Italian Brainrot

Tonight, I felt like doing something lighter, namely, indulging in a bit of Italian Brainrot. My idea? To create a character named Windetto Powerello Lockettino – a flamboyant advocate for wind power whose true mission is to "lock in" fossil fuels.

Alas, the concept ended up being just a little too counter-hegemonic to turn into a proper video. Still, I did manage to produce a picture of a dinosaur in an Italian chef's hat standing proudly in a forest of wind turbines. And as they say, sometimes a picture says more than a thousand words

Geopolitically charged

At the city library the other day, I picked up the latest issue of Monocle, which featured a fascinating long-read on Beirut’s art scene and how it continues to flourish despite everything happening in the region. Thinking back on Ally’s and my trip in 2019, which ChatGPT described as one of my most “geopolitically charged”, the article echoed much of what I felt when visiting Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock Museum of Contemporary Art (which is still open as I write this) and other such places.

After an online seminar on conspiracy theories with my colleagues in Halmstad, I headed out into the rain and up to Delsjön for an ice-cold swim. Meanwhile, in Stockholm, the Swedish parliament has been debating the new law for financing nuclear construction, which is simply tragicomic, like some absurd play where the actors completely fail to see the bigger (global) picture and remain trapped in the same tired and incorrect assumptions (as if the four Korean APR-1400 reactors at Barakah had never been built etcetera). In the end, it all boils down to a basic choice: do we cling to the casino-style volatility of the current neoliberal electricity market, or do we step up and provide cheap, public baseload power for climate leadership and the wholesale electrification of society?

Energy density

One thing I often struggle to communicate in debates about renewable versus nuclear energy is the concept of energy density. Yesterday, at Tom Titt Experiment in Södertälje, I think I found the perfect illustration in the human-powered helicopter above.

Now, on the train back to Gothenburg, I am commenting on thesis drafts from my students, but I find myself distracted by the many moving tributes to Stina Oscarsson, one of the most important voices in the Swedish public debate, who went silent four days ago after a life-long struggle with anorexia. While I occasionally disagreed with some of the things she wrote or said, I always made time to read her texts when they appeared. I will dearly miss her perspective.

After the Cold

After spending a week resting and recovering from my cold, I finally got to go for a long run this morning, heading out to the airport in Kiruna just in time to see Zimex Aviation's ATR 42 touch down from Umeå with the mail.

Over the course of my run, the sun broke through the clouds, making me wish I had taken shorts and t-shirt rather than winter running gear. This year, the spring is unusually early in the Arctic, melting away glaciers that are already at record lows – all consistent with what we would expect in a changing climate. In today’s Dagens Nyheter, there is an article about covert climate activists working in different Swedish government agencies. Reading it, I am struck again by the tragic mismatch between individual moral conviction and the scale of action required to address the global, gigaton realities of climate change.

Abundance

Equipped with a half bottle of red wine from the hills near Carcassonne, I have just started reading Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance, a book that has sparked a lively debate after being published three weeks ago in the United States.

Opening with a truly ecomodernist vision of the future, one of rewilding and a world beyond scarcity, I find myself nodding along with much of what the authors are saying, even if some details seem to be more about coalition-building than internal consistency. In any case, I think the authors are correct in focusing a lot on housing and how unaffordable housing has become for many people due to zoning regulations, creating an ever-widening gap between market insiders and outsiders that directly fuels political resentment and cynicism. So far, I am surprised to see how little they seem to have to say about schools and other forms of social investments though, given how central they are to the task of achieving broadly shared economic growth.

Time does not fly

Inspired by Petter Lindqvist’s marathon rowing in Umeå, I decided to once again row 10,000 meters in one go at Nordic Wellness in Mölndal this morning. Like last time around, it felt like the perfect antidote to those complaining that “time flies”. I cannot even imagine what it would be like to continuing rowing for another 32,000 meters. Instead, I jumped on the treadmill for ten faster kilometres followed by 30 minutes of weight training for a total of 2+ hours of exercise and now I cannot help wondering what gains I would see if I were to start repeating this trifecta three or four times a week?

Walking to the tram, Eddie and I were treated to a beautiful sunrise which has now turned into strong winds and rain, enough to end the latest spell of “Dunkelflaute” which once again has reminded Europeans of how vulnerable their energy system has become. Yet, the biggest problem with intermittent renewable energy is not the occasional price spike (although wholesale prices did climb up to 1,000 EUR per megawatt hour on the continent), but their inability to actually displace fossil fuels, especially in industry-heavy countries such as China (where all those solar panels are produced). Instead of an abundant energy future for everyone, the news is once again filled with stories of energy poverty.

Winter Arc

Though I am forever grateful for not having social media, the concept of “Winter Arc” seems to be trending as Eddie and his friend Weston have decided to train every Monday at Nordic Wellness Almedal. Since they are under 13, I need to accompany them, something that I obviously do not mind as it gives me some extra gym time. Today, I was able to row the first 5k of the month as I look back on a total of 52 hours of training in November, including 5,640 meters of elevation gain, which I guess qualifies as a winter arc of sorts.

In the real world, Vattenfall just cancelled all carbon capture projects in Sweden. As in other countries, the exact reasons behind the cancellation remain unclear. In what mostly sounds like circular reasoning, Vattenfall simply says that "the market for carbon dioxide capture is immature” and that the costs are too high. With the Swedish government now throwing more than three billion EUR at different bio-energy carbon capture projects, one would otherwise assume that there would be a business case to be made here. 

Ultimately, without effective carbon capture technologies, it will be extremely costly, if at all possible, to rein in climate change. With the Swedish government stopping new offshore wind in the Baltic due to security concerns, and endlessly procrastinating on new nuclear, I am afraid that I am quickly proven right in my suggestion that ecomodernist thinking “risks becoming nothing but an excuse for inaction”.

Defenestration

With Michail Rogatjev joining the ranks of Russian oligarchs mysteriously falling out of windows, it feels morbidly appropriate that all of the family is off to Prague on Saturday which, after all, is sort of the historic capital of defenestrations. Staying three nights in an Airbnb next to the Vltava River, we hope to explore everything from the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art to a model railway restaurant at the Wenceslas Square before swinging by Amsterdam for two more days in the Netherlands.

Completing my 4000th Strava activity at Nordic Wellness today, I was reminded of the importance of consistency, but also how much time and effort that I have actually put into my running since I started (in earnest) back in 2017. 

Meanwhile, yesterday’s post on pronatalism keeps generating reactions which is always appreciated. As often when writing here, rather than in a research article, I have a tendency to simplify things, and I am fully aware that these are complex issues with many possible arguments and counter-arguments. As such, I should perhaps have taken more care to clarify that I do not in any way support the broader cultural goals of the pronatalist movement and that nuclear energy, as much as I happen to love it, is only one important tool of many needed to stabilize the global climate.

Pronatalism

The other day, our local daily Göteborgsposten had a fascinating piece on pronatalism (which turned out the be a slightly edited version of this one in The Guardian). In a time when people are foregoing having kids in response to climate change, I found this rather refreshing. While I agree with the basic premise, that more kids rather than fewer takes us closer to solving climate change and many other social challenges (such as meeting unrealistic expectations of retirement income), I still believe that having, or not having, kids is a deeply personal decision, and that people should not be shamed either way.

Essentially, the reason why having fewer kids will not help the climate is the same as why refraining from flying will not, namely that marginal reductions, or even emission cuts by a few dozen percentages, cannot fundamentally change the carbon algebra of a world with eight billion people. The only way out is the innovation and deployment of technologies (such as nuclear) that would once and for all sever the link between human activities and carbon emissions while providing the energy necessary to draw down atmospheric carbon to the point that concentrations return to pre-industrial levels (around 280 ppm compared to 420 ppm today).

335 meters

Working from home today, I made the most of the morning hours by running a half marathon in the forest mist after I had finished marking all the quantitative methods exams. This is the third semester that I am teaching statistics, and I must say that it is really something that I have come to appreciate, perhaps mostly as I can focus on the pedagogical side without getting emotionally invested in the way I easily get when talking about for instance climate policy.

Running in my Hoka Speedgoats, I first made the same full loop around Delsjön that I did last Friday before topping up with the 5k loop in Skatås, for a total of 335 meters of elevation gain. Unlike in Umeå, it is really a luxury to have hills just outside the door as I keep training for my Spanish mountain ultra in March. 

Indulging in a cinnamon bun from Lilla Sur afterwards, there is great news from the US where Google has just ordered six small nuclear reactors (SMRs) from Kairos Power, with the first one to be operational in 2030. Unlike the buying of renewable energy certificates that only increases grid volatility and locks in fossil gas, the building of these reactors will directly decarbonize Google’s energy supply while showing the way for other energy-intensive companies.

Matador red

Watching the Trump-Harris debate, the “weirdness” of Trump was on full display, especially when he descended into repeating falsehoods of aliens eating cats (something that quickly invited numerous “Alf” memes). In the words of The Atlantic, Kamala Harris “broke" Donald Trump by making him see “matador red”.

As I visited Trollhättan Science Center with the kids today, I feared a somewhat similar reaction when asking why nuclear was excluded from its exhibition of clean energy sources. To my surprise, I was met by genuine curiosity, reminding me that, even as I apparently was the first person to ever ask such a question, the political landscape has changed a lot in the last decade. While the thought of having a museum showcasing nuclear energy and its historically unmatched potential to cut carbon emissions would certainly provoke the ire of Greenpeace and its allies, it may perhaps not be as outlandish as I first thought.

Beyond energy and a Tintin-style rocket, the museum also had oversized Lego bricks which the boys fell in love with. Add some excellent apple crumble to that and I would not be surprised if we return the next time that we are in Trollhättan.

Around the corner

With autumn temperatures around the corner, and thunder in the distance, I made the most of this Monday morning by running ten faster kilometres and swimming in the lake, before catching the train to Halmstad for another maxed-out week of lectures. First up, multi-level governance with the second-year students. 

Meanwhile, there is great news from the United Arab Emirates, where all four reactors at the Barakah nuclear power plant are now in commercial operation with a total capacity of 5,600 MW, thirteen years after work started on the first reactor. Supplied by the Korean electricity utility KEPCO, it shows what is possible if there is a serious commitment to decarbonization (as opposed to mere war over discourse).

Sayur

Today, I had lunch with my colleague Tomas at the Indonesian vegetarian restaurant Sayur on Olivedalsgatan. The food immediately brought me back half a decade to the streets of Jakarta so I would give the restaurant a 10 out of 10 for authenticity.

Otherwise, with all running on pause after pulling my calf yesterday, I started the day with 1,000 meters in the pool at Valhallabadet before returning to Powerpoint. While I am coming up with new slides on research methodology, Germany is busy burning yet more coal, with record imports of thermal coal from Colombia now used to replace Russian gas, and the electricity carbon intensity still more than tenfold that of nuclear-powered Sweden. As if the irony of the Energiewende was not enough, the creativity of the anti-nuclear crowd reached a new peak when Arne Kaijser, in a recent article in Svenska Dagbladet, argued that building new nuclear in Sweden may risk causing an “enormous overproduction” of low-carbon electricity and that it would therefore be better to wait 10-15 years until any decisions are made… funny, last time I checked, we had increasingly interconnected Europeans grid and a climate emergency to deal with... 

Saturday slack

Having spent all day yesterday at Espresso House (yes, there is an Espresso House even in Kiruna these days) revising my co-authored article and resubmitting it to the journal, today has been much more relaxed. After a morning jog with William to Karhuniemi, I was able to persuade Eddie to join me and Anna’s mother for a hike up Luossavaara along the “midnight sun trail”.

As I sip a glass of Irony in the afternoon sun, I am relieved to see that Labour did indeed win big after 14 years of Conservative rule in the UK. The question however is what a progressive landslide actually means these days, with Keir Starmer having already ruled out nationalizing energy, utilities or passenger rolling stock. With some universities in the UK, such as Coventry, creating new entities to outsource their own teaching staff, New Public Management has become so pervasive that it will take nothing short of a miracle to reverse it. As for energy and climate policy, Labour appears committed to completing Sizewell C yet unable to break free from the renewable energy illusion with new bold promises to invest in solar and wind, investments that will only add further instability to the grid, making electricity yet more expensive for the consumer, and locking in fossil fuels.

Ångström

After a sumptuous breakfast at Elite Academia, William and I walked up to the Ångström Laboratory where Mattias was waiting to show us around. With his eyes wide open of wonder, William got to change background radiation detection filters on the roof and measure radioactivity in the lab in addition to receiving a crash course in nuclear physics, all in two intense hours.

Later over lunch, I had a chance to talk to Mattias a bit about what factors that are holding back a rapid nuclear buildout in response to climate change and the possibilities of using waste heat from nuclear reactors for direct air capture of carbon dioxide. For me as a social scientist, it is invaluable to be able to ask questions to someone who understands not only the underlying physics but also has extensive experience from the nuclear industry. Now on the train back to Gothenburg, we could not have hoped for a better visit or trip overall for that matter.

Vilgot, revisited

Eight months after our last visit, William and I took the morning high-speed service to Stockholm to see his cousin Vilgot and, boy, what a difference eight months make when you are one. So, from baby carrier to beach walking, we went down to Söderbysjön for Vilgot’s first steps into the water and a refreshing swim for William, my sister and me.

Now on the train to Uppsala, William and I are heading up to the Ångström Laboratory for some nuclear experiments tomorrow with the one and only Mattias Lantz who kindly offered us a visit. With William being very much into physics, I think the two of them will have a lot to talk about.

Voting time

Equipped with my finisher jacket from the Transgrancanaria Marathon back in February, I went down to the city library today to cast an early vote in the European elections as I have a trail race coming up on Sunday.

According to the election compasses that I have tested, I should vote for the liberals, something that I guess is a reflection of being pro-nuclear, pro-euro, and pro-integration in general. Obviously, that advice ignores more fundamental questions of social justice and how deeply I identify myself with the political Left (despite all its contemporary shortcomings). At least, there is no doubt that the Sweden Democrats is the party that I most strongly disagree with.

Otherwise, I started the day with grading followed by a 10k run with Anna across town to the Alchemist café near Vågmästareplatsen (an area that has truly changed since I lived in Gothenburg 15 years ago) for some really good coffee.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but…

Clearly, that is how every conspiracy theorist begins his or her sentences. However, reading the last pages of The Three-Body Problem, all my years of fighting Malthusians suddenly made a strange kind of sense ;-) In the book, extraterrestrials, known as “Trisolarans”, realize that, given how fast humanity is currently evolving in terms of technology, they will not be able to take over our planet by the time they get here in four hundred years. As such they devise a strategy:

“Given a time gap of [four hundred years], the strategic value of any traditional tactics of war or terror is insignificant, and they can recover from them. To effectively contain a civilization’s development and disarm it across such a long span of time, there is only one way to: kill its science”.

“The plan focuses on emphasizing the negative environmental effects of scientific development […] in addition to highlighting the negative effects of progress”.

Recruiting the most misanthropic of environmentalists and playing on humanity’s existential desire for a final judgement, the Trisolarans successfully create a fifth column of humans who, I guess, are the ones I keep fighting with in my academic articles... Comforting as this explanation would be, I am afraid that the real explanation is much less cinematic. Instead of an alien mastermind, I think most Malthusians simply fail to see the bigger picture, and that they let moral indignation over how humanity is treating nature in the present (an indignation that I share, by the way) cloud their thinking about the future.

On a marché sur la Lune

It is early Monday morning, William is reading Destination Moon with Tintin while I am once again catching a train to Halmstad. If I keep doing this until my retirement, I will have travelled the distance to the Moon and back along these tracks.

Meanwhile, on the theme of saying the right things for the wrong reasons, the Sweden Democrat Charlie Weimer has pointed out the obvious, that “Fit for 55” is not going to happen. To any long-time reader of Rawls & Me, this should not come as a surprise. Though emissions did go down in Germany last year, mostly thanks to a stagnating industry and greater imports of nuclear electricity from France, the massive cuts envisaged in the EU deal would require hundreds of new nuclear reactors on the continent or a complete deindustrialization, neither of which appear particularly likely.

Wild shore

Taking a morning high-speed train to Stockholm, the winter quickly caught up with me as I submitted the last revisions to my forthcoming book chapter with Edward Elgar and finally made some progress on my conference paper for WPSA. With ongoing train disruptions in Northern Sweden, I was still happy to leave the tracks behind and check in at Arlanda Airport for an evening flight up to Umeå with Scandinavian Airlines. 

In the lounge, SAS is serving a shiraz from South Africa which, despite the mixed online reviews, I wish Systembolaget would be retailing. Meanwhile in Dubai, COP28 ended with a watered-down commitment to move away from fossil fuels which should excite exactly no one. Still, I guess it is better than nothing, even if moving away from renewable energy and the burning of biomass seems just as urgent when considering its global impact on habitats and how it keeps people locked into poverty.