#giantleap — Public Fediverse posts

Non-Fiction Trilogy of sorts - "#TheLimitsToGrowth; #PowerLimitsAndProspectsForHumanSurvival; and #EarthForAllASurvivalGuideForHumanity.

So, my copy of "The Limits To Growth" is a first edition from 1972, which I bought in a used book store in 1980. Whoever owned it before ("Denison") highlighted a bunch of stuff (the old school highlighters that don't fade), and put zig-zag lines around this paragraph: "In any finite system there must be constraints that can act to stop exponential growth. These constraints are negative feedback loops. The negative loops become stronger and stronger as growth approches the ultimate limit, or carrying capacity, of the system's environment. Finally, the negative loops balance or dominate the positive ones, and growth comes to an end. In the world system the negative feedback loops involve such processes as pollution of the environment, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and famine."

Fast forward to 2021, where one of the Limits To Growth authors, #DennisMeadows, describes #RichardHeinberg's "Power - Limits And Prospects for Human Survival" as "a powerful new way of understanding the historic rise and probable fall of our species. It is an impressive, sweeping, and thought-provoking narrative." Heinberg talks about how we got to where we are today (lots of history), but also offers solutions (like #Agroecology and #Degrowth).

Finally, "#EarthForAll - A Survival Guide For Humanity" -- which was a report to the #ClubOfRome, and a 50 year follow-up to Limits To Growth. This book is where I learned about the #GiantLeapScenario that we so need to survive as a species on a viable planet.

Limits To Growth influenced my thinking at a young age. "Power" explains how we went wrong, and "Earth For All" gives me hope for the future.

#Bookstodon #AmReading #History #DeGrowth #PowerStructures #ABetterWorldIsPossible #SolarPunkSunday #Earth4All #GiantLeap

#SodiumIonBatteries offer an alternative to tricky #lithium

Oct 26th 2023

Excerpt: "Fortunately, lithium is not the only game in town. As we report this week, a clutch of firms are making batteries based on sodium, lithium’s elemental cousin. Since sodium’s chemical properties are very similar to those of lithium, it too makes for good batteries. And sodium, which is found in the salt in #seawater, is thousands of times more abundant on Earth than lithium and cheaper to get at. Most of the companies using sodium to make batteries today are also Chinese. But pursuing the technology in the West might be a surer route to energy security than relying heavily on lithium.

"Besides its abundance, sodium has other advantages. The best lithium batteries use #cobalt and #nickel in their electrodes. Nickel, like lithium, is in short supply. #Mining it on land is #EnvironmentallyDestructive. Proposals to grab it from the #seabed instead have caused rows. A good deal of the world’s cobalt, meanwhile, is extracted from small mines in the #DemocraticRepublicOfCongo, where #ChildLabour is common and working conditions are dire. Sodium batteries, by contrast, can use #electrodes built from #iron and #manganese [and wood #lignin], which are plentiful and uncontroversial. Since the chemical components are cheap, a scaled-up industry should be able to produce batteries that cost less than their lithium counterparts.

"Sodium is not a perfect replacement for lithium. It is heavier, meaning sodium batteries will weigh more than lithium ones of an equivalent capacity. That is likely to rule them out in some cases where lightness is paramount. But for other applications, such as #GridStorage or #HomeBatteries, weight is irrelevant. Several Chinese carmakers are even beginning to put sodium batteries in #ElectricVehicles."

Read more:
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/10/26/sodium-batteries-offer-an-alternative-to-tricky-lithium

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/7x6JX

#SolarPunkSunday #EnergyStorage #SodiumIon #NewTechnology #GiantLeap #Reuse #WasteReuse #NoLithiumMining #NoMining

Fast-charging #SodiumIon battery uses anodes made from trees

By C.C. Weiss
June 09, 2024

"A month after #NatronEnergy began its first-of-kind sodium-ion battery mass production, Swedish sodium-ion developer #Altris has identified a means of making the LithiumFree batteries even more sustainable. Together with partner #StoraEnso, it's adapting tree pulp-sourced carbon toward use as an anode material.

"A byproduct of wood pulp manufacturing, #lignin has long been investigated for possible use as a more sustainable electrode material. Finnish renewable materials company Stora Enso made headlines in 2022 when it partnered up with Swedish battery manufacturer #Northvolt toward using its proprietary #Lignode material in lithium-ion battery anodes. Stora Enso describes Lignode as a hard carbon material refined from lignin.

"By teaming with Altris, Stora Enso looks to go even more sustainable while further localizing the European battery supply chain. As we looked at when Natron Energy kicked off production a few weeks ago, sodium-ion batteries eliminate the need for rare minerals like lithium, cobalt and nickel, relying on abundant sodium that can be sourced locally without harmful #mining. "

Read more:
https://newatlas.com/energy/wood-based-sodium-ion-battery/

#SolarPunkSunday #EnergyStorage #SodiumIonBatteries #NewTechnology #GiantLeap #Reuse #WasteReuse

Human #wellbeing on a #FinitePlanet towards 2100: new study shows humanity at a crossroads

A new paper by members of Earth4All’s scientific advisory team published today in Global Sustainability models two starkly different futures for humanity this century: one defined by escalating crises compounded by rising social tension, the other by a bold transformation towards wellbeing for all. The findings emphasise the importance of considering wellbeing and social cohesion when studying how planetary risks, inequality and social tensions interact.

4 July 2025

Excerpt: "Boost social cohesion and wellbeing for successful climate action

"A key innovation of the study is the introduction of two novel indices: social tension and wellbeing. This enabled the researchers to model not just the complex interactions between economic and #environmental factors in the two scenarios, but also include social feedback loops capturing trust, public investment, and political capacity. The modelling results suggests that rising #inequality and environmental degradation fuel social tensions, which in turn reduce governments’ capacity to implement the long-term policies needed to address existential risks linked to climate change and other planetary boundaries.

" 'By integrating a social tension index and a wellbeing index, we have been able to highlight the importance of social dynamics in climate scenarios,' explained co-author #NathalieSpittler of #BOKUUniversity. 'Achieving climate goals is not just a question of technological and economic developments. If wellbeing declines and social tensions rise, this creates a negative feedback loop where the very conditions needed for transformational change become harder to achieve.'

"Conversely, the study suggests that actions to reduce inequality and increase #SocialCohesion and wellbeing are key if governments want to implement policy shifts on #climate and other global issues."

Read more [includes link to the paper]:
https://earth4all.life/news/human-wellbeing-on-a-finite-planet-towards-2100-new-study-shows-humanity-at-a-crossroads/

#SolarPunkSunday #Earth4All #ClimateChange #BuildingCommunity #BuildResilience #GiantLeap #GiantLeapScenario #LtG #LimitsToGrowth #StabilizedWorld

What's on my mind? Why, thinking about how #TrumpSucks is the #AntiSolarPunk! He's trying to get rid of solar, making the super-rich even richer, cutting funding to libraries (#LibraryOfThings), causing more #FoodInsecurity and #HousingInsecurity, allowing corporations to destroy #NaturalPlaces, etc., etc. What #SolarPunk promotes is everything that Trump is trying to destroy!

#SolarPunkSunday #GiantLeap #DeGrowth #CapitalismMustDie #CorporateColonialism #ChristFascism