Technological adaptations
Data science could help Californians battle future wildfires
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
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
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
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
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.
Solar now ‘cheaper than grid electricity’ in every Chinese city, study finds
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
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
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
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
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
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.
