Embraer’s Eve eVTOL unit inks civil and defense UAM deals

Bruce Crumley - Dec. 27th 2021 @BDroneDJ


The Embraer group’s urban air mobility (UAM) unit, Eve, has signed another deal to sell its future electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles to a US passenger airline, and will also examine the craft’s development for potential defense and security clients through a partnership with the UK’s BAE.

The news comes amid a flurry of moves by Eve, including accords to sell 300 of its craft to two airline transport sector customers, and the decision to take the company public with a Wall Street listing. The additional announcements involve a letter of understanding with the regional North American airline Republic Airways to buy up to 200 of the eVTOL planes. The other is based on an agreement between Embraer Defense & Security and BAE to examine ways Eve’s UAM craft could be used as a cost-effective, sustainable, and adaptable alternative to traditional aerial vehicles by militaries and security companies.

According to an Eve press release, the agreement with Republic will focus on workforce development initiatives and exploring the future of air travel. The airline will notably work with Eve to examine UAM opportunities within Republic subsidiaries like its Lift Academy. As part of that, the partnership will map out the creation of a regional air transport network across US central and East Coast markets, starting with the Boston, New York, and Washington, DC, areas.

“Republic’s commitment to provide sustainable aviation solutions to our codeshare partners, American, Delta, and United, relies on continued investments in both workforce development and emerging clean technologies,” said Republic Airways president and CEO Bryan Bedford. “The strategic relationship with Eve builds upon decades of a successful relationship with Embraer that has expanded access to regional airports across the country, and we believe Eve’s UAM platform could play a critical role in our future workforce development initiatives.”

A similar thinking is at work in the BAE link-up with Embraer Defense & Security to look for ways to adapt and market Eve eVTOL aircraft to defense and security markets. The effort will seek to modify initial designs for passenger travel and business uses to military applications that include personnel transportation, surveillance and reconnaissance, disaster relief, and humanitarian response.

It is hoped the Eve eVTOL alternatives will provide a carbon-free and considerably cheaper option to current, heavy transport technologies for defense clients. The joint study furthers BAE’s support of Eve’s UAM activities, in which it has already invested $10 million.

“Bringing together Embraer’s innovative technology in the commercial sector with our extensive defense engineering and systems integration experience will help us to accelerate the pace of new innovations,” said Ian Muldowney, BAE Systems Air sector COO. “This joint study is a great example of how we’re delivering against our commitment to collaborate to explore new and sustainable technologies for our customers.”

Aussie farmer plants (possibly) first-ever sunflower crop using a drone

Bruce Crumley - Dec. 28th 2021  @BDroneDJ


As an exploit, it may not rank up there with UAVs saving lives on first responder missions or locating people desperately lost in the inhospitable wilds, but an Australian farmer is celebrating what he believes to be the world’s first sunflower crop to be entirely planted by a drone.

Queensland farmer and agricultural UAV service provider Roger Woods performed the reputedly unprecedented aerial feat in a series of fields near the city of Toowoomba, about 125 km west of Brisbane. As excited as he is at pulling off what he believes is the first 100% drone-executed sunflower plantation, Woods is even more chuffed at what the accomplishment will mean in facilitating the work and lives of farmers around the globe.

“To our knowledge, it’s the first sunflower crop in the world entirely planted by a big agricultural drone that we use commercially,” Woods told ABC News. “It spreads the seeds, and then that drone subsequently fertilized and kept the crop healthy. The only thing it doesn’t do is harvest it.”

Woods says he’s used the craft to spread seeds for growing crops like lucerne, wheat, and barley, but had been warned by peers that UAVs aren’t suitable for sunflower planting. Seeds need to be disseminated far enough apart to favor germination, they advised, while sprouted stalks require sufficient and regular spacing to fully take root and thrive.

But after 12 test runs to fine-tune his system, Woods carried out his drone flights in September, spreading 45,000 seeds per every 2.5-acre sewn. His objective was to produce 30,000 sunflower plants on each of those component zones.

“We probably didn’t quite get that in a lot of areas, so we can probably drop that rate a little bit in the future,” he said, proud nevertheless of the thick, tall plants that have arisen from the ground. “I’ve also got some ideas on heights, spin speed, patterning, and just to tidy up what we’ve learned across the 12 experiments here.”

In addition to adding a reputedly difficult crop to the list of those drones now help produce every year, Woods says his sunflower experiment has also again demonstrated the environmental and financial contributions UAVs can make to farming. The craft are more precise and less wasteful than other alternatives in agriculture, and their lack of terrestrial footprint is valuable to crops and ground that can be disturbed, or even damaged, by land vehicles.

“For smaller farmers, being able to plant crops from a drone might be economically a better idea than getting equipment in,” he says.

The (possibly) first-ever drone plantation of sunflowers has also had an unexpected secondary benefit: tourists. Many visitors have flocked to the area, ABC News says – some to see the novelty crop for themselves, and others to simply mingle with tall, colorful plants as they twist to follow the sun’s rays. The fields have even been opened up for tourists to inspect for the first time.

“It’s been a dual purpose of satisfying that want people have to be up close and personal with sunflowers, and also educate them about new techniques of farming that are much less harsh on the environment than older techniques,” Woods explains.

'MAYBE' TECH

This Hydrogen Fuel Breakthrough Sounds Sweet

Sanjiv Sathiah - Jan 2, 2022

Hydrogen-powered Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEVs) have something of a bad rap despite having some clear advantages over conventional EVs like those made by Tesla. In fact, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has variously called the technology “mind-bogglingly stupid”, “a load of rubbish”, and “fool cells” (via CNBC). While Musk may have a vested interest in promoting Tesla’s preferred battery-based EV technology, he is undoubtedly standing on some solid ground when it comes to questions over FCEV technology that have yet to be satisfactorily addressed.

FCEVs are still in their infancy with just a fraction of the sales enjoyed by conventional EVs. There is a myriad of reasons for this but the leading reason is the lack of hydrogen gas fuel station infrastructure.

Without investment in the infrastructure, there is little likelihood of FCEV uptake and even if it is introduced at tremendous cost, there is no guarantee that people will buy FCEVs as they are considerably more expensive than regular EVs. The biggest advantage of FCEVs is that – in addition to being clean to run – once quickly refueled with hydrogen gas, they can be charged and ready to go in around just five minutes.

Palladium and hydrogen storage breakthrough

DESY

Another challenge facing the potential for FCEVs to achieve commercial success is the cost of storing hydrogen gas even in purpose-built hydrogen fuel stations. The gas either needs to be kept in pressurized tanks at up to 700 bar or it needs to be converted to liquid form, which requires cooling it down to minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 253 degrees Celcius). As you might imagine, this is not only costly, but it also requires a lot of energy which negates both the appeal of FCEVs and their environmental benefits.

Enter German research center Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY). DESY has discovered an approach to storing hydrogen in nanoparticles made from palladium – a precious metal – that can be easily extracted. Although it has been long known that palladium can absorb hydrogen like a sponge, the DESY approach differs by making the hydrogen easier to extract.

The process involves palladium particles only one nanometer across in a structure that resembles nut-coated marzipan chocolate. At the center of the structure is an iridium ‘nut’ around which is enveloped a layer of palladium (like marzipan), which then gets coated by a layer of hydrogen (the chocolate). A small amount of heat is all that is required to extract the hydrogen.

Scientists have a long way to go

Audio und werbung/Shutterstock

While DESY’s scientists have cooked up a tasty treat for fans of FCEVs, there is still a long way to go before breakthrough hydrogen storage and extraction techniques can be commercialized. 

DESY plans on scaling the technology to find out the storage densities that it can achieve. It is currently using graphene as a carrier for the ‘nano-chocolates’ (as DESY calls them), but plans on investigating other carbon structures.

However, DESY is optimistic that its approach will be able to hold substantial amounts of palladium which in turn means its approach will be able to store substantial amounts of hydrogen, without the downsides of current methods of hydrogen containment.

US ESTABLISHMENT PRO NUKE

Opinion: Germany is closing its last nuclear plants. What a mistake.

The Grohnde Nuclear Power Plant is one of three facilities being decommissioned by Germany


By Editorial Board

A little more than 10 years ago, the world held its breath as Japanese authorities struggled to contain an accident that occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station following a major earthquake. At the time, many observers wondered whether nuclear power, with its radioactive waste and meltdown risk, was worth continuing to use. In retrospect, it was this very backlash — against a virtually carbon-free energy technology that the world needs to slash greenhouse emissions — that turned out to be among the Fukushima saga’s most substantial negative consequences.

An energy dilemma on the other side of the world shows why. Germany is shutting three more nuclear power plants — nearly half of the nuclear capacity it has left — even as energy prices soar and the country struggles to cut its carbon dioxide emissions. The nation’s remaining reactors will close down by the end of 2022. This is the result of a pledge to rapidly phase out nuclear power that Germany’s government made hastily in the wake of the Fukushima accident. At the time, the decision pleased longtime anti-nuclear activists, advocates for renewables and frightened citizens. But clearer heads warned that then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision was a mistake that would force Europe’s largest economy to rely on fossil fuels such as lignite, an especially dirty form of coal.

Which is precisely what happened. Though Germany has invested heavily in renewables, it nevertheless has had to burn massive amounts of coal since 2011 to keep its economy running. Absent nuclear, Germany also depends more on Russian natural gas, a deep geopolitical vulnerability that gives leverage to Russia’s authoritarian government.

True, the German government has committed to phasing out coal — but not until 2038. Even on this long time frame, eliminating coal without help from nuclear power plants will be perilous for Europe’s largest economy. Analysts warn that Germany’s supply margin — how much electrical generation capacity the country has in reserve — could plummet in the next couple of years, risking blackouts in times of grid stress.

Next door, French President Emmanuel Macron is moving in the opposite direction, announcing plans for new nuclear reactors. France relies more on nuclear power than any other nation, a major reason the country has about half the per capita greenhouse emissions Germany does. Mr. Macron rightly sees expanding the nation’s nuclear capacity as a better alternative than attempting to rely on renewables alone. Solar and wind power will be essential pieces of a cleaner energy mix, but the grid will still require reliable, always-on sources of electricity to back up intermittent renewables. Better it be nuclear than coal, oil or gas.

Nuclear energy frightens many people. But the deadly chemicals that coal plants spew into the air should scare them more. So should the existential threat of climate change. At the least, countries with legacy nuclear power plants — the United States has many — should aim to keep them online for as long as possible rather than repeat Germany’s mistake.

WHY OMICRON IS NASTY

ONTARIO

Staff are calling in sick by the hundreds during the Omicron wave and hospitals are feeling the strain


JANUARY 3, 2022

One hundred staff members are calling the sick every day at Toronto’s University Health Network hospitals.

More than 150 staff at a London hospital have tested positive for the virus.

Hamilton Health Sciences’ 400 staff members are in isolation due to COVID-19 exposure.

As Omicron rips through Ontario, hospitals in the province say they are seeing a new kind of challenge: a wave of staff absenteeism forcing them to consider canceling scheduled medical treatments, or separating – Calls isolated employees back to work early.

Omicron. Hospital under pressure of staff during

This edition presents a new challenge to Ontario’s health care system


5Percent

Bluewater Health workers in Sarnia are in isolation due to COVID-19


100

Every day staff members are calling the sick to University Health Network hospitals


400

Hamilton Health Sciences staff members isolating due to COVID-19 exposure


0

Days that Ontario health workers are required to isolate without going to work after being exposed to COVID-19 if they take a daily rapid test and have no symptoms


152

The number of employees of the London Health Sciences Center who have tested positive for COVID-19 as of 31 December.


STAR GRAPHIC

University Health Network spokeswoman Gillian Howard said the case is in the Greater Toronto Area, not just UHN.

“We’re seeing a very large number of employees calling in sick — about 100 a day — with either a risk that needs to be assessed by health services or because they’re sick,” Howard told the Star. “We are currently working through the advice of the Chief Medical Officer of Health and Ontario Health on how we will manage through January.”

Howard said the measures they would take would include redeploying staff and reducing scheduled care. UHN has a staff of about 17,200.

Unlike previous COVID waves, it is Omicron’s unprecedented transmittance, rather than its severity, that is affecting the health care system. While hospitals are increasingly filling up with COVID-19 patients, the need for intensive care has been proportionately less than in earlier waves. This means that while there is not yet the same demand on staff to manage large numbers of very ill patients, the sheer number of cases and potential risks force more health care workers into isolation, where they are unable to help. Huh.

Julia Osterman, communications chief at Bluewater Health, said, “Usually we don’t have calls on the weekends, but we should have an all-hands-on-deck because we have six or seven COVID-19 cases in an emergency.” Getting into position.” Sarnia. “From yesterday we started calling employees on leave to see if they can get back to work – it is not a desirable outcome. They really need their leave and they deserve it.”

Osterman said out of a total of 1,800 staff members at Bluewater, 89 are currently in isolation. This is about four times the number of people who get sick in general.

Association President and CEO Anthony Dale wrote, “Due to widespread community transmission of the Omicron version, the Ontario Hospital Association is actively working on contingency plans with health care sector officials in an effort to continue essential hospital operations during this wave. Used to be.” , “Management in the next few months can only be achieved if we continue to function as a health system.”

Omicron’s spread among hospital staff has resulted in policy changes in the hospital network and in other jurisdictions. Granthshala reported last week that some nurses in Ontario were being called back to work during periods of isolation. The province of Quebec has said that some COVID-positive health care workers will be called back to work, a plan its health minister Christian Dubey has called “the best option for not providing care”.

Osterman said he expects there may be some division of staff between jurisdictions, noting that Bluewater took patients from GTA and Manitoba during the first waves of the pandemic and would help again if it had the potential.

In Quebec City, the main hospital network said on Sunday it would postpone half of its surgeries and appointments starting Wednesday. Quebec faced a surge in cases in hospitals, with more than 1,200 hospitalized with COVID as of Sunday, according to The Canadian Press.

In the UK, where Omicron has been circulating for a long time, the situation is similar – with the sheer volume of cases causing serious staffing issues in some areas.

“Right now, the (National Health Service) is facing a potentially urgent emergency for which it needs to be prepared. The alternative could potentially be to leave patients untreated or to create additional temporary capacity,” said Chris Hopson, chief executive officer of NHS Providers, a union representing health care workers. wrote in a Twitter thread on Saturday. “Unlike last January, there are currently very few, critically ill, older people in need of critical care … The problem is therefore the patient acuity, the intensity of care and the low need for length of stay. Normal and acute bedsores The number of patients in need is more.”

An infectious disease specialist at McGill University Health Center, Dr. Donald Vinh says all Canadian provinces may be faced with the choice of whether to allow exposed workers to return to work as the number of sick people and pools of workers rise in the coming days. available for their treatment.

“We have a certain, limited number of health care workers in every province, because there is no reservoir or pool of health care workers that we can depend on to bail us out here,” he told the Canadian Press last week. Told. ,

Hamilton Health Sciences CEO Rob McIsaac said on Friday that the hospital is taking “extraordinary measures” to address its staffing shortfall, including paying premiums to its staff who work on time and are asymptomatic after a negative rapid test. Including the recall of isolating staff. Result.

MacIsaac wrote in December 31, “We are once again facing enormous pressure on hospital stays and staff numbers.” Statement,

As of New Year’s Eve, 152 staff at the London Health Sciences Center had tested positive for COVID, according to Website,

There are additional strains on health care workers at the moment, even if they are not isolated. When a nurse or administrative assistant or paramedic or personal support worker arrives from their leave, they sometimes encounter patients who oppose their care.

“We are working with large groups of unvaccinated people, many of whom do not believe in conventional science,” Osterman said. “So the tone within hospitals, the level of discourse, has changed a lot since the first wave.”

“It’s really unfortunate because the whole team is tired and coming on their leave,” she said. “It’s so different from before.”

With files from the Canadian Press
Alex McKeon is a Vancouver-based reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @alex_mckeen

Omicron is causing an 'almost a vertical increase' in US COVID-19 infections

The Unites States' top infectious diseases official Dr Anthony Fauci says while the country is experiencing an almost "vertical increase" in COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant, the peak may be just weeks away.

Long lines at vaccination centres and mobile COVID-19 testing sites form all over New York City, as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus surges across the US.

 Source: Michael Nigro/Sipa USA

The United States is experiencing "almost a vertical increase" in COVID-19 cases as the Omicron variant sweeps the country, but the peak may be only weeks away, top US pandemic advisor Anthony Fauci said Sunday.

"We are definitely in the middle of a very severe surge and an uptick in cases," Dr Fauci said on ABC's This Week, calling the soaring infection rate "really unprecedented".

With the Omicron variant of the virus sweeping around the world, more than 440,000 new cases were reported in the US on Friday, almost exactly 200,000 more than during a peak last February.


Thousands send messages to late Chinese COVID-19 whistleblower doctor two years on

But Dr Fauci said the experience of South Africa - where the strain was first detected in late November and peaked quickly, then subsided almost as quickly - offered some hope.

Evidence is mounting, he added, that Omicron is milder than previous variants.

The US rates of deaths and hospitalisations have been far lower in recent weeks than during previous COVID surges.

Like other countries, it has been struggling to find a balance that will protect public health without gravely damaging the economy or slamming key services like policing and air travel.

With children set to return to school Monday following the year-end break, both Dr Fauci and the US education secretary said they thought in-person instruction can be conducted safely if proper precautions are taken.

Dr Fauci again pleaded with parents to be sure their children are vaccinated, wear masks and get tested if need be.

"I think all those things put together, it's safe enough to get those kids back to school, balanced against the deleterious effects of keeping them out," he said.

Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a daily briefing at the White House in Washington DC. Source: AP

US Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, meanwhile, said the return to the classroom would be challenging, but necessary.

"I do think there will be bumps in the road, especially tomorrow," he told 'Fox News Sunday', with large numbers of teachers and staff calling in sick.

"So we are going to roll up our sleeves, all hands on deck, let's keep our children in the classroom. That should be our default thinking."

And Eric Adams, who was sworn in as New York mayor just minutes into the new year, said there was little choice but for children to return - safely - to school.

"We've lost almost two years of education," he said on ABC. "We can't do it again... The safest place for children is inside a school."

IRAQ

Social stability in the Kurdistan Region: beyond the rhetoric of reform

06-12-2021
Abdurrahman A.Wahab

University students gather near Sulaimani University in the Kurdistan Region during a protest demanding the payment by the government of monthly allowances on November 23, 2021. 

Photo: Shwan Mohammed / AFP

The new round of student protests in the Kurdistan Region show that students and government stakeholders are at a disjuncture when viewing the reform initiatives. Even though students initially demanded that the KRG pay their overdue stipends of about 40-70 USD per month, the violent crackdown of the protesters is far more revealing of what is at stake for both the students and the government.

Underneath the demand for the reinstallation of the financial assistance were calls for more robust reforms in the government and the educational system. The harsh reaction of the security forces to these demands, such as the student arrests that followed, combined with the responses to the events from top government and political officials, show the KRG’s critical position vis-à-vis the economic, political, and educational reforms in the Region.

Such regular protests beg the question: Are the KRG’s policymakers able to meet students’ demands instead of using the educational system to stall social and political dissent?

The KRG’s austerity measures, taken in response to drops in oil prices, the fight against ISIS, and the budget dispute with Baghdad, have hit the educational sector particularly hard. According to a report by the UNICEF, spending on education in the Region for the 2014-2015 academic year was only about 40 USD per student, much lower compared to the 1000 USD spent in the rest of Iraq.

The Region's political duopoly had relied on a bulging public payroll, free education, and the distribution of stipends as a tool for political patronage at the expense of merit. The KRG and political parties have realized, now, that these efforts not only have ceased to bare the desired political and economic fruit but that fiscally they have become too expensive to maintain.

To this day, public universities lack autonomy thanks to micromanaging by the KRG. They await government approval to spend their budget and even hire their staff. University revenues are handed over to the Ministry of Higher Education, then to the Ministry of Finance, which are then thawed into the public budget and spent on other government priorities rather than on the universities’ own development.

Against years of institutional and financial incapacitation, academic fragility, and political tampering, universities have become incapable of carrying out the mediocre political role assigned to them in quenching the KRG leaders’ thirst for social and political stability.

To initiate reform, the KRG leadership has adopted a privatization scheme as the basis for educational restructuring and government downsizing. However, the KRG has put itself in a predicament since, historically, people’s dependency on the government has been its asset for social and political stability.

Privatization in the health, power, and education sectors, as well as public salary and pension cuts, have increased the household bills of citizens across the Region. Many college graduates have also realized that their employment opportunities in the public sector have withered, seeing little hope in finding decent work in the Region's volatile private sector.

The discourse of educational quality and accountability, and private sector invigoration, do not carry much weight in the face of rising unemployment rates and a bulging corruption that is draining the region’s economy. So far, the KRG’s educational reform efforts amidst its downsizing schemes has proven hollow.

As public employment shrinks, the fragile private sector in the Region is unable to compete with, let alone absorb, the armies of university graduates every year. It is even less so when the market is an extension of the state capture of ruling parties and their patronage. These realities have deemed the privatization rhetoric for economic growth a mere façade to sidetrack liability from the powers that have historically subdued the government and swelled its spending.

The KRG leaders and policymakers should take the episodes of unrest among students and teachers protesting these government measures as an opportunity to recognize that their rationalization of reform mismatches the experiences of those who are most affected.

The social groups that are closer to the poverty line, including the out-of-towner students, witness the severity of the austerity measures and budget cuts the most. They do not have the luxury to make sense of the reform policies made by the political elites who control all the means and measures of life in the Region's posher neighborhoods.

Instead of relying on their political will and the vast network of party loyalists, KRG leaders need to approach a progressive policy framework with appropriate tools that are equitable towards the disenfranchised communities.

Policymakers must also understand that, regardless of intent and political will, their reform policies must accommodate for the institutional inertia in the KRG. To implement reform policies, KRG agencies will rely on their stagnated bureaucracy and limited institutional capabilities. This accommodation often contradicts the rationale behind the reform initiatives.

It is necessary that policymakers invite the agencies that implement reform into the policymaking processes so that policy and implementation correspond with each other. Instead of relying on micromanaging as the ultimate policy tool, policymaking should focus on incentives and capacity building as integral components of reform to cut dependency on political meddling.

Unless reform efforts transcend mere rhetoric, the social and political unrest, alongside waves of migrating youth who are willing to face starvation, cold, and even death on foreign borders just to leave the country, will likely continue. Reforming the stagnant culture of dependency on the public sector is also futile unless the regulatory attitudes interlaced with the political competition and maneuvering that currently shape the private sector in the Region are radically addressed.

The KRG's leadership must also realize that educational policy should support reform in the academic institutions even if this reform is at the expense of political loss for those who are currently in power. If political and government leaders are unwilling to pay the students their stipend, their alternative is to bring about a robust educational reform.


Abdurrahman A. Wahab is a policy researcher at the Institute of Regional and International Studies (IRIS), based at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani.

Iraq pockets over $7 billion in December oil sales: ministry

Layal Shakir@layalshakirr

Workers go about their tasks at the Basra Gas Company in Khor al-Zubair city in southern Iraq on September 22, 2021. Photo: AFP

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraq pocketed more than seven billion dollars from oil sales in December, the ministry announced on Saturday, noting a slight fall in revenues compared to the month before.

Iraq exported 101.5 million barrels of oil in December, with an average daily exports of 3.27 million barrels, the oil ministry said.

The exports brought in $7.37 billion, selling at over $72 per barrel, it added.

The Iraqi government is dependent on oil revenues to cover its costs and pay the salaries of civil servants. Record low oil prices during the pandemic last year caused a financial crisis in Iraq, but a recent boost in oil markets and the central bank’s decision in December to devalue the dinar against the dollar have eased the crisis.

A source from the Iraqi Central Bank last month told the country’s state newspaper that the bank’s reserves have increased from $51.9 to $64 billion "due to a rise in the oil markets.”

In November, Iraq exported over 98 million oil barrels, pocketing over $7.59 billion. In October, it increased exports by more than four million compared to the month before.

KRG made $1.7 billion from oil sales in first half of 2021: report
08-12-2021

Karwan Faidhi Dri@KarwanFaidhiDri

Logo of Deloitte (left) and the file photo of an oil field in the Kurdistan Region. 

Credit: Rudaw

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) exported a total of nearly 80 million barrels of crude oil in the first half of 2021, collecting a net $1.7 billion, according to audited data published by the KRG on Wednesday.

The report, which covers January 1 to June 30, shows that the KRG exported 77.35 barrels of crude oil through its pipelines - of these, 76,869 million barrels were lifted by buyers from Ceyhan Export Terminal in Turkey. The average price of each barrel was $53.446.

“The KRG has generated revenues of USD 4.1 billion from crude oil export sales during the first half of 2021. After making payments to oil producers, pipeline operators, and repayments to the buyers, the KRG retained net revenues from crude oil sales of US$ 1.737 billion,” read the report.

The data was audited by Deloitte.

“The KRG has engaged in discussions with international buyers and oil producers in continuing its efforts to maximize sales prices and reduce production costs to maximize value for the people of Kurdistan,” said the government in a statement which accompanied the report, adding that it acknowledges the positive feedback received from domestic and international stakeholders.

There are 52 oil blocks in the Kurdistan Region, 16 of them are in production and 15 are in exploration phases. Over 30 international and local companies are working in the sector. Many of the contracts were signed with prepayment schemes and the Kurdistan Region owes a large amount of money.

In late June, the Council of Ministers Secretary General Amanj Raheem told parliament that the KRG owes around $4.3 billion to oil companies. The government has also said it inherited a $28 billion debt from the previous administration.

Kurdistan Region's Minister of Natural Resources Kamal Atroshi in late June attended a parliamentary session to answer questions about the government's finances. He said at the time that 40 percent of the money from oil sales is spent to cover oil sector costs - 20 percent for production costs, 14 percent in payments to international oil companies, and around six percent for transportation.

The KRG's biggest expense by far is its payroll and it has struggled to pay its employees in full and on time for several years because of several factors including budget disputes with Baghdad and low oil prices during the coronavirus pandemic.

The amount of money that the Kurdistan Region’s finance ministry collects from oil revenues is around a third of what it should be receiving, Rewaz Fayaq, speaker of Kurdistan Parliament, told reporters late last month.

“When you think of oil revenue, the amount that enters the finance ministry is not natural, it is $350 million, but when you calculate it is around $900 million,” she said, adding that “Not everything enters the finance ministry.”

Alberta tech company hopes air decontamination device will help mitigate Omicron variant spread

By Chris Chacon Global News
Posted January 2, 2022 

As the Omicron variant continues to spread in our province, an Alberta-based tech company is hoping its new high tech air decontamination device can help mitigate the transmission of airborne viruses including the Omicron variant. Chris Chacon reports.

As the Omicron variant continues to spread in the province, an Alberta-based tech company is hoping its new high tech air decontamination device can help mitigate the transmission of airborne viruses including the Omicron variant.

The device is called Ti-DOX HydroxylizAire and attaches to a furnace. Circulated air travels through a chamber where it is met with 50 C lamp heat and UVC exposure, creating a chemical reaction cleaning process.

READ MORE: New germ-killing seats installed in 57 Edmonton Transit Service train cars

“Particular pathogens would actually be destroyed as opposed to being captured in a filter, so what we’re doing is we’re purifying the air through a natural process,” Ti-DOX president Dean Neitz said.

“What we’re trying to do with this technology is improve air quality inside of buildings on an ongoing basis,” Neitz said.

Ti-DOX vice president Reinha­­­­rd Schuetz created the device and said the idea was born more than ten years ago, when he was working as a petroleum engineer trying to decontaminate storage tanks from chemical emissions.

“Subsequently, discovering that (the process) actually destroyed things like hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, I also realized because of that it can also destroy germs and pathogens,” Schuetz said.

2:01COVID-19: No new restrictions announced in Alberta in wake of rapidly spreading Omicron variantCOVID-19: No new restrictions announced in Alberta in wake of rapidly spreading Omicron variant

While the technology has not been tested for COVID-19, air quality and better ventilation is now top of mind for many people.

“All of COVID has been airborne from the beginning — it’s just never more evident than it is now,” ER doctor Joe Vipond said.

With widespread cases of the Omicron variant in Alberta, there are growing calls from some medical professionals and school boards to improve ventilation in indoor spaces.

READ MORE: Salty solution? ETS partners with bio-tech company on germ-killing pilot project in LRT stations

“The fact that we have acknowledged airborne transmission is a great first step, but now we have to acknowledge the mitigation measures that come along with an airborne virus,” Dr. Vipond said.

Dr. Vipond said ventilation, even if that’s just opening windows in some cases, is one more layer of protection to go along with properly worn masks, vaccines and physical distancing.

As for Schuetz and Neitz, they hope their device can make a difference.

“I think it’s a very timely invention for where we are in the world today,” Neitz said. “I think that our air is becoming a greater concern.”

Solar recycling is broken, but there’s a plan to fix it

Today, most dead solar panels wind up in shredders or landfills

By Maddie Stone Dec 29, 2021

Tang Dehong / Costfoto/Future Publishing via Getty Images

A new Department of Energy-funded research project seeks to solve one of the biggest challenges with solar power — what to do with solar panels after they die.

Solar energy is key to solving climate change, but for the technology itself to be sustainable it needs to be recyclable. Unfortunately, when a solar panel dies today, it’s likely to meet one of two fates: a shredder or a landfill.

Arizona State University (ASU) researchers are hoping to change that through a new recycling process that uses chemicals to recover high-value metals and materials, like silver and silicon, making recycling more economically attractive. Earlier this month, the team received a two-year, $485,000 grant from the DOE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office to further validate the idea, which they hope will lay the groundwork for a pilot recycling plant within the next three years. Matching funds are being provided by ASU and energy company First Solar, which is serving as an industrial adviser on the project.

If all goes well, a cleaner and more cost-effective solar recycling process could reach the market right as the first wave of solar panels hits the waste stream.

“As we’re ramping up clean energy manufacturing, producing more clean energy tech, thinking about recycling at the end of life becomes even more important,” says Diana Bauer, acting deputy director of the Advanced Manufacturing Office at DOE.

While relatively few solar panels have reached the end of their life already, experts suspect most of those that have are winding up in landfills, where valuable metals and materials inside them are lost. Meng Tao, a solar sustainability researcher at ASU who’s leading the new recycling effort, has estimated that the world could face supply shortages of at least one of those metals, silver, long before we’ve built all the solar panels needed to transition off fossil fuels. Solar-grade silicon, meanwhile, takes tremendous amounts of energy to make, and using it more than once is important for keeping the solar industry’s electricity demands — and its carbon footprint — down.

NEW SOLAR RECYCLING PROCESSES COULD IMPROVE THE ECONOMICS CONSIDERABLY

Even when solar panels are recycled today, these materials are rarely recovered. Instead, recyclers typically remove the aluminum frame holding the panel together, strip the copper wiring off the back, and shred the panel itself, creating a solar hash that’s sold as crushed glass. Those three products — aluminum, copper, and crushed glass — might fetch a recycler $3 per panel, Tao says. Companies Tao has spoken with say it costs up to $25 to recycle a panel, after decommissioning and transit costs.

New solar recycling processes that recover more metals and minerals could improve the economics considerably. Tao and his colleagues are proposing one such process, in which the envelope-sized silicon cells inside solar panels are first separated from the sheets of polymers and glass surrounding them using a hot steel blade. A patent pending chemical concoction developed by Tao’s recycling startup TG Companies is then used to extract silver, tin, copper, and lead from the cells, leaving behind silicon.

While the recycling process uses harsh chemicals, Tao says those chemicals can be “regenerated and used again and again,” reducing the amount of waste that’s created — a feature of his recycling method he believes to be unique. Tao adds that by recovering lead, the process also has the potential to eliminate an environmental hazard that would otherwise wind up in recycling waste or landfills.

Tao claims TG Companies has already developed technology to recover 100 percent of the silver, tin, copper, and lead in solar cells. The new DOE grant will allow his team to further optimize the recycling process for solar panels and verify whether silicon can be recovered at a high enough purity to manufacture new cells without going through an energy-intensive purification step known as the Siemens process. If all goes well over the next two years, the next step will be to attract private investors to finance a pilot plant that can use the process to recycle around 100,000 solar panels a year.

Karsten Wambach, the founder of solar panel recycling nonprofit PV CYCLE, says that a “green chemistry approach” like Tao and his colleagues are proposing has a “large potential to recover valuable secondary materials and contribute to protection of the environment.”

THIS HIGH-TECH TRASH COULD BECOME TREASURE

But Wambach notes that recovering all of the silver and other trace metals in solar panels “might not be fully achievable” due to losses during the process of separating silicon cells from polymers and elsewhere. In a commercial version of this process, he says, the amount and quality of recovered metals will be “optimised according to the downstream user’s specifications and cost savings potential in the treatment processes.”

Cost savings will be key. Depending on the price of silver, Tao thinks his process could recover $10-15 of materials per panel. But that could change, Wambach warns, if manufacturers continue using less silver in solar panels over time. And even $15 per panel is unlikely to cover the full cost of decommissioning and recycling the panels, meaning supportive policies may be needed to scale up.

A final hurdle, Wambach says, is that there just aren’t that many solar panels being pulled off rooftops today. But while less than half a million tons of solar waste existed globally in 2016, the International Renewable Energy Agency has projected that by 2030, that figure could rise to 8 million tons. By 2050, we could be throwing out 6 million tons of dead solar panels every year, nearly as many as we’re installing.

Based on those projections and data on the value of metals and minerals inside each panel, Tao and his colleagues have estimated that by 2028, solar e-waste will contain over a billion dollars’ worth of harvestable materials. For anyone who is able to crack the recycling challenge, this high-tech trash could become treasure.

Robots to probe inside Fukushima reactor

Saturday, Jan. 1, 2022

The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is planning to conduct robotic probes and collect samples from damaged reactors this year.

The work will be a key step in the effort to decommission the plant.

The No.1, 2 and 3 reactors suffered meltdowns following a major earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

Nuclear fuel melted and collapsed into the reactors' containment vessels. It mixed with surrounding metal parts and formed solid fuel debris.

Tokyo Electric Power plans to begin a robotic survey of the No.1 reactor in mid-January. The survey is expected to take about six months.
The robots will use ultrasonic devices to locate and measure the thickness of the deposits.

Utility officials say they also hope to collect samples.

Preparation to retrieve fuel debris from the No.2 reactor is underway with a robotic device that was developed in the UK.

It is now undergoing performance tests in Japan.

Tokyo Electric Power is planning to collect a few grams of debris with the robot by the end of this year. It hopes to gradually increase the amount to be retrieved.

Removal and safe storage of the extremely radioactive debris is thought to be one of the biggest challenges in the decommissioning process.