3/18/16 ~ Today's TILT! (THINGS I LEARNED TODAY)

"...I forced myself to watch a documentary called Earthlings, and it's inside footage of factory farms, and dairy farms, and... you just see that, and you go, I can't participate in that... It's 50 billion animals a year that are killed, and I think we all fool ourselves that there's some kind of happy cow... and that it's a quick death, and they just hit 'em in the head, and they're out... and it's a very disturbing reality, and it happens every minute of the day...

...I can't imagine that if you're putting something in your body that's filled with fear or anxiety or pain, that that isn't somehow gonna be inside of you..." ~ via vegetarian.procon

Anonymous has hacked Donald Trump's private information and published his Social Security Number, phone numbers, and other personal information. They released an accompanying video, saying that Trump should have expected this (remember that Trump, himself, publicized Senator Lindsey Graham's personal phone number and then told his supporters to call Graham (I almost typed "followers" instead of "supporters").

This entire election cycle has taken a very disturbing turn. I do not condone illegal action or incitement, but I understand the desperation, and the feeling of watching this steam roller, and trying to do all one can to shut it down, as it keeps on gathering steam, and threatening our very Democracy.

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The hactivist group Anonymous has begun to carry out its threat against Donald Trump, distributing an extensive amount of personal information about the Republican presidential front-runner online.

The group posted to Pastebin, a site that Sony’s hackers used for distributing information stolen from the film studio, to publish extensive details about Trump — including what purports to be his home address, social security number, birth certificate and phone numbers.

Anonymous follows that with a “call to arms” inviting anyone with a computer to spread the word and participate in “Operation Trump,” now labeled “#OpTrump.” The video ends with a message inviting “everyone to target” trumpchicago.com, a website for the candidate’s luxury hotel, on April 1.

The video is hosted on a different YouTube channel than some previous releases from Anonymous — so it’s difficult to say how “official” the clip is. That said, a well-known Anonymous account on Twitter — @YourAnonNews — has regularly tweeted anti-Trump messages since the clip was posted.

“Your inconsistent and hateful campaign has not only shocked the United States of America — you have shocked the entire planet with your appalling actions and ideals,” the new video says. “You say what your current audience wants to hear, but in reality you don’t stand for anything except for your personal greed and power. This is a call to arms.”

Anonymous previously declared war on Trump in December. It seems not to have slowed Trump's momentum, but maybe second time’s the charm?

Editor’s note: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.

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Younicos has just announced that construction of the World’s first “100 percent”renewable grid is underway. The battery storage comes from Leclanché’s lithium-ion technology and manufacturing plant in Germany. According to Leclanché CEO Anil Srivastava, this will be the first time “a one megawatt-scale power system is being stabilized using batteries – without the need for thermal generators.”

This 100% renewable penetration of the grid will not occur 100% of the time, but is still an incredible story.

A third of the Azorean island of Graciosa’s existing fossil fuel generation will remain as back-up power and to be employed during prolonged periods of unfavorable weather.

Younicos software and controls will balance short-term power fluctuations., enabling wind and solar top provide 100% of Graciosa’s electricity most of the time.

“Our technology allows us to use as many renewables as is economically optimal. This is not only drastically reducing CO2 emissions, but also lowering energy costs, since we are replacing expensive imported diesel fuel through locally produced renewable energy,” said Younicos CEO Stephen L. Prince.

Danish financial investor Recharge A/S was sufficiently impressed to take a 50.1% stake in the 24 million Euro Younicos-engineered system and is exploring similar possibilities on neighbouring islands.

“The business model pioneered here makes the financing of the changeover to renewables an attractive investment that can be replicated wherever power is generated by expensive imported fuel,” said Scott Macaw, co-founder and Director of Recharge.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reiterated Thursday his goal to institute policies in his country to help tackle climate change.

In an interview with Bloomberg News, Trudeau said climate change will “impose real challenges on Canada” while providing an incentive to help create jobs and new industries in the country.

During Trudeau’s state visit to Washington last week, he and President Obama agreed to a new joint climate change effort between the two countries. That deal focuses on, among other things, reducing emissions of methane, instituting the goals of the Paris climate conference and improving oversight of the Arctic Ocean.

“The president and I share a common goal,”Trudeau said during a press conference with Obama.

He told Bloomberg this week that climate change offers a chance to boost employment opportunities in the country.

“As we have to understand the pivot that climate change is going to require of us, we need to be diversifying and investing in the kind of clean growth and opportunities that highlight that climate change isn't just a challenge, it's an opportunity,”he said.

The US Department of Transportation is offering seven cities a remarkable challenge: reinvent urban transportation for the 21st century, To pull it off, those cities will work with some of the world’s most powerful tech companies, to define what it means to be a “Smart City “and become the country’s first city to fully integrate innovative technologies – self-driving cars, connected vehicles, and smart sensors – into their transportation network. The winning city will be eligible to receive $40 million from the USDOT.

At a talk at SXSW last week, US Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx announced the seven finalists for the Smart City Challenge, the USDOT’s fast-track initiative .

Over the next few months, these cities will receive $100,000 each and work closely with the USDOT and a group of partners to streamline their proposals. One of these cities will then get up to $40 million to fund their strategy. The winning city will be announced in June of this year.

The Smart City Challenge was originally issued as a response to the USDOT’s 2015 Beyond Traffic report, which warned how unprepared cities were for trends like rapid urbanization, densifying neighborhoods, and an aging population. In January, it was announced that $4 billion is being set aside in next year’s transportation budget for Obama’s big autonomous vehicle push. So if cities aren’t looking forward already, they might find themselves spending millions on infrastructure they don’t need.

“For a long time these cities have felt very powerless seeing congestion and travel times going up and haven’t had the resources to aggressively tackle those things,” Secretary Foxx told Gizmodo.“We’re saying, if you’ve got a creative idea to answer those challenges, let’s see how we can help.”

In addition to the $40 million, the winning cities will receive tools and assistance from several partners, including data storage by Amazon Web Services, driver-assistance tech from Mobileye, a 3D modeling platform from Autodesk, and a V2V communication system from NXP.

The winner will also get up to $10 million more from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s company Vulcan, which is focused on vehicle emissions reduction and helping cities to stop climate change.

Mobileye’s Shield+, a collision-detection system, is already installed on public buses in countries around the world. The company’s technology is also helping to pinpoint dangerous hotspots for a city’s most vulnerable users, said senior vice-president and general manager of Mobileye’s aftermarket division Elad Serfaty. “So when you allow autonomous vehicles, you can guide them through cities in a safer way.”

NXP is focused on building a network that allows vehicles to communicate among themselves and the surrounding infrastructure. NXP developed the technology driving the Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication system that will be required on American cars. In addition to the obvious safety benefits, NXP’s technology allows features like truck platooning that will help move goods more efficiently. “We’re really focused on how we move into that autonomous decade,” said company CEO and president Rick Clemmer.

“One of the challenges that has existed in transportation planning is that data is siloed by experience,” said Autodesk’s senior vice president Amar Hanspal. Autodesk’s InfraWorks 360 visualization software allows data modeling of big infrastructure projects, like bridges and high-speed rail, during the design process. This way engineers and planners can overlay the infrastructure with data like predicted traffic flow and trends in car ownership, and help cities improve project designs.

“This is a similar convergence of these changing behaviors, with cities that are redefining themselves.”Much like private companies are helping NASA in its next chapter of space exploration, these partners will help USDOT define the next generation of urban mobility.

“I want our country to lead the world in transportation again,” Foxx said. “Unfortunately we got into this practice of thinking small, and we can’t afford to do it anymore if we’re going to lead the world in economic growth and quality of life and pass along a country that is better than the one we inherited.”

The International Energy Agency has confirmed that global carbon dioxide emissions have decoupled from economic growth. The IEA reports that for the second year in a row, the world economy has grown while energy-related CO2 emissions — the primary cause of climate change — remained flat, thanks to energy efficiency and a big surge in renewables.

This decoupling is “unprecedented” and “huge” according to IEA chief Fatih Birol. The IEA explains that the only three previous times in the last four decades that emissions were flat or dropped (the early 1980s, 1992, and 2009) “were associated with global economic weakness.”

What happened? The IEA says its “data suggest that electricity generated by renewables played a critical role, having accounted for around 90% percent of new electricity generation in 2015.” Yes, a whopping nine out of 10 new power plants in 2015 were renewable — and five out of 10 were wind.

The IEA also credits “improvements in efficiency.” Efficiency has played a key role in decoupling both U.S. electricity sales and overall energy demand from U.S. economic growth, as I’ve discussed. Many other major countries have fuel efficiency and electricity efficiency efforts comparable (or even superior) to ours.

Emissions reductions by two biggest emitters — the U.S. and China — played a major role, the IEA notes. Our emissions fell 2 percent, and China’s 1.5 percent, “as coal use dropped for the second year in a row.”

We first reported this story back in December: “China’s Coal Cuts Are Driving A Plateau In Global Carbon Emissions.” Now the world’s most credible energy agency has confirmed the key role China is playing by rapidly decarbonizing both its industrial and electricity sectors in the last few years.

“In 2015, coal generated less than 70% of Chinese electricity, ten percentage points less than four years ago (in 2011),” the IEA states. “Over the same period low-carbon sources jumped from 19% to 28%, with hydro and wind accounting for most of the increase.”

This important trend seems poised to continue, as China is redoubling its “War On Coal” with even stronger policies to speed its transition off the dirtiest fossil fuel, as we reported last month.

Decoupling of global CO2 emissions from economic growth “is yet another boost to the global fight against climate change,”said IEA’s Birol, “coming just a few months after the landmark COP21 agreement in Paris.” Indeed, when you combine China’s War on Coal with the commitments made by the other leading countries for COP21 and the ongoing cleantech revolution, it becomes increasingly clear that 2014-2015 marks a major inflection point in the CO2 emissions trend line — and may even represent a true plateau.

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U.S., France, Netherlands—are testing ways to pave roads with solar panels. Their plans have skeptics.

March 10, 2016 - The sun's rays can hit some roads for up to 90 percent of the daylight hours, so companies in Europe and the U.S. are experimenting with building solar panels along or above roads. But are such projects worth the cost? In France one company is hoping to distinguish itself—and reduce costs—with solar panels that are laid directly on the pavement.

Solar is popping up just about everywhere, even landfills and parka pockets. So why not roads? Indeed, solar road projects are gaining interest around the world, and some promise to even charge electric cars while moving.

The Netherlands built the first solar road, a bike path, in 2014. France announced a bolder move in January—over the next five years, it plans to install 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) of solar roads, designed to supply power to five million people.

That's not all. German company Solmove aims to bring solar panels to German roads, and Idaho-based Solar Roadways has received three rounds of U.S. government funding (plus $2 million in venture capital) to test its technology.

“We have interested customers from all 50 states and most countries around the world,” says Julie Brusaw, who co-founded Solar Roadways with her engineer husband Scott. She says before hitting the open road, they’re testing their panels in non-critical areas such as parking lots, walkways, and their own driveway.

“We are in talks about some very interesting projects,” she says, noting the Missouri Department of Transportation wants to install the panels at a rest area along the I-70 highway. The couple say their tempered-glass panels offer asphalt-like traction, support the weight of semi-trucks, include LEDs for signage, and contain heating elements to melt snow and ice.

Could solar panels really pave the roads of the future? Proponents see endless possibilities, but others raise questions about cost, efficiency, and durability.

“We just place our solar panels on an existing pavement,”says Jean-Luc Gautier, inventor of the Wattway technology that will be tested this spring in France before its polycrystalline silicon layer is applied to actual roads. Gautier, technical director at construction company Colas, says he was inspired by the fact that roads look at the sky so they can collect solar energy.

“The sheer amount of surfaces each country devotes to roadways is enormous,”the Bursaws write on their website. “Allowing this space to double as a solar farm could have very positive implications in the battle to put a halt to climate change.”They estimate that their panels, if used in lieu of existing U.S. roads and walkways, could produce more than three times the electricity used in the United States.

Besides, they say their panels could charge electric vehicles, first on solar parking lots. With enough solar highways and cars with the right equipment (to pick up energy from induction plates in the road) they might even be able to charge vehicles while moving.

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