To the Stars with Data: November 7 2021
Understanding California's wildfires, using ML to find solar plants, space treaties, and more
Hello Datanauts!
This week, I bring to you a diverse assortment of articles. Here’s a quick taste:
Want to understand just how badly California has been pummeled with wildfires? I got you covered.
Ever wonder where all our solar power is coming from? There’s an article for that.
Law in space? Who knew!
Not-cheese that actually tastes good, is local and sustainable, and whose founders make you laugh? Get ready. (Disclaimer: I haven’t yet tried their cheese, but we’re getting there. 😭)
Let’s go to the stars with data!
Thought-Provoking Data Viz
🔥 50 years of California wildfires
Quick hits. In this gorgeous [yet alarming] visualization, Christian Felix explores the past 50 years of wildfires in the US state of California. The visualization is meant to be interactive, so I encourage you to hover and click on individual fires to learn more. The treemap along the left (the rectangle with smaller, colored rectangles) shows how each subsequent decade has experienced noticeably more burned area than previous decades.
Digging deeper. The first thing I noticed about the visualization was how much area the wildfires burned in 2020 and 2021. Upon calculation, I learned that wildfires in 2021 burned about the same area as wildfires during the entire 1970s. Alarmingly, wildfires in 2020 burned a whopping 160% of the area burned by wildfires in the 1970s. Not good.
Earth News
😎 Researchers use ML and satellite imagery to predict the location of every large solar plant on Earth
Quick hits. The researchers analyzed data from over 550 TB of imagery (equal to ~several human lifetimes of computing) with an ML model to predict the location of large solar plants. Their estimate of 423 gigawatts production worldwide is close to the International Renewable Energy Agency's estimate of 420 gigawatts during the same period, hinting at its accuracy. Excitingly, the researchers identified an 81% increase in solar power generation capacity from 2016 to 2018.
Digging deeper. Identifying structures with ML-enhanced satellite imagery can be used to estimate metrics that are tracked in some countries but not in others, thereby enhancing our understanding regardless of potential non-cooperation from governments. Additionally, we could track metrics that aren’t even tracked in the first place. The power of ML-enhanced satellite imagery will only increase as 1) our ML/AI models become stronger, and 2) our satellite imagery becomes more precise and our image types are expanded (see companies like Albedo, Alba Orbital, Constellr, Hydrosat, etc.). Regardless, satellites are pivotal to fighting climate change (see here) and this method is another great example of how they can assist.
Bonus. For those interested, the GitHub, code, and data repositories from this research have been made available to facilitate more research of this type and to kickstart the creation of a complete, open, and current dataset of the planet’s solar energy facilities.
⚡ US charging infrastructure is outpacing forecasts, study finds
Quick hits. In early 2021, the US passed 100,000 publicly-accessible electric vehicle (EV) chargers, according to the US Department of Energy. Notably, this is 20% of the way to the Biden Administration's goal of 500,000 publicly-accessible EV chargers by 2030. Most of the chargers are level 2, which can usually charge an EV in 8-10 hours.
Digging deeper. Charging infrastructure is an absolute must to drive (pun intended) the adoption of EVs. Imagine trying to drive a gas-powered car today without any gas stations! In the US, over 2.1 million EVs have been sold since 2010, and this number is expected to dramatically increase in the coming decade as more states require all cars sold to be electric. At the moment, New York and California are the only states with such legislation enacted, and both will outlaw the sale of non-electric vehicles starting in 2035.
Space News
⚖ UN reaching closer to new rules in space
Quick hits. UK diplomats proposed that the UN create a group to develop new norms of international behavior in space. A vast majority of countries (163/180) voted yes on the proposal, though China and Russia were among the “nay” voters. The proposal creates a working group that would provide a recommendation and next steps in 2023. It's likely that the priority topics will be space debris and activities that escalate military tension. There’s a lot more covered in the article that I can’t summarize in one paragraph, so I recommend giving it a read if I’ve piqued your interest!
Digging deeper. With increasing amounts of commercial space activity, our usage of space looks completely different than even a few decades ago. Considering that the last two widespread international treaties were from 1967 (The Outer Space Treaty) and 1984 (The Moon Agreement), this is a problem. With space tourism officially here, this problem is only exacerbated. If you want to learn more about why we need more laws in space, I recommend this article.
⚖ Blue Origin's lawsuit against NASA was struck down
Quick hits. Blue Origin (owned by Jeff Bezos) escalated a complaint with the US Government Accountability Office after initially losing a contract to SpaceX in April 2021 for NASA’s Human Landing Systems (HLS) program. (HLS is a part of NASA’s Artemis Mission, which aims to put humans back on the moon in 2024.) In the lawsuit, Blue Origin claimed that NASA "disregarded key flight safety requirements" in SpaceX's proposal for NASA's HLS program. Now that the lawsuit has been resolved, NASA's work with SpaceX on the HLS program can continue.
Digging deeper. though NASA was aiming to put humans on the moon in 2024, this looks to be pushed back to April 2025 (at the earliest) due to issues in the development of their spacesuits. I’m relieved to hear that this farce (Blue Origin’s lawsuit) is finally over, as it means that NASA can continue working on developing and testing SpaceX’s Starship-based design for the HLS. I also feel some schadenfreude to see this news because Blue Origin’s lawsuit was seen by many to be an act of bad sportsmanship.
Future-Thinking Companies
🧀 Grounded Foods. They make cheese from hemp seeds and upcycled cauliflower and recently raised $2.5m pre-Series A. Their About page is also totally awesome. (Seriously, go read it right now and get ready to laugh.)
🏢 Skyline Robotics. They make window-cleaning robots so that humans don’t need to risk their lives cleaning skyscraper windows. Here’s a fun video of their robots in action.
Future-Thinking Jobs
Medical Writer at Medtronic - Great opportunity for someone with a PhD or advanced degree in biological or medical sciences