Month: December 2020

Enlarge (credit: Bernal Saborio)

Techniques to take atmospheric CO₂ and turn it into a fuel provide a climate-friendly alternative to exploiting fossil fuels—they may releases CO₂ back into the air when burned, but there's no net change. This includes biofuels crops, but can extend to industrial processes that directly involve CO₂. As processes that capture CO₂ from ambient air become more economical, so will the potential value of that CO₂ as a resource for fuels.

There are a few ways to go about making fuel, but all require considerable energy because CO₂ is a stable molecule—reversing the combustion reaction to make a new fuel doesn’t happen for free. But there's an additional challenge: designing a process tuned to produce the exact type of fuel you want.

One way to do that is with a catalyst—a substance that guides the chemical reactions without being consumed by them. With the help of one catalyst, captured CO₂ plus hydrogen gas might primarily be turned into methane; a different catalyst might shift the primary product towards the larger molecules of liquid fuels.

Enlarge / Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), has thrown a wrench into the expected Congressional over-ride of President Trump's veto of the National Defense Authorization Act. (credit: Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has thrown a wrench into Congressional approval of an increase in government stimulus relief checks from $600 to $2,000. The House voted overwhelmingly on Monday to increase the payments, as President Trump had advocated for. Instead of voting on the House bill, however, McConnell blocked it and instead introduced a new bill tying higher stimulus payments to Section 230's full repeal, according to Verge, which obtained a copy of the bill's text.

It's a tangled web, but the move is tied to Trump's veto of the National Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes $740 billion in defense spending for the upcoming government fiscal year. "No one has worked harder, or approved more money for the military, than I have," Trump said in a statement about the veto, claiming falsely that the military "was totally depleted" when he took office in 2017. "Your failure to terminate the very dangerous national security risk of Section 230 will make our intelligence virtually impossible to conduct without everyone knowing what we are doing at every step."

Section 230 has nothing to do with military intelligence; it's a 1996 law designed to protect Internet platforms. At its highest level, the short snippet of law basically does two things. First, it grants Internet service providers, including online platforms, broad immunity from being held legally liable for content third-party users share. Second, it grants those same services legal immunity from the decisions they make around content moderation—no matter how much or how little they choose to do.

Enlarge / UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson poses for a photograph with a vial of the AstraZeneca/Oxford University COVID-19 candidate vaccine. (credit: WPA Pool/Getty Images)

This week, the UK released more data on the newly evolved strain of SARS-CoV-2, providing further evidence that it spreads more readily than previously circulating strains of the virus. Despite efforts to keep it limited to the UK, most public health experts expected it was already too late—a fear confirmed by the discovery of cases in Colorado. There is some good news, however, as the UK's data indicates the new strain doesn't appear to be more dangerous to people once they become infected.

In another bit of good news, health authorities in the UK approved the use of another vaccine, this one from a collaboration between Oxford University and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. While the vaccine doesn't appear to be as effective as the two others already in wide use, the addition of another supplier ensures that the UK should now have enough vaccine for its entire population early next year.

New, but decidedly not improved

Because the coronavirus accumulates mutations over time, there are now many distinct strains of SARS-CoV-2 circulating. The one that's now causing concern first drew the attention of medical authorities in the UK because it drove a wave of new infections at a time where targeted lockdown policies were reducing the levels of other strains. By the middle of December, the strain had a name (B.1.1.7), was circulating widely within the UK, and had already been spotted elsewhere in Europe. But nearly everything else about the strain was an open question, including whether it was actually more infectious, or had simply ended up circulating within groups that were more likely to pass it on to others.

Enlarge / Depending where you live and work, you may need at least this many devices to sort your tax situation out this spring. (credit: Boonchai Wedmakawand | Getty Images)

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a trend that was already well underway: employers letting their workers perform their jobs remotely, from home, most or all of the time. But even if you and your employer both know exactly where you live and work, you may be surprised to learn that state departments of taxation can have some very different ideas about where "here" is. As a result, Texans, Utahns, and Arkansawyers who work for New York- or Massachusetts-based companies will have income taxes withheld from their paychecks, even if they've never set foot in the home office.

In the wake of the pandemic, dozens of major companies are embracing employees' desire to stay remote, increasing their support for working from home permanently. Some businesses have even closed offices or let leases lapse, counting on a physically distant, flexible workforce to reduce their real estate needs.

In many ways this can be a win/win: employers can save overhead costs on expensive square footage in high-demand cities, and employees can save time and money by skipping the commute and dialing in from, basically, anywhere they want. New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles are expensive; maybe you want to move to Montana and dial in from the woods, or get a nice little ocean-view place in Florida. Unfortunately, as far as the state is concerned, your beachside cabana may as well be squarely in the middle of Manhattan, and you will be taxed as such.

Enlarge (credit: Hinterhaus Productions | Getty Images)

Despite over 82 million cases and over 1.75 million deaths due to COVID-19, many people are bound and determined to carry on with normal life. For some, that includes attending Saturday night ragers, just like they did in the Before Times. Reports of yet another secret party being broken up by law enforcement have become distressingly common.

Getting guests for these secret parties is at least slightly more difficult now that Apple has pulled Vybe Together—an app with a tagline that invited users to "get their party on"—from the App Store. The Verge pointed out that the app had largely been flying under the radar until a tweet from Taylor Lorenz of the New York Times brought some unwelcome, but much-needed scrutiny to the app. One of Lorenz's tweets highlighted Vybe Together's TikTok account, which had posted videos of unmasked people partying indoors while advertising New Years Eve parties. According to Business Insider, TikTok has since removed Vybe Together's account for violating community guidelines.

Vybe Together's FAQ at least acknowledged the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are aware that Covid is a major health problem to the country, our communities, our friends and family. If we could all just be in isolation this could actually go away." So far, so good.