Faster and cheaper ethanol-to-jet-fuel on the horizon

by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Robert Dagle holds a vial of fuel created from biomass conversion. Credit: Andrea Starr |Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

A patented process for converting alcohol sourced from renewable or industrial waste gasses into jet or diesel fuel is being scaled up at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory with the help of partners at Oregon State University and the carbon-recycling experts at LanzaTech.

Two key technologies power the energy-efficient fuel production units.

A single-step chemical conversion streamlines what is currently a multi-step process. The new PNNL-patented catalyst converts biofuel (ethanol) directly into a versatile "platform" chemical called n-butene. A microchannel reactor design further reduces costs while delivering a scalable modular processing system.

The new process would provide a more efficient route for converting renewable and waste-derived ethanol to useful chemicals. Currently, n-butene is produced from fossil-based feedstocks using the energy-intensive cracking—or breaking down—of large molecules. The new technology reduces emissions of carbon dioxide by using renewable or recycled carbon feedstocks. Using sustainably derived n-butene as a starting point, existing processes can further refine the chemical for multiple commercial uses, including diesel and jet fuels, and industrial lubricants.

"Biomass is a challenging source of renewable energy because of its high cost. Additionally, the scale of biomass drives the need for smaller, distributed processing plants," said Vanessa Dagle, co-primary investigator of the initial research study, which was published in the journal ACS Catalysis. "We have reduced the complexity and improved efficiency of the process, while simultaneously reducing capital costs. Once modular, scaled processing has been demonstrated, this approach offers a realistic option for localized, distributed energy production."

Micro-to-macro jet fuel

In a leap toward commercialization, PNNL is partnering with long-time collaborators at Oregon State University to integrate the patented chemical conversion process into microchannel reactors built using newly developed 3D printing technology. Also called additive manufacturing, 3D printing allows the research team to create a pleated honeycomb of mini-reactors that greatly increase the effective surface-area-to-volume ratio available for the reaction.

Microchannel mini-reactors greatly increase the efficiency of biofuel chemical conversion. Credit: Oregon State University

"The ability to use new multi-material additive manufacturing technologies to combine the manufacturing of microchannels with high-surface-area catalyst supports in one process step, has the potential to significantly reduce the costs of these reactors," says OSU lead researcher Brian Paul. "We are excited to be partners with PNNL and LanzaTech in this endeavor."                                                                                                                          

"Due to recent advances in microchannel manufacturing methods and associated cost reductions, we believe the time is right to adapt this technology toward new commercial bioconversion applications," said Robert Dagle, co-primary investigator of the research.

The microchannel technology would allow commercial-scale bioreactors to be built near agricultural centers where most biomass is produced. One of the biggest impediments to using biomass for fuel is the need to transport it long distances to large, centralized production plants.

"The modular design reduces the amount of time and risk necessary to deploy a reactor," said Robert Dagle. "Modules could be added over time as demand grows. We call this scale up by numbering up."

The one-fourth commercial-scale test reactor will be produced by 3D printing using methods developed in partnership with OSU and will be operated on the Richland, Wash. campus of PNNL.

Once the test reactor is completed, PNNL commercial partner LanzaTech will supply ethanol to feed the process. LanzaTech's patented process converts carbon-rich wastes and residues produced by industries, such as steel manufacturing, oil refining and chemical production, as well as gasses generated by gasification of forestry and agricultural residues and municipal waste into ethanol.

The test reactor will consume ethanol equivalent to up to one-half dry ton biomass per day. LanzaTech has already scaled up the first generation of PNNL technology for jet fuel production from ethanol and formed a new company, LanzaJet, to commercialize LanzaJet Alcohol-to-Jet. The current project represents the next step in streamlining that process while providing additional product streams from n-butene.

"PNNL has been a strong partner in developing ethanol-to-jet technology that LanzaTech spin-off company, LanzaJet, is employing in multiple plants under development," said Jennifer Holmgren, LanzaTech CEO. "Ethanol can come from a variety of sustainable sources and as such is an increasingly important raw material for sustainable aviation fuel. This project shows great promise for alternate reactor technology which could have benefits for this key pathway to decarbonization of the aviation sector."

Watch how a PNNL-patented catalyst, combined with a unique microchannel reactor, can convert ethanol to a useful chemical with multiple commercial uses, including jet fuel. Credit: Eric Francavilla; Animation by Mike Perkins | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

A tunable process

Since their early experiments, the team has continued perfecting the process. When ethanol is passed over a solid silver-zirconia-based catalyst supported on a silica, it performs the essential chemical reactions that convert ethanol to either n-butene or, with some modifications to the reaction conditions, butadiene.

But even more importantly, after prolonged-duration studies, the catalyst remains stable. In a follow-up study published in ChemCatChem, the research team showed that if the catalyst loses activity, it can be regenerated by a simple procedure to remove coke―a hard carbon-based coating that can build up over time. An even more efficient, updated catalyst formulation will be used for scale-up.

"We discovered the concept for this catalyzed system that is highly active, selective, and stable," said Vanessa Dagle. "By adjusting the pressure and other variables, we can also tune the system to generate either butadiene, a building block for synthetic plastic or rubber or an n-butene, which is suitable for making jet fuels or products such as synthetic lubricant. Since our initial discovery, other research institutions have also begun exploring this new process." 

PNNL technology clears way for ethanol-derived jet fuel

More information: Vanessa Lebarbier Dagle et al, Single-Step Conversion of Ethanol to n-Butene over Ag-ZrO2/SiO2 Catalysts, ACS Catalysis (2020). DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.0c02235

Fan Lin et al, Understanding the Deactivation of Ag−ZrO 2 /SiO 2 Catalysts for the Single‐step Conversion of Ethanol to Butenes, ChemCatChem (2020). DOI: 10.1002/cctc.202001488

Journal information: ACS Catalysis 

Provided by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 

IT'S A SCAM LIKE BREX

How Did Postmedia and CBC Fall for This Bit of Bitcoin Hype?

Headlines touted a crypto boom for Alberta. A quick bit of research would have killed the dubious story.

Paul Willcocks Yesterday | TheTyee.ca
Paul Willcocks is a journalist and former publisher of newspapers, and now an editor with The Tyee.

Alberta ‘could host “up to one million” bitcoin mining machines relocated from China,’ reported the CBC. But the company proposing the deal is itty-bitty. Image: Creative Commons.


Clever news release writers and credulous reporters are the bread and butter for thousands of companies on over-the-counter markets in North America.

And the person who wrote last week’s news release for Black Rock Petroleum Co. deserves a mega-bonus. The PR message duped reporters for the CBC and Postmedia into hyping the company’s improbable plans for turning Alberta into a bitcoin megapower.

Which would be quite a coup for a company with no money and no operations, not listed on any stock exchange.

The CBC kicked it off last week with a story headlined “‘Up to 1 million’ bitcoin processors could be relocated to Alberta from China under energy firm’s proposal.”


The Calgary Herald and National Post followed up three days later.

“In Bitcoin mining, can Alberta be the new China?” the National Post’s business section headline wondered.

“Three natural gas-producing sites in southern Alberta could host ‘up to one million’ bitcoin mining machines relocated from China under a deal proposed by Nevada-based Black Rock Petroleum Co. amid Beijing’s ongoing crackdown on cryptocurrency production and trading,” the CBC reported.

That’s one-third of global Bitcoin mining capacity, Alex de Vries, who runs the cryptocurrency website, told the CBC, and would “represent a multi-billion-dollar investment.”

Postmedia said “the Nevada-based Black Rock struck a deal to bring up to one million Bitcoin mining machines to three natural gas plants in southern Alberta.”

The plan, both reports said, was to use natural gas to provide the massive energy needed to run and cool the computers needed to maintain Bitcoin as a currency.

The National Post said the first 200,000 units would be fuelled by the Quirk Creek natural gas plant, “which was acquired by Black Rock in July.” The CBC wrote “The Quirk Creek plant is operated by Calgary-based Caledonian Midstream Corp., which was acquired by Black Rock in early July.”

Not true. On July 4, Black Rock sent out a news release saying it had “entered an agreement to acquire Caledonian Midstream Corp.… for a combination of cash and stock.”

But the sale hasn’t yet been completed and Black Rock has no cash. It doesn’t own a gas plant, or have any presence in Alberta.

In fact, Black Rock has almost no real presence anywhere.

The CBC story, after about 1,200 words, did issue a caution.

“Black Rock Petroleum’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are limited, so its financial status is difficult to ascertain,” it reported. A University of Calgary professor was also quoted. “It’s certainly a very junior company that does not have a lot of assets compared to big energy companies that we are used to here.”

But “very junior” hardly does justice to Black Rock’s vaporous lack of substance. And its financial status isn’t “difficult to ascertain.” SEC filings set out its history as a shell company with no revenue, no assets and no actual business operations.


The company was spun off in 2013 from Starflick.com, which was “engaged in the business of developing, producing, marketing and distributing low-budget feature-length films in the United States, Canada and other countries.”

Not very successfully. The company had no revenue and $100 in assets at the time.

The company’s SEC filing was not encouraging about the shift to “the business of oil and gas exploration and the sale of related oil and gas equipment.”

Zoltan Nagy, still CEO of Black Rock, would head both the film business and the energy company, it said.

“Zoltan Nagy, our sole officer and director, has no experience in the oil and gas industry,” the filing noted. “Mr. Nagy has been an officer and director of Starflick.com, our parent company and Raptor Technology Group, Inc. which have had virtually no operations and substantial losses since their inception in 2011 and 2007, respectively. Mr. Nagy intends to devote 10 per cent of his time to our operations.”

The new company started with a dismal record and $12,085 in capital.

Eight years later, Black Rock Petroleum still has a dismal record and even less in capital. It’s most recent quarterly report painted a bleak picture.

Black Rock reported $1,000 in total assets. It had no revenue and expenses of $5,500. Not a promising base for building a global bitcoin mining empire. Its most recent annual report was also less than upbeat, even though it had acquired an inactive oilfield in Los Angeles and issued a press release announcing “plans for 10 initial wells to be drilled to bring the field into production.”

The report was charmingly candid on the reality of its plans, in a grade-school essay kind of way.

“If we are unable to complete drilling one well on the property, we will suspend operations until we raise more money,” it disclosed. “If we can’t or don’t raise more money, we will cease operations. If we cease operations, we don’t know what we will do, and we don’t have any plans to do anything.”

As it was on the state of Black Rock generally.

“We are a startup stage company and currently have no employees other than our sole officer and director.... Our officer and sole director has decided that he will only devote 10 per cent of his time or four hours per week to our operations and as a result our operations may be sporadic and occur at times which are convenient to him. Since he has no experience in oil and gas operations, he intends to hire at least one person who has experience in operating oil and gas leases,” Black Rock revealed.



Bitcoin Apparitions

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“Our auditors have issued a going concern opinion. This means that there is substantial doubt that we can continue as an ongoing business for the next 12 months unless we obtain additional capital to pay our bills. This is because we have not generated any revenues and no revenues are anticipated until we begin drop shipping oil and gas related equipment.”

Yet Postmedia and the CBC bought the notion that a company with a catchy name but no money, and an executive office in a two-bedroom condo in Port Coquitlam, was about to become a major player in a global market.

The main products of many over-the-counter stocks — ones where prices are set outside any stock exchange — are press releases with improbable claims, impossible projects and mergers and acquisitions that never happen. The dream is that some investors just might believe them.

But major news organizations are supposed to help readers separate fantasy from reality — not fall for the hype.

SEE 

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2021/07/cryptocurrency-mining-1-million-bitcoin.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2021/08/as-bitcoin-looks-to-go-green-some.html

Nurses and Doctors Take Aim at BC’s LNG Ambitions

Campaign cites health and climate risks, and challenges claims LNG is a greener ‘transition fuel.’

Michelle Gamage 18 Aug 2021 | TheTyee.ca
Michelle Gamage is a Vancouver-based journalist with an environmental focus who regularly reports on climate for The Tyee. Find her on Twitter @Michelle_Gamage.

It’s time to move away from fossil fuels, say doctors and nurses. Photo by Michelle Gamage.


People heading toward the Tsawwassen ferry terminal last weekend may have spotted an eerie sign of the times — a handful of doctors and nurses, standing under smoky skies, hoisting banners warning against the climate threat from liquified natural gas.

The group gathered to launch Unnatural Gas, a public awareness campaign by the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and Canadian Association of Nurses for the Environment about the climate and health damage from natural gas.

The associations say plans for an LNG industry in B.C. — including the $18-billion LNG Canada plant under construction in Kitimat — will drive an increase in gas production in the province’s northeast, largely from fracked wells.

They kicked off the campaign with two large billboards along the causeway leading to BC Ferries’ Tsawwassen terminal and the weekend demonstration.


For Helen Boyd, a registered nurse from Comox and B.C. representative for CANE, taking on the natural gas industry is a matter of social justice.
The Tyee is supported by readers like you Join us and grow independent media in Canada

“We wanted to emphasize the health impacts from upstream production sites, particularly the Peace River region,” Boyd said.

Boyd says natural gas extraction is polluting, and living near wells where companies use hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas from shale can lead to serious health impacts.

According to the Unnatural Gas website, there are 20,000 fracked wells in northeastern B.C., covering five times as much land as the Alberta oilsands mines. Almost all B.C. natural gas comes from fracking, which involves injecting water, chemicals and sand underground at high pressure to crack rocks and allow the gas to flow.

Boyd says low birth rates, lung cancer, premature births, higher chances of childhood leukaemia, asthma and exacerbation of respiratory illnesses are linked to living near fracking sites.

It’s important to raise awareness in southern B.C., where natural gas is used in homes and to heat buildings, while northern B.C. communities are dealing with the health impacts, Boyd says. BC Ferries also powers five of its ships with LNG, and plans to increase its use.

Dr. Kevin Liang, a University of British Columbia family medicine resident who created the Unnatural Gas website, said it’s also important to raise awareness about the climate impacts of natural gas.

“A lot of people think natural gas is a transition fuel,” Liang said, offering a cleaner alternative to coal or diesel.

But they shouldn’t, he said. Natural gas infrastructure leaks methane, its main ingredient, into the atmosphere.

And methane is a greenhouse gas with 84 times more climate warming impacts than CO2 over a 20-year period, Liang says.

Reports consistently find provincial and federal governments under-report methane emissions from the gas sector.

In July, the Energy and Emissions Research Lab at Carleton University published a report saying methane emissions from B.C.’s oil and gas industry are 1.6 to 2.2 times higher than reported by the federal government.

That worsens global heating, which has brought extreme weather and wildfires to the province this summer.


At the Vancouver clinic where he’s working as a resident, Liang says he’s seen an increase in people needing inhalers and suffering from respiratory issues and health issues related to B.C.’s heat waves.

Liang says the billboards weren’t placed by the Tsawwassen terminal to target BC Ferries, but because they want to educate British Columbians travelling over the summer.

But anyone on the BC Ferries fleet may notice large advertisements for FortisBC promoting the corporation’s transition from diesel to LNG.

That’s part of BC Ferries 2019 Clean Futures Plan to transition 40 per cent of the fleet to all-electric or low-carbon fuel by 2030.

Switching to natural gas will displace more than 22 per cent of the fleet’s diesel fuel consumption, reduce the carbon intensity of the fuel burned and support domestically sourced fuel, according to the Clean Futures Plan.

Nik Pavlenko, senior researcher with the International Council on Clean Transportation’s fuel team, says that’s more greenwashing than green.

Pavlenko says switching to LNG won’t benefit the climate, because the lifecycle emissions from natural gas are equal to, if not worse than, other fossil fuels.

LNG burns cleaner, but that’s just measuring what comes out of the smokestack, Pavlenko says.

“LNG has lower CO2 emissions and lower particulate emissions which are considered for local air quality,” he says. “But when you actually look at what it takes to produce LNG and the impact of methane leakage throughout its lifecycle, we see LNG can actually have worse impacts than the fuels it’s replacing.”

Methane can have 20 to 85 times the impact of CO2 emissions, so even if a small amount leaks out during its lifecycle of fracking to ferry power there can be substantial implications, he says.


BC’s Methane Emissions Are Double What Government Thought: Study

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Pavlenko says ferries have some of the leakiest engines, with methane escaping before its burned or released due to incomplete combustion.

“When you take into account not only the upstream leakage, but also the slip that’s happening on the ship, adding that all up can greatly increase emissions compared to liquid petroleum fuels,” Pavlenko says.

So why would BC Ferries be so eager to switch to LNG as a fuel source?

Pavlenko says that answer is likely financial instead of environmental.

“LNG is a cheap source of fuel, especially compared to genuinely better lower-carbon alternatives like hydrogen or electricity,” he says. “It gives those who switch to LNG an opportunity to claim they’re making a difference while not spending much money while doing it.”


International Energy Agency ‘Annihilates’ Chance of a Fossil-Fuel Future

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BC Ferries did not respond to an interview request by publication time.

As part of the public awareness campaign, CAPE and CANE are calling on the B.C. government to implement a moratorium on fracking expansion; a just transition for workers; investments in zero-emission buildings; and an end to fossil-fuel subsidies.

Boyd pointed to a recent Stand.earth analysis that found the B.C. government spent $1.3 billion on fossil fuel subsidies in 2020–2021.

Energy Minister Bruce Ralston told The Tyee that number didn’t tell the whole picture and contested Stand.earth’s definition of a fossil fuel subsidy.

On Monday The Tyee requested an interview with Ralston but he was not made available. In an email, the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation said it was undertaking a comprehensive review of the province’s oil and gas royalty system “to ensure it meets our goals for economic development, a fair return on our resources, and environmental protection.”

The BC NDP promised the review of provincial royalty programs during the 2019 election campaign. The province did not respond to The Tyee’s questions about when the review would be completed.

Ancient Lava Reveals Earth's Magnetic Field Really Does Have a Cycle of 200M Years

Diagram of Earth's magnetic field and solar wind. (Naeblys/iStock/Getty Images Plus)
NATURE

DAVID NIELD

20 AUGUST 2021

We know that Earth's magnetic field is always shifting in its direction and its strength. Just how quickly these changes are happening is of great interest, considering this planetary feature keeps us all protected from violent cosmic radiation.

Now, a new analysis of ancient lava flows in eastern Scotland – filling in some crucial blanks in our magnetic field history – has backed up previous research pointing to a 200-million-year cycle during which the field weakens and then strengthens again.

The team also used the magnetic history they found buried in the geological record to double-check other measurements made over the last few decades, and to chart a history of Earth's magnetic field going back some 500 million years.

"Our findings, when considered alongside the existing datasets, support the existence of an approximately 200-million-year long cycle in the strength of the Earth's magnetic field related to deep Earth processes," says paleomagnetist Louise Hawkins, from the University of Liverpool in the UK.

"As almost all of our evidence for processes within the Earth's interior is being constantly destroyed by plate tectonics, the preservation of this signal for deep inside the Earth is exceedingly valuable as one of the few constraints we have."

Thermal and microwave paleomagnetic analysis techniques were used on rock samples from the ancient lava flows, with the alignment of mineral crystals inside them revealing the state of Earth's magnetic field at the time they were originally formed.

The team discovered that between 332 and 416 million years ago, there was a dip in the magnetic field that matches up with another one from 120 million years ago. During the earlier period, now called the Mid-Palaeozoic Dipole low (MPDL), the field surrounding Earth was around a quarter of the strength that it is today.

Those dates match up with the 200-million-year cycle, and give experts some important new insights into how the magnetic field was behaving more than 300 million years ago, in the lead up to a notable Superchron – the name given to an extended period of time when the field stays stable.

"This comprehensive magnetic analysis of the Strathmore and Kinghorn lava flows was key for filling in the period leading up the Kiman Superchron, a period where the geomagnetic poles are stable and do not flip for about 50 million years," says Hawkins.

If this cycle holds true, and the magnetic pole flips or reversals tend to happen every 200,000-300,000 years, we're actually due for another one – much to the concern of scientists, who aren't sure what the effect will be on all the technology and gadgets we obviously didn't have last time it happened.

The more we know about the history of Earth's magnetic field in general, the better we can predict what it's going to do next. If our force field against space radiation starts to develop problems, we need to know about it as early as possible.

There was another bonus finding to the research too: it has previously been thought that flips in the magnetic field's orientation happen when the field is weaker, and this is another hypothesis that the new data backs up.

"Our findings also provide further support that a weak magnetic field is associated with pole reversals, while the field is generally strong during a Superchron, which is important as it has proved nearly impossible to improve the reversal record prior to around 300 million years ago," says Hawkins.

The research has been published in PNAS.

Unlocking the Secrets of Earth’s Magnetic Field From 9,000-Year-Old Recordings

TOPICS:ArchaeologyMagnetosphereTel Aviv University

By TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY AUGUST 18, 2021

Excavations at Tel Tifdan / Wadi Fidan. Credit: Thomas E. Levy

International research by Tel Aviv University, the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Rome, and the University of California San Diego uncovered findings regarding the magnetic field that prevailed in the Middle East between approximately 10,000 and 8,000 years ago. Researchers examined pottery and burnt flints from archaeological sites in Jordan, on which the magnetic field during that time period was recorded. Information about the magnetic field during prehistoric times can affect our understanding of the magnetic field today, which has been showing a weakening trend that has been cause for concern among climate and environmental researchers.

The research was conducted under the leadership of Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef of the Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University and Prof. Lisa Tauxe, head of the Paleomagnetic Laboratory at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in collaboration with other researchers from the University of California at San Diego, Rome, and Jordan. The article was published in the journal PNAS.

Burnt flints and ceramics used to reconstruct the strength of the ancient geomagnetic field. Credit: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Prof. Ben-Yosef explains, “Albert Einstein characterized the planet’s magnetic field as one of the five greatest mysteries of modern physics. As of now, we know a number of basic facts about it: The magnetic field is generated by processes that take place below a depth of approximately 3,000 km beneath the surface of the planet (for the sake of comparison, the deepest human drilling has reached a depth of only 20 km); it protects the planet from the continued bombardment by cosmic radiation and thus allows life as we know it to exist; it is volatile and its strength and direction are constantly shifting, and it is connected to various phenomena in the atmosphere and the planet’s ecological system, including – possibly – having a certain impact on climate. Nevertheless, the magnetic field’s essence and origins have remained largely unresolved. In our research, we sought to open a peephole into this great riddle.”

Wadi Fidan. Credit: Thomas E. Levy

The researchers explain that instruments for measuring the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field were first invented only approximately 200 years ago. In order to examine the history of the field during earlier periods, science is helped by archaeological and geological materials that recorded the properties of the field when they were heated to high temperatures. The magnetic information remains “frozen” (forever or until another heating event) within tiny crystals of ferromagnetic minerals, from which it can be extracted using a series of experiments in the magnetics laboratory. Basalt from volcanic eruptions or ceramics fired in a kiln are frequent materials used for these types of experiments.

The great advantage in using archaeological materials as opposed to geological is the time resolution: While in geology dating is on the scale of thousands years at best, in archaeology the artifacts and the magnetic field that they have recorded can be dated at a resolution of hundreds and sometimes even tens of years (and in specific cases, such as a known destruction event, even give an exact date). The obvious disadvantage of archaeology is the young age of the relevant artifacts: Ceramics, which have been used for this purpose up until now, were only invented 8,500 years ago.

Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef. Credit: Yoram Reshef

The current study is based on materials from four archaeological sites in Wadi Feinan (Jordan), which have been dated (using carbon-14) to the Neolithic period – approximately 10,000 to 8,000 years ago — some of which predate the invention of ceramics. Researchers examined the magnetic field that was recorded in 129 items found in these excavations, and this time, burnt flint tools were added to the ceramic shards.

Prof. Ben-Yosef: “This is the first time that burnt flints from prehistoric sites are being used to reconstruct the magnetic field from their time period. About a year ago, groundbreaking research at the Hebrew University was published, showing the feasibility of working with such materials, and we took that one step forward, extracting geomagnetic information from tightly dated burned flint. Working with this material extends the research possibilities tens of thousands of years back, as humans used flint tools for a very long period of time prior to the invention of ceramics. Additionally, after enough information is collected about the changes in the geomagnetic field over the course of time, we will be able to use it in order to date archaeological remains.”

An additional and important finding of this study is the strength of the magnetic field during the time period that was examined. The archaeological artifacts demonstrated that at a certain stage during the Neolithic period, the field became very weak (among the weakest values ever recorded for the last 10,000 years), but recovered and strengthened within a relatively short amount of time.

According to Prof. Tauxe, this finding is significant for us today: “In our time, since measurements began less than 200 years ago, we have seen a continuous decrease in the field’s strength. This fact gives rise to a concern that we could completely lose the magnetic field that protects us against cosmic radiation and therefore, is essential to the existence of life on Earth. The findings of our study can be reassuring: This has already happened in the past. Approximately 7,600 years ago, the strength of the magnetic field was even lower than today, but within approximately 600 years, it gained strength and again rose to high levels.”

Reference: “The strength of the Earth’s magnetic field from Pre-Pottery to Pottery Neolithic, Jordan” by Anita Di Chiara, Lisa Tauxe, Thomas E. Levy, Mohammad Najjar, Fabio Florindo and Erez Ben-Yosef, 16 August 2021, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2100995118

The research was carried out with the support of the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation, which encourages academic collaborations between universities in Israel and in the US. The researchers note that in this case, the collaboration was particularly essential to the success of the study because it is based on a tight integration of methods from the fields of archaeology and geophysics, and the insights that were obtained are notably relevant to both of these disciplines.

NAOC releases details of new top-class site for astronomy observatory
By Zheng Yibing


The National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) on Wednesday unveiled the details of a world-class site on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau for the construction of an optical astronomy observatory.

The announcement was published in the journal Nature.

The site, which sits at an altitude of 4,200-4,500 meters, is on a summit near a town named Lenghu, or "Cold Lake," in northwest China's Qinghai Province.

The Lenghu site's optical observation conditions are similar to those of the top-tier observatories in the Western Hemisphere, according to Professor Deng Licai, leader of the NAOC's large optical and infrared telescope team.

Infrastructure construction at the Lenghu site in northwest China's Qinghai Province. Deng Licai/NAOC


Deng said that the site has an extremely arid climate with 70 percent of the nights in a year having clear and photometric conditions, and the median night temperature variation there is only 2.4 degrees Celsius, indicating very stable local surface air.

Deng and his team started selecting the site in 2017. With help from the local government, they have completed the initial infrastructure construction at the potential site at an altitude of 4,200 meters on Mount Saishiteng near Lenghu Town.

During the period, the team and constructors climbed to the site dozens of times, carrying instrumentation and recording important data.

NAOC members work at the Lenghu site in Qinghai Province. Deng Licai/NAOC

In the announcement, the team said that the site occupies a unique geographic position in the Eastern Hemisphere and bridges the huge gap between Mauna Kea (155.8246° W), Atacama (70.4042° W) and the Canary Islands (17.8577° W).

This will form a perfect network of ground-based, high-quality observatories ready for great scientific discoveries, according to the team.

"That includes searching signs of life on exoplanets, electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave outbursts and many more," said Deng.

The seeing and weather data for the Lenghu site collected during 2018 and 2020 are available on a public website, lenghu.china-vo.org.

 

China’s astronauts make spacewalk to upgrade robotic arm

על ידי

 1246-newsvot

 -

August 20, 2021

The foray is part of China’s heavily promoted space programme which has already seen the nation land a rover on Mars and send probes to the moon

BEIJING – Chinese astronauts edged into space on Friday to add the finishing touches to a robotic arm on the Tiangong space station.

The foray, the second spacewalk in two months and relayed on state television, is part of China’s heavily promoted space programme which has already seen the nation land a rover on Mars and send probes to the moon.

In June, three crew arrived at the station, where they are set to remain in space for a total of three months in China’s longest crewed mission to date.

On Friday, astronauts Nie Haisheng and Liu Boming successfully exited the Tianhe core module to install foot stops and a workbench on the station’s robotic arm, said the China Manned Space Agency in a statement.

Video footage showed the astronauts working outside the spacecraft while tethered to it with a long rope.

Their tasks also include working on a thermal unit and adjusting a panoramic camera, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

This marks only the third spacewalk for Chinese astronauts, after the first in 2008 — when Zhai Zhigang made China the third country to complete a spacewalk after the Soviet Union and the United States.

The second took place in early July, when Liu and the third crew member Tang Hongbo left the station.

It is China’s first crewed mission in nearly five years and a matter of huge prestige as the country marks the 100th anniversary of the ruling Communist Party.

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How Underwater Sculptures Sunk Illegal Trawling—Bringing Art and Life Back into an Italian Bay

על ידי

 1246-newsvot

 -

August 20, 2021

Andy Corbley

When Paolo Fanciulli dropped 39 large marble sculptures down to the bottom of the sea off of Tuscany’s Maremma Regional Park, it was not his first strike in the battle against unsustainable fishing, but it was his first step into the art world.

A fascinating story, at the heart of which is a fascinating and charismatic figure, recounts the confluence of an ancient relationship between man and nature, and a celebration of the Mediterranean Sea as a cradle of civilization.

Sixty-year-old Fanciulli practices sustainable fishing and “pescaturismo” or fishing-tourism at his home in the village of Talamone.

He still wakes up at dawn before heading out into the clear waters off the coast of Tuscany’s Grosseto province. He and his colleague Francesco fish, as their ancient ancestors did, by casting shallow nets that take mullet and bream while leaving the bottom reaches undisturbed.

Fanciulli’s “war” against illegal or unsustainable methods of fishing is long documented, and has appeared in newspapers around the globe.

From 2002 to 2006, he gathered the help of the Tuscan government and WWF-Italia to deploy a strategic formation of 126 underwater cement bollards to ruin any of the deep sea trawling nets he saw were rapidly destroying the fish stocks he grew up harvesting.

The nets would tear up the delicate seabed ecosystem, including seagrass meadows, and simply decapitate the marine food web. But Fanciulli knew the nets were extremely expensive to replace, and the relatively-inexpensive bollards, costing about €560 to make and transport, would last a lot longer than the poachers would.

That work took him twenty years to complete, recount the authors of his biography The House of the Fish.

His next project would be similar, but also quite different. It would expand the protection of his beloved Mediterranean, while enlisting some of the greatest marble sculptors on Earth to bring the world’s attention to the greater problem of general environmental degradation.

Andy Corbley

The House of the Fish

“The importance of the project is that we need some sensible consumption of resources,” Fanciulli told GNN. “However the illegal industry is devastating everything, and with this project we can send a message to the whole world to give back; not only to take.”

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“But the intent of mine is also to think of the future; a better future, with more sustainable fishing, and a greater respect for the environment,” he said.

Paolo Fanciulli, is, as he told me when I went out on a tour with him and Francesco, a fisherman, not a super-savvy marketer or social media manager.

So with the help of a childhood friend who had become a successful engineer, Fanciulli imagined a series of large marble sculptures, taken from the Carrara Quarry, the fount of so much of the marble which Michelangelo used to create his artworks.

While Fanciulli asked for two—after a meeting with the President of Grosseto region of Tuscany and Ippolito Turco, the president of an association that now looks after the sculptures—he received 100.

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But who would sculpt them? He needed to find generous and far-sighted sculptors who would put their creativity at the service of the sea, and enough funding to transport the 10-20 ton blocks from the north of Tuscany to the south.

Arriving at the house of an artist named Massimo Catalani, who lived in Rome and worked at the famous Federici Palace, Paolo, who brought his morning’s catch in a large pot to cook for dinner, was connected with scores of people from the world of art and architecture, one of whom was Emily Young, considered Britain’s best living sculptor.

“It was like a film,” Paolo writes.

Atlantis in Tuscany

Young was among a dozen international and Italian sculptors who donated their time and effort to contribute to a project that would not be seen in traditional museums, but that would slowly become covered in seaweed, and seen only by divers as they sit sentinel-like, defending the life of the depths.

In May 2015, the first 20 stone blocks, each costing thousands simply to transport to the pier of Talamone, were loaded onto a barge and floated out to their final resting place. A second group of 19 were lowered down last summer.

Ippolito Turco told The Independent, “We’ve managed to totally stop the illegal fishing in the area. Now we’re looking at extending the project along the coast to the north. We want to put more sculptures on the seafloor. It has proved to be very effective.”

“What you want to happen is that in time, you won’t know they are sculptures,” said Ms. Young. “They will be so covered in seaweed and algae that they will look like a coral reef or the remains of a wreck.”

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Young added that she likes to hope one day they will be found by marine archaeologists, and hypothesized as being part of an ancient civilization.

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YVMIN Turned Prosthetics Into Wearable Art

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August 20, 2021

Photo: Courtesy of YVMIN

Xiao Yang, a Chinese influencer and model based in Chengdu, has been wearing a prosthetic leg for almost 20 years. Though she says it’s now very much a part of her body, Yang’s prosthesis has caused her to have a challenging relationship with fashion and dressing up. “In high school, when I was very eager to dress up, I thought that the prosthetic limbs affected my external beauty,” she tells Vogue. “Wearing a prosthesis also caused one side of my buttocks to be deformed. I [still] feel unsafe if I wear tight pants or tops that are shorter than the buttocks—like [I’m] being exposed. I wore T-shirts and straight pants for a long time.” 

Recently, however, Yang began experimenting more with her fashion choices and increasingly found herself wanting her prosthetic to reflect her sleek, modern style (she has a closet full of cool graphic tees and statement blazers, by the way). Cut to earlier this year in Chengdu, when she met Xiaoyu Zhang and Min Li—the two designers behind the Chinese jewelry brand YVMIN—and the three of them came up with an idea: What if we treat prosthetics like wearable art?  

“We think it is only natural to decorate any part of our body, prosthetic as well,” says Zhang. Yang was instantly on board with the concept, which involved turning her prosthetic limb into a bold statement accessory of sorts. “This project tells everyone that wearing a prosthesis is a fact that cannot be changed—but wearing a prosthesis that looks gorgeous is also achievable,” Yang says. “This feeling is super cool; there will definitely be more people who need to experience it.” The result? Three different decorative shells that can be worn over Yang’s prosthetic leg, with sweet details like a heart-shaped “knee cap.”

Typically, YVMIN creates delicate, feminine jewelry, such as bowed earrings and heart-shaped pendant necklaces. But the design duo saw an opportunity to challenge themselves by working with Yang to create something entirely new. “When we saw Xiao sharing her OOTD photos on social media with her strong personal style, we thought it would be a good opportunity,” says Zhang. “We decided to only make the shell for the prosthesis, which avoids many technical problems, and can also make many pieces at the same time for Xiao to wear on different occasions,” says Zhang.