Baffling “Spiderweb” Star Discovered – Is It an Alien Megastructure?

By UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY NOVEMBER 18, 2022

JWST image vs model of WR140. Credit: Left image: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/JPL-Caltech. Right image: Yinuo Han/Peter Tuthill/Ryan Lau

A puzzling image captured by the James Webb Telescope explained. 

A strange image of the distant star WR140 surrounded by concentric geometric ripples captured by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in July has perplexed astronomers around the world, even sparking frenzied internet speculation that it could be evidence of an alien megastructure light-years across.

The perplexing picture was captured soon after JWST began scientific operations and published its first full batch of images. It rapidly sparked a heated debate on the internet, with some speculating that the enormous ripples were caused by aliens. The picture was described as “bonkers” by Mark McCaughrean, a senior adviser for science and exploration at the European Space Agency and a member of the James Webb Space Telescope Science Working Group.

WR140 JWST image of concentric dust rings emanating from the WR140 binary. Credit: NASA-ESA-CSA-STScI-JPL-Caltech

However, two Australian astronomers explain in two companion papers recently published in Nature and Nature Astronomy that the 17 concentric rings seen circling the star are actually a series of mammoth dust shells created by the cyclic interaction of a pair of hot stars, one of which is a dying Wolf-Rayet, locked together in a tight orbit.

“Like clockwork, WR140 puffs out a sculpted smoke ring every eight years, which is then inflated in the stellar wind like a balloon,” said Professor Peter Tuthill from the Sydney Institute for Astronomy at the University of Sydney, a co-author in both papers. “Eight years later, as the binary returns in its orbit, another ring appears, the same as the one before, streaming out into space inside the bubble of the previous one, like a set of giant nested Russian dolls.”

3D model of WR140 shells after 18 orbits (or 144 years) of cyclic dust formation. Credit: Yinuo Han/Peter Tuthill/Ryan Lau

The WR140 pair is made up of a huge Wolf-Rayet star and an even more massive blue supergiant star that are gravitationally bound in an eight-year orbit. While all stars produce stellar winds, those produced by Wolf-Rayet stars are more akin to a stellar hurricane. Elements in the wind, such as carbon, condense as soot, which stays hot enough to glow brightly in the infrared. The dust clouds, like smoke caught by the wind, provide something for telescopes to watch as they follow the flow.

Because the two stars are in elliptical rather than circular orbits, dust production turns on and off as WR140’s binary companion nears and then departs the point of closest approach. Based on data collected with other telescopes since 2006, Professor Tuthill and his former student Yinuo Han – now at the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy – created a three-dimensional model of the dust plume’s geometry.

Near-infrared imagery of WR140’s expanding circumstellar dust structure. Credit: Yinuo Han & Peter Tuthill

That model, created for the Nature paper of which Han is the lead author, turned out to perfectly explain the bizarre results obtained by the JWST in July. Thanks to this and other contributions, both Han and Professor Tuthill also became co-authors of the Nature Astronomy paper with the new Webb data.

What’s more, in their Nature paper, Han and Professor Tuthill showed – for the first time – direct evidence of intense starlight driving into matter and accelerating it, after tracking titanic plumes of dust generated by the violent interactions between two colossal stars over 16 years.

Illustration of the WR140 binary star system. Credit: Amanda Smith/IoA/University of Cambridge

It’s known that starlight carries momentum, exerting a push on matter known as ‘radiation pressure’. Astronomers often see the aftermath of this in the form of matter coasting at high speed around the cosmos, but have never caught the process in the act. Direct observation of acceleration due to forces other than gravity is rarely witnessed, and never in a stellar environment like this

“It’s hard to see starlight causing acceleration because the force fades with distance, and other forces quickly take over,” said Han. “To witness acceleration at the level that it becomes measurable, the material needs to be reasonably close to the star or the source of the radiation pressure needs to be extra strong. WR140 is a binary star whose ferocious radiation field supercharges these effects, placing them within reach of our high-precision data.”

The relative size of the Wolf-Rayet star, its O-type blue supergiant, and the Sun, at top left. Credit: JPL-Caltech

Using imaging technology known as interferometry, which was able to act like a zoom lens for the 10-meter mirror of the Keck telescope in Hawaii, the Australians were able to recover sufficiently sharp images of WR140 for the study.

They discovered that the dust does not stream out from the star with the wind forming a hazy ball, as had been thought. Instead, the dust condenses adjacent to where the winds from the two stars collide, on the surface of a cone-shaped shock front between them. Because the orbiting binary star is in constant motion, the shock front also rotates. The sooty plume gets wrapped into a spiral, in the same way that droplets form a spiral in a garden sprinkler.

Raw and processed 3D model of WR140 shells after 18 orbits (or 144 years) of cyclic dust formation. Credit: Yinuo Han/Peter Tuthill/Ryan Lau

“In the absence of external forces, each dust spiral should expand at a constant speed,” said Han. “We were puzzled at first because we could not get our model to fit the observations until we finally realized that we were seeing something new. The data did not fit because the expansion speed wasn’t constant, but rather that it was accelerating. We’d caught that for the first time on camera.”

Once they added the acceleration of dust by starlight into their three-dimensional model of the WR140 binary, it explained their observational data perfectly. And also ended up explaining the strange concentric rings later spotted with JWST.

This animation looks down from above the orbital plane to depict the spiraling creation of dust in the binary star system WR 140. A Wolf-Rayet star—the dense core of an aging massive star—and an O-type star orbit one another, their stellar winds colliding as they get close. The intermixed stellar material blows back past the O star, forming dust as it cools. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Olmsted (STScI

“In one sense, we always knew this must be the reason for the outflow, but I never dreamed we’d be able to see the physics at work like this,” said Professor Tuthill. “When I look at the data now, I see WR140’s plume unfurling a like giant sail made of dust. When it catches the photon wind streaming from the star, like a yacht catching a gust, it makes a sudden leap forward.”

With JWST now in operation, researchers will be able to learn much more about WR140 and similar systems. “The Webb telescope offers new extremes of stability and sensitivity,” said Dr Ryan Lau, Assistant Astronomer at the U.S. National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory and lead author of the JWST study published in Nature Astronomy. “We’ll now be able to make observations like this much more easily than from the ground, opening a new window into the world of Wolf-Rayet physics.”

Reference: “Radiation-driven acceleration in the expanding WR140 dust shell” by Yinuo Han, Peter G. Tuthill, Ryan M. Lau, and Anthony Soulain, 12 October 2022, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05155-5

Reference: “Nested dust shells around the Wolf–Rayet binary WR 140 observed with JWST” by Ryan M. Lau, Matthew J. Hankins, Yinuo Han, Ioannis Argyriou, Michael F. Corcoran, Jan J. Eldridge, Izumi Endo, Ori D. Fox, Macarena Garcia Marin, Theodore R. Gull, Olivia C. Jones, Kenji Hamaguchi, Astrid Lamberts, David R. Law, Thomas Madura, Sergey V. Marchenko, Hideo Matsuhara, Anthony F. J. Moffat, Mark R. Morris, Patrick W. Morris, Takashi Onaka, Michael E. Ressler, Noel D. Richardson, Christopher M. P. Russell, Joel Sanchez-Bermudez, Nathan Smith, Anthony Soulain, Ian R. Stevens, Peter Tuthill, Gerd Weigelt, Peredur M. Williams, and Ryodai Yamaguchi, 12 October 2022, Nature Astronomy.
DOI: 10.1038/s41550-022-01812-x

Not Science Fiction: Paralyzed People Can Navigate Using Mind-Controlled Wheelchairs

TOPICS:Cell Press

By CELL PRESS NOVEMBER 18, 2022

In a new study, researchers demonstrate that tetraplegic users can operate mind-controlled wheelchairs in a natural, cluttered environment. The mind-controlled wheelchair helps paralyzed people gain new mobility by translating users’ thoughts into mechanical commands.

By translating users’ thoughts into mechanical commands, a mind-controlled wheelchair can help a paralyzed person gain new mobility. Researchers demonstrate that tetraplegic users can operate mind-controlled wheelchairs in a natural, cluttered environment after training for an extended period in a study published today (November 18) in the journal iScience.

“We show that mutual learning of both the user and the brain-machine interface algorithm are both important for users to successfully operate such wheelchairs,” says José del R. Millán, the study’s corresponding author at The University of Texas at Austin. “Our research highlights a potential pathway for improved clinical translation of non-invasive brain-machine interface technology.”

Millán and his colleagues recruited three tetraplegic people for the longitudinal study. Each of the participants underwent training sessions three times per week for 2 to 5 months. The participants wore a skullcap that detected their brain activities through electroencephalography (EEG), which would be converted to mechanical commands for the wheelchairs via a brain-machine interface device. The participants were asked to control the direction of the wheelchair by thinking about moving their body parts. Specifically, they needed to think about moving both hands to turn left and both feet to turn right.

This video shows a participant operating a mind-controlled wheelchair across a cluttered room. Credit: Luca Tonin

In the first training session, three participants had similar levels of accuracy—when the device’s responses aligned with users’ thoughts—of around 43% to 55%. Over the course of training, the brain-machine interface device team saw significant improvement in accuracy in participant 1, who reached an accuracy of over 95% by the end of his training. The team also observed an increase in accuracy in participant 3 to 98% halfway through his training before the team updated his device with a new algorithm.

The improvement seen in participants 1 and 3 is correlated with improvement in feature discriminancy, which is the algorithm’s ability to discriminate the brain activity pattern encoded for “go left” thoughts from that for “go right.” The team found that the better feature discrimnancy is not only a result of machine learning of the device but also learning in the brain of the participants. The EEG of participants 1 and 3 showed clear shifts in brainwave patterns as they improved accuracy in mind-controlling the device.

“We see from the EEG results that the subject has consolidated a skill of modulating different parts of their brains to generate a pattern for ‘go left’ and a different pattern for ‘go right,’” Millán says. “We believe there is a cortical reorganization that happened as a result of the participants’ learning process.”

Compared with participants 1 and 3, participant 2 had no significant changes in brain activity patterns throughout the training. His accuracy increased only slightly during the first few sessions, which remained stable for the rest of the training period. It suggests machine learning alone is insufficient for successfully maneuvering such a mind-controlled device, Millán says

By the end of the training, all participants were asked to drive their wheelchairs across a cluttered hospital room. They had to go around obstacles such as a room divider and hospital beds, which are set up to simulate the real-world environment. Both participants 1 and 3 finished the task while participant 2 failed to complete it

“It seems that for someone to acquire good brain-machine interface control that allows them to perform relatively complex daily activity like driving the wheelchair in a natural environment, it requires some neuroplastic reorganization in our cortex,” Millán says.

The study also emphasized the role of long-term training in users. Although participant 1 performed exceptionally at the end, he struggled in the first few training sessions as well, Millán says. The longitudinal study is one of the first to evaluate the clinical translation of non-invasive brain-machine interface technology in tetraplegic people.

Next, the team wants to figure out why participant 2 didn’t experience the learning effect. They hope to conduct a more detailed analysis of all participants’ brain signals to understand their differences and possible interventions for people struggling with the learning process in the future.

Reference: “Learning to control a BMI-driven wheelchair for people with severe tetraplegia” by Tonin and Perdikis et al., 18 November 2022, iScience.
DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105418

This work was partially supported by the Italian Minister for Education and by the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Padova.

Earth’s Warming Hole – Is It an Indication of an Impending Climate Change Catastrophe?


By UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI 

ROSENSTIEL SCHOOL OF MARINE, ATMOSPHERIC, AND EARTH SCIENCE
NOVEMBER 17, 2022

Despite global warming, a section of the North Atlantic Ocean, known as the
warming hole, has been observed to cool.

University of Miami researchers discover that a swath of cooling water in the subpolar region is unrelated to an ocean circulation slowdown.

The pattern of temperature change in the world’s oceans may not be a sign of an impending abrupt climate change event, as depicted in the film “The Day After Tomorrow,” according to a new study from researchers at the University of Miami’s (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science.

In order to explore a pattern of temperature change in a region of water in the subpolar North Atlantic known as a warming hole that has been cooling over the last century, the UM Rosenstiel School researchers utilized a cutting-edge climate model. According to scientists, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which carries energy to the North Atlantic, has been thought to be the cause of this cooling.

During the past century, the global surface temperature has been increasing, except for a swath of region in the subpolar North Atlantic that is overall cooling, referred to as a “warming hole.” Credit: NASA

“However, our study shows the warming hole during the past century is unlikely due to a slowdown of the AMOC. Instead, the warming hole is actually a consequence of human-driven changes in the atmosphere” said Chengfei He, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the Rosenstiel School. “Our findings suggest that this warming hole will not result in an abrupt climate change event lethal to humans as depicted in Hollywood movies.”

Geological records, like the Greenland ice core, have shown that the majority of sudden climate changes in Earth’s history were caused by a slowdown of the AMOC. “The warming hole is believed as a fingerprint of the AMOC in the present day. Its appearance suggests the AMOC may not be stable. Our results do not support this idea,” said Amy Clement, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the Rosenstiel School, and a co-author of the study

The researchers utilized a climate model that is a digital Earth that can recreate previous climate changes and predict future climate change. He and his coauthors ran the model with a motionless ocean to see how the North Atlantic temperature reacts to changes in the atmosphere caused by greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions. Because the ocean has no circulation, every change in ocean surface temperature is determined by the atmospheric conditions above.

Under global warming, the atmospheric westerlies shift northward and enhance the local wind over the subpolar North Atlantic and result in the warming hole.

“This cooling trend is partially compensated by the warming due to the rise of greenhouse gases and the damping effect in sea surface temperatures,” according to the authors. This study advances our ability to attribute patterns of change in the ocean to different factors, and hence improves our ability to anticipate how the ocean will change in the future.

Reference: “A North Atlantic Warming Hole Without Ocean Circulation” by Chengfei He, Amy C. Clement, Mark A. Cane, Lisa N. Murphy, Jeremy M. Klavans and Tyler M. Fenske, 23 September 2022, Geophysical Research Letters.
DOI: 10.1029/2022GL100420

The study was funded by NOAA Research and the National Science Foundation.

German industrial workers to get pay raises in 2-year deal

Germany’s biggest industrial union has agreed with employers on a pay deal that will see millions of workers get raises totaling 8.5% over two years as well as one-time payments meant to cushion the effect of sky-high inflation

ByGEIR MOULSON Associated Press

November 18, 2022, 

FILE -- An employee in protective clothing takes a sample from the furnace at the steel producer, Salzgitter AG, in Salzgitter, Germany, Thursday, March 22, 2018. Germany’s biggest industrial union has agreed with employers on a pay deal that will see milli...

The Associated Press

BERLIN -- Germany's biggest industrial union agreed with employers Friday on a pay deal that will see millions of workers get raises totaling 8.5% over two years as well as one-time payments meant to cushion the effect of sky-high inflation.

The IG Metall union and employers reached a compromise in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, a key industrial region. In Germany, wage deals are typically hammered out in negotiations between employers’ organizations and unions that cover a whole sector, and an agreement reached in one region is generally applied nationwide.

IG Metall negotiates for workers in the auto and machinery industries among others, representing a total of more than 3.8 million workers.

The union initially demanded an 8% pay increase and a one-year deal. It first made the demand in early July; since then, Germany's annual inflation rate has risen from 7.6% to 10.4%.

In their fifth round of talks, both sides agreed to raises of 5.2% next June and another 3.3% in May 2024. On top of that, workers will get one-time payments of 1,500 euros ($1,550) each at the beginning of 2023 and another 1,500 euros a year later.

German Chancellor OIaf Scholz, who has sought to find ways with unions and employers to address the impact of rising prices while preventing an inflationary spiral, has been keen to promote such tax-free payments of up to 3,000 euros.

“We have succeeded in an extremely challenging time in appreciably unburdening employees, sustainably stabilizing incomes and strengthening purchasing power,” IG Metall Chairman Joerg Hofmann said in a statement. He argued the agreement would strengthen the German economy, which is expected to shrink next year.

The chief negotiator for employers' association Suedwestmetall, Harald Marquardt, said the outcome was acceptable but “certainly painful in many points and absolutely at the limit of what the majority of our members think is sustainable.” He said employers agreed partly because of the need to head off strikes in an already uncertain situation, and the deal offers calm for what are likely to be two difficult years.

Wage deals in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, are being watched as inflation flares across the 19-nation euro area and the European Central Bank raises interest rates rapidly in an effort to tame it. ING economist Carsten Brzeski said Friday's outcome “shows what a compromise can look like.”

“It won’t be enough to fully offset the drop in purchasing power caused by higher inflation, but it softens the damage,” Brzeski said in a research note. “For the ECB, it signals that second-round effects remain dampened and that a lower, subdued inflationary pressure can last for longer than markets currently think.”

Hopes for workers’ legacy fade after ‘deafening silence’ from Qataris

Trade union working with Qatar fears for World Cup legacy
It sees ‘no sign that sustainable change is coming’

Workers pictured in Doha last month. More than 6,500 workers have died in Qatar since the country was awarded the World Cup. Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images

Exclusive by Paul MacInnes in Doha

THE GUARDIAN
@PaulMac 

Fri 18 Nov 2022 

The trade union leading attempts to improve conditions for migrant workers in Qatar has warned that a positive World Cup legacy is unlikely after proposals for a migrant workers’ centre and wider reform were met with “deafening silence” by government officials.

The Building and Wood Workers’ International has been working with the Qatari government since 2016 and was part of a collective effort that led two years ago to the abolition of the kafala system, under which workers could not change jobs without their employer’s permission. Union officials, however, now believe that attempts to cement change – including the creation of a migrant workers’ centre – have been stonewalled and see “no sign that sustainable change is coming”.

The news will come as a blow to those within football and outside who had been clinging to the prospect of salvaging a positive outcome for a World Cup characterised by human rights concerns, chief among them the deaths of more than 6,500 migrant workers since the tournament was awarded to Qatar in 2010.

Quick Guide

Qatar: beyond the football

“After more than a decade of the Campaign for Decent Work around the Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022, two days ahead of the tournament, the Building and Wood Workers’ International … calls on the Qatari authorities to join with BWI to build on and expand improvements made and to establish a migrant workers’ centre that will enable workers to have a say in their destinies,” the organisation said.

“That is a legacy for Qatar and the world that will live on beyond the end of the World Cup tournament. However, to date, there is no sign that sustainable change is forthcoming.”

The BWI made three requests to the Qatari labour ministry a year ago, asking for the establishment of a workers’ centre, implementation of higher health and safety regulations in the construction sector, and more consistent enforcement of the changes already agreed.

The BWI said “it was regrettable” that it had “still not received a response on any of the positive initiatives. Instead, there has been a deafening silence. In football terms, migrant workers are playing the extra time and the result is still unknown.”
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Whereas some groups have called for a boycott the BWI had chosen to engage with Qatar. The union believes progress has been made. “On several occasions, BWI has recognised advances made in Qatar in recent years on labour legislation,” it said. Its disappointment is now tangible and has led to frustration with the Qatari government and the tournament organisers, Fifa, which the BWI accuses of failing to live up to its own standards on human rights.

“Fifa adopted a human rights policy and BWI was represented on a small body to oversee progress” the union said. “The policy spells out its commitment to respect all internationally recognised human rights and to promote the protection of these rights. This includes supporting, accompanying, and sustaining reforms and enabling further advances in the protection of the human rights of migrant workers in Qatar toward and beyond 2022.

“However, Fifa’s human rights commitments no longer seem to receive the same priority that they did when the policies were developed and adopted. There is a fundamental conflict between a strong human rights policy and a ‘business as usual’ approach.”

A Qatari government official said: “Qatar remains in close dialogue with all its international partners, including the Building and Wood Workers’ International and the International Labour Organization (ILO), about the future of our labour reform programme.

“Qatar first entered its cooperation programme with the ILO in 2017, marking the opening of the first regional project office. We extended this fruitful partnership through 2023 in order to further support the implementation of reforms. Qatar is committed to its journey of progress. What we have achieved in a few short years took decades to achieve in other parts of the world, and in many countries, this process is still ongoing.

“Transforming our labour market and protecting the rights of all workers in Qatar is a priority for our government that will continue long after the end of the World Cup.”

Fifa has been approached for comment.

GM Says Its Dealers Have Fixed Over 11,000 Tesla EVs Since 2021

BY STEPHEN RIVERS | POSTED ONNOVEMBER 17, 2022 

General Motors has a “new business” and that’s servicing Tesla electric vehicles at its dealerships. Since 2021, GM claims that its dealers have fixed over 11,000 Tesla EVs across the nation. The business is a growing one it says and comes at a time when Tesla is still fine-tuning its own service model.

During the Detroit carmaker’s Investor Day on Thursday in New York City, General Motors revealed a new source of income; fixing Teslas. GM President Mark Reuss dropped that bombshell while talking to investors and analysts. “That’s a growing business for us,” he said before adding that “I gotta say it’s a new business.”

Servicing Tesla vehicles is certainly unexpected but it’s easy to see the benefit for both sides. General Motors gets a stream of revenue and income that it wasn’t planning on. From the customer standpoint, they’re not having to wait on what can be lengthy turnaround times for service through Tesla itself.

Read: Elon Musk Admits He Made Decisions At Tesla Without Board Approvalk

As Barrons rightly points out, Tesla doesn’t have a network of dealers. While it does have its own service centers, they aren’t as numerous as GM dealers across the nation. That, in part, may be one reason that many Tesla customers have reported long wait times for service appointments.

It’s worth noting that Reuss didn’t go into detail about exactly what services GM Dealers are performing on Tesla vehicles – though, we’ve reached out to GM for more information and will update this story if we hear back.

We also don’t know how many are no longer under warranty with Tesla. In addition, many deeper functions are things that only Tesla service centers can affect. But that doesn’t mean that this revenue stream isn’t a big win for both sides.

Having the ability to get service completed in a single day impacts customer satisfaction in a large way. Surely, that’s why Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a large push towards improving the service experience for customers earlier this year. Now, with his attention split even further by Twitter, it’ll be interesting to track how much Tesla’s service improves in 2023. Either way, the gap between the two automakers might be shrinking.

Air Canada Invests In Direct Air Carbon Capture Technology

BYLINNEA AHLGREN

PUBLISHED 1 DAY AGO


The airline follows Airbus' investment in Canadian climate tech company Carbon Engineering.
Photo: Lukas Souza | Simple Flying

The science is becoming clear that if we are to have any chance of halting catastrophic climate change, we will need to reduce not only the amount of CO2 we are putting out in the atmosphere but also capture the emissions that we are causing. Preferably even the ones we have already contributed to. Our current best bet to succeed in this is to scale direct air carbon capture technology (DACC). On Thursday, Air Canada announced that it had invested in Canadian climate solutions company Carbon Engineering (CE), currently the world's largest DACC research and development facility in Squamish, British Columbia.

The funds, CA$6.75 million (US$5.06 million), are provided in the form of an equity investment/loan and come from Air Canada's Climate Action Plan fund of CA$50 million (US$37.5 million). In September, the airline pledged US$5 million from the fund to Swedish electric aircraft developer Heart Aerospace for the purchase of its updated 30-seater zero-emission battery-powered aircraft, the ES-30.

Photo: Carbon Engineering

Innovative and long-term solutions

Michael Rousseau, President and Chief Executive Officer at Air Canada, commented on the latest investment in the carrier's commitment to counteracting aviation's impact on global warming,

"We remain focused on seeking innovative, long-term, sustainable GHG emissions reduction solutions for aviation, and carbon capture is one we have outlined in our strategy to achieving net-zero GHG emissions by 2050. Last year, we became the first Canadian airline to sign an MOU with CE to explore carbon capture scalability and other initiatives for our industry. We are proud to invest in CE to further advance new, transformational technologies towards carbon removal commercially."

Photo: Air Canada

Carbon Engineering is becoming popular

Air Canada is not the only major aviation industry company to support Carbon Engineering. At the same time the airline announced its investment, so did behemoth aerospace manufacturer Airbus. CE has also attracted investments from HP, Chevron Corp., Occidental Petroleum Corp., Canadian billionaires Peter J. Thomson and Murray Edwards, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

Airbus has previously committed to the purchase of 400,000 tonnes of carbon removal credits from Occidental's subsidiary, 1PointFive's DAC facility in Houston, Texas. The plant is intended to be operational in 2025 and will have a CO2 removal capacity of one million tonnes a year. 1PointFive and Carbon Engineering also have a partnership agreement in place to help execute large numbers of DACC projects around the world - the aim is 100 direct air capture plants globally by 2035.

Want to know more about sustainability in aviation?

Backed by Airbus and Air Canada, company says it's closer to pulling carbon from the sky

B.C.-based Carbon Engineering specializes in direct air capture technology

Author of the article: Meghan Potkins

Publishing date: Nov 17, 2022 

At Carbon Engineering’s Squamish, B.C., headquarters, staff have been working with aerospace giant Airbus for the past eight months. 

PHOTO BY HANDOUT CARBON ENGINEERING

Canada’s Carbon Engineering Ltd. said an undisclosed investment from Airbus S.E. will accelerate the industrial-scale deployment of its proprietary direct air capture technology, which pulls carbon dioxide directly from the surrounding air, and presents a critical opportunity for airlines seeking to decarbonize.

The Squamish, B.C.-based clean technology company, which specializes in the commercialization of direct air capture (DAC) technology, has been working with the aerospace giant for the past eight months, beginning with the announcement in March that Airbus would purchase 400,000 tonnes of carbon removal credits from Carbon Engineering’s U.S. partner, 1PointFive, a subsidiary of American oil producer Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Carbon Engineering said Airbus’ latest investment, along with a $6.75 million equity investment from Air Canada, will be used over the next two years to introduce and test a lineup of improved equipment and operational procedures at its Squamish innovation centre — changes the company bets will cut the cost of building and operating commercial DAC plants, including a project already underway in the Texas Permian Basin by 1PointFive.

At a press conference Nov. 17, Carbon Engineering CEO Daniel Friedmann said the company’s technology could be deployed by 1PointFive at dozens of DAC plants in the United States over the next decade, with each plant capable of removing up to one million metric tons of CO2 per year

“Carbon removal through direct air capture provides a solution that can address any carbon dioxide emission, no matter how hard it is (to capture), regardless of where it is emitted,” said Friedmann. “It means it can be used to address most of the difficult emissions, making true net zero possible.”

Friedmann said large-scale deployment of the technology in the U.S. and abroad will require more airlines and other large emitters to purchase carbon credits since the financing of DAC facilities is dependent on demand for the product.

“We can decarbonize aviation, with a reasonable amount of time and sites,” Friedmann said. Airbus and Air Canada are leading the way to make this possible. Now we look to the rest of the airlines to commit to off-take and reserve their spot at these facilities.”

The aviation sector has become a target for environmentalists and policymakers concerned about the impact the industry has on global CO2 emissions. Alternative fuels, electric and hydrogen technologies, as well as offsets and carbon capture have been floated as potential solutions for a sector that is committed to reaching net-zero carbon emissions from operations by 2050.

A spokesperson for Airbus, the world’s largest planemaker, said the company hopes to accelerate the development and deployment of direct air capture technology.

“As COP27 ends and the urgency to act on climate actions is rising, we want to reinforce our trust and our support in Carbon Engineering and invest again in their technology to accelerate its development and deployment,” said Karine Guenan, vice-president of ZEROe Ecosystem, Airbus, at a news conference. “This investment contributes to the Canadian economy, making the country an actor in supporting our ambitions toward net zero by 2050.”

In an interview following Thursday’s announcement, Friedmann said Carbon Engineering, which develops and licenses its technology to partners like 1PointFive, has seen more progress in the deployment of its technologies outside of Canada, specifically in the U.S., where government incentives to finance and build DAC projects have galloped ahead under the U.S. inflation act.

“The approach in the U.S. is to incentivize by providing a tax refund effectively,” Friedmann said. “So you can actually go to the financial community of the world and say, ‘look, the U.S. government is footing some of this bill (and) we have some customers’ — and you can finance a facility. I cannot do that easily in Canada today, or my partners can’t, because there’s no similar situation here.”

• Email: mpotkins@postmedia.com | Twitter: mpotkins

ACTORS’ UNION REPORTEDLY KNEW ABOUT TALENT AGENCY’S UNPAID WAGES BUT FOR WEEKS DID NOT WARN MEMBERS


Article by:
TORONTO STAR

November 17, 2022


Actors who reportedly lost more than $500,000 after a talent agency abruptly ceased operations say their union did not warn them for weeks about complaints the agency was withholding wages.

The Toronto Star has learned that the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA), the union representing some 200 clients of Compass Artist Management Inc., knew about financial issues at the Toronto talent agency on Aug. 15 but allegedly did not warn some members until weeks later on Sept. 21 — all while continuing to collect union dues for wages that would never end up in the hands of artists.

ACTRA Toronto does not dispute that the agency received complaints from other Compass artists but said it is not their responsibility to investigate or communicate complaints about agencies, adding that it relies on “moral suasion” to encourage adherence to best practices.

“At the end of the day, we have no actual power to make agents behave, and we cannot make public statements based on allegations we are unable to verify,” the organization said in a public statement.

In an industry that contributes nearly $3 billion to Ontario’s economy annually, actors say the response from their union and other organizations meant to support working performers highlights the urgent need for additional safeguards to protect the province’s more than 15,000 unionized actors, who currently have little recourse against unscrupulous agents.

Unlike other entertainment centres, such as British Columbia or California, Ontario does not have provincial industry licensing standards nor regulations for talent agents and management companies, leaving most oversight to the industry itself, a system which actors and even the union admit is wholly inadequate.

As previously reported in a Star investigation, Compass allegedly did not pass along payment to clients for jobs completed months ago. The Toronto Police financial crimes unit said Wednesday it has received more than 60 complaints in relation to the agency and has opened a criminal investigation.

No charges have been laid and the allegations have not been tested in court.

In a statement to the Star provided for the previous story, the agency’s director, Daniel Philip Friedman, said he never did anything “with bad intentions” or malice.

“I couldn’t feel worse or be more genuinely sorry and sad about how this has affected people. I hope people will believe I left no stone unturned to try and resolve this before it got to this point,” he said in response to the many allegations. “I also want people to know that I am not sitting on money, assets, secret homes in the Bahamas, etc.”

In a statement to the Star, Harry Godfrey, director of communications for Minister of Labour Monte McNaughton, said Compass’s alleged behaviour is “entirely unacceptable,” adding that the ministry is reviewing whether additional measures are needed to protect artists.

Affected actors who spoke with the Star say they want to see the province take leadership and enact legislation to regulate talent agencies. But many also blame their union for not protecting them in this incident.

16 female workers at B.C. Ferries file human rights complaint

The group says they feel different, unwelcome, humiliated and unsafe in the workplace.

BC Ferries is facing a human rights complaint from female workers.

Mike Wakefield, North Shore News

Sixteen female employees working in the engineering department for B.C. Ferries have filed a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal complaint alleging a “climate of harassment and bullying of women” in the workplace.

The complaint says women are singled out as different in the engine room, excluded in correspondence addressed to “gents,” and lack changing space, despite being required to change at work.

The complaint also said women can be interrupted while they are changing, must pass through men’s changing spaces to access toilet or shower facilities, and have insufficient receptacles to dispose of feminine hygiene products.

“The lack of facilities draws focus to their status as women, causes them to feel different, unwelcome, humiliated, and unsafe in the workplace,” the complaint says.

“Group members experience negative remarks about period-related mood changes, and about their separate status as women. For example, one chief engineer said, regarding a six-year employee group member: ‘I need to behave today because we have ‘company’ in the engine room.’ ”

The Nov. 15 tribunal document noted women workers are routinely referred to as “girls.”

The events are alleged to have occurred on an ongoing basis from December 2019 to December 2020.

B.C. Ferries has asked for more information on the allegations, including who was involved, when the events happened and what is alleged to have occurred. It also asks for the names of the 16 women.

Laurence Grey Spencer, the representative who brought the complaint forward, says disclosing the names would put the group in danger.

Tribunal member Kathleen Smith declined to order the disclosure of the names, saying she was satisfied with the description of the alleged victims being workers in the engineering department.

While the allegation that the women could be in danger if they are named is serious, Smith said, Spencer provides no evidence to support it. “It is my expectation that a party alleging exposure to danger will provide the necessary evidence for the tribunal to make a decision,” she said.

Noting that five out of the seven allegations refer to specific alleged incidents of discrimination, Smith said she agrees with B.C. Ferries that basic facts such as who was involved, when the event happened and what happened are missing from the complaint.

“For this reason, I am persuaded that additional details are required for B.C. Ferries to know the case it must meet and respond [to].”

Spencer must provide the particulars by no later than Jan. 10. The response from B.C. Ferries is due 35 days later.

jhainsworth@glaciermedia.ca