SAUDI WAR OF AGRESSION

Yemen war will have killed 377,000 by year's end: UN

Issued on: 23/11/2021 - 

Dubai (AFP) – Yemen's seven-year-old war will have claimed 377,000 lives by the end of the year, through both direct and indirect impacts, a UN agency estimates in a report published Tuesday.

Nearly 60 percent of deaths will have been caused by indirect impacts such as lack of safe water, hunger and disease, it said, suggesting that fighting will have directly killed over 150,000 people.

Most of those killed by the war's indirect effects were "young children who are especially vulnerable to under- and malnutrition," said the UN Development Programme report.

"In 2021, a Yemeni child under the age of five dies every nine minutes because of the conflict," it found.

A Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen in early 2015 to shore up the government after Iran-backed Huthi fighters seized the capital Sanaa months before.

Fighting since then has had "catastrophic effects on the nation's development", said the report.

The UNDP has warned in the past that the war in Yemen, already the poorest country in the region, had thrown its development back by over two decades.

The Yemen war is often labelled the greatest humanitarian disaster in the world.

Projecting the impact of continued fighting into the future, the UNDP warned that 1.3 million people in total will have died by 2030.

"A growing proportion of those deaths will occur... due to second-order impacts that the crisis is waging on livelihoods, food prices and the deterioration of basic services such as health and education."

'Downward spiral'

If the war stopped now, the UNDP said, there would be "hope for a brighter future in Yemen" which it said could achieve middle-income status by 2050.

But it judged that, for now, "the situation continues to propel in a downward spiral".

Escalating fighting, including tank battles and regular bombardment by both fighter jets and drones, have in some areas destroyed even the most basic infrastructure.

In recent weeks fighting has escalated on several fronts, mostly near the strategic Marib city, the internationally-recognised government's last major stronghold in Yemen's oil-rich north.

Thousands of rebels and pro-government fighters have been killed in the battle for the city.

The UN Refugee Agency, in separate comments Tuesday, said it is "gravely concerned about the safety and security of civilians in Yemen's Marib governorate, including more than one million people who are estimated to be displaced".

Some 40,000 people have been forced to flee in Marib since September, said UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo in Geneva.

"Health conditions such as acute watery diarrhea, malaria and upper respiratory tract infections are common among the newly displaced," she said.

The Huthis this month also seized a large area south of Hodeida, a Red Sea port where the warring sides agreed on a ceasefire in 2018, after loyalist forces withdrew.

UNDP administrator Achim Steiner said that "millions of Yemenis continue to suffer from the conflict, trapped in poverty and with little possibility for jobs and livelihoods".

More than 80 percent of the population of around 30 million require humanitarian assistance, the report said, while "the economy is close to collapse".

"Yemen is the world's worst and largest humanitarian and development disaster, and it is continuing to worsen."

© 2021 AFP

TERRIBLE TORIES
Downing Street signals it is prepared to tear up Northern Ireland’s Brexit deal


BY:MICHIEL WILLEMS



Downing Street said late last night the UK government is prepared to consider tearing up elements of Northern Ireland’s Brexit deal, despite a Cabinet minister insisting the option would not be used before Christmas.

Number 10 said there was no timetable for whether or not it would unilaterally use the powers under Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol if changes to the deal cannot be agreed with Brussels.

The comments amount to a rejection of International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan’s claim that the step would not be taken before Christmas.


The UK has repeatedly said the difficulties caused by the operation of the protocol meant that use of Article 16 would be justified as a safeguard.

“Our preference remains to agree a negotiated solution if we can,” the spokesman said.

“Of course, we will use Article 16, the safety mechanism, if solutions can’t be found.”Downing Street spokesman last night

Asked whether the UK would be willing to use it before Christmas, the spokesman added: “I’m not going to put a timetable on it.

“We continue to believe that the conditions for triggering that safety mechanism of Article 16 have been met, that remains the Government position but we will continue to look for a consensual negotiated solution.”

In a Daily Telegraph interview, International Trade Secretary Ms Trevelyan said: “I don’t think anyone’s calling Article 16 before Christmas, absolutely not.”


Last week her Cabinet colleague Michael Gove said that “while, of course, it’s always possible that Article 16 may require to be invoked, we’re confident that we’ll be able to make progress without it”.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “Ministers are able to give their assessment of the current situation but Cabinet is united on our approach to this.”

There was a “set process” for the negotiations involving Brexit minister Lord Frost and European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic, he added.

On Monday night, Lord Frost reiterated a warning that the UK would achieve free trade within its borders “one way or the other”.

“When we discuss trade in this country, we must not forget that our most urgent and pressing problem – an issue of the highest national interest – is to make sure we can trade freely within our own country,” he told a conference held by the Centre for Policy Studies.

“I don’t think that’s too much to ask and that’s where we need to get to – one way or the other.”

Lord Frost argued Brexit will fail if it does not take a different approach from the EU.

“We can’t carry on as we were before. If, after Brexit, all we do is import the European social model, we will not succeed,” he said.

“If we stick to EU models, but behind our own tariff wall and with a smaller market, obviously we are not going to succeed.

“That’s why I so often talk about divergence. Not for the sake of it, but because it’s a national necessity.”

He also backed Chancellor Rishi Sunak to say that “our goal must be to reduce taxes”.

“It’s about light-touch, proportionate regulation whatever the policy objectives you’re trying to pursue. And, of course, free trade,” Lord Frost added.

The Tory peer has previously demanded “more ambition and more urgency” from the EU in efforts to resolve the dispute over Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit arrangements.
Arrangements

Under the protocol, Northern Ireland effectively remains in the EU’s single market for goods.

This helps to avoid a hard border with Ireland but increases checks and barriers to trade on goods crossing the Irish Sea from Great Britain, making it a source of tension in Unionist communities.

Liberal Democrat Northern Ireland spokesman Alistair Carmichael said: “This is yet more chaos and confusion from the Tories. Even our hard-Brexiteer Trade Secretary knows it would be madness to crash our trading relations with the EU just weeks before Christmas, and yet No 10 are refusing to rule it out.”

Meanwhile, the European Commission stepped up pressure on the UK over the fishing row with France.

The dispute is over the allocation of licences to fish in UK waters for vessels which can prove they have historically operated there.

Commission spokesman Tim McPhie said: “There’s been some progress with the outstanding licensing requests but the process is going too slowly.”

The Commission will request an “intensification of the process within a clear timeframe”, he added.

Downing Street insisted there would be no change to the process for deciding on licences, but applications would be reconsidered if fresh evidence is produced about a vessel’s track record.

“We are not negotiating on our position on fishing licences, there never has been any change to our approach which continues to be that if the requisite evidence is provided we will grant further licences,” the spokesman said.

How smart is an octopus?

by University of Queensland

A day reef octopus (Octopus cyanea). Credit: Dr Wen-sung Chung

The unique brainpower of octopuses—known for their intelligence and Houdini-like escapes—has been revealed by University of Queensland researchers.

Dr. Wen-Sung Chung from UQ's Queensland Brain Institute is part of a team that studied four octopus species using MRI techniques to produce detailed 3D images for comparing their unique brain structures.

He said octopus brains varied, depending on where a species lived, when it was active and if it interacted with other animals.

"The octopus is a master of camouflage, capable of solving complex tasks and their cognitive ability is said to approach that of some small mammals," Dr. Chung said.

"We investigated four species, including one deep-sea octopus, one solitary nocturnal species and two different reef dwellers active during daylight."

Dr. Chung said the octopus found in deep waters had a smooth brain like marsupials and rodents, suited for its slow pace of life and limited interactions with other animals.

The reef octopuses had a significantly larger brain with some properties similar to primates, adapted for complex visual tasks and social interaction in a busy, well-lit environment.

"These octopuses have some remarkably complex behaviors not known in other octopuses," Dr. Chung said.

Credit: University of Queensland

"For example, collaborative hunting with reef fish has been recorded, where the octopus usually leads and coral trout join by either actively seeking prey or opportunistically snatching small organisms flushed out by the octopus.

"The ability to receive and respond to gestures between different species as part of collaborative hunting demonstrates that octopus species have complex cognitive abilities."

The differences in brain structures between species relates to the size of the brain's surface area, with a larger surface area indicating a more complex nervous system and increased cognitive ability.

Professor Justin Marshall heads the team that was first to discover the differences in brain structure, opening the door to a better understanding of the complexity and evolution of these apparently "smart" animals.

He said the team's ongoing research aimed to provide insights into how octopus brain structure is linked to behavior, vision and advanced cognition.

The research has been published in Current Biology.The secret life of baby octopuses

More information: Wen-Sung Chung et al, Comparative brain structure and visual processing in octopus from different habitats, Current Biology (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.10.070

Journal information: Current Biology 

Provided by University of Queensland 

Queensland researchers studying octopus brains find reef species are smarter and hunt in packs
ABC Far North / By Jemima Burt
Posted Sun 21 Nov 2021 a

Riding on the success of the documentary, My Octopus Teacher, a team of Queensland researchers has studied the brains of octopuses using MRI technology to find out why they are so smart.

Key points:
Queensland researchers studied the brains of four octopus species
Reef octopuses had significantly larger brains
Some teamed up with reef fish to hunt for food

The team from the University of Queensland's Brain Institute took four species of octopus, two of which live on the Great Barrier Reef, and studied their brain structure using ultra-detailed MRI imaging.

Results, published in scientific journal Current Biology, have shown for the first time that reef octopuses had a significantly larger brain than octopuses that lived in deep-sea waters – a discovery which will provide insights into how brain structure is linked with behaviour and cognition.

Post-doctoral researcher Wen-Sung Chung said one of the purposes of the study was to find out why the invertebrates had such a short life span – approximately one year.

Dr Wen-Sun Chung is part of a team of researchers from the Queensland Brain Institute studying octopus brains using MRI technology.(Supplied: University of Queensland)

"Why do they put so much power, so much energy in developing their brains?


"Keeping a brain with so many neurons is really costly," Dr Chung said.

Dr Chung said octopuses are estimated to have 500 million neurons.

"They are quite amazing; they have eight arms and no joints and they need to control their movement across the very complex seascape.

"They are also totally colour blind, they can only see blue or green, and how they manage to see reef and then make themselves well matched with the background is a big unknown," Dr Chung said.

The day-reef octopus, Octopus cyanea, was found to have a large brain - which enabled it to camouflage with reef around it despite colour blindness.(Supplied: University of Queensland)

Unusual inter-species friendships

Dr Chung said researchers also investigated the relationship which developed between octopuses and reef fish while hunting.

He said the observations were made during visits to Lizard Island, off the coast of Far North Queensland.

"The fish usually follow the octopus, the octopus will search for crabs, and then somehow the small food item will come out and the fish will eat it.

He said the animals were able to communicate with each other to hunt together.

"The ability to receive and respond to gestures between different species as part of collaborative hunting demonstrates that octopus species have complex cognitive abilities," Dr Chung said.

He said the finding was significant, considering the species' usual behaviour.

"Most of the time they live solitary, and very rarely interact with others.

"For those nocturnal especially, they live by themselves until the mating season and find a mate, otherwise they will just go out alone to catch crab or clams."

Kaleidoscope of Deep-Sea Life Found Near Hydrothermal Vents Off Mexican Coast

Some of these unique features reached temperatures up to 549 degrees Fahrenheit

Elizabeth Gamillo

Daily Correspondent

November 22, 2021 4:39 p.m.

---

Aside from discovering the fascinating geology of the Gulf’s floor, the team also found diverse sea life thriving on or near the vents and their mineral structures. Researchers photographed tubeworms living on or near the vents seen here. ROV SuBastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute

In the Gulf of California off the coast of La Paz, Mexico, a deep-sea expedition discovered a thriving hydrothermal vent ecosystem, complete with six new possible species of arrow worms, mollusks, crustaceans, and roundworms, reports Molly Taft for Gizmodo.

A remotely operated vehicle (ROV) captured stunning images of the ecosystem’s calcite spires, hydrothermal mirror pools, and iridescent scale worms. With the ROV, researchers studied various hydrothermal vents, some reaching temperatures up to 549 degrees Fahrenheit, per a statement.

The 33-day long expedition aboard the research vessel Falkor included researchers from both Mexico and the United States. During this time, the researchers focused on mapping the seafloor, exploring tectonic processes, measuring heat flow, sampling microbes, and geophysics of the hydrothermal vents in the Gulf, a statement reports.

The Gulf of California is a body of water filled with diverse sea life that falls about half a mile deep with a few depressions reaching greater depths. The gulf formed 12.5 million years ago when the Baja Peninsula started to pull away from the rest of North America along the San Andreas Fault system. Compared to other geological features in the area, it's actually considered quite young.

Hydrothermal vents form when two tectonic plates move away from each other and form a fissure at the bottom of the ocean. Water will then seep through these cracks into Earth’s red-hot mantle below. When the water touches the mantle, it will shoot back towards the surface, creating a vent of rushing, steaming hot water, Live Science reports.

Underwater sea vents were only recently discovered in the 1970s, and scientists are still learning about life that thrives from them, per Gizmodo.

“The deep ocean is still one of the least explored frontiers in the solar system,” one of the expedition’s lead researchers Robert Zierenberg, a geologist at the University of California, Davis, said in a statement from a 2018 expedition. “Maps of our planet are not as detailed as those of Mercury, Venus, Mars, or the moon, because it is hard to map underwater. This is the frontier.”

Previous expeditions from 2012, 2015, and 2018 laid the groundwork and mapped the seafloor for exploration in 2021. First, researchers used a yellow torpedo-shaped robot called an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to map out the seafloor and the features of the sea vents. To get a closer look at the hidden sea world, researchers used yellow a mini van–sized ROV named SuBastian, which allowed them to determine that the ducts are active.

Hydrothermal vents can actually expel various colors of liquid. For example, vents called black smokers expel sooty-colored plumes because the liquid encounters basaltic rocks and iron metals as the water rushes towards the surface. But researchers on this recent expedition discovered a vent that expels a clear, sparkling liquid in the Pescadero Basin at the south end of the Gulf of California. Scientists suspect sediment from Mexico’s mainland ends up in the vent, which in turn filters out basalts and other metals, leaving behind only shimmering minerals, reports Nicoletta Lanese for Live Science.

The floating mineral forms ledge-like deposits called flanges. The vent’s liquid pools underneath these structures at times, creating a type of reverse waterfall or upside-down lake effect. When water accumulates in these small ledges, they will at times collapse, creating small mounds. The minerals can also form tall structures dubbed chimneys, per Live Science.

Aside from discovering the fascinating geology of the Gulf’s floor, the team also found diverse sea life thriving on or near the vents and their mineral structures. Some animals even seemed to gravitate toward certain vents. Sites towards the south had more shining blue worms, for example. Researchers also spotted Oasisia tubeworms living on or near other vents, Gizmodo reports.

Until another expedition is organized, the team plans to examine the bacterial mats and other sea life samples to understand their genetics and morphology—and determine whether these creatures can be categorized as a new species.

“This expedition has simultaneously built on our past exploration of the Alarcon and Pescadero basins and enabled further exploration in the adjacent, but poorly known Farallon and Carmen Basins,” David Caress, an engineer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, said in a statement.

Biological ‘treasure troves’ need mapping in marine protection plan

A treasure trove of biological hot spots sheltering ancient rockfish, delicate corals and sponges hidden inside the inlets of British Columbia’s isolated central coast merit protection, a new study indicates.

A number of sites of exceptional biodiversity — well-known to the region's First Nations but previously undocumented by science — have been identified with joint research between the Central Coast Indigenous Resource Alliance (CCIRA) and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), said one of the study’s lead authors, Alejandro Frid.

The hot spots studied fall within the territories of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais, Wuikinuxv, Nuxalk and Heiltsuk Nations, which are also involved in the CCIRA, Frid said.

“None of (the hot spots) was a surprise to the First Nations,” Frid said, adding a number of sites identified through traditional knowledge need more exploration. “But from a formal scientific standpoint, there were no surveys of what was there in terms of rockfishes, corals and sponges.”

All the biodiverse pockets on the central coast are important to preserving the marine ecosystem, but it was particularly interesting to find significant populations of rockfish, or the fish family Sebastinae, some of which can live as long as 200 years, Frid said.

“I was personally surprised to see a large amount of some of the really long-lived rockfishes being way up in the fjords,” he said “Fishery scientists think of them as being more associated with areas further out closer to the continental shelf.”

The hot spot study — which involves 11 years of survey data gathered in a variety of ways, including scuba dives and DFO’s remote video camera to explore as deep as 500 metres — will contribute essential information to a new network of marine protected areas (MPAs) being developed that will stretch across extensive sections of B.C.’s coast, said Frid, CCIRA’s science co-ordinator.

The Northern Shelf Bioregion MPA network will protect important areas of biodiversity along the coast from Quadra Island in the south to the border with Alaska in the north — approximately two-thirds of the West Coast.

Rockfish populations, decimated by commercial fishing, are particularly vulnerable and would benefit from added protections, Frid said.

Yelloweye rockfish in particular are culturally significant and important to the food security of area First Nations, Frid said, but the fish has suffered a 67 percent drop in biomass population over a century leading up to 2018.

Beyond being ecologically valuable and important ecosystems for feeding and breeding other marine species, sponge and coral beds capture and store significant amounts of carbon, so are also important from a climate change perspective, Frid said.

However, these seabeds are particularly vulnerable to bottom-contact fishing gear, such as prawn traps, long lines or bottom trawling, which involves dragging a net along the ocean floor, he said.

“So, the benefits of protecting corals and sponges in marine protected areas had immediate benefits by just stopping the collective damage to these species groups that play an important role as natural carbon stores.”

Mike Reid, manager of the Heiltsuk Nation’s stewardship department, agreed surveying the hot spots identified by First Nations in numerous areas on the central coast was a key step to protecting them.

“The nations know where the spawning grounds are for rockfish and other species, and we were aware of the corals and sponges,” Reid said.

“But through this process, we're able to get the exact co-ordinates to those spots and incorporate those into the MPA process.”

The central coast nations started the planning process for marine protected areas in their territories in 2007, first with the province and now also in conjunction with the federal government, he said.

Stakeholders have provided feedback around draft plans to protect areas in the entire Northern Shelf Bioregion, which is expected to go out for public input at the beginning of 2022.

The larger MPA network is subject to a tripartite process between the federal and provincial governments and 13 First Nations, with input from a variety of stakeholder agencies and groups.

While food security and cultural reasons are important for preserving rockfish, protection is the paramount concern for the fish, corals and sponges, Reid said.

“Our goal has always been conservation. And we've seen that slip with the current (DFO) management regime,” he said.

“There's no balance there anymore. For the most part, (marine resources) are managed for harvesting, not for ecosystem health.”

Climate change has also had cumulative impacts on other marine resources important to First Nations such as salmon, sea urchins and seaweed, he added.

Adding hot spots in the region to future MPAs will provide ecological benefits for generations, Reid said.

“A lot of people see the MPA process as a takeaway, but we see it the other way round,” he said.

“It’s more or less putting these areas in a bank for children, and our children's children.

“Protected areas that are left alone long enough will thrive and repopulate, and eventually the biomass inside will overflow into the outside for longer-term benefits.”

The hot spots identified in the study represent the top 20 per cent of an index of ecological importance that took into account species distinctiveness, vulnerability and abundance, or lack thereof, as well as key roles in the food web, Frid said.

Key hotspots for rockfish, corals and sponges should also be considered for interim protection while the Northern Shelf Bioregion network is being finalized, a process that can take years, Frid said.

But regardless of when and where protections of biodiverse hot spots go into place, such protections will be meaningless without enforcement, he said.

“None of this (protection) will really matter if there’s not enough resources for monitoring and enforcing compliance from fishers,” Frid said.

“Fisheries and Oceans Canada will definitely need to step up… if any of these closures are actually going to meet their conservation goals.”

Rochelle Baker / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer

Rochelle Baker, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada's National Observer

Mapping The Rise Of Solar Energy

By ZeroHedge - Nov 21, 2021, 12:00 PM CST

• Solar power led the renewable energy push in 2021, with 127 gigawatts installed in 2020
• China is the undisputed leader in solar installations, with over 35% of global capacity 
• Although Australia hosts a fraction of China’s solar capacity, it tops the per capita rankings

The world is adopting renewable energy at an unprecedented pace, and solar power is the energy source leading the way.

Despite a 4.5% fall in global energy demand in 2020, Visual Capitalist's Govind Bhutada notes that renewable energy technologies showed promising progress. While the growth in renewables was strong across the board, solar power led from the front with 127 gigawatts installed in 2020, its largest-ever annual capacity expansion.

The above infographic uses data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) to map solar power capacity by country in 2021. This includes both solar photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar power capacity.

The Solar Power Leaderboard

From the Americas to Oceania, countries in virtually every continent (except Antarctica) added more solar to their mix last year. Here’s a snapshot of solar power capacity by country at the beginning of 2021:

*1 megawatt = 1,000,000 watts.

China is the undisputed leader in solar installations, with over 35% of global capacity. What’s more, the country is showing no signs of slowing down. It has the world’s largest wind and solar project in the pipeline, which could add another 400,000MW to its clean energy capacity.

Following China from afar is the U.S., which recently surpassed 100,000MW of solar power capacity after installing another 50,000MW in the first three months of 2021. Annual solar growth in the U.S. has averaged an impressive 42% over the last decade. Policies like the solar investment tax credit, which offers a 26% tax credit on residential and commercial solar systems, have helped propel the industry forward.

Related: U.S. Natural Gas Prices Could Soon Hit $6

Although Australia hosts a fraction of China’s solar capacity, it tops the per capita rankings due to its relatively low population of 26 million people. The Australian continent receives the highest amount of solar radiation of any continent, and over 30% of Australian households now have rooftop solar PV systems.

China: The Solar Champion

In 2020, President Xi Jinping stated that China aims to be carbon neutral by 2060, and the country is taking steps to get there.

China is a leader in the solar industry, and it seems to have cracked the code for the entire solar supply chain. In 2019, Chinese firms produced 66% of the world’s polysilicon, the initial building block of silicon-based photovoltaic (PV) panels. Furthermore, more than three-quarters of solar cells came from China, along with 72% of the world’s PV panels.

With that said, it’s no surprise that 5 of the world’s 10 largest solar parks are in China, and it will likely continue to build more as it transitions to carbon neutrality.

What’s Driving the Rush for Solar Power?

The energy transition is a major factor in the rise of renewables, but solar’s growth is partly due to how cheap it has become over time. Solar energy costs have fallen exponentially over the last decade, and it’s now the cheapest source of new energy generation.

Since 2010, the cost of solar power has seen a 85% decrease, down from $0.28 to $0.04 per kWh. According to MIT researchers, economies of scale have been the single-largest factor in continuing the cost decline for the last decade. In other words, as the world installed and made more solar panels, production became cheaper and more efficient.

This year, solar costs are rising due to supply chain issues, but the rise is likely to be temporary as bottlenecks resolve.

By Zerohedge.com

Before geoengineering to mitigate climate change, researchers must consider some fundamental chemistry

by University of Pennsylvania

Some scientists have proposed planetary-scale solutions to address climate change, such

 as geoengineering using sulfur compounds to create a sunshield in the upper atmosphere

. New research suggests there's a good deal more chemistry to understand before

 proceeding. Credit: Francisco laboratory

It's a tempting thought: With climate change so difficult to manage and nations unwilling to take decisive action, what if we could mitigate its effects by setting up a kind of chemical umbrella—a layer of sulfuric acid in the upper atmosphere that could reflect the sun's radiation and cool the Earth?

According to a new study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, a collaboration among Penn scientists and two groups in Spain, atmospheric conditions in the stratosphere pose a challenge to generating sulfuric acid, making its production less efficient than might have previously been expected. Thus more groundwork exploring the chemistry of how sulfuric acid and its building blocks will react in the upper atmosphere is required in order to confidently move forward with this climate geoengineering strategy, the researchers say.

"These fundamental insights highlight the importance of understanding the photochemistry involved in geoengineering," says Joseph S. Francisco, an atmospheric chemist in Penn's School of Arts & Sciences and a co-corresponding author on the study. "That's critically important and it's something that's been ignored."

Using sulfuric acid to blunt the sun's rays as a means of curbing climate change impacts is based on a natural phenomenon: When volcanoes erupt, the sulfur they emit creates localized—or sometimes even far-reaching—cooling clouds that filter the sun. But those clouds emerge in the troposphere, which ranges from the Earth's surface to about 10 kilometers up. Geoengineering using sulfuric acid would happen a good deal higher, in the stratosphere, from about 10 to 20 kilometers above the planet.

Conditions change as the altitude increases. Notably, the air becomes drier, and the energy of the sun's rays becomes stronger. In the new work, Francisco, his postdoc Tarek Trabelsi, and colleagues from Spain's Rocasolano Institute of Physical Chemistry and the University of València partnered to explore how these variables affected the chemical reactions involved in making sulfuric acid.

The major inputs are sulfur dioxide (SO2), which reacts with hydroxyl radicals (OH), a kind of atmospheric "detergent," to create HOSO2. HOSO2 reacts with oxygen to create sulfur trioxide (SO3), which then reacts with water vapor to create sulfuric acid. Aerosols formed from the sulfuric acid have the ability to reflect sunlight.

These reactions are well characterized; together, they are responsible for creating acid rain in the troposphere. But whether that chemistry would work in the stratosphere and achieve the same efficiency was unknown.

To find out, the team used quantum chemistry—an approach that considers the ground, transition, and excited states of atoms and molecules—to consider how HOSO2 and SO3 would behave in the stratosphere's conditions of high light and low humidity. Though geoengineering approaches factor in the ability of these two molecules to reflect sunlight, the researchers found that when HOSO2 is produced in the stratosphere, solar radiation causes the molecule to quickly photolyze, essentially breaking apart into its component parts, including sulfur dioxide, which is harmful to humans in high concentrations.

Research by the Penn-led group indicated that HOSO2 would photolyze, or break apart, in the stratosphere, likely reducing the efficiency of producing sulfuric acid at those altitudes. Credit: Francisco laboratory

"One of the implications of this finding is, if you put sulfur dioxide up there, it's going to just be recycling around," Francisco says. "So it opens the door to whether we have a full understanding of atmospheric sulfur chemistry up in the stratosphere."

Declining HOSO2 would also blunt the efficiency of producing sulfuric acid, the researchers note, possibly lessening the effectiveness of a chemical sunshade.

In contrast, the researchers found that SO3 levels remained quite stable in stratospheric conditions. "We know it reacts with water, but we don't know a lot else about how it might react," says Francisco. "Will the atmosphere find a way to get rid of the SO3 or will it collect somewhere and start initiating new chemistry elsewhere?"

Indeed, the researchers note that it's crucial to understand what other reactions these molecules could be entering into in the stratosphere. "This work points to a cautionary note: If the SO3 chemistry is different, then how does it interact with the other chemistry that's currently going on in the stratosphere," he says. "We need to consider whether there are any kind of chemical concerns that we need to think about up front."

The findings also highlight the need for a Plan B if the atmospheric chemistry doesn't play out as expected. "It raises a fundamentally important question," Francisco says. "If we put the sulfur dioxide in, can we get it out of the stratosphere?"

Francisco's group is working on continuing to apply cutting-edge quantum methodologies to examine how photochemistry interacts with atmospheric models to generate a more complete understanding of various geoengineering scenarios.

"This is the first time that you're taking results from fundamental physics and chemistry and mapping them into climate models to look at the three-dimensional atmospheric impact," Francisco says.

And while some scientists are already proposing to trial a geoengineering approach using SO2, Francisco and his colleagues underscore that the outcomes depend on some aspects of sulfur chemistry that remain unknown.

"This brings to the forefront the need to make the community aware that there's more fundamental chemistry that we need before we start to understand the full chemical impact of this approach," Francisco says.Mechanism deciphered: How organic acids are formed in the atmosphere\

More information: Javier Carmona-García et al, Photochemistry of HOSO2 and SO3 and Implications for the Production of Sulfuric Acid, Journal of the American Chemical Society (2021). DOI: 10.1021/jacs.1c10153

Journal information: Journal of the American Chemical Society 

Provided by University of Pennsylvania 

Singapore-based firm to build $13.7b wind farm off Ireland for green hydrogen facility

Green hydrogen - produced by renewable electricity - is seen as a clean alternative to natural gas.

LONDON (BLOOMBERG) - A Singapore-based offshore wind developer has signed an agreement to build a huge US$10 billion (S$13.7 billion) wind farm off the coast of Ireland to power a green hydrogen facility.

Green hydrogen - produced by renewable electricity - is seen as a clean alternative to natural gas for industries such as steel and chemicals, with energy majors from Equinor to BP piling in to the technology. Europe has a goal of six gigawatts (GW) of installed green hydrogen by 2024, and 40GW by 2030.

Enterprize Energy's 4GW wind farm will supply electricity for hydrogen production and consumption in Ireland, or for conversion into ammonia that can exported, chief executive officer Ian Hatton said in an interview.

"We see Europe as being a net consumer of green hydrogen," Mr Hatton said. "Our overall model is about developing production of green hydrogen in locations where the natural resources are going to give you the lowest cost and then bring it into the market. So Ireland, to us, is a key hub in that strategy."

Enterprize is not seeking a subsidy for the wind farm. It will raise money through project financing arranged by investment banking firm Societe Generale as well as from private equity investment, Mr Hatton said.

The project will provide electricity for a 4GW hydrogen facility in Ireland being developed by E1-H2 and Zenith Energy called Green Marlin, which could be generating as soon as 2026. The energy companies have signed a precursor to a power purchase agreement, with EI-H2 off-taking the energy.

The farm will use articulated wind columns, deep-water technology used by the oil and gas industry for exploration, and production platforms. Enterprize has signed deals with oil and gas development company Sapura Energy and foundation supplier Offshore Design Engineering, which will supply the articulated wind columns for the project.

The company is also developing a 3.4GW offshore wind farm in Vietnam and is looking at Brazil.

"For the past year, we've been targeting locations where we can effectively play join-the-dots with projects that will bring low-cost hydrogen to Europe and maybe to Japan," Mr Hatton said.

Also taking advantage of the region's windy conditions, the British government awarded £9.4 million (S$17.2 million) on Monday (Nov 22) to develop an electrolyser for green hydrogen from the onshore Whitelee Windfarm in Scotland. The funding is for a 10MW electrolyser and associated four tonnes of storage at the 20MW hydrogen production and storage facility, ITM Power said in a statement.