Towards a business case for CO2 mineralisation in the cement industry

• Till Strunge, 
• Phil Renforth & 
• Mijndert Van der Spek 

Communications Earth & Environment volume 3, Article number: 59 (2022) Cite this article

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  • Published: 14 March 2022

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Abstract

The cement industry, an industry characterised by low margins, is responsible for approximately 7% of anthropogenic CO2 equivalent (CO2e) emissions and holds the highest carbon intensity of any industry per unit of revenue. To encourage complete decarbonisation of the cement industry, strategies must be found in which CO2e emission reductions are incentivised. Here we show through integrated techno-economic modelling that CO2 mineralisation of silicate minerals, aiming to store CO2 in solid form, results in CO2e emission reductions of 8–33% while generating additional profit of up to €32 per tonne of cement. To create positive CO2 mineralisation business cases two conditions are paramount: the resulting products must be used as a supplementary material in cement blends in the construction industry (e.g., for bridges or buildings) and the storage of CO2 in minerals must be eligible for emission certificates or similar. Additionally, mineral transport and composition of the product are decisive.

Introduction

The cement industry is responsible for approximately 7% of anthropogenic CO2 equivalent (CO2e) emissions1,2 with the highest carbon intensity of any industry per unit of revenue3. To combat climate change, the countries gathered in the Conference of Parties signed the Paris climate agreement in 2015, aiming to limit CO2e emissions and thereby temperature rise to a maximum of 2 °C, while striving for 1.5 °C4,5. Given that the use of cement is fundamental to economic development with a projected global market size of $463 billion6 (6.08 gigatonnes per annum (Gt a−1) cement7) in 2026, reducing its embodied emissions is essential8,9,10. Approximately 60% of the cement industries’ emissions are process-inherent, resulting from the calcination reaction of limestone11. These emissions are particularly challenging to mitigate since either the entire process must be replaced by low emission alternatives3,8,12,13,14,15 or the emissions have to be captured from the process and permanently stored1,3,8,10,16,17. While the replacement of cement and concrete by alternative building materials like wood would require a seemingly unrealistically rapid change of the entire construction value-chain, carbon capture and storage technologies present an alternative for decarbonisation but incur additional production cost18,19. Preferably, strategies must be found in which CO2e emission reductions can render additional revenue instead of incurring cost.

Some have suggested that CO2 can be captured and reacted with activated minerals or industrial wastes to form stable carbonate minerals (also known as CO2 mineralisation)20,21,22, the products of which could be subsequently valorised. These reactions are exothermic, leading to long-term storage of CO221. Early findings suggest that in addition to CO2 storage the products may potentially be used in a range of applications, including as fillers, polymer additives, for land reclamation or as supplementary cementitious materials (SCM)21,23,24,25,26, potentially creating revenues of €14-€700 per tonne of CO2 captured21. Depending on the feedstock material for the reaction, additionally metal oxides such as iron oxides can be separated as a valuable by-product which could be used as pigments or as iron ore21,23.

Multiple feedstocks for CO2 mineralisation have been proposed, mainly natural rocks containing magnesium- or calcium-rich silicate minerals20,22 and alkaline industrial residues (e.g., steel slag or fly ash). While natural rocks are attractive because they are an abundant resource, which could be used at global scale20,24,27, industrial wastes are attractive because they are already available in industrial regions. Nonetheless, industrial wastes may present more complex feedstocks because over time the compositions and costs of industrial residues might change due to changes in production processes or due to changes in legislation27. To enable a substantial emission reduction via the means of CO2 mineralisation with a highly predictable feedstock, we focus on the use of natural rock as a resource for CO2 mineralisation that is both substantial and with stable composition while acknowledging that alkaline wastes may also present suitable feedstocks in certain conditions.

Examples of natural minerals include forsterite (Mg2SiO4), present in olivine-bearing rocks, lizardite (Mg3Si2O5(OH)4) present in serpentine-bearing rocks and wollastonite (CaSiO3)20. Rocks can be composed of between 50% and 80% of these minerals, depending on the host geology of the extraction site24,28. 

 

Previous work on CO2 mineralisation has shown that reductions in the range of 0.44 to 1.17 tonne of CO2e per tonne of CO2 stored are feasible under today’s energy mix21 and that the implementation of CO2 mineralisation could (under certain conditions) be used to transfer the cement industry from carbon positive to carbon negative29. Because mining of natural minerals comes with its own environmental impacts (e.g., metal depletion and freshwater consumption), these impacts would need to be closely monitored and managed when deploying CO2 mineralisation29. Assessments of the techno-economics of CO2 mineralisation have shown that its CO2 storage cost could be in the range of €65-€443tCO2, avoided−1 30 (excluding CO2 capture)31 (Supplementary Table 1), when using natural minerals as feedstocks. However, these studies neglect the value added from the sale of the resulting products, which may be critical to successful adoption by players in an industry characterised by strong competition and high pressure on price. Therefore, we here move beyond mineralisation for storage purposes only, and we aim to critically investigate under which conditions there is a positive business case for the use of mineral carbonation products in the cement industry.

We show that, given the right circumstances, positive business cases exist when revenue can be created via the use of mineralisation products as SCM. We created integrated techno-economic models of two carbonation processes to produce supplementary cementitious material that allow for in-depth analysis of the interactions of process and economic performance. By using these models to test potential business cases under different future scenarios we found cost-optimal production processes and scales, and global uncertainty analysis elucidated the main drivers of costs and benefits.

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Microscopic ocean predator with a taste for carbon capture

by University of Technology, Sydney

Researchers prepare to launch sampling equipment in Port Hacking, eastern Australia. 

Credit: University of Technology Sydney

A single-celled marine microbe capable of photosynthesis and hunting and eating prey may be a secret weapon in the battle against climate change.

Scientists at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) have discovered a new species that has the potential to sequester carbon naturally, even as oceans warm and become more acidic.

The microbe, abundant around the world, photosynthesises and releases a carbon-rich exopolymer that attracts and immobilizes other microbes. It then eats some of the entrapped prey before abandoning its exopolymer "mucosphere". Having trapped other microbes, the exopolymer is made heavier and sinks, forming part of the ocean's natural biological carbon pump.

Marine biologist Dr. Michaela Larsson led the research, published in the journal Nature Communications, and says the study is the first to demonstrate this behavior.

Marine microbes govern oceanic biogeochemistry through a range of processes including the vertical export and sequestration of carbon, which ultimately modulates global climate.

Dr. Larsson says that while the contribution of phytoplankton to the carbon pump is well established, the roles of other microbes are far less understood and rarely quantified. She says this is especially true for mixotrophic protists, which can simultaneously photosynthesise, and consume other organisms.

"Most terrestrial plants use nutrients from the soil to grow, but some, like the Venus flytrap, gain additional nutrients by catching and consuming insects. Similarly, marine microbes that photosynthesise, known as phytoplankton, use nutrients dissolved in the surrounding seawater to grow," Dr. Larsson says.

"However, our study organism, Prorocentrum cf. balticum, is a mixotroph, so is also able to eat other microbes for a concentrated hit of nutrients, like taking a multivitamin. Having the capacity to acquire nutrients in different ways means this microbe can occupy parts of the ocean devoid of dissolved nutrients and therefore unsuitable for most phytoplankton."

Professor Martina Doblin, senior author of the study, says the findings have global significance for how we see the ocean balancing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The researchers estimate that this species, isolated from waters offshore from Sydney, has the potential to sink 0.02-0.15 gigatons of carbon annually. A 2019 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report found that to meet climate goals, CO2 removal technologies and strategies will need to remove approximately 10 gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere every year until 2050.

"This is an entirely new species, never before described in this amount of detail. The implication is that there's potentially more carbon sinking in the ocean than we currently think, and that there is perhaps greater potential for the ocean to capture more carbon naturally through this process, in places that weren't thought to be potential carbon sequestration locations," Professor Doblin says.

She says an intriguing question is whether this process could form part of a nature-based solution to enhance carbon capture in the ocean.

"The natural production of extra-cellular carbon-rich polymers by ocean microbes under nutrient-deficient conditions, which we'll see under global warming, suggest these microbes could help maintain the biological carbon pump in the future ocean."

"The next step before assessing the feasibility of large-scale cultivation is to gauge the proportion of the carbon-rich exopolymers resistant to bacteria breakdown and determine the sinking velocity of discarded mucospheres.

"This could be a game changer in the way we think about carbon and the way it moves in the marine environment."

The paper, "Mucospheres produced by a mixotrophic protist impact ocean carbon cycling," is published in Nature Communications.The seasonality of oceanic carbon cycling

More information: Oxidative metabolisms catalyzed Earth's oxygenation, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28867-8

Journal information: Nature Communications 

Provided by University of Technology, Sydney 

AMC teams up with Eric Sprott on mining investment (really)

Noah Zivitz, BNN Bloomberg

AMC Entertainment Holdings Corp., which got swept up in last year's meme stock rally, is teaming up with one of Canada's best known mining experts on an investment.

AMC announced Tuesday morning that it's joining with Eric Sprott on investments in Hycroft Mining Holding Corp. Each of them will plow US$27.9 million into Hycroft in exchange for a 21.8 per cent stake in the miner.

"To state the obvious, one would not normally think that a movie theatre company’s core competency includes gold or silver mining," said AMC CEO Adam Aron in the release.

He went on to state that AMC's "demonstrated expertise" in navigating liquidity challenges will be beneficial to Hycroft, as the miner seeks to develop a 71,000-acre mine in Nevada.

The investments will see AMC and Sprott acquire 23,408,240 units in Hycroft, with each unit consisting of a common share and a warrant to purchase another common share for US$1.068. Hycroft shares closed at US$1.39 on the Nasdaq Monday.

After peaking at US$62.55 last May, AMC shares lost 78 per cent of their value through the close of trading Monday.

“We couldn't be more pleased to announce this transformational investment in the future of Hycroft, anchored by Eric Sprott, one of the world's leading precious metals investors, and AMC Entertainment Holdings, which has proven its expertise and ability to address liquidity challenges and to raise capital to optimize the value of significant underlying assets,” said Hycroft President and Chief Executive Diane Garrett in a release.

Hycroft said proceeds will go toward general corporate purposes and work on assessing the future of the mine in Nevada.

First-of-its-kind research reveals rapid changes to the Arctic seafloor as submerged permafrost thaws

by Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

MBARI’s autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is recovered after completing a successful

 seafloor mapping mission in the Arctic Ocean. The remotely operated vehicle (ROV, 

foreground) is used to conduct visual surveys of the newly mapped seafloor. 

Credit: Charlie Paull © 2016 MBARI

A new study from MBARI researchers and their collaborators is the first to document how the thawing of permafrost, submerged underwater at the edge of the Arctic Ocean, is affecting the seafloor. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on March 14, 2022.

Numerous peer-reviewed studies show that thawing permafrost creates unstable land which negatively impacts important Arctic infrastructure, such as roads, train tracks, buildings, and airports. This infrastructure is expensive to repair, and the impacts and costs are expected to continue increasing.

Using advanced underwater mapping technology, MBARI researchers and their collaborators revealed that dramatic changes are happening to the seafloor as a result of thawing permafrost. In some areas, deep sinkholes have formed, some larger than a city block of six-story buildings. In other areas, ice-filled hills called pingos have risen from the seafloor.

"We know that big changes are happening across the Arctic landscape, but this is the first time we've been able to deploy technology to see that changes are happening offshore too," said Charlie Paull, a geologist at MBARI and one of the lead authors of the study. "This groundbreaking research has revealed how the thawing of submarine permafrost can be detected, and then monitored once baselines are established."

While the degradation of terrestrial Arctic permafrost is attributed in part to increases in mean annual temperature from human-driven climate change, the changes the research team has documented on the seafloor associated with submarine permafrost derive from much older, slower climatic shifts related to our emergence from the last ice age. Similar changes appear to have been happening along the seaward edge of the former permafrost for thousands of years.

"There isn't a lot of long-term data for the seafloor temperature in this region, but the data we do have aren't showing a warming trend. The changes to seafloor terrain are instead being driven by heat carried in slowly moving groundwater systems," explained Paull.

Repeated mapping surveys with MBARI’s autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) 

revealed a massive sinkhole developed over just nine years.

 Credit: Eve Lundsten © 2022 MBARI

"This research was made possible through international collaboration over the past decade that has provided access to modern marine research platforms such as MBARI's autonomous robotic technology and icebreakers operated by the Canadian Coast Guard and the Korean Polar Research Institute," said Scott Dallimore, a research scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada, Natural Resources Canada, who led the study with Paull. "The Government of Canada and the Inuvialuit people who live on the coast of the Beaufort Sea highly value this research as the complex processes described have implications for the assessment of geohazards, creation of unique marine habitat, and our understanding of biogeochemical processes."

Background

The Canadian Beaufort Sea, a remote area of the Arctic, has only recently become accessible to scientists as climate change drives the retreat of sea ice.

Since 2003, MBARI has been part of an international collaboration to study the seafloor of the Canadian Beaufort Sea with the Geological Survey of Canada, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and since 2013, with the Korean Polar Research Institute.

MBARI used autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and ship-based sonar to map the bathymetry of the seafloor down to a resolution of a one-meter square grid, or roughly the size of a dinner table.

Paull and the team of researchers will return to the Arctic this summer aboard the R/V Araon, a Korean icebreaker. This trip with MBARI's long-time Canadian and Korean collaborators—along with the addition of the United States Naval Research Laboratory—will help refine our understanding of the decay of submarine permafrost.

Two of MBARI's AUVs will map the seafloor in remarkable detail and MBARI's MiniROV—a portable remotely operated vehicle—will enable further exploration and sampling to complement the mapping surveys.Researchers discover mysterious holes in the seafloor off Central California

More information: Rapid seafloor changes associated with the degradation of Arctic submarine permafrost, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2119105119

Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 

Provided by Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute 

Melting Permafrost Is Creating Giant Craters And Hills On The Arctic Seafloor


By Stephen Luntz

15 MAR 2022, 08:36


Submarine surveys of the seafloor beneath the Arctic Ocean have revealed deep craters appearing off the Canadian coastline. The scientists involved attribute these to gasses released as permafrost melts. The causes, so far, lie long before humans started messing with the planet’s thermostat, but that could be about to change.

For millions of years, soil has been frozen solid over large areas of the planet, both on land and under the ocean, even where snow melts at the surface to leave no permanent ice sheet. Known as permafrost, this frozen layer traps billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane. It is thought the sudden melting of similar areas around 55 million years ago set off the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, when temperatures rose sharply over the space of a few thousand years.

Now the permafrost is melting again, revealed in plumes of bubbles coming to the surface in shallow oceans, the collapsing of Arctic roads, ruined scientific equipment, and great craters that suddenly appeared in Siberia. For the first time, scientists have revealed in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences what all this is doing to part of the Arctic Ocean’s seafloor.

Dr Charles Paull of Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and co-authors ran four surveys of the storied Beaufort Sea between 2010 and 2019 using autonomous underwater vehicles assisted by icebreakers at the surface. They restricted their observations to depths between 120 and 150 meters (400-500 feet) as in most places this captures the permafrost's outer margin.

The paper reports numerous steep-sided depressions up to 28 meters (92 feet), along with ice-filled hills up to 100 meters (330 feet) wide known as pingos. Some of these, including a deep depression 225 meters (738 feet) long and 95 meters (312 feet) across, appeared between successive surveys, rather than being long-standing features. Others expanded in the time the team were watching.

The depressions are the result of groundwater ascending up the continental slope. Sometimes the groundwater freezes from contact with colder material, causing the ground surface to heave upwards and produce pingos.

“We know that big changes are happening across the Arctic landscape, but this is the first time we’ve been able to deploy technology to see that changes are happening offshore too,” Paull said in a statement. “This groundbreaking research has revealed how the thawing of submarine permafrost can be detected, and then monitored once baselines are established.”

The research was possible because the Beaufort Sea, once too icebound for research like this, is melting fast. That trend is, the authors agree, a consequence of human emissions of Greenhouse gases. The same goes for the widespread disappearance of permafrost on land.

However, the extra heat those gasses put into the global system has yet to penetrate to the depths Paull and co-authors were studying. Here, temperatures operate on a much slower cycle, buffered by so much water, and are still responding to the warming that took place as the last glacial era ended. At the current rate, it would take more than a thousand years to produce the topography the team observed.

“There isn’t a lot of long-term data for the seafloor temperature in this region, but the data we do have aren’t showing a warming trend,” Paull said. “The changes to seafloor terrain are instead being driven by heat carried in slowly moving groundwater systems.”

The natural melting of Ice Age permafrost releases gasses that warm the planet, part of a reinforcing interglacial era cycle, but the effect is slow enough to present little problem for humans or other species. As human-induced atmospheric heat permeates the oceans at these levels things could accelerate dramatically, and the authors see their work as establishing a baseline so we know if that occurs.

Giant, 90ft Deep Craters Are Appearing on the Arctic Seafloor

BY HANNAH OSBORNE 

ON 3/14/22 

Enormous craters measuring 90 feet in depth have appeared on the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean.

The craters, scientists say, are forming as a result of thawing submerged permafrost on the edge of the Beaufort Sea in northern Canada, with retreating glaciers from the last ice age driving the change and not recent climate warming.

Permafrost is ground that is permanently frozen—in some cases for hundreds of thousands of years. In the Arctic, which is warming faster than any other region of Earth, permafrost is thawing, causing the ground to become unstable.

As the soil thaws, organic matter trapped within starts to break down, causing the release of methane and other greenhouse gasses. As these gasses are released, pressure builds.

On land, the impact is clear. In Siberia, there is footage showing the land wobbling "like jelly" beneath people's feet.

Eventually, when the pressure reaches a tipping point, the land explodes, leaving massive craters behind. One person who witnessed this happening described it as being "as if the earth was breathing."

What happens when permafrost on the bottom of the sea thaws is less clear, however.

In 2019, scientists in Siberia discovered a patch of ocean where the sea was "boiling" with methane, with concentrations of the gas around seven times higher than the global average.

Two years earlier, a different team of researchers found evidence of huge craters—some over 3,000 feet wide—on the floor of the Barents Sea, north of Norway and Russia. They said these craters had formed as a result of methane explosions that took place thousands of years earlier

.
To better understand what impact thawing permafrost is having beneath the ocean, researchers led by Charles K. Paull, a senior scientist at California's Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, used advanced mapping technology to observe changes to the seafloor over the course of a decade.

They conducted surveys in the Beaufort Sea between 2010 and 2019 to map topographical changes resulting from thawing permafrost.

Findings showed that at depths between around 400 and 500 feet, huge depressions with steep sides were forming. The largest was 90 feet deep. Their findings are published in scientific journal PNAS.

Paull told Newsweek they were shocked at their findings, with the craters far larger than they had anticipated.

He said the team does not believe the craters formed in explosive events: "The evidence suggests that the submarine features we observed forming are essentially sink-holes and retreating scarps, collapsing into void space left behind by the thawing of ice-rich permafrost."

Unlike terrestrial permafrost, climate change is not driving the seafloor to thaw. Instead, the shift is the result of older climatic shifts relating to the end of the last ice age, around 11,700 years ago. Heat is being carried to the permafrost via slow-moving groundwater systems.

The team plans to return to the Arctic this summer to look more closely at the decaying seafloor permafrost.

Julian Murton, Professor of Permafrost Science at the U.K.'s University of Sussex, who was not involved in the study, told Newsweek he was surprised at how quickly the seafloor topography had changed.

"Some changes are as rapid or even more rapid than the better-known landsurface topographic changes driven by thaw of ice-rich permafrost in the Arctic," he said. "I had assumed that thermal inertia associated with thick relict permafrost and with overlying seawater led to slow changes in seafloor topography.

"Clearly this assumption is shown to be wrong, at least locally, by this fascinating, high-resolution study."

Paull said the longer term consequences of seafloor permafrost thaw is unclear: "Since some methane is trapped in permafrost, thawing permafrost inevitably releases methane, an important greenhouse gas," he said.

"However, we don't have data to understand whether the rate of methane release from decaying submarine permafrost has changed in recent times in this area.

"The changes we've documented derive from much older, slower climatic shifts related to Earth's emergence from the last ice age, and appear to have been happening along the edge of the permafrost for thousands of years. Whether anthropogenic climate change will accelerate the process remains unknown."

Researchers observed huge sinkholes appearing on the ocean floor over a nine-year survey

READ MORE
As Siberia's Coldest Regions Burn, the 'Gateway to the Underworld' Grows
Enormous, 165 Ft Deep Crater Opens on Siberia's Arctic Tundra
Sea 'Boiling' with Methane in Siberia is Unlike Anything Seen Before

Ban Ki-moon warns UK against fracking as world stands at ‘dangerous’ point

Former UN secretary general says countries face stark choices brought on by the war in Ukraine

Sisters Julie Daniels and Tina Rothery campaign against Cuardrilla’s Preston New Road test site near Blackpool. 

Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Fiona Harvey 

Environment correspondent

Sun 13 Mar 2022 15.42 GMT

The former UN secretary general has warned the UK against fracking, as the world stands at a “dangerous” point in the climate crisis, brought on by the invasion of Ukraine.

Ban Ki-moon, now deputy chair of the Elders group of former world statespeople and public figures, said countries faced stark choices as a result of the Ukraine war and energy crisis, and must embrace renewable energy instead of returning to fossil fuels.

“I think it’s dangerous – just look at the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report,” he said, referring to the latest warning from scientists last month. “There is no time for us to lose. Even under normal conditions [before the Ukraine war] we were far behind the pace.”

He called on the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to end the war. “President Putin, if he is a man of global vision, or humanity, or compassion, he must stop. Whatever grievances he may have and concerns he may have, he can negotiate later rather than killing people.”

He warned that the Ukraine war, as well as being “outrageous in the 21st century”, would have an impact on the climate crisis. Governments should not try to secure greater supplies of fossil fuels, he urged, as they sought alternatives to imports of Russian oil and gas, on which the EU, the US and the UK have now placed restrictions.

“This [war] will impact the international community’s effort to address climate issues, and the pandemic issues,” he said in an interview. “I am concerned that some European countries are even now considering how to address oil and energy shortages [by seeking] exports of some other [sources of] gas or oil. In the UK, there is some idea of releasing the ban on fracking. These are very short term, unproductive ideas.”

Fracking in the UK would be “not a good idea”, he added. “It’s very short term gain that will lose the long term interest of humanity. I hope the politicians have some longer vision for the benefit of the whole world.”

The UK government signalled this week that fracking was still a possibility, though an unlikely one. Ministers have come under pressure to back fracking, from some backbenchers and sections of the media, even though it is unlikely to be economically viable and would do nothing to ease the current crisis as it would take years to produce any gas.

Meanwhile, the EU set out plans last week to cut dependency on Russian oil and gas by two-thirds by the end of this year. Some of the slack will be taken up by seeking other suppliers, such as shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG), and by an expansion of renewable energy and push for greater energy efficiency.

But expanding domestic fossil fuels, such as coal, may also be seen as a possibility if Vladimir Putin goes further and cuts off more supplies to Europe. Ban said that Germany, which has been phasing out coal, should not return to fossil fuels: “Germany is the biggest economic power in Europe – they should not take this as a kind of short term political gain.”

Ban also urged countries to consider nuclear energy, which he said would be a “wise choice”. He said: “There has been some debate and controversy on whether to use nuclear energy or not. But if we use a good energy mix, with renewable energy, nuclear energy and other clean sources of energy, that’s the way we can meet the target of carbon neutrality … We have to use nuclear energy.”

The war in Ukraine would affect preparations for Cop27, the next UN climate summit, set to take place in Egypt this November, he warned. “This is an issue for humanity and our planet Earth. This has nothing to do with politics,” said Ban. “But in reality this may be affected [by the war in Ukraine].”

Ban visited the UK on Friday to give a lecture at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and speak to Alok Sharma, the UK president of Cop26 who will continue to lead the UN negotiations until this November, but their meeting had to take place online because Sharma has contracted Covid-19.

Ban urged rich countries to prepare for Cop27 by providing more financial assistance to developing world governments to adapt to the impacts of climate breakdown, such as extreme weather, droughts, floods, heatwaves and sea level rises. “World leaders should really feel a sense of global responsibility, global justice and global humanity, and a sense of compassion for those people [affected by climate breakdown],” he said.

“We have to listen to the recommendations of the IPCC and the scientists. It’s much more important than politics,” he said.

Ban also said he was angry at countries’ handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in its early stages, seeing a “lack of multilateralism” in the approach countries took after the outbreak was confirmed. He was also scathing about the role of the World Bank in the pandemic, saying it had not done enough.

“This is a serious issue, this is a lack of multilateralism. So I am, as a former secretary general, really angry that we should suffer like this, because the initial preventive measures have not been taken properly,” he said.

This article was amended on 14 March 2022 to locate Ban Ki-moon’s lecture at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies rather than the University of Oxford.

Blow to fracking in England as only five of 138 MPs in target areas voice support

Exclusive: Survey in constituencies with fracking potential show MPs against it or wary of commenting

Tory MPs in north and south fear political impact

Members of the Steve Baker Watch protesting against the MP’s views outside the Conservative Association in High Wycombe in February. Baker has complained of ‘hysterical misinformation’ over fracking.

 Photograph: Maureen McLean/Rex/Shutterstock


Helena Horton and Damian Carrington

Tue 15 Mar 2022

The prospect of fracking in England has been dealt another blow as only a handful of MPs for constituencies with exploration licences support the measure in their area, the Guardian can reveal.

When asked if they would support fracking in their constituencies, only five of the 138 MPs said they would. Forty one said they would be against it, while the rest did not reply, or declined to comment.

Many of the areas where fracking could be a possibility are in the “red wall”, with Conservative MPs representing those seats perhaps aware that their position could be difficult come the next general election.

One such MP, Alexander Stafford, won the 2019 election in Rother Valley, in South Yorkshire, a seat that had been Labour since it was created in 1918.

He said he was “very much against” fracking in his area, adding: “It is yesterday’s technology and will not solve our cost problems. It will take far too long to roll out. We must wean ourselves off hydrocarbons – which leave us in hock to awful dictators like Putin, or at the mercy of fluctuating international energy prices.”

At the other end of England, seats in largely Tory areas, including Surrey, Sussex and Dorset are covered by fracking licences.

Mims Davies, employment minister and MP for Mid Sussex, was clear there was no local support for fracking in her constituency or other affected areas.

She said: “I believe that shale gas exploration should only proceed with local support and as long as it is safe and environmentally responsible to the nearby communities. Alongside my own concerns about the potential impact of this type of drilling in special areas like Mid Sussex, I have previously written on behalf, and in support, of my deeply worried constituents in Cuckfield, regarding planning matters at a controversial site in the small village of Balcombe. This site is just outside of my constituency but in the Mid Sussex district.”

Environmental campaigners expressed alarm last week when the government indicated it would look again at fracking, a controversial technique designed to recover gas and oil from shale rock. Boris Johnson’s spokesperson said “all options”, including fracking, would be considered before the energy strategy, expected in the coming days, was completed.

This came after a group of backbench Conservative MPs, including members of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, lobbied for the government to change its stance on fracking, and last week hosted members of the shale gas industry in parliament.

Steve Baker, a trustee of the climate sceptic Global Warming Policy Foundation, told reporters: “Under the government’s plans, we will need vast quantities of gas even as renewables are ramped up. It is time for all of us to listen to facts, not scare stories. The shale gas industry needs a level playing field and an end to hysterical misinformation.”

But he is unlikely to find support from colleagues in the areas covered by active onshore exploration licences, of which his constituency, Wycombe, is not one.

Local communities have protested strongly and often successfully against past fracking attempts in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cheshire and Sussex. Their concerns included the climate crisis, earth tremors and high levels of HGV traffic – 50 a day at one proposed site, and fears of water, air and noise pollution. The problem of the disposal of contaminated water from wells has also been raised.

Fracking is not only politically difficult. Experts say that it could also be almost impossible to produce enough energy to justify the environmental and climate damage. The areas being considered for fracking are those rich in shale rocks. The Bowland shale rocks, in northern England, were formed more than 300m years ago as sediments, and organic material was buried in an ocean basin. Tectonic activity since then has folded the rocks towards the UK’s east and west coasts, making them more accessible.

But though this area contains shale gas, scientists say it will be very difficult to extract. The tectonic activity has left a complex geological situation, which makes the shales significantly harder to exploit than the simpler formations in the US. “We have the wrong kind of geology, small geological basins rather than vast tracts of identical geology,” said Prof Jon Gluyas, an energy specialist at Durham University. “We also have, to put it bluntly, the wrong kind of shale.” UK shales are rich in soft clays that do not support fractures well, unlike the “crispy” shale in the US.

In southern England, the shale in the Weald basin is also of marine origin but formed between 200m and 145m years ago. The rocks could only produce shale oil, not gas, as they have not been buried deeply enough, and overall the British Geological Survey does not consider the basin a strong prospect.

A firm figure for how much gas could be produced by fracking is unknown, and scores of wells would need to be drilled to find out. The best current estimate indicates about five years’ worth at the UK’s current usage, though some people in the industry cite a figure of 50 years. UK shale gas production would not be able to dent the global price of gas, even if thousands of wells were drilled over the next decade, and some would be likely to be exported.

Most experts say increasing the energy efficiency of homes and producing more cheap wind and solar power are the fastest and most effective way to deal with the energy and climate crises.

Third Energy, one the main companies that had pursued fracking, now has “absolutely no interest in fossil gas” and is targeting renewable energy and using its wells to test the burial of carbon dioxide. Another high-profile firm, Cuadrilla, will need to begin permanently sealing up its two wells in Lancashire this week to meet a legal deadline. “The inconvenient fact, like it or not, is that the UK has not discovered any good shale for onshore gas production,” said Prof Stuart Haszeldine, at the University of Edinburgh.

A government spokesperson did not rule out resuming support for fracking. They said: “In light of Russia’s unjustified invasion of Ukraine and rising global gas prices, it’s right we move away from dependence on Russian gas and increase our self-reliance in our energy security. We are considering all our options. We will set out an energy supply strategy which will supercharge our renewable energy and nuclear capacity as well as supporting our North Sea oil and gas industry.”

The spokesperson said gas produced by the UK typically had a lower environmental footprint than imports of liquid natural gas from abroad.

 Saskatchewan

U of S research seeks to convert agriculture, forestry leftovers into fuel

Natural gas from plant matter is seen as less harmful to the environment because it's made from material that naturally emits methane as it decays.

Author of the article:

Bryn Levy

Publishing date:

Mar 14, 2022  •  

Dr. Ajay Dalai, a U of S researcher working on project to convert biomass from agriculture and forestry into methane. PHOTO BY DAVID STOBBE /University of Saskatchewan

Article content

Tonnes of biomass from Saskatchewan’s farming and forestry sectors are left to decay naturally each year. Dr. Ajay Dalai, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Engineering, is working with Calgary-based company Tidewater Renewables on a three-year project looking at ways to convert it into methane.

The resulting product, known as renewable natural gas or biomethane, is identical to the methane in natural gas used for generating heat and power. He spoke to Postmedia News about his work.

Q: Why would we want to make methane out of biomass when we know methane is one of the worst contributors to climate change?

A:  What happens when we have bioresidue either from forestry or from agriculture, we store that carbon and then carbon eventually degrades to produce methane, and that methane has 21 times more greenhouse gas effect than carbon dioxide. So if we harvest that carbon as biomethane and utilize it, we not only utilize that for energy but also prevent it to rot and produce the natural methane that is emitted by itself. So why not take that solid carbon, produce biomethane, utilize that for energy and then emit it as CO2?

And when you burn biomethane, for example at a power plant, then it produces carbon dioxide that can be captured more easily and, I think, can be stored underground if necessary. There are ways to use that carbon dioxide — making some chemicals, for example — rather than letting the biomass rot on its own and produce methane that has no value to anyone but also creates a problem for the environment.

Q: What’s the goal of your project?

A: I think the economics really dictates which way the industry goes. I think the goal here is to provide a technology that can compete with the natural gas processing industry to see if it makes sense to increase the biomethane into that (natural gas) network. So, I think the economics will dictate, the technology will dictate (the industry) and that’s where our focus is: what we can do to compete with natural gas and get biomethane from the biomass that we have on the ground?

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Q: If all goes well, how long do you think it would take for a biomethane industry to form here?

No matter what technology we develop, it has to be scaled up in a pilot plant to generate more reliable data that is needed for further scaling up in industry. So there are a few steps in between.

We’re looking at about three years to generate some meaningful data and make reasonable recommendations for industry to take it and make a pilot plant, and then look at the economics at that point and then move forward. So, I think we’re looking at at least five to 10 years down the road that something may come up with this industry.

I think for an industry to exist, or to take data from a lab and make money, it typically takes five to 10 years. So I think that’s what timeline we’re looking at.

Strongest low on Earth last weekend was a record-breaker in Canada

Nathan Howes
Digital Reporter

•  

Monday, March 14th 2022, 8:59 pm - A powerful system that pushed across Eastern Canada last weekend underwent rapid intensification, enough so to set new records at three stations and bring the lowest pressure on Earth at the time to a part of the region.

Not a common occurrence when a part of Canada has experienced the lowest pressure on the planet at any given time, but that's what happened on the weekend.

A powerful low-pressure system that pushed across Eastern Canada underwent rapid intensification, breaking three records -- two monthly and one all-time.

At one point on the weekend, the low bottomed out at a reading of 927 millibars just north of Labrador in the Atlantic Ocean, away from any stations.

The new Canadian low-pressure records were in St. Anthony, N.L. (monthly; 952.6 mb), Natashquan, Que. (monthly; 959.2 mb) and Cartwright, N.L. (all-time; 945.1 mb). Natashquan's new record occurred at 11:35 p.m. on Saturday, March 12, while St. Anthony and Cartwright was observed on Sunday, March 13.

Meanwhile, a few other stations came close to breaking the record, but didn't quite make it.

STATIONS REPORTING LOW PRESSURES

The following stations recorded low pressures on the weekend, with the locales marked with * having established a new record.

• Hopedale, N.L. -- 952.2 mb (March record), 970 mb (March 2022)
• St. Anthony, N.L. -- 957.5 mb (March record), 952.6 mb (March 2022)*
• Gander, N.L. -- 954.1 mb (March record), 963.1 mb (March 2022)
• Cartwright, N.L. -- (March record not known) 945.1 mb (March 2022)*
• Natashquan, Que. -- 962 mb (March record), 959.2 mb (March 2022)*
• Sept-Îles, Que. -- 970.5 mb (March record), 974.2 mb (March 2022)
• Gaspé Peninsula, Que. -- 966.3 mb (March record), 968.7 mb (March 2022)

Gaspé Peninsula did not manage to set a new record, but if the system had tracked 100 kilometres farther to the west it might have happened as the centre of the low was down to 965 mb when it passed by

At the time, there was another major storm in the Northern Hemisphere, south of Alaska, but it didn't compare "pressure-wise" to the Atlantic Canada low, according to Kevin MacKay, a meteorologist at The Weather Network.

"This was the strongest storm on the planet [last] weekend," said MacKay.

HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO HIGH-PRESSURE RECORDS?

On the opposite end of the country, Whitehorse, Yukon, recorded its highest pressure of 1071.9 mb in February 1989. Meanwhile, the Canadian record for the lowest pressure observed belongs to Newfoundland's St. Anthony, dropping to 940.2 mb on Jan. 20. 1977.

Tyler Hamilton, a meteorologist at The Weather Network, highlighted a memorable low-pressure event on Oct. 24, 2021 in the Pacific Northwest. The significant windstorm generated a pressure of 942 mb, costing millions of dollars in damage along the West Coast, stretching towards California.

To put Canada's current low-pressure record into perspective, a Category 3 hurricane can generate a low pressure from 945-964 millibars, while a Category 4 can drop the levels to within the 920-944 millibars range.

If last weekend's storm recorded the 927 mb figure over St. Anthony or Cartwright in Newfoundland, it would have generated a new all-time Canadian record for a low pressure.

With files from Matthew Grinter, Kevin MacKay and Tyler Hamilton, meteorologists at The Weather Network.

Follow Nathan Howes on Twitter.

Visit our Complete Guide to Spring 2022 for an in-depth look at the Spring Forecast, tips to plan for it and much more!

Anonymous declared a 'cyber war' against Russia. Here are the results

Monica Buchanan Pitrelli 1 hr ago

More than three weeks ago, a popular Twitter account named "Anonymous" declared that the shadowy activist group was waging a "cyber war" against Russia.
Since then, the account has claimed responsibility for disabling prominent Russian government, news and corporate websites and leaking data from entities such as Roskomnadzor, the federal agency responsible for censoring Russian media.

© Provided by CNBC Though a flood of claims by hacking groups followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine, one study shows most made by Anonymous check out.

More than three weeks ago, a popular Twitter account named "Anonymous" declared that the shadowy activist group was waging a "cyber war" against Russia.

Since then, the account — which has more than 7.9 million followers, with some 500,000 gained since Russia's invasion of Ukraine — has claimed responsibility for disabling prominent Russian government, news and corporate websites and leaking data from entities such as Roskomnadzor, the federal agency responsible for censoring Russian media.

But is any of that true?

It appears it is, says Jeremiah Fowler, a co-founder of the cybersecurity company Security Discovery, who worked with researchers at the web company Website Planet to attempt to verify the group's claims.

"Anonymous has proven to be a very capable group that has penetrated some high value targets, records and databases in the Russian Federation," he wrote in a report summarizing the findings.

Hacked databases

Of 100 Russian databases that were analyzed, 92 had been compromised, said Fowler.

They belonged to retailers, Russian internet providers and intergovernmental websites, including the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS, an organization made up of Russia and other former Soviet nations that was created in 1991 following the fall of the Soviet Union.

Many CIS files were erased, hundreds of folders were renamed to "putin_stop_this_war" and email addresses and administrative credentials were exposed, said Fowler, who likened it to 2020's malicious "MeowBot" attacks, which "had no purpose except for a malicious script that wiped out data and renamed all the files."

Another hacked database contained more than 270,000 names and email addresses.

"We know for a fact that hackers found and probably accessed these systems," said Fowler. "We do not know if data was downloaded or what the hackers plan to do with this information."

Other databases contained security information, internal passwords and a "very large number" of secret keys, which unlock encrypted data, said Fowler.

As to whether this was the work of Anonymous, Fowler said he followed Anonymous' claims "and the timeline matches perfect," he said.
Hacked TV broadcasts and websites

The Twitter account, named @YourAnonNews, has also claimed to have hacked into Russian state TV stations.

"I would mark that as true if I were a factchecker," said Fowler. "My partner at Security Discovery, Bob Diachenko, actually captured a state news live feed from a website and filmed the screen, so we were able to validate that they had hacked at least one live feed [with] a pro-Ukrainian message in Russian."

© Provided by CNBC The English-language Russian news website RT

The account has also claimed to have disrupted websites of major Russian organizations and media agencies, such as the energy company Gazprom and state-sponsored news agency RT.

"Many of these agencies have admitted that they were attacked," said Fowler.

He called denial of service attacks — which aim to disable websites by flooding them with traffic — "super easy." Those websites, and many others, have been shuttered at various points in recent weeks, but they are also reportedly being targeted by other groups as well, including some 310,000 digital volunteers who have signed up for the "IT Army of Ukraine" Telegram account.

False claims by other groups

Fowler said he didn't find any instances where Anonymous had overstated its claims.

But that is happening with other hacktivist groups, said Lotem Finkelstein, head of threat intelligence and research at the cybersecurity company Check Point Software Technologies.

In recent weeks, a pro-Ukrainian group claimed it breached a Russian nuclear reactor, and a pro-Russian group said it shut down Anonymous' website. Check Point concluded both claims were false.

"As there is no real official Anonymous website, this attack … appears to be more of a morale booster for the pro-Russian side, and a publicity event," CPR said, a fact which did not go unnoticed by Anonymous affiliates, who mocked the claim on social media.

Groups are making fake claims by posting old or publicly available information to gain popularity or glory, said Finkelstein.

Fowler said he feels Anonymous is, however, dedicated more to the "cause" than to notoriety.

"In what I saw in these databases, it was more about the messaging than saying 'hey, you know, Anonymous troop No. 21, group five, did this,'" he said. "It was more about the end result."

A cyber 'Robin Hood'

Hacktivists who conduct offensive cyber warfare-like activities without government authority are engaging in criminal acts, said Paul de Souza, the founder of the non-profit Cyber Security Forum Initiative.

Despite this, many social media users are cheering Anonymous' efforts on, with many posts receiving thousands of likes and messages of support.

"They're almost like a cyber Robin Hood, when it comes to causes that people really care about, that no one else can really do anything about," said Fowler. "You want action now, you want justice now, and I think groups like Anonymous and hacktivists give people that immediate satisfaction."

Many hacktivist groups have strong values, said Marianne Bailey, a cybersecurity partner at the consulting firm Guidehouse and former cybersecurity executive with the U.S. National Security Agency. Cyber activism is a low-cost way for them to influence governmental and corporate actions, she said.

"It is protesting in the 21st century," said Bailey.

Read more

'For the first time in history anyone can join a war': Volunteers join Russia-Ukraine cyber fight

Global hacking group Anonymous launches ‘cyber war’ against Russia

Yet cheering them on can be dangerous in the "fog of war," she said.

"A cyberattack has the potential for such an immediate impact, in most cases well before any accurate attribution can be determined," she said. "A cyber strike back or even kinetic strike back could be directed to the wrong place. And what if that misattribution is intentional? What if someone makes the attack appear from a specific country when that's not true?"

She said cyber warfare can be cheaper, easier, more effective and easier to deny than traditional military warfare, and that it will only increase with time.

"With more devices connected to this global digital ecosystem the opportunity for impact continues to expand," she said. "It will undoubtedly be used more often in future conflicts."