Weird Tracks in Texas Indicate Giant Sauropods Walking on Their Front Feet Only


(CoreyFord/iStock/Getty Images)


PETER DOCKRILL
27 NOVEMBER 2021

They were the largest animals to ever walk the Earth: sauropods, a dinosaur clade of such immense size and stature, they're sometimes dubbed 'thunder lizards'.

These towering hulks – including Brontosaurus, Brachiosaurus, and Diplodocus among others – needed four thick, powerful legs to support and transport their massive bodies. At least, most of the time. Perhaps.

Some mysterious, ancient tracks described in a 2019 study could offer fresh support for a disputed view in paleontology: that these lumbering giants sometimes got around on two legs, not four, belying what their quadruped status (and simple physics) would seem to demand.

Sauropod footprints at the Coffee Hollow A-Male trackways. 

(Heritage Museum of the Texas Hill Country)

As strange as it might sound, this hypothesis dates back several decades, to when fossil researcher Roland T. Bird identified some unusual dinosaur tracks laid down on ranch grounds in the county of Bandera, Texas.

What made the tracks unusual was that the marks were manus only, referring to footprint impressions made by front limbs, not the rear limbs (known as pes).

"Without a doubt made by a sauropod, but as I interpret them, made by an individual while swimming," Bird wrote in a letter in 1940.

"They were all typical forefeet impressions as if the animal had just been barely kicking bottom."

With time, Bird's interpretation of these manus-only tracks fell out of favor, as modern paleontology came to realize that sauropods were primarily land animals, not aquatic as was once thought.

The alternative view to explain manus-only tracks like this is that the forefeet of sauropods (supporting more of the animals' body weight) are all that leaves track marks on certain kinds of ground surfaces, as the rear limbs, supporting less weight, leave less impression on soil and sediment.

"A whimsical exploration of the punting hypothesis."

 (Illustration by R.T. Bakker/Farlow et al., Ichnos, 2019)

While that might now be the generally preferred interpretation of manus-only sauropod tracks, the case for dinosaurs treading through shallow, shoulder-height bodies of water on their front limbs (with their rear limbs not reaching the ground) has never been definitively ruled out.

A series of sauropod tracks in Texas gave paleontologists a chance to reconsider the merits of the arguments.

The marks were first identified in 2007 in a limestone quarry called the Coffee Hollow, which makes up part of the Glen Rose Formation, a geological site that preserves numerous dinosaur footprints dating back approximately 110 million years ago (within the Cretaceous period).

Three different trails of parallel, manus-only sauropod trackways were investigated at the site by teams from Purdue University Fort Wayne and the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences, with several dozen individual footprints being preserved for study (before the surface layers were removed for commercial purposes).

While we don't know for sure what kind of sauropods left these manus-only marks, the researchers highlighted the possibility that it could be a different kind of dinosaur to those responsible for other manus-only footprints previously seen in the Glen Rose Formation.

Given the size of the footprints (up to about 70 centimeters [27.5 inches] long and wide), it is likely the tracks belonged to larger kinds of sauropods, and the trackmarks look to be 'true tracks' left on the upper surface, as opposed to undertracks (impressions made in lower layers of sediment).


As for whether the marks support the idea of differential foot pressure or of "unusual behavior" (left by dinosaurs semi-swimming, or punting through shallow water), the researchers said it's impossible to be sure, but acknowledge what is perhaps more likely, given the weight of what other fossil evidence tends to suggest.

"Greater differential pressure exerted on the substrate by the forefeet than the hindfeet probably explains the Coffee Hollow trackways, like other manus-only sauropod trackways, but the possibility that they indicate unusual locomotion cannot at present be ruled out," the authors wrote in their paper.

"Although hypothesized unusual behavior would not necessarily involve 'swimming', it is worth considering the possibility that R.T. Bird might have been correct in thinking that (at least some?) Glen Rose Formation manus-only sauropod trackways were made by dinosaurs that were wading in water deep enough for their makers to punt, pulling themselves along by their forefeet, while their hind legs floated above the bottom."

Ultimately, the team said future discoveries will be needed to settle the matter – which means the punting sauropod still has a chance to wade into reality.

The findings are reported in Ichnos.

China creates vast research infrastructure to support ambitious climate goals

Carbon-neutrality institutes, and other initiatives to support a pledge to achieve net zero by 2060, are popping up like mushrooms across China.

Smriti Mallapaty
22 November 2021

Wind turbine blades are secured and examined before being hoisted into position in China's Jiangsu province.

Credit: He Jinghua/VCG via Getty

China, the world’s top carbon emitter, has for the first time published plans broadly outlining how it might achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2060, and a peak of emissions before 2030 — promises it made in 2019.

Researchers say the documents, released ahead of the COP26 climate talks that concluded on 15 November, send a strong message to industry, government agencies and universities in China to ramp up their efforts to help the country meet its climate goals.


‘COP26 hasn’t solved the problem’: scientists react to UN climate deal

Already this year, more than ten prominent universities and institutions have set up carbon-neutrality-research institutes; the Chinese Academy of Sciences launched a centre last month.

“We start right now,” says Jiang Kejun, a modeller at the Energy Research Institute in Beijing.

The country is experiencing a “national movement”, says Wu Libo, an environmental economist at Fudan University in Shanghai, as companies, regional governments and academia shift gears.

Wu is also director of the Shanghai Research Institute for Energy and Carbon Neutrality Strategy, a collaboration launched earlier this month by the university and the Shanghai city government. Once it secures funding for research grants, the institute will focus on the deregulation of the electricity market and climate finance, she says.
Significant challenge

Achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 “is a big challenge for China”, says Xie Xiaomin, an energy-policy researcher at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). She is vice-director of the university’s Research Institute of Carbon Neutrality, which was established in May and has already received about 20 million yuan (US$3.1 million) in funding to work on a broad range of energy technologies, she says.

From emitting more than 11 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide in 2020, China has to drop to net zero within four decades. This is a scale and speed that no other country has attempted before, says Gang He, an energy-systems modeller at Stony Brook University in New York, who has studied China’s power system.

China’s current emissions are more than double the United States’ and three times as big as those of India, which made a similar pledge to reach net zero by 2070 during COP26.

“There will be a lot of areas needing contribution from researchers,” says Fu Sha, a modeller with the non-profit Energy Foundation China in Beijing. These include low-carbon energy technologies, from hydrogen fuel cells to batteries; market-based mechanisms to control emissions, such as carbon taxes and trading schemes; and modelling that will help local governments and industries set realistic targets for cuts, she says.

Researchers will also need to study which sections of China’s population will be most affected by the transition and learn how to help them cope, says He. Establishing the path to “a more just and inclusive transition would be a very important research topic”, he says.

Hydrogen fuel cells are tested in a lab at Shanghai ReFire Technology, a start-up that manufactures fuel-cell engines.

Credit: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty

Solar, wind and hydro

But many research institutes have a long way to go in terms of aligning their research departments with the carbon-neutrality goals, says Jiang. They will need to drop traditional engineering subjects that focus, for example, on coal-fired boiler technology and internal combustion engines, notes Zhang Xiliang, a climate modeller at Tsinghua University in Beijing, which launched its own Institute for Carbon Neutrality in September.

The two highly anticipated policy documents the central government released in October — a working guidance and a 2030 action plan — outline a path for researchers and flesh out for the first time how China plans to achieve its carbon goals.

The documents talk about “strengthening basic research and research on cutting-edge technologies” — such as nuclear fusion, smart grids and new materials — and the formulation of “an action plan to ensure science and technology better support” achieving carbon neutrality.

Also detailed in the documents are commitments to increase the share of power China produces from renewable and nuclear sources from just 16% today to 80% by 2060. Solar and wind capacity are planned to reach 1,200 gigawatts by 2030 — enough to power hundreds of millions of households — and 80 gigawatts of hydropower will be installed over the next decade.

Carbon capture and sequestration technologies will also be important to achieving China’s goals, according to the documents, and could be another focus for researchers. There is also a plan for electric and hybrid vehicles to make up 40% of those sold by 2030. Much more detail is expected to come in future documents, say researchers.
Global ramifications

Despite this rush of activity towards net zero within China, some researchers are still disappointed with the commitments the country has made so far.

At the COP26 meeting, the nation signed a joint declaration with the United States to find steeper cuts, but frustrated some scientists by not offering more-aggressive pledges for the next decade, and also for pushing for text concerning coal in the final agreement to be edited from ‘phased out’ to ‘phased down’.



Scientists cheer India’s ambitious carbon-zero climate pledge

China’s promises so far are not likely to keep global warming to below 1.5 °C — the more aspirational of the targets set by world governments at the United Nations Paris climate meeting in 2015 — says Yan Qin, an economist and carbon analyst based in Oslo with Refinitiv, a company that provides data on financial markets. “What has been pledged falls short,” she says.

China has also not yet set any absolute limits on emissions, nor targets for emissions of other greenhouse gases besides carbon, such as methane, but has committed to doing both. Researchers say these measures will be crucial for the world to have a chance at limiting global warming to below 1.5 °C.

China’s size means its pledges have global ramifications, says Pep Canadell, chief research scientist at the Australian government’s CSIRO Climate Science Centre in Canberra. “When China moves a little to the left or the right, up or down, the whole world feels it.”

And He says that although China’s goals are not as ambitious as some would like, they are at least realistic. “What China should do is sometimes not what China can deliver,” he says.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-03491-6

US Coal-fired power plants to close after new wastewater rule

FILE - Smoke billows from the Conemaugh Generation Station in New Florence, Pa., Feb. 6, 2007. Climate change isn’t what’s driving some U.S. coal-fired power plants to shut down. It's the expense of stricter pollution controls on their wastewater. Those that intend to close include two of Pennsylvania's largest coal-fired power plants, Keystone and Conemaugh outside Pittsburgh, which said they will stop using coal and retire all of their generating units by Dec. 31, 2028, according to regulatory notices obtained separately by The Associated Press. (Todd Berkey/The Tribune-Democrat via AP)

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM

November 22, 2021

Climate change isn’t what’s driving some U.S. coal-fired power plants to shut down. It’s the expense of stricter pollution controls on their wastewater.

Dozens of plants nationwide plan to stop burning coal this decade to comply with more stringent federal wastewater guidelines, according to state regulatory filings, as the industry continues moving away from the planet-warming fossil fuel to make electricity.

The new wastewater rule requires power plants to clean coal ash and toxic heavy metals such as mercury, arsenic and selenium from plant wastewater before it is dumped into streams and rivers. The rule is expected to affect 75 coal-fired power plants nationwide, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Those plants had an October deadline to tell their state regulators how they planned to comply, with options that included upgrading their pollution-control equipment or retiring their coal-fired generating units by 2028.

The national impact of the wastewater rule is still coming into focus, but at least 26 plants in 14 states said they will stop burning coal, according to the Sierra Club, which has been tracking state regulatory filings. Twenty-one of the plants intend to shut down, and five indicated they may switch to natural gas, the environmental group said.

“The free ride these plants have been getting is ending in a lot of ways,” said Zack Fabish, a Sierra Club lawyer. “And them choosing to retire by 2028 probably reflects the reality that a lot of the subsidies they have been getting in terms of being able to dump their wastewater into the commons, they are not going to be able to do that in the future.”

The rule will reduce the discharge of pollutants into the nation’s waterways by about 386 million pounds annually, according to EPA estimates. It’s expected to cost plant operators, collectively, nearly $200 million per year to implement.

Those that intend to close include two of Pennsylvania’s largest coal-fired power plants, Keystone and Conemaugh outside Pittsburgh, which said they will stop using coal and retire all of their generating units by Dec. 31, 2028, according to regulatory notices obtained separately by The Associated Press.

The plants opened more than 50 years ago and together employ about 320 full-time workers and 170 contractors. They generate enough power for perhaps 1.5 million homes, according to industry averages for coal plants of their size.

In addition to Pennsylvania, states with power plants that plan to stop using coal by 2028 are Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia, the Sierra Club data shows.

Power producers that say they will shutter coal-fired units as a result of the new rule include Atlanta-based Southern Co. and Houston-based NRG. Southern, which operates electric utilities in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, said it will shutter two-thirds of its coal fleet, including units at the nation’s two largest coal-fired power plants, Scherer and Bowen, both in Georgia. NRG said it plans to stop burning coal at its domestic plants outside Texas, and install new pollution controls at its two Texas plants.

The electric power sector has spent years transitioning from coal to cheaper, cleaner-burning natural gas and renewables like wind and solar. Nationwide, about 30% of generating capacity at coal plants has been retired since 2010, according to the Energy Information Administration. (Coal use at power plants is expected to surge more than 20% this year because of sharply higher natural gas prices — the first such increase since 2014 — but the energy agency said it expects that trend to be temporary.)

The long-term move away from coal has been pronounced in Pennsylvania, the nation’s No. 3 coal-producing state after Wyoming and West Virginia. Coal’s share of electrical power generation in the state declined from nearly half in 2010 to 10% last year, with operators taking advantage of a statewide boom in natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, the nation’s largest gas field. Seventeen Pennsylvania coal plants have been retired since 2009.

“The smallest, oldest (coal) plants were generally the ones the economics killed first. They were too expensive and too small to be retrofitted to meet new EPA standards,” said Jean Reaves Rollins, president of The C Three Group, a market research firm focused on energy infrastructure and utilities.

She said coal plants in competitive electricity markets like Pennsylvania’s have also come under pressure. “It is clear in the case of the two Pennsylvania plants, the cost of compliance will put them out of the economic running,” she said.

Pennsylvania and neighboring Ohio have accounted for 20% of all coal-fueled power plant shutdowns in the U.S. in recent years, according to federal data.

The Keystone and Conemaugh plants are owned by a consortium of private investors, with Texas-based power producer Talen Energy also holding a stake. Talen referred questions to the plants’ chief operating officer, who did not return phone calls and emails.

Industry officials contend the mothballing of so many coal plants carries consequences for the nation’s electric grid. Michelle Bloodworth, president and CEO of America’s Power, a trade organization that advocates on behalf of coal-fueled electricity, cited recent blackouts in Texas and elsewhere as examples of “what happens when you go too far too fast.”

“We are monitoring the situation currently but we do remain concerned that overly aggressive policies that lead to the premature retirement of dispatchable generation like the coal fleet will jeopardize the reliability and resilience of the electricity grid,” Bloodworth said.

Experts have pointed out that in the case of last winter’s massive Texas blackout, most of the megawatts that went offline were generated by gas, coal and nuclear plants.

In Pennsylvania, the planned retirements of Keystone and Conemaugh come as building trade unions, industry groups and coal communities fight the state’s planned entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multi-state consortium that imposes a price on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants that use coal, gas and oil. Pennsylvania would be the first major fossil fuel state to adopt such a carbon pricing policy.

David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment, an environmental group, said the closures show that “with or without policies to reduce carbon pollution, the companies who own these antiquated power plants intend to shut them down or convert many of them anyway.”

The planned shutdowns could leave Homer City Generating Station as the last large, traditional coal-fired power plant in the state still operating by decade’s end. Homer City, which is east of Pittsburgh and is the largest coal plant in Pennsylvania, has told state regulators it plans to keep operating and abide by the new wastewater limits.

Owners of shuttering plants are responsible for environmental cleanup, according to the EPA.

KENNEY BEAR
Kenney adviser calls it quits: Matt Wolf leaving UCP government

Matt Wolf, Premier Jason Kenney's former chief of staff, will be leaving his position next week, officials say.


Michael Franklin
CTVNewsCalgary.ca

 Senior Digital Producer
Updated Nov. 26, 2021 5:54 p.m. MST

CALGARY -

An often outspoken member of Jason Kenney's government will be leaving his post next week, CTV News has confirmed.

According to the premier’s office, Matt Wolf, the executive director of issues management for the premier, provided notice that he would be resigning several months ago.

Wolf was a controversial figure in the Kenney government and was once the premier’s chief of staff. At times, he used social media to taunt those who opposed Kenney government policies.

"His last week in the office will be next week," said Christine Myatt, Kenney's director of strategic planning.

Wolf had been an adamant supporter of Kenney's policies and even attacked opponents of the government's COVID-19 strategy on multiple occasions.

 

The Oil And Gas Industry Is Facing A $3.3 Trillion Stranded Asset Nightmare

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Nov 23, 2021

• Increased scrutiny and pressure on companies from investors and society could lead to trillions in stranded assets
• 
  
• Businesses are waiting for details on carbon markets and carbon emission rules and, potentially, carbon taxes, before re-evaluating their assets
• 
  
• IRENA: the value of assets stranded in the upstream fossil fuel sector would total $3.3 trillion by 2050

The largest international oil and gas firms wrote down assets worth $150 billion last year when prices crashed with the demand slump in the pandemic. Despite the fact that this year's oil prices are now nearly double compared to the 2020 average, the energy industry faces additional impairments in the coming years and decades, this time due to the investor pressure to slash emissions and start accounting for changes to energy demand in the transition to low-carbon sources.   

All industries are under pressure to realign their accounting and financing practices to climate change-related risks, but none more so than the large companies in the energy sector whose core business continues to be oil, gas, and coal.   

The increased scrutiny and pressure on companies from investors and society, as well as uncertainties over long-term demand for fossil fuels, could leave assets, currently estimated to be worth trillions of U.S. dollars, stranded in the future. 

Recent studies have suggested that more than half of oil and gas reserves should remain in the ground if the world is to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2050. 

Carbon prices and additional regulations to limit carbon emissions could make a greater number of fossil fuel assets—especially coal—unprofitable as governments, especially in developed nations, press for net-zero emission economies by 2050. 

Businesses are waiting for details on carbon markets and carbon emission rules and, potentially, carbon taxes, before re-evaluating their assets, analysts tell The Wall Street Journal. 

"Carbon charges are likely to come, and they will transform the upstream sector, affecting both asset values and the industry's economics," WoodMac analysts said earlier this year. 

With carbon taxes and prices, more reserves and operations of energy companies, not only in the upstream sector, could be left as "stranded assets." 

Energy Firms Face Trillions Of Stranded Assets By 2050

In its World Energy Transitions Outlook: 1.5°C Pathway report from June 2021, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reiterated its estimates from two years ago that I

"Delaying action could cause this value to rise to an alarming USD 6.5 trillion by 2050 – almost double. Planning in advance also supports a just transition, assisting in the reallocation and creation of jobs and services," according to IRENA. 

Last year, the biggest oil and gas firms in North America and Europe alone wrote down over $150 billion off the value of their assets, the highest since at least 2010 and representing around 10 percent of the companies' combined market capitalizations, an analysis by The Wall Street Journal showed in December. The reassessment of oil and gas assets was so widespread that even ExxonMobil—which until last year hadn't really adjusted the value of its assets in many years—warned of massive write-downs of between $17 billion and $20 billion after-tax in Q4 in its gas assets in the United States, Canada, and Argentina, due to the pandemic and its effect on the industry. TotalEnergies even used "stranded assets" in qualifying Canadian oil sands projects Fort Hills and Surmont as such. 

While the write-downs last year were the direct result of the collapse in prices leading to the reduced value of assets, future impairments would likely be driven by climate-related risks, analysts and think tanks say. 

Not all assets will pass the scrutiny to be resilient and profitable in a world that will still need oil and gas but aims to significantly limit energy-related emissions. 

Long-Term Stranded Assets Risk

If the world's 60 largest listed oil and gas companies continue with a business-as-usual approach, more than $1 trillion of such business-as-usual investment is at risk, including $480 billion in shale/tight oil projects and $240 billion in deepwater projects, financial think tank Carbon Tracker said in a report in September. 

"Companies and investors must prepare for a world of lower long-term fossil fuel prices and a smaller oil and gas industry, and recognise now the risk of stranded assets that this creates," Mike Coffin, Carbon Tracker Head of Oil, Gas and Mining and report co-author, said.

According to a recent study of researchers from the University College London, nearly 60 percent of both oil and fossil methane gas and almost 90 percent of coal must remain in the ground by 2050 in order to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. The findings, published in Nature in September, are based on a 50-percent probability of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius this century. This would mean that reaching this target would require an even more rapid decline in production and more fossil fuels left in the ground, UCL researchers say. 

Still, the world will need oil and gas for decades to come. Yet, the pressure to account for climate-related risk to assets could bring about billions of asset impairments in the energy industry every year and leave trillions worth of fossil fuel assets stranded.

"Just a few years ago, few within the oil and gas industry would even countenance ideas of climate risk, peak demand, stranded assets, liquidation business models and so on. Today, companies are building strategies around these ideas," Luke Parker, vice president, corporate analysis, at Wood Mackenzie said last year, commenting on the massive write-downs at Shell and BP.

"Demand might still grow from here, and many companies are still chasing a share of that growth. But make no mistake, the corporate landscape is changing, and the majors are changing with it."  

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

 

World-renowned bird migration area in Saskatchewan to be protected by Nature Conservancy of Canada

By Troy Charles  Global News

Posted November 27, 2021 

View image in full screen

Sharp-tailed grouse at Mackie Ranch. Nature Conservancy of Canada

The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) in Saskatchewan is the new owner of a large section of endangered native grassland.

The property contains 646 hectares (1,598 acres) of grasslands and wetlands and is located along the eastern shoreline of Chaplin Lake, between Moose Jaw and Swift Current.

Temperate grasslands are one of the rarest and most at-risk ecosystems in the world and are a critical part of Saskatchewan.

READ MORE: Conservancy Canada — Reasons to not rake your leaves this fall

The property and surrounding area are home to many plants and animals, including wildlife listed under Canada’s Species at Risk Act.

During spring and fall migrations, thousands of shorebirds use Chaplin Lake and the surrounding grasslands to stop and refuel or nest. Chaplin Lake is known for its remarkable birdwatching opportunities.

Over half of the world’s population of sanderlings stop to rest and feed there during their spring migration.

READ MORE: Guided wintertime tours offer chance to catch glimpse into Saskatchewan’s birdlife

“What would happen if we didn’t step in to conserve this property forever?” said the NCC’s media relations director, Andrew Holland. “Who knows? But if it’s lost to other purposes that means thousands of birds could be displaced as well as different endangered species in this country.”

Over the past 25 years, Saskatchewan has lost more than 809,000 hectares (two million acres) of native grassland and now less than 20 per cent remains intact.

The government of Canada was a major contributor to this land purchase through its Natural Heritage Conservation Program, part of Canada’s Nature Fund.

“By working with partners like the Nature Conservancy of Canada, we are protecting Saskatchewan’s natural environment and building a healthier and more resilient future for our children and grandchildren,” said Steven Guilbeault, minister of environment and climate change.

The conservation site has been named in recognition of the Mackie family, who own the ranch that contains the land, and will continue to be used for cattle grazing to help keep the grasslands healthy and support the local economy.

Telling girls they don’t like STEM halves their involvement at any age


By The Echo
November 29, 2021

Kate Quigley was a finalist in the Queensland Women In Stem Prize 2020 for her work on helping corals withstand increasing ocean temperatures. Photo https://www.worldsciencefestival.com.au
Brought to you by The Echo and Cosmos Magazine

An experiment tests gender stereotyping in computer science.

Even children as young as six can develop ideas that girls don’t like computer science and engineering as much as boys – stereotypes that carry over into teenagerhood and contribute to gender gaps at university, according to a study published in PNAS.

‘Gender-interest stereotypes that STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) is for boys begins in grade school, and by the time they reach high school, many girls have made their decision not to pursue degrees in computer science and engineering because they feel they don’t belong,’ says lead author Allison Master, of the University of Houston.

The study involved four different experiments to assess the beliefs of a racially diverse sample of children and teens right throughout school. Instead of exploring who children perceived as ‘good’ at STEM subjects, they investigated who children thought liked them, which can affect childrens’ sense of belonging and willingness to participate in STEM-related activities.

NASA Goddard Hosts Young Women for STEM Girls Night In. 

Photo NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

The researchers found that over half of the children (51 per cent) believed that girls were less interested in computer science than boys, and two-thirds believed girls enjoyed engineering less than boys – even in children as young as six. In comparison, only 14 per cent thought girls liked computer science better than boys did, and nine per cent felt the same about engineering.

Children were then provided with different activities to see whether their beliefs influenced what they chose to participate in.

They found that when girls were told boys liked it better, only 35 per cent of girls participated. On the other hand, when the children were told that boys and girls like computer science just as much as each other, 65 per cent of girls chose to join in.

‘The large surveys told us that the kids had absorbed the cultural stereotype that girls are less interested in computer science and engineering. In the experiments we zeroed in on causal mechanisms and consequences of stereotypes,’ says co-author Andrew Meltzoff, of the University of Washington.

‘We discovered that labelling an activity in a stereotyped way influenced children’s interest in it and their willingness to take it home – the mere presence of the stereotype influenced kids in dramatic ways. This brought home to us the pernicious effect of stereotypes on children and teens.’

Ultimately, this means that many girls chose not to participate in computer science or engineering activities because they felt like they didn’t belong.

‘Current gender disparities in computer science and engineering careers are troubling because these careers are lucrative, high status, and influence so many aspects of our daily lives,’ says co-author Sapna Cheryan of the University of Washington.

‘The dearth of gender and racial diversity in these fields may be one of the reasons why many products and services have had negative consequences for women and people of colour.’

Researchers say the study can be used to understand why a child is motivated to participate in or avoid a class. They also note that parents and teachers can help counteract these stereotypes by supporting and encouraging girls’ interests in STEM subjects from an early age.

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education, and the Bezos Family Foundation.

This article was originally published on Cosmos Magazine and was written by Deborah Devis. Deborah Devis is a science journalist at Cosmos. She has a Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Science (Honours) in biology and philosophy from the University of Sydney, and a PhD in plant molecular genetics from the University of Adelaide

.

Published by The Echo in conjunction with Cosmos Magazine.

 GREENWASHING

Nova Scotia Power increases use of biomass for generating electricity

NOVEMBER 24, 2021 BY JENNIFER HENDERSON

A look inside the blast furnace at Nova Scotia Power’s biomass plant, photo courtesy Ray Plourde

A boiler owned by Nova Scotia Power on the grounds of the Port Hawkesbury paper plant is burning 35% more woody biomass this year than last. 

The year-to-date figures show 126,810 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity was generated over the first nine months of 2021 compared to 93,934 MWh for the same period in 2020 and 65,891 MWh in 2019. 

The information is contained in monthly fuel cost reports Nova Scotia Power must make to the Utility and Review Board, which regulates how much consumers ultimately pay for electricity.

Burning biomass  — which includes everything from low-grade pulpwood to bark, shavings, and wood chip waste from sawmills — for the purpose of generating electricity is only about 22% efficient. Nova Scotia Power’s boiler at Port Hawkesbury supplies about 3% of the total electricity used in the province. 

Citizens concerned about climate change have for years opposed the government classifying biomass as “renewable energy” because clearcutting, which releases carbon from the ground, remains the dominant form of harvesting on Crown and private land. That’s despite ongoing work to begin implementing 2018 recommendations from Professor Bill Lahey to move toward a more ecological approach. 

In May 2020, after it became obvious renewable hydroelectricity from Muskrat Falls was going to be delayed yet again, the McNeil government passed an Order-in-Council extending until December 2022 the deadline to generate 40% of electricity from renewable sources. 

To help with the shortfall, Nova Scotia Power was told to “maximize” its use of biomass at both the facility it owns in Port Hawkesbury and another one in Brooklyn owned by its parent company, Emera.

In a letter to Nova Scotia Power dated May 15, then-Energy Minister Derek Mombourquette added: “Nova Scotia Power shall also maximize the use of dispatchable renewable electricity from its own facilities, as well as those of renewable electricity power producers in Nova Scotia (excluding COMFIT generation sources).” 

Emera’s Brooklyn Energy biomass generator new Liverpool. Photo: Jennifer Henderson

By definition, “dispatchable” excludes wind and hydro sources, which are not available 24/7. Nova Scotia Power claims the only “dispatchable renewable electricity power producer” in the province is Brooklyn Energy, the 35 MW biomass plant near Liverpool. 

The government capped at $7 million a year how much electricity Nova Scotia Power could buy from its affiliate company. Critics of the deal — such as auditors hired by the regulator and the province’s consumer advocate — say electricity generated by Brooklyn is the most expensive power and question why the province would burden ratepayers with its purchase.

The answer became apparent in September 2020 when then-Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Kelliann Dean appeared before the legislature’s standing committee on Natural Resources and Economic Development to praise the Order-in-Council for helping rescue the forestry industry four months after the closure of the Northern Pulp mill. 

“The change to Renewable Energy Standards (May,2020) is enabling Nova Scotia Power to generate more electricity from wood chips and sawmill residuals by operating two biomass plants at capacity until electricity from Muskrat Falls comes onstream,” she said. “We are using all the policy levers at our disposal to support the sector.”

Nova Scotia Power is not required to report to the UARB how much electricity is being produced or how much biomass is being burned at Brooklyn Energy. The company pleads “commercial confidentiality” when asked by The Halifax Examiner. 

Nova Scotia Power does report how much it spends each month to buy power from independent producers — a small group which includes Brooklyn but excludes all wind farms. That dollar amount has also increased over the past year — from $15.9 million for 10 months ending October 2020 compared to $23.3 million for 10 months ending October 2021. Unfortunately, the lack of transparency makes it impossible to know exactly how much of that increase is attributable to purchasing more biomass.

Radio silence

The current Minister of Natural Resources and Renewable Energy ,Tory Rushton, has the authority to reduce the amount of biomass being burned to generate electricity and by extension, the rate of clearcutting.

With a stroke of the pen, the PC government of Tim Houston could issue another Order-in-Council capping the amount of metric tonnes that could be used in the boilers, or, direct Nova Scotia Power to use biomass only when it is the most economical fuel choice. 

But so far, Rushton has not responded to the Halifax Examiner’s question about whether he intends to make any change to stop “maximizing” the use of biomass to produce electricity.

 The Examiner isn’t the only one pushing the Minister for answers to difficult issues. At noon today, Citizens opposed to a controversial clearcut on Crown land near Rocky Point Lake in Digby County will stage a demonstration outside the Department of Natural Resources and Renewable Energy on Hollis Street. The protest led by members of Extinction Rebellion and the Healthy Forest Coalition is to pressure the government to take action to protect the habitat of the mainland moose, an endangered species that ranges overs the Crown land currently being cut by the Westfor consortium. 

Mainland Moose. Photo: Nature Nova Scotia

A court decision has upheld the legal right of the company to harvest wood on the Rocky Point Lake parcel but protestors claim the province still has “a moral obligation” to protect the moose and its habitat.

Finally, Dalhousie University has recently awarded a three-year contract to JD Irving and Wagner Forest Management to supply biomass for its boiler at the Dalhousie Agricultural campus in Truro. Burning biomass that is harvested sustainably to supply a local heating system is a more efficient alternative. The key is whether the suppliers can verify the wood has been harvested sustainably in the first place.

“The product is all sawmill residue from two local sawmills,” said Stephanie Rogers, a spokesperson for Dalhousie University’s Agricultural campus. “Sproule Lumber owned by Irving is just 10 km away and will supply 75% of the total. The plant will consume between 20,000 and 21,000 tonnes of biomass annually. The heat will be used on campus and the boiler should generate about three quarters of our electricity. The price will be based on the moisture content of each truck load but the annual average cost is projected to be in the range of $52-$54 a tonne.”

About Jennifer Henderson

Jennifer Henderson is a freelance journalist and retired CBC News reporter. email: jennifer@halifaxexaminer.ca