Technological adaptations

<embed> https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikescott/2020/05/31/wooden-turbine-towers-promise-to-push-wind-industry-to-greater-heights/?fbclid=IwAR1wr4eoQYxCD6MseBiHSM5_aJK64rgP6BrV6D6jtBW5VBmTGT4WR4NpLyw#5d651df2466b </embed>

Rivers could generate thousands of nuclear power plants worth of energy, thanks to a new ‘blue’ membrane

<embed>https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/rivers-could-generate-thousands-nuclear-power-plants-worth-energy-thanks-new-blue</embed> 12/04/2019

Blue energy’s promise stems from its scale: Rivers dump some 37,000 cubic kilometers of freshwater into the oceans every year. This intersection between fresh- and saltwater creates the potential to generate lots of electricity—2.6 terawatts, according to one recent estimate, roughly the amount that can be generated by 2000 nuclear power plants.

There are several ways to generate power from that mixing. And a couple of blue energy power plants have been built. But their high cost has prevented widespread adoption. All blue energy approaches rely on the fact that salts are composed of ions, or chemicals that harbor a positive or negative charge. In solids, the positive and negative charges attract one another, binding the ions together. (Table salt, for example, is a compound made from positively charged sodium ions bound to negatively charged chloride ions.) In water, these ions detach and can move independently.

By pumping the positive ions—like sodium or potassium—to the other side of a semipermeable membrane, researchers can create two pools of water: one with a positive charge, and one with a negative charge. If they then dunk electrodes in the pools and connect them with a wire, electrons will flow from the negatively charged to the positively charged side, generating electricity.

This dark material: the black alchemy that can arrest carbon emissions

<embed>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/29/this-dark-material-the-black-alchemy-that-can-arrest-carbon-emissions</embed> The Guardian 11/29/19

It traps carbon in the ground for centuries, boosts plant growth, provides a sustainable heat source and could even reduce methane emissions from cows. Biochar may not be a silver bullet to combating the climate emergency, but it certainly ticks a lot of boxes.

Following biochar’s recognition in the IPCC 2018 report, earlier this year Redmile-Gordon launched the society’s first trials to see how the material could improve plant growth. He estimates planting 10-20kg of biochar in your garden could offset the carbon from a five-mile return commute in a car for a month.

Biochar is a form of charcoal produced when organic matter – for example wood, leaves or dead plants – is heated at high temperatures with little or no oxygen in a process called pyrolysis. The normal burning or decomposition of these materials would release large amounts of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Instead, creating biochar traps this carbon in solid form for centuries; it becomes a carbon sink that can be buried underground.

Researchers design an improved pathway to carbon-neutral plastics

<embed>https://phys.org/news/2019-11-pathway-carbon-neutral-plastics.html</embed> PhysOrg 11/20/2019

Researchers from U of T Engineering and Caltech have designed a new and improved system for efficiently converting CO2, water, and renewable energy into ethylene—the precursor to a wide range of plastic products, from medical devices to synthetic fabrics—under neutral conditions. The device has the potential to offer a carbon-neutral pathway to a commonly used chemical while enhancing storage of waste carbon and excess renewable energy.

While the prototype is still a long way from commercialization, the overall concept offers a promising way to address several key challenges in sustainability. It eliminates the need to extract more oil to make plastics and other consumer goods based on ethylene, and it turns waste CO2 into a feedstock, adding a new incentive to invest in carbon capture.

Secretive energy startup backed by Bill Gates achieves solar breakthrough

<embed>https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/19/business/heliogen-solar-energy-bill-gates/index.html</embed> CNN 11/19/2019

The breakthrough means that, for the first time, concentrated solar energy can be used to create the extreme heat required to make cement, steel, glass and other industrial processes. In other words, carbon-free sunlight can replace fossil fuels in a heavy carbon-emitting corner of the economy that has been untouched by the clean energy revolution.

That means renewable energy has not yet disrupted industrial processes such as cement and steelmaking. And that's a problem because the world has an insatiable appetite for those materials. Cement, for instance, is used to make the concrete required to build homes, hospitals and schools. These industries are responsible for more than a fifth of global emissions, according to the EPA.

Breaking carbon dioxide faster, cheaper, and more efficiently

<embed>https://phys.org/news/2019-11-carbon-dioxide-faster-cheaper-efficiently.html</embed> PhysOrg 11/15/19

Now, a team of researchers led by Yongtao Meng, a former UConn graduate student in the lab of Institute for Materials Science Director Steve Suib and now a researcher at Stanford University, has come up with a better way. They created an electrochemical cell filled with a porous, foamy catalyst made of nickel and iron. Both metals are cheap and abundant. When carbon dioxide gas enters the electrochemical cell, and a voltage is applied, the catalyst helps the carbon dioxide (a carbon atom with two oxygens) break off oxygen to form carbon monoxide (a carbon atom with one oxygen.) The carbon monoxide is very reactive and a useful precursor for making many kinds of chemicals, including plastics and fuels such as gasoline.

Data science could help Californians battle future wildfires

<embed>https://theconversation.com/data-science-could-help-californians-battle-future-wildfires-126316</embed> The Conversation 11/12/2019

This year, I helped found the Crisis Technologies Innovation Lab at Indiana University, specifically to harness the power of data, technology and artificial intelligence to respond to and prepare for the impacts of climate change.

Through a grant from the federal Economic Development Administration, we are building tools to help federal agencies like FEMA as well as local planners learn how to rebuild communities devastated by wildfires or hurricanes.

By analyzing historical disaster information, publicly available census data and predictive models of risk and resilience, our tools will be able to identify and prioritize key decisions, like what kinds of infrastructure investments to make.

New Organic Solar Cells Set Efficiency World Record

<embed>https://scitechdaily.com/new-organic-solar-cells-set-efficiency-world-record/</embed> SciTech Daily 11/12/19

A research team from Nuremberg and Erlangen has set a new record for the power conversion efficiency of organic photovoltaic modules (OPV). The scientists from Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), the Bavarian Center for Applied Energy Research (ZAE), and the Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg for Renewable Energy (HI ERN), a branch of Forschungszentrum Jülich, in cooperation with the South China University of Technology (SCUT), designed an OPV module with an efficiency of 12.6 percent over an area of 26 square centimeters. The former world record of 9.7 percent was exceeded by 30 percent.

Study shows where global renewable energy investments have greatest benefits

<embed>https://techxplore.com/news/2019-11-global-renewable-energy-investments-greatest.html</embed> Techxplore 11/12/2019

A new study finds that the amount of climate and health benefits achieved from renewable energy depends on the country where it is installed. Countries with higher carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and more air pollution, such as India, China, and areas in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, achieve greater climate and health benefits per megawatt (MW) of renewable energy installed than those operating in areas such as North America, Brazil, and parts of Europe.

Climate KIC Demo Day 2019 Proves Europe Still Has What It Takes To Lead The Green Revolution

<embed>https://cleantechnica.com/2019/11/12/climate-kic-demo-day-2019-proves-europe-still-has-what-it-takes-to-lead-the-green-revolution/</embed> CleanTechnia 11/12/2019

The first company to showcase their idea brought a concrete solution, literally, aiming to transform the archaic concrete industry. Co-founder Leopold Spenner comes from a family with more than 90 years in the concrete business, giving him an innate understanding of the industry and its problems. Spenner explained that one of the biggest issues in the concrete industry today is companies producing excessively strong concrete, resulting in considerably higher costs and carbon emissions. Alcemy uses advanced AI to reduce the time needed to test the strength of concrete from 28 days to just 40 minutes. This makes it possible for companies to test concrete in real-time, and then select the proper mixture for each product — enabling use-specific concrete on a deadline.

Solar and wind energy enhances drought resilience and groundwater sustainability

<embed>https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12810-5</embed> Nature Communications 11/06/2019

California recently endured a record-breaking drought after 2012 (refs. 20,21), which significantly impacted food production22, reduced hydropower generation23 and caused severe environmental issues (e.g., groundwater depletion, wildfires, tree mortality, land subsidence)......The maintenance of crop revenue and overall resilience of the agricultural sector largely relied on the unsustainable groundwater overdraft, which effectively offset the drought impact, but contributed to severe groundwater depletion (∼3.7 km3/year24). In the energy sector, during this driest year of the drought, decreased surface water availability sent the in-state hydropower generation plunging to 7% of the total electricity generated, substantially below the state’s long-term average of around 18%23. This power deficit was offset by electricity generated through the rapidly growing solar and wind fleet, as well as from increased use of natural gas and electricity purchased from out-of-state sources23. Furthermore, for the first time, in 2012, solar and wind electricity generation exceeded hydropower in California23 due to the declining cost of wind turbines and solar photovoltaic (PV) in conjunction with the popularity and stringency of the Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS), which mandates a certain proportion of renewables in the energy production.

CLEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGY IS TAKING CUES FROM SUNFLOWER SPIRALS, SCHOOLING FISH AND OTHER NATURAL PHENOMENA

<embed>https://ensia.com/articles/clean-energy-technology-wind-solar-biomimicry/</embed> Ensia 8/29/19

For example, scientists at Cornell studying the movements insect wings make as the insects hover found that the wingtips trace out figure-eight patterns, minimizing power consumption. Such energy-saving kinematics could help improve the efficiency of miniature unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) used for surveillance.

In July 2016, a solar-powered airplane flying over the desert region of Andalusia in Spain photographed breathtaking images of the Gemasolar concentrated solar power plant. The plant, operated by Torresol Energy, consists of 2,650 heliostats — mirrors that turn to track the motion of the sun, fanning out around, and reflecting sunlight toward, a 150-meter (490-foot)-high tower. The central tower houses molten salts that can store the energy of that light for extended periods of time.

In a fascinating article published in Solar Energy in 2012, researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and RWTH Aachen University in Germany reported that the placement of heliostats for a concentrated solar plant like Gemasolar could be optimized by mimicking the spiral arrangement of florets in a sunflower. This pattern, called Fermat’s spiral, occurs commonly in the arrangement of leaves on stems and florets in flowers.

Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chinese city, study finds

<embed>https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-now-cheaper-than-grid-electricity-in-every-chinese-city-study-finds</embed> CarbonBrief 8/12/2019

Solar power has become cheaper than grid electricity across China, a development that could boost the prospects of industrial and commercial solar, according to a new study.
Projects in every city analysed by the researchers could be built today without subsidy, at lower prices than those supplied by the grid, and around a fifth could also compete with the nation’s coal electricity prices.
They say grid parity – the “tipping point” at which solar generation costs the same as electricity from the grid – represents a key stage in the expansion of renewable energy sources.

Scotland Is Now Generating So Much Wind Energy, It Could Power Two Scotlands

<embed>https://www.sciencealert.com/scotland-s-wind-turbines-are-now-generating-double-what-its-residents-need</embed> ScienceAlert 7/17/2019

Specifically, turbines generated 9.8 million megawatt-hours of electricity between January and June, enough to supply power to 4.47 million homes – not bad for a country that has around 2.6 million homes to its name.

It's a record high for wind energy in Scotland, and it means the turbines could have provided enough electricity for every dwelling in Scotland, plus much of northern England as well, for the first six months of the year.

Stanford researchers want to reduce climate change by converting methane to CO2 into the atmosphere

<embed>https://www.businessinsider.com/stanford-scientists-to-stop-climate-change-by-emitting-more-co2-2019-6</embed> Business Insider 06/06/2019

In Nature Sustainability, Jackson explained that, in theory, a sort of large, complex fan could be used to filter out methane from the air in the atmosphere.This methane would then be converted into carbon dioxide in a chemical process involving heat and microporous zeolites.

Methane removal and atmospheric restoration

<embed>https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0299-x</embed> Nature.Com 05/20/2019

Zeolites and other technologies should be evaluated and pursued for reducing methane concentrations in the atmosphere from 1,860 ppb to preindustrial levels of ~750 ppb. Such a goal of atmospheric restoration provides a positive framework for change at a time when climate action is desperately needed.

China claims to have 'cracked' low cost production of lithium, political implications could be huge

<embed>https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/6/1/1861942/-China-claims-to-have-cracked-low-cost-production-of-lithium-political-implications-could-be-huge</embed> DailyKos 06/01/2019

In an article from May 14, the SCMP reports on an effort by the Chinese government to more easily separate lithium from other metals that are found in the same brines where it is produced. Currently, sorting lithium salts away from salts formed by magnesium requires multiple steps as the compounds are both physically similar and hard to separate with common chemical processes.

China cracks cheap lithium production in electric car breakthrough

<embed>https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3010200/china-cracks-cheap-lithium-production-electric-car-breakthrough</embed> South China Morning Post 05/14/2019

The cost of extracting the mineral has been slashed to a “record low” of 15,000 yuan (US$2,180) per tonne by the new process, a Chinese government report said.
That compares to an international price for lithium ranging from US$12,000 to US$20,000 per tonne – and a long-term contract price of about US$17,000 – over the past year, according to some industrial estimates.