The days of the hydrogen car are already over

THE CONVERSATION
Published: November 30, 2022


Hydrogen fuel cell cars emerged as an alternative to both the electric and combustion engine vehicle in the early 2000s. They were widely considered an avenue towards universal green motoring. Powered through a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, the only tailpipe emission they produce is water.

The technology also promised a traditional driving experience. Drivers can refuel at filling stations and the range of a hydrogen car is comparable to the combustion engine vehicle. Hydrogen vehicle technology also offered oil companies the opportunity to shift their operations towards the production and transportation of hydrogen and hydrogen refuelling at existing stations.

The UK government reiterated its commitment to the technology in 2016 by investing £2 million in the promotion of hydrogen cars to UK businesses. The European Parliament have more recently agreed to set minimum national targets for the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure. Under this framework, there will be at least one hydrogen refuelling station every 100km along main EU roads.

But hydrogen cars have now all but disappeared. Toyota and Hyundai, the only vehicle manufacturers to produce hydrogen cars for the UK market, sold just 12 hydrogen cars in the country in 2021. Earlier this year, Shell closed all of its UK Hydrogen refuelling stations.

Meanwhile electric vehicles, despite not delivering the range or the fast refuelling of a hydrogen car, have surged in popularity. In 2010, 138 electric vehicles were sold in the UK. This grew to roughly 190,000 annual sales in 2021.
Infrastructure is key

The vehicle types are not competing with each other outright. Instead, this is a case of competition between national technology systems. And where this is the case, the technically superior product rarely triumphs.

VHS video cassette tapes. Eakrin Rasadonyindee/Shutterstock

The Betamax tape recorder failed to take control of the video cassette market in the 1980s, despite being technically superior to its competitors. The lower-quality video home system (VHS) was able to take a dominant share of the market due to their better supply chain infrastructure. As they were stocked in more video rental stores, VHS tapes were simply more accessible than Betamax.

Hydrogen and electric vehicles also depend on broader technological systems. One is based on electricity generation and the other on supplying hydrogen.

Electric vehicles have the advantage of being able to depend on an existing power generation and distribution system – the electrical grid. An electric vehicle can be recharged wherever there is access to a plug socket.

Electric vehicle manufacturer, Tesla, has capitalised on this. Already with a customer base, Tesla was able to build its vehicles and recharging infrastructure simultaneously. They produced over 900,000 new vehicles in 2021 and have installed a global fast charging network of 35,000 superchargers to support them.

Tesla have invested in a global fast charging network. canadianPhotographer56/Shutterstock

The infrastructure that exists to support hydrogen vehicles is limited in comparison and will require extensive investment to introduce. The pipeline infrastructure necessary for a European hydrogen distribution system alone is estimated to cost €80–143 billion (£69–123 billion).

As hydrogen needs to be pressurised and transported either as a gas or a liquid, supply chains must also be redesigned. The cost of developing hydrogen refuelling stations and scaling up hydrogen production will also be extensive. Hydrogen production currently accounts for just 3% of global energy demand.

But governments and businesses are at present unwilling to make the required investments. There is little economic sense in building the infrastructure if the network of cars is too small to use it. Yet at the same time demand for hydrogen cars will remain low until they are supported with compatible infrastructure.
Lessons for the hydrogen car

The introduction of complex technologies and infrastructures have always relied on investment in large scale technology systems. But governments face a choice over which technologies they support.

Investment in technologies to bring public transport systems to cities in developed nations at the turn of the 20th century, to fight wars, and to power modern economies all emerged at a time when governments took responsibility for the need to invest, plan and control production and consumption in the national interest.

Large scale national infrastructure projects including nuclear power and weapons programmes, rail electrification, the development of high-speed trains and manned space missions all occurred throughout the remainder of the century. They all required coordinated efforts to bring them about. This involved government funding, the creation of new institutions such as Nasa and British Rail, research grants for manufacturers, and the setting of clear targets.

Governments have also been the customers of these technologies. The US government, for example, awarded Elon Musk’s space technology programme, SpaceX, a contract to conduct national security launches for the US military

.
High-speed rail was introduced to the UK in 1976. 

Gary Blakeley/Shutterstock

The planning and construction of such systems have always been underpinned by the idea that national interests are at stake. This has been the case whether the motive has been to ensure adequate military defences, to be internationally competitive or to provide societal benefits by launching satellites and developing mass public transport systems.

A mixed automotive economy of hydrogen and electric vehicles could accelerate the transition towards zero emissions. But a viable hydrogen automotive system will need investment on a massive scale. It will require the construction of new and complex technology systems and a fundamental shift in policy thinking and public discourse.

Authors

Tom Stacey
Senior Lecturer in Operations and Supply Chain Management, Anglia Ruskin University

Chris Ivory
Director of the Innovative Management Practice Research Centre, Anglia Ruskin University
Disclosure statement
Tom Stacey receives funding from ERDF.
Chris Ivory receives funding from ERDF, FORTE (Sweden).

UK

The Race To Develop Hydrogen Storage

By Felicity Bradstock - Dec 23, 2022

• Energy companies around the world are racing to develop hydrogen storage, believing that it will help to reduce dependence on natural gas and boost energy security.
• 
  
• The Department of Energy has identified some regions in the U.S. that it believes will be most suitable for cavern storage development.
• 
  
• There are also hydrogen storage projects underway in the UK and the EU, both of which are desperately looking for alternatives to Russian natural gas.

Around the globe, energy companies and governments are racing to develop their hydrogen storage capacity in an attempt to boost their energy security and reduce their reliance on natural gas. As investment into the research and development of hydrogen technologies increases, several world powers are developing better storage solutions to support the rollout of hydrogen for a multitude of uses. Boosting storage capacity will allow countries to produce and store hydrogen for use much in the same way as natural gas.

As part of its National Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap, the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) discusses the potential for increasing hydrogen storage. It considers the alternative approaches to hydrogen storage to decide on the optimal option for long-term storage. Hydrogen can be kept in a number of different ways, either in gaseous or liquid vessels, in underground formations, or in materials such as hydrogen carriers. Depending on how the hydrogen will be used, each of these options can be appropriate.

There are already commercial tanks and liquid dewars being used in the U.S., mainly on energy sites and fuelling stations. As huge quantities of liquid hydrogen are used in aerospace, the Kennedy Space Center in Florida is home to a storage vessel for 1.25 million gallons of liquid hydrogen. Underground caverns are also used to store hydrogen for use in the petrochemical industry, with three large-scale geological hydrogen storage caverns in the U.S. at present. Most of these caverns are excavated in salt deposits near areas intended for hydrogen use. The DoE roadmap identifies some of the regions in the U.S. most suitable for greater cavern storage development, both for hydrogen and for carbon from carbon capture and storage (CCS) operations.

The DoE highlights hydrogen storage as key for the advancement of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies for stationary power, portable power, and transportation. Due to its low ambient temperature density hydrogen has a low energy per unit volume, and it requires specialist forms of storage. Tanks used to keep hydrogen gas must sustain a high pressure of between 350–700 bars. And liquid hydrogen needs to be stored at cryogenic temperatures, as it has a boiling point of −252.8°C. The U.S. Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO) aims to develop hydrogen storage options to meet the DoE hydrogen storage targets for onboard light-duty vehicles, material-handling equipment, and portable power applications.

In the U.K., the energy company SSE started work this month on the excavation of an underground cavern in east Yorkshire to store hydrogen for use when urgently needed. The project includes a 35-megawatt electrolyzer to produce green hydrogen that will be stored in the giant cavern. The hydrogen can be used to fire a turbine to supply power to the grid during times of peak demand. SSE hopes the Pathfinder project, which is expected to cost over $120 million, will offer a blueprint for larger-scale hydrogen storage projects in the future. It expects the project to be operational by 2025. Siemens Energy will be carrying out the project’s design and engineering work. SSE has even bigger long-term plans, having partnered with Norwegian energy firm Equinor to develop the Keadby hydrogen power station on the same site for 2028. It is expected to be the world’s first big 100 percent hydrogen-fired power station.

The firm hopes to attract government funding for its low-carbon hydrogen operations. As the U.K. faces record low temperatures and soaring energy prices, with fears of gas shortages, SSE is offering an alternative renewable energy that it expects will one day take the place of natural gas. The slow development of the green hydrogen sector is mainly due to the high costs incurred with the set-up of operations. However, government funding for these types of projects could help technologies advance more quickly and become cheaper to roll out on a bigger scale.

The European Union is also developing its hydrogen storage plans. It sees hydrogen storage as key to supplying renewable energy to power grids as needed. As hydrogen can be stored in large quantities over long periods of time, it offers greater energy security in the transition to green. It can help make energy systems more flexible, balancing supply with demand. This is an issue that plagues the green energy industry, as solar and wind projects often fail to provide energy during the peak hours of demand. New hydrogen storage facilities, as well as the expansion of the region’s battery storage capacity, could help boost reliable renewable energy provision. 

As investment in hydrogen technology and production continues to increase worldwide, companies are shifting their focus to hydrogen storage as a means to make the energy supply from the renewable energy sector more reliable. This could support a more rapid transition away from fossil fuels, as well as boost energy security around the globe.

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com

Hydrogen will never be more than ‘niche’, say MPs

The House of Commons Science & Technology Committee has warned that hydrogen is not a panacea for reaching the net zero emissions by 2050.

Mace Dragados JV is trialling an AFC Energy H-Power Tower on its Euston station site in London

Hydrogen is likely to have a “specific but limited” role in decarbonising sectors, for example where electrification is not possible, and as a means of storing energy, according to MPs.

A report from the House of Commons Science & Technology Committee, title The role of hydrogen in achieving net zero, concludes that hydrogen is not likely to be practically and economically viable for mass use in the short and medium term for heating homes or fuelling vehicles due to the cost, technological and infrastructure challenges associated – as well as the “unassailable” market lead held by alternatives such as electric cars.

The Commons Science & Technology Committee disagrees with the Climate Change Committee’s recommendation that the government should mandate new domestic boilers to be hydrogen-ready from 2025.

Currently, hydrogen is overwhelmingly produced from fossil-fuel intensive processes, the MPs note. Efficient production of low-carbon ‘green’ hydrogen relies on abundant cheap renewable electricity and so-called ‘blue’ hydrogen requires carbon capture and storage, which is not deployed at the large scale required to make a material contribution to emissions reductions. Given this, the committee says that it is “unwise” to assume hydrogen can make a large contribution to reducing UK greenhouse gas emissions in the short and medium term.

The committee is “unconvinced” that hydrogen will be able to play a widespread role in heating homes by 2026, when the government has said it could start mandating hydrogen-ready boilers in domestic homes, though it could be feasible to blend some hydrogen with natural gas. It also argues that policy for hydrogen metering in homes has been “overlooked”, with the energy regulator Ofgem unable to say whether current smart meters would be suitable for hydrogen or the cost implications for the consumer if they are not suitable.

The committee outlines the areas where the use of hydrogen does have potential, including in the decarbonisation of UK industrial clusters, where hydrogen is already produced; in parts of transport such as areas of the rail network that are hard to electrify, bus networks that have a local pattern of operations susceptible to refuelling at depots, and some parts of shipping and aviation.

The committee says that the government should, in the next two months, outline a series of decision points between now and 2050 that will set out the role of hydrogen in the UK’s future energy system. This should include specifying what scientific and technological progress needs to be made at each stage, such as requirements for the deployment of carbon capture and storage to make blue hydrogen economic and the level of renewable generation that would lead to surplus power which could be used to produce green hydrogen.

Greg Clark MP, chair of the committee, said: “Hydrogen can play an important role in decarbonising the UK’s economy, but it is not a panacea.

“There are significant infrastructure challenges associated with converting our energy networks to use hydrogen and uncertainty about when low-carbon hydrogen can be produced at scale at an economical cost.

“But there are important applications for hydrogen in particular industries so it can be, in the words of one witness to our inquiry, ‘a big niche’.

“We welcome the government’s high-level strategy and support of hydrogen trials, but future decisions on the role of hydrogen must increasingly be practical, taking into account what is technically and economically achievable. We call on the government to set out a series of decision points, which would give industry the clarity that it needs.”

The full report can be found at publications.parliament.uk

Has green hydrogen sprung a leak?

By Sarah Mcfarlane
and Ron Bousso

December 22, 2022

A general view of hydrogen electrolysis plant called 'REFHYNE', one of the world's first green hydrogen plants, during a launch event at Shell's Rhineland refinery in Wesseling near Cologne, Germany, July 2, 2021. REUTERS/Thilo Schmuelgen

LONDON, Dec 22 (Reuters) - The green hydrogen express is gathering pace, but it may have a worrying problem with leaks.

As governments and energy companies line up big bets on the much-touted fuel of the future, some scientists say the lack of data on leaks and the potential harm they could cause is a blind spot for the nascent industry.

At least four studies published this year say hydrogen loses its environmental edge when it seeps into the atmosphere. Two scientists told Reuters that if 10% leaks during its production, transportation, storage or use, the benefits of using green hydrogen over fossil fuels would be completely wiped out.

Governments are pushing ahead with financial support for the industry, however. The United States included billions of dollars of green hydrogen tax credits in its Inflation Reduction Act and the European Union approved 5.2 billion euros ($5.5 billion) in subsidies for green hydrogen projects in September.

Scientists say the problem with hydrogen is that when it leaks into the atmosphere, it reduces the concentration of molecules that destroy the greenhouse gases already there, potentially contributing to global warming.

They say the lack of technology for monitoring hydrogen leaks means there is a data gap, and more research is needed to calculate its net impact on global warming before final investment decisions are taken.

Columbia University, the Environmental Defense Fund, a joint project by the universities of Cambridge and Reading, and the Frazer-Nash Consultancy have all published studies about the risk of leaks undermining green hydrogen's climate benefits.
Advertisement · Scroll to continue

"We need much better data. We need much better devices to measure the leakage, and we need regulation which actually enforces the measurement of the leakage," said Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a researcher at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy.

It estimates that leakage rates could reach up to 5.6% by 2050 when hydrogen is being used more widely.

Norway's climate research institute CICERO is also working on a three-and-a-half-year study due to conclude in June 2024 on the impact of hydrogen emissions. Maria Sand, who is leading the research, said there was a big gap in the science.

"We need to be aware of the leakages, we need some answers," said Sand. "There is big potential for hydrogen, we just need to know more before we make the big transition.

MEASURED APPROACH

The hydrogen used now in oil refineries, chemicals factories and the fertiliser industry is made from natural gas in a process that produces carbon dioxide. Green hydrogen is made by using renewable energy to split water through electrolysis, without producing greenhouse gases.

The chief attraction of using hydrogen as a fuel is that the main by-product is water vapour, along with small amounts of nitrogen oxides, making it far less polluting than fossil fuels - assuming it doesn't seep out.

Leaks are one of many issues plaguing the adoption of green hydrogen, besides high costs, safety concerns, and the need to invest in enough renewable energy to make it, as well as in the infrastructure to store and transport the colourless gas.

Last week, Brussels called for applications for funding for more research into the risks linked to a large-scale deployment of hydrogen. It asked the research to show how hydrogen could reduce global warming by replacing fossil fuels, but also how it could contribute to global warming in the event of leakages.

The Environmental Defense Fund's study, meanwhile, urged governments and businesses to gather data on hydrogen leakage rates first, then identify where the risks were highest and how to mitigate them before building the infrastructure needed.

The Frazer-Nash report also flagged how measures to prevent hydrogen leaks needed to be taken into account to allow for greater up-front and maintenance costs.

"The more we know about how to produce it in a sustainable way, and the regulation and management needed, the more it costs and therefore that limits its use unless there is no alternative," said Richard Lowes, senior associate at The Regulatory Assistance Project think-tank.

GREEN POTENTIAL

Scientists and analysts say that as hydrogen molecules are much smaller and lighter than those in methane, they are harder to contain. While potential leakages of hydrogen are not expected to be on a scale that could derail all green hydrogen plans, any seepage would erode its climate benefits, they say.

Almost 300 green hydrogen projects are under construction or have started up worldwide, but the vast majority are tiny demonstration plants, International Energy Agency data showed.

The largest is in China where Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group (600989.SS) is using green hydrogen produced from solar power to make petrochemicals such as polyethylene and polypropylene.

Consultancy DNV forecasts that green hydrogen would need to meet about 12% of the world's energy demand by 2050 to hit Paris climate targets. Based on the current pace of development and DNV's modelling of future uptake, the world is only on track to reach about 4%, DNV said.

David Cebon, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Cambridge, said 4% might be only what's "manageable", given the huge amount of renewable energy needed to make enough green hydrogen.

To replace the dirty hydrogen used now in refineries, fertiliser and chemical plants would require almost double the electricity produced by every wind turbine and solar panel worldwide, and that's before green hydrogen is used for anything else, such as steelmaking, transport or heating, Cebon said.

Still, the EU is considering mandates for green hydrogen's use in transport, while countries such as South Korea, Japan and China have targets for hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.

LEAKY PIPES

The fossil fuel industry hopes that hydrogen could eventually move through existing infrastructure, such as gas pipelines and liquefied natural gas import and export terminals.

Hydrogen has not been monitored for leaks in the past, and most of the odourless gas used now is made where it is consumed - but there are plans to pipe and ship it vast distances.

About 1% of the natural gas, which is mostly methane, moving through European infrastructure leaks, but rates are higher in some countries including Russia, according to analysts and satellite images of leaks.

"There's a lot we don't know about hydrogen," said Sand at Norway's CICERO. "We don't know yet if we can assume it will behave the same way as methane."

Initial results of tests in pipelines at DNV's Spadeadam research site in northern England showed that hydrogen leaks in the same places and rates as natural gas.

Companies working on green hydrogen projects say, however, that careful monitoring would be needed.

Once hydrogen enters pipelines, it can weaken metal pipes which can lead to cracking. Hydrogen is also far more explosive than natural gas which could create safety issues.

Energy giant BP (BP.L), which is planning to build multiple green hydrogen projects, including a facility in Britain due to start in 2025 known as HyGreen Teesside, said it was developing leakage monitoring systems.

"We really want to launch an effort now to assess how low can we maintain the level of leakage across a value chain and that's going to be the critical thing," said Felipe Arbelaez, senior vice president for hydrogen and carbon capture at BP.

($1 = 0.9422 euros)

Latest Updates

U.S. finance faces ESG backlash, more to come in 2023
Exclusive: India plans $2 billion incentive for green hydrogen industry
Apple's Australian workers go on Christmas strike demanding better wages, work terms
Mexico's Pemex sees poor environmental record as threat to financing
Zara shopworkers call off strikes in company's hometown after 25% pay rise - union

“Nobody Saw This Coming” – Scientists Uncover a New Branch of Fungal Evolution

By UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA DECEMBER 21, 2022

The new findings will be important to the broader study of fungal evolution, particularly how fungi inherit important biotechnological features like enzymes that break down plant matter.

A new study helps clarify the evolutionary origins of the “platypus of fungi.”

Approximately 600 seemingly disparate fungi that never quite found a fit along the fungal family tree have been demonstrated to have a common ancestor. The research, which was led by the University of Alberta, used genome sequencing to give these peculiar creatures their own classification home.

“They don’t have any particular feature that you can see with the naked eye where you can say they belong to the same group. But when you go to the genome, suddenly this emerges,” says Toby Spribille, principal investigator on the project and associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences.

“I like to think of these as the platypus and echidna of the fungal world.”

In a class of their own: The earth tongue is one of 600 “oddball” fungi that were found to share a common ancestor dating back 300 million years, according to U of A researchers. Credit: Alan Rockefeller, CC-BY-SA-4.0

Spribille, Canada Research Chair in Symbiosis, is referring to Australia’s famed Linnaean classification system-defying monotremes — which produce milk and have nipples but lay eggs — that were the source of debate as to whether they were even real.

“Though nobody thought our fungi were fake, it’s similar because they all look totally different.”

The scientists discovered that this new class of fungi, the Lichinomycetes, originated from a single source 300 million years ago, or 240 million years before the extinction of the dinosaurs, using DNA-based dating methods.

These “oddball” fungi were previously dispersed across seven different classes, according to David Díaz-Escandón, who conducted the study as part of his Ph.D. thesis. This high-level grouping, in animals, would be equivalent to the groups called mammals or reptiles.

He sequenced 30 genomes with a team of researchers from seven nations to get material from the fungi and discovered that all classes except one stemmed from a common origin.

“They were classified, but they were classified into such different parts of the fungal side of the tree of life that people never suspected they were related to each other,” says Díaz-Escandón.

These fungi include forms as varied as earth tongues — eerie tongue-shaped fungi that shoot up vertically out of the ground — beetle gut microbes, and a fungus found in tree sap in northern Alberta. They also include some unusual lichens that survive in extreme habitats such as South America’s Atacama Desert, the driest non-polar desert in the world.

“What is really fascinating is that despite these fungi looking so different, they have a lot in common at the level of their genomes,” says Spribille. “Nobody saw this coming.”

Based on their genomes, which are small compared with those of other fungi, the team predicts that this group of fungi depends on other organisms for life.

“Their small genomes mean this class of fungi has lost much of their ability to integrate some complex carbohydrates,” said Spribille. “When we go back to look at each of these fungi, suddenly we see all of them are in a kind of symbiosis.”

He notes the new research will be important to the broader study of fungal evolution, specifically how fungi inherit important biotechnological features such as enzymes that break down plant matter.

The new group also could be a source of new information about past fungal extinctions.

“We think it’s likely that the diversity we see today is just the tip of the iceberg that survived. And we don’t have that many examples of this kind of thing in fungi.”

Reference: “Genome-level analyses resolve an ancient lineage of symbiotic ascomycetes” by David Díaz-Escandón, Gulnara Tagirdzhanova, Dan Vanderpool, Carmen C.G. Allen, André Aptroot, Oluna Češka, David L. Hawksworth, Alejandro Huereca, Kerry Knudsen, Jana Kocourková, Robert Lücking, Philipp Resl and Toby Spribille, 23 November 2022, Current Biology.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.11.014

The Dawn of the Synthetic Age

BY CHRISTOPHER PRESTON

DEC 24, 2022

Illustration by Rey Velasquez Sagcal

An expert in environmental philosophy and wildlife recovery responds to Margrét Helgadóttir’s “A Lion Roars in Longyearbyen.”

Margrét Helgadóttir’s vision of a northern city turned into a bloated climate refuge has already left the category of fiction. True, an escaped lion prowling the city streets is rare. But we already live in a world haunted by the ghosts of species extinguished by rising temperatures, the prospect of meat grown in a factory, and the burdens created by tens of thousands of climate migrants. Much else rings true, including the social disapproval for people who over-consume and the contested dramas between those who idolize a mammal and those who want him dead. The most memorable aspect of Helgadóttir’s short story, however, is not the prescience of the vision. It’s the emotional reaction she elicits for Levi.

Why Levi is special is both intuitively obvious and vastly underappreciated by those caught up in the biotechnology revolution. His fan club is based entirely on rumors that Levi is “the real thing”—a natural animal, not one genetically revived. Their fascination with him is relatable—many of us lust to maintain something authentic. Wild animals ripple with authenticity. Levi is one of the last of them.

Environmental philosophers coined the term “biotic artifact” four decades ago. At the time, it referred to the sheep and cattle whose carefully manufactured temperaments, plump haunches, and passivity in the company of humans made them suitable objects for commodification. Upon earning the label “domestic,” they simultaneously became subjects of greater care and objects of diminished dignity compared with their wild counterparts.

Biotic artifacts were popular from the start. Wild animals suffered in the face of a hundred centuries of growth in domestic livestock. Today, 96 percent of mammalian biomass is humans and domesticated animals. This means 24 times the weight of all the lions, whales, and musk-ox combined are creatures who spend their lives in pens, fields, factories, and other manufactured spaces. The remaining 4 percent of wild, mammalian life accrues rarity value by default.

The techniques that permitted the transformation of aurochs and wild sheep into beef and lamb have a hint of wholesomeness about them. Take animals with the traits you admire and put them in close proximity to others of the opposite sex during breeding season. After hormones have run their course, you get something even more marketable than what you had before.

The technologies Helgadóttir’s world employs are far less wholesome. Zoo animals are “lab” or “factory” built. Their genomes are synthesized from sugars and nitrogenous bases and edited with CRISPR-Cas enzymes. The stitching together of nucleic acid sequences is done in vitro and checked by technicians pouring over computer screens. Ova are fertilized with DNA that has never felt the pulse of life. Pluripotent stem cells multiply in cultures kept isolated from breathing, bleeding animals. Embryos are gestated in artificial wombs. The few young that survive are coached in the art of living by surrogate parents, their immediate ancestors now gone. The resulting organisms may count as “living,” but their creation is thoroughly artificial. This new generation of biotic artifacts are all that remains in what is increasingly a synthetic age.

There are no lab-created mammals with entirely synthetic DNA yet, but scientists are inching toward a manufactured version of the living world. Custom-built bacteria whose genomes are designed on computers are successfully breeding in petri dishes. Black-footed ferrets cloned with 35-year-old frozen DNA live comfortable lives in captive-breeding facilities. And mice containing gene drives nibble food in California research labs.

Helgadóttir points out that such a diminished world is not a world entirely without joy. “The zoo animals,” she writes, “despite all being created in laboratories … were a great entertainment. The zoo itself was an important social meeting place on weekends.” But for those not entirely distracted by entertainments, the joy is tinged with a fatal regret. The remaining zoo animals are simulacra. As good as they are as engineering achievements, they also “tugged at the humans’ souls, reminding them about the lost world.” Levi, with his rumored connection to real wildlife, crystalizes this ache more than any.

Trym, Levi’s caretaker, certainly gets this. He wants Levi to die a natural death, free from attempts to extract his sperm for de-extinction efforts. Trym knows too well how the human touch squanders a wild animal’s dignity. The hunter also senses “something old and majestic” in the cat that stands before him. The self-promoting Kaya gets the point too, eventually, when she sees how Levi rests his magnificent head on Trym after they thwart the hunter’s plan.

“A Lion Roars in Longyearbyen” reminds us of what will be missed in a synthetic age, however inevitable it may seem. Levi is literally lionized. His admirers will him to be a real lion in a warmed and degraded world. His authenticity provides reassurance in a world that has otherwise become a hall of human mirrors; his death crushes this soothing thought.

One hint of hope is that Levi remains a tenacious beast, surviving in the suburbs of Longyearbyen far longer than anyone expected. He proves wilier than the hunter and retains fearsome strength and speed, despite his age. He is a survivor, first in the zoo and then on paved streets, even when a whole city searches for him.

If the prospect of a synthetic age fills you despair, it’s good to recall that tenacity of wildlife. When people withdrew to their homes during the early days of the COVID pandemic, wild animals poured into quieted spaces in startling numbers. Such acts of biological endurance are not rare. As the planet warms, species of shrew have developed longer tails to dissipate more heat. Flowers are blooming earlier to synchronize with shifted insect hatches. Swallows have developed shorter wings to be more agile in city traffic. Humpback whales, freed from the harpoon, are rapidly repopulating oceans around the world without our help.

Getting excited about the survival of a lion in Svalbard tells us something important about what’s left of the living world. We want the living world to be authentic. A world of synthetic wildlife would be a Hallmark world. The good news is that wild animals are tenacious. Biology remains resilient, exploratory, and creative even when the chips are down.

If you give nature a chance, it will snatch it, quick as the swipe of a big cat’s paw.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.

A new wave of chess stars

by Diana Mihajlova

12/25/2022 – The young Uzbek team winning this year’s Olympiad came as a pleasant surprise, but it is not an isolated example in the recent shift of world chess power. Uzbek boys, Kazakh girls, Azeri youth, Chinese, Indian and Iranian young phenoms ever more frequently lit the chess sky. What do their countries have in common? They all once lined the Silk Road.

The young Uzbek team winning this year’s Olympiad came as a pleasant surprise, but it is not an isolated example in the recent shift of world chess power. Uzbek boys, Kazakh girls, Azeri youth, Chinese, Indian and Iranian young phenoms ever more frequently lit the chess sky. What do their countries have in common? They all once lined the Silk Road. More indicatively, they all suffered the yoke under the Mongol’s rule: first the Genghis Khan’s Mongol Empire (1206 - 1368), and soon after its collapse, the Timurid Empire (1370 - 1405), ruled by yet another Mongol, Timur the Great.



Mongol Cavalrymen, from a 14th-century manuscript | Photo: Mongols in World History

In contrast to their savagery, the Mongols appreciated and cultivated arts, architecture, literature and the sciences. And also, chess.



Hiashatar, or Mongolian Grand Chess, a medieval chess variant with an additional piece, the Bodyguard (also called ‘Senior Adviser’ or ‘Warrior’) | Photo: MLWI.Magix

Mongolian chess, also known as Shatar, an old variant with the same number of pieces as classical chess but a different set of rules, today is still played in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region as well as in Mongolia proper.



A Mongolian chess set made of felt that is traditioanally produced by the nomads of Mongolia | Photo: AKIpress



Purev Jigjidsuren, 75-year-old International Master and FIDE Trainer, a former coach of the Mongolian national team, says that “chess in Mongolia is as traditional as herding and wrestling” | Source: Bne Intellinews

A huge, intensified movement and interest in chess have gripped the historic Mongol Empire regions recently. Their governments get directly involved, providing moral and financial support to chess players. The presidents personally meet the ‘conquerors’ or send personal congratulatory letters after each international success. Strong trainers are employed, and good results that raise the country’s reputation are awarded with encouraging gifts including cars and flats.

In this regard, Uzbekistan excels and, no wonder, it yields astonishing results. In par with their invading the winners’ podiums on the international scene, a close cooperation has been established with FIDE — and important FIDE competitions ‘moved’ to these shores.



Ichan-Kala, the old part of Khiva, hosted the Women’s Candidates Tournament (Pool B) | Photo: Uzbekistan Travel



The Uzbek wonder boys (left to right): GM Shamsiddin Vokhidov, GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, GM Jakhongir Vakhidov, GM Nodirbek Yakubboev and GM Javokhir Sindarov | Photo: Uzbekistan Chess Federation

The Uzbek President, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, held a special reception for his country’s Olympians and personally congratulated each one of them.



Shavkat Mirziyoyev congratulates Jakhongir Vakhidov, a member of the Olympic team who also won individual gold on the fourth board | Photo: Uzbek Chess Federation



The most successful of the Uzbek team, Nodirbeck Abdusattorov, has paved a solo career with resounding success: winner of the World Rapid Chess Championship 2021, the youngest ever Rapid World Champion at 17 years, broke Magnus Carlsen’s record, who was 18 when he won it, in 2009. The most famous win to his credit is the win over Magnus in the same championship. He also won the games against two World Champion’s challengers: Caruana and Nepomniachtchi.

Abdusattorov knocked Anish Giri out of the 2021 World Cup.

In the FIDE rating list of May 2015, at eleven years of age, he set a record: the youngest player to enter the top 100 among junior players.

At the Olympiad, he won an individual silver medal on board 1, tied with the gold winner, Gukesh, from India. His tournament performance rating was 2803.

The famous five from Uzbekistan missed for a whisker the first place at the recent World Team Championship. The gong went to their young counterparts from China: Lu Shanglei, Xu Xiangyu, Bai Jinshi and Li Di. The Chinese team won a fine victory, even though their country’s best players were not participating. But that only shows the tremendous strength China commends on the chess scene.



China vs Uzbekistan at the 2022 World Team Championship

From 1950 to 1991, for 41 years, the Women’s World Championship title belonged to a player from the Soviet Union. The pattern was broken in 1991 when Chinese Xie Jun became world champion. Since then, out of the 19 world champion matches, concluding with the 2020 match, 14 were won by a Chinese player. The recently finished Women’s Candidates tournament showed once again that Chinese women reign supreme. Three Chinese ladies will be battling for the world champion title. Ju Wenjun, the reigning world champion, will be challenged by either Lei Tingjie or Tan Zhongyi, winners of each of the two pools.




Ju Wenjun, Lei Tingjie and Tan Zhongyi



Praggnanandhaa R, Gukesh D, Erigaisi Arjun and Nihal Sarin, just a small part of the Indian squad of prodigies that have become a constant fixture on the international chess scene



The Kazakh Bibisara Assaubayeva’s 2021 double success: first place at the Women’s World Blitz, second place at the Women’s World Rapid

Bibisara has entered the Guinness World Records book as the youngest world blitz champion among women.



Azerbaijan’s double triumph at the 2022 World Juniors’ Championship: winner of the open, IM Abdulla Gadimbayli, winner of the women’s section, WGM Govhar Beydullayeva | Photo: FIDE

Zhansaya Abdumalik from Kazakhstan made waves with her exceptional performance at the Women’s Grand Prix in Gibraltar 2021. She was joined on the podium by the Azeri Gunay Mammadzada, who won bronze. At the 2022 European Individual Women’s Championship, Mammadzada won silver, while Ulviyya Fataliyeva, another Azeri, von bronze.



Zhansaya Abdumalik and Gunay Mammadzada at the 2021 Women’s Grand Prix in Gibraltar

Before the start of the Olympiad, the Kazakh president, Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev, invited the women Olympians to a well-wishing and encouragement reception. Indeed, they brought bronze back home, for the first time in the Kazakh chess history, only narrowly missing a much higher placement.



At the reception with the President Tokaev, before the start of the Olympiad: Meruert Kamalidenova, Zhansaya Abdumalik, Dinara Saduakasova, Guliskhan Nakhbayeva and Bibisara Assaubayeva

At this year’s 44th World Chess Olympiad, the Mongolian women’s team, composed of Enkhtuul Altan-Ulzii, Bayarmaa Bayarjargal, Munkhzul Turmunkh and Mungunzul Bat-Erdene, ranked 28th, caused a shock in the third round, defeating the seventh-ranked Americans 3:1. 17-year-old Mungunzul Bat-Erdene, won Mongolia’s first-ever individual gold medal, on the fourth board.



B. Mungunzul receiving a special award from G. Zandanshatar, the Speaker of the Parliament, at a reception for the Mongolian Olympic team members | Photo: Gogo

The 2022 World Amateur Championships were dominated by Mongolian and Kazakh players.

Three gold medals went to Mongolians: in the Women U1700, Margadgua Erdenebayar became the champion with a round to spare, scoring 8½/9; 13-year-old Sodbilegt Naranbold was the outright winner in the Open U2000 with a perfect score of 9/9; Tugulder Soninbayar won first place in the Open U1700 with 7½/9.



Flying the Mongolian flag: Margadgua Erdenebayar, Tuguldur Soninbayar, and Sodbilegt Naranbold (at the far right)

Actually, Mongolians have marked their winning streak at the World Amateur Competition starting from 2011 when GM S. Bilguun became the first Mongolian winner; WFM B. Anu won the gold medal in 2011, WFM B. Yanjinlham in 2013, FM G. Monkhbayar in 2014, FM E. Khulan in 2016, WIM B. Bayarmaa in 2017 and 2018, and finally WFM B. Khaliun and FM B. Amarsaikhan won in 2019.

This round-up of current successful players with Mongol - Silk Road links is certainly not exhausted, but the picture would not be complete without yet another young phenom: GM Alireza Firouzja, Iranian by birth, now playing for the French Federation, the strongest junior player in the world and the youngest ever to reach a 2800 rating.



Alireza Firouzja, winner of the 2022 Grand Chess Tour, the youngest ever winner of a Grand Chess Tour event | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Today's countries that constituted the ancient Silk Road Region and largely the Mongol and later the Timurid Empire include Azerbaijan, China, Korea, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Russia, Ukraine, Syria, Turkey and all five ‘Stans’ om Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan (-stan is a Persian suffix meaning ‘land of’).



Modern-day countries that were connected by the Silk Road | Photo: Oriental Express Caucasus & Central Asia

NEW SUPERLUMINAL THEORY TRANSFORMS OUR CONCEPT OF TIME WITH “EXTENSION” OF SPECIAL RELATIVITY

MICAH HANKS·

DECEMBER 23, 2022

Theoretical physicists from Warsaw and Oxford universities argue that a superluminal world possessing three temporal dimensions and one dimension in space could potentially change our concept of time, according to a new paper.

The researchers involved say they have developed “an extension of special relativity” that incorporates three individual time dimensions with a single space dimension, which helps explain how observations made by “superluminal” observers—inertial observers moving faster than the speed of light—might appear.

Within such a framework, the researchers argue that spontaneous events that can occur in the absence of a deterministic cause and other strange phenomena would be experienced by observers moving faster than the speed of light within a vacuum, concepts that potentially transform our concept of time as we know it.

However, they further argue that superluminal objects would require descriptions within the framework of field theory, meaning the existence of such objects is logically consistent with past models.

Based on past observations by lead author Andrzej Dragan and colleague Artur Ekert, the pair and their co-authors of a recent paper argue that such an extension of special relativity would not give rise to paradoxes as past research has proposed.

“Instead,” they write, “such an extension modifies the notion of causality in the same way quantum theory does.” The researchers cite alleged problems proposed in the past that are related to the relationship between cause and effect, which result from the presence of superluminal particles when viewed within existing frameworks for relativity, where only one dimension of space and time is presumed to exist.

In their new paper, the authors modify this argument by proposing three dimensions of time and a single spatial dimension, which they acknowledge does give rise to its own problems.

According to Dragan and Ekert, “generalizing this scheme to a relativistic framework in a 1+3 dimensional spacetime poses some serious challenges, both mathematical and interpretational.” However, the researchers believe the answer to overcoming these challenges involves the extension of special relativity to incorporate frames of reference that might occur at faster-than-light speeds.

“[O]ne of the most interesting aspects of extending special relativity to superluminal frames of reference is the emergence of field theory,” the authors write in their paper, involving the combination of classical field theory, special relativity, and quantum mechanics.

Building on the concepts presented in Einstein’s special theory of relativity, Dragan and his coauthors relied on Einstein’s assumption that inertial systems are uniform, and that all inertial observers are therefore equal. Einstein outlined this in his theory with regard to observers that are moving relative to each other at speeds far slower than the speed of light, although Dragan and his coauthors argue that even at “superluminal” greater than light speeds, an observer should still be subject to the same laws of physics.

If an observer were viewing our world from such a hypothetical superluminal point of view, one result would be that the principles of quantum mechanics could thereby be incorporated within the special theory of relativity. This concept was first proposed by Dragan and Ekert in a paper two years ago, where they initially looked at only single time and space dimensions, or a 1 + 1 spacetime.

However, Dragan, Ekert, and their coauthors now extend this model to incorporate a 1 + 3 spacetime, where they argue that an observer moving superluminally would perceive only one dimension of this world as having a spatial component, within which particle movement can occur. A particle viewed by this observer would be perceived to age with respect to each of the three time dimensions—something you or I would view as a particle engaged in simultaneous movement in several directions of space. In other words, the authors say that in our spacetime frame of reference, we would be viewing the same singular particle, but seen from our perspective as the propagation of a quantum-mechanical spherical wave.

Breaking this concept down further, Dragan recently said in a press release that this idea builds off the Huygens-Fresnel principle, which states that each point on a wave becomes the source of a new spherical “wavelet,” each of which mutually interferes with the other to form an entirely new wavefront. Originally this principle was only applied to light, but within the context of quantum mechanics, it has since been extended to all forms of matter.

By including superluminal observers, the researchers now argue that our concepts of velocity and kinematics must be redefined. Doing so preserves Einstein’s assumptions about the speed of light within a vacuum as a universal constant, even when viewed by a superluminal observer. Dragan, Ekert, and their coauthors argue that their seemingly bold proposition of extending special relativity to include three time dimensions and a single space dimension is not unwarranted and, in fact, makes perfect sense.


See Also
NASA’S LAUNCH OF CAPSTONE’S CUBESAT PAVES THE WAY FOR NEXT PHASE OF SPACE EXPLORATION

Fundamentally, what the researchers say this allows for is a very different view of reality than the one we are used to. Classical Newtonian observations of a “point particle” no longer make sense for a superluminal observer and instead require viewing such phenomena as a field, which the authors say would be the only way that the physical world can accurately be described.

“Until recently it was generally believed that postulates underlying quantum theory are fundamental and cannot be derived from anything more basic,” the authors write in their paper.

“In this work we showed that the justification of quantum theory using extended relativity… can be naturally generalized to 1 + 3 spacetime and such an extension leads to the field-theoretic formulation of the quantum theory.”

“This justifies, or at least provides a plausibility argument, why this extension is not just an eccentric thought exercise,” the authors say, “but reflects something fundamental about symmetries of laws of physics.”

The team’s paper, “Relativity of superluminal observers in 1+3 spacetime,” was accepted for publication and can currently be read in its entirety here.

Micah Hanks is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and on Twitter: @MicahHanks.

Svalbard reindeer thrive as they shift diet towards ‘popsicle-like’ grasses

Increased plant growth due to warmer climate appears to be prompting change in eating habits

Reindeer graze on Spitsbergen island in Svalbard in May. 

Photograph: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images


Linda Geddes 

Science correspondent

The Guardian
Sun 25 Dec 2022 

As the Arctic warms, concern for the plight of Santa’s favourite sleigh pullers is mounting. But in one small corner of the far flung north – Svalbard – Rudolph and his friends are thriving.

Warmer temperatures are boosting plant growth and giving Svalbard reindeer more time to build up fat reserves; they also appear to be shifting their diets towards “popsicle-like” grasses that poke up through the ice and snow, data suggests.

Smaller and plumper than their Lapplandish cousins, yet boasting impressive antlers nonetheless, Svalbard reindeer inhabit almost all non-glaciated areas of the Svalbard archipelago, which sits just 500 miles (800km) from the North Pole.

Like other Arctic regions, Svalbard has experienced thicker snowfall, and more frequent rain-on-snow events – where rain falls on an existing snowpack and freezes – in recent years, making it harder for reindeer to dig for food.

Reports of mass reindeer starvations in Russia, and declining caribou populations in Canada and Alaska, have also prompted concern for Svalbard’s reindeer. Yet, in the most productive parts of the archipelago, reindeer populations have flourished in recent decades.

Two Svalbard reindeer battle for control of a harem. 

Photograph: Stefano Unterthiner/PA

To investigate what might be driving the population increase, Tamara Hiltunen, a doctoral student at the University of Oulu in Finland, and her colleagues turned to annual blood samples collected in late winter as part of a long-term monitoring study. By comparing the proportion of carbon and nitrogen isotopes in these samples, they could infer what kinds of plants the reindeer had been eating in preceding weeks.

The research, published in Global Change Biology, suggested that between 1995 and 2012 – a period marked by the normalisation of rain-on-snow events, increased summer temperatures and a growing reindeer population – there was a dietary shift away from low-growing mosses and towards grass-like “graminoid” plants.

“The erect nature of the graminoid stems allows that forage to be available to the animals, even though you might have a centimetre or so of ice,” said Prof Jeffrey Welker at the University of Oulu, who supervised the research. “You have the equivalent of popsicle sticks, which are nutritious enough that those animals can sustain themselves, even during these stressful periods of winter.”

Higher soil temperatures and greater amounts of reindeer droppings and urine falling on the ground are also boosting the growth of graminoids, which may further benefit the Svalbard reindeer.

“This is definitely encouraging news,” said Prof Jaakko Putkonen at the University of North Dakota, whose research previously predicted an increase in Arctic regions affected by rain as the century wears on. “However, nature is an endless web of interdependent variables. Some of the upcoming changes may be good to the reindeer and some may be detrimental.

“For example, from Scandinavia there are reports of rain on snow promoting the growth of fungi (eg toxic moulds) under the snowpack due to warmer conditions which has led the reindeer to avoid those areas. They may be trading one challenge for another one.”
t stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential

Welker also cautioned that events in Svalbard may not apply to other regions of the Arctic.

“Just as we see signs that a reindeer population on Svalbard might have some ways of adapting and adjusting to these changes, that could allow them to sustain themselves, we’ve got other groups in Alaska, for instance, that are declining.

“It really speaks to the complexity of the Arctic. Events that are happening in one place are not identical to those that are happening in others.”

However, for Svalbard’s reindeer, the future looks bright – and the archipelago a promising recruitment ground should Santa need further helpers. Given their diminutive size, though, he may need to invest in a smaller sleigh.

“I’m sure they could do it, they just might be a little bit obese,” said Hiltunen. “But maybe if they lived with Santa, they wouldn’t need so much fat to keep themselves alive.”