U$A

Our recycling system isn’t working — here’s what we can do instead 

BY ALEJANDRO PÉREZ, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 03/10/24 

Getty Images

A mere 9 percent of plastic is recycled in the United States each year. Plastic waste in our country grows unabated because the U.S. operates a patchwork of largely ineffective recycling systems that don’t create enough incentives for consumers and businesses to reduce their plastic footprint.   

But there’s a way we can fix this. Lawmakers should shift the financial responsibility of collecting, recycling and reusing plastic packaging materials from consumers and municipalities to the producers of plastic products by establishing a national Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy.  

Under an EPR framework, companies would cover the costs of recycling their materials and face penalties for using packaging that’s difficult to recycle or for not including recycled materials in their packaging. As a result, recycled materials would become more readily available and economical over time.  

EPR policies have already been adopted in multiple states, including Colorado and California. In California, producers must meet plastic source reduction requirements and ensure that covered materials are recyclable or considered compostable by 2032. Other states, such as Minnesota, are considering following suit. These states are demonstrating how industry, environmentalists and policymakers can join forces to transform the way we use, reuse and recycle materials.  

Congress is now taking notice.  

This past Wednesday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a first-ever hearing to examine EPR policies for consumer packaging. Leading senators from both parties expressed openness to establishing a federal framework for more consistent domestic recycling and waste reduction policies. They listened as a witness panel experts from World Wildlife Fund and AMERIPEN, as well as the chairman and CEO of S.C. Johnson, explaining how a federal EPR framework done right would help achieve American sustainability and business goals.    

It’s not often that you see businesses welcoming regulation. But some of the most iconic American companies recognize that without government action, plastic pollution and its associated business costs are only going to get worse. They support creating the clarity and certainty they need to prepare for new global rules and minimize their business risks.  

Meanwhile, several leading organizations, including World Wildlife Fund, The Recycling Partnership, Monterey Bay Aquarium, The Ocean Foundation, Ellen MacArthur Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, recently called on President Biden to establish a goal to end plastic pollution in the U.S. by 2040 and develop national frameworks to advance the transition to a circular economy.  

The growing momentum to reduce plastic pollution reflects its near-universal public support, with some 86 percent of Americans agreeing we need to transition from an economy where people constantly throw things away to one that emphasizes reuse and recycling.  

After all, plastic waste isn’t limited to just red states or blue states. This is a bipartisan issue that affects the constituents of every member of Congress. Lawmakers in both parties are accordingly responding with new legislation that would move the country in the right direction by establishing more consistency in how Americans reuse and recycle plastic.   

The bipartisan and bicameral Recycling and Composting Accountability Act, for example, would direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to collect additional data on recycling and conduct research that could inform a national composting strategy.   

Another bill supported by members of both parties in both chambers of Congress, known as the Recycling Infrastructure and Accessibility Act, would create an EPA pilot program to build recycling infrastructure projects in rural and underserved communities, making it easier for more people to sustainably dispose of plastic.  

Members of Congress should take these practical steps now. They should also work to craft legislation that would establish a nationwide EPR policy and enact transformative changes to how we consume plastic. In doing so, they can feel confident that they have strong support behind them from both the American public and the private sector.   

By adopting these practical, bipartisan measures, lawmakers can lay the much-needed groundwork to loosen plastic’s chokehold on our planet. They should seize the opportunity to make it easier for all of us to do our part to keep plastic out of nature. 

Alejandro Pérez is senior vice president of policy and government affairs at World Wildlife Fund. 

Germany: GDL train drivers' union announces next rail strike

The GDL trade union has called on members to go on strike for 24 hours, with passenger trains affected from early on Tuesday. Trains and planes in Germany have been facing regular disruption for months now.

It will be the second straight week of interruptions to trains and planes in GermanyI

The GDL train drivers' union on Sunday evening called the latest strike in its ongoing dispute over pay and hours with Deutsche Bahn (DB).

The union said in a statement that passenger services would be affected from 2 a.m. local time (0100 UTC/GMT) on Tuesday until the same time on Wednesday.

Freight train drivers will start their strike at 6 p.m. on Monday, also downing tools for a 24-hour period, the GDL said.

Platforms were quieter than usual this week as well

Hannes P Albert/dpa/picture alliance

Bahn wants further talks, GDL wants higher offer first

"Since the DB board has submitted no new offer from January 19 until now, this leads unavoidably to industrial action," GDL quoted its chairman Claus Weselsky as saying. "For the GDL this is the last resort."

Deutsche Bahn, meanwhile, has called for the GDL to return to the negotiating table, with the union saying its precondition for this is an improved offer. The battle lines have hardened around this impasse for weeks now, with Tuesday's strikes to be the sixth as part of the dispute.

"We are convinced we will only achieve an agreement at the negotiating table," DB head of personnel Martin Seiler had said earlier on Sunday, in the backdrop of last week's GDL strike.

One core demand of the GDL is a standard 35-hour work week replacing the current 38-hour week with no change in remuneration. DB has argued that this is both economically unfeasible and would exacerbate existing staffing and recruitment issues.
Bahn accuses GDL of overreaction, will try to offer 'basic service'

Weselsky of the GDL said last week that the union would start a so-called "strike wave" and cease to give 48 hours' advanced warning for future strikes. Sunday's latest announcement allowed one working day for Deutsche Bahn to react.

Deutsche Bahn called this "a sheer imposition for millions of rail travelers and the economy."

"The strike will again have a massive impact on the entire rail network," DB said in a press release.

It said that it would prioritize maintaining a basic service on both long-distance and regional services. It advised customers to check for information on their exact trains.

It also said that customers who had bought tickets tied to the day of the strike prior to it being announced would be welcome to travel at a later date without incurring extra fees.

Widespread train and plane disruptions in Germany

The most recent strikes as part of this dispute took place late last week, and coincided with industrial action affecting air travel in Germany.

Lufthansa has faced strike action from employees from several sectors and different trade unions in recent months.

Local public transport in a handful of states, including the most populous North Rhine-Westphalia, has also been affected.

Germany's central bank warned last month that the actions were liable to affect productivity.

msh/mm (AFP, dpa)

Uh Oh: Lufthansa Flight Attendants Going On Strike

It sure hasn’t been a smooth few weeks at Lufthansa. In the past few weeks, we’ve seen Lufthansa ground workers go on strike on three different occasions (and counting). Now we’re seeing Lufthansa flight attendants go on strike as well…


Ben Schlappig
ONE MILE AT A TIME

March 10, 2024

In this post:

Details of the Lufthansa flight attendant strike
What Lufthansa flight attendants are fighting for
Bottom line

Details of the Lufthansa flight attendant strike

The Independent Flight Attendants Organization (UFO), which is the union representing Lufthansa flight attendants, has called on its members to engage in a strike. This includes the following flights:All flights departing Frankfurt (FRA) on Tuesday, March 12, 2024, from 4AM until 11PM

All flights departing Munich (MUC) on Wednesday, March 13, 2024, from 4AM until 11PM

This strike applies to Lufthansa and Lufthansa CityLine, but doesn’t apply to other Lufthansa Group airlines, like Austrian or SWISS. It’s expected that roughly 100,000 passengers will be impacted by the strike.

Lufthansa is simply telling customers that the airline is expecting flight disruptions, and that customers whose flights are affected by the strike will receive information on cancelation and rebooking options in the coming day.

Lufthansa flight attendants are going on strike

What Lufthansa flight attendants are fighting for

Over 96% of Lufthansa flight attendants voted in favor of going on strike, so what are they requesting? The union’s 19,000 members are seeking a 15% pay increase, plus a one-time €3,000 inflation compensation payment.

This strike comes just days after Lufthansa announced its 2023 financial results, whereby the airline roughly doubled its profits year-over-year, to €1.67 billion. The head of the UFO has stated that flight attendants should “be able to benefit from this success,” and also stated that the union “deeply regrets” having to do this, and asks passengers to excuse the inconvenience caused.

Negotiations have been ongoing between management and the union, but union leadership stated that no agreement has been reached, and that “management wants the situation to worsen, at passengers’ expense.”

The situation that labor groups at Lufthansa are dealing with is hardly unique, as we’re seeing flight attendants in the United States similarly trying to negotiate new contracts. The difference is that it’s much more complicated to go on strike in the United States, due to how our laws are set up.

Lufthansa really doesn’t seem to be a very reliable airline to fly with at the moment, given that there will have been four strikes over the course of just a few weeks. And worst of all, new contracts haven’t been agreed upon with either work group, so there’s no end in sight for these operational disruptions.

Lufthansa flight attendants are seeking pay increases

Bottom line

Lufthansa flight attendants are going on strike this week — all flights from Frankfurt are expected to be canceled on Tuesday, while all flights from Munich are expected to be canceled on Wednesday. Given that Lufthansa currently has two striking work groups, I wouldn’t feel very confident in any Lufthansa travel plans in the coming weeks.

ESG FAILS BIGLY

Techstars’ $80M partnership with J.P. Morgan is on the rocks, employees say

Insiders say the relationship began to sour almost immediately

Dominic-Madori Davis@dominicmadori •March 8, 2024

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

During a Zoom meeting with her senior leaders last summer, Techstars CEO Maëlle Gavet sat at a table, an open notebook in front of her, a laptop to her side, her arms crossed. An attendee had just asked her about the progress of the organization’s $80 million Advancing Cities Fund, which was raised through J.P. Morgan’s Private Bank Platform.

In the calm demeanor of someone trying to watch her words, she answered that Advancing Cities was not going well. Multiple incidents across multiple programs had caused J.P. Morgan to freak out, according to sources familiar with the conversation, including evidence seen by TechCrunch.

Techstars had begun assembling cohorts and deploying out of the fund since 2022 with a goal to back more than 400 companies founded by underrepresented founders. It led to the creation of Techstars programs in at least eight cities, including Oakland, Atlanta, and Miami

But by August 2023, when this meeting took place, J.P. Morgan’s team had become “disengaged,” a characterization that seven people associated with the program made to TechCrunch independently. Gavet admitted in the meeting that the fractured relationship was not entirely the bank’s fault: Missteps by Techstars had caused much of the tension.

Techstars has currently invested about two-thirds of the fund, Gavet recently told TechCrunch, adding that the bank is “an amazing partner” and “very active in our program.”

However, J.P. Morgan has yet to tell Techstars whether it will renew the partnership for an Advancing Cities 2 Fund once the initial contract expires in December, sources say. That decision was supposed to be handed down last summer so that Techstars could start fundraising and begin deploying capital in 2025.

This means the fate of the Advancing Cities programs — and some of the around 20 people who work at Techstars in this program — is up in the air.

Both J.P. Morgan and Techstars declined to comment on the future of the partnership. But Techstars spokesperson Matthew Grossman emphasized that the current fund is still active and has invested in 263 companies with plans to back another 200. “This year, we will continue to deploy the fund until the fund is deployed. And then like every other venture fund, after that fund is deployed, we’ll see what happens next,” he told TechCrunch.

A “long series of incidents”

Techstars is undergoing an operational restructuring, including cutting programs worldwide, laying off staff, and shuttering accelerators in cities like Oslo, Austin, and its former mothership, Boulder, Colorado. It missed 2023 revenue projections and logged $7 million in losses, according to preliminary numbers seen by TechCrunch.

At the same time, Techstars is known for supporting founders of color and giving them opportunities that would otherwise be hard to come by. Funding for founders of color is so chronically dismal that access to capital can be life-changing.

From the outside, the uncertainty of this program’s future may look like J.P. Morgan is simply retreating on its diversity promises, following the path of many corporate institutions that walked back commitments made after the murder of George Floyd. However, several current and former Techstars employees say that Techstars has struggled to live up to the robust expectations that J.P. Morgan had when it partnered with the firm for this fund.


Gavet became CEO of Techstars in 2021.

A Techstars presentation from another meeting that also took place in August noted a “long series of incidents” since Techstars started deploying its Advancing Cities Fund in 2022. These involved multiple complaints about directors at multiple programs, as well as issues with events, including behavior, programming, naming, and sponsors. The bank grew so concerned about an invitation extended to a politician at one DemoDay that it withdrew its branding, sources said.

J.P. Morgan also flagged four instances of “inopportune” wording around Techstars’ diversity goals. For instance, Gavet and a managing director wanted to call the Oakland program Techstars Silicon Valley despite J.P. Morgan’s intention to emphasize the accelerator’s focus on and presence in a prominent Black city. In the end, the accelerator program was named after Oakland.

At least three sources said Techstars received complaints from founders about one managing director of an Advancing Cities program, some allegations of which described hostile working environments. TechCrunch was unable to confirm specific allegations, though we’ve learned that this managing director has since left that program and now heads another Advancing Cities program. Techstars and J.P. Morgan declined to comment on the incidents.

Conflicting definitions of diversity

One of the biggest issues, according to sources and documentation seen by TechCrunch, was that J.P. Morgan wanted at least 50%, but ideally 70%, of each city cohort’s investment to be into startups led by underrepresented founders that matched a specific definition of a diverse founder.

Data seen by TechCrunch, however, showed that diversity in the Advancing Cities programs started steadily declining below the threshold last year. At one point last year, at least one program did not hit the 50% benchmark at all, although others compensated by hitting nearly 70%.

For $80 million, sources said, J.P. Morgan simply expected better results.

J.P. Morgan had presented Techstars with a narrow definition of who it considered to be a diverse founder, too: someone of Black, Latino, Indigenous, or Pacific Islander descent. Internally, however, Techstars used a much broader definition of the term, incorporating gender, age, and veteran, disability, and immigrant status. The result is that managing directors have the option to add two different DEI tags to describe a company: J.P. Morgan diverse and/or Techstars diverse, according to documents seen by TechCrunch.

Five people close to the matter, some of whom are no longer at the company, said there has always been a focus on increasing gender diversity within Techstars programs, but race would fall by the wayside. Some managing directors struggled to source founders who would be considered diverse under J.P. Morgan’s standards. The different tags and broad definition of diversity helped Techstars spin some numbers when it comes to publicly stating the diversity breakdown of their programs, said three sources with knowledge of the matter.

Techstars denied this characterization. “We measure different datasets for different purposes,” Grossman told TechCrunch. “We believe in investing in underrepresented founders. And when we say underrepresented, we mean everybody who is not traditionally under the gaze of traditional venture capital.”




Techstars has been undergoing an operational restructuring as it attempts to cut costs. Image Credits: John Blanding/The Boston Globe / Getty Images

Grossman emphasized that, as of late last year, 63.5% of the Advancing Cities CEOs accepted into the program, who agreed to self-report their race, are Black, Latino, Indigenous, or Pacific Islander. He added that every cohort besides one has hit the 50% objective. This report, made public late last year, covered only the first half of the fund’s investment and initial cohort acceptance. It did not specify the diversity percentage of graduates.

Pay tied to returns

Another source of friction was that J.P. Morgan wanted the focus of the program to lean toward a high percentage of diverse founders, but, like all investment firms, Techstars rewards managing directors primarily based on returns.

That means managing directors are trained to search for startups that they believed were likely to graduate from the program and land follow-on funding from other VCs. That provided another layer, making some managing directors prioritize program acceptance on metrics other than founder diversity.

“We’ve always said that we are looking for the best founders,” explained Monica Wheat, managing director of the Detroit Advancing Cities program. “We’ve always also said that we are doing that but targeting underrepresented founders. And we do that specifically through all the MDs’ respective networks and respective experience as investors. We’re investors first and foremost.”

Techstars said that managing directors’ compensation includes carried interest, aka a percentage of the fund’s profits, and a cash bonus. To align rewards with J.P. Morgan’s mission, some percentage of the bonus for managing directors in the Advancing Cities is tied to how many of their startups fit the diversity criteria.

In addition to the friction over acceptance priorities, four sources said J.P. Morgan was also frustrated with what it saw as high staff turnover in the leadership suite. Since last year, Techstars’ chief revenue officer, chief technology officer, chief financial officer, chief accelerator investment officer, chief capital formation officer, and chief legal officer have all departed the C-suite. This is in addition to the 10-plus managing directors who have left for various reasons and other staff turnover.

Back in that August meeting with Gavet, once she confessed to the shaky status of the program, attendees peppered her with questions, mainly asking who would replace J.P. Morgan if the bank decided to end the partnership. Gavet explained that replacing J.P. Morgan as a fundraising partner would be difficult, if not impossible, because it is one of the few banks with a fundraising platform that allows qualified investors to back early-stage startups. Raising a fund on their own would be rough, given the overall challenging fundraising environment in 2024, according to sources and records seen by TechCrunch.

She added that Techstars’ own accelerator fund could not take over Advancing Cities’ entire footprint, either, and that it was essential for the fund to be successful.

But as recently as this month, sources said that leadership had warned staff in all-hands meetings that if the contract with J.P. Morgan doesn’t renew in December, then people in those programs should be ready to go to other programs or apply for other internal roles if they are willing to relocate, or they may be exited from the company.

It is unclear when the returns of Advancing Cities are expected, but if it follows a traditional fund cycle, J.P. Morgan could be waiting at least seven years to see the results of the $80 million investment. This December, however, comes well before then.

Opinion: I’m a climate scientist. If you knew what I know, you’d be terrified too

Opinion by Bill McGuire
Thu March 7, 2024


The Bidwell Bar Bridge backlit by a fire in Oroville, California, in September 2020, when record-breaking blazes broke out in the state.

 Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

Editor’s Note: Editor’s Note: Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical & climate hazards at University College London and author of “Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide.” The views expressed in this commentary are his own. 

CNN —

Are you frightened by climate change? Do you worry about what sort of world we are bequeathing to our children and grandchildren? In the words of science writer and author of “The Uninhabitable Earth” David Wallace-Wells, “No matter how well informed you are, you are surely not alarmed enough.”

I would put it even more strongly.

If the fracturing of our once stable climate doesn’t terrify you, then you don’t fully understand it. The reality is that, as far as we know, and in the natural course of events, our world has never — in its entire history — heated up as rapidly as it is doing now. Nor have greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere ever seen such a precipitous hike.

Think about that for a moment. We’re experiencing, in our lifetimes, a heating episode that is probably unique in the last 4.6 billion years.

While those of us working in the climate science field know the true picture, and understand the implications for our world, most others do not. And this is a problem — a big one. After all, we can’t act effectively to tackle a crisis if we don’t know its full depth and extent.

What’s happening to our world scares the hell out of me, but if I shout the brutal, unvarnished truth from the rooftops, will this really galvanize you and others into fighting for the planet and your children’s futures?

Bill McGuire

What’s happening to our world scares the hell out of me, but if I shout the brutal, unvarnished truth from the rooftops, will this really galvanize you and others into fighting for the planet and your children’s futures? Or will it leave you frozen like a rabbit in headlights, convinced that all is lost? It is an absolutely critical question.

With politicians and corporations unable or unwilling to take action rapidly enough to stymie emissions as the science demands, all we as climate scientists are left with is to seek to rouse the public to try and force through — via the ballot box and consumer choices — the enormous changes required to curb global heating.

But would telling it like it is do the trick, or would the burden of truth be too much to bear?

A major psychological study, published by the scientific journal Lancet Planetary Health in 2021, found that most 16–25 year olds in 10 countries across the globe were moderately to extremely worried about climate change, but more than half felt overwhelmed and powerless to act. It would seem reasonable to argue, on this basis, that painting an even worse picture wouldn’t help. But if this is the case, does it mean we shouldn’t provide people with the full facts if they are too scary? Surely not.

In fact, this isn’t a matter of scaring or not scaring people, but of informing them. As a climate scientist, it is my duty to tell you about what is happening to our world, whether it engenders fear or not.

An iceberg floats past houses on Disko Bay, Greenland, during unseasonably warm weather on July 30, 2019. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

A failure to do this will mean that the public is left ignorant of the true extent of the climate emergency, which in turn can only hinder engagement and action.

This is already becoming a problem, with many commentators on the right of the political spectrum, along with some climate scientists, denigrating as “doomers” anyone flagging the worst outcomes of global heating. Such climate “appeasement” is increasingly taking the place of denial and could be an even greater driver of inertia than fear, as it plays down the enormity of the problem — and as an inevitable consequence, the urgency of action.

The truth is that people can take being scared if they know there is still hope and that they can do something to make things better, or at least stop things getting worse.

A 2022 study by researchers from the University of Bath in the UK found that scary images of wildfires and other climate-related catastrophes around the world were particularly effective at cultivating climate anxiety, defined by the American Psychological Association as the chronic fear of environmental doom. Rather than leading to inaction, however, the study showed that this could be a motivating force that spurred the sample of UK adults to adopt measures that helped to reduce emissions.

Critically, the authors of the study observed that the reality of climate change has to be communicated without inducing a feeling of hopelessness — and this is the key.

One of the ways of doing this is to encourage collective action. Many people have said to me that they feel isolated or that as individuals, they don’t think they can make a worthwhile difference.

RELATED ARTICLEThe planet just shattered heat records for the ninth month in a row

My answer is always to join a group of like-minded people and to work with them to drive institutional and systemic change. In every case, this has had a galvanizing effect, replacing hopelessness with hope; inertia with action.

The bottom line is that many things in life are scary or worrying, from going to the dentist to noticing a potential sign of cancer, but ignoring them almost invariably results in something far worse happening down the line.

Climate change is no different. Everyone has the right to know the facts — scary or not — so as to provide the opportunity to act based upon the reality of what we are doing to our planet, and not on some sanitized version.

Rather than leading to inaction, I believe this could be transformative.

Oil industry has sought to block state backing for green tech since 1960s

Research shows industry lobbying against support for solar panels and electric cars while enjoying subsidies itself

Ajit Niranjan

THE GUARDIAN

Fri 8 Mar 2024 

The oil industry has fought against government support for clean technologies for more than half a century, the Guardian can reveal, even as vast subsidies have propped up its polluting business model.

It lobbied lawmakers to block support for low-carbon technologies such as solar panels, electric cars and heat pumps as far back as the 1960s, analysis shows. Trade associations in the US and Europe stymied green innovations under the guise of supporting a “technology neutral” approach to avoiding the damage done by burning their fuels.

The same incumbents were happy to lobby for government support when they were getting started, and had continued to benefit from it since, said Dario Kenner, a visiting research fellow at the University of Sussex who trawled through decades of public statements from the American Petroleum Institute (API) and FuelsEurope.

“It’s obviously hypocritical to call for technological neutrality when you are the dominant technology,” he said.

Kenner documented dozens of examples of the oil industry pressuring governments to hold back support for renewable energy, restrict funding for the development of clean technologies and weaken environmental rules that favoured their uptake.

Lobbyists on both sides of the Atlantic argued that government subsidies for clean technologies distorted free markets. Activists say their position is “dishonest” because the oil industry benefits from tax credits and other financial help from governments, and pays for only a fraction of the damage its fuels do to people and the planet.

In 2022, the total subsidies for fossil fuels – including costs to society – came to $760bn (£592bn) in the US and $310bn (£264bn) in the EU, according to the International Monetary Fund.

The revelations were “outrageous but frankly unsurprising”, said Shira Stanton from the campaign group Beyond Fossil Fuels, who was not involved in the analysis.

“It has been proven that the fossil fuel industry caused the climate crisis and deliberately lied about it as they hid the science,” she said. “So finding out that they knew renewable energy was such a threat to their industry that they had to lobby policymakers to rig the market against cleaner and cheaper technology to protect profits is just par for the course.”

Some interventions may have slowed the growth of technologies that scientists say are key to stopping the planet from heating.

In 1975, after a global oil crisis, the API opposed an energy saving bill that included refundable income tax credits for heat pumps in homes.

“The United States has a large resource base of conventional energy such as oil, gas and coal,” it said. “Expeditious development of these supplies can make a significant contribution not only to improving US energy independence, but to create a healthy economy.”

Some of the industry’s early efforts to hold back competition later helped it argue that society could not do without it.

In 1967, the API protested against a bill to promote the development of electric cars with the argument that governments should “stimulate all efforts by industry to eliminate automotive pollution, rather than dedicate federal funds to the promotion of any single possible solution”.

But half a century later, in 2005, its lobbyists fought a bill to support electric cars with the argument that they were not developed enough.

“The United States, and the world, cannot afford to leave the age of oil before realistic alternatives are fully in place,” said Red Cavaney, the then president of the API. “It is important to remember that man left the stone age not because he ran out of stones – and we will not leave the age of oil because we ran out of oil.”

An electric car charging point in London. Lobbyists on both sides of the Atlantic argued that government subsidies for clean technologies distorted free markets. Photograph: Zeynep Demir Aslim/Alamy

FuelsEurope, which has also fought support for electric vehicles for more than a decade, pushed to weaken EU fuel efficiency standards in 2017 so they would allow combustion engine cars burning alternative fuels. Critics say the low-carbon fuels with which it wants to power cars are expensive, inefficient and in such short supply that they would be better used in planes and ships, which are harder to run on electricity.

The oil industry had moved from denying climate change to derailing climate action, said Anna Krajinska, a vehicles analyst at the campaign group Transport and Environment, which was not involved in the analysis.

“The push for tech neutrality – particularly ‘carbon neutral’ fuels for road transport – is a disingenuous attempt to keep combustion engines burning fossil fuels,” she said.

Some of the world’s biggest oil companies have invested in clean energy projects as they have come under increasing pressure from activists, investors and governments. Armed with big wallets and skilled engineers, they have argued they can lead the transition to a carbon-neutral economy.

But a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) in November found that oil and gas companies accounted for just 1% of clean energy investments. It described the sector as a “marginal force at best” in the transition.

Kenner said it was “ludicrous” to debate an individual oil company’s transition plans when the industry had spent so long fighting clean alternatives that threaten its market share.

“As part of trade associations and lobby groups, they have been deliberately trying to undermine the same technologies that people want them to invest in,” he said.

The IEA report found that oil and gas producers would have to spend 20 times more of the capital on clean energy – rising from 2.5% in 2022 to 50% in 2030 – to line up with the Paris agreement goal of keeping the planet from heating 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.

Christina Figueres, a Costa Rican diplomat and architect of the agreement, told the Guardian before the Cop28 climate summit in November that she used to believe the industry needed a seat at the table but had lost hope after seeing it use windfall profits since the war in Ukraine to enrich shareholders – instead of reinvesting them in clean energy.

The API and FuelsEurope said they were working to reduce emissions.

The API said: “America’s natural gas and oil industry is working to address the risks of climate change and build a lower-carbon future, while simultaneously meeting the world’s growing energy needs. Our members continue to make significant progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions across their operations, while also leading in the development of low-carbon solutions like carbon capture and storage and hydrogen that are critical to meeting the world’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets.”


FuelsEurope said: “FuelsEurope can state that our industry is transforming, and we have developed a comprehensive pathway of how we, together with our partners, can contribute to meeting the 2050 climate neutrality challenge. By 2050, at the latest, every litre of liquid fuel for transport could be net climate neutral, enabling so, together with all existing and proven sustainable alternative technologies, the decarbonisation of aviation, maritime and road transport, and the refinery products supplying the industrial value chain could also be net zero CO2.”

Kenner compared the industry’s lobbying to gas lighting companies who fought the arrival of electric street lights, and canal companies who protested against new railways. By fighting off support for emerging competitors, the industries slowed the transition to new technologies.

“We know from the history of technological change that it’s often the companies with the new technologies that push it forward – it’s not usually the incumbents,” said Kenner. “Blockbuster video was not going to get to Netflix online streaming.”

An engine that can conjure thrust from thin air? We speak to the designer

Chatting to Anmol Taploo about the race to develop tech for satellites

Katyanna Quach
Sat 9 Mar 2024 

INTERVIEW Will satellites be capable of generating their own thrust with propellant created out of thin air one day? Scientists at the George Washington University (GWU) and Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory reckon so.

They have been awarded more than $1 million from the US government boffinry nerve center DARPA to build prototype air-breathing electric propulsion (ABEP) engines demonstrating the technology is possible to drive satellites with electric power in very low Earth orbit. That electric power could come from solar panels, nuclear sources, or batteries, for example.

Here, The Register speaks to Anmol Taploo, a PhD student at GWU, who is working on a novel way of generating plasma for these futuristic engines [PDF].

The Reg: The idea sounds like something out of science fiction. Where did it come from?

A.T.: The concept of ion engines is pretty old. I think during the '60s there was some talk about not having to carry propellant or fuel with you to space and just utilize [local] resources. For example, let's say, we can utilize water as a fuel on the Moon. What if we could utilize metals as propellants or air for fuel? There were all sorts of theories, and the recent work within the last two decades is when the interest started to grow more.

The Reg: How did you end up working on this?

A.T.: When I started my PhD, I didn't know about this field. My background is in aerospace engineering, and more toward working on gas turbine engines and a little bit about spacecraft. I had some background with aerodynamics. I heard about air-breathing plasma engines, it sounds really cool, interesting, and something that could be potentially novel. So [my PhD advisor] said: Why don't you do this as a project? So for the last five to six years, this has been my PhD topic, which eventually led to the DARPA award, which is known as the Charge Harmony project. We applied for that solicitation and we won the $1 million award.

The Reg: Can you explain how ABPEs work?

​​A.T.: Air goes inside an engine and there's an electron gun that emits high energy electrons. Those high energy electrons interact with the air and ionize the particles; it's a chain reaction called ionization. Then they will be excited and emit light that glows. Plasma is created from the charges, the positive ions and negative electrons. Now you have electromagnetic fields, and you have a perpendicular magnetic field. The charged particles get accelerated by the Lorentz force to generate thrust.NASA and Japan's X-ray satellite space 'scope sends first snaps of distant galaxies
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ESA's ERS-2 satellite began to come apart earlier than predicted

The Reg: What are some of the benefits of using an abundant and sustainable energy source to power spacecraft?

A.T.: You already have air in the atmosphere, so if you could use that as a fuel that means that you don't need to carry propellant tanks. You can have a simple [spacecraft] design and your launch cost reduces. The lowest launch cost is SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, it costs about $1,500 per kilogram. Say you're using what, like, three or four kilograms of fuel and have some additional weight so just imagine how much money you're saving per launch per satellite.

The Reg: How low do you need to fly satellites with ABEPs to get enough air?

A.T.: I would say we are the only ones who are aiming for very low orbits, at about 70 to 90 kilometers. These kinds of orbits are known as self-cleaning orbits, or self-deorbiting orbits.

The Reg: You mentioned that you will eventually start a company. What commercial advantages are there to having satellites orbiting closer to Earth?

A.T.: There are three strong business cases with this technology. One is extremely high quality imaging, because you are tens times closer to the earth compared to geostationary satellites in low Earth orbit. You have very high resolution imaging and that's really important. Disaster management, military defense – that's a huge market for sure. Second is communications.

The third and the biggest problem is space debris. Because you're orbiting at low altitudes you have drag. So let's say your satellite goes out of control – I'm not talking about fuel anymore, because fuel is infinite – it will automatically deorbit because of drag in the altitude and burn upon reentry, so you're preventing formation of space debris.

The Reg: What is your goal in the DARPA Change Harmony project?

A.T.: The next milestone for the DARPA contract is to achieve a thrust-to-drag ratio greater than one.

The Reg: Is this technology only useful for satellites orbiting Earth?

A.T.: No, we have shown that it operates with multiple gasses, so it could potentially also be used for different planets. It's not just for Earth, it has potential to be used for spacecraft orbiting Mars, Venus or maybe Titan-like planets at very low altitudes.

The Reg: When do you think we might be able to deploy this on a real satellite in space?

A.T.: My goal is the next five years. I might be too optimistic.

 ®

Canadian 13-year-old has eureka moment with science project that suggests Archimedes’ invention was plausible

By Taylor Nicioli, CNN
Fri March 8, 2024


Brenden Sener, 13, of London, Ontario, created a miniature version of Archimedes' death ray for the 2023 Matthews Hall Annual Science Fair. Courtesy Melanie Sener

Often called the father of mathematics, Archimedes was one of the most famous inventors in ancient Greece, with some of his ideas and principles still in use today.

But one fabled device has left scientists speculating on its existence for hundreds of years — the death ray. Now, a middle schooler may have some answers.

Brenden Sener, 13, of London, Ontario, has won two gold medals and a London Public Library award for his minuscule version of the contraption — a supposed war weapon made up of a large array of mirrors designed to focus and aim sunlight on a target, such as a ship, and cause combustion — according to a paper published in the January issue of the Canadian Science Fair Journal.


The Greek polymath has fascinated Sener since he learned of the inventor during a family vacation to Greece. For his 2022 science project, Sener recreated the Archimedes screw, a device for raising and moving water. But he didn’t stop there.

Sener found the death ray to be one of the more intriguing devices — sometimes referred to as the heat ray. Historical writings suggested that Archimedes used “burning mirrors” to start anchored ships on fire during the siege of Syracuse from 214 to 212 BC.

“Archimedes was so ahead of his time with his inventions. And it really did revolutionize technology at that time, because Archimedes was thinking about stuff that no one actually had before,” Sener said. “(The death ray) is such a neat idea that no one at that time would have thought of.”

There is no archaeological evidence that the contraption existed, as Sener noted in his paper, but many have tried to recreate the mechanism to see if the ancient invention could be feasible.

Miniature death ray

In Sener’s attempt at the ray, he set up a heating lamp facing four small concave mirrors, each tilted to direct light at a piece of cardboard with an X marked at the focal point. In this project he designed for the 2023 Matthews Hall Annual Science Fair, Sener hypothesized that as the mirrors focused light energy onto the cardboard, the temperature of the target would increase with each mirror added.

In his experiment, Sener conducted three trials with two different light bulb wattages, 50 watts and 100 watts. Each additional mirror increased the temperature notably, he found.

“I wasn’t exactly sure how the results would come out due to there being lots of different results with this topic, but I did expect that there would be increases in heat — but not as drastic as I found when I actually did my experiment,” Sener said.

The temperature of the cardboard during with just the heating lamp and the 100-watt light bulb and no mirrors was about 81 degrees Fahrenheit (27.2 degrees Celsius). After waiting for the cardboard to cool, Sener added one mirror and retested. The focal point’s temperature increased to almost 95 F (34.9 C), he found.

The greatest increase occurred with the addition of the fourth mirror. The temperature with three mirrors aimed at the target was almost 110 F (43.4 C), but the addition of a fourth mirror increased the temperature by about 18 F (10 C) to 128 F (53.5 C).

Writing in the paper, Sener said he found these results to be “quite remarkable as it suggests that light is going in all directions and that the shape of the concave mirror focuses the light waves onto a single point.”

Sener set up a heating lamp facing four small concave mirrors, each tilted to direct light at a piece of cardboard with an X marked at the focal point where the temperature was expected to increase. Courtesy Melanie Sener

Praising Sener for insights into Archimedes’ death ray, Cliff Ho, a senior scientist at Sandia National Laboratories, said the project is “an excellent evaluation of the fundamental processes.” The facility is an engineering and science laboratory with the US Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

While the experiment doesn’t offer “anything significantly new to the scientific literature … his findings were a nice confirmation of the first law of thermodynamics,” which states energy or heat can be transferred, Ho said. The scientist had proposed a conference in 2014 on the death ray, concluding the idea was possible but would have been difficult for Archimedes to pull off.

Sener was not attempting to light anything on fire, as “a heating lamp does not generate anywhere near enough heat as the sun would,” he said. But he believes that with the use of the sun’s rays and a larger mirror, “the temperature would increase even more drastically and at a faster rate” and “would easily cause combustion.”

More theories on the death ray

Every two years, the Olympic torch is set ablaze using a curved parabolic mirror that concentrates sunlight into one point. Once the torch is put in that focal point, the sun’s rays ignite the torch. It is not widely believed that Archimedes used a single parabolic mirror, as it cannot be aimed the same way a flat mirror can.

Archimedes’ death ray is more commonly speculated to have been an array of several mirrors or polished shields. However, this theory is often discredited due to the idea that ships would be moving during battle. In order for the vessels to ignite from heat generated by the mirrors, they would have needed to be stationary and anchored near shore, said Thomas Chondros, a retired associate professor with the department of mechanical engineering and aeronautics at Greece’s University of Patras. Chondros has studied Archimedes and his inventions.

The Discovery Channel series “MythBusters” featured episodes in 2004, 2006 and 2010 testing out scenarios for the purported death ray but ultimately declared the legend to be a myth when each test failed to light a wooden boat on fire. In 2005, a class of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, inspired by the show’s first episode, was able to ignite a wooden boat once with a similar technique to Sener’s on a larger scale, but failed on a second attempt.

Sener said he believes that combining MIT’s findings with his own, the data could suggest the death ray was plausible, and Archimedes likely could have used the sun’s rays with large mirrors to cause combustion. But the technology may not work in cold temperatures or cloudy weather, and the sea’s impact on the ships’ motion affects the practicality of this device, he added in his paper.

Despite the limitations for the practicality of the death ray, Chondros found Sener’s project to be “interesting and well documented” and the teen’s experimental setup could “form the base of a discussion for young students, even University students,” he said in an email.

Sener’s mom, Melanie, was not surprised by her son’s choice in science project. “He has always been fascinated with history, with science, with nature. … He’s always had a thirst for any form of education and knowledge,” she said.

Sener could see himself one day being a scientist, whether it be in engineering, bioengineering or medicine, he said.

Elephant stem cells created in a lab for the first time could help bring back the mammoth

By Ashley Strickland, CNN
Sun March 10, 2024


CNN —

There are constant reminders in our everyday surroundings of the many chapters of life that have unfolded on Earth.

Rocks and dirt preserve evidence of the epochs that came before ours, such as the oldest known fossilized forest on the planet where unusual trees once grew 390 million years ago.

Fossils reveal the diversity of life that has flourished and disappeared over millennia, and graves tell the stories of humans who lived through unimaginable hardship centuries ago.

The one constant about life on Earth is that it changes continuously. Even scientists can’t agree on whether or not a new chapter of Earth’s history has begun.

While it may seem impossible to bring long extinct creatures back to life, scientists are achieving breakthroughs that could enable a comeback, perhaps in the not so distant future.
Back to the future

The fossil of a woolly mammoth (left background) and small replica (right) are shown on display at the CaixaForum in Zaragoza, Spain. Nano Calvo/VWPCS/AP

An ambitious plan to genetically engineer a woolly mammoth — a giant that hasn’t roamed Earth in 4,000 years — has taken another step toward reality.

Colossal Biosciences, a Dallas-based company aiming to create a mammoth hybrid that looks exactly like its extinct counterpart, has reprogrammed cells from an Asian elephant. The species is the closest living relative to the woolly mammoth.

The now modified cells could eventually be used to help the hybrid mammoth grow a woolly coat and develop other traits needed to survive in the Arctic.

The company believes that resurrecting the woolly mammoth could possibly help restore the vulnerable Arctic tundra, which is at risk as the world warms.
Across the universe

The far-reaching infrared gaze of the James Webb Space Telescope has spied a mysterious galaxy that existed when the universe was only 700 million years old — in its adolescence, astronomically speaking.

The discovery surprised scientists, who found that it was the oldest “dead” galaxy ever observed, and it stopped forming stars almost as soon as star birth in the universe began.

Violent interactions between stars or black holes can deprive galaxies of the gas needed to form stars, but so far, no theories explain exactly what happened in this distant galaxy.

Curiosities

The 8,600-year-old bread was found at the Neolithic archaeological site of Çatalhöyük, a UNESCO World Heritage site, at Cumra district in Konya, Turkey. Serhat Cetinkaya/Anadolu/Getty Images

Bread and cheese are among the best culinary pairings, but perhaps not when the bread in question is 8,600 years old and the cheese is known for its pungent aroma.

Archaeologists discovered a palm-size spongy residue at an ancient oven structure in Turkey and determined that it was an uncooked round of fermented bread made in 6600 BC, making it the world’s oldest known loaf.

Meanwhile, France’s favorite Camembert cheese may be facing an extinction crisis.

The fungus used during the cheesemaking process, which gives Camembert both its distinct smell and rich flavor, is in short supply, causing connoisseurs to worry that Camembert’s days are numbered.
Fantastic creatures

Strolling through Earth’s forests 120 million years ago would have afforded a familiar sight amid an otherwise dinosaur-dominated landscape: birds. Well, that is, until the feathered creatures opened their beaks to reveal rows of teeth.

Back then, toothy birds were the norm. But researchers have unearthed a fossil of a newfound species, dubbed “Attenborough’s strange bird” in honor of the British naturalist Sir David Attenborough, that was an oddball because it was toothless.

The discovery of the robinlike bird is changing the way scientists think about the complicated story of avian evolution.

Separately, an eagle-eyed amateur paleontologist out for a stroll with his dog happened to spot an exposed bone that led to the discovery of a nearly complete titanosaur skeleton connected from skull to tail.

A long time ago

A stone tool found at Korolevo, an archaeological site in Ukraine, shows ancient humans had plenty of hard rock with which to work. Roman Garba

Scientists have used a uniquely celestial method to determine that ancient humans were in Europe 1.4 million years ago.

Pebbles buried within a quarry in Ukraine along with stone tools found beneath layers of earth underwent analysis for radioactive particles locked inside the mineral grains.

In the distant past, when the rocks were still at the surface, cosmic rays, or charged particles that travel across the universe and land on Earth, had penetrated the stone, creating the radioactive markers that help researchers determine how long the archaeological layer was buried.

The freshly dated artifacts are the earliest known evidence of hominins in Europe. The team is still trying to determine exactly which species of early human made the tools, but the study findings have provided clues.

UK
Family Discovers 8 Huge Dinosaur Footprints While Walking on Eroded Beach (Photos)

By Good News Network
-Mar 9, 2024

Dinosaur footprints on the beach in Bexhill, East Sussex 

– By Vicky Ballinger / SWNS

A family was strolling along an eroded beach at sunset when they discovered a trove of eight huge dinosaur footprints.

Vicky Ballinger and her two kids were stunned by the sight in East Sussex, England, after high tides and heavy rains had worn away the sand, exposing the rock underneath.

The area from Bexhill-on-Sea to Fairlight has become known for its track casts and prints of dinosaurs.

“I grew up in Bexhill and I’ve never seen these ones before,” says Vicky.

“I believe they are iguanodon footprints. They’re not T-rex tracks (because) they weren’t in England.”

Vicky went to the local Bexhill Museum with her discovery, and they’re investigating further this week. She also uploaded her video to YouTube (see below).

“The kids loved that they could see the track of a dinosaur and walk where it walked. It was very exciting.”

Set of eight Dinosaur footprints on the beach in Bexhill, East Sussex

 – By Vicky Ballinger / SWNS

LOOK: New Dinosaur With Rows of Bristles On its Head Like a Toothbrush Has Been Discovered

In 2018, more than 85 footprints from the Cretaceous period made up of at least seven different species were uncovered by the cliffs between Hastings and Fairlight—including the fine detail of skin and scales.

Another fossil discovered on Bexhill beach was confirmed as a ‘pickled’ dinosaur brain.

The Bexhill site dates back to around 140 million years ago and contains the remains of dinosaurs that used to roam in the freshwater surroundings of the period.

“It’s quite beautiful to find these amazing dinosaur footprints when we came on a walk.”

CHECK OUT: Newly Discovered Giant Dinosaur Species May Be Closest Known Relative of T. rex

Over the years, the fossils of several dinosaur species have been found including Iguanodon, Megalosaurus, Baryonyx, Polacanthus, and the tooth of a Velociraptor-type animal, many of which are on display at the Bexhill Museum.

Check out her lovely video below…