Permanent memorial to honour city's homeless unveiled in downtown Calgary


Wed., October 13, 2021

The bronze backpack featured in Calgary's permanent memorial for the city's homeless was based on a real backpack. It was used by a man who survived 10 years of homelessness and donated it to the project. (Dave Gilson/CBC - image credit)More

A permanent memorial to commemorate those who have died while experiencing homelessness in Calgary was unveiled downtown on Wednesday.

The first of its kind in Calgary, the memorial includes a bronze sculpture of a backpack, a handcrafted wooden bench and murals from local artists. It's located at 107 13th Ave. S.E.

Those who visit the site are invited to mourn, pause and reflect on the lives of those who have died.

"[The memorial is] important to me," said Nigel Kirk at its unveiling.

Kirk is with the Client Action Committee, a volunteer-led advisory group whose members have experienced homelessness.

Dave Gilson/CBC

The committee was one of the project's key organizers, along with the Calgary Homeless Foundation, the University of Calgary, the City of Calgary, Canadian Artists Against Poverty and several homeless-serving agencies.

"This is seven years' worth of work, and it's very touching," Kirk said. "And it's a way that I know I can pay tribute to a lot of the people that I love, that I've lost."

Ward 8 Coun. Evan Woolley spoke at the memorial's unveiling. He said that as a lifelong resident of the area, he counts many of the city's homeless citizens as his friends and neighbours.

"I have watched them grow, and watched their struggles over the years, and watched many of them disappear," Woolley said.

"We have monuments all over our city to the rich and powerful. And I'm just really pleased that we now have a memorial to those … who have lost their lives being marginalized.

"They are our loved ones, they are our family members, they are our neighbours, and oftentimes, they are dying alone."

A momentous shift

In Calgary's early history, those who died unclaimed or abandoned were buried in "potter's field." Hundreds of people were buried beneath a small patch of grass in Union Cemetery, marked by a post reading "PF."

The name comes from the Gospel of Matthew and is a reference to a public field where "foreigners" and outcasts were buried.

"Potter's field … is a mass unmarked grave. And there are no gravestones, there are no headstones," said Jessica Shaw, an associate professor at the University of Calgary.

She is conducting research on end-of-life care for people experiencing homelessness.

These days, the city offers dignified burials, but often does not have headstones, she said.

Dave Gilson/CBC

The memorial allows a place to gather and pay respects, and it will be cared for by the city.

"It's a momentous shift, and I think it's a statement about how we're moving forward as a community and valuing and honouring people," Shaw said.

She estimates more than 600 people have died since 2017 while experiencing homelessness in Calgary.

"Those people and their memories are with us here today, and really, it's for them," Shaw said. "And it's for our community."

A call to action

According to Shaw, every aspect of the memorial was designed by people who have experienced homelessness.

It was then created by artists from Canadian Artists Against Poverty, Fuse33, and Studio West Bronze Foundry.

The backpack sculpture, for example, was based on a real backpack that was donated to the project by a man who used it to survive for 10 years while homeless in Calgary, she said.

Dave Gilson/CBC

And the poem etched on the memorial was written by someone who experienced homelessness, too.

"We hope that as people walk through it, it's sort of an emotional and spiritual journey, too, as you're walking through the physical space," Shaw said.

"This place is not only to gather and reflect, but I see it also as a call to action … and hopefully, moving toward a time when this is a historical memorial."

COMMODITY FETISH;USED ART

Shredded Banksy artwork sells for $25.4 million at auction

Thu., October 14, 2021, 



LONDON (AP) — A work by British street artist Banksy that sensationally self-shredded just after it sold at auction three years ago fetched 18.5 million pounds ($25.4 million) on Thursday — a record for the artist, and more than 10 times its pre-shredded price.

“Love is in the Bin” was offered by Sotheby’s in London, with a presale estimate of 4 million pounds to 6 million pounds ($5.5 million to $8.2 million).

After a 10-minute bidding war involving nine bidders in the saleroom and more online and by phone, it sold for three times the high estimate.

The piece consists of a half-shredded canvas in an ornate frame bearing a spray-painted image of a girl reaching for a heart-shaped red balloon.

When it last sold at Sotheby’s in October 2018, the piece was known as “Girl With Balloon.” Just as an anonymous European buyer made the winning bid — for 1 million pounds ($1.4 million) — a hidden shredder embedded in the frame by Banksy whirred to life, leaving half the canvas hanging from the frame in strips.

Sotheby’s received some criticism at the time for failing to spot the hidden shredder. But the 2018 buyer decided to go through with the purchase, a decision that was vindicated on Thursday as the work's price soared.

Alex Branczik. Sotheby’s chairman of modern and contemporary art, called the stunt “one of the most ingenious moments of performance art this century.”

“It has been a whirlwind to follow the journey of this now legendary piece and to have it back in our midst, offering it tonight in the very room it was created by the artist,” Branczik said. “Banksy is no stranger to making headlines and this latest chapter in his story has captured imaginations across the world — we can only begin to guess what might come next.”

Banksy, who has never confirmed his full identity, began his career spray-painting buildings in Bristol, England, and has become one of the world’s best-known artists. His mischievous and often satirical images include two male police officers kissing, armed riot police with yellow smiley faces and a chimpanzee with a sign bearing the words, “Laugh now, but one day I’ll be in charge.”

Several of his works have sold for multiple millions at auction. In March, a Banksy mural honoring Britain’s health workers, first painted on a hospital wall, sold for 16.8 million pounds ($23.2 million) at a Christie’s auction, until Thursday a record for the artist.

“Girl With Balloon” was originally stenciled on a wall in east London and has been endlessly reproduced, becoming one of Banksy’s best-known images.

Jill Lawless, The Associated Press

AUPE, provincial government reach tentative deal



Wed., October 13, 2021


After months of what the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) referred to as intense negotiations, a mediated settlement has been reached with the provincial government.

AUPE represents 22,000 Government of Alberta employees like corrections workers, social workers and parks employees.

The groups have been in mediation since March after talks broke down.

"To be perfectly frank, I didn't think we would get to this point," Guy Smith, AUPE president, said.

"The government as an employer, in our opinion, was bound and determined to gain a number of concessions out of our members," Smith said.

The concessions the government wanted included a salary rollback, reductions in overtime pay, as well as reductions in benefits, among other things. According to an AUPE news release, these concessions are no longer on the table.

Here are some things the membership are voting on in the coming weeks, according to an AUPE news release:

1.25 per cent salary increase effective January 1, 2023.

Minimum 1.5 per cent salary increase with potential for additional 0.5 per cent increase based on economic factors effective September 1, 2023.

According to Smith, there had been steps taken to prepare for job action if necessary, including training hundreds of picket captains.

"We put all those processes in place and until we know this is a done deal, we will continue to [do so]," he said.

"I think the government saw our resolve. Obviously, we didn't want to be on picket lines, nobody does. We were determined to be prepared for it."

Union members still have to vote on the deal. The bargaining committee is recommending that members vote in favour of ratification.

Finance Minister Travis Toews said he is glad the agreement could bring labour stability for the public service.

"I respect the hard work and dedication of Alberta's Public Service employees and look forward to the results of the ratification vote," Toews said in an emailed statement.

Details of the agreement will be sent out through the mail, and due to COVID-19, Smith says they will also use a mail-in ballot system for the vote. He anticipated they will know the results in mid-December.

Smith said he hoped this signals a shift in the government's approach to other negotiations as well.

There are negotiations happening right now that include workers in healthcare and post secondary institutions as well as a number of other groups.

"There is some thought that this proposed settlement may have an impact on those tables as well because we're seeing concessions across the board at those tables," Smith said.

"We're hoping that this does reflect improved negotiations in those other areas as well."

The AUPE will be holding virtual town hall meetings for members who may have questions or concerns about the agreement. Those are expected to be held in November.

Efforts to track diversity in US journalism are lagging


Thu., October 14, 2021

NEW YORK (AP) — More than a year after George Floyd's killing focused attention on efforts to diversify newsrooms, the ability to measure real progress is proving elusive.

The News Leaders Association, a journalism trade group, extended the deadline for responses to its survey about employment practices at news organizations for two months, after expressing disappointment about how few are willing to reveal the diversity of their staffs.

The group hopes for as much participation from an estimated 5,900 newsrooms across the country as possible but has had fewer than 250 responses, said Meredith Clark, a Northeastern University professor who is running the survey.

“As a researcher and a journalist, I am deeply discouraged that the journalism industry isn’t as transparent about its workforce in the way that it expects other industries to be transparent about theirs,” Clark said.

There have been tangible signs of progress for the industry, most notably in diverse hires for some major journalism jobs: Kevin Merida, the second Black executive editor of The Los Angeles Times after Dean Baquet; Kim Godwin and Rashida Jones, both Black women, as presidents of ABC News and MSNBC; Katrice Hardy and Monica Richardson, the first Black executive editors at the Dallas Morning News and Miami Herald; and Daisy Veerasingham, the first woman and first person of color appointed as The Associated Press’ president and CEO.

Newsrooms throughout the Gannett chain, The New York Times, The Washington Post and NBC News have publicly revealed statistics on diversity hiring. There have been large-scale reckonings about past bias in reporting in newspapers like the Kansas City Star and Los Angeles Times.

Despite these steps, the overall diversity picture remains blurred.

First through a precursor, the American Society of News Editors, a newsroom diversity survey has been conducted since the mid-1970s, following a Kerner Commission report that described the absence of Black journalists as “shockingly backward.” News organizations were given a goal of having staffs that reflected their communities by 2000.

“The more diversity you have in your newsroom, the better you are able to capture what is going on in your community,” said Myriam Marquez, executive director of the news leaders group, which includes executives at newspapers, websites and media groups.

A lack of diversity can reveal itself in many news decisions: To many critics, the attention paid to the story of Gabby Petito, a young woman found dead after a cross-country trip with her fiance, reflected a long-time concern about journalists paying more attention to missing white women than minorities in similar situations.

Despite some improvements, the 2020 goal wasn't reached, and concerns about diversity faded with the industry's financial collapse over the past two decades. Participation in the annual survey also became spotty, to the point where it was suspended in 2019 after only 293 responses were received.

Clark was hired to create a more thorough and modern questionnaire, and to seek ways to get more participation, since internal peer pressure is proving insufficient.

This year's effort got off to a slow start because much of the group's contact list was initially out-of-date. The survey asked for more information than in past years, and that proved time-consuming. Some organizations expressed concern about violations of privacy for staff members, but organizers insist that shouldn't be an issue.

“It might be in some cases that people, frankly, know if they fill it out that the current state of their news organization doesn't look like what they'd hope it would look like,” said Hardy, newly-named Dallas editor and head of the NLA's diversity committee. “I always think that's a factor in any year, but especially after a year of social unrest.”

Since organizations are being asked to volunteer information — as opposed to a random sample being taken — it also stands to reason that organizations making progress toward meeting diversity goals would be most likely to participate, lending doubt about whether the survey will truly reflect what is going on.

Nearly 90 of the returned surveys are from Gannett newspapers, which has been particularly aggressive in boosting diversity and last month had editors at all of its newspapers report to their readers on progress reaching goals. Gannett as a company set 2025 as a goal for their outlets to reach racial and gender parity with their communities.

As an example, the Arizona Republic said that in July, 38% of their journalists were people of color, up from 20% five years earlier. The goal is 44%. Executive Editor Greg Burton told readers how reporting and editing duties had changed to cover equity issues.

Hardy said she isn't concerned the news leaders' report will present false progress.

“I don't think any of us are happy with where we are,” she said.

It may be a more long-term solution, but the group is considering asking foundations and others who provide funding for news organizations to require participation in the survey before getting a grant. Same thing with journalism prizes: If you want to enter the competition for a Pulitzer, show you've filled out a survey.

Clark said her goal was to have 1,500 responses to produce a statistically solid report. It seems doubtful they'll get there by the end of October, the new deadline. But George Stanley, NLA president, said there's a baseline of participants including Gannett, McClatchy newspapers, ProPublica, Buzzfeed and The Associated Press — the latter for the first time — that the information will be worth releasing.

“I think these participating organizations, by proving their commitment, will gain a recruiting advantage and that will encourage others,” said Stanley, editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The New York Times said earlier this year that the percentage of non-white staff members had increased from 27% in 2015 to 34% last year. At the Times, Washington Post and USA Today, a majority of the newsroom staff are women.

The AP reported that 76% of its full-time news employees in the United States are white, 8% are Latino, 7% are Black and 6% are Asian. News management is 81% white.

When he began as head of news at NBC Universal last year, Cesar Conde publicly set a goal of a staff that is 50% minority and 50% women, although he gave no deadline. Since then, monthly hires have averaged 48% people of color and 63% women, the network said. The division's percentage of minorities has increased from 27% to 30%.

Hiring minorities is important, but so is keeping them, said Doris Truong, director of training and diversity at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank. The news industry is seeing a generational shift among young staff members less willing to wait for attitudes to change, she said.

“There is a pipeline problem,” said Robert Hernandez, a professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. “We are producing diverse students. The reality is they're not being hired, they're not being retained, they're not being promoted.”

Hardy said retention is a real issue, and impatience about advancement isn't something unique to a younger generation.

She hopes the prominent leadership hires of the past year help usher in real change.

“It is a passion we have,” she said. “It is something we have lived and breathed and discussed and wanted to have a hand in helping over the years. The buck stops with us, frankly.”

____

This story corrects that Kevin Merida is the second Black executive editor of the Los Angeles Times.

David Bauder, The Associated Press

ITS NOT CLEAN ITS NAT GAS

$4.5B clean energy complex planned for southeast Louisiana

Thu., October 14, 2021

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Industrial gas supplier Air Products announced Thursday it will build a $4.5 billion clean energy facility in Louisiana's capital region, a project that Gov. John Bel Edwards said will help the state's work to reduce carbon emissions in the heart of the petrochemical corridor.

The planned complex in Ascension Parish will produce “blue hydrogen," which uses natural gas to produce an alternative fuel with the carbon dioxide emissions captured and stored underground. Air Products said the facility will create 170 permanent jobs with a total annual payroll of $15.9 million, plus thousands of construction jobs to build the site over three years.

Air Products President and CEO Seifi Ghasemi said the Ascension Parish site will be the largest permanent carbon dioxide sequestration facility in the world, helping to capture human-caused emissions and keeping them out of the atmosphere.

“Nothing will come close to it,” Ghasemi said at an announcement event with Edwards, local officials and business leaders. “So clearly, Louisiana will be the world leader in sequestering carbon dioxide, which is the key to climate change.”

Some environmentalists have been wary of carbon capture technology, with Greenpeace and others saying the focus should be completely on developing renewable energy sources and that carbon capture just prolongs dependence on fossil fuels.

Air Products will capture and store about 95% of the carbon dioxide generated at the facility in deep underground geologic formations leased from the state. The complex is expected to be up and running in 2026.

Edwards, a Democrat who leads one of the nation’s top oil and gas production states, has set a goal for curtailing Louisiana's greenhouse gas emissions, seeking to cut the state's net carbon emissions to zero by 2050. A climate change task force he created is working on a strategy document for how to reach that goal, due next year.

“We are intensely committed here in Louisiana to reducing our carbon footprint, and that's true across the board inclusive of industry," Edwards said. “And we're going to do that while we grow our manufacturing base because we don't believe you have to pick one or the other.”

The governor said he will be attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, which begins Oct. 31, to promote Louisiana as a location for more clean energy projects such as the announcement from Air Products.

The Allentown, Pennsylvania-based company — which already has several facilities in Louisiana and 330 workers in the state — produces and transports hydrogen and other gases around the world to refineries, petrochemical pants and other customers. Its Ascension Parish facility will be its largest investment in the United States, company officials said.

Jobs at the new facility will have an average salary of $93,000 plus benefits.

The hydrogen created in Louisiana will be supplied to Air Products customers around the Gulf Coast and will be used to make ammonia that will be transported internationally and converted back to blue hydrogen.

Edwards said Louisiana is giving Air Products a $5 million grant, help with workforce training, local property tax breaks and a state tax rebate for creating high-paying jobs with benefits.

___

Follow Melinda Deslatte on Twitter at http://twitter.com/melindadeslatte.

Melinda Deslatte, The Associated Press

The best and worst states for jobs, as new unemployment claims fall to pandemic-era low

Emily McCormick
·Reporter
Thu., October 14, 2021,

The number of Americans applying for first-time jobless claims reached its lowest level since March 2020 last week, with the number of filings coming in at a better-than-expected 293,000.

But even given the nationwide improvements in the pace of those newly out of work, some states have fared better than others in bringing down their levels of unemployment.

The Labor Department's latest weekly report broke down the states with the highest and lowest insured unemployment rates. This metric captures the ratio of people claiming jobless benefits divided by the overall size of the labor force. The results underscored the lingering unevenness in the unemployment picture across various parts of the country.

As of the week ended Sept. 25, the national unemployment rate was 1.8%, not seasonally adjusted. This level has come down sharply from a pandemic-era high of 15.9% in May 2020, but is still elevated compared to 2019's average of 1.2%.

Some states had insured unemployment rates well below the national average. At the end of September, South Dakota led the nation with an insured unemployment rate of just 0.2%, followed by Alabama with a rate of 0.3%. Idaho, Nebraska, North Dakota and Utah followed thereafter, with each of these states posting insured unemployment rates of 0.4%.

Many of these states have maintained much better-than-average insured unemployment rates throughout the course of the pandemic. Of these six states with the current lowest insured unemployment rates, only Alabama had ever seen its rate climb into the double-digit percentages at the height of the pandemic last year. South Dakota's by contrast, peaked at just 6% during the week ended May 9, 2020.

But other states have struggled to bring down their insured unemployment rates. For the week ended Sept. 25, the highest insured unemployment rates were in Illinois at 4.4%, Puerto Rico at 4.3% and California at 3.3%. These three regions comprised the top three highest insured unemployment rates for two consecutive weeks.

Hawaii, with an insured jobless rate of 2.9%, and the Virgin Islands with a rate of 2.8% rounded out the top five states and territories with the most elevated insured unemployment rates in the latest data. Both represent tourist-driven economies still struggling to bounce back from virus-related travel disruptions.

These rates, however, belie the progress made across these states relative to their virus-era highs. Hawaii's insured unemployment rate peaked at 23.5% during the week ended May 9 and has since slid by a full 20.6 percentage points. And California — one of the first states to implement lockdown measures in spring 2020 — saw its insured unemployment rate skyrocket to as high as 27.8% in April 2020.

Given this context, one of the biggest takeaways for economists from the latest jobless claims report overall has been the affirmation that the labor market's biggest lingering headwind is a shortage of workers reentering the labor force, rather than a dearth of employer demand for workers. And at the national level, job openings have held near an all-time high at more than 10 million, with the quits rate jumping to a record 2.9%, to signal increased worker confidence in finding new work.

"At a time when a record number of workers are quitting their jobs, we’re reminded that some businesses are still failing as the pandemic takes its toll, resulting in unexpected job loss," Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate, wrote in an email Thursday of the latest jobless claims report. "With so many jobs available and opportunities to work remote at least some of the time, the good news is that workers stand a reasonable chance of improving their employment situation, including better pay and working conditions. Clearly, that’s what many want."

HIGHEST AND LOWEST INSURED UNEMPLOYED RATES ACROSS U.S.

Insured unemployment rates are the ratio of people on unemployment benefits divided by a state’s labor force. The national average was 1.8% for the week ended Sept. 25 (not seasonally adjusted).

RATES (%):

0.2

4

Lowest

Highest

   

SOURCE: DEPARTMENT OF LABOR • NOTE: ALL THE STATES % ARE ALSO NOT SEASONALLY ADJUSTED

GM Canada to require all employees be vaccinated against COVID-19

Alicja Siekierska
Thu., October 14, 2021, 12:02 p.m.

GM Canada is joining the growing list of companies requiring that all employees be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

The automaker (GM) announced Thursday that all employees, as well as contractors, vendors and visitors who enter its facilities, will have to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Dec. 12.

While the company said exemptions and accommodations will be evaluated on an individual basis, they "will be rare."

"We are joining many other companies, from multiple sectors, supporting public-health initiatives to increase vaccination rates and further reduce the impact of COVID-19 across Canada," GM spokesperson Marie Binette said in a statement.

"Vaccination has been shown to be effective in reducing the transmission of the virus as well as reducing the health impacts if a vaccinated person does contract the virus."

The vaccination policy will apply only to GM's approximately 5,200 Canadian employees.

In the United States, where more than 88,400 people work for GM, the company has not instituted a similar mandatory vaccination policy but a spokesperson said it "continues to highly encourage all employees to get vaccinated."

U.S. President Joe Biden unveiled plans last month to develop a rule to require companies with more than 100 employees to ensure their workers are fully vaccinated or require that those who are unvaccinated produce a negative test result on an at least weekly basis. The mandate has yet to be enforced, but an initial draft of emergency order detailing the policy was sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review.

GM required that all salaried employees in the U.S. report their vaccination status via a confidential reporting tool. A spokesperson for the automaker said the company is continuing to work "with a handful of employees" regarding their vaccination status and that it is almost at 100 per cent completion when it comes to receiving the disclosures.

MANDATES WORK 

THE STATE SHOULD MANDATE VACCINES

QUIT PUSSYFOOTING AROUND IT

This New Passenger Aircraft Will Run On Hydrogen And Electricity

Jannat Un NisaJune 17, 2021

An ambitious Singaporean firm has set its eyes to be the first to cross the south Atlantic with a hydrogen aircraft.

HES Energy Systems a Singapore-based tech beast is creating a machine which it has termed the world’s first regional hydrogen-electric passenger aircraft, the Element One.

The company first unveiled its plans for Element One three years back in 2018. The mindboggling ambitions of the company do not end here as the parent company of HES Energy, ISAE-SUPAERO has stated that it is edging closer towards the creation of an unmanned aircraft to cross the south Atlantic.

It is no hidden fact that the debate between the hydrogen and electric futures is a hot one. However, the MarketsandMarkets report, published in April, stated that the Hydrogen aircraft market will be worth $7,427 million by 2030.

Personalized, zero-emission flight

HES has also reassured its commitment towards zero-emission while putting its weight behind a more silent, decentralized, personalized, and zero-emission mode of aerial transport.

The ultra-light hydrogen fuel cells use by Element One are capable of providing over 500Wh/kg, and a distributed electric aircraft propulsion design which is the perfect combination of innovation and technical genius. Not only is this aircraft eco-friendlier, cost-efficient, and out of the box, it is also safer as it has addressed quite a few system redundancies.

The Many, Many Benefits of VTOL Aircraft

Little has been told in black and white by the HES about the specifications of the aircraft but the images they have revealed of the concept carrier show an aircraft with 14 propellers attached to a green hydrogen fuel cell.

The carrier is modeled to carry 4 passengers for a distance of 5000 km based on the fact that the hydrogen is in liquid or gas form.

Only 4 passengers? There seems to be a paucity of capacity in the aircraft. There is a sound reason for that, this premium jet will be only made on order. On the same hand, they also want these to be more accessible to the rural communities and this compact, eco-friendly jet may well be what we have always thought of to be an aerial taxi.

Breaking the endurance limits of battery-electric flight

The Element One can be refueled in under 10 minutes just like all the recent eVTOL Jet. While there is a surge in the trend of replaceable batteries in air taxis, Element One will utilize an automated nacelle replacement system to replenish its hydrogen tanks.

“It’s now possible to break past the endurance limits of battery-electric flight using HES’ ultra-light hydrogen energy storage in a distributed propulsion arrangement” Taras Wankewycz, founder of HES, told in the company’s press release. “Element One’s design paves the way for renewable hydrogen as a long-range fuel for electric aviation.”

The company is in advanced discussions with hydrogen producers at an industrial scale to test energy-efficient replenishment systems for their aircraft at airports.

HES’s parent company ISAE-SUPAERO has shown its ambition to cross the South Atlantic as historic French aviator Jean Mermoz did by flying from Senegal to Brazil. The journey will span over a distance of 1864 miles (3000 km). But the catch to their journey is that unlike Jean Mermoz they want to do it in an unmanned aircraft.

Another big name is pursuing the hydrogen initiative, airbus, with their concept “Pods” and Universal Hydrogen are also encouraging news for the environmental activists. The universal hydrogen aim at fitting the existing aircraft with hydrogen cells. 

Working towards a hydrogen-fueled sharing economy

Element One has also ventured with Wingly, a Paris-based start-up that allows private pilots to share seats with local passengers, more like a carpooling app.

Element One concept’s unveiling was a major event in which Emeric de Waziers, CEO of Wingly, said “We analyzed the millions of destination searches made by the community of 200,000 pilots and passengers on our platform and confirm there is a tremendous need for inter-regional transport between secondary cities.”

“By combining autonomous emission-free aircraft such as Element One, digital community-based platforms like Wingly, and the existing high-density network of airfields, we can change the paradigm. France alone offers a network of more than 450 airfields but only 10% of these are connected by regular airlines. We will simply connect the remaining 90%.”

HES claimed that it hopes to have the first flying prototype of the Element One airborne before 2025 and that it will share more information sooner than later on its development into hydrogen aviation.

GREEN ENERGY THAT GLOWS GREEN 

Why nuclear energy must be part of ‘net zero’ climate targets

12 Oct 2021

Taken from the October 2021 issue of Physics World where it appeared under the headline "Why 'net zero' needs nuclear". Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app.

Henry Preston and Saralyn Thomas say that nuclear energy must be part of the conversation during the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow next month

Tricky problem Nuclear energy is often not viewed as a low-carbon energy source. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/andrea dantee)

According to a poll carried out in 2020 by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), only a quarter of people aged between 18 and 24 in the UK are aware that nuclear is a low-carbon source of energy. Three-quarters of young people, in contrast, believe that wind and solar are low carbon, with only 61% of the eldest-age category polled – 65–74 year olds – knowing that nuclear falls into the low-carbon category too. Those findings might surprise physicists, who will be aware that the energy density of nuclear fission is so high that just a fingertip of uranium has an energy equivalent of 5000 barrels of oil.

Despite these benefits, nuclear power tends to suffer from relatively poor public perception and not knowing it is low carbon could be due to a lack of education. Indeed, it is understandable why people might fear radiation given that you can’t see it – yet the same can be said of the air that we breathe. And if we assess the whole impact of energy sources per kWh, then the energy “deathprint” – the number of people killed per kWh produced – of nuclear is significantly lower than that of most other energy sources.

If you care about the environment and giving more land and resources back to nature – as many young people do – then nuclear is an important option in achieving “net zero”. This refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gases produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere – with net zero meaning that there are no net greenhouse emissions from the entire energy system. The UK government has stated that it wants to be net zero by 2050 and says it will support secure, reliable, low-carbon nuclear energy as a commercially deployable technology that can enable rapid decarbonization of heat, power and transport.

Nuclear needs an image makeover so that it is viewed on a par with other energy sources that are widely considered clean and sustainable

The problem for nuclear – as highlighted by the IMechE poll – is that it must reinvent itself for the modern world and re-evaluate its position within a sustainable-energy mix. Nuclear needs an image makeover so that it is viewed on a par with other energy sources that are widely considered clean and sustainable. That will require the nuclear industry to engage openly with society to build better awareness and understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy compared with other energy sources. Only then will it get the support to plug the gap in the decarbonization of our energy consumption. As the International Nuclear Agency points out, that goal cannot be reached using renewables alone, which are intermittent and cannot be easily stored.

Young support

As physicists we are well equipped to drive the conversation on climate change from the problem to solutions – one that nuclear needs to be a part of. We want to ensure a clean, sustainable and abundant future for us and the next generation. The COP26 climate talks that will be held on 1–12 November in Glasgow offer a perfect opportunity to do so. The UK Nuclear Institute will have an unparalleled reach at COP26 through collaboration with the European Nuclear Society – a non-governmental organization – and aims to get people excited about nuclear and ensure it is at the table and considered alongside renewables.

As part of that initiative, in February 2021 the Nuclear Institute’s Young Generation Network (YGN) launched the #NetZeroNeedsNuclear campaign to promote, support and raise awareness of nuclear as a low-carbon energy source. The initiative also sought to influence policy makers involved in COP26, take a scientific approach to energy policy and financing, and foster a sustainable collaboration between nuclear and renewables.

The YGN’s “position paper” called Nuclear for Climate, which summarizes the importance of nuclear, was supported by more than 100 nuclear associations worldwide and has so far been translated into 17 languages. In it, we emphasize that nuclear is not only a low-carbon source of energy, but is also widely available, scalable and deployable. We therefore need to build new nuclear plants – alongside increased renewable-energy capacity – if we are to deliver efficient and affordable clean-energy systems and achieve our net-zero targets.

Nuclear is also capable of supporting the decarbonization of other sectors, such as heating and transport. Indeed, nuclear allows the opportunity to decarbonize all energy, not just electricity. This can be done directly with the output of future “generation IV” reactors or through the steady production of hydrogen as a clean fuel for transport. Nuclear also supports global development by promoting global socioeconomic benefits and is strongly aligned to the UN sustainable development goals.

The collaboration between different parts of the energy and the wider sector has been a key part of #NetZeroNeedsNuclear and we must work together to save our planet. We hope that the move to nuclear will be the wildcard of COP26 and, as early-career physicists, we urge our fellow physicists to stand with us and support nuclear – alongside other clean energy sources – as a key part of our journey towards a new sustainable future.

Henry Preston is a chartered physicist at the UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory, e-mail henry.preston@uknnl.com.

 Saralyn Thomas is a senior consultant at Abbott Risk Consulting and vice-chair and international liaison for the Nuclear Institute’s Young Generation Network

SETI Live: 10,000 Light Years From Home (A SETI AIR conversation)
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SETI Institute

A Conversation with SETI Artist in Residence Brittany Nelson Meet Brittany Nelson, our newest artist in residence! Brittany’s thought-provoking, poetic works express the curiosity, solitude, and longing that are connected to the search for Life beyond Earth. 

During this SETI Live chat with SETI AIR Director Bettina Forget, Brittany will discuss how she uses 19th century photographic chemistry techniques to address themes of queer and feminist science fiction. Brittany’s latest works include a series of bromoils based on photos of the Martian landscape taken by the Opportunity rover. 

She also explored technique of holography for her series Tiptree’s Dead Birds, an ephemeral recreation of the letters of the closeted lesbian science fiction writer Alice Sheldon, who wrote under the pen name James Tiptree, Jr. If you like science, support the SETI Institute! We're a non-profit research institution whose focus is understanding the nature and origins of life in the universe. 

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