New Florence. New Renaissance.

Kamikaze drones

Among the many weapons being used by the Ukrainian military to inflict losses on the Russian invasion forces, several have risen to prominence in the country and on social media. Alongside ‘St Javelin’ and the ‘Ghost of Kiev’ which have mythologised the eponymous anti-tank missile and the Ukrainian air force’s Mig-29 fighters, the Bayraktar TB-2 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has gained a symbolic place in the Ukrainian defensive arsenal.

Bayraktar’s UAV is a comparatively cheap, rugged and efficient platform that is performing well, but it is certainly not a miracle weapon. The effectiveness so far of the TB-2 speaks more to the skill of its Ukrainian operators and the incompetence and operational failures of Russian forces than any particularly unique capabilities of the drone itself.

The Spectator

And here is a US equivalent of what are also called “loitering” missiles

The evolution of hypersonic aircraft

China is developing a hypersonic airliner capable of transporting 10 passengers to anywhere in the world in less than an hour.

The 148-foot-long (45-meter) plane is about a third the size of a Boeing 737 and has delta wings identical to that of Concorde, the world’s first supersonic airliner, but with the tips pointed skyward, reported the Daily Mail.

Officials hope to build a fleet of the jets by the end of 2035 and to increase their capacity to 100 people by 2045 – although their exact purpose is yet to be revealed. Owing to its intricate construction, the plane will be able to travel at a speed of Mach 5 or more than five times the speed of sound.

Eurasian Times

Here is a video which goes into the fits and starts in the evolution of hypersonic craft

Finland: Capital of Disc Golf world

Disc golf and woods, woods and disc golf. They were meant for each other. One such location where you can find an abundance of both of these things is Finland. They have seen a steady rise in course implementation, PDGA events, and PDGA membership since the early 2000s. Their numbers are so high that they currently hold the record for the most disc golf courses per capita. They have over 800 courses for nearly 5.5 million people (that’s one course for every 6,875 people). They also have more disc golf courses than ball golf.

Here is a TED talk on how the sport helped the country during the pandemic

 

ML catalogs global solar farms

"Colleagues and I have now published in the journal Nature the first global inventory of large solar energy generating facilities. “Large” in this case refers to facilities that generate at least 10 kilowatts when the sun is at its peak (a typical small residential rooftop installation has a capacity of around 5 kilowatts).

We built a machine learning system to detect these facilities in satellite imagery and then deployed the system on over 550 terabytes of imagery using several human lifetimes of computing.

We searched almost half of Earth’s land surface area, filtering out remote areas far from human populations. In total we detected 68,661 solar facilities. Using the area of these facilities, and controlling for the uncertainty in our machine learning system, we obtain a global estimate of 423 gigawatts of installed generating capacity at the end of 2018. This is very close to the International Renewable Energy Agency’s (IRENA) estimate of 420 GW for the same period."

Singularity Hub

Finding Shackleton’s Endurance

National Geo has greenlit an epic documentary detailing the successful search and discovery of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s sunken Endurance ship near Antarctica, helmed by British historian Dan Snow.

The doc will chart the successful search by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust for famed explorer Shackleton’s shipwrecked Endurance, which sank in 1915 near Antarctica.

Led by Polar Geographer Dr. John Shears and Marine Archaeologist Mensun Bound aboard the South African icebreaker Agulhas II, a crew of scientists and archaeologists teamed with filmmakers and Snow to document the events in real time leading up to the discovery.

Dateline

Here is a preview courtesy of the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust

Shark Month: SAP.iO Foundries Sustainability Startups

I have said a few times that the arguments around renewable fuels – solar and wind in particular – have hijacked the Sustainability conversation. Lots of good has been delivered around Circular Economy thinking. The US EPA defines a circular economy as one which “reduces material use, redesigns materials to be less resource intensive, and recaptures “waste” as a resource to manufacture new materials and products.”

So, it was a fascinating journey in the last month talking to entrepreneurs, literally around the world, who are putting their heads down and showcasing plenty of success stories. My conversations with each are linked below.

• Ashley Etling of Limeloop talked about her reusable, smart packaging to help in today’s exploding eCommerce deliveries

• Giacomo Franchini of Italy based SupplHi presented on sustainability, sourcing and other elements of complex industrial B2B supply chains they support

• Carlos Oliveira of Chile based Algramo presented a different way to package and consume CPG products resulting in reduced plastic pollution, bite size economics and other benefits.

• Wilhelm Myrer of Norway based Empower talked about his blockchain tech to provide traceability and accountability for the circular economy. Norway, btw, is leading the world in circular economy thinking. 97% of their plastic bottles are recycled. Most other countries are barely at 10%. That is as impressive as the country's dominant performance in the recent Winter Olympics. 

• Matthew Wright of Specright presented on the huge payback from precise specifications in products, formulas and packaging

These conversations were facilitated by Kange Kaneene of SAP.iO Foundries. Her group represents SAP’s startup programs, including accelerators, that enable startups that can deliver value to SAP customers. Impressive in 4 years they have helped over 370 startups across 10 locations. All these startups were part of their Sustainability cohort. My conversation with her is here

Like I said – inspiring. Small firms, Big dreams, Tangible results that are helping the world.

The complex LNG supply chain

With the energy crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, SciTech Daily has a nice article on the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) market. The US, Qatar and Australia are some of the biggest exporters. China and Japan are two of the biggest importers with Germany ramping up its own imports

"LNG is made by cooling natural gas to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 162 degrees Celsius), which reduces its volume by a factor of more than 600. Natural gas is piped to a port, processed in a liquefaction plant, and then loaded into specialized insulated, temperature-controlled tankers for shipment by sea.

To receive LNG, an offloading port must have a regasification plant that converts the LNG back to a gaseous form so it can be sent by pipeline to end users. Both liquefaction plants and regasification plants cost billions of dollars and take multiple years to build."

Video on the complexity of LNG logistics

 

Reimagining the Tuk Tuk

A pop-up store at a mall caught my eye. They had a whole variety of electric tricycles for personal and business use. The salesperson rattled off a bunch of attractive features

• Classified like an eBike – ride in bike lanes, on sidewalks, residential streets and bike trails
• 30-50 mile battery range from a single charge
• 18-28 mph speed
• No gas, license, registration, insurance required for models with a top speed of 20mph
• Minimal to no maintenance  
• Storage compartment and baskets for bags and light gear
• No pedaling required

The personal and business use cases are limitless and they cost way less than BEVs to buy and operate. Many of them look like an Italian designer rethought the tuk tuk you see on Asian roads.

The Driven says there are already 1.5 million electric trikes on Indian roads and another 1.35 million in China. As we rethink our carbon footprints and lifestyles, I have a feeling we will see more of them on Western roads

Hydroelectric as most popular renewable fuel

Investments in the sector slowed somewhat before 2020 as other renewable sources such as wind and solar PV gained momentum, a situation exacerbated by delays to several major hydropower projects and some regions’ lack of policy changes, which also stunted growth. The industry is, however, experiencing a renaissance as countries are increasingly motivated to find suitable renewable options to decarbonize their energy supply.

“Hydropower is the backbone of low-carbon electricity generation and has been rising since the 1970s. Over the last two decades, the installed global capacity of hydropower has grown from 680 GW in 2000 to nearly 1,200 GW in 2021, a surge of more than 75%,” says Rystad Energy analyst Karan Satwani.

Oil Price

Video of the massive Baihetan project in China 

The transoceanic cable landscape

The world’s biggest owner of cables is a household name, at least to Americans – it’s AT&T, which has a stake in around 230,000 kilometres of international internet cabling, or around one sixth of the total. But looking at others in the top ten reveals why both Big Tech and Western governments are starting to pay the apparently dull issue of cable ownership more attention: in second place is China Telecom, while Chunghwa Telecom (based in Taiwan) is third and China Unicorn is sixth.

In the tenth and eleventh spots, however, are some very familiar names: Facebook and Google. Big Tech is getting into big cables – and doing so in a big way. Over the past few years, 80 percent of investment in new cables has flowed from the two US tech giants. As of today, Facebook owns or co-owns 99,399 kilometres of cables, Google 95,876 kilometres. And more investments are on their way: in August, Facebook and Google announced their plans for building a 12,000 kilometre undersea cable, Apricot, which will link Singapore, Japan, Guam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia when completed in 2024. For Google, that came hot on the heels of a previous announcement about the Echo subsea cable, which will connect California, Singapore, Guam and Indonesia. For its part, Facebook has thrown its weight behind the coalition of telcos building what might turn out to be the longest subsea cable ever: 2Africa, a 45,000 kilometre-long cord planned to encompass the whole African continent and connect 33 countries in Africa, Europe and the Middle-East by 2024. In May 2020 Bloomberg reported that the project will cost under $1 billion – but that was before Facebook announced several expansions to the initial design.

Wired UK