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Tom Nicholas Profile picture
Tom Nicholas
@TEGNicholas
Oceanography + Scientific Software @Columbia | ex-fusion | Climate Activism & sometimes opinions (@TEGNicholasCode for software)
Jan 5, 2021 • 13 tweets • 6 min read
We published a new paper in Energy Policy:

“Re-examining the role of nuclear fusion in a renewables-based energy mix”

We attempt to clarify what a realistic fusion reactor could, and could not, likely offer the world.

1/n
sciencedirect.com/science/articl… We wrote this paper for:

a) Policy people / the public, who want to know what fusion is and isn’t,

b) The fusion community, as we together need to better understand the context and likely competitive landscape our work will face.

2/
Sep 30, 2020 • 22 tweets • 6 min read
People are still tweeting about the NYT's piece on the SPARC nuclear #fusionenergy release, so as a fusion PhD student I'm going to explain what it is and isn't...

🧵

nytimes.com/2020/09/29/cli… Commonwealth Fusion Systems is a spin-out from MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Centre. A few years ago they described an innovative design for a power plant called ARC, which proposed using recent advances in high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets to shrink the machine.
Sep 29, 2020 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Regardless of your opinion on Carbon Offsets, companies will want to use them.

So activists pressuring companies need to understand the different types of offsets!

My friend @EliMLarson was part of a team that created a set of Offsetting Principles to help you understand. As he (and the other academics at Oxford who worked on this) argues then only offsets with certain, very stringent conditions can be relied upon to reduce future warming.

Very few currently available offsets are geologically-permanent, for example.

Sep 5, 2020 • 20 tweets • 8 min read
My friend Leo Buizza (who is too smart to be on twitter) took a closer look at @BCG 's new net-zero emissions pledge.

Is it #greenwashing? Let's find out... 🧵

leosthreeminuteblog.home.blog/2020/09/04/so-… For starters, credit to @BCG for making the pledge at all – it’s already more than @McKinsey and @BainAlerts have done (two of their main competitors), from what I can tell.
Sep 1, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Proud to be in London today marching with @ScientistsX, alongside @XRlawyers.

#ActNow Image The Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill is a piece of work to be proud of, whose championing shows that @XRebellionUK can continue making a difference.

Jul 14, 2020 • 44 tweets • 14 min read
We are in a climate crisis, but must not give in to doomism.

@GalenHall4, @ColleenBSchmid1 and I explain why environmental doomism is never the right philosophy.

opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/…

1/🧵 In particular we look at the most pernicious example of doomism within a movement @GalenHall4 and I are members of: the damaging effect of Jem Bendell’s @deepadaptation agenda on @ExtinctionR .

2/
Mar 25, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
It's 60 years to the day since Charles Keeling's paper showing that atmospheric CO2 concentrations were increasing was published: "The Concentration and Isotopic Abundances of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere".

The start of the famous @Keeling_curve.

tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.340… Image The abstract is so understated for the gravity of the implications.

"A systematic variation with season and latitude in the concentration and isotopic abundance of atmospheric carbon dioxide has been found in the northern hemisphere. ... "
Mar 24, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
"Sandwiches for every meal!" urged the baker...

While we obviously need decarbonisation ASAP, and renewables are pretty great, we must be wary of industry lobbyists calling for their preferred visions of the future, no matter the industry...

1/8 While we want lots of renewables, there is also a lot of literature showing how going 100% is likely to increase overall system costs significantly through the overcapacity needed to mitigate for intermittency.

Optimal systems likely include significant nuclear + CCS.

2/8
Mar 19, 2020 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
I made a simple model of #COVID19 spread, with explanation, to show how even simple maths can capture the essence of the challenge.

github.com/TomNicholas/co…

It can reproduce the trends that make the headlines, including that:

1) If unchecked the virus will spread exponentially Image 2) In the worst-case scenarios, the #COVID_19uk death toll in the could be in the hundreds of thousands,
Feb 19, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Deepfake videos used (for good, for now...) in Indian election campaign.

The possibilities are very worrying...

vice.com/en_in/article/… Indian internet culture especially is vulnerable to this because sharing content through massive WhatsApp group chats is really common.
Sep 28, 2019 • 15 tweets • 6 min read
The UK Conservatives have just touted fusion energy by 2040 as a key climate policy at their party conference.

independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…

I'm a fusion researcher, and that's rubbish.

THREAD 1/10 The main international fusion effort is centred around ITER, a huge experiment which is currently being built in the South of France.

2/10