The Saturday Morning Newsletter #36

👋 Hello friends,

Thank you for joining this week's edition of The Saturday Morning Newsletter. I'm Drew Jackson, and today we're exploring 11 articles, essays, companies, ideas, podcasts, videos, or thoughts that caught my attention this week for their potential to significantly impact our future.

The Breakthrough Institute: How to Define Nuclear Success

The lesson we’ve learned throughout the Trump presidency is this: “government policy can help identify political priorities, but when policy conflicts with the market, the market will win.” The people who decide what kind of energy plant to build, whether coal or nuclear, are driven by market signals.

Ember: 3 Wind and Solar Facts Show How They Strengthen Energy Security

Key facts about wind and solar are that 74% of the global population lives in countries that are net importers of fossil fuels, the import cost of a solar panel ‘pays back’ in just 1 year, and solar and wind already are larger than global gasoline. This demonstrates the scale at which solar and wind can already replace imported fossil fuels.

BBC: Solar Tariffs

The United States Commerce Department announced plans to impose tariffs of up to 3500% on the imports of solar panels from Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam. These are in response to allegations of subsidies from China and the dumping of unfairly cheap products in the U.S. market.

New York Times: Fact-Checking the ‘President Who Follows Science’

Analysts at the Times went through and marked up the new White House page titled “On Earth Day, We Finally Have a President Who Follows Science.” And… it’s about how you would think—there are many claims which are misleading or outright wrong, along with many statements that many in the energy/climate world would say are unimportant or missing the bigger picture.

New York Times: U.S. Climate Assessment Continues

The Trump administration dismissed many of the scientists who had been working on compiling the U.S. climate assessment report. Luckily, the American Geophysical Union and the American Meterological Society said they would publish the work if the authors would like it published—trying to continue spreading the world about climate change in our own backyards.

New York Times: Climate Laws Face Challengers

Last year, Vermont signed a law aiming to help the state recover money from fossil fuel companies to help pay the rising costs of climate change. This week, the Justice Department filed lawsuits against Vermont and New York (who also passed this law), arguing that the measures were “a brazen attempt to grab power from the federal government.” Both sides of this aisle are very heated and passionate about their points, but the winner may usher in the next cycle of climate change legislation for years to come.

The Wall Street Journal: Wastewater Heat Recovery Systems

Wastewater heat-recovery systems have been widely adopted in Europe and have the potential to be implemented in America now. The Department of Energy estimates that Americas flush the equivalent of 350B kilowatt-hours of energy from hot water down their drains annually, so there are many ways we can be conserving this energy.

Space: Hubble Telescope 35th Anniversary

It’s the Hubble Space Telescope’s 35th year in orbit. Newly released snapshots reveal Mars as a frosty Red Planet, its atmosphere veiled by thin water-ice clouds that stand out in ultraviolet light. Other images show monster dark clouds in the Rosette Nebula and much more, it’s definitely worth a look.

The New York Times: Amazon Launches 27 Project Kuiper Satellites

Finally Jeff Bezos has launched his satellites into space. There are many thousands of other satellites expected to shortly go up into orbit, forming the basis of another internet satellite chain. Internet service will begin after around 600 satellites have been launched.

Open Access Government: Philosophy: The Art of Asking the Right Questions

There are so many answers and solutions in the world. Because of this, questions are becoming more and more important. For business schools, the role of philosophy comes down to asking if the questions we want to ask, and the problems we want to solve, are the right questions and the right problems.

Readers,

It’s graduation week. And the end of both my jobs week. And prep for my life away from work week. Everything needed to happen—and the short end of the stick fell on the interesting thought of the week. Don’t worry we’ll be back next week with an interesting thought.

See you Wednesday for Brainwaves,

Drew Jackson

Twitter: @brainwavesdotme

Email: brainwaves.me@gmail.com

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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this content are my own and do not represent the views of any of the companies I currently work for or have previously worked for. This content does not contain financial advice - it is for informational and educational purposes only. Investing contains risks and readers should conduct their own due diligence and/or consult a financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Any sponsorship or endorsements are noted and do not affect any editorial content produced.