Is reality a game of quantum mirrors? A new theory suggests it might be

by Peter Evans, The Conversation

Credit: Jurik Peter / Shutterstock

Imagine you sit down and pick up your favorite book. You look at the image on the front cover, run your fingers across the smooth book sleeve, and smell that familiar book smell as you flick through the pages. To you, the book is made up of a range of sensory appearances.


But you also expect the book has its own independent existence behind those appearances. So when you put the book down on the coffee table and walk into the kitchen, or leave your house to go to work, you expect the book still looks, feels, and smells just as it did when you were holding it.

Expecting objects to have their own independent existence—independent of us, and any other objects—is actually a deep-seated assumption we make about the world. This assumption has its origin in the scientific revolution of the 17th century, and is part of what we call the mechanistic worldview. According to this view, the world is like a giant clockwork machine whose parts are governed by set laws of motion.

This view of the world is responsible for much of our scientific advancement since the 17th century. But as Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli argues in his new book Helgoland, quantum theory—the physical theory that describes the universe at the smallest scales—almost certainly shows this worldview to be false. Instead, Rovelli argues we should adopt a "relational" worldview.

What does it mean to be relational?

During the scientific revolution, the English physics pioneer Isaac Newton and his German counterpart Gottfried Leibniz disagreed on the nature of space and time.

Newton claimed space and time acted like a "container" for the contents of the universe. That is, if we could remove the contents of the universe—all the planets, stars, and galaxies—we would be left with empty space and time. This is the "absolute" view of space and time.

Leibniz, on the other hand, claimed that space and time were nothing more than the sum total of distances and durations between all the objects and events of the world. If we removed the contents of the universe, we would remove space and time also. This is the "relational" view of space and time: they are only the spatial and temporal relations between objects and events. The relational view of space and time was a key inspiration for Einstein when he developed general relativity.

Rovelli makes use of this idea to understand quantum mechanics. He claims the objects of quantum theory, such as a photon, electron, or other fundamental particle, are nothing more than the properties they exhibit when interacting with—in relation to—other objects.

These properties of a quantum object are determined through experiment, and include things like the object's position, momentum, and energy. Together they make up an object's state.

According to Rovelli's relational interpretation, these properties are all there is to the object: there is no underlying individual substance that "has" the properties.

So how does this help us understand quantum theory?

Consider the well-known quantum puzzle of Schrödinger's cat. We put a cat in a box with some lethal agent (like a vial of poison gas) triggered by a quantum process (like the decay of a radioactive atom), and we close the lid.

The quantum process is a chance event. There is no way to predict it, but we can describe it in a way that tells us the different chances of the atom decaying or not in some period of time. Because the decay will trigger the opening of the vial of poison gas and hence the death of the cat, the cat's life or death is also a purely chance event.

According to orthodox quantum theory, the cat is neither dead nor alive until we open the box and observe the system. A puzzle remains concerning what it would be like for the cat, exactly, to be neither dead nor alive.

But according to the relational interpretation, the state of any system is always in relation to some other system. So the quantum process in the box might have an indefinite outcome in relation to us, but have a definite outcome for the cat.

So it is perfectly reasonable for the cat to be neither dead nor alive for us, and at the same time to be definitely dead or alive itself. One fact of the matter is real for us, and one fact of the matter is real for the cat. When we open the box, the state of the cat becomes definite for us, but the cat was never in an indefinite state for itself.

In the relational interpretation there is no global, "God's eye" view of reality.

What does this tell us about reality?

Rovelli argues that, since our world is ultimately quantum, we should heed these lessons. In particular, objects such as your favorite book may only have their properties in relation to other objects, including you.

Thankfully, that also includes all other objects, such as your coffee table. So when you do go to work, your favorite book continues to appear is it does when you were holding it. Even so, this is a dramatic rethinking of the nature of reality.

On this view, the world is an intricate web of interrelations, such that objects no longer have their own individual existence independent from other objects—like an endless game of quantum mirrors. Moreover, there may well be no independent "metaphysical" substance constituting our reality that underlies this web.

As Rovelli puts it: "We are nothing but images of images. Reality, including ourselves, is nothing but a thin and fragile veil, beyond which … there is nothing."


Explore further

Quantum philosophy: Four ways physics will challenge your reality
Provided by The Conversation

The Center of the Milky Way is the Most Likely Place to Find a Galactic Civilization



POSTED ONJULY 3, 2021 BY MATTHEW CIMONE


Aim for the Center

The Milky Way is 13 BILLION years old. Some of our Galaxy’s oldest stars were born near the beginning of the Universe itself. During all these eons of time, we know at least one technological civilization has been born – US!

But if the Galaxy is so ancient, and we know it can create life, why haven’t we heard from anybody else? If another civilization was just 0.1% of the Galaxy’s age older than we are, they would be millions of years further along than us and presumably more advanced. If we are already on the cusp of sending life to other worlds, shouldn’t the Milky Way be teeming with alien ships and colonies by now?

Maybe. But it’s also possible that we’ve been looking in the wrong place. Recent computer simulations by Jason T. Wright et al suggest that the best place to look for ancient space-faring civilizations might be the core of the Galaxy, a relatively unexplored target in the search for extra terrestrial intelligence.


Animation showing the settlement of the galaxy. White points are unsettled stars, magenta spheres are settled stars, and white cubes represent a settlement ship in transit. The spiral structure formed is due to galactic shear as the settlement wave expands. Once the Galaxy’s center is reached, the rate of colonization increases dramatically. Credit: Wright et al

The Churn

Older mathematical models of space colonization have tried to determine the time required for a civilization to spread throughout the Milky Way. Given the size of the Milky Way, wide-scale galactic colonization could take longer than the age of the Galaxy itself. However, a unique feature of this new simulation is its accounting for the motion of the Galaxy’s stars. The Milky Way is not static, as assumed in prior models, rather it is a churning swirling mass. Colonization vessels or probes would be flying among stars that are themselves in motion. The new simulation reveals that stellar motion aids in colonization contributing a diffusing effect to the spread of a civilization.

The simulation is based previous research by Jonathan Carroll-Nellenback et al which proposed that a hypothetical civilization could spread at sub-light speeds through a moving Galaxy. The simulation assumes a civilization using ships travelling at velocities comparable to our own spacecraft (about 30km/s). When a ship arrives at a virtual habitable world in the simulation, the world is considered a colony and can itself launch another craft every 100,000 years if another uninhabited world is in range. Simulated space craft range is 10 light years with maximum travel duration of 300,000 years. Technology from a virtual colony was set to last 100 million years before dying out with the opportunity to be resettled should another colony drift into range by galactic motion.

The results are dramatic. The Galaxy’s rotation generates a wave or “front” of colonization. Once the front reaches the Galactic core, the core’s density catalyzes a rapid increase in the rate of colonization. Even with very conservative limits placed on the speed of the space craft, a majority of the Galaxy could be colonized in less than a billion years – a fraction of its total age.

Line of Sight

The simulation’s results reaffirm past proposals by Vishal Gajjar et al. to search the Galactic center for signs of life. Not only can the center of the Galaxy be rapidly colonized, but also efficiently scanned for technology. We have a direct line of sight to the Galaxy’s center which encompasses the densest region of space relative to us. And since the Galaxy formed from the inside out, the center is filled with older planets which provide more time for life to evolve.

The center also serves as a logical place to “talk” to and from – a central focal point of the Galaxy. If you wanted to get a signal out to the rest of the Galaxy, you could do so from the center to blanket the disk of the Milky Way. Likewise, if you wanted to find a signal, you might look to that same center. Gajjar et al. also hypothesize that an advanced civilization may be capable of tapping into the energy of the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole to power a galaxy-wide signal beacon. Talk about a powerful “hello!”

A view toward the Galaxy’s Center from Earth captured in the Mojave Desert. Credit: Photo by Author

Then Why so Quiet?

Still, none of this answers the previous question – where are they? In fact, the speed at which the Galaxy could be colonized complicates why we haven’t heard from anybody. Furthermore, Caroll-Nellenback et al. also note that during colonization, an advanced civilization might develop new propulsion technologies shortening the time needed to spread. And yet, preliminary radio scans of the Galactic Core haven’t revealed any signals. Perhaps the silence itself is an answer. The Galaxy is so old with so much time available for life to spread that some believe the silence dooms any hope of meeting anybody.

But there is still hope! The simulation shows it’s possible that some parts of the Galaxy are never settled despite eons of time. It’s a matter of efficiency. Remember, you want to colonize at the shortest possible ranges. As time passes, some colonies die out and are lost perhaps from resource exhaustion or cataclysmic event. Rather than reach farther out into space, colonies choose to reinhabit a dead colony at closer range. Clusters of inhabited colonies form surrounded by uninhabited planets that are never colonized . A “steady state” is achieved where regions of the Milky Way’s habitable worlds are simply too inefficient to colonize.

There are other possibilities to explain the silence as well. Perhaps long-lived civilizations are governed by sustainability to grow more slowly than anticipated. If there are multiple colonizing civilizations perhaps they are competing for resources or keep a distance from eachother. Perhaps civilizations take care to not interfere with inhabited planets such as ours (similar to the Prime Directive in Star Trek) or are cautious of potential biological incompatibilities faced on other worlds. All these possibilities may explain why we have yet to meet anyone…unless we already have…no, seriously.

A Buried Past

Carroll-Nellenback et al. consider a “temporal horizon” – a point in history beyond which Earth would no longer retain evidence of previous colonization. Let’s say, for example, a galactic alien civilization landed on Earth billions of years ago, lived thousands of years, then died off. After all this time, virtually no evidence would remain of their presence. So no “we” haven’t met an alien civilization, but it’s possible Earth itself has.

The simulation shows that, given our location in the Galaxy, there is an 89% likelihood that at least a million years could pass without visits from interstellar ships – potentially enough time to erase signs of previous colonization. The point is that between the Galaxy being completely colonized, or being completely empty, the simulation demonstrates that there can be middle grounds – valid responses to the silence which still leave room for technological extraterrestrial life even without contact.

Globular Life?

While the center of the Galaxy is an ideal future realm for SETI research, there are other regions of the Galaxy which mimic the same favourable conditions as the center – Globular Clusters

Globular clusters (GC) are ancient massive collections of stars orbiting about the center of the Galaxy at distances of tens of thousands of light years. Relics from a period of intense star formation catalyzed by galaxy mergers, there are about 150 known GCs in the Milky Way ranging from 10-13 billion years old.


3D Model of known Globular Clusters and their position relative to the rest of the Milky Way Credit: Galaxy’s 3D

GCs are incredibly dense with stars much closer to each other on average than found in the disk of the Milky Way. When considering interstellar travel or communication, we are typically talking about millennia. However, a civilization within a GC would experience travel time between stars on the order of just a few years with communication times of months or even weeks. Problem is that the densities of GCs may negatively impact planet formation as well as the orbital stability of planets.

R. Di Stefano and A. Ray calculate what they call a “GC habitable zone”. We generally use the term “habitable zone” to describe the distance a planet needs to orbit a star to maintain temperatures for liquid water. Earth resides in the habitable zone of the Sun (good thing for us). Rather than a 2 dimensional radius like the orbit of a planet, a GC habitable zone is a three dimensional shell orbiting around the center of the cluster itself. The inner part of the shell’s thickness begins where the GC density drops to where solar systems can survive the gravitational interference of nearby stars. The gravity of a nearby star might pull apart planetary dust rings disrupting the creation of planets. Another star passing near a system could also eject a planet from its parent star.

The outer edge of the shell’s thickness is defined by where the density becomes so low that the average distance between stars is greater than 10,000 AU (Astronomical Units representing the Earth’s distance from the Sun at about 150,000 KM). 10,000 AU is equal to about 2 light months. After this point, the advantages of being in the cluster – namely the short travel and communication times to neighbouring stars – diminish. The zone encompassed by the shell is what Di Stefano and Ray call the GC “sweet spot” for colonization – star systems that are close together facilitating quick travel/communication but not so close that they tear each other’s systems apart.

Fraser Cain of Universe joined by exoplanet researcher Dr. Jason Wright from Penn State University. Jason Wright was one of the leads on the Galaxy Colonization Simulation

We want the GC sweet spot to encompass mainly lower mass stars which live the longest. Serendipitously, low mass stars also have the smallest radius solar habitable zones. The closer a planet orbits its parent star the less likely it is of being torn away by another star. GCs also experience a phenomenon called “Mass Segregation” where the most massive stars – and therefore the least favorable to habitability in the cluster – find themselves gravitationaly drawn toward the center. This segregation then naturally sorts the cluster from least to best choice systems from core to periphery.

The results are favorable. In a hypothetical GC approaching 100,000 solar masses, the sweet spot encompasses 40% of G stars (yellow dwarfs like our own Sun) and 15% of K and M stars (orange and red dwarfs) in the cluster. That’s a lot of stars. There is even the possibility that planets which have been ejected from systems could still host a civilization because of the combined ambient energy the planet receives from all the stars in the cluster – especially if the civilization has advanced solar energy capture technology. A free floating world of space aliens.

Just throwing out numbers, Di Stefano and Ray suggest that even if only 10% of GC stars have habitable planets, 1% of those support intelligent life, and 1% of those host a communicating civilization, at least one communicating civilization could exist in every GC in the Milky Way. Similar variables assigned to the Milky Way itself – with far lower stellar density – would result in…one communicating civilization (probably us). Changing the percentages to be slightly less conservative would mean more civilizations could exist in the diffuse disk but would be separated by massive distances upwards of 300 light years.


If you were located in a GC, you may try to communicate with the distant disk of the Milky Way. We, unfortunately, have yet to find any direct evidence that planets even exist in GCs. Our techniques for finding exoplanets are impaired by the distance to and densities of GCs. But that doesn’t rule out the possibility. If a civilization does exist in a GC, with quick access to thousands of stars, Di Stefano and Ray say the civilization would essentially be “immortal.”

Globular Cluster M13 Credit: Howard Trottier, SFU Trottier Observatory

We’ve actually beamed a message to a GC – the beautiful M13 Hercules Globular Cluster. Located in the constellation of Hercules, the cluster is 22,000 light years away, 145 light years in diameter, and is comprised of about 100,000 stars. In 1974, a message was sent to M13 from the Arecibo radio telescope (RIP). The message contained the numbers 1 to 10, chemical compounds of DNA, a graphic figure of a human, a graphic of the solar system, and a graphic of the radio telescope itself. Total broadcast time was 3 minutes. Still has a few thousand years to get there.

Likely the low resolution message won’t be discernible by the time it arrives at M13. But perhaps one day we will make contact with a galaxy-spanning civilization. Or, perhaps WE will become a galaxy-spanning civilization. For that story, I’m eagerly awaiting the upcoming screen adaptation of Asimov’s Foundation series!

The Arecibo Message beamed to the M13 Globular Cluster. Creative Commons

Feature Image: Composite image of the Milky Way’s core created by Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra telescopes. Credit X-ray: NASA/CXC/UMass/D. Wang et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/D.Wang et al.; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSC/S.Stolovy

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New, Third Type of Supernova Discovered: An Electron-Capture Supernova

By UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - DAVIS JULY 3, 2021

An international team of astronomers has observed the first example of a new type of supernova. The discovery, confirming a prediction made four decades ago, could lead to new insights into the life and death of stars. The work was published on June 28, 2021, in Nature Astronomy.

“One of the main questions in astronomy is to compare how stars evolve and how they die,” said Stefano Valenti, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Davis, and a member of the team that discovered and described supernova 2018zd. “There are many links still missing, so this is very exciting.”

There are two known types of supernova. A core-collapse supernova occurs when a massive star, more than 10 times the mass of our sun, runs out of fuel and its core collapses into a black hole or neutron star. A thermonuclear supernova occurs when a white dwarf star — the remains of a star up to eight times the mass of the sun — explodes.

In 1980, Ken’ichi Nomoto of the University of Tokyo predicted a third type called an electron capture supernova.

What keeps most stars from collapsing under their own gravity is the energy produced in their central core. In an electron capture supernova, as the core runs out of fuel, gravity forces electrons in the core into their atomic nuclei, causing the star to collapse in on itself.

Supernova 2018zd, marked with a white circle on the outskirts of galaxy NGC2146, is the first example of a new, third type of supernova predicted 40 years ago. Composite image with data from the Hubble Space Telescope, Las Cumbres Observatory and other sources. Credit: Joseph Depasquale, STScI

Evidence from late spectrum

Supernova 2018zd was detected in March 2018, about three hours after the explosion. Archival images from the Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope showed a faint object that was likely the star before explosion. The supernova is relatively close to Earth, at a distance of about 31 million light years in galaxy NGC2146.

The team, led by Daichi Hiramatsu, graduate student at UC Santa Barbara and Las Cumbres Observatory, collected data on the supernova over the next two years. Astronomers from UC Davis, including Valenti and graduate students Azalee Bostroem and Yize Dong, contributed a spectral analysis of the supernova two years after the explosion, one of the lines of evidence demonstrating that 2018zd was an electron capture supernova.

“We had a really exquisite, really complete dataset following its rise and fade,” Bostroem said. That included very late data collected with the 10-meter telescope at the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, Dong added.

Theory predicts that electron capture supernovae should show an unusual stellar chemical spectrum years later.

“The Keck spectra we observed clearly confirm that SN 2018zd is our best candidate to be an electron capture supernova,” Valenti said.

The late spectrum data were not the only piece of the puzzle. The team looked through all published data on supernovae, and found that while some had a few of the indicators predicted for electron capture supernovae, only SN 2018zd had all six: an apparent progenitor star of the Super-Asymptotic Giant Branch (SAGB) type; strong pre-supernova mass loss; an unusual stellar chemical spectrum; a weak explosion; little radioactivity; and a neutron-rich core.

“We started by asking ‘what’s this weirdo?’ Then we examined every aspect of SN 2018zd and realized that all of them can be explained in the electron-capture scenario,” Hiramatsu said.

This composite image of the Crab Nebula was assembled by combining data from five telescopes spanning nearly the entire breadth of the electromagnetic spectrum. Credit: NASA, ESA, NRAO/AUI/NSF and G. Dubner (University of Buenos Aires)

Explaining the Crab Nebula

The new discoveries also illuminate some mysteries of the most famous supernova of the past. In A.D. 1054 a supernova occurred in the Milky Way. According to Chinese records it was so bright that it could be seen in the daytime for 23 days, and at night for nearly two years. The resulting remnant — the Crab Nebula — has been studied in great detail. It was previously the best candidate for an electron capture supernova, but this was uncertain partly because the explosion happened nearly a thousand years ago. The new result increases the confidence that the event that formed the Crab Nebula was an electron capture supernova.

“I am very pleased that the electron capture supernova was finally discovered, which my colleagues and I predicted to exist and have a connection to the Crab Nebula 40 years ago. This is a wonderful case of the combination of observations and theory,” said Nomoto, who is also an author on the current paper.

Read Discovery of a New Type of Stellar Explosion – An Electron-Capture Supernova – Illuminates a Medieval Mystery for more on this research.

Reference: “The electron-capture origin of supernova 2018zd” by Daichi Hiramatsu, D. Andrew Howell, Schuyler D. Van Dyk, Jared A. Goldberg, Keiichi Maeda, Takashi J. Moriya, Nozomu Tominaga, Ken’ichi Nomoto, Griffin Hosseinzadeh, Iair Arcavi, Curtis McCully, Jamison Burke, K. Azalee Bostroem, Stefano Valenti, Yize Dong, Peter J. Brown, Jennifer E. Andrews, Christopher Bilinski, G. Grant Williams, Paul S. Smith, Nathan Smith, David J. Sand, Gagandeep S. Anand, Chengyuan Xu, Alexei V. Filippenko, Melina C. Bersten, Gastón Folatelli, Patrick L. Kelly, Toshihide Noguchi and Koichi Itagaki, 28 June 2021, Nature Astronomy.
DOI: 10.1038/s41550-021-01384-2

The research is part of the Global Supernova Project, led by Professor Andrew Howell at UCSB and Las Cumbres Observatory. Additional co-authors are: Curtis McCully and Jamison Burke, Las Cumbres Observatory and UCSB; Jared Goldberg and Chengyuan Xu, UCSB; Schuyler Van Dyk and Gagandeep Anand, California Institute of Technology; Keiichi Maeda, Kyoto University; Takashi Moriya, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan; Nozomu Tominaga, Konan University, Kobe, Japan; Griffin Hosseinzadeh, Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian; Iair Arcavi, Tel Aviv University, Israel; Peter Brown, Texas A&M University; Jennifer Andrews, Christopher Bilinski, G. Grant Williams, Paul Smith, Nathan Smith and David Sand, Steward Observatory, University of Arizona; Alexei Filippenko, UC Berkeley; Melina Bersten and Gastón Folatelli, Instituto de Astrofísica de La Plata and Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina; Patrick Kelly, University of Minnesota; Toshi- hide Noguchi, Noguchi Astronomical Observatory and Koichi Itagaki, Itagaki Astronomical Observatory, Japan. The work was partly supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and NASA.

Vale to use unmanned equipment to help shut down two dams
Reuters | July 5, 2021 | 

On January 25, 2019, the Córrego do Feijão dam near the town of Brumadinho collapsed, releasing 9.7 million cubic meters of waste. Image courtesy of Earthworks.

Vale SA will use unmanned equipment for the removal of iron ore mining waste to help shut down two dams at imminent risk of collapse in Minas Gerais state, according to a securities filing on Monday.


The announcement comes two years and four months after the collapse of a tailings dam at its mine in the town of Brumadinho that killed roughly 270 people, in one of the world’s worst mining disasters.

That was the second deadly tailings dam rupture at a Vale-affiliated mine in four years.

Following the Brumadinho disaster, Brazil banned so-called “upstream” dams tailings that are constructed in a way that increases risk of collapse and set timelines for all such dams to be shut down.

The unmanned equipment will be used to help shut down two upstream dams, the B3/B4 dam of the Mar Azul mine and the Sul Superior dam at the Gongo Soco mine.

Both dams are at the highest level rating for risk of collapse – level 3 – requiring precautionary measures including evacuating people from the area.

Vale said the move was approved by an expert at the prosecutor’s office, in addition to the entire body of external consultants hired by the company to oversee such projects.

Vale said the latest action represents the advancement of the company’s “upstream dam decharacterization program” and its commitment to safety.

(Reporting by Ana Mano Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Peru’s indigenous hope for a voice, at last, under new president

Reuters | July 5, 2021 |

Peru’s socialist president-elect, Pedro Castillo (Credit: TVPeru Noticias)

Maxima Ccalla, 60, an indigenous Quechua woman, has spent her life tilling the harsh soil in Peru’s Andean highlands, resigned to a fate far removed from the vast riches buried deep beneath her feet in seams of copper, zinc and gold.


The Andean communities in Ccalla’s home region of Puno and beyond have long clashed with the mining companies that dig mineral wealth out from the ground.

In recent interviews, many said they felt discriminated against and marginalized, and accused mining companies of polluting their water and soil.

But in a country still under the shadow of a colonial past, the rise of an outsider politician, the son of peasant farmers, is sparking hopes of change. It has also thrown a spotlight on stark divides between the rural Andean highlands and remote Amazon settlements, and the wealthier – and whiter – coastal cities.

Pedro Castillo, who wears a straw farmers hat and plays up his humble village roots, has pledged to give a voice to Peru’s “forgotten” rural groups and redistribute mineral wealth in the world’s second-largest producer of copper.

LEFTIST PRESIDENT OLLANTA HUMALA ALSO PROMISED DIALOGUE WITH INDIGENOUS GROUPS BUT WAS CRITICIZED FOR PUSHING OIL INTERESTS OVER PRESERVING THEIR LAND RIGHTS

“The looting is over, the theft is over, the assault is over, the discrimination against the Peruvian people is over,” he said at a speech in Cuzco.

The socially conservative leftist is on the cusp of being confirmed president after firing up the rural and indigenous vote, including in mineral-rich regions like Puno.

“So long, governments have promised to solve our problems but nothing has changed,” Ccalla said in Quechua through a translator while working in the fields surrounding her home in the community of Carata.

“Now, hopefully, he will fulfill his promises.”

Ccalla is one of millions of mostly poor, rural Peruvians who voted for Castillo in the June 6 run-off election.

Wearing a colorful, traditional Montera hat against the sun, Ccalla’s demands are simple: she wants safe drinking water.
‘One of us’

Castillo holds a slim lead, which is being scrutinized after legal pressure from his right-wing rival Keiko Fujimori who has alleged fraud and wants to disqualify some votes from rural areas.

Election observers said the vote was carried out cleanly.

The tension over the count has exposed a racial and socio-economic divide in the country.

More than a dozen leaders and activists from Quechua and Aymara communities, scattered across the Andes, and others deep in the Amazon rainforest hundreds of miles north, spoke to Reuters candidly about the discrimination they face.

In Puno, the region where Carata is located, Castillo scored some 90% of the total vote count. His party logo, a yellow pencil on red background, had been painted on walls of lone houses – the only splashes of bright color for miles around.

Though Castillo does not identify as a member of an indigenous community, those who spoke to Reuters overwhelmingly said they could relate to him “as one of us” because of his humble upbringing and his background as a farmer.

As with Bolivia’s Evo Morales a decade ago, they hoped he would give greater representation to marginalized groups, and a more state-led approach to mining to drive higher social spending.

“Now we see a lot of possibilities for the future – he’ll be a good president,” said Rene Belizario, 34, a Quechua. But, he added, “this is our opportunity and if he doesn’t deliver, the people will rise. There’ll be protests.”

Belizario, a father of three young boys, said he hoped Castillo would “recover” mines in the area operated by private companies to redistribute profits and generate jobs.

Mining is a key driver of Peru’s economy. Metals are the country’s largest export and Castillo, even with his plans to shake things up, will need to negotiate his way forward.

And what farming-based indigenous communities want in development terms rarely tallies with the ideas of the government in distant Lima, said Vito Calderon, an Aymara who took part in a 2011 protest against a mining project.
‘Our land has been stolen’

Castillo is not Peru’s first indigenous leader.

Alejandro Toledo, a Quechua who was president in the early 2000s, had sparked hopes among Andean groups that he would give them more profile, though left them largely disappointed.

More recently, leftist president Ollanta Humala also promised dialogue with indigenous groups but was criticized for pushing oil interests over preserving their land rights.

Indigenous leaders told Reuters that they had decided to support Castillo after he met with them to hear their demands and pledged to protect indigenous lands and push for a new constitution.

Melania Camales, who represents indigenous women in the Amazon, is among those who met him. She has hopes for him as president, but knows it won’t be easy.

“For decades, our land has been stolen by private companies, concessioned by the government,” she said. Some 200 years of “colonialist, racist, classist and male chauvinist education” will be difficult to undo, she added.

“We know he could betray us and power could go to his head. But the last thing we as indigenous communities should lose is hope.”

Long feeling discriminated against because of their social and economic status or skin color, many told Reuters the problem had become even more evident during the election.

AIDESEP, an umbrella organization for Peru’s indigenous communities in the Amazon rainforest, slammed attempts to annul rural votes as “denying our existence.”

“They don’t understand that our country, Peru, is plurinational – it’s not just the capital Lima,” said Lourdes Huanca, an Aymara and rights activist at another organization, FENMUCARINAP.

Discrimination was systematic, she said. “To them, we are not capable; to them, we don’t know how to think; according to them, we can’t make decisions.”

Back in Carata, thin cows with prominent ribs grazed on herbs burnt by the highland sun; the potato harvest was laid out to freeze dry in the cold night air; barefoot children, with red cheeks, wrapped newborn lambs in blankets for the cold.

For Ccalla and others, the fear was that development is eroding a way of life – much older than the 200 years of Peru.

“We feel vulnerable and discriminated but we are so worried about contaminated water and soil, we can’t fight for a bigger cause,” she said.

(Reporting by Stefanie Eschenbacher and Angela Ponce in Puno; Additional reporting by Marco Aquino in Lima; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Rosalba O’Brien)

Biggest China bank walks away from $3bn Zimbabwe coal plan

Bloomberg News | June 30, 2021 |

Stock Image.

China’s biggest bank dumped a plan to finance a $3 billion coal-fired power plant in Zimbabwe, dealing a blow to coal developers in Africa that see the Asian country as the last potential funder of their projects.


Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. told Go Clean ICBC, an ad-hoc body representing 32 environmental groups, that it won’t fund the 2,800-megawatt Sengwa coal project in northern Zimbabwe, according to a June 18 email seen by Bloomberg that was sent to 350.org, one of the Go Clean groups. ICBC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Western and South African banks have come under increasing pressure from their shareholders not to fund developments that could contribute to climate change, leaving Chinese lenders as one of the last avenues to secure finance. That door may now be closing, should China plan to improve its own environment credentials.

“This is highly significant, obviously for Zimbabwe but also for Chinese overseas energy financing,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst for the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. “It is the first time, to my knowledge, that a Chinese bank has pro-actively walked away from a coal-power project.”

The Sengwa project was being developed by RioEnergy Ltd., a unit of RioZim Ltd. RioEnergy Chairman Caleb Dengu said last year that ICBC had signed a formal notice of interest in funding the plant, to be constructed by China Gezhouba Group, while associated transmission lines would be built by Power Construction Corp. of China Ltd.

ICBC’S WITHDRAWAL MARKS THE SECOND TIME THE BANK’S COAL-FUNDING PLANS HAVE BEEN SCRAPPED

ICBC’s withdrawal marks the second time the bank’s coal-funding plans have been scrapped. A permit to build a coal-fired plant in Lamu in Kenya was canceled by the government last year.

ICBC described Sengwa as a “bad plan due to environmental problems,” 350.Org said in the email.

The Chinese lender has been under scrutiny over the environmental impact of funding coal projects and is in discussion with the coalition to “chart a clear road map to stop funding coal,” Go Clean ICBC said in the email. Nathalia Clark, the associate director of Global Communications at 350.org, declined to give further details.

The coalition had planned to roll out a global campaign last week against the lender’s coal activity, which it suspended after ICBC said it would halt engagement if it did so.

Over the past two decades, China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China have funded more than $50 billion of coal projects across Asia, Europe, Africa and South America, according to research from Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center. A plan proposed last year would make it tougher for the so-called Belt and Road Initiative to finance environmentally damaging projects like coal power plants and metal smelters.

While President Xi Jinping in September put the country on a path to zero out carbon emissions by 2060, he plans to let coal consumption increase through 2026 and the fuel is expected to remain an important part of the country’s energy mix for a decade beyond that.

RioEnergy is seeking alternative financiers, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said, asking not to be identified because ICBC’s withdrawal hasn’t been formally announced. Simba Mhuriro, the general manager at RioEnergy, said he wasn’t privy to the matter and couldn’t comment. Wilson Gwatiringa, a spokesman for RioZim also declined to comment. Winston Chitando, Zimbabwe’s mines minister, said he wasn’t aware of ICBC’s decision.

Sengwa was initially owned by London-based miner Rio Tinto Group, the one-time parent of RioZim. It was set aside as Zimbabwe’s relations with the U.K., its former colonial ruler, deteriorated. After the project was revived in 2016, General Electric Co. and a unit of Blackstone Group LP didn’t pursue initial inquiries.

The backing of ICBC was seen by RioEnergy as a fresh start in a plan to develop the plant and end recurrent power outages in Zimbabwe. Climate activists say the company will struggle to find another funder.

“Opportunities to fund coal power are rapidly diminishing, given the climate and other impacts of coal,” said Robyn Hugo, director of climate change engagement at Just Share, a Cape Town-based shareholder activist group. “There is simply no basis to consider new coal-fired projects and all plans to do so are likely to be strongly opposed.”

(By Ray Ndlovu and Antony Sguazzin, with assistance from Godfrey Marawanyika, Evelyn Yu and Dan Murtaugh)

Steel sector may be saddled with up to $70bn in stranded assets – report

Reuters | June 30, 2021 |

Bethlehem steel blast furnaces. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The global steel industry may have to write down up to $70 billion in assets in the coming years because it is still building new blast furnaces using coal that will become obsolete as the world cuts carbon emissions, a report said on Tuesday.


Some 50 million tonnes of steelmaking capacity is under development using blast furnace technology, largely in top producer China, U.S.-based think-tank Global Energy Monitor (GEM) said in the report.

“Building new coal blast furnaces is a bad bet for steel producers and a bad bet for the planet,” said Christine Shearer, GEM’s coal programme director.

Blast furnaces using coal could become unnecessary or inoperable, resulting in “stranded assets” worth $47 billion to $70 billion, the report said.

“Based on projections from the IEA and other groups, (they could become stranded) quite likely by 2030-2040. It could be sooner if more aggressive carbon taxes/restrictions are applied,” said Caitlin Swalec, lead author of the report.

Total direct emissions from the global iron and steel sector must fall by more than 50% by 2050 relative to 2019 to meet goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

New plants are being built even though there is large swathes of excess global steelmaking capacity, which was 25% above production levels in 2019, GEM said.

Much of the global steel industry acknowledges it will have to slash carbon emissions since the sector accounts for about 7% of greenhouse gas emissions, the group said.

Steel making companies and countries have made commitments to move to net-zero and low carbon emissions that cover more than three-quarters of current global steel capacity, it added.

Steelmakers are looking to expand the use of electric arc furnaces while also developing hydrogen and carbon capture technologies to cut emissions.

GEM used data from its Global Steel Plant Tracker, which surveys every plant operating at a capacity of one million tonnes a year or more.

(By Eric Onstad; Editing by David Evans)

Huge methane leak spotted in heart of China’s top coal hub
Bloomberg News | July 5, 2021 | 

Stock Image

A massive plume of methane, the potent greenhouse gas that’s a key contributor to global warming, has been identified in China’s biggest coal production region.


The release in northeast Shanxi province is one of the largest that geoanalytics company Kayrros SAS has so far attributed to the global coal sector and likely emanated from multiple mining operations.

Details captured in European Space Agency satellite data show the plume about 90 kilometers (56 miles) east of Shanxi’s capital Taiyuan, in Yangquan City. The area has 34 coals mines, according to the Shanxi Energy Bureau.

Shanxi’s Department of Ecology and Environmental, the province’s Energy Bureau and China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment didn’t respond to requests for comment. The National Development and Reform Commission didn’t respond to a fax.


METHANE CAN CONTINUE LEAKING LONG AFTER MINES HAVE BEEN CLOSED OR ABANDONED, AND THE INDUSTRY IS EXPECTED TO ACCOUNT FOR ABOUT 10% OF MAN-MADE EMISSIONS OF THE GAS BY THE END OF THE DECADE

The emissions rate needed to produce the plume observed in the June 18 satellite image would be several hundred metric tonnes an hour, according to Kayrros. For comparison, a 200-tonne per hour release would have roughly an equivalent climate warming in the first two decades as 800,000 cars driving at 60 miles an hour, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.

China is both the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal. The industry presents the nation’s biggest opportunity to mitigate methane emissions, according to a United Nations assessment. In March, China’s latest five-year plan included, for the first time, a pledge to contain the gas that traps roughly 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide in the initial 20 years after it is released.

President Xi Jinping has outlined an ambition for the country to start reducing coal use from 2026 on its way to a broader goal to peak greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the decade and reach carbon neutrality by 2060.

China’s foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters during a regular press briefing on Monday he wasn’t aware of the release and said the country is committed to low-carbon development.

Efforts to curtail coal use to have largely focused on the large amount of CO₂ generated when it’s burned. But mining the fuel is also problematic, because producers frequently release methane trapped in underground operations to lower the risk of explosion.

“Many existing coal mines are under poor management” in China, said Li Shuo, a climate analyst at Greenpeace East Asia. “There is much catching up to do to better monitor the sources and scale of methane emissions.”

Methane can continue leaking long after mines have been closed or abandoned, and the industry is expected to account for about 10% of man-made emissions of the gas by the end of the decade, according to the Global Methane Initiative.

To achieve its 2060 carbon neutral goals, China should create an investment and financing system that tackles methane reductions, the Environmental Defense Fund said in a report.

It can also make sense for miners themselves to take extra steps to capture methane emissions, as the gas can be used for power generation, coal drying or as supplemental fuel, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The analysis of the Shanxi plume follows earlier work to identify methane releases in countries including Russia and South Africa, as scientists begin to pinpoint the biggest sources of the emissions.

Existing data isn’t yet globally comprehensive, and satellite observations can be impacted by cloud cover, precipitation and varying light intensity. Satellites can also have difficulty tracking offshore emissions and releases in higher latitudes.

British Columbia Supreme Court drops bombshell on natural gas industry

Nelson Bennett - Business in Vancouver | July 2, 2021 |

Blueberry River First Nation territory is in the Fort St. John area, (pictured) which is in the heartland of B.C.’s natural gas industry. Stock image.

The British Columbia Supreme Court has found the B.C. government infringed the Blueberry River First Nation’s treaty rights by allowing decades of industrial development in their traditional territory.


The ruling will likely have significant impacts for industries in that region, notably the natural gas industry, as the court says the province may no longer authorize activities that would continue to add to the cumulative impacts that breach Treaty 8.

Blueberry River First Nation (BRFN) territory is in the Fort St. John area, which is in the heartland of B.C.’s natural gas industry.

“The province is no longer permitted to authorize industrial development in a way and scale that continues to infringe our rights without our input or taking into account the cumulative effects on our treaty rights,” the First Nation said in a released statement Wednesday, after the ruling came down June 29.

The BRFN is one of the few First Nations in B.C. that signed an historical treaty – in this case, Treaty 8.

DECADES OF DEVELOPMENT – FORESTRY, ROAD-BUILDING, HYDRO-ELECTRIC DAMS, TRANSMISSION LINES AND NATURAL GAS EXTRACTION – GRADUALLY REDUCED THE FIRST NATIONS’ ACCESS TO TRADITIONAL RESOURCES AND PRACTICES

The treaty guaranteed signatories access to their traditional ways of life – hunting, fishing and trapping. But decades of development – forestry, road-building, hydro-electric dams, transmission lines and natural gas extraction – gradually reduced the First Nations’ access to these traditional resources and practices.

The cumulative impacts of all that activity constituted a breach of treaty rights, the First Nation argued, and BC Supreme Court Justice Emily Burke has upheld that claim.

One example of the cumulative impacts is declining caribou populations. Burke accepted expert witness testimony that “anthropogenic disturbance, including industrial disturbance, has largely caused or contributed to that decline.”

In her ruling, Burke notes that the Crown may justifiably infringe treaty rights through the “taking up” of lands for things like building roads, mines and industries deemed to be in the public good. But there is, or should be, a limit, Burke found.

“I recognize that the province has the power to take up lands,” she writes in her 512 page ruling.

“This power, however, is not infinite. The province cannot take up so much land such that Blueberry can no longer meaningfully exercise its rights to hunt, trap and fish in a manner consistent with its way of life. The province’s power to take up lands must be exercised in a way that upholds the promises and protections in the Treaty.

“I find that the province’s conduct over a period of many years – by allowing industrial development in Blueberry’s territory at an extensive scale without assessing the cumulative impacts of this development and ensuring that Blueberry would be able to continue meaningfully exercising its treaty rights in its territory – has breached the Treaty.”

JUSTICE BURKE NOTES THAT THE CROWN MAY JUSTIFIABLY INFRINGE TREATY RIGHTS THROUGH THE “TAKING UP” OF LANDS FOR THINGS LIKE BUILDING ROADS, MINES AND INDUSTRIES DEEMED TO BE IN THE PUBLIC GOOD. BUT THERE IS, OR SHOULD BE, A LIMIT

Typically, when a government has been found to have infringed a treaty right, the First Nation must be compensated somehow, often with cash or land or both. But the BRFN were not asking for compensation – they were asking for a halt to all further development.

Burke has granted that in her ruling. Her orders include:

“The province may not continue to authorize activities that breach the promises included in the Treaty, including the province’s honourable and fiduciary obligations associated with the Treaty, or that unjustifiably infringe Blueberry’s exercise of its treaty rights.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean the province can’t still approve industrial activity, but it can only do so with the approval of the First Nation, and in a way that does not infringe their treaty rights. This will require changes to various provincial land and resource regulations.

Burke is suspending her order forbidding the authorization of industrial activities for six months to allow the province and First Nation time to “expeditiously negotiate changes to the regulatory regime that recognize and respect treaty rights.”

She further orders both the B.C. government and First Nations to “act with diligence to consult and negotiate for the purpose of establishing timely enforceable mechanisms to assess and manage the cumulative impact of industrial development on Blueberry’s treaty rights, and to ensure these constitutional rights are respected.”

It’s unclear whether the ruling will have implications for the Site C dam project on the Peace River or related infrastructure like transmission lines, which are projects that are already approved and under construction. The BRFN were among a number of First Nations that had attempted to halt Site C, but their application for an injunction failed.

In a statement to the Alaska Highway News, the ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation acknowledged the importance of the landmark ruling.

“This is a significant ruling and we will be working to determine the province’s next steps once we’ve had a chance to review what the judge has said,” the minstry said in its statem,ent.

“The written decision is long and complex but in light of the significant implications, we recognize the urgency. This work is a priority, given the timeline established by the court.”

— With files from The Alaska Highway News

Accelerating energy transition promises big returns – report

Valentina Ruiz Leotaud | July 4, 2021 | MINING.COM

SunMine solar project, Western Canada’s largest solar-powered development, located on the former Sullivan mine. (Reference image courtesy of Teck Resources).


In its most recent World Energy Transitions Outlook, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) estimates that accelerating energy transitions on a path to climate safety can grow the world’s economy by 2.4% over the expected growth of current plans within the next decade.


According to the document, the initial investments required to move into a cleaner future have been estimated at $131 trillion needed through 2050 to boost efficiency, renewables, end-use electrification, power grids, flexibility, hydrogen and innovations.

“While the annual funding requirement averaging at $4.4 trillion is large, it represents 20% of the Gross Fixed Capital Formation in 2019, equivalent to about 5% of global Gross Domestic Product,” the report reads.

Despite initial investments being large, the agency’s calculations show that when air pollution, human health and climate change externalities are factored in, the payback is even higher with every dollar spent on the energy transition adding benefits valued at between $2 and $5.5 trillion, in cumulative terms between $61 trillion and $164 trillion by the mid-century.


“IRENA’s Outlook sees energy transition as a big business opportunity for multiple stakeholders including the private sector, shifting funding from equity to private debt capital,” the report reads. “The latter will grow from 44% in 2019 to 57% in 2050, an increase of almost 20% over planned policies. Energy transition technologies will find it easier to obtain affordable long-term debt financing in the coming years, while fossil fuel assets will increasingly be avoided by private financiers and therefore forced to rely on equity financing from retained earnings and new equity issues. Capital-intensive, more decentralized projects will influence investors’ risk perception, which in turn may need targeted policy and capital market interventions.”

In addition to the role of private investing, the report states that public financing will remain crucial for a swift, just and inclusive energy transition and to catalyze private finance.

The agency’s numbers show that in 2019, the public sector provided some $450 billion through public equity and lending by development finance institutions but under IRENA’s 1.5°C Scenario, these investments will almost double to some $780 billion. Public debt financing is also seen as an important facilitator for other lenders, especially in developing markets.

The group’s data also show that current government strategies already envisage significant investment in energy amounting to $98 trillion by 2050. These investments imply a near doubling of annual energy investment, which in 2019 amounted to $2.1 trillion.

“Substantial funds will flow towards modernization of ailing infrastructure and meeting growing energy demand. But the breakdown of financing for technology under the 1.5°C Scenario differs greatly from current plans: $24 trillion of planned investments will have to be redirected from fossil fuels to energy transition technologies between now and 2050,” the review states.

The role of government is also considered key to pushing markets towards the new green world, which means that policymakers are encouraged to incentivize but also take action to eliminate market distortions that favour fossil fuels and facilitate the necessary changes in funding structures.

“This will involve phasing out fossil fuel subsidies and changing fiscal systems to reflect the negative environmental, health and social costs of fossil fuels,” the report reads. “Monetary and fiscal policies, including carbon pricing policies, will enhance competitiveness and level the playing field. Such interventions should be accompanied by a careful assessment of the social and equity dimensions to ensure that the situation of low-income populations is not worsened but improved.”

Policies that work towards the enhancement of international cooperation are also considered critical to driving the wider structural shift towards resilient economies and societies.

In IRENA’s view, if not well managed, the energy transition risks inequitable outcomes, dual-track development and an overall slowdown in the progress.