Hosting this year’s UN climate summit, the United Arab Emirates ranks third in the world in terms of zero plans to expand oil and gas production, according to The Guardian. His plans were surpassed only by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The CEO of UAE national oil company Adnoc has been named president of December’s UN Cop28 summit, seen as crucial as time is running out to end the climate crisis. But Sultan Al Jaber is overseeing an expansion in oil and gas production equivalent to 7.5 billion barrels of oil, according to new data, 90% of which must remain in the ground to meet the net zero scenario set by the International Energy Agency.
Adnoc is the 11th largest oil and gas producer in the world and delivered over a billion barrels of oil equivalent (BBOE) in 2021. However, new analysis shows the company has big short-term expansion plans, with plans to add 7.6 BBOE to production. its manufacturing portfolio in the coming years is the fifth largest increase in the world.
The data was prepared for the Guardian by the German NGO Urgewald. Gogel database. This is based on data from Rystad Energy, a standard industry source but not available to the public, accessed in September 2022.
in November 2022, Adnoc announces $150 billion investment within five years to provide a “fast-growth strategy” for oil and gas production. Independent experts rate the UAE’s climate goals and policies as “grossly inadequate”. The UN Secretary-General recently called “termination [of] all licensing or financing of new oil and gas.”
Al Jaber’s recent statements are also hard to align with Adnoc’s huge oil and gas plans. At the Road to Cop28 conference in Dubai on March 15, Al Jaber said: “We [the world] must cut emissions quickly.” The next day, at an International Energy Agency roundtable, he said, “Oil and gas companies need to level off around net zero.” In February, Al Jaber said: “We in the UAE are not shying away from the energy transition. We run to him.”
As little as 10% of the Adnoc expansion is compatible with the IEA’s scenario of zero carbon emissions by 2050. The IEA has stated that the 2050 target requires no new oil and gas projects must be approved after 2021, but 90% of the oil and gas expansion planned by Adnoc has been advanced after that date and must remain in the ground to be compatible.
Thus, Adnoc’s “exit” from the IEA zero scenario is 6.8 billion BBOE, which is the third largest figure in the world. Saudi Aramco has the largest cost overrun with 11.4 billion boe, while QatarEnergy comes in second with 7.6 billion boe.
Short-term expansion plans included in the analysis include fields where production and operation plans are being developed, a final investment decision has been made, or wells are being drilled prior to production. Fields in these categories typically start producing oil and gas within seven years. The Gogel database includes 901 oil and gas exploration and production companies and covers 97% of short-term expansion plans.
Some of the largest developments that do not meet the IEA’s zero-emissions scenario will come from the Upper Zakum project off the coast of the UAE. Adnok describes expansion of production at the Upper Zakum field as a “megaproject” and “the second largest offshore oil field in the world”. It involves “the construction of four artificial islands in shallow waters.” [which] can accommodate 450 wells, 90 platforms, as well as drilling rigs, processing facilities and infrastructure,” said Adnock.
Climate Action Tracker independent experts concluded that the UAE’s plans to increase the use of fossil fuels are not consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C and rate UAE climate goals and policies as ‘grossly inadequate’. Recent main report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, endorsed by governments around the world, warned that carbon emissions from the world’s existing fossil fuel burning projects alone would be enough to push the climate past the 1.5°C mark.
Nils Bartsch of Urgewald said: “The new data shows that the appointment of Sultan al-Jaber as president of Cop28 is a mockery of the police as an institution. The appointment of the head of the oil and gas industry as the president of the police department shows a complete lack of understanding of the problems. This is a fatal political signal to the world.”
“The climate emergency calls for action, not words,” said Tasnim Essop, executive director of the International Climate Change Action Network. “While Al Jaber called for bold action to stay below 1.5°C, his deeds do not match his rhetoric. His controversial role as CEO of Adnoc begs the question: is Al Jaber able to play an objective role in achieving an ambitious Cop28 result that makes it clear that there can be no new fossil fuel projects?”
Essop and other campaignerscalled Al Jaber resign from his Adnoc role, with some comparing his chairmanship of Cop28 to “putting the head of a tobacco company in charge of negotiating a smoke-free agreement.” Others involved in the UN climate talks have been less outspoken, given that they are likely to have to work with Al Jaber in the future.
Lawrence Toubiana, a former French diplomat and lead author of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, said: “All countries and energy companies must heed the warnings of the IEA and the IPCC or they risk jeopardizing decades of diplomatic efforts, as well as our collective security in this planet. .
“The Cop28 presidency has a huge responsibility to show the way to bridge the gap between the Paris targets and today’s insufficient climate plans,” she said. “As a major oil exporter, the UAE has a chance to showcase what post-fossil leadership looks like.”
Christiana Figueres, a senior UN climate official, said when the Paris agreement was signed: “We know that the UAE economy is based on hydrocarbons, and we also know that there is no room for new fossil fuels right now. While this is not easy for Dr. Sultan, it is important that the president of every police officer be guided by science and I hope the UAE seizes the leadership opportunity this presents.”
An Adnoc spokesman said: “The world needs a diverse set of solutions to accelerate the energy transition while ensuring sustainable economic development and meeting growing global energy demand. With the world population expected to grow to over 8.5 billion by 2030, we are investing in capacity to meet future demand with the lowest carbon barrels.
“Adnoc will remain a responsible and reliable energy supplier, a laser focused on reducing the carbon intensity of every barrel produced, and will continue to contribute to reducing global emissions through its expansion into new energy sources,” the spokesman said. The carbon intensity of an oil or gas is CO2 unit emissions from fuel production and does not include much larger emissions from fuel combustion.
Al Jaber is also the UAE Special Envoy for Climate Change but did not receive a response to a request for comment. He is also the founding CEO Masdar, a state-owned renewable energy company. The company says it is one of the largest developers of renewable energy projects in the world and has invested more than $30bn (£24.2bn) since 2006, mostly in solar and wind energy projects.
Alden Meyer of the E3G think tank, who has been present at UN climate talks since they began in 1991, said that Al Jaber’s presidency of Cop28 and the CEO’s role of Adnoc “clearly creates a conflict of interest.” Meyer said: “Perhaps Dr. Al Jaber is positioned as the one who will finally push the oil and gas industry to [clean energy] transition. But I’m skeptical.”
Typical spacecraft orbiting the Earth are not very far away. They are only a few hundred miles above our heads. So, when it’s time to get back to solid ground, it’s a relatively short trip.
However, spacecraft and similar objects in orbit also move at exceptionally high speeds. We’re talking about 17,000 miles per hour for a satellite or spacecraft in low Earth orbit, and even faster for higher orbits.
Together, these two factors create a dilemma – and a lot of problems – when bringing spacecraft to Earth: how to reduce the speed of an object from 17,000 miles per hour (or about 283 miles per minute) to 0 miles per hour in a relatively short time? a couple hundred miles away?
Parachute variant
One solution is to use parachutes.
Returning spacecraft do deploy a few parachutes to help slow them down, but only on the last stretch of high-speed travel.
This is because parachutes work best closer to the ground where the air density is greater than in the thin air at extreme altitudes. So supersonic speeds are serious problems for skydiversand physicists are still trying to predict and control these dynamics.
So while they’re great for the last leg of the return journey, parachutes aren’t the typical best means of eliminating much of the spacecraft’s excess speed.
What about missiles?
Theoretically, we could use rockets to slow down the plane. After all, rockets are great for launching things into space, so why not use them for the descent phase as well?
The problem here is twofold.
first, rockets are very heavy – giant shells weighing up to hundreds of thousands of kilograms. In fact, to cope with this extra weight and size, most space shuttles jettison your massive rocket engines a few minutes after a successful launch.
Secondly, rockets need a lot of fuel to power them. To use the rockets on the way back, you’ll have to lug them along with extra tanks of fuel throughout the entire space flight.
Given how difficult it is to launch items into space, and how the current strategy is to jettison fuel tanks after launch, adding extra weight and capacity is neither practical nor logical for the mission.
Read more: The biggest space missions to look forward to in 2023
Earth’s atmosphere as a brake
So what about forces outside the spacecraft? This train of thought leads us to Earth’s atmosphere, which NASA has described as “jacket for our planet”.
The first person to think of this force as an advantage in re-entry was rocketry pioneer Robert Goddard.
Goddard observed that meteorites survive their passage through the atmosphere, releasing enormous amounts of heat in the process while keeping the interior cool.
After traveling through the atmosphere, meteorites seem to slow down enough that they don’t disappear when they hit the ground. Perhaps people could do the same.
In the case of a spacecraft, a collision with our atmosphere at over 10,000 miles per hour could slow the object down by the price of excessive heat.
This heat, over 4500 degrees Fahrenheit on some missions, comes from spaceship friction colliding with the more compressed air of the earth’s atmosphere compared to the vacuum of space.
Individual spacecraft and flight path
If you design your spacecraft correctly, it can slow down enough without frying the astronauts inside it and safely deploy the parachutes before landing on Earth. This success required a lot of work.
To begin with, specialists had to design heat shields that could withstand reentry temperatures. In addition, flight paths are now designed for missions so that spacecraft loop around the Earth as they descend, ensuring they spend long enough in the atmosphere to slow down enough.
Ironically, we don’t have this tool (or task, depending on how you look at it) with missions to the Moon or Mars because they don’t have a significant atmosphere.
This means that we take rockets and propellant with us to land in these other places, which is one of the many reasons landing missions on other worlds are much more difficult.
Read more: Skycrane: how NASA’s Perseverance rover will land on the Red Planet
AMD Ryzen 7000 processors are great, but they require new motherboards compared to older processors, which means additional upgrade costs. The cheapest B650 motherboards can cost as little as $200. If you don’t want all the bells and whistles, the new A620 motherboards are AMD’s latest budget option.
The A620 chipset joins the B650/B650E and X670/X670E chipsets as AMD’s current generation motherboards, with the A620 chipset being the lowest of the three. Although they are junior, they support all the key features supported by AMD’s new line of chips, including socket AM5 as well as DDR5 RAM. However, it leaves out some features.
Introducing the AMD A620 Chipset, enabling users to harness the power of the Ryzen 7000 series processors with the features and performance of the AM5 platform. To learn more: https://t.co/jjmD35qMGmpic.twitter.com/10y3h7n5zp
First, there is no PCIe Gen 5 support, instead opting for the older but still fast and reliable PCIe Gen 4. It also has a maximum of four SATA connections and up to 32 PCIe lanes, of which you have one 16x slot for your graphics card and an m.2 slot for a single NVMe PCIe 4 SSD. It also does not support CPU overclocking, though RAM overclocking via AMD EXPO is still possible.
Despite their shortcomings, A620 motherboards can use the full potential of Ryzen 7000 processors. These motherboards are suitable for both an office PC and an inexpensive gaming PC. The motherboard itself doesn’t have much of an impact on performance, but you may be missing some features found on more expensive models, so some people may prefer a B650 or X670 motherboard. However, this is quite normal.
We can expect the A620 motherboards to hit store shelves in the next few weeks.
Take a walk in your backyard or walk along a stream, and chances are you’ll see snails, small soft animals with shells on their backs.
Snails are found in water, whether it be salty oceans, rivers or lakes. They are also on land: in forests, in meadows and even in your garden.
As you explore your yard or forest, you may also encounter slugs, slow-moving animals related to snails. They also look like them, except that slugs do not have shells.
You can find slugs not only on sidewalks or on plants in the park, but also in our oceans.
In total, about 240,000 species of snails and slugs live in the world. But no matter what continent they are on or what ocean they are in, they all have one thing in common: they move slowly.
Here is an example of how slow they are: Snail Racing World Championshipheld in the United Kingdom, pits the fastest snails against each other in foot races.
Fastest snail with record speed over a distance of 0.06 mph.
Or, to put it another way, if you were that slow, it would take you about three minutes to move a piece of food from your plate to your mouth.
Snails and slugs belong to a large group related animals known as molluscswhich also includes shellfish, oysters, squid and octopus.
Among molluscs, there is a smaller set of related animals called gastropods; this includes snails and slugs.
Because they live in such different places, different gastropods have evolved to eat almost every type of food. Some species are herbivores – they eat living plants. Some of them are detritivores – they feed on dead or decaying plants. Others are carnivores or scavengers – they eat other animals.
Reasons for slowness
The lack of speed of snails and slugs can be explained by at least three factors: how they move, what they eat, and who eats them.
First, while some animals fly, jump, or glide, snails and slugs move by what biologists callforefoot“. But the word “leg” here can be confusing. The foot of a snail or slug is nothing like a human foot.
Instead, it is a band of muscle that runs along the underside of their body and is covered in sticky mucus. When contracted, this muscle pulsates, sending tiny waves from the animal’s tail to its head. These waves compress the mucus on the sole of the foot into a slippery liquid, allowing the snail or slug to glide across the ground or climb plants.
This is a unique mode of locomotion and makes snails and slugs move slowly because their speed is limited by the amount of leg contractions and the amount of mucus they secrete.
And snails and slugs do not need to rush in search of food anyway.
Many animals, especially predators, must move quickly to catch food; for example, a cheetah needs to run away from a gazelle. But most slugs and snails feed on plants, decaying matter, or marine animals. like spongesthat are fixed in place. No one is moving much, so dinner isn’t going anywhere – take your time.
Dealing with Predators
Snails and slugs also don’t need to be fast to avoid predators. They have developed other ways to evade mice, birds, shrews. and other enemies.
Typically, snails are locked in shells to hide until a predator has passed.
Land slugs hide in plain sight. Most of them are shades of grey, tan or tan and blend well with their surroundings. Predators simply do not notice them. They also have an extra layer of protection. Land slugs are covered in a sticky slime-like mucus that lubricates their movements. But this version is so sticky that it can stick predators’ mouths together and make chewing difficult. Not to mention the fact that most predators are unlikely to like this slime.
In contrast, sea slugs are often easy to see because they are colorful. But these bright colors signal to predators that they should stay away because slugs are protected by an unpleasant-tasting venom.
Be respectful of snails and slugs
Snails and slugs, no matter how small, contribute greatly to the health of their ecosystems.
Feeding on seeds and young plants, they can control which plants grow in a given area. By eating decaying matter, they help recycle nutrients that growing plants can use. And, despite all efforts, snails and slugs often become food for other animals.
So the next time you see a snail or slug dangling from a plant, wobbling around in the yard, or slithering along a concrete sidewalk, stop and watch. Consider its remarkable biology, unique mode of movement and appearance, and the many ways it benefits the environment.
And then let them be. These little animals help our world to work.
This article has been reprinted from Talk under a Creative Commons license. Read original article.
