Artificial Intelligence will soon enable tracking of air pollution from every power plant...

Humza

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Why it matters: Using technology to solve everyday problems is a noble undertaking, one that's being led by WattTime to help tackle air pollution at a global level. The firm plans to launch a tracking system that will use artificial intelligence and satellite imagery to monitor carbon emissions of every power plant in the world and then make this data public to hold big polluters accountable and enable advancement in new emissions reduction technologies.

As carbon levels in the atmosphere continue to rise to record figures, many companies have emphasized reducing their carbon footprint to become more environmental friendly. To keep an eye on these promises and our planet's air quality, WattTime has come up with plans to create a public database using artificial intelligence to track carbon emissions from all the world's large power plants.

The idea was pitched at Google's AI Impact Challenge under the company's Google.org philanthropy wing. "We received thousands of applications to the Google AI Impact Challenge and are excited to be supporting WattTime with funding and expertise from Google,” said Jacquelline Fuller, president of Google.org. It will spend $1.7 million in funding this project.

"Accurate global emissions data has the ability to inspire everything from local environmental activism, to new and effective environmental policy, to verification that countries are achieving national-level emissions targets such as Paris Accord commitments. In their ongoing work, WattTime also plans to use the information to further enable and refine software that can give billions of internet-connected devices emissions reduction capabilities," the nonprofit announced on its collaboration with Google.

WattTime will work with Carbon Tracker, the first organization to successfully establish satellite-based monitoring of power plants and World Resources Institute, a global research firm that maintains the most comprehensive global database of power plants to date.

WattTime will observe power plants through the global satellite network and use image processing and artificial intelligence algorithms to measure the level of power plant emissions. This will be made possible by gathering data from sensors operating at different wavelengths, detecting heat from smokestacks and measuring temperature of water used for cooling power plants through thermal imaging and recording visible smoke with the help of visual sensors.

According to WattTime's executive director Gavin McCormick, sensors to detect nitrogen dioxide emissions are currently in development. Through its data sources, the company will be able to derive accurate and real-time emissions information, including carbon emissions that may also be useful in identifying water pollutants like nitrates and mercury. Once sufficient data has been collected, the company will publish a database for the public to view emissions information for all power plants in the world.

"Far too many power companies worldwide currently shroud their pollution in secrecy. But through the growing power of AI, our little coalition of nonprofits is about to lift that veil all over the world, all at once,” said McCormick as he outlined the potential impact his small team can have by using new AI remote sensing techniques to bring every powerful polluter in front of the public.

WattTime believes that this initiative has the potential to effectively eliminate poor monitoring and manipulating of emissions data, a major hurdle that their system can overcome and transform how restrictions are enforced on power plants in the future.

Image credit: Torsten Kellermann on Unsplash

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I was having a conversation with a Climate Change student last night.

Pushing some new viewpoints that most people don't consider.

#1 Our energy is mostly coming from the Sun - aside from the Uranium breaking down into Lead within the Earth. That energy will continue to come from the Sun for the next 5 billion years - whether we use it or not.

#2 We absolutely should be making use of that energy - in every form - to get the Hell off Earth and expand to other moons and planets. We need to push tech and science as far as it will go and right now we are just in the alpha phases where capitalism and free market economics dictates which technologies will make it into our future living arrangements.

#3 They don't mind talking about pollution but they never want to talk about human population growth. Human population growth increases pollution of every form.

They don't want to have the talk about eugenics.

They don't want to talk about "controlling the energy of others".

If I can control your energy or tax it, I can control human population growth.

Or I can get rich off of your energy needs.

There was a huge gas tax on my Hellcat Charger and my Jeep SRT.

Who got that money?
 
What about street/road/highway polluters?
There are countless gas guzzler out there. Until people learned to break away from their addicted to car/petroleum nothing will get better.
 
Why do all climate change articles use photos of cooling towers emitting steam to show bad emissions ??
The true exhaust CO2 discharge stacks from coal power stations have 0 (absolutely none) particles visible. It is laughable and makes your case truly fraudulent and a waste of many many years researching (on lots of levels)
and implementing strategies to combat the production of a valuable and necessary gas that is in short supply?
It only reinforces the case for Nuclear Power as the cooling towers you have photographed are nuclear.
 
I was having a conversation with a Climate Change student last night.

Pushing some new viewpoints that most people don't consider.

#1 Our energy is mostly coming from the Sun - aside from the Uranium breaking down into Lead within the Earth. That energy will continue to come from the Sun for the next 5 billion years - whether we use it or not.

#2 We absolutely should be making use of that energy - in every form - to get the Hell off Earth and expand to other moons and planets. We need to push tech and science as far as it will go and right now we are just in the alpha phases where capitalism and free market economics dictates which technologies will make it into our future living arrangements.

#3 They don't mind talking about pollution but they never want to talk about human population growth. Human population growth increases pollution of every form.

They don't want to have the talk about eugenics.

They don't want to talk about "controlling the energy of others".

If I can control your energy or tax it, I can control human population growth.

Or I can get rich off of your energy needs.

There was a huge gas tax on my Hellcat Charger and my Jeep SRT.

Who got that money?


The Earth for us Humans is truly an interstellar Vehicle with its own power supply (the Sun)
 
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