The Progress Report: Green Steel Revolution

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Zachary: What Could Go Right? I’m Zachary Karabell, the founder of The Progress Network, joined by Emma Varvaloucas, the Executive Director of The Progress Network. And this is our weekly progress report, where we look at some of the news of the world that probably went unnoticed because it was news of things going well, or it was ways of looking at things that are troubling in a more constructive, positive light.

And we started this adjunct to our interview focused, What Could Go Right podcast, and our weekly newsletter, What Could Go Right, which you can get at theprogressnetwork.org for free in your mailbox weekly. Because we thought it’s important to pay attention to things that are important but may not be quote unquote the news, either because they are big things happening like disease eradication or democracy formation.

That aren’t as dramatic, and aren’t as immediate, and aren’t as likely to generate outrage, anger, and clicks, so they don’t get as much notice. They do not, as the old news adage once said, if it doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t lead, meaning if it’s not a bad story, it will not be on the front page. Same thing’s true in spades on social media and internet land.

So, Emma will guide us through, given that she is the grand poobah of all good news globally. What is going on in the world that we should be paying attention to that we have not, or what’s going on that we have been paying attention to that we should be looking at differently?

Emma: So we have an off world. So, in universe, off world, piece of good news to start out today, scientists have discovered a cave on the moon.

We knew that there were caves on the moon for many years, I think maybe even since the fifties but they didn’t know how to get into them with radar, meaning like they knew that they were there, they didn’t know what was inside, how deep they were, anything about them. So, scientists have used radar for the first time, they’ve radared, shall we say, A cave.

It’s 100 meters deep. It’s visible to the naked eye from Earth, which is super cool, and was formed either millions or billions of years ago by lava flow. That has potential for us to make a permanent human base because our astronauts could maybe live inside the cave. It’s so deep that they might have to like jetpack out of it, which would also be really cool to see.

And it also, they think that the same tech that they use in this instance might also help find caves on Mars. And they believe that if their life, if there was life on Mars at any point, it would probably be hiding in a cave. So I thought that was really fun.

Zachary: Interesting. So it has other uses other than cool and or great news to the spelunking community, which is ever in search of new horizons.

So this opens up a whole new possibility for the community. Future of Spelunking.

Emma: So we have a new report out from Global Energy Monitor. It’s a non profit research group, and they say that the transition to greener steel is afoot. This is a particularly exciting one because decarbonization efforts in heavy industry are just notoriously difficult to do.

So most steel production still uses traditional coal based methods, but half of new steelmaking projects that are currently in development are in the our planning to use what’s called an electric arc furnace. So that basically takes electricity and of course, if you’re using electricity from renewable sources, it’s clean electricity.

It like heats up the iron super, super hot with electricity and melts it into steel. So, if all these plans are executed on they say that a net zero target for 2020 for steel is within reach, which like. is a more complicated way of saying that we’re heading in the right direction when it comes to greening the steel industry.

Zachary: And are there green steel plants at scale currently?

Emma: Yeah, there are. Yes, they are. It’s just that they’re not as many of them as there are coal based ones, but yes, they do exist. This isn’t yeah, that’s a great clarification. This isn’t like technology that needs to be proved to work. It’s already out there and it’s working.

Zachary: It just needs to, we need to have more of it.

Emma: Yeah, you need to scale it up. And if you already have a plant that’s using coal based methods, like, they’re just gonna keep using that for now. But the new ones that are being built are gonna be using the new tech.

Zachary: Green Steel? Sounds like a Marvel comic hero.

Emma: Coming to a theater near you.

Zachary: Good to know. So Green Steel, Moon Caves, what else we got? This is very, feels like a very sci fi, golly gee, future themed news. Right now, which is great, I’m just saying.

Emma: I think this last one can fit in. Let’s see if you can do it, Zach.

So we have a preliminary study out for a new drug, and forgive my pronunciation of this because I’ve never heard it pronounced Rapamycin, one of those things. They have a small study out now that shows that the drug can delay menopause and extend a woman’s fertility by five years. As well as actually increase the woman’s entire lifespan, study is saying that the drug is safe.

It’s actually the first in human history according to one of the co-leaders on the study. And it’s going to potentially be a future possibility. Like if you’re, let’s say, 34, 35 cough and you haven’t had kids yet, then one day you could go to, The doctor, they could give you this drug and that will literally extend the lifespan of your ovaries and your actual lifespan.

So if that, this, all works out, it seems pretty cool.

Zachary: It’s interesting. There’s a lot of the life extension science, and this is an aspect of it, right, has focused on some of the causes of death are a product of us living much longer than human beings traditionally lived. Meaning we, there’s a lot of just like living that exerts wear and tear on our system.

So, eating creates wear and tear in our digestive system for women in particular, the reproductive cycle creates just the constant, literally either use of it or not use of it over a much longer period of time than would have been typical particularly pre birth control where, most women spent more time pregnant than they spent time ovulating just because of, there was no way to prevent that.

So, we’re learning that there’s an aspect of aging that is if you can reduce the stress. of just actually existing, you might live longer, which I’ve, is a somewhat counterintuitive thing. I mean, I guess it means like we would all just eat, not have sex, and stay in bed. No, there too, that’d be a problem, because our muscles would atrophy, so that wouldn’t work.

Emma: Yeah, that wouldn’t work. But what you’re pointing out is absolutely correct, because that’s exactly how the drug works. It essentially, like, slows down the production of your, your ovary production, shall we say, because as you say, ages the ovaries and it ages you. Which in fact, I did not quite realize until today when I found out about this.

So, anyone’s wondering, that’s why there’s it extends the lifespan of the ovaries and it extends your actual lifespan. They’re saying from the trial 9 to 14%.

Zachary: Right. Less wear and tear.

Emma: Basically. 100%.

Zachary: All right. Well, I’m not sure how to weave that into caves on Mars and Let’s see.

Emma: Super ovaries. It could be anything.

Zachary: Super ovaries. Yeah. All right. We’ll just, we’ll stick with that one. Okay. It’s been a, it’s been a super episode with super news and again, the kind of stuff you probably weren’t as aware of as, I mean, we’re recording this in the midst of a Democratic Party turmoil, exciting and interesting turmoil, but taking up all of the available airspace of our collective media.

And just a reminder that there are things going on in the world that are going to have at least as great a set of ramifications on how we’re all going to be living our lives than the news cycle du jour, which may have some ramifications, but in the greater scheme of things, probably less so than the things we are now pointing to.

So, we will be back with you with our weekly progress report, and please send us ideas, send us things you think we should highlight. Scour the world for interesting news stories and send them to Emma and maybe we will highlight them.

Emma: Absolutely. Send me whatever you find out there. I love to highlight things that readers send in.

So thank you so much for listening. Thanks in advance for emailing us. It’s hello at theprogressnetwork.org and thank you to Zachary as always.