Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs
January 24th, 2017Via: Bloomberg:
Automation means wells need only five workers, down from 20.
U.S. Solar Industry Passes Oil, Coal and Gas for Job Creation
January 24th, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
—
Via: ComputerWorld:
Solar employment now accounts for the largest share of workers in the U.S. power generation field, surpassing coal, gas and oil, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
In 2016, the solar workforce increased by 25% over the previous year to 374,000 employees, compared to 187,117 electrical generation jobs in the coal, gas and oil industries combined, according to the DOE’s “Energy and Employment Report for 2017”.
Employment in the wind turbine industry increased to 102,000 workers, a 32% increase over the previous year, the report said.
In all, 2.2 million Americans are employed in the design, installation and manufacture of energy efficiency products and services, according to DOE.
Solar employment, which includes both photovoltaic electricity and concentrated solar steam generators, accounts for 43% of the electric power generation workforce — the largest share of workers in that market. Fossil fuel generation employment now accounts for 22%.
Trump Backs Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines
January 24th, 2017Via: BBC:
US President Donald Trump has infuriated environmentalists by signing executive orders that support two controversial oil pipelines.
The new Republican president backed the Keystone XL and Dakota Access projects, provided American steel is used.
The Obama administration in late 2015 halted Keystone, which would carry crude from Canada to Texas.
The Army decided last year to explore other routes for the Dakota pipeline amid huge protests by Native Americans.
Trump Pulls U.S. Out of TPP
January 24th, 2017Via: Reuters:
U.S. President Donald Trump formally withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal on Monday, distancing America from its Asian allies, as China’s influence in the region rises.
Fulfilling a campaign pledge to end American involvement in the 2015 pact, Trump signed an executive order in the Oval Office pulling the United States out of the 12-nation TPP.
This Company Has Built a Profile on Every American Adult
January 24th, 2017Via: Bloomberg:
Every move you make. Every click you take. Every game you play. Every place you stay. They’ll be watching you.
Forget telephoto lenses and fake mustaches: The most important tools for America’s 35,000 private investigators are database subscription services. For more than a decade, professional snoops have been able to search troves of public and nonpublic records—known addresses, DMV records, photographs of a person’s car—and condense them into comprehensive reports costing as little as $10. Now they can combine that information with the kinds of things marketers know about you, such as which politicians you donate to, what you spend on groceries, and whether it’s weird that you ate in last night, to create a portrait of your life and predict your behavior.
IDI, a year-old company in the so-called data-fusion business, is the first to centralize and weaponize all that information for its customers. The Boca Raton, Fla., company’s database service, idiCORE, combines public records with purchasing, demographic, and behavioral data. Chief Executive Officer Derek Dubner says the system isn’t waiting for requests from clients—it’s already built a profile on every American adult, including young people who wouldn’t be swept up in conventional databases, which only index transactions. “We have data on that 21-year-old who’s living at home with mom and dad,” he says.
South Korea Plans Near-Supersonic, ‘Hyper-Tube Train’
January 24th, 2017Via: South China Morning Post:
South Korea is seeking to develop a train-like public transport concept that is almost as fast as the speed of sound reaching 1,000km/h, the Korea Railroad Research Institute (KRRI) said Tuesday.
The state-run institute will join forces with other research groups and Hanyang University to build the near-supersonic “train”, which would be able to travel from Seoul to Busan in half an hour.
“We hope to create an ultra-fast train, which will travel inside a state-of-the-art low-pressure tube at lightning speeds, in the not-too-distant future,” said a KRRI official.
“To that end, we will cooperate with associated institutes as well as Hanyang University to check the viability of various related technologies called the hyper-tube format over the next three years.”
…
The innovative hyper-tube, or hyper-loop, technology, which transports people in floating pods inside tubes under a partial vacuum, was first proposed by Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk.
When Their Shifts End, Uber Drivers Set Up Camp in Parking Lots Across the U.S.
January 24th, 2017In, 8 Men as Rich as Half the World, I joked, “Get yourself a side hustle and a podshare.”
And now…
Via: Bloomberg:
The vast majority of Uber’s full-time drivers return home to their beds at the end of a day’s work. But all over the country, there are many who don’t. These drivers live near, but not in, expensive cities where they can tap higher fares, ferrying wealthier, white-collar workers to their jobs and out to dinner—but where they can’t make enough money to get by, even with longer hours. To maximize their time, drivers find supermarket parking lots, airports and hostels where they catch several hours of sleep after taking riders home from bars and before starting the morning commute.
…
Uber drivers across the country swap tips for finding sleeping spots, like: which stores have the most forgiving security guards and where to find free Wi-Fi. In Chicago, drivers call the 7-11 at the intersection of Wrightwood & North Lincoln Avenues the “Uber Terminal.” In Columbus, Ohio, drivers prefer the Walmart off the Jack Nicklaus Freeway. In Queens, New York, drivers are known to frequent the 7-Eleven off JFK Expressway. Drivers on the online forum Uberpeople.net joke that there is money to be made in a motel chain serving the large number of Uber drivers sleeping in their cars in New Jersey.
Not The Onion: Cambridge Scientists Consider Fake News ‘Vaccine’
January 24th, 2017Via: BBC:
The appearance of fake news on websites and social media has inspired scientists to develop a “vaccine” to immunise people against the problem.
A University of Cambridge study devised psychological tools to target fact distortion.
Researchers suggest “pre-emptively exposing” readers to a small “dose” of the misinformation can help organisations cancel out bogus claims.
Stories on the US election and Syria are among those to have caused concern.
“Misinformation can be sticky, spreading and replicating like a virus,” said the University of Cambridge study’s lead author Dr Sander van der Linden.
“The idea is to provide a cognitive repertoire that helps build up resistance to misinformation, so the next time people come across it they are less susceptible.”
Silicon Valley Billionaires Prepping for Collapse Caused by Machines Eliminating Jobs
January 23rd, 2017Mmm hmm.
Via: Recode:
One of the more peculiar hobbies popular among the Silicon Valley elite is an obsession with preparing to survive for end times; its adherents are commonly called “preppers.”
It’s the topic of an essay in the New Yorker this week, “Survival of the Richest” by Evan Osnos, which delves into why tech billionaires are particularly attracted to the idea.
According to Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, the prepper movement among tech-made billionaires is largely inspired by fear that artificial intelligence will one day displace so many jobs that there will be a revolt against those behind the technology.
Southern California Edison 80 MWh Tesla Powerpack Station Online
January 23rd, 2017Via: Electrek:
After announcing the project back in September, we have now learned that Tesla and Southern California Edison (SCE) have completed the massive 80 MWh energy storage station using Tesla’s new Powerpack 2 at the Mira Loma substation.
There are a few bigger projects in various phases of development, but it looks like this one is the biggest energy storage project in the world using lithium-ion batteries currently in operation.
While Tesla and SCE haven’t officially launched the new substation yet, sources familiar with the new Powerpack installation told Electrek that it was completed a few weeks back – late December – and brought online so that the electric utility can start using it to manage peak demand.
