If billionaires actually cared about saving the planet, they’d pool their vast wealth and buy everyone a heat pump. Instead of burning planet-warming fossil fuels, these appliances extract warmth from even freezing outdoor air and transfer it into a building, thanks to neat tricks of physics. In the summer, they reverse to act like an air-conditioning unit. One recent study found that if everyone in the United States got a heat pump, it’d slash emissions in the building sector by 36 to 64 percent, and cut overall national emissions by 5 to 9 percent. (Because they’re fully electric, heat pumps run on a grid increasingly loaded with renewable energy.)

Not that billionaires would ever have the altruism or desire to buy us all heat pumps—megayachts aren’t going to buy themselves, after all. But if they did, there’d be one critical hurdle they’d run into—the one thing that’s holding heat pumps back from their full potential more generally: There aren’t enough trained workers yet to install them.

“No one talks about supply chain constraints anymore. What is now the bottleneck is actually the installer,” says Philipp Krinner, CEO and cofounder of Arch, a platform that helps HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning) companies manage customers. “In the winter and in the summer—in the peak seasons—when most people actually want to install a system, it’s actually still a contractor-constrained market.”

The result is classic “greenflation,” a temporary rise in the costs associated with decarbonization due to market constraints, says climate economist Gernot Wagner of the Columbia Business School in New York. “Yes, there is a shortage of qualified contractors,” he says. But it’s a good problem to have, he argues, and “one where there’s an obvious solution” on the road to decarbonizing our civilization. It’ll be costly to train more workers in the green economy, but that’ll end up paying huge dividends.

“Electricians get talked about a lot, and used as sort of an avatar for all of the jobs that are going to be needed to install heat pumps and decarbonize the economy,” says Alexandria Herr, senior research associate at Rewiring America, a nonprofit that promotes electrification. “But it’s not just electricians—it’s actually a whole range of different jobs across the construction trades.” Qualified workers are needed to determine what kind of heat pump a home or business requires, to install the things, and then to service them. A heat pump is fundamentally different from a gas-fired furnace, and it requires fundamentally different training.

That would include workers specializing in “weatherization”—better insulating homes so heat pumps get even more efficient. And we’ll need specialists to retrofit the grid so it can smoothly transition to handling the ebb and flow of renewable energy, which is what makes heat pumps so climate-friendly. And we’ll need workers in manufacturing to produce the units themselves.

And we need these people ASAP. Heat pump sales are already outpacing the sale of gas furnaces in the US. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 provides thousands of dollars in tax rebates and credits for households to both switch to a heat pump and pay for the electrical upgrades that may be required to run the appliances. Last year, the Biden administration announced $169 million to supercharge the domestic manufacturing of whole heat pumps and their individual components. And in February, nine states signed a memorandum of understanding to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps.

So the demand is there, as is growing support from the federal and state governments. What’s lagging is the workforce—at least temporarily. And the US is nowhere near alone: Wherever heat pump adoption is growing, more workers need to train up to meet demand. “If you look at a place like, say, Finland, where pretty much all your heating systems are heat pumps, this is not really an issue anymore,” says Jan Rosenow, who studies electrification at the Regulatory Assistance Project, a policy NGO for the energy community. “If you wanted to buy an electric car 10 years ago, it was quite difficult, wasn’t it? Now, you can go to any showroom and you can find them. I think the same is going to be the case with heat pumps. It’s already the case with heat pumps in more mature markets.”

In the US, though, we don’t have some sort of giant, national program to quickly get more people trained in HVAC. “It would just make sense that there would be this path to learn more about heat pumps, and then there would be a whole armed force to go out and install these things,” says Ed Janowiak, manager of HVAC and refrigeration design education at the nonprofit Air Conditioning Contractors of America. “There is such an opportunity right now for people to get in on the ground level. It should not take them very long to make a decent wage at it. And I still sit here at times with my palms in the air as to why it isn’t just automatically happening.”

There isn’t one official pathway in the US for HVAC workers, but several. Trade schools and community colleges provide HVAC training. Trade unions offer apprenticeships, and many HVAC companies run their own training programs to get people into the trade. “The most successful companies right now that are finding these people to install, they’re not necessarily hiring people that are already in the field,” says Janowiak. “But if you look at the number of technicians that go through those programs nationally, versus the demand, it’s just not there. So we need a lot more people.”

For veteran HVAC workers already trained in fossil-fuel systems, like installing gas furnaces, heat pump manufacturers provide their own training to install their products, which is of course in their interest. HVAC companies also do their own heat pump training for established workers, which usually takes two days. If a home has ducting, a heat pump will work similarly to a traditional AC unit, so the installation is nearly identical.

But all these workers don’t just have to be trained, but trained well, lest they inadvertently turn customers off of the energy-efficient appliances just as the heat pump revolution is getting going. If the size of the heat pump doesn’t suit the size of the home, or the ducting within, it won’t be as efficient. If you don’t have ducting, a contractor might recommend a simpler ductless heat pump, which is set into an outside-facing wall. “My biggest hope is that those people who do end up installing these, do get trained wisely,” says Janowiak, “and they do install pieces of equipment that work the way we want them to.”

An added challenge is that the US needs a robust network of training programs all across the country: You can’t have someone remotely install a heat pump, which means we’ll need not just an army of trained workers, but a properly distributed one.

Over in the UK, the energy supplier Octopus Energy has even built two full-scale model houses for workers to train in, one representing modern housing stock and the other older brick stock from the 1960s or 1970s. The company uses the homes to train workers new to the heating industry—it directly employs these folks during the education process, so they get paid—but also to reskill veterans who’ve been installing fossil-fuel systems. “Actually, we don’t really have a skill shortage at all—we just have a set of people that are installing the wrong product,” says John Szymik, CEO of Octopus Energy Services. “We built those [model homes] in order to show people how you’d optimize a rollout for the mass market.”

Working in an older UK home, for instance, technicians need to account for much worse insulation than in a modern home. The size of the home matters, as does the number of occupants and kinds of windows. All that data goes into a calculation that Octopus uses to determine the size of the heat pump. “Those homes are really, really helpful for our surveyors’ understanding of how to go around and measure up,” says Szymik. Then during a heat pump installation in the real world, a newly trained worker would join a crew of more experienced technicians. “What you get there is the opportunity to blend your people that have been working on this for a while, have more experience, with the people that are coming into it fresh with slightly less experience.”

A new breed of heat pumps is also making it possible for some people to skip hiring a trained installer entirely. The ​​New York City Housing Authority, for instance, is deploying units that slip over a window sill and plug into the wall. One of the companies making that type, Gradient, says that a resident can install one in less than an hour, in contrast to a team of technicians installing a traditional heat pump in about a day. For an apartment dweller without ducting, this might be an ideal option that skips the extra step of having a contractor analyze the space and deploy a more complicated system.

The other option is to just hope the heat pump revolution unfolds smoothly on its own: Maybe the HVAC industry will meet that demand with American-made devices installed by newly trained workers. Finland, after all, eventually found its way. “There may well be the need for large-scale retraining programs,” says Wagner. “Maybe I’m too much of a business school economist—please excuse me of that—but frankly, one answer is to simply get out of the way and let the market do its thing.”

Humans now share the web equally with bots, according to a major new report – as some fear that the internet is dying.

In recent months, the so-called “dead internet theory” has gained new popularity. It suggests that much of the content online is in fact automatically generated, and that the number of humans on the web is dwindling in comparison with bot accounts.

Now a new report from cyber security company Imperva suggests that it is increasingly becoming true. Nearly half, 49.6 per cent, of all internet traffic came from bots last year, its “Bad Bot Report” indicates.

That is up 2 per cent in comparison with last year, and is the highest number ever seen since the report began in 2013.

In some countries, the picture is worse. In Ireland, 71 per cent of internet traffic is automated, it said.

Some of that rise is the result of the adoption of generative artificial intelligence and large language models. Companies that build those systems use bots scrape the internet and gather data that can then be used to train them.

Some of those bots are becoming increasingly sophisticated, Imperva warned. More and more of them come from residential internet connections, which makes them look more legitimate.

“Automated bots will soon surpass the proportion of internet traffic coming from humans, changing the way that organizations approach building and protecting their websites and applications,” said Nanhi Singh, general manager for application security at Imperva. “As more AI-enabled tools are introduced, bots will become omnipresent.”

The widespread use of bots has already caused problems for online services such as X, formerly known as Twitter. Popular posts on the site are now hit by a huge number of comments from accounts advertising pornography, and the company appears to be struggling to limit them.

Recently, its owner Elon Musk said that the site would start charging users to send posts and interact with others. That was the only way of stopping the proliferation of automated accounts, he said.

But X is far from the only site to be hit by automated content that is posing as real. Many similar posts are spreading across Facebook and TikTok, for instance.

Further Info from Wietze Post, a South African renewables provider.

Why load shedding has disappeared in South Africa.

Since March, South Africa’s myriad rooftop solar plants have terminated load shedding. Before, solar reduced load shedding.

Compared to last year (and 2022), SA's demand for Eskom's power has steadily declined since ±Sept 2023.

Daily peak demand is on a declining trend.

SA's daily peak demand is now about 1½GW-2½GW lower than last year. The gap vs the previous year is increasing.

The evening peak demand is trending down faster than the morning peak. I expect the morning peak to exceed the evening peak for the first time this summer (2024/ 2025).

Solar plant and battery capacity are expanding. The monthly compound growth rate is 4,6%-5%.

During the day, solar power is replacing Eskom power. That gives Eskom breathing room to replenish its hydro reserves. It also takes the pressure off hasty maintenance. Thus, they can do more thorough maintenance. Their plant operational readiness has improved.

Eskom's diesel turbines have run below-budgeted levels during the last four weeks.

The reason for load shedding's disappearance is not as bandied about by politicians. It has not stopped due to Eskom running their gas turbines on overdrive. The turbines do run sometimes, but usually only a few plants during the peak, if at all.

Solar generation is the prime reason for the decreased load shedding. SA’s evening peak demand has declined due to your solar batteries.

During the day, solar generation reduces Eskom’s demand (about 20% of the national load). Solar power also charges the batteries.

From late afternoon, solar households run on battery power. That usually carries them through to the early morning. Then, household power demand shows up again for Eskom. The home starts drawing energy from the grid. Verify my points by checking your PV plant's daily consumption curves.

As morning solar power increases, grid demand goes down. Consequently, Eskom does not ‘see’ the household again until the following morning. Add up 100s of thousands of households, and that makes a significant difference to the Eskom load.

East-facing panels generate the most valuable energy. Those who've had the foresight to install East-facing panels have the earliest benefit. If you also have West-facing panels, you will make the most efficient use of your battery.

‘Overload’ your inverter with East and West-facing PV panels. Then you’ll get the cheapest energy (kWh) and most stable power supply (kW).

I recommend you read up on “Wright’s Law” and the “Solar Duck Curve”.

Short video which touches on both the "can we?" and "should we?" questions.

I'm keenly interested in de-extinction technology, though I recognize that it must be applied in tandem with other conservation efforts. What are your thoughts?

Cheap solar gives desalination its moment in the sun

Ever-cheaper solar power is a tailwind for the global energy transition. It can make energy intensive technologies more affordable. As a result, desalination is becoming a more popular option for providing drinking water to some of the driest areas of the world.

The logic of desalination is clear. Water is increasingly scarce as populations grow and climate change bites. Already, more than half of the global population experiences severe water scarcity for at least part of the year, says the World Health Organisation. This pits users against each other, as in Spain’s most recent drought.

Desalination taps an almost infinite resource — some 97 per cent of the world’s water is in seas and oceans. Costs have plummeted. Older, thermal plants, which used heat to turn salt water into steam, delivered potable water at more than $3 per cubic metre.

Graph: the price of desalinated water over time.

Since then, reverse osmosis technology — in which water is pushed through a membrane to remove salt, minerals and impurities — has taken over. Plants cost less to build — perhaps $400mn to purify 500,000 cubic metres per day, says Christopher Gasson of GWI. Including installation, a return on capital and operating costs, that translates to $0.30 per cubic metre of water.

Newer plants also need less energy — 2.6KWh per cubic metre — and are increasingly powered by cheap solar plants. The cheapest plant in the world gets energy at $0.025/KWh, or $0.07 per cubic metre.

Put that together and it explains how the Hassyan project in Dubai has promised desalinated water at just $0.37 per cubic metre. For reference, drinking water in London is priced at £1 per cubic metre.

At this sort of level, desalination becomes more affordable for dry, coastal areas, not just in the Middle East but also in Egypt, Algeria and Morocco, which are all building new plants.

Desalination has also become cheaper than building new infrastructure to transport water over long distances: the cut-off is roughly 500km according to Acciona, a major operator. As a result, the market for new plants is expected to grow by perhaps 8 per cent a year from now to 2030.

Of course, desalination is still unlikely to be the answer to the bulk of the global water crisis. Many areas of the world only face temporary or occasional water shortages, which spreads the capital costs of infrastructure over a much smaller volume of water. Agriculture, which accounts for 70 per cent of the world’s consumption, needs cheap water to produce affordable crops.

Yet, for all this, early movers in the desalination sphere, including Saudi Arabia’s ACWA power, Spain’s Acciona and France’s Veolia, have a clear advantage in a competitive race.

People often catastrophize about the potential for near misses with large asteroids. In reality, far more deadly "near misses" are happening with H5N1 bird flu, and they don't seem to be taken as seriously.

When mammals get the H5N1 bird influenza virus the prognosis is grim. Often with up to 50% mortality rates. Fortunately, although mammals (including humans) have gotten H5N1 from proximity to birds, the virus has not mutated to spread from mammal to mammal - so far. Yet it seems like we are constantly rolling the dice in the world's unluckiest lottery, and it may happen someday.

The latest gamble is being played out in the US farming sector. H5N1 has now been found in cows in 8 different states. Several cats on these farms have died from H5N1, probably via ingesting unpasteurized milk. This week US government officials have said material from the H5N1 strain, which is causing the outbreak, had been detected in milk sold in shops.

In a world with cultured meat from animal cells, and no farm animals, this problem would be greatly lessened. Especially in China, where animal farming sanitary standards are low. Is this all a reason to speed up a transition to meat via cultured cells?

NATURE.COM ARTICLE WITH FURTHER INFORMATION