Energy & the Environment News and Discussions

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raklian
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To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
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Time_Traveller
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BP accused of dumping industrial waste in marine-protected area off Shetland
Wed 6 Jul 2022

BP has been accused of dumping industrial waste at sea after starting to drop thousands of tonnes of oil pipes in a legally protected marine wildlife zone in the Atlantic.

Confidential documents seen by the Guardian show the oil company sought approval to dump 14 pipes and control cables 120 miles west of Shetland after finishing drilling at the site.

It started dropping four days ago on to a marine protection area (MPA) after being given clearance last week by the UK’s decommissioning regulator.

The area is designated an MPA under international law because of its rare giant deep sea sponges, gravel ecosystem and ocean quahog, a very slow-growing mollusc. A type of clam, ocean quahog are one of the longest-living animals on Earth, and have been known to live for 400 to 500 years.

BP has been drilling there for 25 years, at depths of up to 600 metres, using a floating oil ship called the Petrojarl Foinaven, which is to be scrapped. The company also plans to drop all the ship’s steel mooring lines and anchors on the site, totalling 4,180 tonnes.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... s-drilling
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caltrek
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There’s a New Hole in the Ozone Layer, and It’s Even Bigger Than the Other Ones
by Hillel Aron
July 5, 2022

Introduction:
(Courthouse News) — As if we needed any more bad news this week: A new hole in the ozone layer has been discovered by Canadian chemical physicist Qing-Bin Lu. Unlike the other two, over the North and South poles, this one is over the tropical regions and can be seen year-round. It is, according to Lu, seven times larger than the better-known hole over Antarctica, though they are similar in depth.

And like that other hole, roughly 80% of the normal ozone value is depleted at the center of the hole (the term “hole” refers to a thinning of the ozone layer past a certain threshold, and not an actual hole).

The discovery comes as something of a surprise.

“We never thought there was any possibility to see a hole over the tropics,” said Lu.

Located in Earth’s stratosphere, the ozone layer is a shield of chemicals (containing a high concentration of ozone) that encircle the Earth that absorbs most of the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation. Without the ozone layer, that radiation would damage DNA in plants and animals and cause rampant skin cancer.
Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/theres- ... her-ones/
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caltrek
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Ozone Depletion Over North Pole Produces Weather Anomalies
July 7, 2022

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) Many people are familiar with the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, but what is less well known is that occasionally, the protective ozone in the stratosphere over the Arctic is destroyed as well, thinning the ozone layer there. This last happened in the spring months of 2020, and before that, in the spring of 2011.

Each time the ozone layer has been thinned out, climate researchers subsequently observed weather anomalies across the entire northern hemisphere. In central and northern Europe, Russia and especially in Siberia, those spring seasons were exceptionally warm and dry. In other areas, such as polar regions, however, wet conditions prevailed. These weather anomalies were particularly pronounced in 2020. Switzerland was also unusually warm and dry that spring.
Conclusion:
Normally, ozone absorbs UV radiation emitted by the sun, thereby warming the stratosphere and helping to break down the polar vortex in spring. But if there is less ozone, the stratosphere cools and the vortex becomes stronger. “A strong polar vortex then produces the effects observed at the Earth’s surface,” (Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione Fellow Gabriel) Chiodo says. Ozone thus plays a major role in temperature and circulation changes around the North Pole.

Greater accuracy possible for long-term forecasts

…(N)ew findings could help climate researchers make more accurate seasonal weather and climate forecasts in future. This allows for better prediction of heat and temperature changes, “which is important for agriculture,” Chiodo says.

(Doctoral student Marina) Friedel adds, “It will be interesting to observe and model the future evolution of the ozone layer.” This is because ozone depletion continues, even though ozone-depleting substances such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) have been banned since 1989. CFCs are very long-lived and linger in the atmosphere for 50 to 100 years; their potential to cause ozone destruction lasts for decades after they have been taken out of circulation. “Yet CFC concentrations are steadily declining, and this raises the question of how quickly the ozone layer is recovering and how this will affect the climate system,” she says.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957995
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Researchers create method for breaking down plant materials for earth-friendly energy
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-07-met ... nergy.html
by Emilie Lorditch, Michigan State University
With energy costs rising, and the rapidly emerging effects of burning fossil fuels on the global climate, the need has never been greater for researchers to find paths to products and fuels that are truly renewable.

"We use 20 million barrels of oil a day in the U.S.; that's about a fifth of the world's usage," said Ned Jackson, a professor of organic chemistry in the College of Natural Science at Michigan State University. "All our liquid fuels and nearly all of our manufactured materials, from gasoline and gallon jugs to countertops and clothes, start with petroleum—crude oil."

Developing the tools to move from fossil fuels to renewable sources of carbon for all these components of daily life is necessary. But according to the most optimistic projections, Jackson said, "What we could harvest annually from biomass in the U.S. only has about two-thirds as much carbon in it as the crude oil that the nation uses."

Jackson and his former graduate student Yuting Zhao, now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois, have developed a chemical method that enables electricity and water to break the strong chemical bonds in biomass or plant matter. This "electrocatalytic" process could be applied to lignin, a carbon-rich biomass component that is usually discarded or simply burned as a byproduct of making paper. This new tool also has the potential to destroy environmental pollutants.
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Wind and solar produce more electricity than nuclear for the first time in the US
For the first time ever, wind and solar produced 17.96% more electricity in the month of April than nuclear power plants.

Further, electrical generation by clean energy – which included biomass, geothermal, and hydropower and was driven by strong solar and wind growth – accounted for almost 30% of total US electrical generation in the month of April, according to a SUN DAY Campaign analysis of newly released US Energy Information Administration (EIA) data.
https://electrek.co/2022/07/07/wind-and ... in-the-us/
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weatheriscool
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Final destination deep sea: Microplastics' impact on ocean floor even greater than assumed
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-destinati ... mpact.html
by Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum
Senckenberg researchers Serena Abel and Angelika Brandt, together with colleagues from the Alfred Wegener Institute—Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and Goethe University in Frankfurt, have investigated microplastic pollution in the Western Pacific Kuril-Kamchatka Trench. They found between 215 and 1,596 microparticles per kilogram in each of a total of 13 sediment samples from depths of up to 9,450 meters—more than previously detected. Their study, recently published in the journal Science of The Total Environment, reveals that the deep sea serves as the "oceans' garbage dump"—and it is surprisingly dynamic when it comes to deposition. The high biodiversity at the deepest ocean floor is severely threatened by microplastic pollution.

Microplastics are everywhere. Tiny plastic particles pollute nearly every ecosystem on Earth. Oceans are particularly affected, and as the newly published study suggests, marine trenches thousands of meters below sea level are the "final resting place" for a disturbingly large amount of the tiniest plastic particles.

Serena Abel, a visiting researcher at the AWI and a research associate at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt, along with Prof. Dr. Angelika Brandt, head of the institute's Department of Marine Zoology, and researchers from Goethe University and the AWI, evaluated sediment samples from the bottom of the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench in the Western Pacific that were collected in 2016 during a deep-sea expedition with the research vessel "Sonne." "We took a total of 13 samples at seven different stations along the trench, from depths ranging between 5,740 and 9,450 meters. Not a single site was free of microplastics," reports marine biologist Abel, and she continues, "Per kilogram of sediment, we detected between 215 and 1,596 microplastic particles—no one would have expected such a large number prior to this."
weatheriscool
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Oil prices extend slide, looking to erase the gains seen after Russia's invasion of Ukraine
Source: Market Watch

FUTURES MOVERS
Oil futures were under renewed pressure Thursday, extending a drop below $100 a barrel to trade at their lowest levels since February, in the days surrounding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Price action
West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery fell $3.98, or 4.2%, to $92.32 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It traded as low as $90.56, the lowest intraday level for a front-month contract since Feb. 25, FactSet data show.

September Brent crude the global benchmark, dropped $3.50, or 3.5%, to $96.07 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.

Back on Nymex, August gasoline dropped 2.8% to $3.1429 a gallon, while August heating oil shed 2.8% to $3.5636 a gallon.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets ... ar-AAZzj1D
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What happens if Russia cuts off gas supplies to Europe? | DW Business Special
Bleak outlook.
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