2020 Can Green Hydrogen Production Be Economically Viable under Current Market Conditions
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/24/6599/pdf

This paper discusses the potential of green hydrogen production in a case study of a Slovenian hydro power plant. To assess the feasibility and eligibility of hydrogen production at the power plant, we present an overview of current hydrogen prices and the costs of the power-to-gas system for green hydrogen production. After defining the production cost for hydrogen at the case study hydro power plant, we elaborate on the profitability of hydrogen production over electricity. As hydrogen can be used as a sustainable energy vector in industry, heating, mobility, and the electro energetic sectors, we discuss the current competitiveness of hydrogen in the heating and transport sectors. Considering the current prices of different fuels, it is shown that hydrogen can be competitive in the transport sector if it is unencumbered by various environmental taxes. The second part of the paper deals with hydrogen production in the context of secondary control ancillary service provided by a case study power plant. Namely, hydrogen can be produced during the time period when there is no demand for extra electric power within a secondary control ancillary service, and thus the economics of power plant operation can be improved.

2016 Megafauna and ecosystem function from the Pleistocene to the Anthropocene
https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/113/4/838.full.pdf

the wider environmental impacts of megafaunal abundance and loss are only just making their way into mainstream environmental thinking. In regions of recent or ongoing megafaunal decline, there are often concurrent changes in ecosystem structure, energy and nutrient flow, composition, and genetic structure that cascade from changes in megafaunal abundance. In looking at even wild landscapes where megafauna are long gone, imagining such landscapes as recently teeming with elephants, sabertooths, and other giant herbivores and carnivores can yield fresh perspectives on contemporary ecosystem questions, ranging from the distribution of tropical savannas and grasslands, through the natural ranges and abundance of extant animals, to the response of high latitude systems to climate change. Whether megafaunal rewilding is appropriate, acceptable, practical, or not, such a perspective challenges our thinking about what kind of nature we seek to conserve or create (33, 97, 98).

In recent decades, Earth systems science has emerged as an important new discipline focused on understanding the interactions of the biosphere, atmosphere, and oceans in the context of global change. To date, in this new discipline, nonhuman or nondomestic animals are still largely invisible, assumed to be passive inhabitants and consumers of a world where plants dominate biogeochemical processes, with vegetation distribution and cover determined by abiotic factors (climate, soils, atmospheric CO2) and human decisions on ecosystem use. This viewpoint is a legacy of a world where animal control of ecosystem function has been diminished by massive extinction. Recognition of the view that much terrestrial surface cover is potentially strongly influenced by megafaunal top-down controls allows a more complete understanding of the interactions among humans, megafauna, fire, soils, and climate in determining the geography and structure of the biosphere. There is new appreciation of the significant role of megafauna in regional and global biogeochemical cycling, accompanied by the first attempts to mathematically model these processes, both on land (20, 51) and in the oceans (48, 86). New modeling approaches (105) explicitly allow for a trophic framework for quantitative representation of megafaunal effects in Earth system models. These approaches are still in their infancy, but, if we are to understand ecosystem functioning in the megafaunal past, or how megafaunal changes are one of the agents of contemporary global ecosystem change, or the possible role for megafaunal restoration in future ecosystems, such models can provide an essential quantitative framework that needs to be further developed and tested.

More philosophically, the Pleistocene and early Holocene megafaunal extinctions can stimulate us to reevaluate what is natural in the world and what sort of natures we seek to conserve or restore. If we accept the increasing evidence for a strong human role in these early extinctions, it forces a look inwards and recognition of the deep prehistoric entanglement between humans and environmental change, a realization that some of the most dramatic human-induced changes to the nature of life on Earth and the functioning of the biosphere may have occurred even before the dawn of agriculture.

Giorgos Kallis

I wanted to share with you the news about my new book, 'The case for Degrowth' is out

2020 The Case for Degrowth
https://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509535620

This is the best thing we've written on degrowth to date, a pocket mini-festo of 20,000 words (at an equivalent price of 11 Euros), but dense with new ideas on how to articulate the personal, the communal and the political in a degrowth direction.


In other news, I am happy to share with you in the link below some of my other publications this year: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/y5qjdk63qo6p46h/AADE1e9ZnWME0cl-E9ZwQLzIa?dl=0

- a paper with Giacomo D'Alisa on degrowth and the state, where we pre-figured the politics of 'the case for' book.
- a paper with Tilman Hartley and Jeroen van den Bergh where we examine what type of policies could increase equality if there is no growth.
- our 'hit' paper with Jason Hickel TADEAS on green growth and whether it is possible (spoiler - it is not).
- and a paper with a team of authors led by Iago Otero calling for biodiversity policies without growth.

I've also put some order into my Youtube channel, which you can check out and find some short presentations and discussions of 'the case for', as well as some older presentations of my previous book, Limits. https://www.youtube.com/user/giorgoskallis

2015 Exploring the influence of ancient and historic megaherbivore extirpations on the global methane budget
https://www.pnas.org/content/113/4/874.short

Here, we quantify one potential effect of the decline of large herbivores: the reduction of the greenhouse gas methane released as a byproduct of plant digestion. We examine three time periods where large-scale losses of megaherbivores occurred—the African rinderpest epizootic of the 1890s, the massive Great Plains bison kill-off in the 1860s, and the terminal Pleistocene extinction of megafauna. We find detectable decreases in the global methane budget related to the extirpation of megaherbivores. Our findings underscore the importance of large mammals in regulating ecosystems and feedbacks on climate.

...

Using global datasets of late Quaternary mammals, domestic livestock, and human population from the United Nations as well as literature sources, we develop a series of allometric regressions relating mammal body mass to population density and CH4 production, which allows estimation of methane production by wild and domestic herbivores for each historic or ancient time period. We find the extirpation of megaherbivores reduced global enteric emissions between 2.2–69.6 Tg CH4 y−1 during the various time periods, representing a decrease of 0.8–34.8% of the overall inputs to tropospheric input. Our analyses suggest that large-bodied mammals have a greater influence on methane emissions than previously appreciated and, further, that changes in the source pool from herbivores can influence global biogeochemical cycles and, potentially, climate.

2017 Integrating Herbivore Population Dynamics Into a Global Land Biosphere Model: Plugging Animals Into the Earth System
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2016MS000904

In this study, we coupled herbivore population dynamics in a global land model (the Dynamic Land Ecosystem Model, DLEM 3.0) to simulate populations of horses, cattle, sheep, and goats, and their responses to changes in multiple environmental factors at the site level across different continents during 1980–2010. Simulated results show that the model is capable of reproducing observed herbivore population dynamics across all sites for these animal groups. Our simulation results also indicate that during this period, climate extremes led to a maximum mortality of 27% of the total herbivores in Mongolia. Across all sites, herbivores reduced aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) and heterotrophic respiration (Rh) by 14% and 15%, respectively (p lower than 0.05). With adequate parameterization, the model can be used for historical assessment and future prediction of mammalian herbivore populations and their relevant impacts on biogeochemical cycles. Our simulation results demonstrate a strong coupling between primary producers and consumers, indicating that inclusion of herbivores into the global land modeling framework is essential to better understand the potentially large effect of herbivores on carbon cycles in grassland and savanna ecosystems.

Agriculture must change, with different skills and a new attitude required | MinnPost
https://www.minnpost.com/...riculture-must-change-with-different-skills-and-a-new-attitude-required/

For Earth to remain viable for human habitation for more than a few decades, agriculture must change.

It must give up its centuries-old fascination with annual crops like wheat and corn, and begin the study of how perennial plants fit food production. Perennial plants, properly managed as under a good planned grazing regimen, incorporate atmospheric carbon into the soil as organic matter, thus beginning to reverse centuries of burning off carbon through tillage. Even carefully planned rotations of annual plants without tillage will not safeguard soil and build organic matter like a good stand of perennials.

Perennial plants must be developed for food production instead of this shortsighted focus on breeding plants that can withstand chemical applications. Wes and Dana Jackson established the Land Institute, a nonprofit research center in Salina, Kansas, in 1976, and have been working on perennial replacements for annual crops ever since. They and their staff developed Kernza from intermediate wheatgrass, useful for both grazing and its wheat-like kernel. It is currently being distributed and commercialized by the University of Minnesota with the help of certain grain milling and baking businesses. Another ongoing study is of Illinois Bundleflower, a potential protein source for livestock and humans.

Production of perennial crops requires close on-site management driven by observation, experience and a feel for natural systems. This is especially evident for Kernza production, which is best done by a mix of cropping and livestock systems. We have few people in the farm population even capable of this breadth of management anymore. A different set of farming skills and a new attitude are required. It will take both time and financial stability to learn them, and then to apply them. The need for decision-making based upon observation and knowledge of place and its biology presupposes that operations cannot be huge. Perennial agriculture will create a different human social structure around it.

GOJATLA: 403 forbidden link

TADEAS: tyhle studie jakoby nemuzou bejt guideline, protoze se nepphybujou analyticky v prostoru tech kyzenejch reseni. jako kdyz se nemuzes rozhodnout jestli jadro nebo plyn nebo uhli, napr. protoze dí myslis ze nic jinyho neni relevantni. je to zavadejici uhel pohledu

Na závěr roku 2020, aspoň jedna dobrá zpráva:
GM Reintroduces Hummer As Fully Electric Truck, 1st Model Will Sell For $112,595
https://www.npr.org/...ummer-as-fully-electric-truck-1st-model-will-sell-for-112-595?t=1608732681921