#reicher scale

[dom8888]

Covid restrictions ‘similar to lockdown’ needed to reduce hospitalisations in UK

Restrictions “similar in scale to the national lockdown” are needed to keep hospital admissions from coronavirus below previous peaks, experts warned on Saturday.

Amid high numbers of cases of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, documents released by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) revealed the bleak picture painted by advisers throughout December as the threat from the strain rose.

Advice included that indoor mixing is the “biggest risk factor” for the spread of the variant of coronavirus, and that large gatherings risked creating “multiple spreading events”.

The Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, Operational sub-group (SPI-M-O) said in documents released on Saturday but dated 8 December that in almost all modelling “a significant reduction in transmission (similar in scale to the national lockdown implemented in January 2021 and the ‘pingdemic’ in July 2021) is required to keep hospitalisations below the height of previous peaks.”

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The advice from 10 days ago adds: “Earlier intervention also reduces the wave of hospitalisations.”

Minutes from a Sage meeting on Thursday said stricter measures could be needed, including “reducing group sizes, increasing physical distancing, reducing duration of contacts and closing high-risk premises”.

The experts warned that even if transmission rates were reduced, hospital admission levels were likely to be between 1,000 and 2,000 a day in England by the end of the year.

And modelling showed that if ministers stuck to the current plan B measures, there would be a peak of 3,000 a day.

It comes as the number of deaths in England of people with the Omicron variant has risen to seven, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said, from the previous figure of one.

Hospital admissions in England for people with confirmed or suspected Omicron rose to 85, from 65.

The UKHSA said there had been 10,059 additional confirmed cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 reported across the UK.

This brings the total confirmed cases of the variant in the UK to 24,968.

The Sage documents said: “Some scenarios have significantly worse outcomes during the first few months of 2022 but there are many uncertainties.”

And the ramping up of the booster programme would not help, as many of those admissions would be those who are infected now.

They warned that delaying introducing stricter measures until 2022 would “greatly reduce the effectiveness of such interventions and make it less likely that these would prevent considerable pressure on health and care settings”.

It comes after reports that officials had drawn up plans for a two-week circuit breaker lockdown after Christmas.

The Liberal Democrats have called for parliament to be recalled on Monday to debate the next steps.

Party leader Sir Ed Davey said: “We cannot allow the prime minister to sit on his hands while the NHS and businesses are on the brink of collapse.

“Ministers must explain the latest scientific advice to MPs and ensure a proper debate over future Covid measures, including support to help businesses through this increasingly difficult period.”

Earlier Stephen Reicher, professor of social psychology at the University of St Andrews and member of Sage, said it was clear that plan B measures alone would not be enough to stop the spiralling numbers of cases.

Prof Reicher, who was speaking to Times Radio in a personal capacity, said the time to act was now.

Reicher said: “The only way really, or at least the most effective way, we can have an immediate effect is to decrease the number of contacts we have.

“In many ways, the most effective way of diminishing contact is to have a circuit-breaker.

“Now, you could have it after Christmas; the problem is after Christmas it’s probably too late, it’s probably by then we will have had a huge surge of infections with all the impact upon society.

“When people say ‘look, we don’t want to close down’: of course, we don’t want to close down.

“But the problem is at the moment things are closing down anyway, because of the spread of infection. So I think we need to act now.”

A government spokesperson said: “The government will continue to look closely at all the emerging data and we’ll keep our measures under review as we learn more about this variant.”

Cabinet ministers received a briefing on Saturday on the latest situation regarding the Omicron variant.

There was no meeting of the cabinet or further discussion, but ministers were given an update on the data surrounding the variant.

A Cobra meeting will be held over the weekend with the devolved nations.

A further 90,418 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases have been recorded in the UK as of 9am on Saturday, the government said.

A further 125 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19.

Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics show there have now been 172,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.

Meanwhile the World Health Organization said the Omicron variant had been identified in 89 countries as of Thursday and had a doubling time of between 1.5 and three days.

It said data is still limited on the severity of the strain, but added: “Given rapidly increasing case counts, it is possible that many healthcare systems may become quickly overwhelmed.”

[itcorner]

Infrastructure complexity

This upset is profoundly reliant on a current - however maturing - vitality foundation. Just about 40 years after the begin of the media communications transformation, we are as yet battling with an interchanges framework that is divided, repetitive, and wasteful. Incorporating new wellsprings of vitality, and improving utilization of what we have, is a considerably more intricate - and more fundamental - undertaking.

As indicated by "Intersection the Valley of Death," the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Whitepaper,

"The occasions of the previous couple of years affirm that it is just with general society segment's assistance that the Commercialization Valley of Death can be tended to, both in the short and the long haul. Just open establishments have 'open advantages' commitments and the related ordered hazard resilience for such classes of ventures, alongside the capital accessible to have any kind of effect at scale. Task agents have indicated they will get the ball and back the third, 23rd, and 300th venture that uses that new innovation. It is the underlying innovation chance that credit panels and venture chiefs won't endure."

Everything keeps running on fuel and vitality, from our homes to our autos to our ventures, schools, and healing centers. The majority of us have encountered the distinction we feel when gotten in a power outage: "The aeration and cooling system won't work so I figure I'll turn on a fan," just to acknowledge we can't do either. Since vitality is so essential to each part of our economy, government, state and nearby elements direct practically every part of how vitality is produced, sent, and adapted. Wind cultivate designers confront an intricate interwoven pattern of metropolitan, province, state and government directions in motivating tasks to scale.

Impetuses from government sources, and also utilities, posture both an open door and a danger: the market rises and falls in guide extent to subsidizing and motivating forces. Exploring these difficulties requires some investment and legitimate mastery: neither of which are in plentiful supply to business visionaries.

Advancement costs

In spite of the fact that microchips are making ever-littler hardware, cleantech parts -, for example, wind turbines and photovoltaics - are tremendous. They can't be produced in a carport, as Hewlett and Packard's first oscilloscope. Another era of biofuels that uses nanotechnology isn't probably going to occur out of an apartment, as did Michael Dell's underlying business offering modified PCs. What this implies for 6th insurgency ventures is that they have significantly bigger financing needs, at considerably prior stages.

Venturing up and supporting development, colleges - and progressively enterprises - are joining forces with beginning time business people. They are giving innovation assets, for example, research centers and specialized help, and also administration skill in promoting, item advancement, government procedures, and financing. Colleges get stores from innovation exchange courses of action, while partnerships put resources into another advances, extending their item base, opening new organizations, or giving money saving advantage and hazard examination of different methodologies.

In any case, even with such help, funding and other private financial specialists are expected to increase costs that can't be conceived alone. These financial specialists look to some confirmation that ventures will deliver income with a specific end goal to restore the first speculation. So worries over the Valley of Death influences even beginning period financing.

Course of events to culmination

Such a large number of us recoil from two year contracts for our PDAs that there is discussion of making such necessities unlawful. In any case, vitality ventures, by their size and multifaceted nature, watch out finished years, if not decades. Business and mechanical clients hope to spread their expenses more than ten to twenty years, and contracts cover possibilities like future business disappointment, the offer of properties, or the possibility of redesigns that may influence the long haul practicality of the first undertaking.

Kevin Walsh, overseeing chief and head of Power and Renewable Energy at GE Energy Financial Services states, "GE Energy Financial Services underpins the making of CEDA or a comparable foundation since it would extend the accessibility of minimal effort funding to the activities and organizations in which we contribute, and it would help grow the market for innovation provided by other GE organizations."

Michael Holman, examiner for Lux Research, noticed that a $25 million interest in Google transformed into $1.7 billion 5 years after the fact. Interestingly, a main vitality stockpiling organization began with a $300 million venture, and after 9 years valuation stays dubious. These are the sorts of obstructions that can slow down the drive we requirement for 21st century advances.

Hoping to help conquer any hindrance in new cleantech and biotech ventures, is a proposed government-based arrangement called the Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA). There is a house and senate rendition, and in addition a house Green Bank bill to give hole financing. As of late, more than 42 organizations, speaking to numerous ventures and associations, marked a letter to President Obama, supporting the Senate form, the "21st Century Energy Technology Deployment Act."

Both the house and senate charges propose to make, as an office inside the US Department of Energy (DOE), an organization which would be entrusted with loaning to hazardous cleantech ventures with the end goal of offering new advancements for sale to the public. CEDA would be the extension expected to guarantee the fruitful foundation of the green economy, by banding together with private venture to bring the financing expected to get these innovations to scale. The two variants underwrite the office with $10 Billion (Senate) and $7.5 Billion (House), with a normal 10% misfortune hold long haul.

By helping another innovation move all the more viably through the pipeline from thought to organization, CEDA can generously build private division interest in vitality innovation improvement and arrangement. It can make a more fruitful US clean vitality industry, with all the orderly monetary and employment creation benefits.

Who Benefits?

CEDA financing could be viewed as advantageous for even the most improbable organizations. Ted Horan is the Marketing and Business Development Manager for Hycrete, an organization that offers a waterproof cement. Barely an organization that springs to mind when we consider clean advances, he as of late remarked on why Hycrete CEO, Richard Guinn, is a signatory on the letter to Obama:

"The portion of financing for developing clean vitality innovations through CEDA is a vital advance in fathoming our vitality and atmosphere challenges. Organizations on the cusp of vast scale business sending will profit enormously and help quicken the reception of clean vitality hones all through our economy."

As he would like to think, the assembling and development that is expected to drive us out of a stagnating economy will be upheld by advancement originating from the cleantech and biotech divisions.

Google's Dan Reicher, Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives, has been a supporter from the beginning of CEDA. He has affirmed before the two places of Congress, and was a signatory on the letter to President Obama. Google's enthusiasm for spotless and sustainable power sources goes back quite a long while. The organization is effectively engaged with tasks to cut expenses of sunlight based warm and grow the utilization of module vehicles, and has built up the Power Meter, an item which conveys home vitality administration to anybody's desktop for nothing.

Money related help incorporates organizations like GE Energy Financial Services, Silicon Valley Venture Capital, for example, Kleiner, Perkins Caulfiled and Byers, and Mohr Davidow Ventures, and Energy Capital including Hudson Clean Energy and Element Partners.Can something like the senate form of CEDA jump the Valley of Death?

As Will Coleman from Mohr Davidow Ventures, stated, "The Devil's in the points of interest." The Senate adaptation has two huge changes from past proposition: an accentuation on leap forward instead of ordinary advances, and political autonomy.

Neil Auerbach, Managing Partner, Hudson Clean Energy

The spotless vitality area can be a dynamic development motor for the US economy, however not without attentive government bolster for private capital arrangement. **[Government policy] guarantees to fill in as a profitable connecting apparatus to quicken private capital development around organizations confronting the test, and can help guarantee that the US stays at the bleeding edge of the race for strength in new vitality advancements.

Achievement Technologies

Coleman said that "achievement" incorporates the first or second sending of another approach, not only the amusement evolving sci-fi arrangement that at last brings us boundless vitality at no cost. The Bloomberg New Energy white paper utilizes the expression "First of Class." Bringing sun based proficiency up from 10% to 20%, or bringing producing costs around half, would be an achievement that would enable us to start to contend with dangers from China and India. Regular advances, those that are contending with existing popularized ventures, would get less accentuation.

Political Independence

Political freedom is best of brain for some who talked or gave an examination of the bill. Michael Holman, investigator at Lux Research, communicated the most grounded worries that CEDA doesn't concentrate enough on motivating forces to unite creative new companies with bigger set up firms.

"The administration itself assuming on the liability of choosing what advancements to back isn't probably going to work-it's an approach with an appalling reputation. So, it is vital for the national government to lead - the present financing model for putting up new vitality innovations for sale to the public is broken, and new methodologies are seriously required."

For some, the senate charge has many favorable circumstances over the house charge, in accommodating a basic leadership process that incorporates technologists and private segment specialists.

[o-behave]

WHY WE SHOULD BE A LITTLE LESS WORRIED ABOUT PANIC AND A LITTLE MORE ABOUT INACTION

By Chloe Hutchings-Hay, Analyst at Ogilvy Consulting’s Behavioural Science Practice

When people think of disasters, the common image is one of social breakdown, panic and irrational behaviour. It has also been suggested that people become hostile and take aggressive action towards others when faced with a disaster. This is in line with the ideas of Le Bon who suggested that submergence in the crowd leads to the loss of the conscious personality, with instincts for personal survival overriding socialized responses. In his view, due to mass contagion these reactions can spread quickly through a social group and create mass panic.

What is panic?

People who have been involved with disasters or watched them unfold often describe panic breaking out. However, the term panic refers to: irrational, groundless or hysterical flight that is carried out with complete disregard for others. Therefore, most often people are mistaking ‘fear’, which is perfectly rational, with ‘panic’, which would imply their behaviour was completely out of line with the risk posed. It is appropriate to experience fear in a crisis, and fleeing from a disaster is often the most rational course of action: this is not indicative of panic.

In reality, incidences of panic are very rare. It has been suggested that panic only occurs in very specific circumstances. Research has suggested that for a true instance of panic, the following conditions must be present at once: 1) the victim perceives that they are trapped in a confined space, 2) escape routes seem to be quickly closing, 3) flight seems to be the only way to survive and 4) no-one is available to help (Auf der Heide, 2004).

What do people actually do in disasters?

Many real-world cases suggest that, rather than acting selfishly, people tend to pull together both during and after disasters, displaying remarkable collective resilience. For example, analysis of behaviour during the London 7/7 bombings showed that there were only three accounts of people acting selfishly. Many more people described seeing altruistic behaviours. Although people were using the language of panic to describe what went on, their actual behaviour did not match the definition of panic (Drury et al., 2009).

Similarly, analysis from survivors of 9/11 found that almost everyone reported that the evacuation process to be calm and orderly, with evacuees making room for emergency responders to pass them by (Connell, 2001).

Another common belief is that disasters are usually accompanied by increases in antisocial activity, such as looting, traffic violations, and violence. Even when looting is not actually observed, this is often attributed to extraordinary security measures and the fact that such behaviour is inherently uncommon is overlooked. In actual fact, the amount of donated goods far exceeds that which could be looted in disasters (Heide, 2004). The remarkable collective resilience shown by communities in the wake of a disaster often goes unnoticed by media outlets (Drury et al. 2009).

Why is the notion of widespread panic a problem?

 The widespread belief that the inevitable response to disasters is panic is massively problematic for several reasons, including:

1.     Officials may hesitate to issue accurate warnings because they are afraid of causing panic, meaning that people are only informed of imminent risk at the last possible moment. This is problematic not only because it actually endangers people more, but also because people may begin to trust those relaying disaster messages less.

2.     It prevents effective disaster preparation. People may become afraid that even the suggestion of preparing for a disaster would lead to panic ensuing, when actually disaster preparedness is absolutely vital. A particularly striking example comes from the difference in evacuation speed of the World Trade Centre from the 1993 bombings to the 2001 attacks. In 1993, the average exit time was 15 minutes (from Tower 1) and 35 minutes  (from Tower 2). If the same evacuation speeds had been replicated in 2001, many more people would have died. A key difference between the two attacks was that after 1993 regular fire drills were carried out in the World Trade Centre and people were therefore more prepared.

3.     The fear of widespread looting may prevent evacuation, despite this actually being an uncommon reaction.

4.     The notion of panic can be used to deflect blame away from responsible parties. For example, the Hillsborough disaster was initially blamed upon a mass panic reaction. It later came to light that there was gross negligence on the part of the crowd controllers and the stadium design had contributed to the disaster, rather than it being the fault of those in the crowd themselves.

5.     The focus upon panic masks a potentially larger risk, the risk of mass apathy. There are often significant delays in evacuating groups in impending emergencies, and some people choose not to evacuate at all. One of the key problems is that people tend to feel overly relaxed in the face of emergencies, in striking contrast to the idea that they will be massively panicked! If people do not feel that their life is in jeopardy, they likely will not evacuate. Disaster communication needs to be serious enough to convince people of the need to evacuate. Disaster communication needs also to consider other barriers to evacuation, such as illiteracy, mobility issues and lack of economic resources.

How should we actually communicate before and during disasters?

There is often mistrust for public information, and people often cross-check information with others and online to validate it. Therefore risk communication needs to be both widespread and consistent so that people know the key information and they trust it. The information relayed should be easy to understand and the key points should be repeated.

The person relaying the message should be proportionate to the risk posed, for example the Minister of State for Health would be appropriate for a national health outbreak, but less so for a local one. They should also be honest and truthful if they do not know the scale of a threat. Most crises have an element of uncertainty; the person communicating should admit uncertainty and say what they are doing to overcome it.

As we know that panic in response to disasters is actually uncommon, risk communicators should be preparing the public for the worst possible outcome if necessary. People who are feeling afraid can find it calming to prepare because it lets them feel in control, however many people will not be afraid and may even have stopped listening altogether. Every time officials repeat practical advice, more people take it (Sandman, 2009).

Finally, we need to minimize the language of panic. Instead of focusing on the possibility of panic we need to think about the risk of people doing nothing to prepare. Government disaster planners are researching the best ways to prompt people out of inaction and the impact of different forms of crisis communication (see https://bit.ly/2F71xij). Behavioural science no doubt plays a critical role in understanding risk perception and in designing successful crisis communication.

 References

Connell, R. (2001). Collective behavior in the September 11, 2001 evacuation of the World Trade Center (Preliminary Paper# 313). Newark, DE: University of Delaware Disaster Research Center.

Drury, J., Cocking, C., & Reicher, S. (2009). The Nature of Collective Resilience: Survivor Reactions to the 2005 London Bombings. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 27(1), 66-95.

Heide, E. A. (2004). Common misconceptions about disasters: Panic, the disaster syndrome, and looting. The first 72 hours: A community approach to disaster preparedness, 337.

Rubin GJ et al. Psychological and behavioural reactions to the 7 July London bombings. A cross-sectional survey of a representative sample of Londoners. BMJ, 2005; 331(7517): 60-11

Sandman, P. M. (2009). The Swine Flue Crisis: The Government Is Preparing for the Worst While Hoping for the Best – It Needs to Tell the Public to Do the Same Thing. Retrieved from: http://www.psandman.com/col/swineflu1.htm

Much of the information is based on a Disaster Response MSc module at the IoPPN, led by Dr James Rubin

[nuadox]

Redesigning the rust belt: An old German steel region gets a mindful modern makeover

- By Christa Reicher -

The world is urbanising at a pace never before seen in human history. By 2050, 66% of the world is projected to live in cities. In the developing world, this rapid explosion in urban populations has strained the absorption capacity of cities and led to shortfalls in housing, transport, plumbing and other services.

Europe’s cities face a somewhat different problem. The continent urbanised and industrialised centuries ago. Today, major urban centres that grew up on manufacturing must reinvent themselves for the 21st-century economy.

Given the large scale of modern urban areas, which are more borderless metropolitan regions than self-contained cities, designing these Europolises of the future necessarily involves numerous states, cities, towns – and, ideally, the millions of citizens that live in them. How can so many people and institutions work together to rethink their region both spatially, in terms of its physical layout, and culturally, in terms of its new identity?

The view of Europe at night clearly reveals the regionalisation of cities, which have become more a network of centres than a single urban core.

Steel city no longer

Among several useful European redevelopment experiences, that of Germany’s formerly industrial Ruhr region, which began its reinvention in 2011, stands out.

With its 53 cities and municipalities, and five million residents, the region is one of Europe’s five largest population centres. Once upon a time, it was one of the top heavy industrial areas in the world, producing steel, coal and iron.

The Ruhr is no classic metropolis. It is comprised of numerous loosely connected cities, towns and neighbourhoods interwoven with a variety of open spaces, including dormant steel factories, landscapes decimated by coal mining, rivers and brownfields.

In urban planning terms, this is what’s called a polycentric urban region without a dominant core city. The Ruhr is also demographically diverse, with communities at different stages of development and income levels in close proximity, and infrastructure mostly dating from its industrial days.

Germany is determined to bring this post-industrial region into the modern global economy. And it wants to do so in a way that takes both climate change and citizens’ radically wide-ranging needs into account: urbanism on different levels and at different speeds.

A discursive process

These are the challenges facing the Ruhr Regional Planning Association (Regionalverband Ruhr, or RVR) in designing a new regional plan that will soon become the shared development guidelines for all of the region’s 53 municipalities, including 11 independent cities and four counties, in the coming decades.

The plan will replace parts of three existing regional plans where they overlap with the RVR’s area. But rather than go to battle with residents and the dozens of local powers that be (from mayors and governors to businesses), the planning authority has decided on an innovative process based on consensus-building.

All municipalities, local universities and citizens have fed into the plan to turn this former industrial centre into a modern conurbation. The project is also designed to account for the region’s changing demographics, as long-term residents once employed in its factories and mills are replaced by university students, young professionals and immigrants.

Little by little, section by section and with ever-changing working groups collaborating on each development project, the new Ruhr is coming together.

For the recently completed Phoenix Lake redevelopment in the city of Dortmund, a developer teamed up with the regional planning association and citizens to convert a polluted former mill area into Dortmund’s newest urban quarter.

The Phoenix Lake master plan as projected in 2006. Tbachner/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

An abandoned factory was replaced with a 24-square-hectare artificial lake designed for swimming and water skiing, and polluted tributaries were scrubbed. New housing went up, built in an architectural style that simultaneously fits in with the modern landscape and recalls the region’s past as a steel centre.

Two-scale urbanism

The Phoenix Lake project is an example of two-scale urbanism: the successful convergence of high-quality small projects with a broad and long-term regional vision.

In employing this participatory strategy, the Ruhr region is closing the gap between disciplines: everything from urban theory and environmental studies to economics has been fed into its development plan.

It also demonstrates that communities can work on different levels at the same time, transferring knowledge from the neighbourhood level up to the regional level and implementing regional infrastructure in individual cities.

Because of this discursive style, the Ruhr’s final redevelopment document could deliver answers to the challenges facing many cities and regions around the world, from rapidly expanding Accra and shrinking, struggling Detroit to cities that, like Vancouver, are seeking to become “green”.

Like Germany’s Ruhr region, Detroit is struggling to reinvent itself after the decline of the manufacturing economy that built it. Albert Duce/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA

Often, what we perceive as dualisms – growing developing-world metropolis versus shrinking manufacturing hub, or booming metropolis versus controlled-growth smart city – are not so different. Rather, they reveal spatial contradictions within the urban transformation processes that all cities are likely to experience at various points in their history.

The resurging city

In many global cities, for example, two seemingly contradictory shifts are currently underway: reurbanisation and regionalisation.

City centres are booming as young professionals and older generations, who may have left the city to raise their children, are rediscovering urban life, in no small part because people prefer not to spend hours commuting from suburb to downtown and back every day.

At the same time, cities are regionalising. The urban sphere is expanding into surrounding areas, and new multi-functional locations outside of traditional cores are arising.

With the new “aerotropolis” model of economic development“, for example, we see mega airports, often located between two cities, offering not just hotels but also conference, meeting and even living spaces. Such "airport cities” are planned or completed near Amsterdam, Dubai, Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Memphis and elsewhere, according to the 2011 book Aeorotropolis.

As long as the reurbanisation and regionalisation trends continue apace, the world will see ever more regional conurbations that, like the Ruhr region, have numerous, interconnected “centres”. This is the geography on display in the sprawling metropolitan region of São Paulo, Brazil, with its 39 municipalities and combined population of 21.5 million, and in the New York tri-state area (population 20.2 million), which encompasses large swathes of New Jersey and Connecticut.

With dense settlement as far as the eye can see and numerous ‘centres’, Sao Paulo is a classic example of modern connurbation. Chensiyuan/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

As the Ruhr’s experience has shown, it is no simple thing to respond to these different trends at all the scales present in the region, but it is possible. The local must be connected to the regional at different points – urbanism on two scales, progressing at two different speeds.

To design change in the interest of most citizens – and with visible achievements on all levels – is the core challenge in the Ruhr, and beyond.

Christa Reicher, Professor of Architecture and Urban Planing, Technical University of Dortmund

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0)

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Does the next industrial revolution spell the end of manufacturing jobs?

[bigyack-com]

Oil Companies Are Collapsing Due to Coronavirus, but Wind and Solar Energy Keep Growing

A few years ago, the kind of double-digit drop in oil and gas prices the world is experiencing now because of the coronavirus pandemic might have increased the use of fossil fuels and hurt renewable energy sources like wind and solar farms.That is not happening.In fact, renewable energy sources are set to account for nearly 21 percent of the electricity the United States uses for the first time this year, up from about 18 percent last year and 10 percent in 2010, according to one forecast published last week. And while work on some solar and wind projects has been delayed by the outbreak, industry executives and analysts expect the renewable business to continue growing in 2020 and next year even as oil, gas and coal companies struggle financially or seek bankruptcy protection.In many parts of the world, including California and Texas, wind turbines and solar panels now produce electricity more cheaply than natural gas and coal. That has made them attractive to electric utilities and investors alike. It also helps that while oil prices have been more than halved since the pandemic forced most state governments to order people to stay home, natural gas and coal prices have not dropped nearly as much.Even the decline in electricity use in recent weeks as businesses halted operations could help renewables, according to analysts at Raymond James & Associates. That’s because utilities, as revenue suffers, will try to get more electricity from wind and solar farms, which cost little to operate, and less from power plants fueled by fossil fuels.“Renewables are on a growth trajectory today that I think isn’t going to be set back long term,” said Dan Reicher, the founding executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University and an assistant energy secretary in the Clinton administration. “This will be a bump in the road.”Of course, the economic slowdown caused by the fight against the coronavirus is taking a toll on parts of the renewable energy industry just as it is on the rest of the economy. Businesses that until recently were adding workers are laying people off and putting off investments. Among the hardest hit are smaller companies that sell solar panels for rooftops. Their orders have dropped steeply as customers put off installations to avoid possible contact with the virus.Luminalt, a solar and electricity storage company based in San Francisco that employs 42 people, recently told most of its installers to seek unemployment benefits as the company’s residential jobs — normally six a week — have all but evaporated. Jeanine Cotter, Luminalt’s chief executive, told workers that the company would cover their benefits but that there was no money coming in to pay all of them.A half-dozen employees are installing solar at an affordable-housing project that has kept them working, and some who handle business operations are working from home. But Ms. Cotter worries about some installers who joined the company through San Francisco’s work force development program and depend on weekly paychecks to make ends meet.“Revenue has stopped,” said Ms. Cotter, who helped found the business 15 years ago. “It’s very confusing right now.”The Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group, estimates that half of the 250,000 workers in the industry could lose their jobs at least temporarily because of the coronavirus outbreak. The association has downgraded projected growth by as much as one-third of the more than 19 gigawatts of new solar capacity that was expected this year.But independent experts, including Wood Mackenzie, an energy research and consulting firm, say those projections could be overly pessimistic. “It’s still too early to call,” Ravi Manghani, head of solar at research at Wood Mackenzie. “The situation is changing on a daily basis.”His firm estimates that solar and wind power will continue adding capacity this year and next. New wind installations might be down only about 3 percent from earlier projections, largely because wind turbines are typically erected outside urban areas, and many states have deemed construction an essential activity during the pandemic.In a report last week, Raymond James analysts estimated that renewable energy sources would provide 20.7 percent of the nation’s electricity this year and at least 20 percent through 2022.Although hydroelectric plants have long helped power homes and businesses, solar and wind power emerged as major energy sources only over the last 15 years or so. A sharp drop in the price of solar panels has helped the industry expand. Last year, solar capacity increased 23 percent from the year before. It added 13.3 gigawatts, exceeding new wind and natural-gas generation, according to industry data.“We blew through all of the projections,” said Caton Fenz, chief executive of ConnectGen, a wind, solar and electricity-storage developer based in Houston. “We’re surfing a long-term wave,” he said. “We just can’t get specific things done because of the pandemic, but I don’t think that affects the broader trajectory.”His company, which is 22 months old, has 3,000 megawatts — the equivalent of three large power plants — under development in 11 states. About 40 percent is wind projects, 40 percent solar and the rest electricity storage.Among the company’s backers is 547 Energy, an investment firm that specializes in renewable energy. Gabriel Alonso, who runs 547 Energy, said his firm received its funding from Quantum Energy Partners, which had long been an investor in oil and natural gas.“As an investor in clean energy, renewable energy, the fundamentals that drove us to invest have not changed,” Mr. Alonso said.Even as the pandemic spread, Mr. Alonso’s company won a bid last week for part of a new electricity project in Greece. His company will develop a wind farm in the northern regions of Imathia and Kozani. The auction, on Thursday, was part of a larger effort by Greece to retire fossil fuel plants and replace them with renewables.Many renewable companies have projects around the world and have benefited from government efforts to address climate change. That has helped drive down costs of wind and solar equipment and made the industry more resilient to economic swings.In addition, because developers can build wind and solar farms more quickly than natural-gas, coal and nuclear plants, Mr. Alonso said, the renewables have become more attractive financially. In difficult economic times like these, he said, private equity investors like Quantum are eager to seize on businesses that can quickly scale up and start earning money.That said, solar businesses in particular are worried that the disruptions caused by the pandemic are serious enough that they are seeking help from Congress. Lobbyists for renewable energy are asking lawmakers to make it easier for their industry to take advantage of tax credits the government provides for wind and solar power.Developers usually enter into partnerships with banks and other financial institutions that can more efficiently make use of the tax credits than the contractors building renewable energy projects. The banks receive the tax credit and a share of the cash flow from the project typically for six to 10 years.But because demand for loans has shot up as businesses across the economy struggle, banks have been less able to finance new projects, said Josh Goldstein, chief operating officer at 8minute Solar Energy, a developer of large solar farms. Solar and wind industry officials want Congress to streamline the process for obtaining tax credits and make the credits refundable so that their businesses could benefit directly.“Their credit committees are in crisis mode,” Mr. Goldstein said about banks. “This disruption can have a particularly damaging effect.”8minute Solar was recently forced to suspend work on the Lotus Solar Project, a 67-megawatt solar farm north of Fresno, Calif., that it is building for Allianz Global Investors. Officials said it was unclear whether the work, which employed about 50 people, was considered “essential.”But the Department of Homeland Security included electricity production on its list of essential activities last month, affirming legal advice that 8minute had received, and the company sent workers back to finish construction.The solar industry expected to add more panels in 2020 than in any other previous year, said Abigail Hopper, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association. That won’t happen now, but the industry is still poised to add capacity.“We believe, over the long run, we are well positioned to outcompete incumbent generators,” Ms. Hopper said. Read the full article

[superchartisland]

FIFA Soccer 95 (Electronic Arts, Mega Drive, 1994)

In Tom Ewing’s Popular, the blog detailing every song to have reached #1 in the UK singles chart which is the biggest inspiration for this project, he has to write about fourteen Westlife singles. On reaching the first one, he called Westlife “this blog’s nemesis, the doom encoded in its premise”. I have a similar feeling as I look at the FIFA dynasty stretching before me. If only I had a mere fourteen ahead! With one notable exception I will be covering a FIFA game for each year I get to, plus more spin-offs besides, all adding up to more than twice as many #1s as Westlife. 

There is a fascinating tale to tell, of a sport reaching ever-greater heights of global domination with Britain (or at least England) at the forefront, sold at a similarly increasing scale in video game form to the British by North Americans. That tale, though, plays out across the sweep of the games over the years more than in any individual one. Like most Westlife singles, between each year’s version of FIFA and the next there aren’t a whole lot of differences. To reflect this, I am going to use the same set of questions for each of my posts about them to highlight the changes, over the short and long term.

What's new in FIFA Soccer 95?

No longer is it FIFA International Soccer, both in the sense of it no longer being in the name and in that FIFA Soccer 95 features club teams from a range of different countries, as well as more different modes to allow you to play the top-level domestic leagues of Brazil, England, France, etc..

What's gone?

No more tossing a coin at the start of the match to determine who kicks off, a part of the sport’s ritual for which FIFA now fails to live up to the marketing phrase “if it’s in the game, it’s in the game”.

What’s stayed?

As will often be the case, the answer is pretty much everything. Despite the move away from unnecessary fripperies the tossing of the coin toss might indicate, the bowling alley-style scoreboard animations after each goal remain, and remain annoying. The camera view remains fixed and isometric, and the player you are controlling is still indicated by a rather unnecessarily showy star shape around their feet.

Who is on the cover?

Erik Thorstvedt, goalkeeper, of Tottenham Hotspur and Norway. I guess they just liked the sort-of-spectacular photo of him mid-dive. Since there are no real players in the game, it makes sense not to go for anyone too recognisable.

What's on the soundtrack?

Some lively and inventive electro-jazz which nonetheless takes its role of sinking into the background very seriously. Composed by Jeff Dyck, a Canadian like most of those working on FIFA 95.

Who is the best player in the game?

Again, FIFA 95 doesn’t have real players, even if it has real club teams with vaguely correct colours. I’m also not sure if it gives its players an overall ability rating. Skill is the first one of many attributes that comes up and sounds like it could be, though. A quick perusal of FIFA 95’s top rated international teams found the following players with the rating of 99 which I assume is the highest:

M. Pitzos (defender, Brazil)

B. Millano (forward, Brazil)

J. Santamaria (midfielder, Italy)

M. Pizol (midfielder, Italy)

H. Schmidt (goalkeeper, Germany)

S. Reicher (defender, Germany)

There may well be more; there were certainly a lot of players in those teams rated 98, with no sign yet of the idea of particularly distinguished stars.

Who is the worst player in the game?

Turning to the worst teams in the game -- Qatar, India, Angers -- there are any number of players with a rating of 60, so no one stands out on this front.

What do the players look like?

FIFA 95 doesn’t pull away from the identical clone approach to footballers, with team-mates interchangeable with each other in build and appearance. Not necessarily interchangeable with their opponents, though -- there is some variation between teams in skin colour, if nothing else, which is an improvement on the all-white days of Italy 1990.If you hammer the C button to go through the menus as quick as possible and get to the default match-up, you will get a rematch of the 1994 World Cup final featuring an entirely olive-toned Italy team against a much darker-skinned Brazil team. As an example of the accuracy as far as what teams are wearing goes, let’s note that the turquoise shorts and yellow socks Brazil are depicted in are close but distinctly off-brand.

How does it play?

Much like the original, FIFA 95 doesn’t lend itself to a particularly free-flowing type of football, but makes use of canned animations and a bit of blatant artificial assistance to let you pull off the spectacular with ease. Overhead kicks are all very well, but if passing to another player without running out of space is more of a challenge and it feels like you’re constantly travelling through treacle, it’s still not particularly satisfying. Fouls are turned off by default, which suggests someone learned something from Speedball, and the button combo which allows you to commit more blatant off-the-ball shoves is a guilty joy.

How does it score on the sepp-blatter-rain-of-banknotes.gif greed index?

If you paid for FIFA 95, you got a game, which was unambiguously a new game despite obvious similarities to its predecessor. It scores zero sepp-blatter-rain-of-banknotes.gifs.

If FIFA 95 was a football team at the time, who would it be?

Stodgy with sporadic acts of violence -- Vinnie Jones-era Wimbledon.

Historical console chart supplied to Gamesradar by Chart-Track

[twylaeastman2-blog]

A Talk Along with Gary Vaynerchuk.

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[deniseyallen]

Portman, Bennet Introduce Bill to Help Finance Carbon Capture and Storage Projects

Boosts Domestic Energy Production and Reduces Overall Carbon Emissions 

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) today introduced legislation to help power plants and industrial facilities finance the purchase and installation of carbon capture and storage equipment.

“This bill is a win-win for jobs and the environment, and I’m proud to continue my work on this issue with Senator Bennet,” Portman said.  “Carbon capture is a common-sense solution that will allow states like Ohio to continue to utilize our natural resources while protecting our environment at the same time.  This bipartisan measure is supported by business groups, energy groups, and environmental groups alike, and I urge all of my colleagues to support it.”

“This legislation removes the barrier of high upfront costs so more power plants and industrial facilities can invest in carbon capture equipment and reduce the carbon pollution emitted into the atmosphere,” Bennet said. “This effort effectively boosts our domestic energy production and reduces overall emissions to keep our air clean – actions that Coloradans value and that make our state an attractive place to live. Even in today’s political climate, this bill is proof that Democrats, Republicans, labor unions, industry, and environmentalists can come together to advance policies that will protect our planet and create good-paying jobs.”

The Carbon Capture Improvement Act would allow businesses to use private activity bonds (PABs) issued by local or state governments to finance a carbon capture project. These bonds are beneficial to consumers and businesses because they are tax-exempt and can be paid back over a longer period of time. If more than 65 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from a given facility are captured and injected underground, then 100 percent of the eligible equipment can be financed with PABs. If less than 65 percent is captured and sequestered, then tax-exempt financing is permitted on a pro-rated basis.

More specifically, the bill would:

Make CCS projects more economically feasible: The ability to use tax-exempt PABs to retrofit power plants and industrial facilities will help decrease the costs for these types of projects.

Boost oil production, while conserving land and reducing emissions: By conducting EOR with recycled carbon dioxide from power plants, we can increase oil production from already-drilled wells, using less new land. Additionally, carbon dioxide that would otherwise be emitted into the atmosphere is instead captured and stored.

Provide greater energy security in the 21st century: In 2014, Enhanced Oil Recovery already accounted for 350,000 barrels a day of domestic oil production, according to the 21st Century Energy Institute at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Industry leaders praised the Senators efforts on this legislation.

“Peabody believes carbon capture and storage is a key technology for reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” said Michael Flannigan, Senior Vice President of Global Government Affairs. “This legislation is a good step toward creating policy parity for use of CCS in the energy and industrial sectors.”

“The UWUA supports the Carbon Capture Improvement Act and reform of the 45Q tax credit to expand the deployment of carbon capture technology as stable, long-term financing and tax incentives are essential to securing the future for power plants that form the economic bedrock of so many communities around our nation,” said Mike Langford, President of the Utility Workers Union of America.

“Fifty years of carbon capture experience in multiple industries, combined with the recent successful commercial-scale demonstration of carbon capture at an existing coal power plant in Texas, shows that the technology works,” said Brad Crabtree, Vice President for Fossil Energy at the Great Plains Institute, which co-convenes NEORI.  “Pairing tax-exempt private activity bonds with the 45Q tax credit can unleash private capital to scale up further deployment of carbon capture and bring costs down.”

“Private activity bonds are a well-developed tool that has been used for decades to cut the cost of financing a broad range of energy-related infrastructure,” said Dan Reicher, Executive Director of Stanford Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance. “The time is right to apply them to accelerating carbon capture projects with major economic and environmental benefits – and little cost to taxpayers.”

“Carbon capture and storage technology can reduce harmful carbon pollution from power plants and industrial sources, create jobs at home and increase American competitiveness,” said David Hawkins, Director of Climate Programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “As a complement to critical actions to use energy more efficiently and to switch to renewable energy sources, carbon capture technology can make important contributions to our efforts to limit damaging climate change. This bill would help make financing carbon capture plants easier and increase the availability and use of this technology.”

“We’ve seen bipartisan support for incentivizing carbon capture infrastructure because it’s a practical way to create skilled jobs and protect the environment,” said Bob Perciasepe, President of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. “Leadership in carbon capture technologies also gives the United States a first-mover advantage in a globally important market.”

###

from Rob Portman http://www.portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ContentRecord_id=3FB60652-42EA-4F61-8E83-07A2594285C9

[caseinpoints]

Stanford researchers suggest reforming U.S. solar policies and collaborating with China

The rapidly expanding solar energy industry could meaningfully contribute to curbing climate change only if governments and the private sector approach it more economically and efficiently, according to a new Stanford study.

Stanford solar energy researchers recommend that the United States and China work more closely together, with each country capitalizing on its particular strengths.

Researchers from Stanford’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance encourage the United States to reconsider a wide variety of its solar energy policies in order to maximize the industry’s long-term benefits to the global climate and to the U.S. economy. Their research is scheduled to be unveiled Tuesday during an event at the Brookings Institution.

A key recommendation is that China, which is the major driver of the global solar industry, and the United States work more closely together with each country capitalizing on its particular strengths.

“The Chinese are not only leading the world in terms of the manufacturing of solar equipment, but they are also the largest deployer of solar energy,” said Dan Reicher, a co-author of the report, The New Solar System, and executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center, which is a joint research center involving Stanford Law School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. “And they are getting increasingly competitive in the research and development area, which the U.S. has historically been dominating. With a new federal administration and a new Congress, this is the time to be thinking about what we want the U.S. role in solar industry to look like five, 10 years from now.”

Reassessing efficiency of U.S. policies

Solar power currently supplies only about 1 percent of global electricity, but the International Energy Agency predicts that solar photovoltaic technology – panels that convert sunlight into electricity – could grow to 16 percent by the middle of this century, and others predict even greater growth.

Jeffrey Ball, (Image credit: Mark Shwartz)

The U.S. government should embrace a globalizing solar industry, continue to invest in the deployment – as well as research and development – of solar energy, and, above all, prioritize plans that reduce the cost of solar power, the researchers said.

“A lot of money is being thrown into solar energy right now,” said Jeffrey Ball, the scholar-in-residence at the Steyer-Taylor Center and the report’s lead author. “We’re trying to identify public policies and private financing mechanisms that would spend that money more economically and efficiently, scaling up clean energy for all.”

Research and development of solar technologies have been helped by significant funding from the U.S. government. The Stanford researchers recommend increasing U.S. spending on solar R&D and encouraging international research collaborations between China and the U.S. Such collaboration raises concerns, such as intellectual-property protection and national security, but cooperating intelligently is crucial to solar power’s growth, they say.

The researchers also suggested reforming a federal policy that requires those who accept U.S. federal funding for solar research and development to promise to manufacture the resulting technologies “substantially” in the U.S. Created in an effort to maximize U.S. solar-manufacturing jobs, the current policy may instead diminish the quality of the research ideas being funded by the federal government. The researchers argue that solar R&D has a greater long-term economic value to the U.S. than solar manufacturing.

“There is an array of decisions the U.S. government is in charge of making that will have serious implications for the future of the U.S. solar industry,” said Reicher, who also serves as a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “This is a good moment to consider them in serious depth.”

Debunking myths about China

The researchers analyzed and described the current state of China’s solar industry, debunking several myths that are prevalent in Western countries.

“China’s solar industry and market is grossly misunderstood in the West,” Ball said.

For example, there is a perception that the global solar industry is centralizing in China and that its solar market is largely closed to foreign investment. However, the researchers found that China’s dominant solar companies are, as they grow larger, increasingly tapping international capital and spreading their operations across the globe.

In addition, the study found that top Chinese officials and corporate executives are eager to apply a range of more efficient financing mechanisms that have been used in the West to dramatically scale up solar deployment in China, already the world’s largest solar market. This newfound interest on the part of Chinese leaders represents a potentially valuable opportunity for America and other countries in the West, according to the report.

Another Western perception is that China doesn’t innovate, but uses other countries’ technological advances to bring down its manufacturing costs. While it’s true that manufacturing processes have been China’s strength, the country is intensifying its solar R&D efforts, according to the report. In addition, Chinese researchers are producing increasingly notable results in solar research.

For example, Trina Solar, one of the world’s largest solar manufacturers, recently became the first China-based firm to be recognized by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory as having achieved a world record in the efficiency of a laboratory-scale solar cell. Trina achieved that record for a multi-crystalline-silicon cell, the type of solar cell that dominates the global market.

“China has very ambitious targets for solar, and as a manufacturer and deployer of solar it already dwarfs the U.S.,” Ball said. “The goal for the United States should not be to beat China. It should be to play to U.S. comparative advantages – to craft policies to reduce the cost of solar power for the benefit of the world and, in the process, for the benefit of the U.S.”

Former Stanford researchers Xiaojing Sun and Caitlin Pollock also co-authored the report. The research was supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office.

News item from Stanford 

Solar Power World

[overlordquasar]

Redditor asking for help

Reddit is having issues right now. A small group of Trump supporters and alt reichers are harassing random people constantly. One of the largest subs is now a Trump supporting one that regularly violates multiple rules (inciting violence and brigading) and it uses vote manipulation to make itself seem more popular (people make bots that upvote every post in it, for example). The reddit admins have long proven to be too lazy to do anything until there is a media shitstorm about it. Whenever there has been, reddit has ended up being a bit more tolerable (after the people crying about censorship fuck off).

It is therefore, that I ask anyone who sees this, who knows someone who works in the media, or who works in the media, to encourage reporters to do stories on the rise of fascist and bigoted beliefs on the internet, and how they manipulate the systems they use to harass other users. People need to call out the reddit admins on a larger scale than can be done internally. If people do this, then the admins will do a purge of hateful subreddits and accounts.

[echelledereicher]

Tannery, Rennes, France [ Secret spot ]

Picture by France Moustache 3rd, October 2011

[echelledereicher]

Tal, Isle of Houat, France [ Wikipedia / Google Map ] Picture by Magali Reicher 1st January 2011

[echelledereicher]

Downtown, Isle of Houat, France [ Wikipedia / Google Map ] Picture by Magali Reicher 1st January 2011

[echelledereicher]

Friends, Lanhélin, France [ Wikipedia / Google Map ] Photo par Dorian François