Category: Digital devices and the environment

The digital world needs nuclear fusion!

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI & Robotics, Automation, Digital devices and the environment, Digital Transformation, Energy and Energy Markets, Information Technology, Internet of Things, Nuclear Power, Technology

When reading recently  that the ITER experimental nuclear fusion reactor under construction in Cadarache, France, is delayed by at least a decade, the Badger sighed deeply. The delay to this huge endeavour, a collaboration involving 35 nations,  inevitably puts back the holy grail of ‘limitless clean energy for the benefit of mankind’ from a tokomak reactor by many decades…again! Why the Badger’s sigh? Because his PhD and subsequent research, many years ago, related to the damage helium ions can cause in potential tokomak first wall materials. At that time, the Joint European Torus (JET) was under construction at Culham in the UK and the ultimate goal of ‘limitless clean energy for the benefit of mankind’ via fusion seemed achievable within the Badger’s lifetime. Realistically, that’s no longer the case, hence the sigh. The holy grail of ‘limitless clean energy‘ from fusion reactors is still far away even though the need for it has never been greater.

ITER, however, is getting a run for its money from private firms within the Fusion Industry Association (FIA). In July 2023, the FIA said that 4 private firms believed they could deliver fusion power into the grid by 2030 and 19 firms believed they could do so by 2035. The Badger’s sceptical. However, given the speedy technological advances of recent decades, these beliefs cannot be completely dismissed if recent technological momentum continues unabated. Wait a minute, you might say if the word ‘nuclear’ always sends uncomfortable shudders down your spine, why do we need power produced by nuclear fusion at all? The answer’s quite simple. As this article points out, and this one reinforces, the world is 86% driven by fossil fuels and energy demand is forecast to rise by 50% from today’s level by 2050. Global energy demand is then expected to triple between 2050 and 2100!  To get anywhere near meeting these forecasts, and have a decarbonised world, requires fusion to provide ‘limitless clean energy for the benefit of mankind’. Yes, wind, solar, and tidal power will play their part, but can they service the scale of this demand without blighting every picturesque part of our planet? That’s debatable.

So, here’s the thing. Digital transformation of the world economy continues at pace. The amount of data created, captured, copied, and consumed will be nearly three times as much in 2025 as in 2020.   AI, the Internet of Things, cryptocurrency, and the digital automation of everything comes with a dramatic increase in electricity usage which cannot be met by non-nuclear renewables alone. When we use our computers, tablets and smartphones we are contributing to the rising demand for electricity, and we are also thus unconsciously making the case for why we need fusion reactors to provide ‘limitless clean energy for the benefit of mankind’. Let’s hope ITER isn’t the only game in town, because if it is then a digital future may not be quite what we currently envisage.

Communication is at the heart of everything…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Digital devices and the environment, Information Technology, Internet of Things, Smart & New Technology, Smart City, Space, Technology

Electric lighting has revolutionised our lives by illuminating our homes, streets, and cities. It was only after the end of the First World War that electricity began to find its way into most of our UK homes. Rolling out electricity supply across the country took time. In 1919 only 6% of homes were wired up, and it took until the late 1930s for this number to grow to ~66%. By then all new homes in urban areas were being built with  electric lighting as standard. How things have changed since! Today the flick of a switch, a tap on an app, or a voice command will light up rooms in our home providing instant artificial light for reading, cooking, and hobbies even on the darkest of nights. It’s something we take for granted today, largely oblivious to the fact that light at the flick of a switch was an unthinkable luxury for the vast majority of people a century ago.

Lighting our homes, community, and city streets has become more high-tech today than ever before. Streetlights come on when it gets dark, help to keep road users and pedestrians safe and secure, and help to extend our activities outdoors. However, they have downsides. Light pollution from urban areas is one of them, as we can readily see in images taken by satellites and astronauts. There’s always a glow on the horizon which dilutes the visibility of stars in the night sky when walking through suburbs after dark. Furthermore, street lighting’s energy consumption is a matter of global concern because lighting accounts for ~19% of global electricity usage. With resources limited, climate change, and the world’s population forecast to be largely urban by mid-century, it’s not a surprise that ‘smart street lighting’ has progressed over the last two decades.

‘Smart street lighting’  – a connected, sensor-heavy, lighting system allowing individual or groups of lights to be controlled remotely in real time – enables public areas and thoroughfares to be lit more considerately based on their use. Motion detectors, for example, mean that areas can be lit only when people or moving vehicles are present. It’s energy efficient, climate friendly, sustainable and a component within the broader umbrella of ‘smart cities’. At the heart of ‘smart street lighting’ is a fundamental capability, namely the ability to communicate data between disparate and spatially separate entities – an ability which has been at the heart of technological progress for many, many, many decades.

‘Smart street lighting’ and Voyager 1, currently 15 billion miles from Earth in deep space, thus have something in common – both fundamentally need to communicate information to be useful. They are not only both testament to the talent of the scientists and engineers of their eras, but also to the fact that communication in one form or another has always been at the heart of everything in our lives…

Children’s toys and ‘invisible’ e-waste…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Climate & Environment, Digital devices and the environment, e-waste, Education, Information Technology, Toys

One day last week, the Badger arrived early to collect his grandson from nursery school. As he waited, he  couldn’t help a wry smile as the young tots resisted the nursery leader’s attempts to get them to tidy the plethora of toys away. One little girl came up to the Badger with a battered Fisher-Price musical guitar and insisted on showing him how to extract noise from it. The noises from the guitar demonstrated that it was on its last legs! One of the nursery helpers then ushered the little girl away, and as she did so she told the child that the toy was broken and needed to be ’thrown away’. Did they really mean ‘thrown away’, or did they mean ‘recycled’? It was pretty clear that they meant the former.

In due course, the Badger’s grandson, who had been playing with a musical toy in the form of a mobile phone, was returned home to his parents. Afterwards, the Badger found himself cogitating on how different today’s pre-school toys are from those of his generation. No toys for pre-school kids in his day required a battery to function! Today,  however, toys requiring a battery and containing microchips are commonplace. The Badger found himself  muttering a phrase that everyone uses at some stage when they get older, namely ‘those were the days’. His thoughts moved on to the nursery helper’s ’thrown away’ remark. Did they really mean ‘thrown away’ rather than ‘recycled’? Well, since toys top the list of  ‘invisible’ e-waste finding its way into landfill, then, yes, they probably did.  

Many things young children play with today contain recyclable electrical or electronic material that goes unnoticed. The amount of such material in an individual toy may be tiny, but every little bit matters if we truly want a sustainable future. Unfortunately, however, awareness that a child’s toy should be sent to recycling at the end of its useful life isn’t as high as it should be. That’s why children’s toys contribute to the growing so-called ‘invisible’ e-waste in the world’s land fill sites. The Badger thus feels it’s incumbent on us adults to be more knowledgeable and make better decisions when it comes to disposing of broken children’s toys.

The Badger also suspects, perhaps wrongly, that the WEEE’s recent International E-waste Day on the 14th October 2023 passed most of us by. It’s purpose was to shed light on the overall scale of  ‘invisible’ e-waste, see here.  Our awareness of ‘invisible’ e-waste must be improved, and, as the WEEE Forum puts it, we must all be more conscious that we can recycle anything that has a plug, uses a battery or microchip, or has a cable. So, if you hear someone telling a child that a toy should be ‘thrown away’ then tell them to recycle it, and wish them good luck in getting it out of the child’s hands without a tantrum to do so…

Tech for social good…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Digital devices and the environment, Education, Information Technology, Life, Tech for social good

Sitting at his desk over the weekend, the Badger enjoyed a coffee and a slice of cake  while reading about Charlie Mackesy, the Oscar-winning author and illustrator of The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse. The words ‘Every day I wake up wondering what I will draw today. I’m just another human trying to tell the truth. Love, kindness, and empathy are the answer. And cake…’ struck a chord. Not because the Badger was eating cake, but because they resonated with the circumstances of someone he knows and helps. After retiring from a low-wage, low-skilled, working life, they live alone with their cat and wonder what to do every day. They have no home broadband connection or digital devices. Although they are proud and fiercely independent, they allow the Badger to provide help, kindness, and empathy as they try to navigate a world that demands tech awareness, devices, and skills that they’ve never acquired.

This person illustrates that in the UK, a country with a high level of digital infrastructure, there are still many digitally disadvantaged people. This person cannot afford a broadband connection or connected devices, and even if they could, they are at a loss on how to use them. Their priority is simply to ‘keep the wolf from the door’ with their meagre budget. The Badger visits once a week with doughnuts, his tablet and smartphone, to chat over coffee. They often have worries that he manages to alleviate using his smartphone or tablet. A few weeks ago, the Badger gave them an old tablet found languishing at the back of one of his cupboards to help acquaint them with modern tech without the worry of cost. After some initial reticence, their confidence in using some of the rudimentary aspects of the device is rising. It’s small but rewarding progress!

After his visit last week, the Badger came across the ‘Circular electronics for social good: reusing IT equipment to bridge the digital divide’ research from the Good Things Foundation (a UK digital inclusion charity), the Circular Electronic Partnership (CEP) (the biggest names in tech, consumer goods and waste management), and Deloitte. It’s an enlightening insight into digital inequalities and how equipment reuse can not only help address these, but also assist in reducing a growing e-waste problem. The major businesses engaged in the CEP are clearly taking tech for social good seriously. But here’s the thing. Digital inequality, reuse and e-waste of course needs action from charities, businesses, and governments, but it also needs regular members of the public to reach out to the digitally disadvantaged in their community with kindness, empathy, compassion, and above all patience. Tech for social good needs people to engage with others at a human level with patience, which – sadly – seems a rarer commodity today  than it used to be…

To recycle an old radio-cassette player…or not

Posted on by The Information Badger in Digital devices and the environment

Forthcoming building work means the Badger’s garage has to be cleared of everything that’s accumulated there over the years. It hasn’t housed a motor vehicle for a long time and, as is the case for many families, it has become a storage area of equipment and old household items that are no longer used but are perceived to be too good to throw away. Last weekend the Badger started the clearance, an activity which proved satisfying and thought provoking in equal measure.

Clearing a garage always leads to unexpected surprises! One for the Badger was finding an early-1990s portable radio-cassette player, complete with its power cable and a couple of tapes. It was hidden, caked in dust, on a shelf where it had lain forgotten for many years. Finding it triggered a surge of memories and an instant urge to see if it still worked. Ignoring pleas to be careful, the Badger wiped the dust off, plugged it in, and turned on the FM radio. It burst into life producing surprisingly good quality sound. The cassette player, which functioned as if it was last used the previous day, played the music tapes without destroying them! This might be ‘old’ technology but fiddling with real knobs, switches, and knowing that it didn’t need the internet or software updates to function, was strangely satisfying.

Starting to clear the garage and finding the radio-cassette player proved to be a refreshing distraction from the woes of our current world and a reminder of three things. Firstly, that we all have unused electrical and electronic items squirrelled away in our homes. Secondly, that entertainment capabilities that predate the internet, social media, smartphones, tablets, and laptops, can still entertain and don’t require you to surrender your personal information. And thirdly, rather than hoard them, our electronics-dependent world needs us to promptly recycle unused, obsolete, gadgets, computers and phones if the technological, environment friendly future that is envisaged is to materialise.  

So far, political, social, environmental, and economic turbulence, and geopolitical belligerence, are the hallmarks of this decade. As the Head of the UK’s GCHQ, recently said in an objective and informative speech about the evolving technological environment in the context of national security and geopolitics, statecraft, technology, security, and economics are ‘entangled and mutually dependent’. It thus seems quite reasonable to think that the specialist metals and minerals recycled from our electrical and electronic equipment are essential to feed military and cyber capabilities like those in use in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. That is, perhaps, a rather obtuse thought, but it might explain why, much to his wife’s annoyance, the Badger has moved the radio-cassette player from the garage to a shelf in his home office and next to a box of old mobile phones. Will these items be ultimately recycled? Hmm, time will tell…

What’s colourless, odourless, beneficial and toxic, and runs the world?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Climate & Environment, Digital devices and the environment, Information Technology, Software

The Badger has a small, framed, vintage print of the Periodic Table of Elements from his school days on his desk. It’s been a constant reminder over the years that everything in our physical world is made up of elements in this table. While at his desk listening to a rather frustrating podcast featuring a climate emissions evangelist and a business leader arguing about fossil fuels, the Badger’s eye was drawn to this trusty print. Something said in the exchange between the protagonists in the podcast made the Badger mentally tune out and recall how his school chemistry teacher used to describe elements in the Periodic Table and common chemical compounds. The trigger for this was the business leader saying that ‘fossil fuels run the world economy and hence our lives and will do so for some time yet’.

It made the Badger look at the framed print on his desk, think of his school chemistry teacher, and decide that it’s not fossil fuels but something colourless, odourless, beneficial and toxic, that cannot be touched or felt and that can be produced by any country, that really runs the world and its economy today, namely software! Fossil fuels and industries that heavily use them bear the brunt for most activism on reducing global carbon emissions, whereas software, which constantly proliferates at the heart of our ever-expanding digital and ICT world, seems to have a lower profile on the ‘green’ activism scale. Notwithstanding Microsoft’s drive to be carbon negative by 2030 and the existence of the Green Software Foundation, it feels like the design, development, testing, release and use of software in every facet of life deserves much more quantitative ‘green’ attention if global digitalisation and the processing and storage of huge amounts of data isn’t to become the next generation’s emissions and resource sustainability crisis.  

Some argue that software and global digitalisation can help to cut our overall global emissions by 15% or more.  However, researchers at Lancaster University suggest not only that this might not be so, but also that while ICT has driven efficiency and productivity improvements over the years, the historical evidence shows that global  emissions have still risen relentlessly.  The devil’s always in the detail, of course, and spin and greenwashing are everywhere, but surely there’s a need for much clearer, quantitative, transparent data and public awareness about emissions  relating specifically to the design, production, and use of software – that colourless, odourless, invisible, cross-border item that runs the world?

The Badger’s school chemistry teacher knew nothing about software, but they were inspiring, articulate, a creative describer of matters of importance, and a stickler for quantitative assessment. They would have applied the same approach for assessing the production and use emissions of software as if it was an element in the Periodic Table…and, perhaps, so should we.

Digital pollution

Posted on by The Information Badger in Climate & Environment, Digital devices and the environment, Education, Life, Online Services, Psychology, social media

The High Street, closed to traffic, was crowded with people for the  annual Christmas Street Market. The numerous stalls selling craft items, festive decorations, food, and drink were doing good business. A group of ladies from Rock Choir sang songs and the smell of mulled wine hung enticingly in the air. Turnout was impressive. Everyone was enjoying themselves, especially after covid forced the market’s cancellation last year. Amongst the stalls there some booths where charities and campaign groups were drumming up support for their cause. One of these was manned by a millennial climate change campaigner who radiated enthusiasm. The  crowd moved unexpectedly, and before he could take evasive action the campaigner engaged the Badger in conversation!

Their spiel was well-practiced. Fossil fuels are bad, the oil, plastics, and chemical industries are all irresponsible polluters driven by corporate greed, and people who travel by plane or car are killing the planet. The Badger had no appetite for a prolonged debate, so he pointed to the campaigner’s iPad and to heir colleague listening to music on a smartphone and politely said, ‘You should be looking at your own digital pollution’. Movement of the crowd enabled the Badger to move on before the campaigner, slightly taken aback, could respond.

The Badger’s interest in digital pollution was heightened recently by both reading some articles (e.g. here, here, and here) and getting frustrated at a recent surge in irrelevant emails and ‘you might like’ social media content all of which just got ignored and deleted.  Every email, every interaction with the cloud, every search of the internet, every stream of a song or film, every social media post, every piece of online commentary, argument, misinformation, disinformation and propaganda, and every piece of digital advertising and marketing, not only comes with an emissions price, but also pollutes our well-being – as neatly articulated here.  Digital pollution is real; it has an emissions footprint and an insidious effect on our psychological well-being by affecting our emotional and intellectual capacity. On both counts this is worrying because emissions from building, delivering, and using digital technology already make up 4% of global emissions  and some are predicting an eight-fold rise in data traffic by 2030.

Our digital world has many benefits, but it comes with a form of pollution that’s much less obvious than the oil slicks and plastic flotsam we can readily see. Every interaction with data and online content comes with an emissions price and an insidious impact on how we think, feel, and behave. Just keep this in mind every time you use email, search the internet, and use online services and social media. Young campaigners at Christmas Markets should have digital pollution higher on their agenda. If it’s ignored, then in years to come their children and grandchildren will inevitably blame them for inaction on all of its polluting effects.

Smart meters update – eat more salads…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Digital devices and the environment, Smart Meters

The UK Q3 2020 Smart Meter Statistics Report is sobering reading. The data therein implies that the programme to rollout domestic ‘smart’ gas and electricity meters will be even later and more expensive!   Reading the report reminded the Badger that he had mentioned a couple of months ago his intention to install ‘smart’ meters as part of updating his home’s infrastructure.  Well, the meters have been in and operational for about 8 weeks now so it’s time to share some of the experience.   

Because the Badger sources gas and electricity from different suppliers, separate installation bookings were needed. These  were arranged on-line with just a few days between them, and emails arrived confirming the bookings and advising  that the installations could take up to two hours. The installers turned up on schedule.  The gas meter installation happened first. Energy supply was off for 10 minutes to physically fit the hardware and then the installer spent 50 minutes in their van ‘connecting to the centre’ to get the meter and In-Home Display working.  The electric meter installation was similar, but this time the supply was off for just 5 minutes. The installer then spent 2 hours in their van getting the meter and In-Home Display working! Both installers were great but obviously frustrated by how long it ‘connecting to the centre’, as they described it. 

So, how’s it been since? Well, the novelty of watching dials on In-Home Displays move when household devices turn on and off quickly wore off.  Watching the dials for a few days only confirmed what the Badger already knew, namely that boiling the kettle,  using the washing machine, cooking, and household hot water/heating consume the most energy by far. Lighting, media devices like the television and radio, and your home computing devices use much, much less.  Seeing what your energy is costing on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis, however, is much more useful and a good reminder that loyalty to any energy supplier is never rewarded! In the last week, the In-Home Display began displaying ‘Connection Lost – move the device closer to the meter’ intermittently!  Powering it off and on fixes the problem.

So, from the Badger’s perspective, installing smart meters has been a largely benign experience. Does that mean he’s a convert? No. Why not? Well, the Badger’s wife put it rather neatly yesterday. She observed that our smart meters have really only shown that to use less energy, save money, and help the green agenda, we must drink less tea and coffee, eat more salads than hot meals, wear more clothes to keep warm, wash them less frequently, and take fewer hot baths and showers!  It was her way of pointing out that it’s disciplined human behaviour that brings about beneficial change, not expensive technology whose benefits are over-sold and under-delivered. She has a point.

Less Twits, better education about what matters in life…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Climate & Environment, Digital devices and the environment, Education, Press & Media, Security, social media, Uncategorized

Halfway through a long walk on a hot day with a cloudless blue sky at the Devil’s Punchbowl, a break for a sandwich and a drink at The Gibbet provided some welcome respite. The view was glorious. The air was clear, and the edge of London, some 40 miles away, was visible on the horizon without the need for binoculars. The atmospheric benefits of much-reduced road traffic and air traffic for Heathrow and Gatwick were plain to see!

As the Badger munched his sandwich, a bird of prey hovered in the distance ready to swoop on its prey. The idyll, however, was broken by the arrival of a group of youngsters.  They weren’t rowdy, unpleasant, or badly behaved. They just talked incessantly about Twitter being hacked as if it were the end of the world!  It isn’t, of course, but their conversation influenced the Badger’s thoughts for the rest of his walk.  By the time the Badger reached home, these had converted into the following points:

  • Anyone familiar with ‘security’ knows that the weakest link in any security regime is people. It’s as true in today’s digital world – as the Twitter incident shows – as it has always been.
  • Twitter has become, in just 10 years, one of the prime illustrations of today’s attention-deficit world. Organisations and individuals alike use it for many reasons, including FOMO (fear of missing out), vanity, attention seeking, recreation, influencing and self-promotion. Will you really miss anything that’s important to life if you don’t look at Twitter on your smart phone every few minutes? No.
  • More detailed primary and secondary school education on how the likes of Facebook and Twitter use what you do to make money is essential. A ‘think before you write, or upload photos or videos’ attitude needs to be deeply embedded in the psyche of youngsters.
  • Hundreds of years ago, the printing press ushered in the age of reason, science, and education. Over the centuries this ‘force for good’ has become slowly diluted by commercialism, politicism, propaganda, misinformation, and falsities of all kinds. The same has happened since the advent of TV and radio about a century ago, and also since the advent of the internet and computers a few decades ago. The same has also happened with social media platforms, which have gone from a ‘force for good’ to questionable, surveillance-based, money-making machines in just 15 years!

At the end of the walk, the Badger slumped into his favourite chair at home, hot, bothered, and tired. Perhaps it was this that triggered a final thought, namely that anyone or any organisation that puts great store in Twitter should be called Twits! The world needs less Twits and better education about what really matters in life. The Badger fell asleep in his chair…

With every generation comes change…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Digital devices and the environment, Education, Ethics & Regulation, Online Services, Press & Media, Privacy and Surveillance, social media, Technology, Uncategorized

With every generation comes change! Society evolves. Every new generation grows up in different conditions to those when their parents  were young.  Every new generation rails against the actions and decisions of older generations. Every new generation thinks they know best and wants to change the world, and every older generation thinks younger generations are feckless, frustrating, and irritating – just look here, for example. These may be sweeping generalisations, but they convey a truth and an uncomfortable reality.

Every new generation grows up in a society whose norms are challenged or changed by new technologies of one kind or another. It’s been the same for centuries. Anyone born in the last 40 years, however, has grown up in one of the most disruptive periods for society ever.  Just in the last 20 or so years our global population has exploded, increasing by around 30%, the population of urban centres has risen by ~60%,  the internet has changed the way everything is done, mobile phones have become a necessity and nearly everyone has one, and social media has taken over.  Every generation thinks it’s making society better, so is society better for those born since the 1980s who have been riding the Information and Digital wave?

The Badger’s found that when people are asked this question, No is the dominant answer!  Ostensibly because of a perception that two vital commodities in society – trust and privacy – have declined, with broadcast and online news media, and the social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter being mentioned as to blame. News organisations with a reputation for unbiased reporting are seen as being thin on the ground, and social media platforms are seen as an uncontrollable digital wild-west.

One person bravely claimed that the behaviour of those born since the 1980s and social media had already put society into a downward spiral. Their justification? Simply that anyone whose first reaction to anything was to reach for their smartphone, create a video, and immediately upload it to social media had lost the plot. A brave view indeed in these turbulent days.  The person is, of course, from the older generation and perhaps resonates with the first paragraph above.

The Badger’s view is simple. Change driven by disruptive technologies is painful and produces downsides as well as benefits. There’s little doubt that distrust is rife in society today, that privacy is fast becoming an alien concept even with GDPR, and that a finger must point to the media, the internet, and social media for some of this.  Just as in life, however, there are no magic bullets and no one has a monopoly on being right. One thing, however, is certain. The attitude, behaviour, and use of digital tools and platforms by our younger generations is creating the society that their kids will definitely rail against!