How 'Alexa' is threatening society's trust in scientific expertise

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Philosopher of science is concerned that voice assistance encourages 'delegation of judgement' to algorithms

CBC Radio · Posted: Jan 25, 2021 

Philosopher of science Frédéric Bouchard argues that every time a person relies on Siri, Google or Alexa to answer a question, there's a potentially negative impact on scientific or human expertise. (Zapp2Photo/Shutterstock)

Ideas53:59Science and Society: Frédéric Bouchard

Frédéric Bouchard says we should be worried about society's attitudes towards scientists. 

Bouchard is a philosopher of science, as well as the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the Université de Montréal. In December 2020, he delivered an online talk for the Canadian Immunization Conference, entitled Science and Society. 

"I'm not worried so much about the credibility of science," he said, "but I think we should be worried about attitudes concerning the humans, the scientists, producing it. And what it says about society as a whole."

This mistrust of scientists is actually the result of a broader lack of trust across society, Bouchard said, and among people in general. This diminution of trust has been exacerbated by our increased reliance on algorithms and artificial intelligence. 

"The true challenges to the credibility of scientific experts," he said, "are more fundamental."

Algorithms and chocolate chip cookies

One of the ways we are all inadvertently feeding the distrust in humans, Bouchard said, is through our trust of algorithms and artificial intelligence. 

Bouchard uses the example of requesting a chocolate chip cookie recipe from a voice assistant, such as Siri or Alexa. The device will churn out a recipe immediately, but you have no way of knowing why that was the recipe you were given. 

"We don't even see the website. We don't even see the title page," he said. "We just take the first answer that comes up," Bouchard told IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed in a subsequent conversation. 

In this way, voice assistance encourages us, as he says, to "delegate our judgment" to the algorithm providing those answers. "That's what concerns me."

'Next time you ask a question to Siri, Alexa, Google, think about the human expertise that you are foregoing; think about who chose that recipe: why was it identified as the best recipe?' asks philosopher of science, Frédéric Bouchard. (Julie Van Rosendaal/CBC)

Delegating answers to other people is normal, Bouchard maintains, simply because we don't have every answer ourselves. And when we delegate knowledge to others, we then have ways of assessing the credibility of our source — for example, we trust an academic because they're a professor at a university, and we recognize the authority of the institution they belong to. 

With voice assistance, however, we don't have any of those markers that help us assess whether the information we're receiving is credible or not.

"Humans are biased. We all know that," he said. But when we assume that artificial intelligence is in some way less biased, we can inadvertently put more trust in computers than our fellow humans. 

"When we question the human integrity of others by comparison to our digital algorithms," he said, "we're basically feeding the distrust in humans." 

This distrust, in turn, can weaken our trust in people in general, including scientists. 

The problem with politicians 

It may be counterintuitive, but as Professor Bouchard points out, when politicians declare they are pro-science, they could unintentionally be undermining the public's trust in science.

This kind of statement can lead to science being viewed as a political issue, he argues. It suggests that, "some other people are anti-science, and that everyone has to choose a camp."

Bouchard said he's grateful whenever politicians listen to scientists, because they have valuable information that can inform policy decisions.

However, he does have a caveat.

"When an elected official says 'I believe in science,' the word that concerns me is 'I,'" he said. "In a highly polarized society, I'm afraid it suggests that it's okay not to believe in science. It feels like a personal choice." 

'Maybe a strange irony of having journalists and elected officials talk about science is that scientists are found guilty by association,' says Frédéric Bouchard in an online talk for the Canadian Immunization Conference. (Submitted by Frédéric Bouchard)

It can also lead to a situation where advising scientists may be seen as the ones making the decisions, he said, which can make the public think the scientists are overstepping their role. 

Rather, Bouchard adds, it would be better for politicians to say that they've consulted with scientists, but ultimately the decisions were made by those who were democratically elected.

"I'm much more comfortable when elected officials say I have convened a group of scientists, they've given me their best assessment of where we're going, and then we've made the decision," he said. 

Hope for the future

Despite his concerns, Bouchard said he hopes that trust in scientific experts will be restored in a meaningful way. One of the main reasons for his optimism is the impact brought on by the isolation many are experiencing in the current pandemic. 

"We've lost a lot of social interactions through this pandemic," he said. Since he finds the issue of credible expertise fundamentally about trust in other people and institutions, he sees this craving for social connection as something that will reinvigorate our social bonds. 

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"There'll be an energy in trusting in each other and building things together," he said. In this way, he sees the pandemic as a kind of necessary reckoning that will ultimately improve trust between people. 

On an individual level, this improvement can take the form of asking a friend or relative for a chocolate chip cookie recipe, instead of a voice assistant. This return to trusting the people around us, he said, can help rebuild trust across the board.

"I'm confident that we're able to, and that we will do it."

 

Oil Majors Poised To Make Biggest Geothermal Investments In 30 Years

By Alex Kimani - Jan 24, 2021

The green energy revolution is well and truly underway. Renewables have proven to be highly resilient, emerging as the only energy sector to record any kind of growth at a time when the traditional energy sector is going through its worst existential crisis. 

Indeed, the latest report by clean energy watchdog Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) reveals that a broad measure of global energy transition investments in 2020 clocked in at a record $501.3 billion, good for 9% Y/Y growth. The firm's analysis shows that both public and private investments in renewable energy capacity came to $303.5 billion, up 2% on the year, thanks mainly to the biggest-ever build-out of solar projects as well as a $50 billion surge for offshore wind. 

Yet, one renewable energy source has been conspicuous by its absence: Geothermal energy.

Private equity research firm PitchBook has revealed that $675 million of investors' capital flowed into geothermal investments last year. Whereas that was a good 6x higher than the previous year's figure, it represents a minuscule amount of clean energy investments, including emerging technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), which encouragingly tripled to $3 billion or hydrogen, which attracted  $1.5 billion in new investor capital after declining 20% Y/Y.

But that is about to change, with struggling fossil fuel companies about to put their capital and skills to work on something that's far less degrading on the planet. 

Oil and gas majors are about to make their biggest geothermal investments in more than 30 years, as geothermal economics improve while financials for the fossil fuel sector continue to pose a major challenge amid stubbornly low energy prices.

Why geothermal makes sense

The oil and gas sector has perfected the art of extracting fossil fuels many miles below the surface of the earth, increasingly using sophisticated drilling technologies such as millimeter waves (MMW) high energy beams, aka Direct Energy Drilling that has been developed to drill through tough rock formations. 

Whereas oil executives have always viewed geothermal energy as a potential source of revenue, the potential returns have been viewed as not attractive as the core business. Which is perfectly understandable in an era when oil prices averaged north of $100 per barrel.

Indeed, U.S. oil companies drilled hundreds of geothermal wells around the world in the 1970s and 1980s. Over the years, numerous sites along the Pacific Rim, from California to the Philippines, were prospected.

Unfortunately, the returns were usually dismal, with most geothermal wells turning up nothing or failing to cover the cost of new prospecting and development whenever they did. This reality led to Unocal, a company that outcompeted Chevron Corp. (NYSE:CVX) and Texaco to become the world's largest geothermal producer, selling off the majority of its geothermal assets in the early 1990s. The oil and gas majors soon followed suit.

But new technology has gradually been changing the drilling economics in favor of the geothermal sector. Currently, more than 90% of newly drilled geothermal wells are profitable compared to about 10% in the 1990s, thanks in large part to shale oil technologies such as geological sensing, horizontal drilling, and high-intensity fracturing. Meanwhile, newer technologies such as Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) allow oil and gas companies to create geothermal reservoirs wherever hot rock exists.

Clean energy

Geothermal energy can be found almost anywhere from remote deep wells in Indonesia and as close as the dirt in our backyards. 

Other than seismically active hotspots, there is a steady supply of milder heat--useful for direct heating purposes--at depths of anywhere from 10 to a few hundred feet below the surface. This heat can be found in virtually any location on earth since it has its origins from when the planet formed and accreted, heat from the decay of radioactive elements, and also from frictional heating caused by denser core material sinking to the center of the planet.  

Indeed, just 10,000 meters (about 33,000 feet) of the earth's surface contains 50,000 times more energy than all the oil and natural gas resources in the world.

Compared to wind and solar, geothermal energy is highly reliable since it's constant and available throughout the year regardless of the season or weather. Geothermal power plants have average availabilities of >90% compared to ~75% for coal plants. 

Geothermal power also has something even more impressive going for it: It's one of the cleanest energy sources--and dirt-cheap to boot.

True, geothermal power plants are frequently associated with sulfur dioxide and silica emissions, and the reservoirs can contain traces of toxic heavy metals, including arsenic, mercury, and boron. However, the pollution associated with geothermal energy is nowhere near what we see with fossil fuels. 

Geothermal power plants do not burn any fossil fuel to generate electricity, automatically meaning the air pollutants they emit are much lower. Indeed, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says geothermal power plants emit about 99% less carbon dioxide and 97% less acid rain-causing sulfur compounds than fossil fuel power plants of similar size. 

Geothermal power plants are frequently equipped with scrubbers to remove the hydrogen sulfide naturally found in geothermal reservoirs. Further, the vast majority of geothermal power plants recycle the steam and water they use by injecting them back into the earth. This recycling helps to renew the geothermal resource. The EIA says direct use applications and geothermal heat pumps have almost no negative effects on the environment.

Consequently, Iceland's capital city, Reykjavik, which heats 95% of its buildings using geothermal energy, is considered one of the cleanest cities in the world.

At USD 0.04-0.14 per kWh, geothermal power plants have the lowest levelized cost of all US generation sources, both conventional or renewable.

Estimates of lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions by power generation source

Enhanced geothermal systems

Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) promise to increase the areas where geothermal energy can be exploited as well as boost the energy output of wells over a smaller footprint.

Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) are geothermal reservoirs enabled for economic utilization of low permeability conductive rocks by creating fluid connectivity in initially low-permeability rocks through hydraulic, thermal, or chemical stimulation. 

An Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) is essentially a man-made reservoir, created where there is hot rock but insufficient or little natural permeability or fluid saturation. In an EGS, fluid is injected into the subsurface under carefully controlled conditions, which cause pre-existing fractures to re-open, creating permeability. Increased permeability allows fluid to circulate throughout the now-fractured rock and to transport heat to the surface where electricity can be generated. 

Advanced EGS technologies are young and still under development; however, EGS has been successfully realized on a pilot scale in Europe and now at two DOE-funded demonstration projects in the United States. The European Union has taken this idea a step further, and is supporting research into converting oil wells into geothermal wells. One option involves converting oil wells for geothermal production while the other involves co-producing both oil and heat from existing oil wells.

A 2006 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study predicted that in the United States alone, 100 GWe of cost-competitive capacity could be provided by EGS in the next 50 years, or more than 6x what the entire planet currently manages.

The next Shale industry?

Some experts are optimistic that geothermal's trajectory may follow that of the US shale industry, which exploded in the space of less than two decades. Indeed, geothermal could soon become a ubiquitous renewable energy source with predictable returns, much like the solar and wind industries.

This would undoubtedly unlock billions in new financing. Investors have started taking notice, and have bid shares of the only major geothermal energy publicly traded firm, Ormat Technologies Inc.(NYSE:ORA), up 33% over the past 12 months.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

All Eyes Are On This Crucial Pipeline After Keystone XL Got Axed

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Jan 25, 2021

The Trans Mountain expansion project has just become the most important oil pipeline project in Canada after U.S. President Joe Biden stopped the U.S.-Canada cross-border link Keystone XL.

The expansion of Trans Mountain, which is set to nearly triple to 890,000 bpd the pipeline capacity from Alberta to the Vancouver coast, is currently expected to come online in December 2022.  

With Keystone XL dead, Trans Mountain—a project now owned by the federal government of Canada—is Alberta’s best chance to get its landlocked oil to major markets, including the fast-growing markets in Asia Pacific.

While Alberta is still reeling from President Biden’s decision to revoke Keystone XL’s Presidential permit, analysts and stakeholders see the Trans Mountain oil project as the crucial project that could boost the fortunes of Canada’s oil industry in the medium term.  

The renewed attention on Trans Mountain, which Canada’s government bought from Kinder Morgan in 2018, would likely make the completion of the Alberta-British Columbia link more urgent for the federal government, analysts say.

Other experts warn that the Keystone XL demise would embolden protests and opposition to Trans Mountain.

So the Trans Mountain project is now the focus of both the pro-pipeline and anti-pipeline camps in Canada.

The Trans Mountain expansion project is “really the only practical option left for increasing pipeline takeaway capacity and there should be a clear statement from the federal government that they’re committed to its completion,” Dennis McConaghy, a former executive vice-president of Keystone developer TC Energy, told Bloomberg in an interview last week.

The Canadian government doesn’t plan to hold onto its ownership of Trans Mountain and is set to divest it once there are few risks to its completion. Indigenous groups are interested in buying stakes in the project and are holding consultations with the federal government.

 “This pipeline is even more valuable now,” Joe Dion, chief executive of Western Indigenous Pipeline Group, one of the First Nations groups that could buy into Trans Mountain, told Reuters.

The killing of Keystone XL could make the business case of the proponents of Trans Mountain stronger.

Trans Mountain has secured committed 20-year contracts of up to 80 percent of the pipeline capacity. Contract utilization and spot utilization are expected at full capacity in the initial years of the pipeline’s operations, Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux said in a report last month.

The report was still considering that Keystone could go ahead, although it acknowledged the possibility of President Biden scrapping the project.

Without Keystone XL, Trans Mountain could receive more commitments for crude oil shipment, analysts say.

“The Government’s decision to acquire, expand, operate, and eventually divest of the Trans Mountain Pipeline System continues to be profitable,” Giroux said in the December report.

In the reference case, the net present value (NPV) of the Trans Mountain system is now US$473 million (C$600 million), the PBO analysis shows. But if the pipeline utilization were to increase by 5.0 percentage points, then the NPV rises to US$709 million (C$900 million).  

“However, the profitability of the assets is highly contingent on the climate policy stance of the federal government and on the future utilization rate of the pipeline,” the Parliamentary Budget Officer said.  

Right now, the pipeline is profitable with the current climate policy of the federal government, the officer says.

The end of Keystone may not be all bad news for Canada, energy expert Werner Antweiler told Canadian media after reports emerged that President Biden would kill the cross-border pipeline on his first day in office.

“It may be positive news as there’s some competition between these two routes, and if it increases the value of the trans mountain line that’s probably actually not bad news for the federal government,” Antweiler said.

Some analysts question the rationale for Keystone XL, after oil demand collapsed, prices crashed, and Canadian pipelines ended up with more capacity for crude oil than producers were actually shipping.

“If Keystone XL had gone ahead as TC had hoped, there might have been excess pipeline capacity for exports out of Alberta by 2023,” Ed Crooks,

Vice-Chair Americas at Wood Mackenzie, wrote last week.   

Yet, even after Keystone’s demise, no one expects Trans Mountain to be smooth sailing. As much as it could become a priority for the federal government to get it completed, the project could end up being the focus of more anti-pipeline campaigns, protests, and lawsuits.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com  

Texas Regulator Slams BP For Flaring

“a waste of our precious resources”
By Irina Slav - Jan 27, 2021

The Texas Railroad Commission has gotten a chance to strike back at BP, which last year urged it to reduce flaring in the state. BP appears to be the company with the most flaring requests to be considered by the regulator, and one commissioner has called the practice “a waste of our precious resources”.

“I am amenable to allowing fair time for flaring to occur in certain circumstances, but limits must be set,” the newest member of the Commission, Republican Jim Wright, said, as quoted by Bloomberg.

This appears to be exactly what BP urged the regulator to do last year, along with peer Shell.

“We believe there is a real opportunity for the state to set the bar for others to follow,” the two Big Oil majors wrote in a letter to the watchdog. “We encourage the Railroad Commission of Texas to support an ambition of zero routine flaring in Texas.”

The two were not the only critics of the Railroad Commission on flaring, so last November, the regulator tightened the rules: it now requires more detailed information from applicants, including a justification for their request to flare. The amended rules also reduce the period during which companies are allowed to flare.

The regulator requires oil and gas companies to apply for a flaring exception permit after the first ten days of a new well’s start. For the first ten days, they are allowed to flare. Right now, BP is seeking a flaring exception for 121 wells, which is an unusually high number. If it receives the Commission’s approval, the cumulative exceptions would be in effect until April next year.

“This two-year flaring exception is a real world test of its promises to tackle carbon emissions,” an oil and gas analyst with transparency advocacy Documented, told Bloomberg. “If BP isn’t serious about reducing routine flaring then the Railroad Commission needs to deny this request,” kelly Mitchell added.

BP sees no problem with its request, according to Bloomberg, which quoted the company as saying it was “committed to zero routine flaring and will continue to work with the commission on this critical issue.’’

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

 

NYC To Tackle Largest Fossil Fuels Divestment In The World

By Julianne Geiger - Jan 26, 2021, OILPRICE.COM

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Comptroller Scott Stringer announced on Monday that two of the cities pension funds will divest completely from any securities “related to fossil fuel companies”.

The city expects its total divestment to be around $4 billion—likely one of the largest divestments in the world.

The purpose of the divestment is to “address the significant financial and environmental risks that these fossil fuel holdings post to the funds and to our planet.”

Investing in fossil fuels isn’t just bad for the planet, it’s a bad investment, de Blasio shared in a press release. ““Our first-in-the-nation divestment is literally putting money where our mouth is when it comes to climate change. Divestment is a bold investment in our children and grandchildren, and our planet. I applaud the trustees, advocates and experts for their hard work, and I look forward to seeing more cities around the world join this call for change,” de Blasio said.

Oil company stocks had a tough year in 2020, as the sector largely gave way to tech stocks, which fared better throughout much of the pandemic months.

The two funds divesting from fossil fuels include the New York City Employees’ Retirement System (NYCERS) and New York City Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS), which voted today to approve the divestments. New York City Board of Education Retirement System (BERS) is planning to vote “imminently,” according to the press release.

The divestment is expected to be complete within five years, and the names of the company will be released after the sale of the targeted securities.

The city committed back in 2018 to completely divesting its major public pension funds from fossil fuel reserve companies.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

KENNEY SAID HE WAS AGAINST THIS WHEN NDP DID IT

Canadian crude-by-rail exports surge 87% to 170,000 barrels per day in November

January 25, 20211:19 PM The Canadian Press

Railcars holding crude oil

CALGARY – Canadian exports of crude oil by rail jumped 87% in November as oil production rose in Western Canada amid limited pipeline capacity for heavy crude.

The Canada Energy Regulator says rail shipments of oil amounted to 173,000 barrels per day, up about 80,000 bpd from 92,800 barrels per day in October.

That’s down from 302,300 barrels per day shipped by rail in November 2019.

Crude-by-rail numbers have been volatile in the past year, with shipments rising to a record 412,000 bpd last February, then falling to an eight-year low of 39,000 bpd in July.

Rail transportation of crude oil is considered to be more expensive than shipping by pipeline so shippers tend to use it only when pipelines are full or if the destination market offers much higher prices than can be achieved in Canada.

The CER says overall Canadian crude oil exports in November came to 3.74 million bpd, up by almost 5% from 3.57 million bpd in October. 29dk2902l