News roundup, 21 Oct 2024

- BC's election is too close to call, with the results in several constituencies riding on mail-in and out-of-district ballots that haven't been counted yet. Mail-ins aren't expected to be counted until the 26th; it's a safe bet that if the Conservatives end up losing they'll use the delayed results as "evidence" that the election was rigged. And it's more than a bit disturbing that over 40% of the electorate (probably much higher in rural areas) voted for a far-right extremist party. And in the last week of the campaign, someone cut Nathan Cullen's image out of a lawn sign and suspended it from a makeshift gallows; sadly that seems to be fairly reflective of the way that constituency is going, given that Cullen was defeated on Saturday.

- Winnipeg mayor Scott Gillingham is proposing a new emergency service that would specialize in mental health issues. Given that the police have a rather spotty track record in that area, plus the fact that even the sight of a police uniform can be a problem for some people in crisis, this may be a good idea.

- The impact of climate change on heavily populated areas such as the Middle East and south Asia are hard to overstate. Many places are running out of water as rainfalls decline; some people will die in place but many more will become what might be called "environmentally displaced people". Some use the term "climate refugee", but they don't fit the current international definition of refugee, and the chances of the definition being updated and thus obligating signatories to the refugee convention to accept them are pretty slim. Incidentally, some historians believe that the so-called "Sea Peoples" linked to the Late Bronze Age collapse were environmentally displaced people. Think about that, then maybe read Christopher Priest's novel Fugue for a Darkening Island...

- The US Department of the Interior has approved a 2 gigawatt geothermal energy site in Utah. The operation is expected to generate enough electricity to supply over 2 million homes.

- A survey of employers found that many of them are having a hard time implementing a return-to-office policy. 75% say that they are having problems getting workers to comply with RTO mandates. Interestingly, only about half say that they "definitely" or "probably" will be stricter in their enforcement of such mandates.

- Several Republican AGs in the US are suing the FDA for approving online sales of the abortion drug mifepristone (also known as RU-486). One of the harms they're claiming is rather interesting - there has been a drop in births among kids aged 15 to 19, which has the potential to slow population growth and thus potentially result in states like Missouri "losing a seat in Congress or qualifying for less federal funding". Yeah, they said one of the quiet parts out loud.

- An RCMP officer in Burnaby has finally been forced out after having spent more than half of his career on paid leave for reasons the force seems reluctant to discuss in any detail.

News roundup, 26 June 2024

- One thing that we see a lot of these days are analogies with the world wars of the last century. In particular, with the Russia-Ukraine conflict, some of the more hawkish folks out there are talking a lot about the leadup to WWII, and the popular Coles Notes interpretation of the Munich Conference of 1938. But the popular interpretation of the conference isn't necessarily correct, and as I've said a number of times before, even if it were it is not correct to apply the rules of the pre-nuclear age to the present day. It seems that Gwynne Dyer agrees with me on this matter.

- Some hopeful signs on the climate front - the production of electricity from geothermal energy got a big boost from a utility in California, Southern California Edison. The company is backing the construction of a 400 megawatt plant by Fervo Energy, which will produce enough power for around 400,000 homes. Besides producing power as consistently as coal, natural gas, or nuclear power, geothermal has an additional advantage in that many of the skills useful for drilling oil and gas wells are readily transferable to drilling wells for geothermal plants - making it a bit easier to contain the blind populist rage that results when one talks about cutting fossil fuel production. Also potentially good news - a biotech firm has received a significant investment to build a bioreactor for the production of synthetic meat, giving hope that economies of scale will kick in and eventually undercut conventional meat. Unfortunately these improvements probably come far too late for a lot of people, even in rich countries like the US - but hopefully not too late for a lot of other people.

- A former Liberal MP, Frank Baylis, says he will consider a run for the party leadership if Trudeau steps down. One unnamed MP has expressed the opinion that Baylis may not have the necessary experience, but maybe that's missing the point. While ousting Trudeau probably wouldn't get the party returned to office next year, it's possible that ditching Trudeau now might steal a little bit of the Tories' thunder, since Trudeau's persona is probably one of the Cons' biggest fundraising assets. Then, following a less devastating election than is currently expected, he could graciously step aside and make way for the likes of Mark Carney to take over the party and eventually bring it back to power.

- The City of Winnipeg is working on setting up a residential composting program as found in some other cities. Unfortunately the program isn't expected to be up and running until 2030; the city says that the time is needed to construct an industrial scale facility to process the material; they intend to find a private contractor to build and operate the facility. Apparently, though, other cities, such as Regina, make do with a big concrete pad, which could presumably be constructed a lot sooner than that. To be fair, though, Winnipeg is over 3 times as big as Regina and maybe that wouldn't be feasible with a larger amount of waste, especially if it were constructed at Brady or somewhere else close to residential neighbourhoods who might not appreciate the smell of an open-air facility.

- The woman who ran a crack ring in my neighbourhood and famously branded her crack by dying it pink has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Can "enhanced geothermal" solve our energy problems?

Most Manitobans are familiar with geothermal energy in its mild form, the "heat pumps" used for heating and cooling buildings. What fewer people realize is that if you drill deep enough, it gets hot enough to boil water, which can be used to spin turbines and thus drive generators. The Guardian's Damian Carrington thinks it offers all the benefits of nuclear fission, without the problems:

By mass, 99.9% of the Earth is hotter than 100C. That means that not far below our feet is the power to boil unlimited water and generate clean, renewable energy. Is the UK throwing all it can at this extraordinary opportunity? Of course not, who do you think we are? Germans?

That contrasts strikingly with the more glamorous sister of deep geothermal energy, nuclear power. Both ultimately tap the heat generated by the decay of radioactive elements. Geothermal plants send water down holes to bring to the surface the heat from natural radioactive decay deep in the mantle. Nuclear power mines the radionucleides, concentrates them, sends them critical and then wonders what to do with the leftover mess - not very elegant by comparison.

The coalition government has pledged that nuclear power will receive no taxpayer subsidies. But it can receive financial support by other means which are subsidies in all but name.

So what support is there for deep geothermal projects? Nothing. As Tim Smit - founder of the Eden project where one of just two projects in the UK is sited - put it last night at a Renewable Energy Association event in Westminster: "I'd like the same 'lack of support' the government is giving to nuclear."

Geothermal energy has been tapped in the UK since Roman times, via the hot springs at Bath and elsewhere. Shallow geothermal projects - such as ground source heat pumps - are slowly growing. But even Decc's own and very conservative estimate is that deep geothermal - a few kilometres down - could provide 10% of the UK's electricity.

And how! It runs 24 hours a day, so perfect for baseload. The water circulates in a closed-loop, so it's clean and sustainable. It is virtually zero carbon and the plants have a small surface footprint, so it's pretty NIMBY-proof.

Sounds like a great idea. Carrington isn't the first to suggest this either (I heard Gwynne Dyer advocating it on the radio several years back, for instance). Of course, it's not entirely trouble-free; there is some evidence linking deep geothermal systems to earthquakes in some cases, and I also wonder about localized problems from the release of subterranean gases (such as sulphur dioxide) when you drill several kilometres into the ground. Still, it's worth looking very seriously at this as an alternative to coal and natural gas (and eventually fission).