James O’Donoghue, a planetary scientist at JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), made this excellent clip comparing the rotations, tilts, and sidereal day lengths of the eight planets and two of the dwarf planets in our solar system.
There are many more dwarf planet candidates, but they aren’t mapped so aren’t included,” O’Donoghue writes. “More space missions would be a good idea.”
Agree!
Below, another one of O’Donoghue’s fantastic videos:
In the last month alone, major players within the fossil fuel industry – “big oil” – have made some big announcements regarding climate change. BP revealed plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by acquiring additional renewable energy companies. Royal Dutch Shell defended its US$1-US$2 billion green energy annual budget. Even ExxonMobil, until recently relatively dismissive of the basic science behind climate change, included a section dedicated to reducing emissions in its yearly outlook for energy report.
But this idea of a “green” oil company producing “clean” fossil fuels is one that I would call a dangerous myth. Such myths obscure the irreconcilability between burning fossil fuels and environmental protection – yet they continue to be perpetuated to the detriment of our planet.
Myth 1: Climate change can be solved with the same thinking that created it
Measures put in place now to address climate change must be sustainable in the long run. A hasty, sticking plaster approach based on quick fixes and repurposed ideas will not suffice. Yet this is precisely what some fossil fuel companies intend to do. To address climate change, major oil and gas companies are mostly doing what they have historically excelled at – more technology, more efficiency, and producing more fossil fuels.
But like the irresponsible gambler that cannot stop doubling down during a losing streak, the industry’s bet on more, more, more only means more ecological destruction. Irrespective of how efficient fossil fuel production becomes, that the industry’s core product can be 100% environmentally sustainable is an illusion.
A potential glimmer of hope is carbon capture and storage (CCS), a process that sucks carbon out of the air and sends it back underground. But despite being praised by big oil as a silver bullet solution for climate change, CCS is yet another sticking plaster approach. Even CCS advocates suggest that it cannot currently be employed on a global, mass scale.
Myth 2: Climate change won’t spell the end of the fossil fuel industry
According to a recent report, climate change is one factor among several that has resulted in the end of big oil’s golden years – a time when oil was plenty, money quick, and the men at the top celebrated as cowboy capitalists.
Now, to ensure we do not surpass the dangerous 2°C threshold, we must realise that there is simply no place for “producers” of fossil fuels. After all, as scientists, financial experts, and activists have warned, if we want to avoid dangerous climate change, the proven reserves of the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies cannot be consumed.
Myth 3: Renewables investment means oil companies are seriously tackling climate change
Compared to overall capital expenditures, oil companies renewables’ investment is a miniscule drop in the barrel. Even then, as companies such as BP have demonstrated before, they will divest from renewables as soon as market conditions change.
Big oil companies’ green investments only produce tiny reductions in their overall greenhouse gas emissions. BP calls these effects “real sustainable reductions” – but they accounted for only 0.3% of their total emissions reductions in 2016, 0.1% in 2015, 0.1% in 2014, and so on.
Myth 4: Hard climate regulation is not an option
One of the oil industry’s biggest fears regarding climate change is regulation. It is of such importance that BP recently hinted at big oil’s exodus from the EU if climate regulation took effect. Let’s be clear, we are talking about “command-and-control” regulation here, such as pollution limits, and not business-friendly tools such as carbon pricing or market-based quota systems.
There are many commercial reasons why the fossil fuel industry would prefer the latter over the former. Notably, regulation may result in a direct impact on the bottom line of fossil fuel companies given incurred costs. But climate regulation is – in combination with market-based mechanisms – required to address climate change. This is a widely accepted proposition advocated by mainstream economists, NGOs and most governments.
Myth 5: Without cheap fossil fuels, the developing world will stop
Total’s ex-CEO, the late Christoph de Margerie, once remarked: “Without access to energy, there is no development.” Although this is probably true, that this energy must come from fossil fuels is not. Consider, for example, how for 300 days last year Costa Rica relied entirely on renewable energy for its electricity needs. Even China, the world’s biggest polluter, is simultaneously the biggest investor in domestic renewables projects.
As the World Bank has highlighted, in contrast to big oil’s claims about producing more fossil fuels to end poverty, the sad truth is that by burning even the current fossil fuel stockpile, climate change will place millions of people back into poverty. The UN concurs, signalling that climate change will result in reduced crop yields, more waterborne diseases, higher food prices and greater civil unrest in developing parts of the world.
Myth 6: Big oil must be involved in climate policy-making
Fossil fuel companies insist that their involvement in climate policy-making is necessary, so much so that they have become part of the wallpaper at international environmental conferences. This neglects that fossil fuels are, in fact, a pretty large part of the problem. Big oil attends international environmental conferences for two reasons: lobbying and self-promotion.
Some UN organisations already recognise the risk of corporations hijacking the policy-making process. The World Health Organisation, for instance, forbids the tobacco industry from attending its conferences. The UN’s climate change arm, the UNFCCC, should take note.
Myth 7: Nature can and must be “tamed” to address climate change
If you mess with mother nature, she bites back. As scientists reiterate, natural systems are complex, unpredictable, and even hostile when disrupted. Climate change is a prime example. Small changes in the chemical makeup of the atmosphere may have drastic implications for Earth’s inhabitants.
Fossil fuel companies reject that natural systems are fragile – as evidenced by their expansive operations in ecologically vulnerable areas such as the Arctic. The “wild” aspect of nature is considered something to be controlled and dominated. This myth merely serves as a way to boost egos. As independent scientist James Lovelock wrote, “The idea that humans are yet intelligent enough to serve as stewards of the Earth is among the most hubristic ever.”
China is fast becoming a leader of the solar energy revolution.
The government invests more each year in wind, hydro and solar power than any other country, and now they have built the largest floating solar farm on earth.
And as the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, it has launched the largest ever plan to replace carbon with renewable energy.
Al Jazeera’s Rob Mcbride has more from Anhui province, China.
“She states that the model can predict their influence with an accuracy of 97 percent, and says it is showing that Earth is heading for a “mini ice age” in approximately fifteen years.”
Dr Stuart Bramhall, stuartjeannebramhall.com, wrote this comment on a different post and it is pertinent to this one:
“I have recently become interested in the movement of cosmologists studied The Grand Solar Minimum, which supposedly occurs every 400 years (lasting 70 years) which caused a Little Ice Age in Europe in the 1600s, which resulted in massive famine,pestilence and death. Apparently failure to take account of this impending Grand Solar Minimum has screwed up all the modeling of the climate scientists – which is why warming is taking place more slowly than they predicted.
I suspect the UN IPCC has some particular agenda for not publicizing more widely the impact the GSM may or may not have – there is some internal debate occurring on this front among climate scientists. Unfortunately the paucity of publicity in this area tends to fuel the climate denial movement.”
This has nothing to do with human impact on climate change, but instead the activity of the sun and how solar cycles impact our climate as well. It’s based on a mathematical model that shows the sun might “quiet” down in the coming years thus impacting our climate as well. This is not a climate change denial article, please read it before commenting.
A few months ago, NASA published a study showing that Antarctica is actually gaining more ice than it is losing. They made the announcement after using satellites to examine the heights of the region’s ice sheet. The findings contradict the prevailing theory that Antarctica has actually been shrinking, however. The paper is titled “Mass gains of the Antarctic ice sheet exceed losses” and was published in the Journal of Glaciology.
The authors of this study are from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and the cause of this ice gain isn’t entirely known, but a number of theories are mentioned in the paper. It is worth mentioning, however that NASA was blasted by dozens of their own scientists regarding their global warming stance, even though a number of the world’s top scientists have questioned just how much an impact greenhouse gases have on climate change. You can read more about that here. (source)
Perhaps there are other factors contributing to climate change?
Just a few years ago, Antarctic ice extent had reached an all-time high. (source)(source)
There are many theories as to why this is so, and one of them includes the effects of supposed global warming, but not everyone agrees. That’s a completely separate topic, however, and you can learn more about it in the articles linked at the end of this article.
When it comes to climate change, a lot of emphasis is put on human activity, and rightfully so, as our ways here need to change. Perhaps in our fervour to discover our own culpability in this shift, however, we missed a few things along the way? What about the natural cycles of climate change Earth experiences, and has experienced? It’s a scientific fact that fluctuations in the solar cycle impact earth’s global temperature, as do other massive bodies flying in and around our solar system.
The most recent research to examine this topic comes from the National Astronomy Meeting in Wales, where Valentina Zharkova, a mathematics professor from Northumbria University (UK), presented a model that can predict what solar cycles will look like far more accurately than was previously possible. She states that the model can predict their influence with an accuracy of 97 percent, and says it is showing that Earth is heading for a “mini ice age” in approximately fifteen years.
According to the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS):
A new model of the Sun’s solar cycle is producing unprecedentedly accurate predictions of irregularities within the Sun’s 11-year heartbeat. The model draws on dynamo effects in two layers of the Sun, one close to the surface and one deep within its convection zone. Predictions from the model suggest that solar activity will fall by 60 per cent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the ‘mini ice age’ that began in 1645. (source)
On Sunday July 23rd, a spectacular CME emerged from the farside of the sun. Coronagraphs onboard the orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) tracked the fast-moving cloud as it billowed into space:
NASA’s STEREO-A spacecraft, which has a partial view of the sun’s farside, identified the source of the blast as active sunspot AR2665, familiar to readers of Spaceweather.com who watched the behemoth cross the Earthside of the sun earlier this month. STEREO-A observed an intense flash of extreme UV radiation from the sunspot’s magnetic canopy:
The intensity of the flash suggests (but does not prove) that the underlying flare might have been the most intense kind: X-class.
If this explosion had occurred 2 weeks ago when the huge sunspot was facing Earth, we would be predicting strong geomagnetic storms in the days ahead. Instead, the CME is racing away from our planet … and directly toward Mars. Compared to Earth, the Red Planet is currently on the opposite side of the sun, and apparently in the crosshairs of this CME. Mars rovers Curiosity and Opportunity might be observing the effects of a solar storm later this week.
Coincidentally, yesterday’s farside explosion occurred on the 5th anniversary of another significant farside event: The Solar Superstorm of July 23, 2012. That superstorm, which has been compared to the historic Carrington Event of 1859, could have caused widespread power blackouts if it had not missed our planet.
Sunspot AR2665 will be back on the Earthside of the sun a little more than a week from now. If the sunspot remains active, it could bring a new round of geomagnetic storms and auroras to our planet in early August.
The Netherlands is furious and has lodged a complaint with the Israeli government after dozens of Dutch solar panels donated to a West Bank village were “confiscated” by Israeli authorities.
The solar panels were installed last year in remote Jubbet al-Dhib, a village home to 150 people in an area of the West Bank occupied by Israel., reported The Independent.
Israel used the same excuse they use when they destroy Palestinian houses and farms, even ones that have been there hundreds of years, they claimed the panels were not built with proper permits and permissions as they stole equipment belonging to the £307,000 humanitarian project last week.
Because Israel (formerly Palestine) is governed by extremely racist and prejudice people/policies, it is nearly impossible for Palestinians to get permits for anything. They are simply the wrong race and/or religion.
The village mayor told Ma’an News the panels were destroyed, but Comet-ME, the aid organisation which installed the panels, said that between 60 and 90 were taken away intact and other equipment at the site destroyed and left behind by Israeli forces.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry asked for the stolen equipment to be returned to Jubbet al-Dhib and is considering what “next steps can be taken”, reported Haaretz.
The issue is causing outrage in the Dutch government and in the Palestinian territories.
Cogat, the Israeli military agency responsible for coordinating Israeli policy in Palestinian areas, said that several work-stop orders were issued before the day of the raid. Villagers maintain that they did not know the site had been targeted until Israel Defence Force (IDF) soldiers showed up, according to The Independent.
It is important to realize that Jubbet al-Dhib is very close to Israeli outpost villages, illegal settlements under both Israeli and international law, but they still have a full connection to the main power grid.
Cogat said in a statement that the village had “other electricity sources” other than the “illegal electricity room”. Haaretz reported the “other electricity sources” as a couple of “old and noisy” diesel generators they used to use for three hours of power a day.
More than 300 Palestinian structures in the occupied West Bank were demolished by the Israeli authorities in 2016 and were at least in part funded by the EU or international NGOs, an Israeli military official said earlier this year according to The Independent.
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has released a new report revealing a quick expansion of solar jobs both in the US and internationally.
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has released a new report revealing a quick expansion of solar jobs both in the US and internationally.
The report details an employment increase in the solar industry by 24.5 percent from 2015 to current, documenting an astounding growth rate 17 times faster than the general US economy. This debunks recent claims by Trump that the solar and renewables industry is a threat to America.
Over 241,000 jobs were in the area of solar photovoltaiscs. A further 13,000 were in solar heating and cooling areas, and the remaining employment was in concentrated solar power. (CSP)
Over 50 percent of the jobs within the United States specifically were in installation, notes the report. A further 12 percent were in distribution and sales, 13 percent in project development and 15 percent in manufacturing. There was also a noted 6 percent in other areas which included research and development.
In 2013, the solar labour force sat at around 19 percent in the United States. In 2016 it had moved to 28 percent, which also takes into consideration the more diverse jobs now available as the industry grows. The increase in solar jobs in sales and distribution has risen a massive 33.8 percent since 2013.
It is difficult to dispute the figures. More jobs are now available in the solar energy industry compared to fossil fuels and conventional industries. It is important to note that woman still remain underrepresented in the employment sector in solar jobs in the United States.
The report notes a decline in the more traditional jobs, particularly in the ethanol related areas despite rising productivity in labour. Overall, in the United States economy in 2016, only 7,000 biogas jobs were reported.
The report essentially documents the trend towards fossil fuels jobs slowly disappearing as they become the more expensive options for both production and the consumer.
Renewable energy is literally paving the way for more sustainable jobs in the future both in the United States and internationally. As the technology is further developed and required more by developing nations, the production of solar/renewable options will become cheaper.
More jobs will become available for the blue-collar worker, and the compensation will likely increase compared to those remaining in the fossil fuels industry. The IRENA report projects a massive increase in employment opportunities with a further predicted 147,000 jobs appearing in the wind industry alone by 2020. Currently, the wind industry employs around 102,000 jobs and is set to double in the next three years.
Observers in the scientific and corporate communities alike say Trump’s actions to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement will not only hurt domestic policy, causing further unemployment, but will risk isolating America from the latest booming industry. Nations worldwide, including China and India, are turning more towards solar for its cheap production costs and sustainability, as well as the healthier implications: less air pollution, less medical expenses and a happier citizen.
Taking a cue from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, Germany shut down nine of its nuclear reactors. Combined, these nuclear reactors had the capacity of generating enough power for at least 20 million homes in Europe.
But due to the extreme dangers associated with nuclear power, Germany doesn’t want to gamble with the nation’s health. It is better to invest in ventures that are sustainable. The country has an ambitious target in renewable energy.
Sweden hopes to run entirely on renewable energy by 2040. Germany has set this target by 2050, 10 years behind Sweden. Since the target was set, the German government has invested heavily in renewables. The government has also set up what is known as Energiewende, an initiative to transition away from fossil fuels and nuclear power to a low carbon, environmentally sound, reliable and affordable energy supply by 2050.
Although Germany has over 30 years to the deadline it is set to fully transition to renewables; current development appears to suggest the country might reach an earlier target by decades than the original set 2050.
On Sunday, April 30, renewable energy from wind, solar, biomass and hydro power provided a record 85 per cent of Germany’s total energy. According to the country’s energy officials, this was a new record set by the country in its energy sector.
Germany’s public broadcaster, Deutsche Welle reports that energy from coal has fallen to a record all-time low in the nation. The outlet added that coal-fired power stations were only operational between three and four on the afternoon of April 30. The plants generated only eight gigawatts of energy, well below their maximum output of around 50 gigawatts.
Patrick Graichen of Agora Energiewende confirmed the good news to the Australian news outlet RenewEconomy. He said: “Most of Germany’s coal-fired power stations were not even operating on Sunday [April 30]. Nuclear power sources, which are planned to be completely phased out by 2022, were also severely reduced.”
Mr Graichen further added that due to the massive investment in renewables by the German government, he is sure that the country will shut down all of its coal and nuclear plants by 2030.
What happened on April 30 made electricity prices in Germany fall into negative figures. The renewable sources fed so much power into the national grid that supply far exceeded demand. The surplus was then sent to neighboring countries.
This isn’t the first time energy supply has exceeded demand in Germany. In 2015, similar things happened. According to energy experts, Germany needs to start investing in a technology that can store energy for future use, due to how the country is over producing the commodity.
The current overproduction in Germany is being spilled into its neighboring countries such as Poland, Austria and the Czech Republic. Experts have warned these countries that depend on surplus energy from Germany need to speed up the process of generating their own energy as a disruption in power supply in Germany would badly affect them.
Already, grid companies in Germany have started to invest in energy storage infrastructure; they have planned to invest some $24 billion to upgrade networks and modify existing high voltage power lines.
The German auto giant company, Audi — which became the first to use power to gas technology, converting excess electricity into gaseous energy, producing a zero carbon hydrogen gas and converting it into renewable methane, which can be used as an energy source in the future — is said to be making a concerted effort to help store energy in the country. Audi has already built a 6 MW power-to-gas facility in its home, Ingolstadt.
Apart from these ongoing developments in Germany, the country is also planning to do away with fossils in its transportation sector. Last year, the country announced that it will soon start operating hydrogen-powered trains in an effort to affirm its noble objective of boosting clean and renewable energy.
The train, known as Coradia iLint, will be the first train in the world to be powered with hydrogen. Currently, Germany runs around 4,000 trains. All are powered with diesel, polluting the atmosphere as they move along. Coradia iLint is developed by the French rail transport company, Alstom.
According to Alstom engineers, the hydrogen that fuels the train is held in huge battery cells on top of the train. As the hydrogen is mixed and burned with oxygen, it produces remarkable amounts of heat, which in turn, cranks the turbines of the engine of the train for extreme amounts of electricity. The only byproduct from this reaction is water vapor or steam, meaning the train doesn’t pollute the environment.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Elon Musk convened in his Gigafactory to talk lithium ion batteries, climate change, and the future of alternative energy sources. Taking steps towards a future independent of fossil fuels is more important now than ever.
THE GIGAFACTORY
The Tesla Gigafactory produces lithium ion batteries, supporting the Tesla vehicles and providing low-cost batteries using alternative energy sources. And, in a recent video, CEO and founder Elon Musk was actually quoted as saying:
“We actually did the calculations to figure out what it would take to transition the whole world to sustainable energy. You’d need 100 Gigafactories.”
Leonardo DiCaprio met with Musk at the Gigafactory this past year to discuss renewable resources and the future of energy as it relates to climate change. Leo is no stranger to discussions about alternative energy and climate change. In fact, he recently used his first Oscar acceptance speech as an opportunity to discuss the grave realities of our changing climate and warming planet.
One main goal of the Gigafactory is to reach and maintain net zero energy. A leader in advancement and innovation, they claim that “By 2018, the Gigafactory will reach full capacity and produce more lithium ion batteries annually than were produced worldwide in 2013.” The Gigafactory also aims to continue to drive down the price of these batteries, financially incentivizing the use of alternative energy sources.
As Leo enters the factory, he is struck by the sleek efficiency, exclaiming, “Holy crap, that’s a good robot.” He and Musk continue on, with Musk emphasizing that “the sooner we can take action, the less harm will result,” in regards to man-made climate change.
BATTERY LIFE
As put simply by Musk in the video, “the sun doesn’t shine all the time, so you’ve got to store it in a battery.” And, if we are able to shift more completely towards alternative and renewable energy sources, Musk claims that “you could avoid building electricity plants at all.”
When some people think about alternative energy, they think of outdated, bulky solar panels that lack efficiency and are a massive financial drain. However, alternative energy technology is far beyond that. As the realities of climate change set in, it is becoming more and more obvious that we cannot wait. We cannot go another ten years using fossil fuels at the rate that we currently do and not experience the effects.
Solar cells are more efficient than ever. In fact, inspired by photosynthesis, researchers recently combined the principles of quantum physics and biology to drastically improve current solar capabilities. Solar cells are no longer even necessary to capture solar energy, as scientists have created a synthetic leaf that does just that while converting carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide.
There is no question: alternative energy is the future. We will not progress without it, and, as recent advancements have shown, it is becoming a more possible and powerful option with each passing day. If Musk is right, and these low-cost, green batteries could help to support a future where alternative energy is the majority, then his Gigafactory could be one of many steps in the right direction.
Imagine a world where nations would spend their military budget on such technologies instead of the continuous futile evil wars humanity has to suffer. We have to get rid of the elites that are controlling us. They have been sucking our blood since the beginning of history. Do you know why? Because the psychopathic creature always rises to the top if not stopped.
Elon Musk made quite the announcement in November 2016. During the special shareholders meeting to approve the merger with SolarCity, which they approved by 85%, he said that he was coming back from a meeting with the SolarCity engineering team about the solar roof and that he now feels confident that they could deliver the product at a lower cost than a regular roof – even before energy production.
That’s different from what the company was claiming before the meeting was held.
And it’s an incredibly bold claim since if it turns out to be true, no homeowner would have any reason not to choose a solar roof when buying a new roof.
Since unveiling the new products in November 2016, Musk and Tesla officials have been referring to the solar roof’s price as “less than the price of a regular roof when accounting for energy generation” – meaning that it will cost less than a regular roof when you account for your savings on your electricity bills.
It made sense. Solar energy is already competitive in several markets and while the price of the solar roof could be more expensive than a regular roof as an upfront investment, those electricity savings would quickly add up and made the product competitive with normal roofing solutions.
But now claiming that it would cost even less than a regular roof upfront is a completely different game.
Musk said during the meeting earlier this afternoon:
“It’s looking quite promising that a solar roof actually cost less than normal roof before you even take the value of electricity into account. So the basic proposition would be ‘Would you like a roof that looks better than a normal roof, last twice as long, cost less and by the way generates electricity’ why would you get anything else.”
That’s including the labor costs and without subsidies for solar, Musk added.
The CEO claimed that it is achievable because the current roofing supply chain is “incredibly inefficient” – emphasizing that no one looked at the roofing supply chain for a while. He also echoed some comments made recently by Tesla CTO JB Straubel about the cost of products being linked to their weight when produced in volume.
He said that the glass developed by Tesla for the solar roof tiles weigh “a third, a quarter and sometimes even a fifth” of other current concrete and ceramic roof solutions. Musk calculated that because of the weight and fragility of the current products, logistic costs and breakage are important parts of the total cost.
Musk added that there are “huge gains” to be made by “cleaning up” that supply chain. While it remains to be proven, it has the potential to significantly accelerate the deployment of solar capacity by opening the market to homes that need to have a new roof, which is 5 million homes every year in the US alone.
The end price to the customer will obviously vary depending on the price of the house and the difficulty of the installation.
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While the world has been going crazy, solar has quietly tipped over the edge and kicked oil and gas off the cliff of history.
A new scientific review finds that scientists are dramatically underestimating the efficiency and power of solar panels, because their data is at least seven years old.
And that’s why most of them have managed to overlook a startling fact: For every unit of energy invested, solar can now generate the same if not more energy than oil and gas.
It will take a while for the implications to really impact our societies — there are regressive political and fossil fuel-centric forces standing in the way. But the new evidence is unavoidable: they are doomed.
The study published in November in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews looks at 29 studies which compare the energy generated by solar photovoltaics (PV) to the energy needed to create and install the panels.
By harmonizing all the data, the peer-reviewed study was able to calculate a more accurate figure for the amount of energy solar PVs are able to generate today.
The findings are astonishing: due to the lag in data used by scientists to analyze these issues, most studies fail to capture how far solar power has actually come. Solar is likely double in power what was previously thought, putting it on par with oil.
Solar: twice the power in half the time
“Energy input costs are typically overestimated as recent technological improvements are not captured,” the study concludes, recommending that future studies should “use recent data reflecting up-to-date technological standards.”
Study author Rembrandt Koppelaar, a doctoral researcher at the Center for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, said that his “best estimate” of how well solar technology works today derived from the studies that use data from 2009 onwards.
This data shows that solar is able to generate 14 times the energy invested to create the panels — “roughly double” what most studies are currently saying.
His other finding is that it only takes 2 years for the same quantity of energy used to create the panel, to be generated by the panel itself. This, he said, is “approximately half” of the value put forward in the literature.
Old data underestimates solar
“Only 5 out of 29 studies use recent data,” said Koppelaar:
“A study published in 2015 or 2016 can get away with using data that is 10 years old to assess the capability of a technology.”
He gives an example of one paper on solar PV “which uses data that comes from 1998.”
In other words, the figures circulating in the scientific community are often describing solar technology that is decades old. When the data is examined properly, a different picture emerges. Solar panels are about twice as powerful than usually assumed: potentially more powerful than oil.
Oil and gas now worse than solar
A major study by the Royal Society of London recently calculated that oil and gas production generates roughly 15 times the energy invested. It warns that this is now declining due to the accelerating dependence on lower quality unconventional sources, which are more expensive and harder to get out the ground.
In the US, for instance, oil and gas now generates roughly 11 times the amount of energy invested; and for most unconventional oil and biofuels, the figure is 10.
This means that according to the new meta-assessment by Koppelaar, if solar power can produce up to approximately 14 times the amount of energy invested, it is already able to produce more energy than oil and gas for every unit of energy invested.
Crappy oil, crappy economy
The author of that study, petroleum engineer Professor David Murphy of Northern Illinois University, wrote:
“… as the EROI of the average barrel of oil declines, long-term economic growth will become harder to achieve and come at an increasingly higher financial, energetic and environmental cost.”
The decreasing quality of oil as a resource is therefore playing a hidden role in undermining the scope for economic growth. If the world doesn’t transition fast enough to more robust energy sources like solar, which are now producing more energy per unit invested than oil, the economy will inevitably get worse.
Solar revolution is inevitable
For much of the world, solar panels are likely to be able to produce even more energy. Koppelaar said that about 85% of the world’s population resides in areas that receive a significant degree of sunlight:
“In Central and South America, Africa, the south of the United States, most of Asia and Oceania, the energy ratio of 14 would be seen as a ‘low value’.”
And this situation is only going to continue. Solar power is pitched to become more efficient and cost-effective in energy production in coming years, while oil and gas will decrease in quality the more we deplete global reserves.
Koppelaar said that the efficiency ratings he used for his study — between 14 and 16% — were very conservative:
“We are moving towards much more efficient panels. 21% are the best efficiency on the market right now. And it is within reach to have 30% efficient panels by 2040 and probably before that, based on new technology designs.”
In short, naysayers who dismiss renewables for being inferior as a source of energy to oil have another thing coming. Koppelaar’s new paper shows that solar power is already beating oil and gas, and will only get better.
This story is being released for free in the public interest, and was enabled by crowdfunding. I’d like to thank my amazing community of patrons for their support, which gave me the opportunity to work on this story. Please support independent, investigative journalism for the global commons via www.patreon.com/nafeez, where you can donate as much or as little as you like.
Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is an award-winning 15-year investigative journalist, international security scholar, bestselling author, and film-maker.
He is the creator of INSURGEintelligence, a crowdfunded public interest investigative journalism project, ‘System Shift’ columnist at VICE, and a columnist at Middle East Eye. He is Global Editor at The Canary. Previously, Nafeez wrote The Guardian’s ‘Earth insight’ blog.
His work has been published in The Guardian, VICE, Independent on Sunday, The Independent, The Scotsman, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Quartz, The New Statesman, Prospect, Le Monde diplomatique, Raw Story, New Internationalist, Huffington Post UK, Al-Arabiya English, AlterNet, The Ecologist, and Asia Times, among other places.
Exclusive stories broken by Nafeez via INSURGEintelligence have been covered by USA Today, Global Post, The Guardian, The Independent, Washington Post, The Metro, The Week, News Corp’s news.com.au, Discovery News, Channel 4 News, Forbes, Columbia Journalism Review, Gigaom, FutureZone, among others.
In 2015, Nafeez won the Project Censored Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for his Guardian story on the energy politics of the Ukraine crisis. The previous year he won another Project Censored Award, known popularly as the ‘Alternative Pulitzer’, for his Guardian article on climate-induced food crises and civil unrest.
In 2010, Nafeez won the Routledge-GCPS Essay Prize for his academic paper on the ‘Crisis of Civilisation’ published in the journal Global Change, Peace and Security. He also won the Premio Napoli (Naples Prize) in 2003, Italy’s most prestigious literary award created by decree of the President of the Republic.
Nafeez has twice been featured in the Evening Standard’s ‘Top 1,000’ list of most influential people in London, in 2014 and 2015.
Nafeez is the author of A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It (2010), and the scifi thriller novel ZERO POINT, among other books. His work on the root causes and covert operations linked to international terrorism officially contributed to the 9/11 Commission and the 7/7 Coroner’s Inquest.
Let’s hear it from our Christian brothers who think we are living in the pre-Rapture days. They might be right. It would not take much for our civilization to crumble. Some say it is already falling apart and the vultures are already picking its bones.
What would happen if some sort of major national emergency caused a massive transportation disruption that stopped trucks from running? The next time you talk to a trucker, please thank them for their service, because without their hard work none of our lives would be possible. In America today, very few of us live a truly independent lifestyle, and that means that we rely on the system to provide what we need. Most of us take for granted that there will always be plenty of goods at Wal-Mart and at the grocery store whenever we need more “stuff”, and most of us never give a second thought to how all of that “stuff” gets there. Well, the truth is that most of it is brought in by trucks, and if the trucks stopped running for some reason the entire country would devolve into chaos very rapidly.
Earlier today, I came across a quote from Alice Friedemann that detailed what we would be facing during a major national transportation disruption very nicely…
Within a week, in roughly this order, grocery stores would be out of dairy and other items that are delivered many times a day. And by the week, the shelves would be empty.
Hospitals, pharmacies, factories, and many other businesses also get several deliveries a day, and they’d be running out of stuff the first day.
And the second day, there’s be panic and hoarding. And restaurants, pharmacies would close. ATM’s would be out of money. Construction would stop. There’d be increasing layoffs. Increasing enormous amounts of trash not getting picked up, 685,000 tons a day. Service stations would be closed. Very few people would be working. And the livestock would start to be hungry from lack of feed deliveries.
Then within two weeks, clean water supplies would run out. Within four weeks to eight weeks, there wouldn’t be coal delivered to power plants and electricity would start shutting down. And when that happened, about a quarter of our pipelines use electricity, and so natural gas plants wouldn’t be fed natural gas and they’d start shutting down.
There is so much infrastructure that we take for granted that would suddenly become very vulnerable in this type of scenario. There are countless numbers of workers out there that never get any glory that do the hard work of maintaining our nuclear power plants, our natural gas pipelines, our electrical grid, etc. If they suddenly were not able to do their jobs, the consequences would be absolutely catastrophic. The following comes from Tess Pennington…
They rarely mention the dozens of nuclear power plants that litter the United States. If no one is there to operate them, how long before they melt down and bury millions of survivors under a radioactive cloud?
Then there are the 12,000 facilities around the country that store large quantities of toxic or flammable chemicals, and reside close to residential areas. 2,500 of these sites contain chemicals in quantities that, if a catastrophic accident were to occur, could affect 10,000 to 1 million people each. And let’s not forget the 2.5 million miles of oil and gas pipelines that can be found in every state. They suffer hundreds of leaks and ruptures every year, and are much more likely to explode when they aren’t maintained. That detail seems to be conveniently forgotten by post-apocalyptic films.
And finally, most post-apocalyptic movies will forget to mention what happens when there aren’t any functional fire departments. Aside from the obvious consequences, like whole neighborhoods routinely burning to the ground, who’s going to put out landfill fires that are occasionally radioactive?
For most Americans, a major national emergency of this magnitude may seem unimaginable right now. But the truth is that it isn’t difficult to see how this kind of scenario could happen. The Yellowstone supervolcano is becoming increasingly active, a single large asteroid could change all of our lives in a single moment, a crippling pandemic could bring normal life in America to a complete standstill, a terror attack involving weapons of mass destruction would spread panic and fear like wildfire, and a historic earthquake along the New Madrid fault, the Cascadia Subduction zone or any of the major faults in California could literally change the geography of our entire continent.
In addition, a massive EMP burst from a nuclear weapon or from the sun could fry our power grid and send us back into the stone age in a single moment. This is something that I have written about extensively, and those that want to minimize this threat simply don’t know what they are talking about.
And an electromagnetic pulse is not even required to cause very serious problems with our electrical grid. For instance, just consider what happened in Ukraine toward the end of last year…
On December 23rd, 2015, the Prykarpattyaoblenergo power distribution station in Ukraine was hit by a carefully coordinated cyber-attack that was months in the making. The technicians lost control of their cursors as they watched hackers open breakers and take circuit after circuit offline, plunging 230,000 residents into darkness.
The hackers took backup power of the stations offline, plunging the electrical workers into darkness too, and worse yet, they even rewrote the low-level firmware that controls the electrical transformers. The attack had come after months of careful infiltration and planning by a dedicated team of elite cyber-warfare specialists and the result was devastating.
Even months later, technicians struggled to regain full capacity in the electrical grid due to the overwriting of firmware. With Ukrainian moves to nationalize power companies, it is possible that the powerful and Putin-connected Russian oligarchs who own large parts of Ukraine’s infrastructure were sending a message: we can shut down the system anytime we want.
The truth is that we are far more vulnerable than most of us would like to admit.
So what would you do if “normal life” suddenly came to an end and you no longer had access to food, water or power?
How would you and your family respond?
Hopefully you would continue to act in a civilized manner, but history has shown that many people would not.
Before long, getting mugged or being a victim of some type of crime is as unpredictable and as common as a car accident. You’ll realize everyone in the neighborhood has now beefed up security on their homes. All your family, friends, and coworkers have experienced a mugging, carjacking, or worse.
You’ll have no choice but to accept this new way of life and count on basic safety measures (a form of passive denial) or further learn to defend yourself and remain in a constant state of alert (a very stressful state over time). It’s difficult emotionally, mentally, and physically to remain on high alert 24/7 for any length of time. Most people will revert to a form of passive denial until the next incident happens to them or a family member.
And even though things may seem relatively stable for the moment, concern about what is coming is one of the factors that has led an increasing number of Americans to arm themselves. According to a brand new study from the Pew Research Center, 44 percent of all American homes now have a gun. Just two years ago, a different study found that number was sitting at just 31 percent.
The way that we are living our lives right now will not last indefinitely.
At some point a major national emergency will strike, and when that day arrives we could suddenly be facing major power grid and transportation disruptions.
Are you prepared for that?
If not, you might want to do so while you still have time.
We bet you didn’t even know you wanted more sunlight in your home before you saw Lucy.
Credit: Inhabitat
While most solar-powered appliances are focused on providing artificial light and energy for when natural light outside fades into the night, this innovative device shines when there is still daylight outside.
Lucy is a simple, easy-to-use appliance that can be placed in any space with no installation in order to illuminate even the darkest of rooms.
The solar-powered, wire-free system works to light up the naturally dark rooms of our home that have small windows and are perfect for people looking to brighten up their everyday spaces without turning on artificial, indoor lighting.
Lucy is a small orb with several mirrors, a pointer, and a stand so that it can rest on any flat surface and be directed anywhere that a user might need more sunlight. It can be placed either in an outdoor or indoor location where it receives direct sunlight and pointed towards the area inside the home that needs the light.
Credit: Spring Wise
After being pointed in the right direction, it intelligently tracks the sun’s movement to keep the light pointed in the right direction, regardless of the sun’s position.
According to Solenica, the company behind Lucy, a 250-square-foot room needs only 5,000 lumens to be a properly-lit room and feel well-illuminated. Lucy can redirect a maximum of 7,000 lumens, with weather conditions permitting, so she can handle even more light than is necessary to light up a space.
This is a great addition to a home because it can completely transform the way you interact in your spaces in ways you wouldn’t even imagine. For those that want more natural light in the kitchen for better looking food, or more sunlight in the living room to reach your many houseplants, Lucy could be the solution.
Solenica points out that benefits for getting more sunlight throughout the day include better sleep, enhanced mood, and the immeasurable amount of money saved on energy bills.
Credit: Solenica
The additional sunlight can more concretely set up your circadian rhythm, which determines how well you sleep and for how long, and it helps you to be more alert and productive throughout the day. More sunlight also aids people who typically get the “winter blues” and are adversely affected by the change in seasons, as the light helps the brain produce serotonin, also known as the “happiness hormone.”
Lucy seems like a great catch, but she isn’t available just yet. Solenica is set to have an Indiegogo account set up to fund this awesome project, and one article mentioned that Lucy modules are already being pre-sold for $200.
Solar start-up Rawlemon’s Andre Broessel, a German architect, has created a spherical sun-tracking solar energy generator to revolutionise renewable energy and solar power on Earth. The Rawlemon design uses a spherical lens to concentrate both sunlight and moonlight up to 10,000 times on a small photovoltaic panel and combines this with a dual-axis pivot that tracks the movement of the sun. By concentrating the sun’s light in one area, the Rawlemon design reduces the solar cell surface required to just 1% of that required by a traditional panel making its solar harvesting capabilities 35% more efficient than conventional dual-axis photovoltaic designs. Additionally, poor weather would not impact the device, because of a built-in weather tracking system.
The 100-cm (39.4-in) Beta.ray 1.0 generate up to 1.1 kWh a day enough to run a laptop for about two days. It has a 1.8 kWh battery. The 180-cm (70.1-in) Beta.ray 1.8 generate up to 3.4 kWh a day enough to run a laptop for almost a week. It has a 5.4 kWh battery. Both the Beta.ray 1.0 and 1.8 feature water-filled acrylic-polymer lenses and generate thermal energy as well as solar. And there’s a $6,000 package too which includes the full-sized Beta.ray built for the outdoors.
He tried to raise $120,000 on his Indiegogo campaign for further testing, and for patent applications and raised $230,971 by March 10, 2014.
Fully loaded oil tankers are anchored in ports worldwide, while solar panels are getting cheaper by the day as global competition heats up.
The global energy reset has begun.
Just three years ago, US warehouses were flooded with Chinese made solar panels due to China’s goals to reduce its worsening air pollution and to free its economy from oil dependency.
In order to lure Western solar panel manufacturers, China offered incentives in terms of subsidies and other perks. These measures turned quickly into an oversupply of solar panels flooding the US, raising US solar panel manufacturers’ concern which prompted the Obama government to raise tariffs accordingly.
Between 2011 and 2013, warehouses across Southern California were stuffed with millions upon millions of Chinese-made solar panels. How the panels got here, and what ultimately became of them, is one of the oddities of global trade.
“Chinese solar panels dominated tons of warehouses in Carson,” says Rafael Galante, principal consultant of L.A. Source Consulting, who witnessed the influx of solar modules from China in early 2012. “They were everywhere.”
The story began a few years earlier, with the Chinese government’s growing panic about one of its biggest national threats: lung-clogging air pollution. Chinese officials decided in 2010 that solar power would be the centerpiece of a five-year plan — one of Beijing’s massive centralized planning initiatives. The government worked with the China Development Bank to flood the country’s solar manufacturers with $42 billion in subsidized loans between 2010 and 2012.
The cheap money turned the world’s biggest carbon emitter into the world’s largest solar panel maker nearly overnight. In 2010, China produced enough panels to generate 10,922 megawatts of electricity (about five times the capacity of the Hoover Dam), equivalent to 45 percent of new solar panel production worldwide. By 2012, that had risen to 20,903 megawatts, or 56 percent of total global production. As Chinese factories churned out panels, prices around the world fell. Between 2009 and 2011, the price of solar panels dropped from $2.79 to $1.59 per watt, pushing many American solar companies into bankruptcy.
… The rise in solar panel prices after tariffs meant that companies that had stockpiled panels couldn’t always offload them. And it contributed to many of the already-purchased solar panels languishing in storage. Building a solar farm generally takes three to four years, and plenty of hurdles can arise along the way. “Some of the developers might not find the proper land to install panels and some of them might not be approved to connect to the power grid,” Chang says. Many solar farms that had been planned were never built, leaving the unused panels stuck in the warehouses.
The tariffs Chinese manufacturers feared came through in May 2012. The U.S. Commerce Department levied tariffs of more than 31 percent on imports of Chinese solar panels, a significant blow to China’s solar makers.
Incidentally, Chinese manufactured panels were outdated quickly with newer, more efficient solar technologies, prompting the Chinese marketers to reship them to Africa.
For the first time in three years, First Solar Inc. is making panels for less than China’s biggest producer, justifying more than $3 billion in loan guarantees from the U.S. government.
After investing $775 million in technology, First Solar is producing panels for as little as 40 cents a watt, or about 15 percent less than China’s Trina Solar Ltd. In 2019, First Solar’s module cost could be as low as 25 cents a watt, according to analysts’ models.
First Solar’s investments over the past five years have increased efficiency by almost 50 percent and wrung costs from the manufacturing process. It has two new products coming next year and in 2019, applying lessons learned from the flat-screen television industry: use bigger manufacturing equipment to make larger units at lower cost. Meanwhile, the change indicates the limits of what Chinese companies can do without further investment.
“The Chinese have hit a wall in terms of polysilicon costs and technology,” Jeffrey Osborne, a Cowen & Co. analyst in New York, said in an interview. “There aren’t a lot of levers left for them to pull and their labor costs are rising.”
With this development, oil producing countries are in a hurry decoupling their national budgets from oil. Iran, for example, is exploring mineral mining to keep the economy from plunging. Unfortunately, Venezuela is being hit the hardest and is now in the process of collapsing.
Meanwhile, the ongoing shift in energy production has resulted with oil tankers lining up in ports like Singapore.
Prices for oil futures have jumped by almost a quarter since April, lifted by severe supply disruptions caused by triggers such as Canadian wildfires, acts of sabotage in Nigeria, and civil war in Libya.
Yet flying into Singapore, the oil trading hub for the world’s biggest consumer region, Asia, reveals another picture: that a global glut that pulled down prices by over 70 percent between 2014 and early 2016 is nowhere near over, and that financial traders betting on higher crude oil futures may be in for a surprise from the physical market.
“I’ve been coming to Singapore once a year for the last 15 years, and flying in I have never seen the waters so full of idle tankers,” said a senior European oil trader a day after arriving in the city-state.
As Asia’s main physical oil trading hub, the number of parked tankers sitting off Singapore’s coast or in nearby Malaysian waters is seen by many as a gauge of the industry’s health.
Judging by this, oil markets are still sickly: a fleet of 40 supertankers is currently anchored in the region’s coastal waters for use as floating storage facilities.
The tankers are filled with 47.7 million barrels of oil, mostly crude, up 10 percent from the previous week, according to newly collected freight data in Thomson Reuters Eikon.
Here’s ZeroHedge’s snapshot of Singapore’s oil tanker “parking lot” a few days ago…
In relation to the global move away from oil, China and the BRICS at large, inaugurated its banks with the approval of loans pertaining precisely to renewable energy, which was highlighted even more with China’s most ambitious energy program to date.
1st Loans Approved by BRICS Bank are on Renewable Energy [here];
India Solves its Drought Problem with Common Sense [here];
China’s $50 Trillion Global Clean Energy Project Muted by Panama Papers [here];
BRICS Mega Projects will Reshape Global Economic Map [here]
However, this developing shift from fossil fuel to renewables is being complicated by the still to be neutralized crime syndicate that lives and breathe partly through the bloodsoaked petrodollar.
Hillary Clinton’s palpable participation on the murder of Muammar Gadhafi, and her successful hijacking of the primaries for this year’s presidential election, are now feeding the Khazarian Mafia with the illusion of hope for their continued exploitation of sovereign resources as before.
After a three-week blockade of its eastern port of Hariga over rival government wrangling, Libya has now resumed exports from the port and could soon be ramping up to 300,000 barrels per day, adding another 100,000 bpd into the glut—just when things were balancing out.
Already late on Thursday, Libyan officials were saying that 650,000 barrels were in the loading process, according to Bloomberg—destination, United Kingdom. The tanker is loading crude for Glencore, on orders from the Tripoli-based National Oil Company (NOC).
Reuters is predicting that Libya—currently producing about 200,000 bpd—could quickly ramp up to 300,000 bpd with exports freed up.
Understandably, radical changes such as these entail risk on the part of the protagonists. But it is comforting how they persevered over the years, since the pivotal year of 2001.
• India Refuses to Join US Naval Patrol vs. China [here]; • Eastern Countries Strive to Achieve Peace Even as Shadow WW3 Continues [here]; • BRICS led Revolution Fortified with Game-Changer MCIS Conference [here]; • China Calls Rothschild’s WW3 Bluff with Gold-Backed Yuan & 12,000 km Range Missile Test [here];
So, while Russia is now exerting greater geopolitical influence in the Middle East through MCIS anti-terror [read: anti-Khazarian Mafia] cooperation with Iran, Egypt, Iraq, ASEAN, and Syria, it is also developing a more proactive stance in Southeast Asia, one of two remaining areas where the US still exert considerable influence, starting with the incoming Duterte Presidency.
Aside from anti-terror security cooperation, the Russian ambassador also pointed out the need for sustainable development cooperation which if superimposed to Duterte’s frustration to the homegrown energy cartel, might precipitate to the switching on of the nuclear power plant rendered mothballed by CIA puppet Corazon Cojuangco Aquino.
The self-confessed socialist Duterte would certainly assume a more independent and pragmatic geopolitical stance as opposed to the unqualified Western cavorting of the outgoing BS Aquino administration which led among others to the complete exploitation of our natural gas and mineral resources.
These progressive developments here in Southeast Asia should left the US Khazarians with no other choice but to continue pushing for NATO forces right at Russia’s border, as most Americans are already tired of war, they would not be supporting another one.
We are also not seeing the mouthful Donald Trump to be a wartime president either even if Henry Kissinger is on his side right now. This is the reason why even the Republicans are openly supporting Hillary Clinton by openly not supporting Donald Trump.
Superimpose all of the above to the continued dumping of fiat currency denominated treasury bonds in favor for asset-backed sovereign currencies, the BRICS could not have created a more perfect storm for the Khazarian Mafia.
With no more wars to profit from, fast shrinking buyers for oil, and no more currency to manipulate with, what are the Khazarian Mafia’s options will be?
From the European front, both UK and Germany are aggressively pursuing renewable energy production through the Energy Union as early as last year.
As Europe steps towards Energy Union this week saw evidence that distinct and divergent policy models for how member states should generate and supply electricity are emerging. While in Brussels Vice President Maroš Šefčovič presented the inaugural State of the Energy Union report, simultaneously in London Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Amber Rudd was setting out what had been trailed as a “reset” of UK energy policy and in Berlin the energy ministry published its annual monitoring report on the Energiewende (the German energy transition). The Energy Union update contained little that was unexpected, but demonstrated the political momentum that the Energy Union policy now has.
It sees the UK exiting unabated coal-fired power generation, onshore wind and solar are expected to stand on their own feet without subsidy, while the offshore wind industry is on notice that it needs to sharply cut its costs. Shale gas is lauded. Gas and nuclear are seen as UK energy mix mainstays. With the UK’s capacity margin down to a sliver, energy security and attracting new investment features prominently. Decarbonisation and meeting the UK’s carbon budgets are restated as key policy goals, but the ‘Rudd Model’ is clear that the UK’s aim is to be “a compelling example to the rest of the world of how to cut carbon while controlling costs”.
But the BRICS Alliance, obviously having the upperhand, are not about to give an inch to the whims of the enemy of humanity, no more.
The only caveat to this is the planned fully digitized financial system that would pave the way for Western technocratic dictatorship.
Surely, this is not yet the world that Nikola Tesla designed in his time, and there certainly are better energy technologies out there, but if we consider China’s $50 trillion global renewable energy grid project, we can at least rest assured knowing that they are already thinking about the global transition away from fossil fuel systems right now.
India Won’t Suppress Tewari’s Free Energy Generator [here];
Nanomaterial that Can Produce Energy, Clean Water and Hydrogen [here];
Russia Develops Hybrid Fusion – Fission Reactor with China [here];
China’s $50 Trillion Global Clean Energy Project Muted by Panama Papers [here]
Remember, existing industries can only take one radical change at a time. We should keep on pushing the people’s agenda even as we’ve been saying here in the Philippines for the last six months…
Change is Coming!
Aside from the fiat monetary scam and bloodsoaked petrodollar, another significant source of funds for the Nazionist Khazarian Mafia is the “healthcare” industry which registered a whopping $3.09 trillion in 2014, and is projected to soar to $3.57 trillion in 2017, in the US alone. We believe that this is just a conservative figure.
Shoaib Ahmed and Abdul Rasheed have been dubbed Pakistan’s Solar Kids after a mysterious condition causes them to become paralyzed every day after the sun sets.
Pakistani brothers Shoaib Ahmed and Abdul Rasheed are suffering from a mysterious condition that has left doctors in Islamabad scratching their heads. The so-called ‘Solar Kids’, aged 13 and nine, are normal and active throughout the day, but as soon as the sun goes down they descend into a vegetative state that renders them unable to move or talk.
Shoaib and Abdul wake up with the first rays of the sun, filled with energy and life. They tend to their house chores, attend school, but they are on a clock to get everything done by late afternoon, because as the sun travels west, their energy levels drop and by the time it sets, they are completely paralyzed until the next day. Their parents say that the boys appeared to be dependent on the sun this since the day they were born, and in their home village they are known as the “solar kids”.
“I think my sons get energy from sun,” the boys’ father, Mohammad Hashim, says. But his simplistic theory has been dismissed by doctors after they tried keeping the boys in a completely darkened room during the day, but noticed no bizarre symptoms. The idea that the sun plays a role in the siblings’ mysterious condition is also contradicted by the fact that they remain active when it’s cloudy and even during rainstorms.
Photo: video-caption
The boys, who come from an impoverished family in a village in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province, are currently undergoing extensive medical treatment in the nation’s capital, Islamabad. The government is providing them with free medical care, and their blood samples are being analyzed for clues regarding their condition. Samples have also been sent to overseas specialists in the hopes of finding some clues that Pakistani doctors missed.
Javed Akram, a professor of medicine at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) who is currently trying to help the two kids, is struggling to find an explanation for their bizarre symptoms. “We took this case as a challenge,” he said, speaking to AP. “Our doctors are doing medical tests to determine why these kids remain active in the day but cannot open their eyes, why they cannot talk or eat when the sun goes down.”
Photo: video-caption
Interestingly, Shoaib and Abdul’s parents are first cousins, and some doctors believe that this could be one of the potential explanations for the boys’ illness, especially since another one of their four children, a one year old boy, appears to be suffering from the same condition.
Although doctors have no clue about the cause behind the boys’ illness, there has been a marked improvement in their condition ever since they were admitted at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, in Islamabad. Express News reported that they actually moved around at night for the very first time, a few days ago. But Shoaib and Abdul are hoping for a full recovery, and have grand plans for the future. “I will become a teacher,” Shoaib said, while Abdul wants to become an Islamic scholar.
I thought this was perhaps the initial draft for the sequel to the movie “Idiocracy”. Nope, it’s real, and the fierce opponent to solar energy is a SCIENCE TEACHER!
Wiki
Unfortunately, this is not the Onion. A town in North Carolina just voted to place a moratorium on solar — because it’s “dangerous.”
Woodland, NC — Nestled in a remote Northeast corner of the state, the town of Woodland is not known to many folks. However, after a recent and downright jaw-dropping council decision last week, their small town is about to be very well known.
A private solar company, Strata Solar, was looking to build a solar farm in the town because of the strategic location of vast swaths of unused land, located near an ideal electrical substation that would tie the system into the grid.
Strata is not the first company to seek out the town of Woodland for the placement of such a farm. In fact, a different company has already broke ground on the construction of another such solar farm.
Strata Solar was attempting to get a section of land rezoned at a council meeting last week, so they could begin construction on the new farm. However, residents showed up and voiced their opinions on the solar, and the council responded by denying the rezoning, and thereby denying the construction of the solar farm.
In a 3 to 1 vote, the council made the most ridiculous decision ever made by a government – and the residents couldn’t be happier.
During the period for public comment, a science teacher, Jane Mann took to the podium to explain why she didn’t want any solar in her town.
Jane Mann told the council that she is “concerned that photosynthesis, which depends upon sunlight, would not happen and would keep the plants from growing.” She then went on to question the safety of the passive energy production of solar, citing a number of cancer deaths in the area.
“No one can tell me that solar panels don’t cause cancer,” asserted Mann.
After Jane Mann expressed her concern, her husband Bobby Mann took to the pulpit to drive home their case by saying the “solar farms would suck up all the energy from the sun and businesses would not come to Woodland.”
“You’re killing your town,” he said. “All the young people are going to move out.”
A representative from Strata Solar, likely in a state of awe, attempted to explain that “there are no negative impacts.” Beth Trahos explained to the council, “A solar farm is a wonderful use for a property like this.”
Another representative from Strata, Brent Niemann tried to explain that the solar panels don’t actually “suck up” any extra sun, their function is purely passive and only use the light that hits them directly.
“The panels don’t draw additional sunlight,” Niemann noted. But the town’s people weren’t having any of it.
Niemann even went on to illustrate how the free energy from the sun would drastically reduce all of their power bills, but still they held out.
After the council voted to reject the rezoning and deny the solar farm production, they later voted for a moratorium on all future solar production as well, solidifying their place in history as the town that banned renewable energy.
Currently in North Carolina, much of their energy, as well of the rest of the nation’s energy comes from coal-fired plants. The coal to fuel these plants is often stripped from the earth, in North Carolina, through a devastating process called mountaintop removal.
During mountaintop removal, explosives are used to remove up to 400 vertical feet of mountain to expose underlying coal seams. Excess rock and soil are then dumped into nearby valleys, in what are called “holler fills” or “valley fills, leading to a slew of negative environmental effects.
The process leaves the once lush green mountain area, a dead desert-like hole with permanent loss of ecosystems.
The process of destruction and adverse health effects from mountaintop removal can be viewed empirically and its atrocious effects are known most everyone. However, to the town of Woodland, North Carolina, it’s solar that’s dangerous.
“Our citizens should know the urgent facts…but they don’t because our media serves imperial, not popular interests. They lie, deceive, connive and suppress what everyone needs to know, substituting managed news misinformation and rubbish for hard truths…”—Oliver Stone
Tales from the Conspiratum 