I’m interested in carbon-negative building materials, like drywall and concrete, because they could help us get to negative emissions on a global scale.
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The first commercial lithium-ion battery was developed by Sony in 1991. It was based on research from Stanford and others, and it was designed to solve a specific problem: they wanted more battery life for their new camcorders. By 2003, many companies were producing for a global market of over 1 billion cells worth $4B …
You can’t put a genie back in its bottle, and you can’t put new technology back where it came from. The original Luddites learned this the hard way when they gathered in mobs to smash mechanized textile machines in the early 1800s, hoping to slow their progress. Of course, the new machines (and progress) won. …
How much did lockdowns reduce greenhouse gas emissions? As it turns out… not much. Near the end of 2020, the World Meteorological Organization released their assessment of the impact of Covid-related restrictions on world greenhouse gas emissions. They found that for the year, emissions were down only 5%-7%—hardly more than normal variability. This means concentrations …
If you Google “Covid and globalization,” you’ll see many articles on how the pandemic will kill globalization, rolling back decades of economic changes. The argument is that the pandemic coupled with recent trade turmoil will cause companies to move their supply chains closer to home. Frequent business travel will now be seen as a risk, …