A review: Coffee table book

by Mikkel Navarro Hansen, CEO Aprendio

Who would have thought that. Not just a book review by Aprendio but a coffee table book review.

Earlier this year, I met Christian Dahl Winther and he told me about his book: "Visual Guide to the Power Grid". It immediately woke my curiosity. A book about power grids, energy system, renewables. What he calls The Greatest Machine in the World. I simply had to get my hands on this book.

If you’re interested on how the integrated energy system works - then sign up for this course: Danmarks Inetegrerede Energisystem on ther 6-7th of November 2023 

At Aprendio, we work with the skills needed to enable the green transition. And "power" is one of the core elements in the transition. Today, the way we produce power leads to the climate havoc we witness at the moment. So, knowledge and insight into how power works are key to achieving a net-zero society. And this is what this book is all about, explaining principles of power generation, storage, distribution, etc., in a way that everyone can follow the idea - even me.

When you open the book, you are greeted with a 172-page tour-de-force of fantastic illustrations of how for example a boiler works, the principles of steam-turbines, and I love the plentiful isometric 3D illustrations - like the one on page 37, showing how a number of small vehicles work on an onshore site erecting a windmill. Or the clear illustration of increasing production costs on page 134, depicted by small clear illustration how costs increase from wind and solar power up to expensive peak-load units. With these illustrations, you are both entertained and unforgettable.

And if power and electricity are totally new to you, you will also learn the historical facts about why we have 110- or 230 Volt plugs, why the plugs are shaped the way they are - and even a guide to the color coding of household cables.

So, if power - mainly electricity - is on the curriculum, then this is the book. I see it as relevant reading for everybody from upper secondary to high schools, and non-technical academics - who need to know what is up and down when it comes to why, and how the power ends up in the plug where we charge our laptops, coffee machines and microwaves.

I would love to see similar books on topics like new fuels, emissions and other subjects related to power and our green transition.

So, make space on your coffee table and order Christian’s book “A Visual Guide to the Power Grid”.

You can order it here: https://visualpowergrid.com/

If you’re interested on how the integrated energy system works - then sign up for this course: Danmarks Inetegrerede Energisystem on ther 6-7th of November 2023 

A container: the missing link to cool the earth?

Following some days with global heat records, it's obvious that we should be more than busy turning down the heat. While the long-term solution is to minimize our resource and energy use and switch away from fossil fuels to renewables - this is undisputed. However, the clock is ticking so we need to bring down emitted CO2 levels to the atmosphere rapidly. One of the tools to do that is by capturing and storing CO2 from point emitters, CCS.

When I personally started getting involved in CCS 4-5 years it was like an "enfante terrible". It was basically not a technology that was politically acceptable. Arguments where that it would only delay switching to renewable fuels. It is a fact that renewables cannot be developed and supplied at speed and the scale needed. We would simply miss our targets, and global heat records would continue to be the daily news.

Most realistic IPCC scenarios include large amounts of CO2 being captured and stored (or utilized). In 2050 it is expected that we capture, transport and store 6 giga ton yearly. Compare this to to the 8,8 giga ton coal we dig up and transport today. It calls for not only capture - but also transport at a massive scale.

This is where the container comes in. If there is one thing the container has brought us: it is flexible integrated transport on a massive scale.

Imagine two different scenarios where CO2 is captured from all medium to large CO2 emitters:

Scenario A)

As liquid (or as supercritical liquid) the CO2 is transported in pipelines, to a loading port, loaded to a ship, then transported to a new port, offloaded and then transported by pipeline to the storage site. Some pipelines exist today, mainly in the US, the rest would have to be built. There are 4 (!) ships in the global fleet which can carry CO2 today, they have a capacity between 1.250-1.800 m3. This means up to 2.000 tons of liquid CO2 in a ship, and remember 6 gigaton has to be transported. And remember in our comparison above a bulk carrier carrying coal, easily carries 100 to 200.000 tons of coal.

Scenario B)

After capture, the CO2 is converted to solid form - dry ice, although at about -80 degrees Celsius, it can exist at ambient pressure. It is then stored into a standard shipping container. Estimates say there is about 70 million shipping containers in the world. Accepting a small loss of 0,1-0,2% of CO2 during transport, the container is transported from emitter to storage site on a standard existing container ship or on a standard truck or rail. The CO2 is re-liquified and stored, and the container is sent back to carry the next load.

And if we look at these two scenarios and ask ourselves the simple question: When can we have the capacity available to transport 6 giga tons CO2 yearly? Do we wait for ships to be built (it's is a lot of ships)? Do we wait for pipelines to be laid (there is a lot of farmers and landowners who will have to see their soil being digged up)? While fully accepting that the global very large emitters will be best suited with a direct pipeline to a storage site, then the obvious answer is that we should use the technology and infrastructure already available today and scale CO2 transport very rapidly. In this way we also ensure that we minimize the amount of stranded assets when we one day don't need to transport CO2 anymore.

So let's get started, and use that missing link to get us all cooled down again.

Mikkel Navarro Hansen, CEO Aprendio, 6th of July, 2023

Warning

Learn to handle the risks associated with using your tools - also the digital tools

By Mikkel Navarro Hansen, CEO Aprendio

Warning: this post has been created purely by human intelligence (or maybe the lack of same). Without any autocorrection, translation tools, any bot-interference - just purely a head to hand-exercise, and I don't really know which direction it will take.

There is no doubt that AI in a matter has become mainstream. I remember that laymen would still discuss what the difference between machine learning, deep learning and artificial intelligence could be - without really having tried consiously interacting with any of the technologies. But something happened. Now I have the sense that almost every person in the world has been in deep conversations with ChatGPT (why this name?) about anything from school assignments, how to handle personal problems, how to solve the climate crisis - or simply just as a way to have an entertaining and interesting conversation with somebody who actually reflects and responds to what you are saying (or writing).

Admitting I have services at my hand assisting to translate courses to whatever language I could imagine (maybe expect the Danish dialect from Langeland where I grew up) and I can click on a small button and then from a bullet point list I have a full description of course content for advertisement purposes.

But I personally think it is also in place to make some considerations before you start using a new tool. Our son - pictured - gets introduced to a load of new tools in his kindergarten. As a parent how would you expect the kindergarten to handle this?

a)     Let the tools floating around for the kids to play with whenever they feel for it?

b)    Introduce the tools, help them use the tools to solve a specific problem, monitor them, give them feedback, explain what could go wrong, discuss new ways of using the tools together with the children

Digital tools seem unharming, they seem easy to use and approachable. But digital tools can also hurt, their use can also have impact on our work, lives and society.

There is no doubt I appreciate option (b) above. And I think we should treat new tools with curiosity, respect but also a little distrust. For most of us AI is a black box. You put something in - something comes out. I don't know the artificial thought processes behind the scenes. I don't know if the output is filled with subtle predjudices towards certain values that might align with my own.

And to take a bigger perspective. What happens to the value of something if it available in abundance? With the introduction of strong search engines like google access to information wsa set free. in principle anyone could get any information. Cost of access to information dropped. With "intelligence" being more or less freely available. Will the value of intelligence also drop to zero?

Specifically, I am curious about what this means for the area of learning that we are working with here at Aprendio. How will we avoid the pitfalls when using AI? How will we learn what a beauty - or beast - that has been created and how to manage it, so that we as humans ensure we have the upper hand.

I love technology. But here I will step cautiously forward and take the liberty to be old school and work AI-free as stated in the declaration in the beginning of this blog.

Stay tuned for insights...

…on maritime education and training (MET) as well as in training related to the area of renewable energy.