Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The AI community are having another shot at getting their hands on a share of the climate emergency budget.
Algae might be a secret weapon to combatting climate change
By Ben Lamm October 1, 2019
Founder, HypergiantAs fires rage in the Amazon, people have latched onto the phrase that the Amazon is the “lungs of the earth.” President Emmanuel Macron of France warned that “our house is burning.” Celebrities from Leonardo DiCaprio to Vanessa Hudgens raised funds to support the Amazon, and the hashtag #PrayforAmazonia went viral.
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Trees alone will therefore not save us from the current crisis. We must look to our oceans for solutions that are more effective and scalable. Say hello to algae sequestration.
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Algae as carbon sequestration
Algae, when used in conjunction with AI-powered bioreactors, is up to 400 times more efficient than a tree at removing CO2 from the atmosphere. That means that while we are learning to reduce carbon emissions and augment our consumption patterns, we can start to make big reductions in atmospheric carbon. When wielded correctly, it could make a city carbon negative without changing current production or consumption patterns of the city.
…The challenges with algae
Scaling algae for biofuel production is not without its challenges. For one, algae growth is rapid and has been historically hard to manage and optimize. This can be addressed with new technology, like machine learning and AI, that helps to manage the growth process in order to ensure that growth happens through a managed and predictable cadence. Another limiting factor is the cost of implementation and the difficult road to profitability for many of these technologies. It’s been historically hard to convince people to pay more for something they can pay less for, and companies like Exxon and Shell have experienced this head-on with their stunt-filled algae-fuel concepts.
However, the time to be cheap is over. We need to consider alternative options that are planet-effective, not just cost-effective. We need more investible capital in long term solutions that help to solve big problems. The current five-year investment cycle for most VC-backed companies is too short for addressing major moonshot problems like climate change. To make these solutions work, we need investment options that allow for more gradual profit return and longer-term planning, thinking, and execution.…
Read more: https://qz.com/1718988/algae-might-be-a-secret-weapon-to-combatting-climate-change/
The author, Ben Lamm, is co-founder and CEO of Hypergiant, an AI / machine learning company.
This isn’t the first time the AI community have tried to muscle in on the climate game. AI entrepreneurs seem to be promoting the idea that AI is a kind of expensive magic sauce which will transform currently marginal climate ideas into winners.
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Greens inventing problems for their crazy non-solutions to fix.
The recent green scare is “too little oxygen“. For example:
* The amazon makes 20% of world oxygen and we’re burning it down
* More CO2 leads to oxygen deprived oceans
(in reality much of this is BS. For example – no way the amazon makes more than 5% of world oxygen)
Algae are living things. All life breaths in oxygen at night and expires carbon dioxide.
— More algae = less oxygen at night.
I think much green eco-doom is designed to bully greens to stay in the eco-doom camp. They need a constant stream of propaganda. Green NGOs, themselves, need new scares to save us from. All these green NGOs spend anything from 10% to 50% of their budget just trying to make more money. Which means getting money from people they’ve convinced, by lies. Conning us into believing only they can save the planet. Green NOGs are basically pyramid selling schemes. Except they’re not promising anything positive. No solutions, just fear and paranoia. They promise to save you from the rest of humanity who are messing it up for you. They are hate people machines; a bit like fundamental religions.
They are also paying lawyers to litigate anything they can
AI is a misnomer, and oversold. There is no artificial intelligence. There’s a little bit of “machine learning”. But all these computer programs are special purpose; designed to solve problems in niche areas. Taken out of their niche, AI algorithms must be tuned to solve new problems. The “tuning” bit is what they really mean by “learning”! AI algorithms don’t learn by themselves but are given “training” data. Once “trained” the program can repetitively identify issues. Just like other programs. The only way we will ever get real AI is when computers can write their own programs; find new problems, all on their own, to solve. Not on the cards; so no real AI.
Check out Ken’s home page.
Ken Stanley is a leading US AI researcher, he builds AIs suited to continuous real-time control and learning, not static pattern recognisers (though they can do that too).
I covered some of Ken’s work on a previous post.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/02/the-search-for-novelty-in-science/
But the Amazon has never been the lungs of the planet, the oxygen originated from green slime and it is algae that maintain it.
Hi,
I must confess that I misread your headline. I thought it said “Mixing Al with Green Slime will Fix Climate Change” and I naturally assumed you referred to Al Gore.
Guys, just to let you know about how disturbing things ca get in climate change enforcing.
A matte send me this:
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/
Gavin cannot get temperatures right (where’s the 50’s to 70’s cooling?) and all other factors are author’s interpretations, not data. Incredible how you can play with vertical scales and graphics to cherry picking information.
Impressive graphics but wrong and misleading. The sun is a forcing so its contribution to temperature is by its time-integral wrt the mean. Water vapor has been increasing about 1.74 times as fast as calculated from feedback (average global temperature increase) so WV forces temperature, not the reverse. Ocean surface temperature cycles, net for all oceans, has had a period of about 64 years and peak to peak amplitude of about 0.3 K. Put them together the best way and you match 5-year smoothed HadCRUT4 96+ % 1895-2018. Figure 10.6 at http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com
Slapping AI lipstick on the green slime pig. Yeah, that’s the ticket. They like to pretend that growing the stuff is where the biggest problem is. Nope. Harvesting and processing it into biofuel is hugely expensive. No end of greedy greenscammers who can’t wait to get their grimy paws on “carbon” dough.
One needs to distinguish between artificial intelligence and artificial stupidity
Can you just sense the hyperventilation in their argument? They are just assuming there is a problem-no analysis, no debate, no presentation of hard evidence- just blind belief. Because the entire notion is based on unfounded grounds, it has absolutely no justification whatsoever-none. Resources that could be used for things like water (and thus food) for all of humanity and AI being used to build automated farming, house construction and clothing is thrown down the drain.