Articles by Amelia

today's environmental issues simplified

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Student at UC Davis in Environmental policy & Management

I am completing my graduate degree and working in communications for ANS, while continuing to be active in environmental issues.

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After “Planet of the Humans” Now What?
June 9, 2020 1 Comment

By Amelia Tiemann, published at 4th Generation on June 9, 2020

As “Planet of the Humans” reveals, clever marketing might be our worst enemy when it comes to stopping climate change.

The new Michael Moore-produced film, which premiered on YouTube in April and received over 8 million views in its first month, revealed the false promise of renewable energy and exposed some high-profile lies and deception within the environmental movement itself. The film showed that renewable energy, despite promises from environmental leaders about its potential to seamlessly take the place of fossil fuels, cannot possibly carry total global energy decarbonization on its back. (Read our review here.)

It also revealed severe defects in decades of popularized messaging about decarbonization. Back when the environmental movement first began gaining momentum, packaging and marketing the “too much consumption” message was crucial to the movement’s survival. The virtuous image of “green” renewable energy was part and parcel of the narrative of a “return to nature.” This meant consuming less, and using the sun and wind for our energy needs — since they were renewable, people thought that meant they could provide us with endless energy without violating nature. As we learn in Planet of the Humans, this couldn’t be more inaccurate.

[Read More here.]

When batteries fly
June 4, 2020 No Comments

By Amelia Tiemann, published at 4th Generation on June 4, 2020

On Thursday, May 28, 2000 pounds of lithium-ion batteries made history. But, indirectly — it was actually the small Cessna Grand Caravan they powered that made history, when the plane became the largest electric aircraft to ever take to the skies.

The eCaravan, as it is dubbed, completed its maiden voyage after flying for about 30 minutes at 100 mph. Weighing four tons, the plane has a 750 horsepower electric motor and a 50 foot wingspan. It can seat nine passengers.

At present, aviation produces 2% of global emissions, and 12% of total transport sector emissions. It is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonize, precisely because batteries are hard to put on planes. They are not particularly energy-dense for their size and weight — which makes them less than ideal inside a small, flying metal object. But the record-breaking flight of the eCaravan suggests fuel-free air travel may be closer than we think.

There are certainly already visible benefits to batteries. The eCaravan, created by Seattle-based firm magniX, used only $6 of electricity instead of $300 of kerosene for its 30 minute flight. And electric motors are lighter, quieter, and purportedly safer than fossil fuel engines. The problem is that the batteries that power the planes are about 30 times heavier than the energy-equivalent amount of kerosene. And at 250W/kg, they simply cannot compete with the energy density of jet fuel, which packs nearly 12,000 W/kg (a 48X difference). This means we are still very far from electrifying standard-sized commercial aircraft.

[Read more here.]

Fueling A Cleantech Revolution: Interview with Rachel Slaybaugh
May 19, 2020 1 Comment

By Amelia Tiemann, published at 4th Generation on May 19, 2020

Rachel Slaybaugh is a nuclear engineer by training, but she has an innovative instinct that goes far beyond the technical. A key founder of the Nuclear Innovation Bootcamp, a Berkeley-based program that trains students and professionals in skills essential to innovating in the field of nuclear technology, Slaybaugh is one of the most creative contributors to the nuclear field.

She has a special talent for enjoining skilled and creative minds in the spirit of collaboration, which has given the nuclear industry something it has never seen before. The Bootcamp brings together students and experts to design and pitch a complex but open-ended nuclear innovation project. It is the most unique undertaking of her career (so far) as a nuclear researcher with a penchant for adapting complex technologies for real-world outcomes.

Slaybaugh’s day job is Assistant Professor in the Nuclear Engineering department at UC Berkeley, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses. Her research areas include numerical methods for neutron transport, reactor design and shielding, nuclear security and nonproliferation, and scientific software development. She also currently serves as a program director at the United States Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). Slaybaugh started its fission program, which provides funding for cutting edge innovations in nuclear technology. She currently splits her time between the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, D.C.

Drawn to the broader impacts of technologies during her education, she chose nuclear engineering for environmental reasons. “I was interested in environmental issues, so when I got to college and learned that there are these existing, large scale, emission-free energy sources, I wondered why we don’t just use them as a way to stop using coal.” Her focus is computational neutron transport — essentially, figuring out how to get a computer to solve equations that tell where neutrons are in a nuclear system. She worked at Penn State’s research reactor as an undergrad, where she did educational outreach and eventually became a reactor operator.

[Read More here.]

New Michael Moore Film Has the Right Diagnosis, Wrong Prescription
May 12, 2020 No Comments

By Amelia Tiemann, published at 4th Generation on May 12, 2020

I am an advocate of nuclear power. I also think that the Michael Moore-backed documentary Planet of the Humans is very important. Apparently, these two are oxymoronic.

The film, released for free to the public on YouTube, lays bare the drastic environmental impacts of renewable energy sources. From removing mountaintops to obtain rare elements for solar panels, to carbon-intensive production of corn ethanol, the film exposed the true scale of misrepresentation of “green” energies as “environmentally benign.” Not to mention wind and solar are not reliable enough to replace fossil fuels at any scale. The film also revealed the complicity of environmental activists in promoting the natural gas and biofuel-heavy financial agendas of billionaires.

The film garnered mixed responses from climate and energy experts, many of whom criticized its endorsement of outdated Malthusian ideas. Namely, that we will one day run out of energy and that massive population die-offs are the only solution to our endless fossil fuel burning. These ideas irritate many energy experts, as it’s been proven we actually have enough fossil fuels to sustain us for thousands of years. Also, nuclear power was completely left out of the picture as the second-largest source of non-fossil electricity in the world (behind hydropower).

Nuclear energy contains massive untapped potential to allow us to continue our way of life without wrecking the climate. Billions of people will not have to die in order for the rest of us to survive, because we actually have a clean energy source dense enough to serve the globe. Prosperity can continue to expand even as we rein back our reliance on carbon emitters. This camp rightly argues that the film acts as though nuclear power doesn’t exist, and can’t provide any relief from destructive cycles of extraction.

But as I watched, from the safety of my living room, the destruction of ancient desert life to make way for Ivanpah solar station, I felt something I haven’t in a long time: like I got smacked in the face. I think about clean energy and climate change all the time; this film reminded me how much I often forget, or choose not to think about, the actual environment.

So I feel stuck. My personal beliefs in human ingenuity and technological solutions pull me toward dismissing the film as anachronistic. On the other hand, I simply can’t discredit the monumentally important message about how much we’ve done wrong. To me, at least, the fact that I’m faced with that dilemma makes the film effective.

[Read More here.]