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Wednesday, March 16, 2022

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Uh Oh, Regulators Just Halted Assembly of the World’s Largest Tokamak Reactor

Caroline Delbert

POPMECH

Regulators have halted assembly of the huge ITER tokamak facility.

The objections include manufacturing issues, worker safety, and disaster plans.

ITER says it hopes to resume construction by April.

French officials with the nation’s nuclear regulatory body have ordered the ITER organization to stop construction of its humongous tokamak reactor while it addresses safety concerns over its assembly. Opponents of nuclear fusion research are citing this as a victory, but a lot is on the line for the billions of international dollars that are funding ITER.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)—based in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France—is the result of decades of research around the world. Construction began on site in 2020, including the assembly of enormous parts that countries like the United States, India, and Korea have manufactured. To date, most of ITER’s assembly has included the outermost parts of the tokamak, like the container for the reactor and the large magnets that will contain the millions-of-degrees-hot hydrogen plasma inside.

The goal with ITER is not just to build a world-record sized reactor—it’s also meant to foster collaboration among the international community as various countries put their manufacturing chops to the test and learn new information for dozens of smaller global reactor projects in progress. ITER wants to demonstrate that productive nuclear fusion is possible and serve as inspiration. That’s one reason why an obstacle like halted assembly feels like an even bigger deal.

So what happened in France?“[O]n 25 January, France’s Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) sent a letter ordering a stoppage until ITER can address concerns about neutron radiation, slight distortions in the steel sections, and loads on the concrete slab holding up the reactor,” Science explains in a report.
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Anti-fusion activist and industry journalist Steven Krivit was first to break the news of the letter on his website New Energy Times. Krivit sent the letter to various science outlets—Popular Mechanics included—and said in a follow-up email that he and New Energy Times first reported on the broken equipment problem several months ago. Krivit says two big pieces needed for ITER were altered during manufacturing and must be repaired through a different welding plan, something that ITER has said can only be done on site in their facilities. This is something France’s Nuclear Safety Authority takes issue with.

© ITER Organization This is the first ITER central solenoid module to enter the assembly process in February 2022. As the yellow lifting tools and devices are progressively removed from the module on the left, the platform to the right is being equipped for the first assembly steps.

The risks at ITER are in the same category as any other nuclear power facility. If something is structurally wrong, that increases the possibility that radiation could leak out into the surroundings. While Krivit’s beat has mostly been what he says are the false claims made by fusion researchers—hiding the true energy cost of reactors, for example, and underplaying how far we still are from fusion ignition or energy-productive fusion—these are far simpler questions of safety itself. If the world’s biggest fusion reactor can’t be built safely, it shouldn’t be built, period.

The letter is in French, so is not appropriate to quote from here, but it details a long list of issues the French regulators have with what has happened at ITER so far. That includes the pieces that were manufactured out of their expected dimensions, which changes the dynamics when those pieces are welded. It also includes concerns that ITER’s safety plans don’t account for the idea of a severe earthquake. ITER must also show more clearly that workers will be safe from the neutron flux when the facility is up and running.

ITER boss Bernard Bigot tells Science he hopes ITER will satisfy ASN’s points and resume its welding plans by April.

FOR AN INFINTELY SHORT TIME
Tokamak Energy achieves temperature threshold for commercial fusion

By David Szondy
March 12, 2022

The ST-40 spherical tokamak fusion reactor
Tokamak Energy

Oxford-based UK tech firm Tokamak Energy has reached a milestone in privately-funded fusion research after its ST-40 spherical tokamak reactor reached a temperature of 100 million °C (180 million °F), which it says is the threshold for commercial fusion energy.

For over 75 years, the promise of a practical fusion reactor has remained frustratingly out of reach, with the promise of one seemingly being just a couple of decades down the line for decades now. However, the implications of such a reactor technology and its ability to supply humanity with a practically unlimited supply of cheap, clean energy is such a game changer that scientists and engineers continue to pursue it.

The principle behind nuclear fusion is relatively simple. Just take hydrogen atoms and subject them to the kind of heat and pressures found inside the Sun long enough for them to fuse together to form heavier atoms and they release enormous amounts of energy in the process.

Unfortunately, this is a classic example of something like a violin, which is easy to play in theory, but incredibly hard to do in practice. Put simply, getting the three main factors (heat, pressure, and time) to balance out in order to produce fusion isn't that hard. In fact, during the 1964 New York World's Fair, an exhibit was staged where the public could watch a bench-top fusion reactor operate in real time for a fraction of a second. The hard part since then has been to come up with a reactor that can produce practical amounts of energy in a steady supply and in amounts greater than has to be put in to start the reaction.

Cutaway view of a spherical tokamak reactor
Tokamak Energy

One of the most promising of these is the tokamak reactor, which was first developed in the Soviet Union in the 1950s. The basic design is a hollow ring surrounded by coils that set up a magnetic field inside. The ring contains a vacuum in which hydrogen atoms are introduced. The magnetic field constrains and pinches the atoms as they heat to millions of degrees, stripping them of their electrons and turning them into a plasma as they spin around the ring. When conditions are right, fusion occurs.

Most of the tokamak reactors built in the past 70 years have been government-funded research reactors that have concentrated on learning more about the behavior of hydrogen plasmas and the problems that building a practical reactor will encounter. This means that these tokamaks tend to be extremely large and expensive and channel such enormous amounts of energy that if it's accidentally released the entire machine jumps like an ocean liner taking to the air.

Diagram of the fusion reactor's magnetic field
Tokamak Energy

On the other end of the scale are privately-funded reactors like Tokamak Energy's ST40 spherical tokamak. While government reactors have already reached the 100-million °C mark, doing so with a much smaller commercial reactor at a cost of only £50 million (US$70 million) and having this confirmed by outside observers is quite an achievement.

According to the company, the purpose of ST40 is to concentrate on the commercial applications of fusion energy. Specifically, making the reactors economically viable. For this reason, the ST40 is a spherical tokamak.

Where conventional tokamaks have large torus chambers, the spherical reactor is much more compact and replaces the all-encircling magnets with ones that meet in the center of the chamber in the form of a post. This gives the reactor an oblate shape, something like an apple. This allows the magnets to sit closer to the plasma stream, so the magnets are smaller and use less power, yet generate more intense fields.

In addition, the ST40 uses High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) magnets made from rare-earth Barium Copper Oxide (REBCO) and formed into narrow tapes that are less than 0.1 mm thick. These "high temperature" magnets operate at between between -250 and -200 °C (-418 and -328 °F) or roughly the temperature of liquid nitrogen. This makes it much cheaper to keep the reactor magnets cool than ones that rely on liquid helium.

Close up showing the reactor field coils
Tokamak Energy

This setup makes for a smaller, simpler reactor where the plasma remains much more stable under conditions that support the fusion reaction. However, the reactor has less overall pressure than conventional tokamaks and the central pillar is vulnerable to decay from the plasma and needs to be replaced regularly.

The company is now at work on a more advanced reactor, the ST-HTS, which will be commissioned in a few years and will hopefully provide information for designing the first true commercial plant in the 2030s.

"We are proud to have achieved this breakthrough which puts us one step closer to providing the world with a new, secure and carbon-free energy source," said Chris Kelsall, CEO of Tokamak Energy. "When combined with HTS magnets, spherical tokamaks represent the optimal route to achieving clean and low-cost commercial fusion energy. Our next device will combine these two world leading technologies for the first time and is central to our mission to deliver low-cost energy with compact fusion modules."

The video below discusses the new record plasma temperature.

ONE IS LUCIFER ONE IS BABALON
The Difference Between a 'Morning Star' and 'Evening Star' (Because It's Not What You Think)"

Everything you think you know about the “Morning Star” and the “Evening Star” is wrong.

By Stephen Johnson

If you’ve ever heard anyone mention the morning star(s) and the evening star(s) and didn’t know what they meant, here’s what’s really going on up there in the heavens. First off, the names are misleading. “Morning star” and “evening star” both originally referred to the same celestial object, and it’s not a star at all. It’s Venus, the third brightest object in the sky, behind the sun and the moon.

Venus always appears close to the sun, but because of its orbit, it sometimes appears to be leading the sun and sometimes following it. When Venus is trailing the sun, it appears in the sky moments after the sun goes down. This is when it is called an “evening star.” When it’s “leading” the sun, it appears to rise near dawn, just before the sun comes up. That’s when it’s called a “morning star.”
Ancient astrologers made a huge mistake

Egyptian, Mayan, Greek, and other cultures’ star-gazers understandably believed Venus was two separate stars. They thought the same thing about Mercury, which also appears relatively close to the sun. Around the 5th century BC, Pythagoras delineated the objects as two separate planets, but it wasn’t until 1543 when Copernicus straightened everything out by discovering that Earth is a planet, too, and all the planets revolve around the sun.

On “wandering stars” and whether they are “morning” or “evening” stars

Because Venus isn’t the only planet we can see in the sky without a telescope, we now refer to “morning stars,” which are Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and sometimes Uranus (if it’s very dark, and you have good eyesight). These used to be called “wandering stars.”

Determining whether Venus and Mercury (aka the “inferior planets”) are considered morning or evening stars is usually easy; it’s determined by how they appear relative to the sun. But with the other, “superior,” planets, it get a little trickier, and can involve morning stars becoming visible just after sunset and vice-versa. Here’s how space.com describes it:

In order to differentiate between what qualifies for the branding as a “morning star” versus an “evening star,” we would say that during the time frame from when a planet is moving from its conjunction with the sun to just a day prior to its opposition (when it is directly opposite to the sun in the sky) it is considered a “morning star.” At opposition, the superior planet in question would be rising when the sun sets and sets as the sun rises. From then on it is branded as an “evening star,” rising or already in the sky as daytime ends.

Did you miss the Venus Transit? Too bad for you.

Occasionally, Venus appears to pass in front of the sun and blocks out some sunlight, like a wee eclipse. On average, this transit happens every 80 years, but more accurately, it’s a “pair of pairs” pattern that repeats every 243 years. So if you caught the Venusian Transit on June 8, 2004, you could get a repeat showing in June 2012. If you missed it, you’ll have to wait until 2117. Sorry.

Federal minimum wage rising to $15.55 per hour in April

Tom Yun

CTVNews.ca writer
Monday, March 14, 2022

A representative with the Bank of Canada displays the new polymer $5 and $10 bank notes alongside the $20, $50, and $100 during a press conference at the Bank of Canada in Ottawa on Tuesday, April 30, 2013.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

TORONTO -- Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) has announced that the federal minimum wage will increase from $15 to $15.55 per hour on April 1, 2022.

The federal minimum wage only applies to those working in federally-regulated industries, such as banks, postal services, interprovincial transportation and federal Crown corporations. For employees working in industries that are not regulated by the federal government, the provincial minimum wage applies.

ESDC says the 55-cent minimum wage increase reflects the 3.4 per cent increase in the annual average consumer price index from 2021, as reported by Statistics Canada.

In provinces and territories that have a higher minimum wage than the federal rate, the higher wage will apply. Currently, that only applies to Nunavut, which has a minimum wage of $16 per hour. Yukon is also increasing its minimum wage to $15.70 per hour on April 1.

Other provinces introducing higher minimum wages on April 1 include P.E.I., New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. Ontario hiked its minimum wage to $15 per hour on Jan. 1 while Quebec's minimum wage will go up to $14.25 on May 1.

However, advocates say these increases aren't enough to account for the cost of living in most communities. Living Wage Canada says wages need to be at least $20.52 per hour in Vancouver, $18.60 in Calgary, $22.08 in Toronto and $18.60 in Ottawa for working families to cover basic expenses.

B.C.'s minimum wage, now tied to inflation, up 45 cents to $15.65 an hour

Province says it's the first increase to be pegged to

inflation; labour group says hike is still not enough

The Canadian Press · Posted: Mar 15, 2022

B.C. Minister of Labour Harry Bains announced Monday that B.C.'s minimum wage will go up 45 cents starting June 1. (Michael McArthur/CBC)

The British Columbia government is increasing the minimum wage by 45 cents to $15.65 an hour, starting June 1.

The increase is the first to be tied to B.C.'s annual inflation rate, which was 2.8 per cent last year.

Labour Minister Harry Bains says it means B.C. will have the highest minimum wage of any province.

While true, the claim does not include Canada's territories. Nunavut's minimum wage is higher at $16 an hour and the minimum wage in Yukon is set to rise to $15.70 an hour in April.

ANALYSIS
Everything inflation: It's not just gas and food anymore — and wages aren't keeping up

PRICED OUT
Young B.C. families are having fewer children, opting out of parenthood as cost of living skyrockets

Bains said the decision to use the provincial rate of inflation rather than the national rate was made to better reflect the needs of B.C. workers.

He said the increase is expected to attract more workers to the province, while providing certainty of costs for businesses.

"We fully understand that businesses are still hurting coming out of the pandemic and that workers, living in one of the highest living cost areas, are still struggling," Bains told a news conference.

"Having a fair minimum wage is a key step in our effort to lift people out of poverty, to make life more affordable and to continue B.C.'s strong economic recovery."

Living wage in Metro Vancouver and Victoria is now over $20/hour: report

Canada's inflation rate rises to new 30-year high of 4.8%

The B.C. Federation of Labour said it was happy with the news, but the minimum wage is "still well below" the amount a family needs to cover basic expenses.

"Every worker should be able to earn a wage that makes their community affordable and livable, no matter where they live in B.C.," Sussanne Skidmore, the federation's secretary-treasurer, said in a news release.

The B.C. Chamber of Commerce said in a statement that while it supported a fair wage for workers, the timing of the increase would negatively impact small and medium-sized businesses.

Bains said a commission travelled the province consulting businesses and others affected by the minimum wage, and it suggested the increase. He said the government is still waiting for the commission's recommendations to address the difference between the minimum wage and a so-called living wage.

'Treading water'

Alex Hemingway, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said the wage increase was good news in the broadest sense for the province's lowest-paid workers, but it does not go far enough to address the spiking cost of living.

He said the province's decision to peg the wage increase on the provincial rate of inflation last year — measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) — was not keeping up with the actual cost of living in 2022.

"Over time, linking wages to the CPI would just mean treading water," he told Gloria Macarenko, host of CBC's On the Coast. "That would mean that low-wage workers would never get a raise, in real dollar terms, in ... their purchasing power.

On The Coast8:12Minimum wage increase and the cost of living in B.C.

The B.C. minimum wage is scheduled to go up by 45 cents to $15.65 starting June 1. The provincial government says the increase is in line with the rate of inflation. But with gas prices still going up, will this wage hike be enough to keep up with the rising costs of living? We are joined by Alex Hemingway, a senior economist and public finance policy analyst with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. 8:12

"The economy grows over time, and the benefits of those gains are flowing somewhere. But they're not flowing to those workers if their wages only go up at that CPI inflation rate."

University of Victoria economist Elizabeth Gugl says that while increasing the minimum wage according to the previous year's inflation rate is usually appropriate, inflation rates are changing rapidly right now, and the increase doesn't match the current situation.

"Prices are rising and therefore [minimum-wage earners] cannot keep up with the expenses," she said.

B.C. has forecasted a stronger recovery from the pandemic than many other Canadian provinces. Hemingway says many low-wage workers in the province are racialized women, so the minimum wage was a significant equity issue, especially with skyrocketing housing costs.

He says one of the only things stopping the provincial government from increasing the minimum wage to proposed "living wage" standards is political will.

With files from On The Coast and On The Island

New supernova identified in the weird Cartwheel galaxy

By Samantha Mathewson

SPACE.COM

published 3 days ago

A star met a gruesome end, resulting in a stunning photo.

The image on the left was taken by the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) mounted on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in August 2014, before the supernova occurred. The image on the right was taken in December 2021 with ESO's New Technology Telescope, showing a bright spot in the lower left corner of the image, suggesting a supernova occurred in the time between these two photos were taken. (Image credit: ESO/Inserra et al., Amram et al.)

A new image from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) captures a stunning view of the Cartwheel galaxy following a recent stellar explosion.

Located roughly 500 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Sculptor, the Cartwheel galaxy is a spiral galaxy that merged with a smaller neighboring galaxy several million years ago, resulting in its unusual, two-rin shape.

Using the ESO's New Technology Telescope (NTT) in Chile, astronomers photographed the Cartwheel galaxy in December 2021, only to realize that tucked away in what appears in the image as the lower left region of the galaxy, a supernova has burst on the scene. Supernovas are the bright stellar explosions that occur when massive stars reach the end of their lives; the explosion can be visible to observers for months, or even years.

And this particular supernova appears to have occurred fairly recently. Scientists were able to compare the new images with some taken in August 2014 by the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), also in Chile. Those observations do not show any trace of a supernova, according to a statement from the ESO.

This stellar event, dubbed SN2021afdx, is classified as what scientists call a type II supernova, which features hydrogen and is caused by a large star running out of the fuel that is required to keep the object from collapsing under its own gravity. When a supernova occurs, it causes a bright burst that can outshine the entire host galaxy; along with the light, the explosion also flings material across space.

"Supernovas are one of the reasons astronomers say we are all made of stardust: they sprinkle the surrounding space with heavy elements forged by the progenitor star, which may end up being part of later generations of stars, the planets around them and life that may exist in those planets," ESO said in the statement.

Scientists recruited a few other telescopes to confirm the stellar explosion in Cartwheel. These telescopes, including the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in Hawaii, are specialized to study objects that are only briefly visible in the sky, like supernovas.

The ESO's Advanced Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey for Transient Objects (ePESSTO+), another project based in Chile, also contributed data to the project. In particular, the observations allowed astronomers to measure radiation from the galaxy and confirm that the recent stellar explosion was a type II supernova, according to the statement.

Two sustainable energy initiatives launched in Saskatchewan

By David Giles Global News
Posted March 14, 2022

The Saskatchewan government says two new sustainable energy initiatives are a “win-win” for both the economy and methane reduction in the province.

The first initiative, the Saskatchewan Emissions Inventory, expands methane modelling and measurement.

The Saskatchewan Ministry of Energy and Resources said it will apply data to generate a point-in-time database of emissions information.

It will also list larger sources of emissions to help determine economic options for emission reduction, provide detailed reporting, and provide scenarios for zero-flaring.

READ MORE: Methane emissions reduced by nearly 50% in Saskatchewan

The second initiative, the Gas Commercialization Mapping (GCM) Service, highlights methane-concentrated areas and allows the energy sector to better plan and collaborate on scaled methane capture and commercialization projects, including with Crown utilities.

Officials said the GCM service initiative fulfills commitments the province made under its methane action plan by providing geographic information of regions where volumes of methane gas venting and flaring occur.

A flare to burn methane from oil production is seen on a well pad near Watford City, North Dakota, Aug. 26, 2021. The Ministry of Energy and Resources said the new initiatives will ensure Saskatchewan remains one of the most sustainable energy producers in the world.

AP Photo / Matthew Brown

The ministry said the new initiatives will ensure the province remains one of the most sustainable energy producers in the world.

“These two initiatives will support Saskatchewan’s already strong record on methane, which includes a reduction in emissions by 50 per cent five years ahead of schedule,” said Energy and Resources Minister Bronwyn Eyre in a statement Monday.

“We continue to ask the federal government to share its emissions data, which is gathered from other jurisdictions, such as Alberta or Texas, and broadly applied to Saskatchewan. These two provincial initiatives will help mitigate the negative impacts of these inaccurate representations.”

READ MORE: Beef a bigger challenge than oil and gas when it comes to tackling methane emissions in Canada

The federal government announced a plan in October 2021 to reduce oil and gas emissions by at least 75 per cent below 2012 levels by 2030.

According to the ministry, the province’s methane action plan aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from flaring and venting in the upstream oil and gas industry by 40 to 45 per cent from 2015 levels by 2025.

Officials said this is the equivalent of 4.5 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

1:32 Lack of GHG reduction targets in Saskatchewan makes progress hard to measureLack of GHG reduction targets in Saskatchewan makes progress hard to measure – Jun 4, 2021

Comet 67P's abundant oxygen more of an illusion, new study suggests

by Johns Hopkins University

When the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft discovered abundant molecular oxygen bursting from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) in 2015, it puzzled scientists. They had never seen a comet emit oxygen, let alone in such abundance. But most alarming were the deeper implications: That researchers had to account for so much oxygen, which meant reconsidering everything they thought they already knew about the chemistry of the early solar system and how it formed.

A new analysis, however, led by planetary scientist Adrienn Luspay-Kuti at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, shows Rosetta's discovery may not be as strange as scientists first imagined. Instead, it suggests the comet has two internal reservoirs that make it seem like there's more oxygen than is actually there.

"It's kind of an illusion," Luspay-Kuti said. "In reality, the comet doesn't have this high oxygen abundance, at least not as far as its formation goes, but it has accumulated oxygen that gets trapped in the upper layers of the comet, which then gets released all at once."

While common on Earth, molecular oxygen (two oxygen atoms doubly linked to each other) is markedly uncommon throughout the universe. It quickly binds to other atoms and molecules, especially the universally abundant atoms hydrogen and carbon, so oxygen appears only in small amounts in just a few molecular clouds. That fact led many researchers to conclude any oxygen in the protosolar nebula that formed our solar system likely had been similarly scooped up.

When Rosetta found oxygen pouring out of comet 67P, however, everything turned on its head. Nobody had seen oxygen in a comet before, and as the fourth most abundant molecule in the comet's bright coma (after water, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide), it needed some explanation. The oxygen seemed to come off the comet with water, causing many researchers to suspect the oxygen was either primordial—meaning it got tied up with water at the birth of the solar system and amassed in the comet when it later formed—or formed from water after the comet had formed.

But Luspay-Kuti and her team were skeptical. As the comet's dumbbell shape gradually rotates, each "bell" (or hemisphere) faces the sun at various points, meaning the comet has seasons, so the oxygen-water connection might not be present all the time. On short time frames, volatiles could potentially turn on and off as they thaw and refreeze with the seasons.

Now you see it, now you don't

Taking advantage of these seasons, the team examined the molecular data on short- and long-time periods just before the comet's southern hemisphere entered summer and then again just as its summer ended. As reported in their study, published March 10 in Nature Astronomy, the team found that as the southern hemisphere turned away and was sufficiently far from the sun, the link between oxygen and water disappeared. The amount of water coming off the comet dropped precipitously, so instead the oxygen seemed strongly linked to carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, which the comet was still emitting.

"There's no way that should be possible under the previous explanations suggested," Luspay-Kuti said. "If oxygen were primordial and tied to water in its formation, there shouldn't be any time that oxygen strongly correlates with carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide but not water."

The team instead proposed the comet's oxygen doesn't come from water but from two reservoirs: one made of oxygen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide deep inside the comet's rocky nucleus; and a shallower pocket closer to the surface where oxygen chemically combines with water ice molecules.

The idea goes like this: A deep reservoir of oxygen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide ice is constantly emitting gases because oxygen, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide all vaporize at very low temperatures. As oxygen traverses from the comet's interior toward the surface, however, some of it chemically inserts into water ice (a major constituent of the comet's nucleus) to form a second, shallower oxygen reservoir. But water ice vaporizes at a much higher temperature than oxygen, so until the sun sufficiently heats the surface and vaporizes the water ice, the oxygen is stuck.

The consequence is that oxygen can accumulate in this shallow reservoir for long periods until the comet surface is finally warmed enough for water ice to vaporize, releasing a plume far richer in oxygen than was actually present in the comet.

"Put another way, the oxygen abundances measured in the comet's coma aren't necessarily reflecting its abundances in the comet's nucleus," Luspay-Kuti explained.

The comet would consequently also vacillate with the seasons between strongly associating with water (when the sun heats the surface) and strongly associating with carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide (when that surface faces away from the sun and the comet is sufficiently far)—exactly what Rosetta observed.

"This isn't just one explanation: It's the [only] explanation because there is no other possibility," said Olivier Mousis, a planetary scientist from France's Aix-Marseille Université and a study co-author. "If oxygen were just coming from the surface, you wouldn't see these trends observed by Rosetta."

The major implication, he said, is that it means comet 67P's oxygen is, in fact, oxygen that accreted at the beginning of the solar system. It's just that it's only a fraction of what people had thought.

Luspay-Kuti said she wants to probe the topic more deeply by examining the comet's minor molecular species, such as methane and ethane, and their correlation with molecular oxygen and other major species. She suspects this will help researchers get a better idea of the type of ice that the oxygen was incorporated into.

"You still have to come up with a way to incorporate the oxygen into the comet," Luspay-Kuti said, considering that the amount of oxygen is still higher than seen in most molecular clouds. But she said she expected a majority of researchers will welcome the study and its conclusions with a sigh of reliefMolecular oxygen in comet's atmosphere not created on its surface

More information: Adrienn Luspay-Kuti et al, Dual storage and release of molecular oxygen in comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, Nature Astronomy (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-022-01614-

Journal information: Nature Astronomy

Provided by Johns Hopkins University

Great Oxygenation Event: MIT Scientists’ New Hypothesis for One of the Grand Mysteries of Science

By JENNIFER CHU, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY MARCH 14, 2022

Around 2.3 billion years ago, oxygen began building up in the atmosphere, eventually reaching the life-sustaining levels we breathe today. A new hypothesis proposed by MIT scientists suggests a mechanism for how this may have happened. Pictured are examples of Paleoproterozoic organisms. Credit: MIT News

Microbes and Minerals May Have Set Off Earth’s Oxygenation

Scientists propose a new mechanism by which oxygen may have first built up in the atmosphere.

For the first 2 billion years of Earth’s history, there was barely any oxygen in the air. While some microbes were photosynthesizing by the latter part of this period, oxygen had not yet accumulated at levels that would impact the global biosphere.

But somewhere around 2.3 billion years ago, this stable, low-oxygen equilibrium shifted, and oxygen began building up in the atmosphere, eventually reaching the life-sustaining levels we breathe today. This rapid infusion is known as the Great Oxygenation Event, or GOE. What triggered the event and pulled the planet out of its low-oxygen funk is one of the great mysteries of science.

A new hypothesis, proposed by MIT scientists, suggests that oxygen finally started accumulating in the atmosphere thanks to interactions between certain marine microbes and minerals in ocean sediments. These interactions helped prevent oxygen from being consumed, setting off a self-amplifying process where more and more oxygen was made available to accumulate in the atmosphere.

The scientists have laid out their hypothesis using mathematical and evolutionary analyses, showing that there were indeed microbes that existed before the GOE and evolved the ability to interact with sediment in the way that the researchers have proposed.

Their study, appearing today in Nature Communications, is the first to connect the co-evolution of microbes and minerals to Earth’s oxygenation.

“Probably the most important biogeochemical change in the history of the planet was oxygenation of the atmosphere,” says study author Daniel Rothman, professor of geophysics in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). “We show how the interactions of microbes, minerals, and the geochemical environment acted in concert to increase oxygen in the atmosphere.”

The study’s co-authors include lead author Haitao Shang, a former MIT graduate student, and Gregory Fournier, associate professor of geobiology in EAPS.

A step up

Today’s oxygen levels in the atmosphere are a stable balance between processes that produce oxygen and those that consume it. Prior to the GOE, the atmosphere maintained a different kind of equilibrium, with producers and consumers of oxygen in balance, but in a way that didn’t leave much extra oxygen for the atmosphere.

What could have pushed the planet out of one stable, oxygen-deficient state to another stable, oxygen-rich state?

“If you look at Earth’s history, it appears there were two jumps, where you went from a steady state of low oxygen to a steady state of much higher oxygen, once in the Paleoproterozoic, once in the Neoproterozoic,” Fournier notes. “These jumps couldn’t have been because of a gradual increase in excess oxygen. There had to have been some feedback loop that caused this step-change in stability.”

He and his colleagues wondered whether such a positive feedback loop could have come from a process in the ocean that made some organic carbon unavailable to its consumers. Organic carbon is mainly consumed through oxidation, usually accompanied by the consumption of oxygen — a process by which microbes in the ocean use oxygen to break down organic matter, such as detritus that has settled in sediment. The team wondered: Could there have been some process by which the presence of oxygen stimulated its further accumulation?

Shang and Rothman worked out a mathematical model that made the following prediction: If microbes possessed the ability to only partially oxidize organic matter, the partially-oxidized matter, or “POOM,” would effectively become “sticky,” and chemically bind to minerals in sediment in a way that would protect the material from further oxidation. The oxygen that would otherwise have been consumed to fully degrade the material would instead be free to build up in the atmosphere. This process, they found, could serve as a positive feedback, providing a natural pump to push the atmosphere into a new, high-oxygen equilibrium.

“That led us to ask, is there a microbial metabolism out there that produced POOM?” Fourier says.

In the genes

To answer this, the team searched through the scientific literature and identified a group of microbes that partially oxidizes organic matter in the deep ocean today. These microbes belong to the bacterial group SAR202, and their partial oxidation is carried out through an enzyme, Baeyer-Villiger monooxygenase, or BVMO.

The team carried out a phylogenetic analysis to see how far back the microbe, and the gene for the enzyme, could be traced. They found that the bacteria did indeed have ancestors dating back before the GOE, and that the gene for the enzyme could be traced across various microbial species, as far back as pre-GOE times.

What’s more, they found that the gene’s diversification, or the number of species that acquired the gene, increased significantly during times when the atmosphere experienced spikes in oxygenation, including once during the GOE’s Paleoproterozoic, and again in the Neoproterozoic.

“We found some temporal correlations between diversification of POOM-producing genes, and the oxygen levels in the atmosphere,” Shang says. “That supports our overall theory.”

To confirm this hypothesis will require far more follow-up, from experiments in the lab to surveys in the field, and everything in between. With their new study, the team has introduced a new suspect in the age-old case of what oxygenated Earth’s atmosphere.

“Proposing a novel method, and showing evidence for its plausibility, is the first but important step,” Fournier says. “We’ve identified this as a theory worthy of study.”

Reference: “Oxidative metabolisms catalyzed Earth’s oxygenation” by Haitao Shang, Daniel H. Rothman and Gregory P. Fournier, 14 March 2022, Nature Communications.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28996-0

This work was supported in part by the mTerra Catalyst Fund and the National Science Foundation.

Around 150 LifeLabs couriers and mailroom staff in the GTA go on strike

LifeLabs says service won't be affected

Joshua Freeman,

CP24 Web Content Write
Published Monday, March 14, 2022

About 150 couriers and mailroom staff working for LifeLabs in the Greater Toronto Area have gone on strike.

The workers, who are represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), said they began their strike action after negotiations failed to produce a settlement with the laboratory service company.

“LifeLabs is one of the most profitable enterprises in Canada but won’t pay their staff a living wage,” OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas said in a statement. “Even after the hard work and sacrifices of the pandemic, LifeLabs sees no reason to pay its workers more than a handful of beans.”

PHOTOS

LifeLabs signage is seen outside of one of the lab's Toronto locations, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

The union pointed out that the average courier and mailroom worker in Toronto is paid around $35,000 a year “while living in the most expensive city in Canada” and said that those workers should see a larger share of the company’s profits.

In an email to CP24.com, LifeLabs said it is “committed” to reaching a fair agreement, but the union left the bargaining table.

“LifeLabs is committed to working with our local OPSEU partners to reach a fair agreement,” the company said. “We have been in negotiations since May 2021; however, OPSEU has left the bargaining table despite our competitive offers.

“We are hopeful that we can reach a balanced agreement soon to continue to support the needs of our employees and the communities that they serve.”

The union denied that its claims are unreasonable.

"We're not looking for the moon," Bargaining Team Chair Mahmood Alawneh said in a statement. "We're just looking for decent compensation so we can provide properly for our families. A lot of us are working two, three jobs to keep bread on the table.”

It is not clear how long the strike might last.

LifeLabs said in the meantime, it has a business continuity plan that allows it to maintain courier and mailroom service “in order to minimize any disruption to patients and health care providers.”

Last week the company said in a statement on its website that its services will continue despite any strike action.

“LifeLabs will remain operational throughout any job action,” the company said on March 11. “While there may be some disruption to our service levels, our goal is to provide Ontarians with continued access to services. We are taking all possible actions to minimize disruption to patients and health care providers.”

The company advised customers to check its website for any locations which may be impacted by picketing and to reach out to if they wish to reschedule an appointment.

Testing and diagnostic services have been at the forefront of public attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. LifeLabs currently offers a range tests, including COVID-19 PCR and rapid antigen tests through a partnership with Shoppers’ Drug Mart.

~~OIL~~ TARSANDS FROM ALBERTA OR VENEZUELA

Majority of Americans support restarting Keystone XL pipeline: poll

Steven Dyer
CTVNewsEdmonton.ca

Digital Producer
March 15, 2022

As countries look for an alternative to Russian oil in the wake of that country’s invasion of Ukraine, Americans are looking to Canada to provide that oil, according to a new poll.

A week ago, U.S. President Joe Biden ordered a ban on Russian oil imports.

U.S. strikes harder at Putin, banning all Russian oil imports

A Maru Public Opinion poll released Tuesday shows that 64 per cent of respondents want to import more oil from Canada to make up for the ban on Russian oil.

Alberta’s premier said Tuesday the province could currently replace about a third of what the U.S. imports from Russia.

“Right now, we are underutilizing our current pipeline export capacity by about 200,000 barrels a day, so we could ship more,” said Jason Kenney.

“In addition, we believe that pipeline companies could make some technical changes to also increase export capacity by another couple hundred of thousand barrels a day.”

Alberta has the capacity to increase pipeline exports by 10 per cent, according to Kenney. Industry experts believe there is only room to expand exports by about five per cent currently.

“The more we produce, the pipeline system becomes tighter,” said Vijay Muralidharan, the director of consulting at Kalibrate.

“Existing pipelines can expand capacity, if they install pumps… there are of course some regulatory hurdles.”

Muralidharan adds that there is rail infrastructure in place that could be used to ship more oil, but it comes with a cost.

The premier believes that “the economics don’t support” additional shipments by rail currently.

“U.S. refineries are built to take Canadian oil, there’s no hassle of rejection, they’ll take whatever we can send, the price will be right, it’s a win-win situation for the refineries in the Gulf Coast and heavy crude producers in Alberta,” said Muralidharan.

After being elected, Biden revoked the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have shipped oil from Alberta to refineries in Texas.

The Maru poll, which was conducted last week, shows 71 per cent of respondents want to see Biden greenlight that pipeline.

“While that project itself may now be dead because of the presidential veto, I think where there is a will, there is a way,” said Kenney.

“So we'll continue to work with folks in congress to see if there is now or in the future a will to create an additional major pipeline flowing from Alberta to the United States.”

Kenney also pointed to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which is expected to be completed next year. The project would allow more than 500,000 more barrels of oil to be shipped to global markets from the west coast.

Corporate sanctions, where businesses won’t do business with Russian oil companies, could also cause an increased demand in Canadian oil.

“Especially if those corporate sanctions start to be applied to other jurisdictions where the social and human rights aren’t really the greatest,” said Jeremy McCrae, the managing director of Raymond James Energy Research.

“There’s a lot more focus now on who we are doing business with and if Russia can’t get those critical western supplies, technology or personnel, you could see their production continue to struggle for many years going forward.”

The Maru poll surveyed 1,508 Americans and has an estimated margin of error of 3.1 per cent.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Carlyle Fiset

Wednesday, March 16, 2022

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