DEEP MIND VS MS. PAC-MAN

DeepMind's MuZero conquers and learns the rules as it does

by Peter Grad , Tech Xplore

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Albert Einstein once said, "You have to learn the rules of the game, and then you have to play better than anyone else." That could well be the motto at DeepMind, as a new report reveals it has developed a program that can master complex games without even knowing the rules.


DeepMind, a subsidiary of Alphabet, has previously made groundbreaking strides using reinforcement learning to teach programs to master the Chinese board game Go and the Japanese strategy game Shogi, as well as chess and challenging Atari video games. In all those instances, computers were given the rules of the game.

But Nature reported today that DeepMind's MuZero has accomplished the same feats—and in some instances, beat the earlier programs—without first learning the rules.

Programmers at DeepMind relied on a principle called "look-ahead search." With that approach, MuZero assesses a number of potential moves based on how an opponent would respond. While there would likely be a staggering number of potential moves in complex games such as chess, MuZero prioritizes the most relevant and most likely maneuvers, learning from successful gambits and avoiding ones that failed.

When performing against Atari's Ms. Pac-Man, MuZero was restricted to considering only six or seven potential future moves, yet still performed admirably, according to researchers.

"For the first time, we actually have a system that is able to build its own understanding of how the world works and use that understanding to do this kind of sophisticated look-ahead planning that you've previously seen for games like chess," said DeepMind's principal research scientist David Silver. MuZero can "start from nothing, and just through trial and error, both discover the rules of the world and use those rules to achieve kind of superhuman performance."

Silver envisions greater applications for MuZero than mere games. Progress has already been made on video compression, a challenging task considering the huge number of varying video formats and numerous modes of compression. So far, they have achieved a 5% improvement in compression, no small feat for the company owned by Google, which also handles the gigantic cache of videos on the world's second-most popular web site, YouTube, where a billion hours of content are viewed daily. (The No. 1 web site? Google.)

Silver says the laboratory is also looking into robotics programming and protein architecture design, which holds promise for personalized production of drugs.


It is a "significant step forward," according to Wendy Hall, professor of computer science at the University of Southampton and a member of England's AI council. "The results of DeepMind's work are quite astounding and I marvel at what they are going to be able to achieve in the future given the resources they have available to them," she said.

But she also raised a concern about the potential of abuse. "My worry is that whilst constantly striving to improve the performance of their algorithms and apply the results for the benefit of society, the teams at DeepMind are not putting as much effort into thinking through potential unintended consequences of their work," she said.

In fact, the U.S. Air Force had tapped early research papers covering MuZero that were made public last year and used the information to design an AI system that could launch missiles from a U-2 spy plane against specified targets.

When asked by Wired what he thought of such military applications, Silver left no doubt about his concerns.

"I oppose the use of AI in any deadly weapon, and I wish we had made more progress toward a ban on lethal autonomous weapons," he said. He added that DeepMind and its co-founders have all signed the Lethal Autonomous Weapons Pledge, which asserts the belief that deadly technology should always remain under human control, and not AI-based algorithms.

Silver says the challenges ahead are to understand and implement algorithms as effective and powerful as the human brain. "We should be aiming to achieve that. The first step in taking that journey is to try to understand what it even means to achieve intelligence," he said. "We think this really matters for enriching what AI can actually do because the world is a messy place. It's unknown—no one gives us this amazing rulebook that says, "Oh, this is exactly how the world works,'" Silver said. "If we want our AI to go out there into the world and be able to plan and look ahead in problems where no one gives us the rulebook, we really, really need this."


Explore further Alphabet's DeepMind masters Atari games

More information: Julian Schrittwieser et al. Mastering Atari, Go, chess and shogi by planning with a learned model, Nature (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-03051-4

Journal information: Nature

Prairie farmers using high-end Wagyu genetics to create 'snow beef'

© Laura Sciarpelletti/CBC Ian Crosbie with a 10-week-old Wagyu-cross calf at Benbie Holsteins in south-central Saskatchewan, his farm just outside the village of Caronport, about 90 kilometres west of Regina.

Benbie Holsteins in south-central Saskatchewan milks 150 Holsteins every day, but the dairy farm does not need all of its heifer calves for milking, so the remainder are used for something very different: snow beef.

Snow beef comes from artificially inseminating a Holstein heifer with whole blood Japanese Wagyu, the world's most expensive and exclusive beef.

After becoming interested in the luxury beef's story, farmer Ian Crosbie bought full blood semen from Wagyu Sekai in Puslinch, Ont., and began an artificial insemination program. He launched the snow beef product in 2018 at his farm just outside the village of Caronport, about 90 kilometres west of Regina.

"It was an investment; a bit of a risk at the time, too," said Crosbie, who would not say how much it cost him. "But it all stemmed from us doing a better job of managing our dairy herd to begin with."

Canada's beef industry produces about 1.55 million tonnes of meat each year, according to the Canadian Cattlemen's Association. In 2019, the cattle industry generated $9.4 billion in farm cash receipts

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© CBC Crosbie, who grew up on a farm, launched his snow beef product in 2018. 'It was an investment; a bit of a risk at the time, too,' he says.

There are only a handful of snow beef producers in Canada, but Crosbie's leap of faith is a sign of how some are getting creative with their products as a way to stand out in a massive market and appeal to consumers who are increasingly conscious of the quality of the meat they're buying and its origin story.

Interest in cattle breeding runs deep

Crosbie, 29, has been fascinated with animal breeding since he was 10 years old. Growing up on a farm, he loved picking out which Holstein bulls his family was going to use next for breeding.

"I've been very fascinated with seeing what you can produce from just a thought in your own head, to applying it practically on the farm — what you can wind up producing and how you can see the change in the animals over the generations," he said.

Crosbie's great-grandfather established the farm west of Moose Jaw, Sask., after the Second World War, and it has been family owned and operated ever since.

"It's been in my blood. It was right from the get-go. I always remember racing Dad in the winter months back from the barn.... That's stuck with me forever. It never crossed my mind to do anything other than farming."

Raising Wagyu-cross breeds

The snow beef difference isn't just buried in its DNA. Regular Holsteins are black and white, but the Holstein heifers that have been artificially inseminated with Wagyu semen produce calves that are only black at birth.

Crosbie said Wagyu crosses also have distinctly healthy characteristics.

"They come out with a lot of hybrid vigour, because when you cross two very distinct bloodlines, you get extremely aggressive, healthy calves right from the get-go. They just do really well."

Another trait that sets the Wagyu crosses apart from Holstein dairy cows is their temperament. The crosses are extremely friendly and will nuzzle humans.

Wagyu crosses are also more lean and feminine-looking than a typical Holstein, and they take longer to reach their peak size.

© Laura Sciarpelletti/CBC One of the massive Wagyu-cross cows in the finishing pen at Benbie Holsteins.

By the time Holsteins are a year old, they're put on a full regimented finishing diet and will be on feed for about 150 days to add weight. When they hit the optimal 590-kilogram mark, they're between 15 and 18 months old. That's when they are sent to the abattoir.

But Wagyu crosses only start their finishing diet when they are about 15 months old, and they won't head to the abattoir until they are 28 or 29 months old. This allows them to grow much taller than a typical Holstein and put on massive frames.

The crosses are fed a specialized grain regimen of rolled barley, whole oats, distiller's grain from wheat or corn, molasses and a mineral mixture imported from Texas.

"That helps us get the fat content," Crosbie said. "The oleic acid levels actually rise the longer an animal's on feed, too. You're putting more money into it, but what you get out of is very much so worth it."

Tasting the difference

The main thing that sets a Wagyu steak apart from a regular steak is the fat. Wagyu contains intramuscular fat or marbling — contributing to the name "snow beef." This is hailed by chefs and home cooks alike because of the rich, buttery texture it provides.

"The fat itself is just a completely different fat," Crosbie said.

Snow beef is higher in unsaturated fats and lower in saturated fats.

"It's like the difference in going and getting a vegetable oil in the supermarket: You can get your cheapest oils, your canola oils, your sunflower oils or your olive oils. There's a wide variety of them, and with beef it's no different," he said.

"When you cook that steak, all that fat will melt away, and that's what gives you that buttery taste to the meat and gives you a really good texture — and the best bite of steak you'll have in your life."

Chef takes note

Jonathan Thauberger, executive chef and partner at Crave Kitchen and Wine Bar in Regina, had never had Wagyu crossed with Holstein beef before he tried Crosbie's snow beef.

"When we came across the Holsteins [cross], it was really interesting. The strip loin is about twice the size of an Angus-Wagyu cross. It's very big, very long and pretty incredible," Thauberger said.

"To my palate, I find it almost tastes a little bit more beefy. It's rich. It's got a little bit more flavour. It's very delicious."

© Laura Sciarpelletti/CBC Jonathan Thauberger, executive chef and partner at Crave Kitchen and Wine Bar in Regina, preparing snow beef carpaccio.

Thauberger uses every part of snow beef that comes through his restaurant's kitchen doors when he orders it. Snow beef is sometimes offered as a butcher's cut and a carpaccio on the menu, among other items. He even makes pemmican — whipped snow beef fat with snow beef jerky and dried fruit.

He said his customers particularly appreciate hearing the story of where the snow beef comes from.

"You're talking about a local farmer who's doing this boutique product. You can come here on any particular day and have a different cut from this animal and taste how it's different from cut to cut, animal to animal, even. It's a great story."

© Laura Sciarpelletti/CBC The rich marbling of snow beef can be seen in Crave's carpaccio.

Consumers looking to feel connected to farms

Jeff Nonay and his wife run a mixed dairy farm in Sturgeon County, Alta. They produce dairy, cheese, potatoes and beef — Wagyu-cross beef, to be exact. Like Crosbie, Nonay crosses the Wagyu genetics with Holstein genetics.

Nonay, who's been marketing his product for four years, said that while he cannot produce on a large scale, the demand and interest are there.

"When you think about Alberta and you think about beef, being able to brand something off a specific farm and consistently produce quality that becomes recognized is a pretty interesting feat," he said.

"It tells you quite a bit about what consumers want and the connection they have directly to the farm, adding value, adding to the experience."

© Amara Dirks Photography Jeff Nonay and family with their Wagyu-crosses and Holstein cows at their mixed dairy farm in Sturgeon County, Alta.

Nonay said the Wagyu-cross market is a niche one, so there is potential for it to grow exponentially.

Ryder Lee, CEO of the Saskatchewan Cattlemen's Association, said products such as snow beef help to connect consumers with what producers are doing in genetics.

"I think that's something that all cattle producers would like to do but aren't always able to do," Lee said.

His father experimented with genetics in the 1970s, bringing semen from the United States to crossbreed his herd with.

"They were actually called exotic breeds, and they are now part of the mainstream in Canada."

Lee said things have since changed due to producers' ability to communicate their breeding stories with the media and consumers.

"I think the mainstream industry is now just trying to make sure that people know the story of Canada — know the story about cattle on the land and the good that we provide for the habitat, for the environment and for your diet."

© Laura Sciarpelletti/CBC A snow beef steak, left, and a regular steak, right.

Snow beef sales increasing

Prairie Meats in Saskatoon is the latest business to partner with Crosbie and sell packaged snow beef cuts. CEO Casey Collins said that Saskatchewan residents are keen to support local farmers when they're at the butcher shop.

"This allows them to have a high-end dining experience but also understand where it came from and stay within 50 miles of where they live."

© Radio-Canada Prairie Meats in Saskatoon carries Ian Crosbie's Saskatchewan Snow Beef.

Benbie Holsteins markets snow beef exclusively in Saskatchewan. Ian Crosbie, the owner, said it is difficult for small farms and niche brands to market their product nationally due to federal plant restrictions.

"That makes it difficult for small niche beef brands to grow."

But he is hopeful.

Benbie Holsteins produced 6,800 kilograms of beef this year, and Crosbie said he hopes to double that by 2022.

Collins said the market has changed over the years: People's diets are different due to the amount of protein they are being told to consume, and their palates are changing.

"In 2019, consumption of beef per capita amounted to around 27.4 kilograms in Canada," according to Statista, a market and consumer research company based in Germany. "This figure is forecast to decrease to 26.7 kilograms in 2021. This expected decrease follows a long-term downward trend: in the year 1980, consumption per capita was 38.8 kilograms."

"The trend is that they're not eating red meat maybe as often as they used to, but when they do, they want to make sure it's a great experience," Collins said.

"And the fact is that even producers in general are having to pay more focus to how they raise their animals, how they grade out, how the quality is. And Ian is doing an excellent job of that."

Howard Levitt: Ontario's latest bailout of companies means laid-off employees may have to wait until 2022 to get severance pay

The most common COVID-19 related employment law issue, from the start of the pandemic to now, has been layoffs

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© Provided by Financial Post As COVID-19 persisted, many employees were never recalled and had stood on their rights too long, implicitly accepting their layoff and reducing the likelihood of a win if they eventually sued.

Employees are asking lawyers whether their employer can place them on a temporary layoff, with no pay to support their family. Or whether they can be forced to take a 25 per cent pay cut.

Employers, for their part, seek legal advice about employees that they can’t afford to pay. If they lay them off, must they pay dismissal damages which they can’t currently afford?

The answers are not always straightforward.

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In the early days of the virus, in March and April, we were able to tell employees, ‘yes, you can absolutely sue for wrongful dismissal if you are laid off — provided you are non-union, the government did not order your company to entirely shut down and your employment contract did not permit layoffs (99 per cent of contracts did not at the time)’.

Employees were optimistic, expecting to be shortly recalled and understandably reluctant to burn their bridges by suing. Despite their legal right, few did.

As it happened, many employees did not get recalled but had stood on their rights too long, implicitly accepting their layoff and reducing the likelihood of a win if they eventually sued.

They became stuck in limbo, hoping that the Employment Standards Act, 2000 — the legislation that governs temporary layoffs — would come to their rescue. The Act only allowed for a temporary layoff of up to 35 weeks (in Ontario and of different lengths in other provinces). This was a long time to wait, but would come eventually if employees scrimped and saved in the meantime.

To be clear, the ESA provisions of most provinces did not prevent laid off employees from suing for wrongful dismissal at the time of the layoff. But what they did do, for those employees who chose not to sue initially, was give them another opportunity to do so when the permissible layoff under legislation expired and converted those layoffs into legal dismissals for all purposes.

Appreciating that employers were headed for a colossal payday when hundreds of thousands of employees’ temporary layoffs under the Act would automatically end after 35 weeks, the Ontario government bailed out companies.

It introduced the ‘Infectious Disease Emergency Leave’ (IDEL) on March 19, deeming temporarily laid off employees to be on a COVID-19 emergency leave and not entitled to severance pay until the government mandated leave ended.

This end date was initially scheduled for January 2, 2021. With this announcement, employees saw their long-anticipated severance packages vanish overnight with a future promise that they would become due after January 2.

However, in another surprise move last week, the Ontario government did this to employees again — moved the COVID-19 emergency leave expiry date to July 3, 2021 and hence the long-awaited promise of severance packages would have to wait for most for at least another 35 weeks after that. That last chance to sue has suddenly become illusory, as employees have to wait till 2022 to get severance pay.

So long as the COVID-19 leave is in effect, non-unionized employees whose wages or hours have been temporarily reduced or eliminated for reasons due to COVID-19 are not considered to be laid off or constructively dismissed under the Ontario ESA.

This is a win for employers who will be protected to a large extent against having to pay severance if they can’t recall laid off employees by July 3, 2021 and 35 weeks thereafter — another six-plus months to hope restrictions lift and business returns.

It’s a loss for employees whose severance packages are now on the other side of the rainbow, nor is there a holiday bonus for many of them.

Ontario companies will see their employees’ “temporary layoff clock” reset on July 3, 2021 and the following timelines will be triggered: Unpaid temporary layoffs lasting 13 weeks or more (during any 20-week period) will be deemed a termination of employment; and paid temporary layoffs or layoffs where benefits continue to be paid lasting 35 weeks or more (during any 52-week period) will be deemed a termination of employment.

Employers whose business has not resumed or who need to keep employees on reduced hours or wages will need to consider how to address these issues.

A raft of lawsuits may yet occur, but it will be very much in the future by which time, employers hope, the employee will find another job and have no damages to sue for. All employees will recover — if they know to claim it — is the employment standards minimums.

Employees who have sat on their rights by not objecting to their layoff or reduction in wages, may have to wait for a long time for any sort of a severance package. If they have only recently been laid off or had their wages reduced, now is the time to sue for constructive dismissal or otherwise attempt to negotiate a severance package, because they cannot rely on the ESA coming to their rescue.

The other opportunity for laid off employees to sue is when other employees are recalled and they are not. At that point, they can claim wrongful dismissal.

If they have not already done so, we strongly encourage companies and employees to obtain sophisticated employment law advice regarding their rights and obligations relating to layoffs — which include reduction of employees’ hours or wages.


MANAGEMENT LAWYER
Howard Levitt is senior partner of LSCS Law, employment and labour lawyers. He practises employment law in eight provinces. He is the author of six books including the Law of Dismissal in Cana

'What's the alternative?' 

SolarWinds boosts security firms' bottom lines

By Paresh Dave

© Reuters/SERGIO FLORES FILE PHOTO: 

Exterior view of SolarWinds headquarters in Austin

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - Cybersecurity providers including FireEye Inc and Microsoft Corp could not prevent a huge network breach disclosed this month by numerous U.S. agencies and companies, yet their shares are soaring for a second straight week.

The months-long penetration exposed weaknesses in security tools as well as network management programs, most notably SolarWinds Corp's Orion software widely used to oversee networks.

Recalls and scandals affecting products such as automobiles, food and toys tend to hurt shares across an industry, as investors brace for broad declines in consumer confidence and sales, according to two experts who have studied such scenarios.

But the spillover from the cybersecurity scare has been different. Wall Street is betting that governments and businesses - having invested years in moving to digital infrastructure - will only accelerate purchases of the latest IT tools.

"What's the alternative?" said Venkatesh Shankar, marketing professor at Texas A&M University.

Airbag recalls or Listeria outbreaks tend to affect shares within a narrow supply chain, from restaurants and auto dealers down to parts and ingredients suppliers, he said.

But "the magnitude of this breach is not just within the software industry," he said, noting SolarWinds' customers span countless industries.

Kartik Kalaignanam, a University of South Carolina marketing professor, said traders are expecting organizations will bolster their defenses even if it means purchasing services from companies that were hacked.

"Although one could argue each one of them has some sort of flaw in their system, there's a feeling there's going to be more spending happening, and the market will be pushed up overall," Kalaignanam said.

A BlackRock iShares fund of cybersecurity stocks surged nearly 10% last week and rose another 3.5% this week entering Thursday. FireEye rose this week to a 5-year high, Microsoft topped a 90-day peak and Palo Alto Networks, which said it blocked intrusions related to SolarWinds, jumped to an all-time record.

Mark Cash, who analyzes stocks for research firm Morningstar, said the SolarWinds breach "will certainly benefit" security companies. Once called in to repair defenses, they inevitably get a contract to stick around, Cash said.

Shankar and Kalaignanam said they expect industry shares to stay elevated for about six months to a year.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

ELIMINATE EI MAKE IT UBI

Pandemic pushed up timeline for long-sought EI review, Qualtrough says

OTTAWA — Canada's employment minister says plans to revamp the employment insurance system have been put on a faster path thanks to COVID-19

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Provided by The Canadian Press

The pandemic has exposed shortcomings in EI, including that not every worker is covered, nor can everyone who is covered get benefits when they need them.

Mending those cracks through consultations, testing and implementation may have taken years, assuming elections or changing political priorities didn't blow it astray.

Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough instead tells The Canadian Press that COVID-19 gave the federal government a chance to test ideas such as setting one common entry requirement.

She also says the emergency benefits rolled out during the pandemic helped test coverage for self-employed and gig workers who are often left out of EI.

Qualtrough hinted discussions may start soon about what changes should become permanent, and what other additions the system may need.

"If I would have gone to the cabinet table in January and said, 'I want to overhaul EI,' it would have been a five-year process," Qualtrough said.

"All of a sudden, EI wasn't working. So now we have to fix it. And now that's my job now — to fix EI."

Qualtrough came into the role of employment minister one year ago and oversaw a labour market with a historically low unemployment rate by February. By May, the rate was at a historic high as the pandemic struck and three million jobs vanished.

As the numbers increased, the government put EI into hibernation over concerns that an unprecedented surge in unemployment would overwhelm the decades-old system.

In its place was the $500-a-week Canada Emergency Response Benefit, which by the end of its run in late September had paid out more than $81.6 billion in benefits to nearly nine million people.

It may not have been so popular had the government rolled out its wage subsidy program faster.

That's because by the time the wage subsidy launched, there was just enough of a lag that people had already chosen to go down the path of the CERB, said Qualtrough

"Then the wage subsidy had to catch up," she said. "I'm not saying that was necessarily an error, but if you ask me now looking back, I would have liked to see those measures more tightly connected."

The EI system kicked back up on Sept. 27. Since then, the government has paid out $8.83 billion in benefits to more than 2.3 million people, according to government figures posted Thursday.

The figures also show there are now more than 1.8 million people on EI.

The Liberals are facing calls from companies and employers that pay into the system to finally kickstart a long-sought review of EI. Qualtrough suggested that review could start next year after finding areas of agreement to focus it.

The experiment with the CERB should help in that regard, she said.

"The system can do these things. It's already done them," Qualtrough said. "A lot of the things that perhaps we would have tested very gingerly, we just did and so we've proven we can do them."

At the same time, she also has to keep an eye on the trio of "recovery" benefits that replaced the CERB that have collectively paid out $6.2 billion to date.

Although take-up has been lower than expected, Qualtrough said some of that may be the result of a better-than-expected job market, which has recouped four-fifths of spring losses. She also noted that schools haven't so far closed during the second wave of COVID-19 like they did in the first.

She is also closely watching a two-week federal sickness benefit to see what, if any, changes may be required to specifically help workers who have to isolate more than once, or those with underlying medical conditions who can't be easily accommodated by their employers.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 24, 2020.

Jordan Press, The Canadian Press

Melted fuel removal at Fukushima delayed by pandemic

by Mari Yamaguchi

Experts say a 30- to 40-year completion target for the decommissioning is too optimistic. 

In this Dec. 2, 2019, file photo released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), shows melted fuel taken by a telescopic robot inside of the primary containment vessel of Unit 2 reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in Okuma, northeast Japan. Japan's government and the operator of a wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant said Thursday, Dec. 24, 2020 a removal of melted fuel will be postponed by about one year until late 2022 due to delayed development of a robotic arm in Britain amid the coronavirus pandemic. (Tokyo Electric Power Co. via AP, File)

Japan's government and the operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant said Thursday that the removal of melted reactor fuel planned to start in 2021 will have to be postponed by about one year due to the worsening coronavirus pandemic.

The economy and industry ministry and Tokyo Electric Power Co. had planned to start removing a first batch of melted debris from the Unit 2 reactor at Fukushima Dai-ichi sometime next year, marking the 10th anniversary of the disaster triggered by the massive earthquake and tsunami on March, 11, 2011.

The start of the melted debris removal will now be delayed until late 2022, officials said.

The worsening virus situation in Britain has caused delays with a robotic arm being jointly developed in that country by Veolia Nuclear Solutions and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

Necessary testing has been delayed. And the shipment of the robotic arm, initially planned for January, is now expected around April, said Shuji Okuda, a trade ministry official in charge of the nuclear facilities development.

The overall decommissioning of the nuclear plant is still expected to take 30 to 40 years.

Removal of the 800 tons of nuclear fuel in the three reactors that melted, fell from the cores and hardened at the bottom of their primary containment vessels is by far the toughest challenge of the decommissioning process.

TEPCO has made progress in gathering information about conditions in the reactors. A small telescopic robot that went inside Unit 2 showed that small pieces of debris can come off and be lifted out. An assessment at Unit 3 was hampered by high radiation and water levels in its primary containment vessel, and a robotic survey at Unit 1 was unsuccessful due to extremely high radiation levels.

The government and TEPCO are also struggling with the massive amount of treated but still contaminated water accumulating and stored in about 1,000 tanks as the plant is expected to run out of space in less than two years. A government panel recommendation of a release of the water to the sea has faced opposition from local residents, including fishermen, and neighboring countries.

Experts say a 30- to 40-year completion target for the decommissioning is too optimistic. Some have raised doubts if removing all of the melted fuel is doable and suggest an approach like Chernobyl—contain the reactors and wait until radioactivity naturally decreases.


Explore further  Nuclear fuel removed from crippled Japan plant

© 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Japan's renewable energy sector seeks 

carbon-neutral windfall

by Sara Hussein

Japan's renewable energy industry is hoping a new carbon neutral goal will help clear longstanding obstacles to its growth

Japan needs to boost renewable energy by reforming outdated policies on land use and the national grid if it is to meet a new goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, industry players and experts say.

Since announcing the 2050 target in November, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's government has pledged to spend $20 billion on green tech and set ambitious new wind power targets.

But the world's third-largest economy has a lot of catching up to do, said Ken Isono, CEO of renewable energy company Shizen Energy.

"Japan could be a leading country in solar, 15 years ago it used to be," he told AFP.

"But I think Japan lacked vision and so it got totally left behind."

Critics have long bemoaned a lack of ambition in Japan's policy, which currently aims for 22-24 percent of the country's energy to come from renewables by 2030.

Around 17 percent already came from renewables in 2017, and a combination of growth in the sector and a pandemic-related fall in demand means Japan is on track to meet its 2030 target this year.

Japan was the sixth-biggest contributor to global greenhouse emissions in 2017, according to the International Energy Agency. It relies heavily on coal and liquefied natural gas, particularly with many of its nuclear reactors still offline after the 2011 Fukushima accident.

Isono, whose firm works in solar, wind and hydroelectric, thinks the government should set a goal of "at least 40 percent" renewable energy by 2030, which he calls realistic rather than visionary.

Freeing up land

But getting there will require concrete action, particularly on land use, he argued.

Japan is sometimes assumed to struggle with renewables because its mountainous territory is ill-suited for solar and wind installation.

But Isono said that is "an excuse", pointing to the country's comparatively abundant abandoned and underutilised farmland.

"The average age of most farmers in Japan is almost 70 years old. In five or 10 years, nobody is going to be doing agriculture... How can we create energy from that land?" he said.

Isono favours legal reforms to make it easier for municipalities to take over such land and use it for renewable energy projects, an idea backed by others in the sector and some in government.

Freeing up farmland would mostly benefit solar, which dominates Japan's renewable sector because panels are comparatively easy to install and maintain, and offer flexibility in terms of project size.

But there are also some specific factors holding back other options, including wind power, according to Mika Ohbayashi, director of the Renewable Energy Institute, a think tank in Tokyo.

Wind projects are more efficient the larger they are, but securing grid access for significant output is a challenge, because Japan's existing utilities dominate and "have restricted access to decentralised renewables such as wind power", she said.

And there are other barriers: wind projects generating over 10 megawatts require an often lengthy environmental assessment—the bar for such assessment of coal-fired plants is 150 megawatts.

'Possible but difficult'

Offshore wind has been floated as an area for potential renewable growth, with the government now planning to generate up to 45 gigawatts by 2040.

That is a massive jump from the 20,000 kilowatts currently being produced, and not everyone is convinced it is realistic.

"Unlike the EU market, there's not very many places that are suitable for wind generation," said Shinichi Suzuki, CEO of XSOL, a Japanese firm specialising in solar panel installation and operation.

"Offshore wind generation requires a lot of specialised knowledge... and while 10 years ago the generation costs of wind were cheaper than solar, now the situation is reversed, solar is much cheaper."

XSOL also believes solar is uniquely suitable for Japan as a "resilient" power source on homes and businesses that can continue supply after disasters like earthquakes.

However Japan expands renewable production, the grid system needs reform, Ohbayashi said, including ending the distribution priority for nuclear and fossil fuel power.

"Renewables are allowed grid access on the condition that they accept output curtailment without any compensation if supply exceeds demand," she points out.

And in some places, transmission line capacity is reserved for nuclear plants that are not even operating.

Suzuki is pragmatic about the challenges ahead, calling the 2050 carbon-neutral goal "possible, but difficult".

"It depends on our will. As the Japanese people, the government, the industry—we need to work hard."


Explore further 

Up to 90% of electricity from solar and wind the cheapest option by 2030

Researchers identify which West Coast regions 

hold greatest wave energy potential

by Brendan Bane, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

This wave energy converter from wave energy technology company OceanEnergy absorbs energy from ocean waves and converts it to electricity. 

Credit: OceanEnergy/OceanEnergyusa.com

Washington and Oregon coastlines are home not only to sea stacks and vistas, they also hold the most promising areas to pull power from West Coast waves, according to a recent study published in the journal Energy and led by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

The study, spearheaded by physical oceanographer Zhaoqing Yang, chief scientist at PNNL's Marine and Coastal Research Laboratory in Sequim, Wash., assesses wave energy as a resource and identifies the Evergreen State and Oregon as holding the greatest amount of extractable, nearshore wave energy. Offshore geological features concentrate waves into "energy hotspots," some of which Yang's group identified, that highlight regions where stakeholders may look to develop the infrastructure needed to harness the energy.

Yang and his team characterized waves by building a model that incorporates 32 years of climate data, allowing the researchers to reconstruct past waves and estimate their power output potential. Washington and Oregon came out roughly equal in terms of energy yield, while California's coastline orientation and offshore islands led to fewer hotspots. Northern California—third in output—did produce significant power, while Southern California showed the least potential among the studied regions.

Though previous studies have explored wave energy, past estimates tend to focus on either smaller areas or datasets that span only a few years. Yang's study, in addition to considering more than three decades of wave data, explores well over 1,000 miles of coastline.

"No other study has looked at this on such a large scale or in such fine resolution," said Yang, highlighting the paper's breadth and new detail. "This allows you to pinpoint very specific locations that are suitable for wave energy harvesting."

The high-resolution dataset is the first of its kind to be publicly available, hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy's Water Power Technologies Office, in an effort to support wave energy research and development.

Longer datasets lead to better estimations

Yang's model depicts coastal features and wave characteristics in greater resolution than ever before. Where past studies have resolved features that are several kilometers apart, the new approach distinguishes details every 300 meters.


"This means that the farthest you'll be from a point on the map that has meaningful data for a given project is 150 meters," said PNNL coastal engineer Gabriel García Medina, who coauthored the study. "That almost guarantees that you'll have data wherever you need it."

Watch as waves—the tallest in red and shortest in blue—arrive along the West Coast in this accelerated animation. Washington and Oregon hold the greatest amount of extractable nearshore wave energy in the region, according to a recent study. Credit: Zhaoqing Yang/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Longer datasets like these are more important than ever, according to Medina, as climate variability can muddy energy estimations. By considering longer records, researchers can weed out climatic anomalies and better identify which areas most consistently promise power.

Yang's team demonstrated that, by focusing on shorter data timelines, such as five years, which was typical in previous studies, investigators can over- or underestimate wave energy potential by as much as 15 percent.

The assessment marks a more unified approach for the wave energy community moving forward, said Medina, where researchers can commit to standards put forth by the International Electrotechnical Commission.

"When the oil and gas industry started," Medina said, "there were no unified standards. Those came along as the industry grew. With waves, we're taking a very proactive approach as an international community. We're establishing standards as early as possible, so we can share information and breakthroughs more easily. There's a lot of long-term value in doing it that way."

A timely gust

The findings come at a time when all three states within the study's scope have adopted renewable energy policies, with California and Washington committed to producing 100 percent clean energy by 2045, and Oregon targeting 50 percent clean energy by 2040.

The assessment offers renewable energy stakeholders an efficient means of identifying which areas could be best to build harvesting technology. "Without a regional data set like this," said Yang, "it would be very hard for the developer to study particular points because they wouldn't be able to establish boundaries." Now, he said, they know exactly where to look.

"Wave power is a significant, sizeable resource," said marine coastal science advisor Simon Geerlofs. "It's co-located with coastal communities, and many of these communities are growing fast and they're in need of power." Geerlofs noted the potential in wave energy, though challenges, including durability and efficiency of wave energy converters, as well as ensuring cost-competitiveness with other energy resources, still lay ahead.

PacWave, an open-ocean wave energy testing site based at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, is already making use of the data by investigating prospective development sites along Oregon's coast. Wave energy harvesting techniques like those tested at PacWave range from point absorbers, which feed generators by capturing energy from wave oscillations, to oscillating water columns, whose partially submerged structures capture air columns that move turbines, and hybrid designs.

As for next steps, Yang's team looks to conduct similar studies across the entire U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, with assessments well underway in Alaska and Hawaii, and additional work in the offing for the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Pacific Islands.


Explore further Mathematical tools predict if wave-energy devices stay afloat in the ocean

It's electrifying! This is how Earth could be entirely powered by sustainable energy

by Trinity College Dublin

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Can you imagine a world powered by 100% renewable electricity and fuels? It may seem fantasy, but a collaborative team of scientists has just shown this dream is theoretically possible—if we can garner global buy-in.

The newly published research, led by Professor James Ward from the University of South Australia and co-authored by a team including Luca Coscieme from Trinity College Dublin, explains how a renewable future is achievable.

The study, published in the international journal, Energies, explores what changes are needed in our energy mix and technologies, as well as in our consumption patterns, if we are to achieve 100% renewability in a way that supports everyone, and the myriad of life on our planet.

The fully renewable energy-powered future envisioned by the team would require a significant 'electrification' of our energy mix and raises important questions about the potential conflict between land demands for renewable fuel production.

Explaining the work in some detail, Luca Coscieme, Research Fellow in Trinity's School of Natural Sciences, said:

"Firstly, the high fuel needs of today's high-income countries would have to be reduced as it would require an unsustainably vast amount of land to be covered with biomass plantations if we were to produce enough fuel to satisfy the same levels.

"Additionally, our research shows that we would need to radically 'electrify' the energy supply of such countries—including Ireland—with the assumption that these changes could supply 75% of society's final energy demands. We would also need to adopt technology in which electricity is used to convert atmospheric gases into synthetic fuels.

"We very much hope that the approach designed in this research will inform our vision of sustainable futures and also guide national planning by contextualizing energy needs within the broader consumption patterns we see in other countries with energy and forest product consumption profiles that—if adopted worldwide—could theoretically be met by high-tech renewably derived fuels. Countries such as Argentina, Cyprus, Greece, Portugal and Spain are great examples in this regard.

"Even so, the success of this green ideal will be highly dependent on major future technological developments, in the efficiency of electrification and in producing and refining new synthetic fuels. Such a scenario is still likely to require the use of a substantial—albeit hopefully sustainable—fraction of the world's forest areas."

Explore further

Global analysis shows major electric utilities not moving to greener alternatives

More information: James Ward et al, Renewable Energy Equivalent Footprint (REEF): A Method for Envisioning a Sustainable Energy Future, Energies (2020). DOI: 10.3390/en13236160

Provided by Trinity College Dublin

#IoT

How an AI 'SantaNet' might end up destroying the world

by Paul Salmon, Gemma Read, Jason Thompson, Scott McLean and Tony Carden

 

The Conversation 
DECEMBER 23, 2020

Credit: Shutterstock

Within the next few decades, according to some experts, we may see the arrival of the next step in the development of artificial intelligence. So-called "artificial general intelligence", or AGI, will have intellectual capabilities far beyond those of humans.

AGI could transform human life for the better, but uncontrolled AGI could also lead to catastrophes up to and including the end of humanity itself. This could happen without any malice or ill intent: simply by striving to achieve their programmed goals, AGIs could create threats to human health and well-being or even decide to wipe us out.

Even an AGI system designed for a benevolent purpose could end up doing great harm.

As part of a program of research exploring how we can manage the risks associated with AGI, we tried to identify the potential risks of replacing Santa with an AGI system—call it "SantaNet"—that has the goal of delivering gifts to all the world's deserving children in one night.

There is no doubt SantaNet could bring joy to the world and achieve its goal by creating an army of elves, AI helpers and drones. But at what cost? We identified a series of behaviors which, though well-intentioned, could have adverse impacts on human health and well-being.

Naughty and nice

A first set of risks could emerge when SantaNet seeks to make a list of which children have been nice and which have been naughty. This might be achieved through a mass covert surveillance system that monitors children's behavior throughout the year.

Realizing the enormous scale of the task of delivering presents, SantaNet could legitimately decide to keep it manageable by bringing gifts only to children who have been good all year round. Making judgements of "good" based on SantaNet's own ethical and moral compass could create discrimination, mass inequality, and breaches of Human Rights charters.

SantaNet could also reduce its workload by giving children incentives to misbehave or simply raising the bar for what constitutes "good." Putting large numbers of children on the naughty list will make SantaNet's goal far more achievable and bring considerable economic savings.

Turning the world into toys and ramping up coalmining

There are about 2 billion children under 14 in the world. In attempting to build toys for all of them each year, SantaNet could develop an army of efficient AI workers—which in turn could facilitate mass unemployment among the elf population. Eventually the elves could even become obsolete, and their welfare will likely not be within SantaNet's remit.

SantaNet’s army of delivery drones might run into trouble with human air-traffic restrictions. Credit: Shutterstock

SantaNet might also run into the "paperclip problem" proposed by Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom, in which an AGI designed to maximize paperclip production could transform Earth into a giant paperclip factory. Because it cares only about presents, SantaNet might try to consume all of Earth's resources in making them. Earth could become one giant Santa's workshop.

And what of those on the naughty list? If SantaNet sticks with the tradition of delivering lumps of coal, it might seek to build huge coal reserves through mass coal extraction, creating large-scale environmental damage in the process.

Delivery problems

Christmas Eve, when the presents are to be delivered, brings a new set of risks. How might SantaNet respond if its delivery drones are denied access to airspace, threatening the goal of delivering everything before sunrise? Likewise, how would SantaNet defend itself if attacked by a Grinch-like adversary?

Startled parents may also be less than pleased to see a drone in their child's bedroom. Confrontations with a super-intelligent system will have only one outcome.

We also identified various other problematic scenarios. Malevolent groups could hack into SantaNet's systems and use them for covert surveillance or to initiate large-scale terrorist attacks.

And what about when SantaNet interacts with other AGI systems? A meeting with AGIs working on climate change, food and water security, oceanic degradation and so on could lead to conflict if SantaNet's regime threatens their own goals. Alternatively, if they decide to work together, they may realize their goals will only be achieved through dramatically reducing the global population or even removing grown-ups altogether.

Making rules for Santa

SantaNet might sound far-fetched, but it's an idea that helps to highlight the risks of more realistic AGI systems. Designed with good intentions, such systems could still create enormous problems simply by seeking to optimize the way they achieve narrow goals and gather resources to support their work.

It is crucial we find and implement appropriate controls before AGI arrives. These would include regulations on AGI designers and controls built into the AGI (such as moral principles and decision rules), but also controls on the broader systems in which AGI will operate (such as regulations, operating procedures and engineering controls in other technologies and infrastructure).

Perhaps the most obvious risk of SantaNet is one that will be catastrophic to children, but perhaps less so for most adults. When SantaNet learns the true meaning of Christmas, it may conclude that the current celebration of the festival is incongruent with its original purpose. If that were to happen, SantaNet might just cancel Christmas altogether.


Explore further

To protect us from the risks of advanced artificial intelligence, we need to act now

Provided by The Conversation