New method for rapid, efficient hydrogen generation from water

BY AMIT MALEWAR
FEBRUARY 28, 2022
EMERGING TECH

Hydrogen gas generated from the reaction of water with an aluminum-gallium composite. Credit: Amberchan et al., Applied Nano Materials 2022

Aluminum is a highly reactive metal that can strip oxygen from water molecules to generate hydrogen gas. Now, researchers at UC Santa Cruz have developed a new cost-effective and effective way to use aluminum’s reactivity to generate clean hydrogen fuel.

In a new study, a team of researchers shows that an easily produced composite of gallium and aluminum creates aluminum nanoparticles that react rapidly with water at room temperature to yield large amounts of hydrogen. According to researchers, the gallium was easily recovered for reuse after the reaction, which yields 90% of the hydrogen that could theoretically be produced from the reaction of all the aluminum in the composite.

“We don’t need any energy input, and it bubbles hydrogen-like crazy. I’ve never seen anything like it,” said UCSC Chemistry Professor Scott Oliver.

The reaction of aluminum and gallium with water works because gallium removes the passive aluminum oxide coating, allowing direct contact of aluminum with water.

Using scanning electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction, the researchers showed the formation of aluminum nanoparticles in a 3:1 gallium-aluminum composite, which they found to be the optimal ratio for hydrogen production. In this gallium-rich composite, the gallium serves both to dissolve the aluminum oxide coating and to separate the aluminum into nanoparticles.

“The gallium separates the nanoparticles and keeps them from aggregating into larger particles,” said Bakthan Singaram, corresponding authors of a paper on the new findings. “People have struggled to make aluminum nanoparticles, and here we are producing them under normal atmospheric pressure and room temperature conditions.”

The researchers say the composite for their method can be made with readily available sources of aluminum, including used foil or cans. The composite can be easily stored for long periods by covering it with cyclohexane to protect it from moisture.

While gallium is not abundant and is relatively expensive, it can be recovered and reused multiple times without losing effectiveness. However, it remains to be seen if this process can be scaled up to be practical for commercial hydrogen production.

New screening system may point the way to clean, renewable hydrogen power

by Matthew Carroll, Pennsylvania State University

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

A new, highly sensitive system for detecting the production of hydrogen gas may play an important role in the quest to develop hydrogen as an environmentally friendly and economical alternative to fossil fuels, according to Penn State scientists.

"We have built a new system for detecting hydrogen evolution that is the most sensitive in the world," said Venkatraman Gopalan, professor of materials science and engineering and physics at Penn State. "This tackles a problem that had not been addressed but that is important going forward for materials discovery."

The tool can be used to screen promising photocatalysts, materials that when placed in water and exposed to sunlight facilitate reactions that split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen gases, the scientists said. The process, called water splitting, offers a clean and renewable source of hydrogen, but it is inefficient and finding the right photocatalysts to boost hydrogen production has been challenging.

In a study, the team found they could test smaller amounts of photocatalyst material than previously possible and detect very small amounts of hydrogen gas produced, or hydrogen evolution, in the range of tens of nanomoles per hour per tens of milligrams of material. They recently published their findings in the Review of Scientific Instruments.

"If you ranked low in both the categories of hydrogen evolution rate and the mass of the photocatalyst needed, it means it's a really sensitive system for discovering new photocatalytic materials," said Huaiyu "Hugo" Wang, a graduate student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering who led the study and built the system. "And it turns out that our work ranked the best in both categories."

Developing photocatalysts is an area of intense research. At Penn State, scientists led by Ismaila Dabo, associate professor of materials science and engineering, recently used a supercomputer to narrow a list of more than 70,000 different compounds down to six promising candidates. Another team led by Raymond Schaak, DuPont Professor of Materials Chemistry, synthesized the materials in their laboratory, but creating even small amounts is expensive and time consuming.

"Typical photocatalysts use rare and precious metals such as platinum, which are immensely expensive," said Julian Fanghanel, a graduate student in materials science and engineering who is co-advised by Dabo and Schaak. "For this project, we are making dozens of samples of materials, so making them in large quantities is impractical, time- consuming and costly."

Gopalan said the new system will allow scientists to test smaller amounts of these materials and focus efforts on the most promising candidates. But when it came time to test samples, the researchers found commercial equipment was not sensitive enough, so Gopalan and Wang built their own.

"They developed from the ground up a uniquely sensitive gas chromatography setup for the reproducible detection of hydrogen, which was instrumental to the validation of our computational predictions," Dabo said. "This newly developed capability was a key enabler to confirm the discovery of new photocatalysts for the solar production of hydrogen."

Unlike the commercial units, the new design can test photocatalysts in their bare state, the scientists said. To be effective, photocatalysts require co-catalysts and other techniques that further improve their efficiency. The gold standard, for example, is titanium dioxide with platinum particles added as a co-catalyst. Photocatalysts without these add-ons are considered bare.

"When we are looking at new materials, we don't know what the correct co-catalysts will be," Wang said. "The simple answer is—detecting the bare form is the quickest way to help guide the direction of this materials discovery process."

Two of the photocatalyst materials tested as part of the study performed better than titanium dioxide did in its bare state, the scientists said. The findings suggest that further study of those materials could yield promising photocatalysts.

"If you have a bare compound that behaved much better than titanium dioxide then we know this is a potential material to optimize," Wang said. "If we find the right co-catalysts for those materials, we can improve them by orders or magnitude and these materials could eventually be useful in water splitting."

The scientists said the system is affordable and easy to build from commercially available components. It features a low leakage rate and a small reaction chamber volume size, which allows three orders of magnitude higher detection sensitivity for hydrogen evolution than a conventional gas chromatography system.

"It's not a brand new technology, it's just superior engineering," Gopalan said. "The value of this is that it's a simple, cost-effective system that anyone can build. And if they do, their research for discovering new photocatalysts is going to go much faster."

Also contributing from Penn State was Rebecca Katz, graduate student in the Eberly College of Science.Computers help researchers find materials to turn solar power into hydrogen

More information: Huaiyu(Hugo) Wang et al, Ultrasensitive electrode-free and co-catalyst-free detection of nanomoles per hour hydrogen evolution for the discovery of new photocatalysts, Review of Scientific Instruments (2022). DOI: 10.1063/5.0077650

Journal information: Review of Scientific Instruments 

Provided by Pennsylvania State University 

Paul Martin Talks H2 Science Coalition & More Problems With Hydrogen

Paul Martin CleanTech Talk

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Paul Martin Talks H2 Science Coalition & More Problems With Hydrogen - CleanTechnica

The H2 Science Coalition is only months old, formed in November 2021 as an independent advocacy and PR group for hydrogen sanity. It’s intended to counter the bags of money going into hydrogen PR that is contrary to elementary physics and economics.

By Michael Barnard
Published13 hours ago

Paul Martin, Senior Technical Fellow Zeton and one of five founding members of the H2 Science Coalition, returns to CleanTech Talks. The H2 Science Coalition is only months old, formed in November 2021 as an independent advocacy and PR group for hydrogen sanity. It’s intended to counter the bags of money going into hydrogen PR that is contrary to elementary physics and economics. Previously Paul and I had talked about hydrogen end use cases, leveraging Michael Liebreich’s useful hydrogen ladder.

The H2 Science Coalition coalesced on LinkedIn. The group was violently agreeing about hydrogen, among other things. An organization devoted to helping governments get access to good advice and helping groups get access to media suggested they formalize their efforts.

It’s focused in the UK and Europe initially because the hydrogen #hopium epidemic has an epicenter there. Their founders all share three attributes: they are independent with no vested interests, they have specific expertise, and they are willing to point at unclothed emperors.

Paul’s expertise is hydrogen production, the alternatives to hydrogen production, and fuels production. Bernard van Dijk is a recently retired airplane performance lecturer at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. He really hadn’t given hydrogen much thought, then looked at it and thought it was nonsense that anyone would think of using hydrogen for aviation. David Cebon is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Cambridge, England, and has a strong expertise in transportation. Tom Baxter is Visiting Professor University of Strathclyde, and ex-BP Engineer, with a broad and deep knowledge about what is done and has been done in the fossil fuel industry, including on the use of hydrogen as a replacement for natural gas. Jochen Bard is Director of Energy Process Technology Division, Fraunhofer IEE. Many at Fraunhofer are tied up with hydrogen, such as the gray goo hydrogen paste, but it’s a very big place and allows a wide variety of voices to express themselves. Jochen has an energy markets and economic perspective.

The coalition shares the opinion that replacing natural gas with hydrogen is fundamentally suspect, as is blending hydrogen with natural gas.

Their intent is to branch out to include North America and the world over time, but the current focus is on finding new members with specific expertise. Gaps include shipping, storage, geological storage, and some end use cases.

The motivations for the hydrogen #hopium PR push are clear, but the thinking is murky. In a truly decarbonized future there is no role for natural gas as a fuel. Shell, as an example, has a lot of natural gas reserves in the ground and wants its investors and financiers to think that they still have value. The approach is to pretend that it will be turned into hydrogen and used, with carbon capture and sequestration.

Personally, Martin would never have hydrogen in his home, even though he still has a legacy natural gas service. A big part of that is that burning any gas in our nitrogen rich atmosphere creates NOx, two of which, NO and N2O, are toxic and contribute to juvenile asthma, and N2O or nitrous oxide, which has 265 times the global warming potential of CO2 and sticks around for at least 100 years. It’s a nasty molecule which we can’t make a lot more of if we are serious about fighting climate change.

Town gas often comes up with discussions of hydrogen, as it it had high hydrogen percentages. It was made from coal, and it also had a lot of carbon monoxide, hence the historical tradition of putting heads in ovens. It was called town gas for a reason. It was made in each town. Every town with a system has a giant mess from the coal tar that was dumped. The dumps are often the downtowns, and we’ve spent a lot of money digging up the deposits and burying them elsewhere. The compounds that are nasty and toxic in coal tars are much the same as those in burning tobacco.

The argument that the natural gas system used to carry town gas with lots of hydrogen doesn’t wash, as the transmission for long distances of hydrogen is problematic. 20% of volume, the typical reference number, is only 6% of the energy of the displaced natural gas.

EU’s target for 2030 is 30% of hydrogen in the natural gas transmission system. Martin published a piece in CleanTechnica that details the challenges with hydrogen in existing natural gas transmission and distribution systems.

20% is a limit due to metallurgy. The ordinary soft steel used in the distribution network is fine, as long as it’s not 500° Celsius, but they don’t use soft steel in long distance transmission pipelines. Natural gas is very low corrosivity, and when building the transmission pipelines, they used the best material for natural gas. But hydrogen’s characteristics are very different, and challenging for natural gas transmission lines, especially around embrittlement.

There are a couple of types of embrittlement. One type involves plating in which electrochemical processes end up making hydrogen atoms at one of the electrodes, and they can permeate between the grains of the metal. When plated structural fasteners are used, they can become brittle. Instead of stretching, they snap.

In pipes, it’s a different phenomenon. In harder steel pipes, the hydrogen diminishes the fatigue life of the material. Pipes bend and flex over time, mostly due to daily pressure changes in the pipe, but also due to frost heaves, flooding exposure, and the like. When something gets bent again and again, the material can change its structure and end up breaking. Pipes are designed for a certain number of pressure changes.

For some pipelines, it’s 1% hydrogen. For the EU it’s 20%, and for the US it’s 4%. If hydrogen is present when flexing, the hydrogen can sneak in and fill dislocations. As an analogy, when rolling dough, adding flour to it reduces the ability of the dough to adhere to the surface. If you have two metal crystals in contact with one another, they share forces, but if that space is filled with hydrogen it can reduce their ability to stick together.

Hydrogen is like sand at a beach, bathing suits, and human crevices. It gets in there and causes irritation.

Pipes come in short lengths that are welded together. Spiral welded pipes also exist. Where welding has been used, the heat affected zone is affected differently and to a greater extent by hydrogen. At weld spots, there is a greater potential for cracks forming and propagating.

Transmission of hydrogen through long distance hard steel natural gas pipelines radically degrades their lifetimes. They aren’t long-lasting assets that can be reused, but shorter lived assets that we will be breaking.

And so, the first half of our conversation ended, with analogies of baking and beach time, heart-warming and irritating. But the second half of the conversation exists as well, for those who are members of CleanTechnica Pro. For those interested in hearing more from hydrogen expert Paul Martin, sign up.

In the second half, we talk about the problem of hydrogen diffusing through polyethylene pipes, the 2-5x the boil off rate of natural gas for shipping, trucking, or aviation, further esoteric exothermic problems with chilling hydrogen, the 24° Kelvin liquification point of hydrogen that requires 3x the energy as natural gas, the 5x global warming of hydrogen, the substantially enhanced likelihood of explosions in homes and buildings, the extra energy to move hydrogen, the lack of odorants that work with fuel cells, the prevalence of airborne wind energy types that moved into urban air mobility, the waste of public money such as the request from Suncor and ATCO for a hydrogen CCS facility for refinery use, the failure to focus public funds on actual climate solutions, and more.

 

Three critical factors in the end-Permian mass extinction

by University of Hamburg

Fossils that be became extinct millions of years ago can reveal various aspects of how they

 lived. Credit: W.J.Foster

Two-hundred fifty-two million years ago, volcanic eruptions led to massive climate changes. Around the globe, roughly 75 percent of all land-based organisms and roughly 90 percent of all marine organisms died out as a result. Dr. William Foster from Universität Hamburg's Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN) and colleagues have now used a new form of machine learning to unravel the causes of the mass extinction in the oceans. This was possible because the "machine" part of machine learning is normally a "black box," but Dr. Foster and colleagues have managed to open that box: They have not only determined which organisms went extinct and which survived—but also why. Their findings have just been published in the journal Paleobiology.

The end of the Permian was characterized by the greatest mass extinction event in Earth's history. Two-hundred fifty-two million years ago, a series of volcanic eruptions in Siberia led to a massive release of greenhouse gases. In the course of the next several millennia, the climate ultimately warmed by 10 degrees. As a consequence, on land, roughly 75 percent of all organisms went extinct; in the oceans, the number was roughly 90 percent.

By analyzing how the now-extinct marine organisms once lived, Dr. Foster and his team were able to directly link their extinction to the following climate changes: declining oxygen levels in the water, rising water temperatures, and most likely also ocean acidification.

These changes are similar to current trends. "Needless to say, our findings on the Permian can't be applied to modern climate change one-to-one. The two climate systems are far too different," says Foster, a geoscientist. "Yet they do show which traits were critical for an organism's survival or extinction—under similar conditions. This can offer us valuable indicators for who or what will be at the greatest risk in the future."

Specifically, the team analyzed more than 25,000 records on 1,283 genera of fossil marine organisms like bivalves, snails, sponges, algae and crustaceans from the region of South China—all of which had mineral skeletons or shells. Their fossilized remains can be dated using a special method, offering insights into marine ecosystems dating back millions of years. The team also drew on an enormous database that offers additional information on various ecological aspects of how these organisms lived.

The coastline of Svalbard in Norway exposes Permian-Triassic rocks and expose the 

record of the mass extinction. Credit: W.J.Foster

For each genus, 12 of these criteria were analyzed. Did certain traits make a given organism more likely to survive under the conditions prevalent at the end of the Permian—or not? With the aid of machine learning, a method from the field of artificial intelligence, all of these factors were analyzed jointly and simultaneously. In the process, the machine essentially made certain rational decisions on its own. Once this was done, the team compared the results: what organisms were there before, during and after the mass extinction?

Their findings reveal the four factors that were most essential to whether or not organisms survived the end of the Permian: where in the water they lived, the mineralization of their shells, species diversity within their genus, and their sensitivity to acidification.

Dr. Foster says, "But with previous machine learning applications, we couldn't say how the machine made its decisions."

Using a newly implemented method from games theory, Dr. Foster has now succeeded in unraveling this aspect. "Some animals lived in deeper water. Here, the machine shows that the worsening lack of oxygen posed a risk. In contrast, those animals that lived nearer the surface had to contend with the rising water temperatures. Plus, when you have only a limited habitat, you have nowhere to go when that specific habitat becomes uninhabitable."

As such, the results show which of the organisms' traits were determined to be potentially fatal. The team was ultimately able to confirm that the mass extinction can be directly attributed to deoxygenation, rising water temperatures and acidification—which indicates that, in a future climate crisis, these could also be the three main causes of extinction in the long term

Fossil snail shells offer new tool for analyzing ancient ocean chemistry

More information: William J. Foster et al, Machine learning identifies ecological selectivity patterns across the end-Permian mass extinction, Paleobiology (2022). DOI: 10.1017/pab.2022.1

Journal information: Paleobiology 

Provided by University of Hamburg 

Ex-chief of Hong Kong barristers says he left city after police interview


Published March 2, 2022

HONG KONG : A British human rights lawyer and former head of Hong Kong's Bar Association said he left the city on Tuesday evening, hours after China's state-backed media said he was summoned to a local police station and interviewed by national security police.

The Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po reported that Paul Harris had been summoned to a police station in the city's Wanchai district, with Harris shown walking into the police station in a video posted on its website.

The report on Wednesday also carried a second video of Harris at Hong Kong International Airport pushing a trolley with suitcases. In the video, Harris was asked by a reporter whether he was afraid of being arrested, but he didn't comment. Reuters could not confirm when either video was filmed.

Another state-backed newspaper, Ta Kung Pao, said in a separate report on Wednesday that Harris had "fled" Hong Kong after being called in to meet police for an "alleged violation" of the national security law.

Harris confirmed to Reuters in a phone message that he had left the city, but gave no further details.

"Yes, on way to see my mother in England," he said. Harris declined to answer any further questions from Reuters.

Harris stood down in January from the Bar Association, a professional body representing Hong Kong's 1,500 barristers, without seeking re-election.

Harris' year-long term was marked by criticism from Hong Kong and Beijing officials who described him as "anti-China", and repeated attacks in state-backed media.

Harris, a senior counsel, had commented on jail terms for several democracy activists last year and the sweeping national security law that China imposed on the city in June 2020.

Two of Harris' fellow barristers said he had been planning for some time to leave Hong Kong in March, but it was not known for how long.

At the Bar's in-house election in January, Harris was replaced by fellow barrister Victor Dawes.

Some lawyers see Dawes as a pro-establishment selection after several years of strong stances by the association in the former British colony, whose robust legal system helped make it an attractive international financial centre.

Dawes said at the time his team would work to keep the Bar's independence and defend human rights if needed as prosecutions moved through courts under the national security law, which came after months of anti-government protests.

The law expands police powers of search and surveillance and punishes acts of subversion, terrorism, collusion with foreign forces and secession with up to life imprisonment.

Harris had been involved in several cases related to the law.

Dawes and the Bar Association did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

(Reporting By Greg Torode, James Pomfret and Jessie Pang. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

KOREA
Moon calls nuclear power main source of electricity over next 60 years

President Moon Jae-in presides over a meeting on stable supply of power at the presidential office in Seoul, Friday. Yonhap

President Moon Jae-in said Friday that Korea will fully use its nuclear power plants under its nuclear phase-out scheme, calling nuclear power a main source of electricity over the next 60 years.

"Over the next 60 years, while nuclear power plants continue to operate, nuclear power plants should be fully utilized as a main base source of electricity," Moon told a meeting on stable supply of power, according to presidential spokesperson Park Kyung-mee.

The construction of four nuclear reactors ― Shin-Hanul No. 1 and No. 2, as well as Shin-Kori No. 5 and No. 6 ― have been delayed due to safety inspections and other issues.

Moon urged officials to make efforts to gradually start operations at the four nuclear reactors, because safety standards for operations have been strengthened, Park said.

Moon said the Korean government's energy transition policy is to gradually suspend the construction of new nuclear power plants and prohibit the extension of the lifespans of older nuclear power plants until 2084.

Moon called on officials to "make every effort to ensure the safety of nuclear power plants while maintaining proper operation rate," according to Park.

The nuclear phase-out scheme set by Moon's government centers on slowly breaking away from nuclear energy by refraining from building additional plants while retiring old ones.

Under the roadmap, Korea plans to decrease the number of nuclear plants in operation to 17 by 2034 from 24 at present.

The government plans to reduce nuclear energy to account for 23.9 percent of the country's total power generation by 2030 from around 30 percent last year. It targets raising the proportion of renewable sources to 20 percent from 6.6 percent over the same period. (Yonhap)

ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

What brain-eating amoebae can tell us about the diversity of life on earth and evolutionary history

by University of Massachusetts Amherst

Naegleria gruberi cells use one set of tubulins to build a mitotic spindle (cyan, left), and 

another set of tubulins (orange, right) to transform into a flagellate cell type. 

Credit: Katrina Velle, Fritz-Laylin Lab, UMass Amherst

An international team of researchers, led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, recently announced in the journal Current Biology that an amoeba called Naegleria has evolved more distinct sets of tubulins, used for specific cellular processes, than previously thought. Their insight has a host of implications, which range from developing treatments for brain-eating infections to better understanding how life on earth evolved such enormous diversity.

Much of life on earth relies on a series of polymers called microtubules, composed of tubulin, to complete a wide range of tasks inside their cells. These microtubules are like the 2x4s of the cell and are used in everything from helping the cell to move, to transporting food and waste within the cell and giving the cell structural support.

Microtubules also help in mitosis, which is when a single cell divides into two by first duplicating its chromosomes and then pulling each set to opposite sides of the cell before dividing itself in two. One of the key moments in mitosis is when a spindle, made up of microtubules, grabs hold of the chromosomes and helps separate them into two identical sets.

This is where Naegleria comes in. Biologists had previously known that Naegleria uses a specific kind of tubulin during mitosis. But the new study, led by Katrina Velle, a postdoc in biology at UMass Amherst and the paper's lead author, shows that Naegleria also employs three additional distinct tubulins specifically during mitosis. One pair of tubulins are used only during mitosis, while the other, the flagellate tubulin, specialize in cellular movement. The authors of the study then compared the tubulins and the structures they build to each other and those of more commonly studied species.

The cell surface of a Naegleria gruberi amoeba visualized by scanning electron 

microscopy. Credit: Katrina Velle, Fritz-Laylin Lab, UMass Amherst, taken at the Marine

 Biological Laboratory Central Microscopy Center

The implications of this work are exciting and range from the practical to the theoretical. For instance, the team studied a species of Naegleria, Naegleria gruberi, which is closely related to Naegleria fowleri—an amoeba that can eat your brain. "If we can understand the basic biology of Naegleria," says Velle, "we can learn how to kill it by devising drugs that target the amoeba's unique tubulins."

But Naegleria also helps us to understand the basic rules that govern life on earth. "All organisms have to replicate themselves," says Lillian Fritz-Laylin, professor of biology at UMass Amherst and a senior author of the paper. "We know how the replication processes works for some cells, but there's a huge set that we don't understand. Naegleria lets us test the rules scientists have come up with to see if they hold here."

To conduct their research, the team relied in part on the state-of-the-art microscopy equipment at UMass Amherst's Institute for the Applied Life Sciences (IALS), which combines deep and interdisciplinary expertise from 29 departments on the UMass Amherst campus to translate fundamental research into innovations that benefit human health and well-being. The team grew the Naegleria cells, stained them with different chemicals so that the tubulins would glow, and then took extremely high resolution, 3D photographs, which allowed them to measure, count and analyze the different microtubule structures.

"I've spent most of my career studying the mitotic spindles of more common cells, like mammalian cells," says Patricia Wadsworth, professor of biology at UMass Amherst and one of the paper's senior authors. "The tools of modern biology allow us to explore more diverse cells, like Naegleria, which is in some ways similar, but also very different."

"People often think of technology driving science," says Fritz-Laylin. "But in this case, the questions we are trying to answer are so fundamental to how life on earth operates, and of such interest to so many scientific specialties, that we needed to assemble an international team of various experts. In this case, collaboration, teamwork and effective communication drove the science."Proportion of mutations in cellular protein drives neurodegeneration

More information: Katrina B. Velle et al, Naegleria's mitotic spindles are built from unique tubulins and highlight core spindle features, Current Biology (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.01.034

Journal information: Current Biology 

Provided by University of Massachusetts Amherst 

Law enforcement agency reluctant to buy more Tesla Model Y as "they're not a suitable police car" and don't save money

The Tesla Model Y might not be the most practical all-eletric patrol car for police officers (Image: Tyler Casey)

As some police departments around the US add more and more Tesla Model Y vehicles to their respective fleet, others are rather critical of the progressing EV transition as these electric cars are supposedly "too small" and "not designed for police work".

Enrico Frahn, 03/01/2022 🇩🇪 🇫🇷 ...

E-Mobility

 

 

All-electric vehicles like the Tesla Model Y are without a doubt great commuter cars which, over the long term, can save thousands of dollars in gas as they offer considerably lower running costs overall. However, EVs are also rather unproven as law enforcement patrol cars, which is why one department from the state of Washington has now outlined the distinct disadvantages of Tesla vehicles for police use.

According to a report by the local newspaper The Spokesman-Review, the Spokane Police Department plans to buy 64 new vehicles this year and has therefore reviewed the suitability of the Tesla Model Y as a patrol car. Unfortunately, the results of this two-car test run are rather disappointing for the city council which is pushing this EV transition. The law enforcement agency found that the electric SUV is simply not designed for police work and therefore does not provide enough space for police officers and their heavy equipment.

Furthermore, the Tesla Model Y does not provide any costs savings in comparison to regular police cars like the K8 Hybrid, which is the law enforcement counterpart to the civilian Ford Explorer. According to the department's calculations, it costs a whopping US$30,000 to fully outfit the EV as a patrol car, which results in an estimated five-year cost of ownership of US$101,000. The hybrid Ford Explorer on the other hand costs US$99,000 over the same time span.

Although the Tesla Model Y could apparently not convince officers at the Spokane Police Department, officials also noted that there might be better all-electric patrol car alternatives like the new Ford F-150 Lightning in the future. For the upcoming 64 vehicle purchase, however, "there isn't a suitable electric vehicle solution".

Buy the Pulsar Plus Level 2 Electric Vehicle Smart Charger on Amazon

Source(s)

The Spokesman-Review via Jalopnik, Image: Tyler Casey

AUSTRALIA

Iron-ore billionaire starts construction of world's largest hydrogen electrolyser factory

The new plant in Queensland, Australia, is the first part of a planned green manufacturing hub where wind turbines, solar panels, batteries and electrical cables will also be built


Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest (third left) with colleagues at the ceremonial dig that marked the start of construction at Fortescue Future Industries' 2GW electrolyser factory in Queensland.Photo: FFI

28 February 2022 
By Leigh Collins

Construction has begun on iron-ore billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest’s 2GW electrolyser factory in Queensland, northeast Australia — which will be the largest in the world upon completion in early 2023.
The A$114m ($83m) facility — a 50/50 joint venture between US electrolyser maker Plug Power and Forrest’s company Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) — is the first part of the Green Energy Manufacturing Centre (GEM), where FFI plans to eventually produce wind turbines, solar panels, batteries and electrical cables.

GEM is being built at the Aldoga industrial development zone near the coastal city of Gladstone, which is one of the world’s largest coal-exporting ports — due to its proximity to the Bowen Basin, a region that contains Australia’s largest coal reserves.


Australian billionaire Forrest plans $7bn wind, solar and battery plant to green iron ore minesRead more


Iron-ore billionaire Andrew Forrest unveils 15GW green hydrogen project in ArgentinaRead more


ITM raises $343m to boost annual hydrogen electrolyser production to world-leading 5GWRead more

The electrolyser factory, which was only announced in October, will be powered by green energy and use Plug Power’s proton exchange membrane (PEM) technology. PEM electrolysers are more expensive to produce than standard alkaline versions, but are said to be better at dealing with the variable output from wind and solar farms.

FFI claims that the “initial capacity of 2GW per annum” will more than double current global production, but this would only be true if existing electrolyser factories are not operating at full capacity at the beginning of next year.

And while it will be the largest electrolyser factory upon completion, it might not hold that title for long, with the UK's ITM Power and Germany's Thyssenkrupp both announcing plans to expand their production capacity to 5GW by 2024 and 2025, respectively. Norway's Nel also plans to expand its new electrolyser factory to 2GW, but has not said when it hopes to reach this goal.
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Giga-scale electrolyser factories have also been announced by France’s McPhy (1GW), Plug Power (1GW in the US and 1GW in South Korea), US manufacturer Cummins (1GW, in a joint venture with Chinese oil giant Sinopec) and India’s Ohmium (500MW, but “expandable to 2GW”).

The first electrolysers built at the GEM factory are due to be deployed at FFI’s own Gibson Island project in Brisbane, Queensland, which aims to produce 50,000 tonnes of green hydrogen per year for ammonia production.

FFI says that the 2GW of electrolysers produced annually at the Gladstone factory would be able to produce more than 200,000 tonnes of green hydrogen every year.

“The electrolyser facility will see Gladstone become a world leading hub for the manufacture of electrolysers which are vital to the production of green hydrogen – a zero-carbon fuel that will decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors such as heavy haulage, shipping, aviation, and industry,” said FFI in a statement.

Forrest added: “The world is moving on from fossil fuels and the green industrial revolution is underway. Fortescue Future Industries’ game changing electrolyser facility in Gladstone is putting Queensland at the centre of this revolution, which is creating an entirely new industry and thousands of multi-generational jobs for Australians.”

A 3GW green hydrogen plant is also being planned at the Aldoga industrial development zone — by Stanwell, a power producer owned by the Queensland government, in conjunction with Japanese industrial gases company Iwatani.

Photosynthesis rates are increasing globally due to rising CO2 levels


An analysis of plants at 68 sites around the world finds evidence that rates of photosynthesis have risen since the year 2000

Environment
28 February 2022
By Chen Ly
Photosynthetic rates have risen in recent years
Ryhor Bruyeu/Alamy Stock Photo

Since the early 2000s, the growing level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has led to an increased rate of photosynthesis around the world, climate scientists have found.

Plants produce energy through photosynthesis which takes in CO2 from the atmosphere or from water – a process known as primary production. The rate of this can increase in response to rising concentrations of the gas. This phenomenon is known as the CO2 fertilisation effect.

Now, Chi Chen at the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues have quantified the CO2 fertilisation effect globally for plants on land. The team collected data from 68 sites around the world – with croplands, grasslands and forests – that measured the changes in CO2 concentration in the air directly above the plants between 2001 and 2014.
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Across the sites, the rate of photosynthesis increased, with an extra 9.1 grams of carbon taken up per square metre per year since 2001. The team calculated that around 44 per cent of this increase can be attributed to enhanced CO2 levels in the atmosphere, while 28 per cent was down to rising temperatures.

The team then combined the data from these sites with satellite data and a global vegetation model to estimate the change over time worldwide. They found that global primary production increased, with an extra 4.4 grams of carbon taken up per square metre by plants every year since 2001.

The difference between the CO2 fertilisation effects at the sites and globally is due to a patchier global distribution of plants and the fact that vegetation regions will vary in productivity.

In recent decades, the total surface area of leaves around the world has increased. “This is largely due to this CO2 fertilisation,” says Chen.

“Plants under elevated CO2 are observed to be more efficient at using water, which often leads to faster growth as water is commonly a limiting resource,” says co-author Trevor Keenan, also at the University of California, Berkeley. “They may also grow faster and sequester more carbon, though other limitations such as nutrients can limit the extent to which increased photosynthesis translates to increased growth.”

However, negative effects of climate change may ultimately offset the CO2 fertilisation effect reported in the study. For example, more frequent and intense droughts due to climate change are adversely affecting plants globally, as are more frequent forest fires and insect outbreaks due to continued warming, says Keenan.

“Although plants are buying us time by taking up more CO2 in response to more CO2 in the atmosphere, it is not nearly enough to stop climate change,” says Keenan. “Reducing emissions is the only way we can prevent continued future warming.”

Journal reference: PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2115627119

How one of Florida’s most beloved animals may be close to climate extinction

Newly obtained documents show how officials pursued plans to remove protections from a beloved animal despite internal warnings about sea level rise

Endangered Key deer wade in a flooded field after 

Hurricane Irma in Big Pine Key, Florida. 

Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters

LONG READ 

Jimmy Tobiasfor Type Investigations
Tue 1 Mar 2022 

When Hurricane Irma ravaged south Florida in September 2017 it inundated homes, knocked out electricity for millions and killed more than 30 people.

The devastation was not confined to humans, however.

In the Florida Keys, one of the state’s most beloved animals also took a beating: the Key deer, a small subspecies of white-tailed deer that evolved in peaceful isolation on the islands and is now protected under the Endangered Species Act. Irma drowned them, slammed them into buildings and dragged them out to sea. “With Irma, we probably lost about 30% of the deer,” said Nova Silvy, a zoologist who has studied the deer since the 1960s on Big Pine Key, where most of them live.

Though the deer population has largely bounced back, the hurricane’s toll foreshadowed the dangerous future faced by this animal. In the coming century, the impacts of the climate crisis, especially sea level rise, will probably inundate many of the Florida Keys, including the endangered deer’s core habitat on Big Pine Key and neighboring islands.

Despite this bleak outlook, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which administers the Endangered Species Act, has been working on proposals in recent years that would strip the Key deer of its endangered species status – even as the agency’s own scientists have highlighted the threat of rising sea levels to the deer’s habitat, according to records obtained by the Guardian and Type Investigations.

These efforts began under the Trump administration, which oversaw a concerted effort to remove protections for imperiled species, and they have outraged conservationists as well as some former FWS officials, who have opposed the agency’s attempt to remove protections for the Key deer.

“There are things happening [to the Key deer] down there that would raise flags for any animal,” said Tom Wilmers, a retired FWS biologist who spent years working with the Key deer. “And yet the agency is in denial. I just don’t understand how delisting or downlisting that animal helps anybody.”

More broadly, however, the plight of the Key deer is a window into the Fish and Wildlife Service’s broader failure to adequately protect endangered species threatened by the climate crisis. Most notably, an obscure but consequential legal memo from 2008, signed by top interior department officials at the end of the George W Bush administration, effectively absolves the FWS and other federal agencies that decline to regulate greenhouse gas pollution that harms endangered and threatened animals under the Endangered Species Act. As the law’s leading enforcer, FWS’s inaction is especially consequential.

“We are putting out ten gigatons of carbon emissions per year, plus or minus, and those emissions are causing the planet to warm. And we know as the planet warms a lot of things are happening, from extreme weather events to waterways being ice-free for longer,” said Stuart Pimm, a professor of conservation at Duke University. “They may not be quite as direct as someone going out with a shotgun and killing a bald eagle, but they are every bit as potent a factor in causing species extinctions.”

Presidential administrations have legal latitude to rescind the memo, but neither the Obama nor Trump administrations did so. Now, a group of scientists and conservationists, including Pimm, are calling on the Biden administration to take action by empowering the FWS to better protect imperiled species – not just Key deer, but polar bears, sea turtles and more – from the climate emergency. Until the White House does so, they say, the Endangered Species Act will remain hobbled when it comes to tackling one of the biggest threats that endangered species face.

The Key deer was supposed to be a conservation success story. By the mid-20th century the subspecies had been hunted to near extinction, leaving only a few dozen deer left, when the federal government established a wildlife refuge around Big Pine Key and listed the animal under the Endangered Species Act. From there the little deer made a comeback, and according to surveys conducted in 2020, they now number about 750 individuals or more.

On a windy spring day on Big Pine Key, Chris Bergh, a scientist and the south Florida program manager for the Nature Conservancy, points to the desiccated grey remains of several dead trees. Bergh has studied the impact of sea level rise on the Florida Keys ecosystem for more than 15 years. The pines that once stood here, he said, have retreated as rising ocean water slowly shrinks the precious freshwater pools that sustain the island’s wildlife.

Florida Key deer. Photograph: Papilio/Alamy

Indeed, even before the rising ocean fully drowns the Key deer’s home range, salt water contamination will ruin their drinking holes. Whether in 50 years or 100, the deer’s island habitat is probably doomed – so it would seem the deer are more in need than ever of the federal protections granted under the Endangered Species Act.

But the FWS has taken a different view. On 13 August 2019, its southeast regional director, Leo Miranda, drafted a memo to the agency’s top official at the time, “proposing to delist the Florida Key deer”.

“This determination,” he wrote, “is based on the best available scientific and commercial information, which indicates that the threats to this species have been eliminated or reduced to the point that the species no longer meets the definition of an endangered or threatened species.” He justified his proposal by citing the deer’s high population numbers and arguing that “there are uncertainties regarding what effects changes in sea-level will have on Florida Key deer habitat … before inundation” from rising waters.

A year earlier, though, FWS’s own scientists were already warning that sea level rise could imperil the deer’s habitat. In a draft research paper obtained by the Guardian and Type Investigations, the scientists drew on a range of existing research, including studies conducted by other federal agencies, to conclude that Key West could see between three and nine feet of sea level rise by 2100. In one set of scenarios modeled in that research, low-lying areas in south Florida like Big Pine Key would be mostly inundated between 2060 and 2080. That degree of sea level rise would wipe out the deer’s core habitat.

“The Florida Keys are going underwater due to sea level rise (SLR),” the paper’s authors wrote in an early version of the paper. “All SLR scenarios agree and depict this to happen.” The paper featured an image of what Big Pine Key could look like in the future: a tiny spit of land and a few squat mangrove trees standing above rising waters.

The draft research paper was circulated among agency staff, including Miranda, as early as August 2018. Nevertheless, FWS proceeded with its effort to remove the deer from the endangered species list until late summer 2019, according to documents obtained by Type Investigations and the Guardian through a public records request.

“I don’t know why they would do that – start writing a delisting rule at a point in time where you have the agency staff raising concerns,” said Karimah Schoenhut, a Sierra Club attorney who works on Key deer issues. “Agency scientists were pointing out sea level rise issues, saying there is no way you can delist species.”

An endangered Key deer among the debris after Hurricane Irma, in Big Pine Key. Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters

Eventually, FWS backed away from the delisting plan, after the US Geological Survey found in a report that FWS had failed to take into account research that “would suggest an even greater risk to Key deer and its habitat than included in” FWS’s assessment of the deer’s status. But the agency didn’t entirely give up. Instead, it began planning to downlist the deer from “endangered” to “threatened”, a lesser classification that would not offer as much protection for the imperiled species. Internal communications obtained by the Guardian and Type Investigations show this plan remained a priority for top Trump administration officials at the interior department, but they failed to get the job done before Biden took over.

Last summer, the FWS’s scientific integrity officer concluded that the agency’s official assessment on which it based its downlisting plans did not use the “best available scientific information” and suggested that it should “not be used for decision-making”. As of January 2022, FWS was back at the drawing board, having initiated a new assessment of the Key deer’s status the previous summer, according to a statement the agency sent to the Guardian and Type Investigations. The animal’s future status as an endangered species remains up in the air.

Even if the Key deer does retain some federal protection, however, the FWS’s responsibility to protect animals from rising sea levels remains significantly curtailed – thanks in part to a legal memo issued during the final months of the George W Bush administration.

Observers say the Endangered Species Act could be a powerful tool in the fight against climate change. Under section 7, FWS has the authority to review projects undertaken, funded, or permitted by the federal government if they are likely to harm a protected species. If such projects jeopardize the survival of the species, the agency can force changes or prohibit them altogether. Environmental groups say this gives the FWS leverage to curtail fossil fuel projects or other programs whose emissions contribute to the climate crisis and threaten endangered animals.

In 2008, however, David Bernhardt, the interior department’s top lawyer at the time, signed an internal memo that effectively absolved FWS of responsibility under section 7 to regulate the climate change impacts of greenhouse gas emissions.

The memo stated that: “Where the effects at issue result from climate change potentially induced by [greenhouse gases], a proposed action … is not subject to consultation under the Esa and its implementing regulations.”

The Bernhardt memo now stands as an obstacle to climate action at FWS. It has allowed agencies including the FWS to avoid making tough decisions on greenhouse gas emissions for more than a decade, undermining the government’s ability to control fossil fuel pollution and protect the Key deer, polar bears, shorebirds, sea turtles and other species that face existential danger from melting sea ice, rising temperatures and disappearing habitats. In 2020, for instance, the Trump administration relied in part on the Bernhardt memo to avoid an endangered species consultation on its decision to scrap the Obama-era vehicle emissions standards. (Bernhardt served as interior secretary in the Trump administration.)

Environmental groups hope Biden will change course. In February 2021, a group of top researchers, scientists and academics, including Pimm, wrote Biden asking him to rescind the Bernhardt memo. They urged the agency to more fully consider greenhouse gas pollution as a threat to species protected by the Endangered Species Act. That would mean the climate danger to listed animals like the Key deer could provide a legal basis to apply the Esa in a new way to federally sanctioned fossil fuel projects – this in turn could lead to reform, including to the interior department’s vast oil and gas leasing programs. Fossil fuel production on public lands is the ultimate source of roughly a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

“Climate change is the consummate challenge of our time,” said Dr Steven Amstrup, a signatory on the conservationists’ letter to Biden and chief scientist for Polar Bears International. “The US Fish and Wildlife Service should rescind the Bernhardt memo and, as the Esa requires, start addressing the existential threat greenhouse gas pollution poses to plant and animal species across all habitats.”

In response to questions about its continued use of the memo, the FWS said that “the current state of the science is such that we cannot currently establish a causal connection to tie a particular [greenhouse gas]-emitting project to measurable consequences to specific species or critical habitats”.

Amstrup disputes that rationale. He argues that in some cases, in fact, it is possible to measure the climate impact of specific fossil fuel projects on imperiled species – such as the sea level rise that threatens Key deer, or the declining sea ice that strands polar bears – by analyzing accumulated CO2 concentrations.

The interior department, meanwhile, told the Guardian and Type Investigations that it recognizes “an obligation to consider whether our actions contribute to the climate crisis, including the impacts to threatened and endangered species and their habitats.” It did not say whether it plans to rescind the Bernhardt memo.

“I don’t think the Esa by itself is going to solve the climate crisis,” said Brett Hartl, the government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. But, he added, doing away with the memo “could help support efforts to move [federal agencies] to a much better place”.

Bernhardt, for his part, harshly criticized the letter conservationists sent to Biden.

“Some of the signatories to this letter like former DOI Solicitor John Leshy and former USGS employee Steven Amstrup are longtime activists, who continue to demand unworkable policies, which are not well grounded in the science or the law,” he wrote in a statement. “If successful their efforts will create additional chaos in the Esa interagency consultation process. As a result, I look forward to seeing whether the Biden administration will bend to their will on withdrawing legal opinion when the Obama administration did not.”

Leshy, in response to a request for comment on Bernhardt’s statement, said, “Scientific understanding as well as public consciousness of the close links between climate change and the earth’s rich biodiversity have advanced a great deal since then-Solicitor Bernhardt wrote his opinion in 2008. I expect the Biden administration will take a careful look at the issue his opinion addresses, as it should.”

On Big Pine Key, meanwhile, Nova Silvy continues to observe the Key deer as he has done for more than half a century – watching them rebound from near extinction to become a popular draw for tourists. He even has names for some of them – like Alba, a little doe with white legs. But he thinks the climate crisis is their biggest test yet.

“Unless we can turn it around, I think we are going to be in deep trouble with these deer,” he said. “I mean, I won’t see it – but my daughter may.”

This story was produced in partnership with Type Investigations and supported by the Alicia Patterson Foundation.