Satellite data plus artificial intelligence equals no place to hide.
A nonprofit artificial intelligence firm called WattTime is going to use satellite imagery to precisely track the air pollution (including carbon emissions) coming out of every single power plant in the world, in real time. And it’s going to make the data public.
This is a very big deal. Poor monitoring and gaming of emissions data have made it difficult to enforce pollution restrictions on power plants.
According to the latest State of Global Air report, air pollution is the fifth greatest global mortality risk. It causes 5 million early deaths and 147 million years of healthy life lost, every year, and the countries building the most power plants are experiencing the most air pollution. Their citizens have the most on the line. And now they’ll be armed with information.
Here in the US, where coal-fired power plants are big money-losers, this information will help activists target them and their corporate owners with regulatory authorities for quicker closure.
Of course, the usual suspects are targeting them for massive consumer-funded bailouts.
Feb 21, 2020 - Indiana has 16 coal-fired power generating stations. Each can produce at least one megawatt of electricity.
“Really what's happening is the economics of the whole power business have changed so much that generating power by coal is just not the cheapest way to go, by a long shot,” Childs says. “So really, it's just sheer economics have really caught up with Merom. And really, it's catching up or has caught up with virtually every coal plant in the country.”
This satellite data analysis works even for plants that you can't get to.
The platform leverage data that informs us about the kind of energy it is powering and how carbon-intensive it is. WattTime has an AI-based Automatic Emissions Reduction (AER) software, which lets any smart device automatically shift power to moments of clean energy, without any negative impact on the end-user.
This is particularly valuable in conjunction with home storage, which could be in a Tesla or other wall unit, or in your electric car.
Vox again:
The plan is to use data from satellites that make theirs publicly available (like the European Union’s Copernicus network and the US Landsat network), as well as data from a few private companies that charge for their data (like Digital Globe). The data will come from a variety of sensors operating at different wavelengths, including thermal infrared that can detect heat.
The images will be processed by various algorithms to detect signs of emissions. It has already been demonstrated that a great deal of pollution can be tracked simply through identifying visible smoke. WattTime says it can also use infrared imaging to identify heat from smokestack plumes or cooling-water discharge. Sensors that can directly track NO2 emissions are in development, according to WattTime executive director Gavin McCormick.
Between visible smoke, heat, and NO2, WattTime will be able to derive exact, real-time emissions information, including information on carbon emissions, for every power plant in the world. (McCormick says the data may also be used to derive information about water pollutants like nitrates or mercury.)
Google.org, Google’s philanthropic wing, is getting the project off the ground (pardon the pun) with a $1.7 million grant; it was selected through the Google AI Impact Challenge.
WattTime [is] a nonprofit that is now a subsidiary of the Rocky Mountain Institute.
Dec 26, 2016 - Real-time algorithms from WattTime, the Berkeley-based nonprofit that McCormick cofounded and runs, are telling electric vehicle owners when to charge to minimize their carbon footprints and predicting which renewable power projects will deliver the biggest CO2 emissions.
WattTime | DRK Foundation
Clean, renewable energy has become a significant source of electricity in the US and worldwide. But due to weather patterns, renewables supply does not always line up with the demand for electricity. This causes massive amounts of renewable energy to go to waste each day — at times, California wastes enough renewable energy to power Arizona. With no way (yet) to store energy at scale, across the world we fire up polluting coal and gas plants to compensate when demand exceeds renewables supply, contributing to the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change.
At the same time, about 70% of energy consumed worldwide could be shifted to a different time without impacting efficacy (e.g., charging batteries, refrigeration, or heating a house). WattTime provides groundbreaking Automated Emissions Reduction (AER) software, which works by detecting specific moments when using electricity won’t activate highly-emitting power plants, and automatically syncing electricity-consuming devices to use energy at those specific moments. It’s compatible with anything that uses electricity and has an Internet connection: from smartphones to thermostats, electric vehicles to industrial HVAC. WattTime immediately reduces greenhouse gas emissions by shifting demand from dirty to clean energy; in the longer term, deploying WattTime en masse across multiple device segments can shift the entire demand curve for renewable energy, driving better economics for renewables overall and, in turn, a faster shift to clean energy.
We know some likely answers to the waste in California, including battery storage and cracking water for hydrogen. Now we see that the smart grid can also adapt to availability, with the help of WattTime.
Connect your WattTime to TP-Link Kasa, WeMo Insight Switch and more.
When your refrigerator runs or your AC turns on, some power plant or wind-farm or solar plant somewhere will increase their power output to supply the power your device needs. WattTime can determine which energy provider will increase output to supply your need, and so can determine if extra power you use a given moment will come from a renewable or high-carbon-emissions source. This information changes very often (on the order of every five minutes) so having a real-time service like WattTime to inform your devices WHEN to use power can allow you to use the same amount of electricity but dramatically reduce your carbon footprint!
That's the first-order effect. However, if a lot of consumers switch to renewables at the same time, that could trigger more polluting plants to come on line, in a second-order effect. So users may have to take turns.
The net result should be better usage of renewables, with less power spilled because it can't be used when it is generated, and we don't have enough storage yet. See California above.