Energy & the Environment News and Discussions

weatheriscool
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Australian wildfires triggered massive algal blooms in Southern Ocean
https://phys.org/news/2021-09-australia ... algal.html
by Duke University
Clouds of smoke and ash from wildfires that ravaged Australia in 2019 and 2020 triggered widespread algal blooms in the Southern Ocean thousands of miles downwind to the east, a new Duke University-led study by an international team of scientists finds.

The peer-reviewed study, published September 15 in Nature, is the first to conclusively link a large-scale response in marine life to fertilization by pyrogenic—or fire-made—iron aerosols from a wildfire.

It shows that tiny aerosol particles of iron in the windborne smoke and ash fertilized the water as they fell into it, providing nutrients to fuel blooms at a scale unprecedented in that region.

The discovery raises intriguing new questions about the role wildfires may play in spurring the growth of microscopic marine algae known as phytoplankton, which absorb large quantities of climate-warming carbon dioxide from Earth's atmosphere through photosynthesis and are the foundation of the oceanic food web.
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caltrek
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Solar Cells That Last Thirty Years Could Turn Buildings Into Power Plants
by Kate McAlpine
September 16, 2021

https://www.futurity.org/solar-cells-ef ... e-2627682/

Introduction:
(Futurity) A new transparency-friendly solar cell design could marry high efficiencies with 30-year estimated lifetimes, researchers report.
It may pave the way for windows that also provide solar power.

“Solar energy is about the cheapest form of energy that mankind has ever produced since the industrial revolution,” says Stephen Forrest, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Michigan, who led the research. “With these devices used on windows, your building becomes a power plant.”

While silicon remains king for solar panel efficiency, it isn’t transparent. For window-friendly solar panels, researchers have been exploring organic—or carbon-based—materials. The challenge for Forrest’s team was how to prevent very efficient organic light-converting materials from degrading quickly during use.

The strength and the weakness of these materials lie in the molecules that transfer the photogenerated electrons to the electrodes, the entrance points to the circuit that either uses or stores the solar power. These materials are known generally as “non-fullerene acceptors” to set them apart from the more robust but less efficient “fullerene acceptors” made of nanoscale carbon mesh. Solar cells made with non-fullerene acceptors that incorporate sulfur can achieve silicon-rivaling efficiencies of 18%, but they do not last as long.
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weatheriscool
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Natural-Gas Prices Surge, and Winter Is Still Months Away

Low inventories around the world have made the heating fuel more expensive than it has been in years

By Ryan Dezember
Natural-gas prices have surged, prompting worries about winter shortages and forecasts for the most expensive fuel since frackers flooded the market more than a decade ago.

U.S. natural-gas futures ended Friday at $5.105 per million British thermal units. They were about half that six months ago and have leapt 17% this month.

Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/natural-ga ... 1631986861
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andmar74
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More about the energy crisis:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... t-my-bills

It feels like we have suddenly been hit by this. The price for electric energy has soared in Europe. As it looks now, we are going to pay about $570 more for electricity per year. Fortunately we don't use gas for heating, but wood.
Maybe we need more nuclear energy.
weatheriscool
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Sunlight-driven photocatalytic water splitting for hydrogen production at scale
https://phys.org/news/2021-09-sunlight- ... scale.html
by Shinshu University

Large-scale solar hydrogen production through water splitting using a powder photocatalyst is considered one of the most promising methods of producing sustainable fuels in the future. In 2018, this research group demonstrated that water-splitting photocatalytic panel reactor can be scaled up to 1 meter squared in size without compromising the solar water splitting activity of the photocatalyst. However, large-scale separation and collection of solar hydrogen beyond the laboratory scale had never been realized. It was necessary to review the design of the photocatalytic panel reactor and develop a system to safely separate the gas mixture of hydrogen and oxygen in an outdoor environment.

The joint research project involving NEDO, ARPChem, The University of Tokyo, Fujifilm, TOTO, Mitsubishi Chemical, Meiji University and Shinshu University (who was responsible for the photocatalytic water-splitting technology) demonstrated that in a large-scale outdoor area of 100m2 it is possible to split water using a powder photocatalyst and solar rays to retrieve solar hydrogen from the generated hydrogen-oxygen gas. More rigorous safety tests are still needed, but if a properly designed system is used, the highly explosive hydrogen-oxygen gas can be safely handled for long periods. Therefore, a system for producing a large amount of solar hydrogen at low costs through the improvement of the visible light responsive photocatalyst, the photocatalyst panel, and the gas separation module is within reach.
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caltrek
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Will Taxpayers Bear the Cost of Cleaning Up America’s Abandoned Oil Wells?
September 21, 2021

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... anup-costs

Introduction:
Policy experts warn new proposals to plug abandoned oil and gas wells amount to huge subsidy for the fossil fuel industry

Oil and gas companies have a century-old bad habit of drilling wells and ditching them. And while Congress finally has a plan to plug some abandoned wells, new proposals effectively pass the fossil fuel industry’s cleanup costs on to taxpayers and may even enable more drilling.

Concerned parties seem to agree on the scale of the crisis: millions of wells sit untended across the US, leaking toxins that pose public health problems along with the potent greenhouse gas methane, which contributes to the climate emergency.

But powerful special interests have carved out a presence in federal well-plugging efforts – one of the most bipartisan corners of Joe Biden’s $1tn infrastructure bill, which is due for a vote later this month. Instead of requiring fossil fuel companies to cover the actual cost of drilling and cleanup, policy experts say the proposal is an additional multibillion-dollar subsidy for the industry most responsible for driving the climate crisis.

“People on the surface think that this is a good environmental thing … but the devil is in the details,” said Megan Milliken Biven, a consultant and former program analyst with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. “This is a bill for the bosses.”
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weatheriscool
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Study: Expanding teleworking would reduce pollution by up to 10%
https://phys.org/news/2021-09-teleworki ... ution.html
by Autonomous University of Barcelona
A study by the ICTA-UAB analyzes different proposals for the implementation of telework based on mobility and air quality data obtained in Barcelona during the lockdown.

Implementing teleworking two, three or four days a week would reduce the levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), the main pollutant related to traffic emissions, respectively by 4%, 8% and 10%. This is the main conclusion of a study carried out by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB). The study analyzes the data obtained from an air quality model, together with the measurements of the XVPCA stations (Xarxa de Vigilància i Previsió de la Contaminació Atmosfèrica) registered in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (AMB), during the period of mandatory mobility restrictions during to the COVID-19 lockdown.

Mobility restrictions due to the pandemic have forced many people to work from home, thus increasing teleworking and improving air quality in cities. Starting with this exceptional situation, the researchers of the URBAG project at the ICTA-UAB have carried out a large-scale pilot study that allows reflecting upon the lessons learned during lockdown in terms of air pollution declines.

Taking into account the fact that 85% of the labor force of the AMB is dedicated to the service sector, and approximately 40% of all personal vehicle transit is work-related, researchers defined three different socio-labor scenarios based on a week of two, three or four days teleworking, and studied the changes in pollution with an air quality model for each.
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caltrek
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China’s Overseas Coal Power Retreat Could Wipe out $50 Billion of Investment
September 22, 2021

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14445711

Introduction:
(Reuters via The Asahi Shimbun) SHANGHAI/SINGAPORE--China’s pledge to stop building coal-fired power plants overseas could cull $50 billion of investment as it slashes future carbon emissions, analysts said, although Beijing’s own domestic coal program is still propping up the dirty fossil fuel.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a pre-recorded address at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that China would help developing countries build green energy production and halt construction of coal power plants abroad.

China has been under international pressure to announce an end to overseas coal financing as part of its updated package of national climate pledges to be submitted to the United Nations.

Beijing is the largest source of financing for coal power plants globally, and Xi’s announcement will have a far-reaching impact on coal power expansion plans in countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam and South Africa.

The announcement could affect 44 coal plants earmarked for Chinese state financing, totaling $50 billion, according to Global Energy Monitor (GEM), a U.S. think tank. That has the potential to reduce future carbon dioxide emissions by 200 million tons a year, GEM told Reuters.
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New imaging system reveals solar panel defects even in bright sunlight
https://phys.org/news/2021-09-imaging-r ... fects.html
by The Optical Society
Researchers have developed and demonstrated a new system that can detect defects in silicon solar panels in full and partial sunlight under any weather conditions. Because current defect detection methods cannot be used in daylight conditions, the new system could make it much easier to keep solar panels working optimally.

Silicon solar panels, which make up around 90 percent of the world's solar panels, often have defects that occur during their manufacturing, handling or installation. These defects can greatly lower the efficiency of the solar panels, so it is important that they be detected quickly and easily.

In the Optica Publishing Group journal Applied Optics, researchers from Nanjing University of Science and Technology in China describe how a unique combination of new hardware and software allows defects in solar panels to be clearly imaged and analyzed even in bright light.

"Today's defect detection systems can only be used to find defects at night or on solar panel modules that have been removed and moved inside or into a shaded environment," said Yunsheng Qian, who led the research team. "We hope that this system can be used to help inspectors at photovoltaic power stations locate defects and identify them more quickly, so that these systems can produce electricity at their maximum levels."
weatheriscool
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Oil prices rise above $80 a barrel for first time in three years
https://www.ft.com/content/14d4980b-816 ... 2b7f7d2c27
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