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.
