Month: September 2021

Guest contribution by Eric Worrall

Australia’s youngest climate guru Saul Griffith believes we can meet our climate goals if we install solar panels on most roofs and electric cars in all driveways.

One solution to climate change could come from electrifying everything, says Australian inventor Saul Griffith

ABC Science / By technology reporter James Purtill

Important points:

According to experts, “electrifying everything” is the cheapest and fastest way to reduce emissions

Households would replace gasoline cars, gas heaters, and other items with electrical alternatives

These changes would only be minimally disruptive, but would result in large emissions reductions

In his speech from San Francisco, Sydney-born inventor Saul Griffith explains how Australia can quickly achieve most of its net zero emissions with existing technology.

Dr. Griffith is also an entrepreneur and US presidential campaign advisor and one of the most prominent global proponents of what can best be summed up as “electrifying everything”.

“If I had to choose the country where electrifying everything in the shortest amount of time is the best economic gain … it’s Australia,” he said.

…

What would that cost the households?

Dr. Griffith estimates the acquisitions would cost about $ 100,000 per household.

Multiply that by 10 million Australian households, and you get $ 1 trillion.

But much of that is money that households would have spent anyway replacing cars, heaters, etc., emphasizes Dr. Griffith.

The only difference is that you buy an electric version.

…

The government could offer a system of cheaper credit to help electrify households, he suggested.

…

Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-09-07/climate-change-solution-electrify-everything-saul-griffiths/100428158

I doubt Saul’s estimate covers the cost of industrial electrification and probably doesn’t even cover the cost of household electrification in full. But run less with his numbers for a moment.

The biggest problem I notice is the spending that Saul is suggesting, not an isolated one. If everyone continues to replace their devices every 10 years, we’re talking about an additional $ 1 trillion or $ 100,000 per household that needs to be co-funded through additional government loans every 10 years.

Since none of these government-funded electrical appliances have a positive impact on productivity, the result of everyone spending more on essentials would result in everyone getting poorer. The net effect is that ordinary people would have to divert significantly more income to service the ongoing national debt burden that Saul has “blacked out” in their lives.

Spending less money on retirement or enjoying the fruits of hard work. More dependency on the state when you get into trouble and have trouble paying back your “cheap loan”.

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So much of the astronomy community revolves around the decadal poll. Teams of dozens of scientists have spent hundreds of hours developing proposals that will eventually seek to influence the polls’ recommendations, which will affect billions of dollars in research funding over the next decade. And now is the best time to submit these proposals. One of the most ambitious is sponsored by a team led by researchers from the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) at John Hopkins University. Your suggestion – it’s time to land on Mercury.

This isn’t the first time the idea has aired, but new technology is making this incarnation feasible for the next decade. The current proposal was first forwarded to NASA by APL scientists, which funded a mission concept study that produced an in-depth 82-page review of a mission draft available from NASA.

Detailed discussion of the mission concept by Dr. serious
Credit – The Lunar and Planetary Institute YouTube Channel

There are five main mission objectives:

1. Land safely and collect data on Mercury’s surface
2. Learn more about the mineralogy and chemistry of Mercury
3. Study the magnetic field and internal structure of the planet
4. Understand the processes affecting Mercury’s regolith and exosphere
5. View the surface up close to determine the ground truth to calibrate the object size for orbital measurements

Every lander faces a daunting challenge when landing. Currently, the best images we have of the innermost planet were captured by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, which orbited Mercury from 2011 to 2015. However, these images only cover minimal portions of the surface and their resolution is not ideal for choosing a particular landing site. Each pixel in the high-resolution images that MESSENGER returned covered, at best, 2–3 m of the planet’s surface.

Graphic of the lander included in the report showing potential scientific payloads, engineering requirements, and orbital mechanics.
Credit – Ernst et al.

This resolution is not good enough if a 3 meter boulder could completely overturn the lander on its descent. BepiColombo, an ESA / JAXA mission currently en route to Mercury, should be able to capture some higher resolution images that could aid in landing. However, the process will most likely still rely on an autonomous landing protocol.

Assuming the lander lands, it has to get to work quickly. The mission should only last during Mercury’s night, which is 88 Earth days long. Trying to construct a lander to withstand the full force of the sun during Mercury day would require too many of the instruments the lander hopes to carry. In its current iteration, the mission would plan to touch down on the planet during dusk and then operate continuously for about three months before the mission ends at dawn.

Mission objective timeline with the 88 day time limit on earth.
Credit – Ernst et al.

However, a lot of scientific work can be done during these months. During twilight, the lander will take some panoramic shots of its surroundings to provide context for the smallest rocky planet for the first time. It will also be equipped with lights that will allow it to illuminate its immediate surroundings even in the pitch black night of Mercury.

This light and all instruments on board are fed by a radioisotope thermogenerator, a common power supply for space lander and rovers. Its adoption reveals another important aspect of the lander’s mission design – it will use technologies that have already been developed.

UT video discussing some of Mercury’s interesting features.

The techniques required to achieve the mission’s scientific objectives are similar to those already used on other planets. Many of the technologies, such as magnetometers and spectrometers, can be reused from designs used on other missions. This would reduce the overall cost of the mission, which would not have to do the development work for its scientific instruments from scratch.

That scientific instrumentation would still be pretty impressive. The proposed suite of instruments includes several spectrometers, cameras, and magnetic sensors, all of which should work on Mercury Night. However, the mission designers emphasize that the exact payload is still flexible, in the expectation that other technologies will be adapted as needed in future mission planning.

Go over, Pluto … Disney already has Mercury, as shown in this MESSENGER photo.
Photo credit: NASA / JHAPL / Carnegie Institution of Washington

Dr. Carolyn Ernst, PI of the Mission Concept, is excited to see what these proven instruments will discover. “Mercury is the only rocky planet we haven’t landed on – we’ve never seen the surface up close. We need land measurements to better understand Mercury and put our own earth in context, ”she says.

But comparing Mercury to Earth isn’t the only reason to go there. Dr. Nancy Chabot, the Deputy PI of the Mission Concept, points out that the data collected so far about Mercury are limited and difficult to interpret. To put it in their words, “It’s exciting to fill this black box,” where the “black box” refers to an illustration in the report that shows an image of the surface of each of the rocky worlds in the inner solar system, but Mercury is only referred to as Black box, because such a view does not yet exist.

Mercury is literally a black box as we don’t yet know what its surface looks like.
Credit – Ernst et al.

Drs. Ernst and Chabot and their colleagues have been puzzling over the mysteries of Mercury for years, as they were significantly involved in the planning and analysis of the data from the MESSENGER mission. But they see this successful mission only as a first step in truly understanding this unique planet.

There is still much work to be done before any country will contribute to this understanding. The final report of the Decadal survey, which may suggest prioritizing the mission, will be available in a little less than a year. The APL team is busy working out mission plans and ideas to make the idea of ​​a Mercury lander as attractive as possible. Still, the Mercury researchers will hopefully have more to cheer when BepiColombo is about to arrive on the innermost planet in 2025. The success of this mission could spark more interest in Mercury itself – possibly in a data-rich land, and finally, some images of the surface to fill Mercury’s blank space in our solar system’s scrapbook.

Learn more:
APL – Merkurlander
Space.com – What does it take to land on Mercury? It’s time to find out, say scientists
NASA – Mercury Lander Mission Concept Study
UT – missions to Mercury

Mission statement:
Artistic concept of a lander on Mercury.
Credit-JHU-APL

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Guest contribution by Eric Worrall

h / t Dr. Willie Soon; While Australian coal supplies are rising, likely due to the failure of the US-China climate talks, the UN has issued a new warning that coal is doomed.

Senior UN official urges Australia to urgently dispose of coal

from Nick O’Malley
September 6, 2021 – 12 noon

The United Nations’ chief climate officer has urged Australia to have a “more honest and rational conversation” about the pressing abandonment of coal, which it believes is in the best interests of the nation and the world.

Selwin Hart, UN deputy secretary-general and special adviser to the secretary-general on climate change, said wealthy nations must stop using coal power by 2030 and the rest of the world must dispose of it by 2040 if the world has global warming to within the agreed target of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“Market forces alone show the days of coal are numbered as many investors increasingly ditch it in favor of renewable energies, which are now cheaper in most places,” Hart said during a speech recorded for a leadership forum at the Australian National University .

“We fully understand the role coal and other fossil fuels have played in the Australian economy, even if mining accounts for a small fraction – about 2 percent – of total jobs.

“But it’s important to have a broader, more honest, and more rational conversation about what’s in Australia’s best interests because the end result is clear.

“If the world doesn’t get out of coal quickly, climate change will devastate the entire Australian economy: from agriculture to tourism to the entire service sector,” he said.

…

Read more: https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/top-un-official-calls-for-australia-to-urgently-dump-coal-20210905-p58ozi.html

Note that while an annual return of 238% is impressive, I am not providing investment advice. Coal stock prices are extremely volatile, and any headwinds, such as an unexpected economic slowdown, a sudden outbreak of war, or the election of a president who turns out to be a total idiot, can have a dramatically negative impact on prices, at least in the short term.

Australia’s federal resource minister has labeled UN comments as unwanted foreign interference in Australian affairs.

…

Australia’s Resource Secretary Keith Pitt shot back by assuring that coal would make a significant contribution to the Australian economy well beyond 2030.

“The future of this important industry is being decided by the Australian government, not some foreign body trying to shut it down, which is costing our economy thousands of jobs and billions of export dollars,” Pitt said, according to the Australian Associated Press.

He cited three months through July in which coal exports rose to $ 12.5 billion – up 26 percent from the previous quarter – as evidence of the importance of the commodity to the Australian economy and related jobs is what the AAP report called.

“Coal will continue to generate billions of dollars in royalties and taxes for state and state governments, and directly employ over 50,000 Australians,” added Pitt, directly challenging climate activists who join the UN and urge Australia to end the practice.

…

Read more: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/09/06/australia-rejects-un-demand-to-end-coal-mining-will-ignore-foreign-body/

I think we can safely say that the United Nations proposal that “market forces alone show the days of coal are numbered” is not backed by the evidence and is likely to be ambitious rather than fact-based.

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