbiting Solar Power Satellites (“Eventually, everything is only 10 years away”) are not without potential consequences. Energy is beamed down as microwaves, converted to electricity and sent out over the grid. But some environmentalists have concerns about the focused microwave beams, and the beamed-down energy still adds to the Earth’s “heat budget”, which brings us back to greenhouse gas effects that already exist.
- Nothing is “free”, but that isn’t to say that some options aren’t better than others.
- In my opinion, all the renewable, fossil-fuel-free options need to be explored, but some form of CO2 sequestration must be part of any global strategy.
- As an aside, I still think that some form of “Interstate Flood and Water Control Network” for drought and flood management must be part of a solution for mitigating some of the effects of climate change.
- ADDITIONALLY REFERENCED STORY: Farmers reap double benefits with solar power in fields; Author: Gero Rueter | DW.COM | Date: 14.08.2021
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: The batteries that could make fossil fuels obsolete; By Cheryl Katz | BBC.COM/FUTURE | 17th December 2020
Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig 