Net Zero Would Cost U.S. $78 Trillion by 2050, Study Says

The data analysis company Wood MacKenzie has released a new report about the energy transition. They estimate that to reach net zero, the U.S. alone would need to invest US$78 trillion. Part of the problem is AI – they estimate that the energy use for AI alone will increase from 500 TWh in 2023 to up to 4,500 TWh by 2050, which is almost as much as the entire country’s current use. Study here.

Check out this video about democracy! Since the Jan 6 attack on the US Capitol in 2021, some Americans have increasingly insisted that their country is not a democracy, but a republic. What’s the difference? Why is democracy having such a hard time at the moment and would randomly picking members of parliament help? You can take the quiz here.

You can now create and share your own quizzes on QuizWithIt – for free! Just set up an account and creator profile and you are good to go. Create quizzes to go with websites, videos, blogposts, podcasts, or as standalone. Your audience can support you by subscribing to your content, which allows them to collect points by taking your quizzes. Each quiz has a unique URL, can be embedded into websites or newsletter, and be shared on X, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Happy quizzing!

Chinese News Outlet Spreads Quantum Misinformation (Again)

A month ago, the South China Morning Post reported that a group of Chinese researchers had found a way to use existing quantum computers to break “military-grade encryption,” though that phrase has since been removed from the article. This caused no end of confusion, not least because the relevant publication was not linked in the article and later turned out to be in Chinese. Eventually — you saw it coming — the paper says no such thing. Indeed, as Ars Technica reports, it isn’t even about code-breaking, it is presenting a new way of using quantum annealers, such as D-wave’s computer. Earlier this year, the same outlet reported that Chinese researchers had supposedly found a magnificent improvement to decryption algorithms that would allow quantum computers to hack national secrets within the next few years. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that the improvement wasn’t all that magnificent.

Neutron Stars Could Make Dark Matter Observable

The axion is a hypothetical particle that was invented by physicists in the early 1970s. It was quickly ruled out because it would have caused a rapid cooling of neutron stars that was not observed. Physicists then modified the axion-theory so that this cooling would not happen. These modified “invisible” axions, as they were called, became popular candidates for dark matter. Recently, some physicists have claimed that certain types of invisible axions (which, very confusingly, are now often just called axions) could be created in the strong magnetic fields near rotating neutron stars, and then create a dark matter cloud around the stars. This could cause a characteristic signal in the radiation these stars emitted. The problem with the idea is that there is no reason to think these invisible axions exist in the first place. Paper here.

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