Physicists led by the University of Iowa report definitive evidence that auroras that light up the sky in the high latitudes are caused by electrons accelerated by a powerful electromagnetic force called Alfven waves. Credit: Austin Montelius, University of Iowa
The aurora borealis, or northern lights, that fill the sky in high-latitude regions have fascinated people for thousands of years. But how they're created, while theorized, had not been conclusively proven.
In a new study, a team of physicists led by University of Iowa reports definitive evidence that the most brilliant auroras are produced by powerful electromagnetic waves during geomagnetic storms. The phenomena, known as Alfven waves, accelerate electrons toward Earth, causing the particles to produce the familiar atmospheric light show.
The study, published online June 7 in the journal Nature Communications, concludes a decades-long quest to demonstrate experimentally the physical mechanisms for the acceleration of electrons by Alfven waves under conditions corresponding to Earth's auroral magnetosphere.
Decarbonizing air transportation is critical to meeting U.S. climate goals and improving the nation's energy economy. But technologies that are transforming automobiles—such as electric motors and hydrogen fuels—are difficult to implement in aircraft.
A battery powerful enough to fuel an airplane would be prohibitively heavy. Hydrogen is only one quarter as energy dense as jet fuel (and many times more expensive) but would require large complex storage tanks onboard. To greatly reduce its emissions, the U.S. commercial aviation sector will need new methods of making sustainable aviation fuel.
For more than 25 years, Burmese pythons have been living and breeding in the Florida Everglades, where they prey on native wildlife and disrupt the region's delicate ecosystems. A new study shows that infrared cameras could make it easier to spot these invasive snakes in the Florida foliage, providing a new tool in the effort to remove them.
In the Optical Society (OSA) journal Applied Optics, researchers led by Dr. Kyle Renshaw from the University of Central Florida College of Optics and Photonics report that a near infrared camera helped people detect Burmese pythons at distances up to 1.3 times farther away than was possible using a traditional visible-wavelength camera. Because infrared sensors are small and low cost, they could easily be incorporated into handheld or vehicle-mounted systems designed for seeking out pythons.
"The removal of Burmese pythons is vital to preventing further damage to the Floridian ecosystem and preventing their spread to other regions," said Hewitt, a Ph.D. student and lead author on the study. "Our study—one of the first to examine the efficacy o
f near infrared sensing in locating these pythons—can help inform methods used to remove them from the environment."
A solar cell developed by physicists from the University of Luxembourg and Uppsala University has recently been certified with an efficiency of 14%, which comes close to the world record of 15.5%. These new findings have been recently accepted for publication in the international journal of energy research Joule.
Solar cells technology has seen significant progress over the last decades, putting solar cells among the lowest cost sources of electricity in central Europe. Solar cells have fundamental physical limitations, and they can never be 100% efficient.
The US Department of the Interior said yesterday that it will explore offshore wind energy potential on the Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). It’s part of the Biden administration’s goal to deploy 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind by 2030, which was announced at the end of March.
The Department of the Interior details its next steps:
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will publish a Request for Interest (RFI) in the Federal Register on Friday, June 11 to assess interest in potential offshore wind development in the OCS. The RFI will be focused on the Western and Central Planning Areas of the Gulf of Mexico offshore the states of Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama. Although the primary focus of the RFI is on wind energy development, BOEM is also seeking information on other renewable energy technologies.
Once published the RFI will open a 45-day public comment period to solicit indications of competitive interest and additional information on potential environmental consequences and other uses of the proposed area. BOEM will consider data received in response to this RFI to determine next steps in the renewable energy leasing process in the Gulf of Mexico.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
Poland to close Europe’s most polluting power plant by 2036
Wed 9 Jun 2021
Poland plans to close Europe’s most polluting power plant by the end of 2036, according to a draft document published by local authorities.
The document, which is subject to public consultation, is part of the Lodz region’s application for support from the EU’s Just Transition Fund, aimed at helping regions bear the cost of shifting to a climate-neutral economy.
The move comes after energy group PGE abandoned a plan to develop an open-pit lignite coalmine in Złoczew to fuel the Bełchatów plant after concluding the project would be loss-making, the document said.
Bełchatów, whose operations were expected to be extended beyond the 2030s by output from the mine, will also now be phased out between 2030 and 2036, the document said.
“Scheduling the dates of shutting down the power units of the Bełchatów power plant … [and] abandoning the plan to exploit the Złoczew deposit are of fundamental importance for planning the future of the Bełchatów complex, its employees and the inhabitants of this region,” said PGE’s chief executive, Wojciech Dąbrowski.
Raccoon dogs may be Britain’s next non-native pest, study finds
9 June 2021
They are cute and furry, and could become the UK’s next major non-native pest.
Raccoon dogs, an exotic member of the fox family that is native to Japan, China and Siberia, are one of the most destructive invasive species at risk of becoming established in Britain, experts say.
A “horizon scanning” study funded by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs identified the raccoon dog and the raccoon as the only mammals on a list of 20 invasive species likely to reach UK shores and destroy native wildlife or bring disease.
Raccoon dogs were introduced into the old Soviet Union in the mid-20th century, including in Baltic states such as Latvia. Historically farmed for fur, raccoon dogs escaped and have spread rapidly through continental Europe in recent years, colonising northern European countries such as Finland, Sweden and Denmark, despite eradication efforts, and being sighted in France, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands.
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The animals have been kept in Britain as exotic pets but since 2019 it has been illegal to buy or sell one. Last year, a wild raccoon dog was captured and killed in Wales. This year, a raccoon dog has been sighted in Lincolnshire and another animal was stolen from a back garden enclosure in Oldham. The animals are renowned as the escapologists of the mammal world.
Keystone pipeline canceled after Biden had blocked permit
Source: Associated Press
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The sponsor of the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline said Wednesday it is pulling the plug on the contentious project after Canadian officials failed to persuade President Joe Biden to reverse his cancellation of its permit on the day he took office.
Calgary-based TC Energy said it would work with government agencies “to ensure a safe termination of and exit from” the partially built line, which was to transport crude from the oil sand fields of western Canada to Steele City, Nebraska.
Construction on the 1,200-mile (1,930-kilometer) pipeline began last year when former President Donald Trump revived the long-delayed project after it had stalled under the Obama administration.
It would have moved up to 830,000 barrels (35 million gallons) of crude daily, connecting in Nebraska to other pipelines that feed oil refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
(Common Dreams) Ditching fossil fuels in favor of renewable energy in order to keep warming below the 1.5ºC threshold is both "necessary and technically feasible."
That's the conclusion of an analysis released Thursday entitled Fossil Fuel Exit Strategy. Produced by the University of Technology Sydney's Institute for Sustainable Futures in cooperation with the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, the report states clearly that "there is no need for more fossil fuels" because the world is overflowing with renewable energy capacity.
Such a pathway, said Sanjay Vashist, director of Climate Action Network South Asia, would avert a "criminal waste of money" that would "have devastating climate and humanitarian consequences."
A key point in the analysis is that simply stopping the industry's planned expansion of fossil fuel projects is insufficient to meet the Paris climate agreement's temperature goal and would actually "push warming well above 1.5ºC."
With this angle, the new analysis goes beyond the International Energy Agency's report last month calling for no oil and gas expansion in order to meet a goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. That's because even if there were no expansion, the report's projections show, the world would produce 35% more oil and 69% more coal than is consistent with meeting the 1.5°C target.
World oil demand ‘will rebound to pre-Covid levels by end of 2022’
Fri 11 Jun 2021
The world’s demand for oil will rebound to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2022, as recovering economies require oil-producing countries to pump more fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and their allies, including Russia, collectively known as Opec+, will need to “open the taps to keep the world oil markets adequately supplied”, the global energy watchdog said in its monthly oil report.
Oil demand is expected to bounce back by 5.4m barrels a day this year, one of the fastest climbs on record, and by a further 3.1m in 2022, pushing consumption of crude above 100m for the first time by the end of next year, the IEA said.
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It follows a record decline in 2020 as Covid-19 took hold around the world, temporarily closing factories, interrupting trade and applying the brakes to international travel, which caused demand to sink by 9m barrels a day.
The watchdog’s forecast of rising appetite for crude threatens to disappoint those who had hoped that global oil use might have peaked in 2019 before the pandemic, and underlines the “enormous effort required to get on track” to reach the energy sector’s goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050, seen as crucial for fighting the climate emergency.
Half of clothes sold by online fashion brands ‘made from virgin plastic’
Fri 11 Jun 2021
Approximately half of the clothes sold by large online fashion brands such as Boohoo and Asos are made entirely from virgin plastic materials such as polyester, despite a push to reduce the huge environmental impact of the fashion industry.
An analysis of 10,000 items added to the Asos, Boohoo, Missguided and PrettyLittleThing websites over a fortnight in May found an average of 49% were made entirely of new plastics such as polyester, acrylic and nylon. In some stores just 1% contained recycled fabric, according to the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) study.
The fast-fashion boom has caused the use of synthetic fibres, which are made using fossil fuels, to double over the past 20 years. These “cheap” materials, said Josie Warden, the RSA’s head of regenerative design who co-authored the report, had fuelled an “explosion of fast, throwaway fashion”.
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“These fabrics may be cheap at the point of sale, but they form part of a petrochemical economy which is fuelling runaway climate change and pollution,” she added. “The production of synthetic fibres uses large amounts of energy.”
The climate crisis has increased pressure on the fashion industry to mend its ways. In the UK 300,000 tonnes of clothing is burned or buried every year, leading to brands such as PrettyLittleThing and Missguided being criticised for encouraging unsustainable consumption with gimmicks such as 8p dresses and £1 bikinis.
Barrier Reef conservationists welcome Qld renewable energy strategy
12-06-2021
Marine conservationists have welcomed the announcement from the Queensland government that it will expand the Renewable Energy Fund from $500-million to $2-billion to support the growth of manufacturing powered by publicly-owned renewable energy.
“This is great news for our Great Barrier Reef. Unlocking clean renewable energy and storage is key to tackling climate change, [which is] our Reef’s greatest threat,” said Great Barrier Reef campaigner, David Cazzulino, of the Australian Marine Conservation Society.
“This announcement shows the Queensland government is listening to community members who have been demanding investment in clean energy jobs in order for us to do our fair share on climate change.
“The $2-billion fund will keep Queensland’s energy in public hands as the State Government invests in solar, wind, pumped hydro and battery storage that can be used to power clean manufacturing and hydrogen exports.”
Cazzulino added that, as the state’s coal-fired power stations struggled to maintain profitability compared to cheap renewable energy coming online, keeping the next generation of power in public hands meant Queenslanders would reap the benefits of lower energy costs into the future.
Humans can do lots of things that plants can't do. We can walk around, we can talk, we can hear and see and touch. But plants have one major advantage over humans: They can make energy directly from the sun.
That process of turning sunlight directly into usable energy—called photosynthesis—may soon be a feat humans are able to mimic to harness the sun's energy for clean, storable, efficient fuel. If so, it could open a whole new frontier of clean energy. Enough energy hits the earth in the form of sunlight in one hour to meet all human civilization's energy needs for an entire year.
Yulia Puskhar, a biophysicist and professor of physics in Purdue's College of Science, may have a way to harness that energy by mimicking plants.
Federal judge blocks Biden's pause on new oil, gas leases
Source: Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Biden administration’s suspension of new oil and gas leases on federal land and water was blocked Tuesday by a federal judge in Louisiana, who ordered that plans continue for lease sales that were delayed for the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska waters “and all eligible onshore properties.”
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The moratorium was imposed after Biden on Jan. 27 signed executive orders to fight climate change. The suit was filed in March. The Interior Department later canceled oil and gas lease sales from public lands through June — affecting Nevada, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and the bureau’s eastern region.
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Federal lawyers argued that the public notice and comment period doesn't apply to the suspension, that the lease sales aren't required by law and that the Secretary of the Interior has broad discretion in leasing decisions.
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“Millions and possibly billions of dollars are at stake,” wrote Doughty, who was nominated to the federal bench by President Donald Trump in 2017.
Climate activists take Norway to human rights court over Arctic oil plans
Wed 16 Jun 2021
Six climate activists and two environmental NGOs have taken Norway to the European court of human rights (ECHR), arguing the Nordic country’s plans to drill for oil in the Arctic are harming young people’s futures.
The activists, Greenpeace and Young Friends of the Earth, want the court to rule that Oslo’s 2016 decision to grant 10 Barents Sea oil exploration licences violated article 112 of Norway’s constitution, which guarantees the right to a healthy environment.
“The environmentalists argue that, by allowing new oil drilling in the midst of a climate crisis, Norway is in breach of fundamental human rights,” the campaigners said in a statement announcing their appeal to the ECHR.
The case follows a recent decision by a Dutch court to order Royal Dutch Shell to cut its global carbon emissions by 45% from 2019 levels by the end of 2030 in a landmark case brought by Friends of the Earth and 17,000 co-plaintiffs.
Norway, Europe’s second-largest oil and gas producer, produces about 4m barrels a day of oil equivalent. It said last week that while it was investing in hydrogen and offshore wind for its green energy transition, it would continue to extract oil and gas until at least 2050 and possibly beyond.
Feds Plan Insecticide Sprays Across 2.6 Million Acres of Montana Grasslands,
Feds Plan Insecticide Sprays Across 2.6 Million Acres of Montana Grasslands, Threatening Pollinators and Organic Farms
BILLINGS, Mont. – The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is currently soliciting contract bids for insecticide sprays across Eastern Montana. More than 2.6 million acres of Montana grasslands are identified in the bids as potential areas for aerial sprays, to suppress native species of grasshoppers. The insecticides will be applied aerially starting in mid-June, with the drift putting at risk organic farms and a national wildlife refuge adjacent to the proposed spray areas, as well beneficial insects within the spray blocks.
Federal, tribal, and private land in at least sixteen counties of eastern Montana are included in the potential spray areas. The overall area of the planned spray blocks measures more than 4,000 square miles, larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined, with some individual blocks measuring over 100,000 acres.
“Aerial application of insecticides on this scale will eliminate millions of insects that pollinate, recycle plant nutrients and perform natural pest control,” said Sharon Selvaggio, Pesticide Program Specialist with the Xerces Society. “Insecticide sprays on this scale across native ecosystems are short-sighted and unsustainable.”
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“It’s horrifying that the government sprays insecticides from aircraft across the public lands of the West,” said Jocelyn Leroux, Washington/Montana Director of Western Watersheds Project. “They are poisoning the food of grassland birds, including imperiled species like the sage-grouse, for the sake of public lands livestock grazing. It’s destructive to nature and it makes no sense.”
Most microplastic particles in the environment originate from larger pieces of plastic. In a long-term study, an interdisciplinary research team at the University of Bayreuth has simulated how quickly plastic breaks down into fragments under natural influences. High-tech laboratory tests on polystyrene show two phases of abiotic degradation. To begin with, the stability of the plastic is weakened by photo-oxidation. Then cracks form and more and more and smaller fragments are released into the environment. The study, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, allows conclusions to be drawn about other plastics that are common in the environment.
Polystyrene is an inexpensive plastic that is often used for packaging and thermal insulation, and is therefore particularly common in plastic waste. As part of their long-term study, the Bayreuth researchers for the first time combined analytical investigations, which were also carried out on polystyrene particles at the atomic level, with measurements determining the behavior of these particles under mechanical stress. On the basis of this, they developed a model for abiotic degradation, i.e. degradation without the influence of living organisms.
Rice University engineers have created microscopic seeds for growing remarkably uniform 2D perovskite crystals that are both stable and highly efficient at harvesting electricity from sunlight.
Halide perovskites are organic materials made from abundant, inexpensive ingredients, and Rice's seeded growth method addresses both performance and production issues that have held back halide perovskite photovoltaic technology.
In a study published online in Advanced Materials, chemical engineers from Rice's Brown School of Engineering describe how to make the seeds and use them to grow homogenous thin films, highly sought materials comprised of uniformly thick layers. In laboratory tests, photovoltaic devices made from the films proved both efficient and reliable, a previously problematic combination for devices made from either 3D or 2D perovskites.
Australia fights UN downgrade of Great Barrier Reef health
Source: AP
By ROD McGUIRK
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia said Tuesday it will fight against plans to downgrade the Great Barrier Reef’s World Heritage status due to climate change, while environmentalists have applauded the U.N. World Heritage Committee’s proposal.
The committee said in a draft report on Monday that “there is no possible doubt” that the network of colorful corals off Australia’s northeast coast was “facing ascertained danger.”
The report recommends that the world’s most extensive coral reef ecosystem be added to UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger, which includes 53 sites, when the World Heritage Committee considers the question in China in July.
The listing could shake Australians’ confidence in their government’s ability to care for the natural wonder and create a role for UNESCO headquarters in devising so-called “corrective measures,” which would likely include tougher action to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.
As farmers cultivated more land and began to grow fewer types of crops over the last 150 years, most native bumble bee species became rarer in Midwestern states.
New research reveals that these species declined while the average number of different crops grown in these states was cut in half and as modern agriculture began to focus on intensive production of corn and soybeans. A handful of hardy species continue to thrive today, but they also seem to prefer areas with a more diverse assortment of crops such as hay, beans, potatoes and oats in addition to corn and soy.
The findings suggest that landscapes with a wider range of crops could support more bumble bees, which are vital pollinators for both native plants and many crops.
