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Happy 2020!
Welcome to a new edition of the State of Charge Newsletter. A concise monthly overview of the renewable energy transition and the advent of electric mobility. Apologies for skipping last months' newsletter... After a busy 2019, we closed down for the holidays and celebrated the New Year 🍾🎊. Our editors are now older and fatter, but well rested and ready for 2020. This month we have sales stats for Oct and Nov 2019 ⚡ and a whole lot of exciting content.
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SoC Big Story
Last week the not so comforting news came out that 2019 was the hottest year ever recorded for ocean temperatures and the second warmest year ever if we look at the Earth's surface temperature. Read more on the state of the Ocean in 2019 after the jump.
For more articles on the effects of the rising temperature of the earth's oceans, take a look at this article, which describes an unusually hot blob of ocean water in 2015. Or read up on the state of the Great barrier reef, which experienced a catastrophic die-off of its coral due to an extended marine heatwave in 2016.
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The State of Charge October and November 2019
Every month we include an exclusive overview of the latest EV sales statistics from around the world. October was a slow month for EV sales; only February saw fewer sales in 2019. November, however, saw quite an increase, ranking 3rd so far in 2019.
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These statistics only include 100% Electric Vehicles, no hybrids. Statistics are provided by our partner
ev-volumes.com. The Electric Vehicle World Sales Database.
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SoC Must Read
We started this newsletter to keep you updated on the latest news concerning renewable energy and electric mobility. Part of this is posting articles on the climate crises that often, let's be honest, sketch quite a sad state of the world, and it's future perspective (take, for example, this month's Big Story). So if you're looking for a bit of a morale boost and a reminder that as a species we have made a lot of progress, read the article on why 2019 has been the best year ever.
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SoC Good Reads
In November 2019 Venice experienced the worst flooding of the last 50 years, and the second worst in the city's history, with only the floods of 1966 reaching higher water levels. To battle the ever threatening floods, a program called MOSE was started, which has been encompassed with legal battles and corruption since the start. Read more on MOSE and the different opinions on the chances of its perceived succes.
We have seen plenty more weather extremes during the last months of 2019. Only a few months ago the devastating fires in Brazil made headlines; in Australia they were experiencing record temperatures and they are now still battling bushfires. And a couple of weeks ago, this news article caught our attention. Easily one of the most touristic attractions in Africa and the largest waterfall in the world, the Victoria Falls, has dried to a trickle.
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SoC Deep Dive
For this month's deep dive, we've selected two interesting research papers on totally different subjects.
The first is research into a new way of producing hydrogen, which would make the process of splitting water a lot more efficient. The article you can find here, and this is the research article.
The second article is on fighting bacteria that have increasingly build up resistance against antibiotics. This already is and will become a more critical and threatening problem in the next decades. The race is on to find alternatives. Australian researchers have been looking into a new treatment that uses liquid metal to cut up bacteria physically. It is still very much in the early stages, but the first test results are promising! Find the article here, and the research article under the read more button.
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SoC Other News
We have often posted on the causes and effects of plastic pollution and, also, on technologies and companies that are looking for ways to solve it. But what do you do with that harvested plastic? Maybe build a car, like scientists from the Eindhoven University of Technology, have done.
Another exciting use of waste material by a car manufacturer is making auto parts of coffee grounds.
Lastly, take a look at these innovative architecture examples: one of the world's largest net-zero emissions buildings; these floating, sustainable, and circular houses in Amsterdam, and how a rooftop farm can help prevent Bangkok from flooding.
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SoC Listen to This
This week a bit of a wildcard podcast; Gardens of Branching Paths.
Stories of other universes that are just like our own, but with one small difference. Host Ira Glass talks with David Kestenbaum about a phone app that can create alternate universes with the press of a button....and more.
That app, btw, is called Universes and available here, if you ever wondered how quantum physics can help you make better decisions.
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