Untitled

Most of the posts here will be from my website. There is a filter type system for different categories of posts and all that, so if you're interested in what I have to say, I'd recommend going there for the better experience. I also have no fucking clue how to use tumblr.

16/11/21

Tags: Politics, Complaining

In case you somehow haven't heard, COP26 was a UN climate meeting, where quite a few world leaders were in attendance. The goal of the conference was to reduce climate emissions and halt the effects of climate change. Scientists were hoping for a 1.5 degrees Celsius limit by 2050, as this would stop the worst effects of climate change. Also a forewarning, this will likely turn into a rant because I am fucking pissed off with this shit.

Starting off on an incredibly strong foot in terms of stopping climate change, India announced they had pushed their 2050 carbon neutral pledge back to 2070, and China to 2060... Fantastic. For years I've been saying the 2050 milestone is bad and it seems like I was right. When you set a milestone so far out in the future adding years on doesn't seem like a significant change (even though it definitely is) - after all, what's the difference between 2050 and 2055, or 2060, or 2070? They all seem equally far out, so what does it matter right? Well the 2050 limit is pretty much the last year where we can achieve net zero without huge lasting effects. So every 5 or 10 or 20 years, whilst it may not seem like it now, will make an absolutely huge difference in the long run. 2050 is always presented as the main milestone for climate change. Sure, 2030 is discussed often too, but 2050 is definitely the main one. However, having such a vital milestone so far away also makes it incredibly difficult for the general public to see how well the governments are managing climate change. Whereas if annual, or targets like 2025 or whatever were prioritised it would be really easy for the people to see how well (or as is usually the case - badly) their governments are managing things. All you'd need do is look at the carbon dioxide produced that year, and then compare it with that years target. But with 2050 who the fuck knows. Is the average person going to be plotting graphs and using statistical analysis to find out how we're looking for the 2050 goals? Absolutely not, and I certainly can't blame them for it.

You've also probably heard people talking about how fantastic COP26 was for stopping fossil fuels. So what did it do about them? Well it was originally intended to state that coal will be phased out by 2050, but because that would actually put some pressure on world leaders and fossil fuel companies, and we couldn't have that, instead it was changed to be phased down by 2050. Really??? This shit is getting praised. Could not have written anything more vague. Oh man can't wait for fossil fuel companies to announce how they reduced their use by 1% by 2050 and proudly say how they've done their part. It's not even a restriction it's a fucking open ended request. Now why was something so fucking useless praised so much by world leaders? It's because this is the first time fossil fuels have been mentioned in a UN climate agreement (Yes, there have been 26 of them). That's right. This is the first time fossil fuels have been mentioned IN A FUCKING CLIMATE CHANGE AGREEMENT. WHAT. THIS IS THE SHIT THAT'S GETTING PRAISE FOR BEING THE "DEATH KNELL FOR COAL"???? THIS???? IT BEING FUCKING MENTIONED????? Fossil fuels are undeniably one of the largest contributors to climate change and yet this is the first time it's been mentioned? What the fuck were they talking about in the other 25 meetings? Were they just sitting in a circle jerking themselves off about how scary nuclear power is? What the fuck?

What we need is clear, annual deadlines, which have actual consequences for not being met. We need to focus on closer milestones like 2025 or 2030, rather than the useless 2050 one. We need to hold corporations accountable and we need strict carbon taxes for them. We need more nuclear power, and a huge reduction in fossil fuels. There is no way we're going to beat climate change with vague deadlines, restrictions that nobody enforces, and deadlines 29 years away.

And yet, politicians aren't going to do this, because they get paid not to. Large corporations, ran by CEOs and shareholders who know they aren't going to be too badly affected by climate change, will time and time again pay several million and boom. Stopping climate change has been pushed back another 5 years. Sorry inhabitants of the fucking planet whos homes, and livelihoods, and lives are at risk, there's more profits to be made for the ultra rich :). We've literally reverted back to feudalism. What kind of democracy lets the leaders decide to go against the best interests of the people for personal gain. What difference would it make if we just replaced US congress and president with a king? Like... really? What difference would it make. They'd still just continue to act in their best interests, just perhaps with less acting. Carbon targets would still get missed, housing would still be a massive problem, the people wouldn't be cared for, and we, the people, could do fuck all about any of it.

15/09/21

I'll be covering a few different concerns and topics related to nuclear energy, such as:

1. Safety

2. Efficiency

3. Waste

4. Feasibility

Safety: When people think about nuclear energy, they usually instantly think of accidents such as Chernobyl and Fukushima and the risks associated with a nuclear meltdown. This causes people to write of nuclear power as dangerous and not worth it. However, this couldn't be further from the truth. In reality, nuclear meltdowns, especially ones that end up doing any harm, are incredibly rare.

Apart from Chernobyl, no nuclear workers or members of the public have ever died as a result of exposure to radiation due to a commercial nuclear reactor incident. Most of the serious radiological injuries and deaths that occur each year (2-4 deaths and many more exposures above regulatory limits) are the result of large uncontrolled radiation sources, such as abandoned medical or industrial equipment. (There have also been a number of accidents in experimental reactors and in one military plutonium-producing pile - at Windscale, UK, in 1957 - but none of these resulted in loss of life outside the actual plant, or long-term environmental contamination.

There have been two major reactor accidents in the history of civil nuclear power - Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi. Chernobyl involved an intense fire without provision for containment, and Fukushima Daiichi severely tested the containment, allowing some release of radioactivity. These are the only major accidents to have occurred in over 18,500 cumulative reactor-years of commercial nuclear power operation in 36 countries. [1] 2 major accidents in 18,500 reactor-years is incredibly low. Imagine if there was a single reactor built. If that had the same probability of meltdown as the average of all nuclear reactors so far, it would take 9,250 years for an accident to occur. The pyramids were built 4,691 years ago. If the Egyptians had built a modern nuclear reactor, it would likely still not have experienced a meltdown, and wouldn't for another 4,559 years. The FAA estimates there to be 25,506,000 flight hours per year [20]. In 2019 there were 86 plane crashes [21]. This works out to be around 3.37176 crashes per million flight hours. Comparatively, in total there have been 162,060,000 reactor hours and 2 main accidents. This works out to be 0.01234 accidents per million reactor hours or 273.24 times less likely for an accident to occur from a nuclear reactor than a plane per operating hour. Nuclear plants are similar to plane crashes in the way that they are incredibly rare, and therefore every accident sees major coverage. Just as you hear about every plane crash but not every car crash and therefore planes seem less safe than they are, you hear about every nuclear reactor accident but not every person who dies from fossil-fuel related pollution, or other deaths involved in the production of non-renewable energy, therefore making nuclear power seem less safe. Furthermore, the probability of a nuclear meltdown occurring is much higher when you include accidents, such as Chernobyl, which occurred in the 1980s, when safety was not as prioritised and therefore skews the current probability of a nuclear accident. It would be like including accidents from back in the 40s when assessing the probability of a plane crash nowadays. However, due to the low number of nuclear power plants and exceptionally low number of accidents, a more accurate figure is difficult to calculate. However, the risk of any nuclear accident occurring today is incredibly low.

Additionally, accidents are far from the only way producing power kills people. Air pollution, which largely comes from fossil fuels, kills over 5 million people a year, contributing to 9% of global deaths, and making it 4th highest contributor to deaths a year [2]. When you compare 5 million a year to the approximate 5,000 deaths overall from nuclear energy, the deaths from nuclear power seem incredibly low. Whilst obviously we must strive to reach 0 deaths, this is impossible with current technology. Air pollution resulting directly from fossil fuels is estimated to cause 4.5 million premature deaths a year [3]. The total electricity generation from fossil fuels is approximately 136,761TWh per year [4]. Given that (including accidents) nuclear power causes 0.07 deaths per TWh [1], if you replaced all fossil fuel electricity generation with nuclear power, approximately 9,573 people would die a year from all nuclear power related causes (mining, accidents, etc). This means that approximately 4.5 million people a year would not die that would have died had fossil fuels been used. That means that despite nuclear power being heavily opposed by the general public [5], the use of nuclear power would actively save millions of lives a year.

That brings us on to our next point. You may have looked at the safety graph and are thinking "well solar only kills 0.02 people/TWh and wind is only 0.04/TWh, compared to 0.07/TWh [1] - so why would we use nuclear? Why not just use solar and wind, after all, they kill less people." However, scaling up to a planetary (or even country-wide) level is really where ordinary renewables start to fail.

Solar and wind power alone can't scale up fast enough to generate the vast amounts of electricity that will be needed by midcentury, especially as we convert car engines and the like from fossil fuels to carbon-free energy sources. Even Germany's concerted recent effort to add renewables-the most ambitious national effort so far-was nowhere near fast enough. A global increase in renewables at a rate matching Germany's peak success would add about 0.7 trillion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity every year. That's just over a fifth of the necessary 3.3 trillion annual target.

To put it another way, even if the world were as enthusiastic and technically capable as Germany at the height of its renewables buildup-and neither of these is even close to true in the great majority of countries-decarbonizing the world at that rate would take nearly 150 years. [6] The storage of all the renewable power would also be an issue Bill Gates, who has invested $1 billion in renewables, notes that "there's no battery technology that's even close to allowing us to take all of our energy from renewables." [6] Our analysis demonstrates that realising nuclear energy's potential is essential to achieving a deeply decarbonised energy future in many regions of the world [7] While we are installing renewables at record speeds, at the same time the amount of fossil fuels we're burning for electricity still keeps rising year by year. Renewables have, so far, not been able to catch up with the demand for new electricity and so despite our progress, emissions from electricity are still rising world wide. [8] It becomes rather clear when you look at Germany, which has been actively removing nuclear power plants. Despite building huge amounts of renewable plants, they still get 49.5% of their energy from non-renewable sources [9]. Compare that to countries like "France and Sweden: In France, only around 10% comes from fossil fuels, while 67% comes from nuclear and 23% from renewables, primarily hydro [10]. In Sweden almost 30% comes from nuclear power, and almost 45% from hydro [11]. So we know that nuclear energy can work at scale."[12]. These countries clearly show how nuclear can be used alongside renewables to get the maximum benefit of both. Renewables on their own are not enough to power the entire grid, as they have periods where they must go offline. For example, wind and solar can only produce maximum power for 35.4% and 24.9% of the year respectively [13]. This means that the other 65+% of the time, energy must be taken out of batteries if we were to just use wind and solar. This is not feasible. However, compare those percentages to the incredibly high 92.5% of the year where nuclear power plants can produce maximum power [13]. Therefore, by having both nuclear and other renewables, nuclear can easily supplement the power generation when other renewables cannot. The only other power source close to nuclear's capacity factor is geothermal (74.3% [13]) however, that is not a feasible method of energy generation in most countries. Furthermore, nuclear plants are incredibly efficient. It is estimated that 1 pound of uranium can provide as much energy as 5,000 barrels of oil [24]. Regardless of how safe you believe nuclear power plants to be, if you want to stop climate change by powering the grid cleanly, they must be used.

When people think of nuclear reactors and the downsides, nuclear waste is a very common thing to be cited. However, 97% of the waste is low or intermediate level waste (90% and 7% respectively) and storage of it is not much of an issue [14]. The idea that we don't have any idea of what to do with the remaining 3% is untrue, "Safe methods for the final disposal of high-level radioactive waste are technically proven; the international consensus is that geological disposal is the best option."[15] "The concept of final storage in deep geological formations has become established as a means of safe radwaste management in order to ensure lasting protection against radioactive waste for people and for the environment. This method allows the radioactive waste to be kept away from human living environments in the long term - i.e. for many millennia." [16] "There is a common solution to the challenges of ensuring long term safety for spent fuel and of preventing weapon grade materials being illegally diverted and misused. Deep geologic repositories are the answer. The paper describes the specific engineering, geological, hydrogeological and geotechnical challenges involved at each phase in the development of a geologic repository." [17] In the incredibly rare scenario where there has been a leak, it has not caused any significant harm. In 2014 a leak was detected in a repository in New Mexico. 13 workers tested positive for radiation and even though every radiation level above zero is worth investigating, the radiation exposure was ten times less radiation than that delivered during a typical chest X-ray. [17] It is clear that safe storage of nuclear waste is not much of a problem, with the only issue being with potentially the amount of space it takes up, however, currently the amount of high level waste is "12,000 tonnes worldwide every year, which is the equivalent of a two-storey structure built on a basketball court or about 100 double-decker buses and is modest compared with other industrial wastes."[14]. A lot of this HLW can be reprocessed "As of 2013 approximately 370,000 tons have been generated worldwide since the first reactor was connected to the grid, of which roughly one third (124,000 tons) has been reprocessed" [18]. For example, "In France, where fuel is reprocessed, just 0.2% of all radioactive waste by volume is classified as high-level waste (HLW)" [15]. Additionally nuclear recycling [22] exists and could possibly be used to further reduce nuclear waste. However, costs for such reactors are high, and engineers in that area are rare. Additionally, there are fears about the plutonium created being used for weapons (although such a thing being successfully carried out is very unlikely) [23].

Despite the many recent breakthroughs in nuclear fusion [25][26] nuclear fusion is still likely at least 5 years away from reaching net energy output, and like 20 years away from feasibly being able to use it to power the entire grid. Whilst I wholeheartedly support the advent of nuclear fusion technology and development, and believe once it powers the entire grid we should start retiring nuclear fission plants. However, we cannot just hope that nuclear fusion or some other magic technology will swoop in and save us from climate change at the last second. We have already gone past the point of no return - at this stage we are simply attempting damage mitigation really

Many changes due to past and future greenhouse gas emissions are irreversible for centuries to millennia, especially changes in the ocean, ice sheets and global sea level. [27] Nuclear fission reactors are here now. They work. They can feasibly stop the effects of climate change. However, we must act now. We must stop decommissioning nuclear plants early, and try to rapidly build new ones. It is a race against time. As I have mentioned previously, renewables alone will not be enough. And I'm not going to argue that we should go entirely nuclear either. What we need is a mix of both. I have shown that nuclear power is safe, effective, and necessary. If we want to stop climate change, we cannot shy away from using one of the most powerful tools we have. Thank you for reading.

If you found this article changed your mind, or even perhaps just put you on the fence about nuclear energy, please share it or even just a summary of the points here, or in any of the sources listed, on any sort of platform you may have a following on. We must change the public perception of nuclear power for the better. We must save lives by reducing air pollution. We must save the planet. It is an immense challenge and we need as much public support of viable climate change prevention methods as possible.

If you have any questions or issues regarding this article, feel free to contact me at [email protected] and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.

13/09/21

Tags: Tech

I will not be going into much detail about the recent controversy about Protonmail, as that has already been discussed in detail. If you are interested, I'd recommend this article or this video. Instead I will be covering a more general view of all encrypted email providers.

Firstly, in case you don't know, there are several encrypted email providers (protonmail, tutanota, etc). These claim to be a way to access email privately thanks to encryption. Whilst most regular email providers (gmail, yahoo, etc) can read all your emails stored on their servers (which they do, so they can sell your data to advertisers), encrypted email providers claim to not have this capability. This claim of how all emails are encrypted and unaccessable by the providers has lead some (as happened in this case) to believe they are a good method of conversing privately and anonymously. This is a dangerous misconception.

Email is an inherantly non-private and non-anonymous method of communication. Email requires IP addresses (which can possibly be traced back to you unless you're using tor or a vpn). Also, whilst the contents and attachments can be encrypted, the subject line, data, IPs, etc, cannot. This means whilst you may think you are safe and everything's encrypted, if your subject line is something like "[X corporation] whistleblower documents" it makes it pretty easy to figure out what the contents might be. Email was never meant to be secure or private, and as much as some providers may try to change that, there will always be issues with making it 100% secure.

However, that is not to say don't use encrypted email providers. There are legitimate uses, but first you must assess your threat model. If you're like most people, you won't be worried about governments or large corporations coming after you. Instead, perhaps you want to just use encrypted email because you don't like Google looking through all your messages, or don't like the amount of info required to create an email address, or want to make new accounts privately without a domestic abuser or the like seeing. All these are perfectly reasonable examples of use cases for using encrypted email providers, and I'd even recommend doing so. For the average person, an encrypted email will work fine and helps with some basic privacy concerns (make sure you do know exactly what encrypted email can and cannot do though).

However, if you are a whistleblower, or activist, or criminal, or anything where either the government or powerful corporations may be after you - encrypted mail will not be good enough. Because of the forementioned in-built email privacy problems, no matter how much they try, your provider will be much likely to either fuck up and leave a security flaw in, or simply hand your information over to the government upon request. If you wish to communicate anonymously I'd recommend either signal, pidgin, or dino, as well as using Tor and Tails. These platforms actually provide the encryption and privacy that email cannot. However, always do your research when your threat level is this high. Make sure you understand the limits of this kind of software. It is possible that there are security flaws that will be uncovered after the time of writing or ones I have simply not heard about. Always do proper research. Do not throw caution to the wind.

09/09/21

Firstly, just to cover some basic stuff - A window manager (WM) is something that manages all the open windows on your screen. A desktop environment (DE) is something that usually includes a window manager but also comes with extra software and utilities. For example, if you're familiar with linux, you'll probably know of KDE Plasma. This is a DE which has a normal, non-tiling WM and also includes software such as Kate and Konsole, etc. A non tiling WM (such as the one on windows, mac, and most linux distros such as gnome and kde plasma) will open non full screen windows in a random place on the screen, and when you have multiple windows you have to manually move them next to each other if you want to see them at the same time. Whilst most WMs do have alternate desktops, they aren't really a prioritised feature. With a tiling WM when you open a window on a new desktop, it will automatically fill the entire screen, and when you open another window both take up half the screen, and then the screen splits again with a third window. All the windows on the desktop remain visible.

I find that much more convenient. If you want an app to remain full screen, you can throw it over to its own desktop, and if you want to quickly open a terminal or other app, it makes far more sense to split the screen so both are visible. I personally use the terminal a lot, and the ability to quickly open it, be able to type out a command from another window, and then close it again and have the other window full screen again is fantastic. It renders using the mouse unnecessary when it comes to moving and resizing windows. Everything can be done from the keyboard, and everything happens in a way you'd expect. For me at least, this leads to a much more efficient workflow and a nicer computer experience in general.

I honestly have no idea why non-tiling window managers are standard. They just don't really make sense. Why just open a window in a random place when itcan instead be put in a proper place. There's a tiny learning curve at the beginning but once you pass that, you'll probably come to prefer it.

09/09/21

In case you are not from Ireland, the Leaving Cert(ificate) is the exam system that determines which uni we can get into. Rather than having a GPA via continual assessments or any sort of entrance exam or letter of application we simply have one set of exams. There are obviously other exams (such as the christmas and summer exams in other years), however, the Leaving Cert exam is the only one that matters.

When you take a subject you can either do ordinary or higher level. Ordinary level is easier but rewards less points, and higher level is more difficult, but rewards more points. A H1 is worth 100 points (except for HL maths which is 125) and is given if you get between 90 and 100%. A H2 is 88 points and 80-90% and so on. An O1 is 90-100% in an ordinary level subject but only 56 points. There are some weird changes to the system when it comes to medicine but I won't get into that right now. Universities award places based solely on the points you receive. This leads into the first problem.

Whilst the education experience is a multi year process (6 years in secondary school in our case), what determines your uni course is a single event, often just a single week out of many years of learning. This is insanity and leads to so many obvious problems. A person could be getting H1s throughout the year and forgot to study just one topic and end up with a H3 in the leaving cert at the end, and a H3 student could get lucky and study a topic that happens to come up and get a H1. Even a single grade can be the difference between getting into the uni you want and losing out. The leaving cert does not measure you abilities as a student, your effort, or even sometimes your ability. The leaving cert measures your memory and how well you can perform on the day. You getting 100% in every single subject for the past 6 years and a family member dies a few days before the exams and it absolutely ruins your mental state? Too bad. In the eyes of the university you are not a good enough student. You are a perfect student but got a bit nervous and stayed up a bit late the night before to get some extra study in and are tired the next day? Too bad. You've been getting 625 in every set of mock tests but on the day your mind goes blank with the incredible stress, the knowledge that one test will determine the rest of your life? Too. Bad. There are no exceptions to the hand of the points system and claw of bad luck. You cannot explain to the uni. They. Will. Not. Care. Nothing else is taken into account. Students will have bad days. That's just life, we're all human. However that must be accounted for. Nobody should miss out on their life's dream because of a single day. That is absolutely absurd.

When you ask someone what education is about t. There is a filter type system for different categories of posts and all that, so if you're interested in what I have to say, I'd recommend going there for the better experience. I also have no fucking clue how to use tumblr sof you ask them what the leaving cert is about they will say it's about getting into uni. Clearly there is a disconnect here. Where has education become so distorted that now it is nothing more than a way for universities to quickly and easily judge us? Education must be about teaching children, not for some uni test, but simply so they can become more knowledgeable, so they can get a thirst for information, so they can locate their strengths and weaknesses, so future generations can live better lives than we will. University selections must be nothing more than an afterthought. It is even worse when the leaving cert is a horrendously stressful system. We put ourselves through sometimes 6 years of stress and bad quality of mental health to make it easier for universities??? What a ridiculous idea.

The leaving cert isn't even a fair way to judge students. Here, I'll be able to determine how good you're likely to do in the leaving cert with two simple questions. Do you have a good memory? Are you good at maths? If you answered yes to both, the chances of you doing well are very high and if you answered no to both - well - the chances aren't quite as good. A huge amount of the leaving cert is simply a memory test. I know the state will talk constantly about how rote learning is discouraged and all that, but realistically that's not the case. Take for example the English paper. You get to know which poets might come and which poems you can use before the exam. This mean your teacher can simply write you a good sample answer and if you can remember it, that's at least a H2 for that part of the exam. And as for being good at maths - if you're good at maths you already have 3 subjects which you can say with reasonable certainty you will be good at - maths, physics, and applied maths. Students who aren't good at maths have nothing like this unless they are fluent in several languages. A big problem when you arises most of the non maths subjects are based on memory, and the ones not based on memory are based on maths. History? Memorising essays. Irish? Memorising poems. Biology? A lot of memorising. Physics? A lot of maths. Accounting? A lot of memorising. This continues throughout basically all the exam subjects, with only maybe one or two exceptions. I know someone who hasn't even started 5th year, and yet they already know they're screwed and have basically given up on their first choice course because they have dyscalculia and a terrible memory. They can try as hard as they want, study as hard as they can, but realistically, they aren't going to come close to someone with a good memory and are good at maths who put in the bare minimum effort. It's bizarre too, given the amount of jobs that don't require either maths or a good memory.

The subjects you can study in the leaving cert is also extremely limited. You have to study Irish, English, Maths, and a third language. In public schools you then basically have the option of History, Geography, Accounting, Business, Economics, Art, Music, Religion, Chemistry, Biology, Physics and DCG. There are no electives to try out things similar to careers you might be interested or anything like that. Now those that plan to go into business will be happy I'm sure, however, for most other people, the subjects have very little in common with the career you want to do. You're doing law? I suppose a business subject might somewhat help??? You're doing computer science? Maths is kinda related. Medicine? Biology sure, perhaps a little bit of chemistry? But at most 2 out of your 6 subjects will actually be any way relevant to your career. To make it even worse, public schools have subjects in blocks. This means there will 3 blocks of subjects and you pick one from each block. You're super good at both physics, chemistry, and business? Well too bad, there's a very high chance you won't get to study all 3, and you'll have to pick up geography or some other subject you have no interest in. In some cases all 3 of the subjects you like may be in the same block, meaning you'll have to pick up 2 subjects you have no interest in and will likely be worse at. Once again, simple luck plays a huge part in the leaving cert. Going into 5th year, the subjects you're allowed pick will likely change your eventual points by around 30 or possibly more. Furthermore, private schools provide a massive advantage, often with your chance of getting good grades being around 4 times higher. You were born with well off parents? Congrats, here's an extra 100 points have fun. Absolute insanity. The leaving cert is really just determined by luck every way you look at it. Now obviously luck plays a part in everyday life too, but the leaving cert basically caters to the lucky, and a whole lot could be done to reduce the benefit they have based on luck alone, rather than quality of character, or time studied, or effort put in, etc.