Here is some more transitional good news. As this report says, “The bulk of steelmaking around the world still relies on coal-based blast furnaces.
As a result, the steel and iron industry is responsible for 7% of greenhouse gas emissions and 11% of carbon dioxide emissions globally, according to the consultancy firm Global Efficiency Intelligence….This is more than the total emissions from all the world’s cars and vans.” The conversion of steel-making to non-coal-based blast furnaces will have a huge effect on the matrix of life.
This is more than the total emissions from all the world’s cars and vans.
With steel critical to the building out of decarbonised energy infrastructure, production is expected to continue to rise over the coming years, meaning the potential for decarbonisation is “enormous”, according to not-for-profit data organisation Global Energy Monitor (GEM).
GEM’s annual “Pedal to the Metal” report reveals that 93% of new steelmaking capacity announced thus far in 2024 promises to use lower emission electric arc furnaces (EAFs).
It also shows that 49% of the world’s steelmaking capacity under development now uses EAFs, up from just 43% in 2023 and 33% in 2022.
Of this, nearly all of the capacity announced since the beginning of 2024 operates using EAFs, the non-governmental organisation’s Global Steel Plant Tracker (GSPT) shows.
The tracker covers 2,207m tonnes per year (mtpa) of operating steelmaking capacity […]
Aaron Davis, Carol D. Leonnig , Reporters - Microsoft Start | The Washington Post
Stephan:
Here is the story, just emerging, of what history will record as the largest bribe of an American President by a foreign government — who else but criminal Trump — in the history of the United States. And, because of the Supreme Court decision on immunity, he will get away with it with no accountability. History will also record that criminal Trump has gotten away with more crimes than any mafia boss. He is a crook at a scale never before seen in this country. His henchman, Bill Barr is also going to get away with no accountability. This story tells us one thing clearly. The MAGAt (formerly Republican Party) is collectively a criminal enterprise, and the man they are putting forward as their candidate is a lecherous man without honor or ethics.
$10M cash withdrawal drove secret probe into whether Trump took money from Egypt. Credit: The Washington Post
Five days before Donald Trump became president in January 2017, a manager at a bank branch in Cairo received an unusual letter from an organization linked to the Egyptian intelligence service. It asked the bank to “kindly withdraw” nearly $10 million from the organization’s account — all in cash.
Inside the state-run National Bank of Egypt, employees were soon busy placing bundles of $100 bills into two large bags, according to records from the bank. Four men arrived and carried away the bags, which U.S. officials later described in sealed court filings as weighing a combined 200 pounds and containing what was then a sizable share of Egypt’s reserve of U.S. currency.
Federal investigators learned of the withdrawal, which has not been previously reported, early in 2019. The discovery intensified a secret criminal investigation that had begun two years earlier with classified U.S. intelligence indicating that Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi sought to give Trump $10 million to boost his 2016 […]
Yesterday it was a report that Antarctica is 50°F over normal temperature. Today is it is this alarming report about the Andes, the world’s largest longest mountain range. When you realize that a tiny group of rich people who control the oil and gas industries are enriching themselves in a manner that is putting the entire Earth at risk you understand why there is a desperate need to regulate these industries and stop their destruction of our world. Criminal Trump has already and openly whored himself out to these people promising he will protect their greed.
The Andes mountain range, the longest mountain range in the world. Credit: EDUBABA
Recent glacier retreat across the Andes is unprecedented in the history of human civilization, according to a new study published in the Science journal.
The discovery shocked scientists, who initially planned to study the current state of glaciers and how they had varied throughout human civilization.
The research was led by Boston College and included input from scientists at the University of Galway.
“We thought this result was decades away,” said Andrew Gorin, lead author of the study, who first believed the initial results were a fluke, but were confirmed by later samples.
“It goes to show you that this is happening faster than even those of us that think about this the most believed.”
Mr Gorin and the team of scientists carbon-dated bedrock that had been recently exposed by retreated glaciers by measuring beryllium-10 and carbon-14 nuclide levels and found that concentrations were nearly zero.
The Europeans are doing what the United States has not done, beginning to establish AI regulations. Far from perfect but at least a start. I see this as very good news for the EU. Let us hope that Harris is elected President, and that the Democrats have significant majorities in both the Senate and House so that before AI becomes an existential threat to our democracy it is put under proper regulations that limit its use to spread false information and fake audio and video.
The EU’s sweeping risk-based rules will cover all types of artificial intelligence Credit: Fabrice / COFFRINI
The European Union’s landmark law on artificial intelligence came into force on Thursday, which Brussels vows will drive innovation while protecting citizens’ rights.
The EU earlier this year adopted the world’s first sweeping rules to govern AI, especially powerful systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT after difficult and tense negotiations.
Although the rules were first proposed in 2021, they took on greater urgency when ChatGPT burst onto the scene in 2022, showing generative AI’s human-like ability to churn out eloquent text within seconds.
Other examples of generative AI include Dall-E and Midjourney, which can generate images in nearly any style with a simple input in everyday language.
“With our artificial intelligence act, we create new guardrails not only to protect people and their interests, but also to give business and innovators clear rules and certainty,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
Companies will have to comply by 2026 but rules covering AI models like ChatGPT will apply 12 months after the law enters […]
Here is some more good EU news, and actually it is good news for Earth. As a country exits the carbon power era, so the matrix of life is less threatened. I wish I could so the same kind of stories about similar changes being made in the U.S..
Solar panels on a solar farm in a village near Sandomierz, Poland on April 29, 2024. Credit: Dominika Zarzycka / NurPhoto
As renewable energy soars worldwide, solar and wind have overtaken fossil fuels, generating 30 percent of electricity in the European Union during the first half of 2024, according to a new report from energy think tank Ember.
During the first half of this year, the electricity generation from oil, gas and coal was down 17 percent, in comparison with the same period in 2023, Ember said, as The Guardian reported.
Ember analyst Chris Rosslowe pointed out that the increase in wind and solar production was narrowing fossil fuels’ role in electricity generation.
“We are witnessing a historic shift in the power sector, and it is happening rapidly,” Rosslowe said.
