Cemetery for Renewable Technologies






I shared with you in a previous installment that the waste of the future has to do with the technology that is used. Just as today we see dumps of tires or technological waste —such as computers and cellphones—, in the future we could be witnesses of dumps of solar panels and batteries. If this is a possibility, then, should we not be planning a cemetery for renewable technologies with the purpose of conducting them in an appropriate and sustainable way to their final resting place?

It is expected that in the coming years there will be a boom regarding distributed generation on rooftops. For example, San Francisco has already passed a law that prevents new residential constructions from using fossil fuels. If this trend continues, the solar panels and batteries that will be part of the everyday landscape of the future must be disposed of responsibly.

This cemetery of renewable technologies is not a conventional dump; because it requires a recycling and treatment process to, first, reuse the greatest possible part of the discarded materials; second, to dispose of in a sustainable and adequate way the waste that can have a negative impact on the soil and the environment.

Regarding solar panels, conventionally more than 75% of these is glass that can be recycled without much problem; 10% is plastic, 10% metals and 5% silicon. Perhaps the greatest value of recycled panels is the metals, which are mainly aluminum, silver and copper. Although aluminum is easy to extract, silver and copper require more complex chemical processes that can reduce the recovery of plastic and glass.

Batteries, for their part, can have a somewhat more complicated process because, although they have iron, aluminum, plastic and copper, there are also chemicals in liquid state of lithium, nickel, cobalt and other substances. The final disposal of batteries is more complex than that of solar panels since the cells represent chemical risk that can derive in fires and burns; poisoning by toxic substances in the environment and causing cancer.

In this way, the cemetery for batteries must be much more careful since the greatest part of the materials must be recovered through physical, chemical separation and by means of heat; subsequently, safely storing those substances that represent risks to the health and safety of communities.

The recycling and final disposal of renewable technologies, due to their complexities, is not a cheap process. Despite this, it is rarely considered in the budgets of installers, leaving under the protection of the final consumer the responsibility of replacing and safely disposing of these components.

This, at the end of the useful life of the technology, would represent a cost not considered at the moment when the renewable solution was budgeted. In this sense, the real savings would be adjusted downward and in a single exhibition, which would imply allocating more resources for the removal and disposal of the technology.

For these reasons, in Europe the extended responsibility of the producer has been promoted, which requires all producers to consider in their prices and within their responsibilities the removal of solar panels and batteries that are installed in homes, businesses and other buildings; with the purpose that the final cost also reflects the cost of getting rid of these technologies when their useful life ends. In Mexico, we are still in time to promote the extended responsibility of the producer and the minimum standards to dispose of renewable technologies —this cemetery for renewable technologies—, before it becomes a public problem that gets out of our hands. At the end of the day this is the principle of circular energy.

This article was originally published by Business Insider México.
Date: November 25, 2020
Original Link: https://businessinsider.mx/cementerio-tecnologias-renovables-opinion-paul-alejandro-sanchez-energia-circular/ [offline]
Archived Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20211023143433/https://businessinsider.mx/cementerio-tecnologias-renovables-opinion-paul-alejandro-sanchez-energia-circular/ [Archived]

Late Again?






Surely you have heard this phrase: “Mexico arrived late to the industrial revolution.” And it is that while in Great Britain its beginnings are traced to the end of the eighteenth century, in Mexico it arrived until the end of the nineteenth century, almost 100 years later. While in Europe the textile industry was being mechanized, roads were increasing; maritime transport and large extensions of railway lines were being installed, in Mexico we rested strongly on textile manufacturing; there was no strong connectivity between production and consumption centers and we fell behind, in contrast, particularly with the United States, where the northern states began to industrialize rapidly.

But it does not end there. Mexico arrived late to other revolutions: the technological revolution, the digital revolution, the computer revolution and even the revolution of industry 4.0. Already on a roll, it could also be debated that we arrived late to the democratic revolution, the revolution of human rights; economic and cultural rights and, of course, environmental rights. Faced with this panorama, I ask myself: will we arrive late this time to the renewable revolution?

If we could divide the world into two categories, those who generate technological innovation and those who adopt innovations, would we doubt that Mexico is in the second? Although, in its fair dimension, Mexico, in general, is a country that adopts technology in its early phases.

Late for renewable energy

At this moment it seems that the perfect storm is hitting us and we have closed not only the door to the development of renewable energy in our country; also the window of early adoption of the technologies that would allow us to be competitive on the international scene.

Today the trend is clear: countries, companies, investment funds; research centers and society in general are betting on renewable energies and their growth in the energy matrix. It is a window of opportunity that, as always, will be taken advantage of by those who work to seize it.

In such a way that, while in other countries there is talk of solar roofs, hydrogen airplanes, electric trains; thermal energy batteries, green or blue hydrogen and homes 100% free of fuels, in Mexico we continue discussing regarding the dispatch of coal plants and purchase plans from small producers, intermittency and regulatory capture.

Undoubtedly, we are losing valuable time that could be dedicated to promoting scientific and technological development to integrate renewable energies into the networks and to destroy once and for all the myth of intermittency, to create auctions that have greater benefits for users and CFE at the cost of the risk assumed by private parties or to expand the transmission and distribution networks to the most vulnerable and marginalized areas of the country.

Otherwise, this period will go down in the history of Mexico as the time when our country arrived late to the energy revolution that redefined the economic and social system at the international level. Let us hope that this time it is not 100 years late, because we have everything to make energy work for you, for me and for all of us.

This article was originally published by Business Insider México.
Date: November 18, 2020
Original Link: https://businessinsider.mx/otra-vez-tarde-revolucion-energia-renovable-energia-circular-opinion/ [offline]
Archived Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20210509043040/https://businessinsider.mx/otra-vez-tarde-revolucion-energia-renovable-energia-circular-opinion/ [Archived]

“Are You Still There?”: Why That Screen Appears When No One Is Watching the Series






More than one has done it. We are working, preparing food and we have a Netflix series or some other streaming service in the background. Sometimes we return to watch the program, but other times we continue working, talking on the phone or we even fall asleep while the series runs and runs, functioning as ambient noise. This is not uncommon, it is done a lot and more in these times of working from home. To prevent this from continuing persistently, media companies such as Netflix and YouTube implemented the “Are you still there?” button.

Of course, many of us see this button as a nuisance after the fourth or fifth chapter of your favorite series, when you want to see what happened with the plot after the previous episode. But why is it important? And, above all, what does it have to do with energy, the topic we address in this space.

This button exists because if it were not so, we would surely leave the television on ad infinitum. When we addressed the topic of light pollution, we concluded that when the consumption of an additional unit of something does not generate a cost for you, or the cost is not perceived in the short term, the consumer will tend to increase their consumption. But the fact that it does not cost you does not mean that it does not cost YouTube or Netflix for the series to run while you fall asleep.

This is because the series of these platforms rest on servers that require energy to be available at all times. And, the greater the intensity of consumption, the more intensity of processing is generated, which requires more energy, on the one hand —because the server is in active operation all the time—; on the other hand, because they generate heat that requires more energy to keep the rooms where said servers are cold.

In recent years two phenomena have occurred; the first, the energy consumption of the cloud, that is, the servers of data companies such as Google, Microsoft, Netflix; Amazon and Dropbox, among others, has increased. Nevertheless, the second effect is that energy consumption has become more efficient per unit of work performed. This means that every day more energy is consumed to maintain digital services in the cloud, although much progress has been made in energy efficiency.

In that sense, the idea behind the “Are you still there?” button is not because Netflix cares about you, it is a measure of consumption efficiency and, at the end of the day, of energy efficiency. This is because if all of us left series running all the time, surely the company’s energy consumption would increase.

But not only that, greenhouse gas emissions would also increase, both those that you cause through the consumption of your series at home, and those of the company for keeping its servers operating in an inefficient way while no one is watching TV. We will go deeper into that next week.

However, not everything is bad, this could also be good for you. Because to the extent that you are more conscious of your energy consumption at home, you will avoid surprises in your electricity bill every two months, with which you save electricity and contribute to mitigating climate change.

So remember, if you have the habit of waiting until the server asks you “Are you still there?” and you are really not paying attention to the series that runs incessantly, perhaps it is time to rethink your energy consumption for the good of the planet and of your pocket.

This article was originally published by Business Insider México.
Date: November 11, 2020
Original Link: https://businessinsider.mx/sigues-ahi-boton-ver-series-netflix-streaming-opinion-energia-circular/ [offline]
Archived Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20211204081743/https://businessinsider.mx/sigues-ahi-boton-ver-series-netflix-streaming-opinion-energia-circular/ [Archived]