Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Just an example, but Queensland could quickly transition to reliable and cheap RE leccy whilst creating a lot of jobs:

Queensland transition to renewables would generate almost 10,000 jobs, analysis shows

Queensland has the potential to draw all of its electricity from renewable sources in a 15-year transition away from fossil fuels that would generate almost 10,000 jobs, according to analysis commissioned by the Queensland Conservation Council.

Edis examined all the existing, planned and proposed projects across the state, finding a transition to renewables for domestic electricity supply within 15 years would generate 9,400 jobs in construction and almost 11,000 to maintain.
A key step would be increasing investment in electricity transmission infrastructure, he said.

Included in the QCC proposal are 33 windfarms, 76 solar farms, 1.5m rooftop solar systems and 26 batteries. QCC does not support additional dams for pumped hydro power.

Solar, wind, bioenergy and solar thermal would take up the bulk of the supply, with energy storage provided through batteries, pumped hydro and hydrogen produced from wind or solar power.

Pile_o_stone

NigeWick said:

Martyn1981 said:

Pile_o_stone said:

Alternatively we just stop eating living things?

Good news on that front, and a 'strange' finding that surprised me with a temporary vegan diet seeming to have benefits when going back to meat:

Vegan Meat Company Meatless Farm Closes $31 Million Funding Round As Meatless Diets Gain Popularity

Strong demand for plant-based foods has led Meatless Farm, founded in 2016, to become the UK’s leading vegan meat producer. The company announced recently the closing of a $31 million funding round to support its global growth strategy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created opportunities for this and other alternative meat brands on the global marketplace due to increased consumer interest in plant-based alternatives. New interest in meatless meals coincides with recent research out of Stanford Medicine which concludes that swapping out red meat for plant-based meat alternatives can lower some cardiovascular risk factors.

In Gardner’s study, the researchers observed that participants who ate the red-meat diet during the first 8-week phase had an increase in TMAO, while those who ate the plant-based diet first did not. But something peculiar happened when the groups switched diets. Those who transitioned from meat to plants had a decrease in TMAO levels, which was expected. Those who switched from plant to meat, however, did not see an increase in TMAO.

“It was pretty shocking; we had hypothesized that it wouldn’t matter what order the diets were in,” Gardner said. It turns out that there are bacterial species responsible for the initial step of creating TMAO in the gut. These species are thought to flourish in people whose diets are red-meat heavy but perhaps not in those who avoid meat.

“So for the participants who had the plant-based diet first, during which they ate no meat, we basically made them vegetarians, and, in so doing, may have inadvertently blunted their ability to make TMAO,” he said.

Whether this type of approach could be used as a strategy for decreasing cardiovascular disease risk remains to be seen.

Aren't plants living things? And, why pay somebody large amounts of cash to mess with your plants before you eat them? I let animals pre digest my plants and then eat the animals as they are more nutritious than plants.

But if the animals you are eating get their nutrition from plants, how do you get more nutrition out of the animal than is put in? The first law of thermodynamics states that you can't get more out than you put in.

What's interesting when you take an interest in nutrition is you find that because of factory farming methods, mono-diets of grains and the pitiful quality of soils on farmland, domestic farm animals aren't getting enough vitamins and minerals, especially B12. The animals are therefore supplemented with vitamins and minerals in their diet. They are also fed growth hormones, steroids and antibiotics. A heady cocktail that does the human body no good at all (along with the saturated fats of meat from animals that gets zero exercise).

Did you know that the first sign of heart disease is impotence? I always bear that in mind when I see posts online from 'tough, meat eating, 'real' men".

Pile_o_stone

Martyn1981 said:

Pile_o_stone said:

Alternatively we just stop eating living things?

Good news on that front, and a 'strange' finding that surprised me with a temporary vegan diet seeming to have benefits when going back to meat:

Vegan Meat Company Meatless Farm Closes $31 Million Funding Round As Meatless Diets Gain Popularity

Strong demand for plant-based foods has led Meatless Farm, founded in 2016, to become the UK’s leading vegan meat producer. The company announced recently the closing of a $31 million funding round to support its global growth strategy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created opportunities for this and other alternative meat brands on the global marketplace due to increased consumer interest in plant-based alternatives. New interest in meatless meals coincides with recent research out of Stanford Medicine which concludes that swapping out red meat for plant-based meat alternatives can lower some cardiovascular risk factors.

In Gardner’s study, the researchers observed that participants who ate the red-meat diet during the first 8-week phase had an increase in TMAO, while those who ate the plant-based diet first did not. But something peculiar happened when the groups switched diets. Those who transitioned from meat to plants had a decrease in TMAO levels, which was expected. Those who switched from plant to meat, however, did not see an increase in TMAO.

“It was pretty shocking; we had hypothesized that it wouldn’t matter what order the diets were in,” Gardner said. It turns out that there are bacterial species responsible for the initial step of creating TMAO in the gut. These species are thought to flourish in people whose diets are red-meat heavy but perhaps not in those who avoid meat.

“So for the participants who had the plant-based diet first, during which they ate no meat, we basically made them vegetarians, and, in so doing, may have inadvertently blunted their ability to make TMAO,” he said.

Whether this type of approach could be used as a strategy for decreasing cardiovascular disease risk remains to be seen.

The benefit is probably only temporary though:

"TMAO is formed after you eat foods containing a substance called choline, which is a nutrient found not only in red meat, but also eggs, fish, and poultry. As bacteria in your gut feast on the choline, they produce a substance called trimethylamine (TMA). Your liver takes that TMA and converts it into TMAO.

But the interesting thing about this process, says Dr. Manson, is that the more red meat you eat, the more of these meat-eating bacteria your body produces in your gut. Exposure to red meat changes the gut flora. "It essentially grows more microbes that can metabolize meat," says Dr. Manson.

If a long-term vegetarian without high levels of these microbes inside their body eats red meat, they will not initially be able to synthesize TMA in the gut or convert it to TMAO in the liver. That means they likely won't have the high TMAO levels seen in people who regularly eat red meat — at least not at first. But if they continue to eat red meat, over time their bodies could develop more of the microbes that produce TMA, and their TMAO levels would likely rise, says Dr. Manson."

For people who don't know what TMAO does:

"Three recent analyses have linked high blood levels of TMAO with a higher risk for both cardiovascular disease and early death from any cause. In one of those studies, researchers found that people with higher levels of TMAO in their blood may have more than twice the risk of heart attack, stroke, or other serious cardiovascular problems, compared with people who have lower levels. Other studies have found links between high TMAO levels and heart failure and chronic kidney disease."

Martyn1981

No Li or not no Li, that is the question?

Small investors pile in to crowdfunder to mine lithium in Cornwall

A former banker has raised almost £4m from thousands of individual investors to fund plans to tap Cornwall’s rich reserves of lithium needed to make electric vehicle batteries.

Cornish Lithium, the mining startup founded by the former Investec banker Jeremy Wrathall, more than doubled the £1.5m it hoped to raise through crowdfunding after more than 2,000 investors backed the plans. The Cornwall-based company set the target on Crowdcube on Monday, but by late Tuesday morning the oversubscribed fundraising had collected £3.8m from investors.

The miner hopes to tap the “globally significant” grade of lithium discovered in hot springs north of Redruth, near the village of Gwennap, which was once nicknamed “the richest square mile on Earth” owing to its rich mineral resources. Wrathall hopes to start production in three to five years, and believes Cornwall could hold enough lithium reserves to ignite a British battery hub by reviving one of the country’s oldest industries in the metal-rich region.
 

NigeWick

Pile_o_stone said:

NigeWick said:

Martyn1981 said:

Pile_o_stone said:

Alternatively we just stop eating living things?

Good news on that front, and a 'strange' finding that surprised me with a temporary vegan diet seeming to have benefits when going back to meat:

Vegan Meat Company Meatless Farm Closes $31 Million Funding Round As Meatless Diets Gain Popularity

Strong demand for plant-based foods has led Meatless Farm, founded in 2016, to become the UK’s leading vegan meat producer. The company announced recently the closing of a $31 million funding round to support its global growth strategy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created opportunities for this and other alternative meat brands on the global marketplace due to increased consumer interest in plant-based alternatives. New interest in meatless meals coincides with recent research out of Stanford Medicine which concludes that swapping out red meat for plant-based meat alternatives can lower some cardiovascular risk factors.

In Gardner’s study, the researchers observed that participants who ate the red-meat diet during the first 8-week phase had an increase in TMAO, while those who ate the plant-based diet first did not. But something peculiar happened when the groups switched diets. Those who transitioned from meat to plants had a decrease in TMAO levels, which was expected. Those who switched from plant to meat, however, did not see an increase in TMAO.

“It was pretty shocking; we had hypothesized that it wouldn’t matter what order the diets were in,” Gardner said. It turns out that there are bacterial species responsible for the initial step of creating TMAO in the gut. These species are thought to flourish in people whose diets are red-meat heavy but perhaps not in those who avoid meat.

“So for the participants who had the plant-based diet first, during which they ate no meat, we basically made them vegetarians, and, in so doing, may have inadvertently blunted their ability to make TMAO,” he said.

Whether this type of approach could be used as a strategy for decreasing cardiovascular disease risk remains to be seen.

Aren't plants living things? And, why pay somebody large amounts of cash to mess with your plants before you eat them? I let animals pre digest my plants and then eat the animals as they are more nutritious than plants.

But if the animals you are eating get their nutrition from plants, how do you get more nutrition out of the animal than is put in? The first law of thermodynamics states that you can't get more out than you put in.

What's interesting when you take an interest in nutrition is you find that because of factory farming methods, mono-diets of grains and the pitiful quality of soils on farmland, domestic farm animals aren't getting enough vitamins and minerals, especially B12. The animals are therefore supplemented with vitamins and minerals in their diet. They are also fed growth hormones, steroids and antibiotics. A heady cocktail that does the human body no good at all (along with the saturated fats of meat from animals that gets zero exercise).

Did you know that the first sign of heart disease is impotence? I always bear that in mind when I see posts online from 'tough, meat eating, 'real' men".

I can't/won't eat grass. Meat animals can so I like to eat grass fed beef and lamb. Regeneratively managed meat animals sequester more carbon into the soil than trees as they "feed" the grasslands with their manure. Further, these animals do not need supplements or get hormones/steroids/antibiotics shoved into them. Any person interested in their health and nutrition will avoid factory farmed meat and monocropped grains etc.

Perhaps these "tough, meat eating real men" are taking steroids too...

silverwhistle

As a non-vegetarian I was interested in this article today: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/14/grubs-up-why-maggot-meals-are-a-hit-on-one-uk-chicken-farm

From speaking to hen keepers I know that a shovel full of compost full of worms, wood live and other bits gets the hens happily excited. As a former angler I also know the trick of hanging roadkill above the water to groundbait a swim with a regular gravity fed supply of maggots! As a gardener and allotmenteer I only wish we could eat slugs!

Exiled_Tyke

I'm wondering if we need a Green and Ethical Food thread as we seem to be going off track here.  (Although I accept that Food is Energy so not entirely irrelevant!) 

Martyn1981

Exiled_Tyke said:

I'm wondering if we need a Green and Ethical Food thread as we seem to be going off track here.  (Although I accept that Food is Energy so not entirely irrelevant!) 

My interest is actually from an energy perspective, and that's because meat (particularly beef) requires an enormous amount of energy and land when crops are grown to feed the cattle, giving us approx 1/10th of the food if we ate the crops instead.
I admit to being a hypocrite on this, as I do still eat meat, though I have reduced it, especially beef, but the simple fact is that the planet cannot support the population on a western style diet, whereas it can comfortably support the population on an Indian style diet.
So whilst I'd like to keep my head in the sand, it is simply a fact that western style diets are not sustainable, nor planet friendly in their CO2(e) emissions.
I don't really want PoS to preach at me, but in fairness I do really need him to.
I wonder if I could survive on an all chocolate diet?

Coastalwatch

Martyn1981 said:

No Li or not no Li, that is the question?

Small investors pile in to crowdfunder to mine lithium in Cornwall

A former banker has raised almost £4m from thousands of individual investors to fund plans to tap Cornwall’s rich reserves of lithium needed to make electric vehicle batteries.

Cornish Lithium, the mining startup founded by the former Investec banker Jeremy Wrathall, more than doubled the £1.5m it hoped to raise through crowdfunding after more than 2,000 investors backed the plans. The Cornwall-based company set the target on Crowdcube on Monday, but by late Tuesday morning the oversubscribed fundraising had collected £3.8m from investors.

The miner hopes to tap the “globally significant” grade of lithium discovered in hot springs north of Redruth, near the village of Gwennap, which was once nicknamed “the richest square mile on Earth” owing to its rich mineral resources. Wrathall hopes to start production in three to five years, and believes Cornwall could hold enough lithium reserves to ignite a British battery hub by reviving one of the country’s oldest industries in the metal-rich region.
 

Thanks for posting Mart, just got in before the close this evening!

joefizz

Cardew said:

The trouble is that it is impossible to measure the installed system SCOP without sophisticated equipment. If an installation is poor, you have to claim against the installer and not the manufacturer and how do you provide evidence of poor performance? One installation on the first trial had a SCOP of 1.2!!

Thats the real problem in mating technical specs with real world implementations. In my own case with my ashp Im limited by planning laws. So I cant mount it east facing as thats out on the road. I cant mount it south facing above the garage as thats above the max height allowable and I cant mount it on a platform on the roof even though theres no other house between me and the horizon!
So Im left with putting it below 2m in a north facing back garden on the only bit of wall that doesnt have windows, soil pipes, access etc etc.

Like the airport in Tenerife, if you could pick only the one worst spot possible, stick it there!

Simple things like changing the planning laws (may be different in other parts of the uk already) would make more difference than the difference between high end and low end equipment.