A solar storm is coming. Should we be worried?

Is the upcoming solar storm going to wipe out our internet infrastructure?

A solar storm is headed toward Earth later this week

Earth is set to experience a solar storm on Thursday and Friday, a week after undergoing what some scientists have dubbed a "sun burp" — also known as a "coronal mass ejection."

If you live close to the Northern or Southern Hemispheres, you might be able to see the northern lights sometime over the next two days, and the Earth could experience some minor geomagnetic effects.

The intensity of solar storms are classified into five levels by the US-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): G1-G5. The G stands for the geomagnetic effects triggered by the plasma cloud. Level 5 corresponds to a very strong effect, while level 1 corresponds to a "minor" effect.

The current solar storm is classified as G1, according to the NOAA. Most will hardly notice — only a few will register it as a luminous natural spectacle.

In other words, the world isn't going to end anytime soon, even if some news reports make it sound that way. Every now and then a solar storm rushes to Earth, prompting a barrage of articles warning about potential disruption of the global power supply and phone and satellite communication.

These claims can be overhyped. But it would be a mistake to fully dismiss them as mere alarmism.

Solar storms make northern lights, like these pictured in Norway,

 much easier to detect in the night sky

Peak in 2025

The sun is on 11-year solar cycles. The current one will peak in 2025, scientists say, by which time flares will be more intense and extreme.

This could be cause for some concern. Our existing internet communication structure is vulnerable to violent solar storms, according to a 2021 University of California-Irvine study.

According to author Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi, if a particularly strong solar storm crashed into the Earth, it would have the power to not only disrupt power grids and satellites, but also to paralyze the internet long term. She said our internet infrastructure is not designed to withstand severe solar storms.

Communication via unprotected satellites (like GPS navigation systems) and undersea cable repeaters, which are installed every 50 to 150 kilometers to amplify communication signals over long connection routes, is especially vulnerable. A very strong electromagnetic interference could completely paralyze the sensitive system.

And should the internet go down for just one day in the United States, the damage would be an estimated $7 billion (€6.9 billion) in the US alone.

What happens during a solar storm?

During a solar storm, the sun ejects large amounts of electrons and protons, causing a cloud of cosmic rays to fly toward the Earth.

By deforming the Earth's magnetic field, solar storms amplify the polar lights visible on the edges of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The charged particles of the solar wind are derived from the Earth's magnetic field and flow along the field lines to the Earth's poles, where they cause light bands or arcs of different colors north or south of the polar circles.

Earth hasn't seen the full impact of solar storms

As early as 1843, astronomer Samuel Heinrich Schwabe discovered that solar activity follows certain cycles, peaking about every 11 years.

The strongest solar storm measured on Earth to date was the so-called Carrington Event in 1859, when the arrival of the charged particles caused failures in North American and European telegraph networks and polar lights could be observed as far as Rome and Hawaii.

More than a hundred years later, in March 1989, a solar storm in the Canadian province of Quebec paralyzed the entire power grid. Flashovers in electrical distribution systems left some 6 million people sitting in the dark for nine hours.

Studies say Earth has not yet seen a massive solar storm with the ability 

to seriously impact our telecoms infrastructure

In July 2012, an extremely powerful "Carrington"-caliber solar storm narrowly missed Earth, according to NASA.

"If the solar flare had happened just a week earlier, Earth would have been right in the line of fire," the NASA study said.

Suggestions for a more robust internet

Today, an eruption like the Carrington Event could paralyze the digital infrastructure in large parts of the world within a few minutes. For months, if not years, Jyothi estimates, large areas would be without communications and power supply.

Jyothi also provides concrete suggestions on how the internet infrastructure could be made more robust. One possibility, she said, would be to shift the internet infrastructure to the south, for example to Central and South America, because the northern latitudes are more susceptible to solar storms.

She also suggests shorter and therefore more resilient internet connections, such as in Europe and Asia, and the implementation of additional overhead cables, which are less vulnerable than long submarine cables requiring many repeaters.

Edited by: Carla Bleiker

Heat waves: What are the alternatives to air conditioning?

As climate change exacerbates heat waves, more and more people rely on energy-guzzling air conditioners to keep cool — a vicious cycle. Experts say passive cooling could alleviate some of the pressure.

Air conditioning is ubiquitous in some parts of the world — but there are better options

Kuwaiti summers are oppressive. Baking heat radiates from every corner of the city, making even the lightest of exercise excruciating. That is, unless you are lucky enough to live in an air-conditioned bubble. 

"In Kuwait, you're in your air-conditioned apartment or your air-conditioned car to go to your air-conditioned place of work or the air-conditioned mall," said Alexander Nasir, who used to live in the Gulf nation. "Of course it was absolutely atrocious for the environment, but it was the only way to avoid the inferno outside."

Nasir moved to Berlin in 2014, but he hasn't been able to escape sweltering temperatures. Though the German capital has much milder summers, he has already experienced heat waves of up to 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit) — temperatures that felt more intense because German homes are rarely air-conditioned.  

"I can't and don't want to resort to AC again," he said. "But it's getting worse every year and we're not really adapting." 

Many Kuwaitis spend their summers in an air-conditioned bubble

Demand for space cooling is soaring 

The climate crisis has made heat waves more likely and more intense around the world. Even in 2018, the use of air conditioners and electric fans made up 10% of global electricity consumption, according to the International Energy Agency.

And that although air conditioners were only widespread in a few countries like Japan and the United States — where more than 90% of households have them — and only available to 8% of people in the hottest parts of the world. 
 
But as the summers get hotter demand for space cooling is soaring, especially in emerging economies. Electricity demand could more than triple by 2050, using as much energy as all of China and India today just to cool buildings.  

To break out of this loop, scientists point to passive cooling strategies that control the temperature using little to no energy. 

"Passive cooling is so promising because it's less expensive, it averts intensification of urban heat island effects, it increases survivability by diminishing reliance on air conditioning," said Alexandra Rempel, assistant professor of environmental design at University of Oregon in the US. "It also takes pressure off the electrical grid."

Demand for space cooling technologies like air conditioners is skyrocketing

Simple solutions for increased cooling 

In Mediterranean climates, surviving extreme heat can be as simple as opening the windows at night to let in cool air and drawing the shades when the sun hits the window during the day.  

Rempel authored a study that found natural ventilation and shading alone can lower indoor temperatures by about 14 degrees Celsius and reduce the load on air conditioners by up to 80%. The study made these simulations using data from a 2021 heat wave that killed hundreds in the Pacific Northwest region, usually known for its mild weather.  

Old cooling tricks can make a significant difference if they are communicated properly and facilitated, according to Rempel. This shows the Pacific Northwest, one of the few US regions where air conditioners aren't yet ubiquitous, can avoid adopting air conditioning or at least minimize it even as extreme heat becomes more likely, she said.

Wind catchers are very common in the Iranian city of Yazd

Designing buildings to be more energy efficient 

Passive cooling can also be integrated into a building's design. Some methods, such as wind catchers in North Africa and the Middle East, have been staving off heat for centuries.

These towers with open windows are positioned on top of buildings and, as the name suggests, are made to "catch" the wind. They direct the fresh air indoors and push the warm air back out through the tower. Though traditional wind catchers are largely out of use, commercial models using the same technology can be used in modern buildings.

Other features that help keep buildings bearable include louvered shading devices that block out the sun, double glazing that limits the amount of heat gained or lost through windows and water fountains that lower the air temperatures through evaporative cooling.  

Residential buildings in the United Arab Emirates could reduce their annual energy consumption by more than 20% through the use of passive cooling, according to a study by the British University in Dubai that looked at eight strategies. 

The California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco is an example of a building that made air conditioning a last resort. With its insulating green roof, louvers that open and close throughout the day and a ventilation system that makes use of natural air currents, the structure puts passive cooling at the forefront.

Medellin's 'green corridors' have reduced average temperatures in the Colombian city

What about the outside? 

But passive cooling isn't only about directly lowering indoor temperatures — it's also about reducing surface temperatures on the buildings and surrounding areas. Because it's not easy to stay cool in concrete jungles with little shade. 

"When the streets and sidewalks are just basking in heat all day, those materials are perfect thermal storage mass and continue to radiate heat back to the environment all night," said Rempel. "So that takes away some of the night ventilation resources and makes air conditioners work harder."

The solution to that is straightforward: more trees, more shade. In Medellin, Colombia, authorities have planted so-called "green corridors," vegetated passages keeping pedestrians and cyclists out of the direct sun. They have helped reduce the city's average temperatures by 2 degrees Celsius.  

Japan's capital, Tokyo, has also introduced pavements that stay cool with an insulating coating. And in tropical Singapore, dense vegetation on some skyscraper facades keeps them from heating up as much.

"By having at least 10 meters of greenery on the front of your buildings, you can reduce the surface temperature by 5 degrees Celsius," Ayu Sukma Adelia, an architect from the Cooling Singapore Research Project, told DW's Global 3000. 

For Nasir, who was dealing with another particularly hot day in Berlin, the idea of passive cooling sounds appealing.

"I welcome any solution so I don't have to sweat anymore," he said as he sat in a dark room and sprayed himself with water. 

Edited by: Tamsin Walker

Trump 2024 comeback would 'solve all of Russia's problems'

Although Russia may be bluffing with its new offensive, it's crucial for Western cohesion that Ukraine retake its south — particularly if Donald Trump were to make a comeback, says political scientist Francis Fukuyama.

Francis Fukuyama is best known for his book 'The End of History and the Last Man'

Francis Fukuyama is best known for his book "The End of History and the Last Man," where he argues that liberal democracy and free-market capitalism are the final point of society's evolution.

At the end of June, Russian authorities banned the American political scientist and philosopher from entering Russia. DW spoke with him just days after he joined the advisory board for Anti-Corruption Foundation International, newly formed by imprisoned Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.

DW: You are now on the entry ban list in Russia.How do you feel about being on this list?

Francis Fukuyama: I regard being on the list as an honor. All the important foreign critics of Russia and Russia's invasion of Ukraine have been put on the list, and I was actually wondering why it took them so long to get to me.

Months before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, young political scientist 

Francis Fukuyama declared 'the end of history'

Why did you recently join the board of the Anti-Corruption Foundation?

I am a great admirer of Alexei Navalny, I met him in Warsaw in 2019. Corruption is a very great problem in Russia and around the world, and I am very happy to support his foundation in any way possible.

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said, "We have only just begun," referring to the war in Ukraine. Is he bluffing?

I think he's lying, as he is about many things. Western military analysts who have looked at the Russian force posture have noted that right now, Russia is experiencing a very severe manpower shortage. They've also lost perhaps a third of all of the forces that they originally massed to defeat Ukraine. Estimates of Russian casualties are uncertain, but it's possibly 20,000 dead and maybe 60,000 wounded. With prisoners on top of that. And for a country the size of Russia, that's really pretty much a military disaster.

So I think that actually, given that the Russians have only made very marginal gains in the two months since they started focusing on Donbas, I don't think they've got a lot in reserve, and I think that Putin is bluffing when he says that they haven't even started.

What do you think might be a successful strategy for Ukraine?

The most realistic strategy at this point is to focus on the south, to reopen Ukraine's access to the Black Sea by retaking Kherson and other ports on the Sea of Azov. That's more important than the Donbas. I think retaking the Donbas is going to be quite difficult to accomplish in the next few months. But by the end of the summer, you could see some real progress in the south. It's really, really important for Ukraine to recover that access, so that it can resume exports of all of its agricultural commodities out of its Black Sea ports and to break the Russian blockade of Odesa.

How could the situation change if Donald Trump were to be reelected as US president?

If Donald Trump makes a comeback in 2024, that solves all of Russia's problems because he's apparently committed to pulling the US out of NATO. Russia will have achieved its major objectives simply by this change in American politics. And that's why I think it is really important that Ukraine make some progress and regain military momentum over the summer, because unity in the West really depends on people believing that there is a military solution to the problem in the near term.

If they feel that we're simply facing an extended stalemate that's going to go on forever, then I think the unity will start breaking, and there'll be more calls for Ukraine to give up territory in order to stop the war.

How do you see Russia in a broader global perspective? What kind of political regime is it?

More than anything else, it actually resembles Nazi Germany at this point. Its only ideology is a kind of extreme nationalism, but even less developed than that of the Nazis. It's also a very poorly institutionalized regime. It really revolves around one man, Vladimir Putin, who really controls all of the big levers of power.

Many believe the January 6 investigation will damage Trump enough to prevent reelection in 2024

If you compare it to China, they're very, very different. China has a big Communist Party with 90 million members, it has a lot of internal discipline. In Russia's case, you don't have that kind of institutionalization.

So I don't think it's a stable regime. I don't think it has a clear ideology that it can project outwards. I think that the people that align with it are simply people who don't like the West for different reasons.

After 30 years, do you have an update on your concept of the end of history?

We're in a different situation than we were 30 years ago, where there have been setbacks to democracy across the board, including in the United States and India and other big democratic countries over the last few years. But the progress of history has never been linear. We had huge setbacks in the 1930s that we survived. We had another set of setbacks in the 1970s, with the oil crisis and inflation in many parts of the world. So the idea of historical progress is not dead.

Sometimes you do have setbacks, but the underlying institutions and ideas are strong and they've survived over a very long period of time, and I expect them to continue to survive.

Is the war in Ukraine and other burning political crises overshadowing the more global, and more dangerous, climate crisis?

Obviously, short-term energy needs have led to a revival of fossil fuels and slowed down the progress toward reducing carbon emissions. But it is a temporary setback. And I think both of these issues have to be dealt with, it's not a choice of one or the other. You're really going to have to take both of them seriously.

But the climate crisis is a slowly unfolding one that will continue to be with us for the next generations. And so I don't think the fact that we're going backwards right now is necessarily the final position we will end up in.

Francis Fukuyama is political scientist at Stanford University in California.

The interview was conducted by Mikhail Bushuev, and it was condensed and edited for clarity by Sonya Diehn.

Mammals became warm-blooded later than thought: study

Being warm-blooded allowed mammals -- like this snow-covered deer -- to thrive in colder climates / © AFP/File

Author: AFP|Update: 20.07.2022 

The ancestors of mammals started to become warm-blooded around 20 million years later than previously thought, researchers suggested Wednesday, after analysing inner-ear fossils hoping to solve "one of the great unsolved mysteries of palaeontology".

Warm-bloodedness is one of the quintessential characteristics of mammals, along with fur, but exactly when they first evolved the feature has long been a subject of debate.

Previous research has indicated that the ancestors of mammals began evolving warm-bloodedness, or endothermy, around 252 million years ago -- around the time of the Permian extinction, known as the "Great Dying".

However figuring out the timeline has proved difficult.

"The problem is that you cannot stick thermometers in your fossils, so you cannot measure their body temperature," said Ricardo Araujo of the University of Lisbon, one of the authors of a new study in the journal Nature.

He was part of an international team of researchers that found a new way to determine how body heat changed throughout time, by examining the semicircular canals in the inner ears of 56 extinct species of mammal ancestors.

Fluid runs through the tiny ear canals, which help animals keep their balance.

The researchers realised that as body temperatures warmed up, so did the ear fluid.

Araujo gave the example of oil used to fry hot chips.

Before you warm the oil up, it is "very viscous, very dense," he told AFP.

"But then when you heat it up, you'll see that the oil is much runnier, it flows much more easily."

The runnier ear fluid led to animals evolving narrower canals -- which can be measured in fossils, allowing the researchers to track body temperature over time.

Unlike previous research on this subject, the team developed a model that not only works on extinct mammal ancestors, but also living mammals, including humans.

"It can look at your inner ear and tell you how warm-blooded you are -- that's how accurate the model is," lead study author Romain David of London's Natural History Museum told AFP.

Using the model, they traced the beginnings of warm-bloodedness to around 233 million ago, in the Late Triassic period.

- 'Not a gradual, slow process' -

Michael Benton, a palaeontologist at Britain's University of Bristol who was not involved in the study, said the new metric "seems to work well for a wide array of modern vertebrates".

"It doesn't just provide a yes-no answer, but actually scales the 'degree' of endothermy in terms of actual typical body setpoint temperature," he told AFP.

Benton, whose previous research had given the 252 million years date, said the transition to warm-bloodedness likely took place in stages, and "there were several significant prior steps before this semicircular canal switch".

Araujo said the new research suggested that warm-bloodedness came about simply and "very quickly in geological terms, in less than a million years".

"It was not a gradual, slow process over tens of millions of years as previously thought".

David said it seemed unlikely that warm-bloodedness would begin around the extinction event 252 million years ago, because global temperatures were extremely hot then.

That would have been a disadvantage for warm-blooded animals -- but they could have thrived as temperatures cooled in the following millions of years.

"Being an endotherm allows you to be more independent of the whims of the climate, to run faster, run longer, explore different habitats, explore the night, explore polar regions, make long migrations," Araujo said.

"There were a lot of innovations at the time that started to define what a mammal is -- but also ultimately what a human being would be."

Idea of ice age 'species pump' in the Philippines boosted by new way of drawing evolutionary trees

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

 

IMAGE: WHAT LOOKS LIKE A "RELAXED" ATTITUDE ON THE FACE OF THIS PHILIPPINE GEKKO MAY ACTUALLY BE A NEW WAY TO SEE EVOLUTIONARY TREES. view more 

CREDIT: RAFE BROWN AND JASON FERNANDEZ

LAWRENCE — Does the Philippines’ astonishing biodiversity result in part from rising and falling seas during the ice ages?

Scientists have long thought the unique geography of the Philippines — coupled with seesawing ocean levels — could have created a “species pump” that triggered massive diversification by isolating, then reconnecting, groups of species again and again on islands. They call the idea the “Pleistocene aggregate island complex (PAIC) model” of diversification.

But hard evidence, connecting bursts of speciation to the precise times that global sea levels rose and fell, has been scant until now.

A groundbreaking Bayesian method and new statistical analyses of genomic data from geckos in the Philippines shows that during the ice ages, the timing of gecko diversification gives strong statistical support for the first time to the PAIC model, or “species pump.” The investigation, with roots at the University of Kansas, was just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The Philippines is an isolated archipelago, currently including more than 7,100 islands, but this number was dramatically reduced, possibly to as few as six or seven giant islands, during the Pleistocene,” said co-author Rafe Brown, curator-in-charge of the herpetology division of the Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum at KU. “The aggregate landmasses were composed of many of today’s smaller islands, which became connected together by dry land as sea levels fell, and all that water was tied up in glaciers. It’s been hypothesized that this kind of fragmentation and fusion of land, which happened as sea levels repeatedly fluctuated over the last 4 million years, sets the stage for a special evolutionary process, which may have triggered simultaneous clusters or bursts of speciation in unrelated organisms present at the time. In this case, we tested this prediction in two different genera of lizards, each with species found only in the Philippines.”

For decades, the Philippines has been a hotbed of fieldwork by biologists with KU’s Biodiversity Institute, where the authors analyzed genetic samples of Philippine geckos as well as other animals. However, even with today’s technology and scientists’ ability to characterize variation from across the genome, the development of powerful statistical approaches capable of handling genome-scale data is still catching up — particularly in challenging cases, like the task of estimating past times that species formed, using genetic data collected from populations surviving today.

Lead author Jamie Oaks of Auburn University and co-author Cameron Siler of the University of Oklahoma were both KU graduate students advised by Brown. They were joined by co-author Perry Wood Jr., now at the University of Michigan, who recently worked at Auburn with Oaks and, earlier at KU with Brown, as a postdoctoral researcher.

For two centuries, naturalists who studied species distributions in the Philippines have discussed, debated and written extensively about the ideas behind modern species pump theory or, in the Philippines, predictions now making up the “PAIC Paradigm.” Historically, researchers focusing on particular animals or plants have endorsed the general idea, but others expressed skepticism because it didn’t seem to hold up in other species they studied.

“Over the last quarter century, with widespread availability of genetic data, the model’s specific predictions have been tested much more rigorously, objectively and quantitatively — with real data from natural populations — which was a major step forward in Philippine biogeography,” Brown said. “In some animals and plants, predictions held up. But in others, when the same predictions were tested with real data and appropriately rigorous statistical methods, they were rejected over and over. In many of our own studies at KU, when we examined corollaries of the PAIC model in individual genera, or groups of closely related species, we were surprised to find the ice ages time window wasn’t even related to much of the species diversity we find today. In study after study, individually focusing on a genus of bats, or a group of frogs, we found that fewer and fewer of today’s species seemed to have diverged in the Pleistocene. At that point, with a lack of evidence piling up, we kind of rephrased the question. We went back to the data from all those earlier studies and asked — across all these different groups of animals, can we find any statistical support for species formation, clustered in the Pleistocene time window? And the answer kept coming back ‘no’ — until now.”

Brown said the key to understanding the genomic evidence came from Oaks, who started looking at gecko groups with a new approach to conceiving phylogenetic trees. Instead of one species branching from another in isolation — as phylogenetic trees are traditionally drawn — a plethora of new species might branch away at roughly the same time in something that looks more like a “shrub” than a tree.

“Shared ancestry underlies everything in biology, whether it's a gene sequence, viral strain or species,” Oaks said. “Each branching point on a phylogenetic tree represents biological diversification — for example, one species diverging into two. We have long assumed the processes responsible for these divergence events affect each species on the tree of life in isolation. However, we have long appreciated that this assumption is likely often violated. For example, changes to the environment will affect whole communities of species, not just one. Our approach allows multiple species to diversify due to a shared process. By doing so, we are now better equipped to ask questions about such processes and test for the patterns they predict.”

By relaxing the assumption of independent divergences, the genomic data from Philippine geckos supported patterns of shared divergences, as “predicted by repeated fragmentation of the archipelago by interglacial rises in sea level,” according to the researchers.

“This type of pattern of shared divergences can now be tested with our new phylogenetic approach,” Oaks said. “Gekko and Cyrtodactylus are two genera of geckos that are good test cases to look for these patterns, because they have been widespread across the Philippines since long before glacial cycles started, and so we know they were present on the large ice age islands, when they were fragmented by rising sea levels. We used information from their genomes to reconstruct their phylogenetic trees and test for patterns of shared divergences predicted by the island-fragmentation hypothesis. We did find support for such patterns, and now we see evidence for the effect of the glacial cycles, but it’s important to remember that the overall phylogenetic history of these lizards is consistent with a more complex story.”

With this part of the “species pump” hypothesis now supported in the Philippines, Brown said there are many other cases where biogeographers could use the same approach to detect geographic or environmental changes that touched off similar explosions of biodiversity.

“The idea that some barrier could affect unrelated groups like birds, frogs, lizards and insects — possibly impacting whole faunas together at the same time — has been something evolutionary biologists have been grasping at for a long time. But strong support for simultaneous timing of these processes has been kind of elusive,” Brown said. “There are lots of theories about shared mechanisms, and the ‘species pump’ idea is just one of them. But, in general, common mechanisms of diversification, or shared processes of speciation, have always been big, tantalizing topics for evolutionary biologists, especially for biogeographers.”

The PNAS research in the form of a preprint also is available at the open access science repository bioRxiv. Oaks showcased the new approach in 2021 at the annual meetings of the Society for the Study of Evolution’s and, next month, Brown will share it with the scientific community in the Philippines while attending the 4th Southeast Asian Gateway to Evolution (SAGE) meetings, in Manila.

---

JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2121036119 

GREEN CAPITALI$M TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM

Danish town embraces circular economy in bid to go green

An industrial park in Skive is trying to solve two of Western societies' most urgent problems: climate change and the effect of urbanization on rural areas. A pilot project is showing circular economy at its best.

GreenLab's concept draws on the resources of the entire community to fuel industrial and power production

On the outskirts of Skive — a small Danish town of 20,000 inhabitants — the GreenLab industrial park is trying to validate energy systems based on the concept of circular economy. Inaugurated two years ago, the site wants to create a symbiosis between companies, allowing them to share their excess resources and eventually use the others' waste as feedstock.

The industrial processes at GreenLab are powered by renewable energies, including wind turbines with a total capacity of 56 megawatts (MW) and solar-energy installations of 24 MW.

"The main purpose is to attract new investors to the area. One of our purposes is also to show the world the benefits of our approach to a circular economy. We do not only look at theoretical systems, but we also implement them," Skive's mayor, Peder Christian Kirkegaard, told DW.

The mayor said GreenLab got the timing right, as the current focus on climate change, and the ongoing energy crisis, helped the Skive project make it into the headlines. Even former US President Barack Obama recently came to the town to speak about the green transition.

Speaking to DW in the mayor's office that overlooks the Skive Fjord on Denmark's Jutland Peninsula, Birgitte Bahat, head of communications of the municipality, noted proudly: "Skive is already on the map."

Green rural transition

Skive is a cozy place with a long fishing and agriculture tradition. But a huge budget problem in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis resulted in a social crisis that made Skive struggle for its reputation. Many young people have migrated since, leaving behind an aging population.

In the streets of Skive, bicycles are less common than in other Danish towns. Some teenagers working in the local cafes said they prefer Copenhagen and Aarhus — the two biggest cities in the Jutland peninsula — because of their "diversity."

Asked about Skive's green transition and regional growth, they are not wholly aware of the developments at GreenLab some 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) away. "It sounds cool, but it is very complex," said one young woman working in a coffee shop.

The industrial park was co-funded by the local municipality, in hopes that GreenLab might contribute to solving Skive's demographic and social problems. The project has already created about 100 jobs, said Mayor Kirkegaard, who seems convinced the green transition will attract even more young professionals.

"Much of the green transition will take place outside the big cities because we have the space."

The municipality has already bought 55 hectares (136 acres) of land and invested a total of 80 million Danish kroner (€ 10.8 million/$10.74 million) in the industrial park. Revenues it receives annually from rent payments from companies are in the region of 3 million kroner. Under expansion plans, Skive is considering buying an additional 70 hectares.

According to Kirkegaard, the private-public partnership is creating benefits that would otherwise be impossible. "When you start a project like this, you will find a lot of barriers. The public sector can help solve the roblem before it even becomes a problem. For example, working with related laws."

Tackling complexities with partners

In May 2021, the Danish Energy Agency granted the GreenLab industrial park the status of an official regulatory energy test zone, allowing it to operate outside the existing electricity regulations. With the permit, the park can bring as much renewable energy online as it wants with the aim of gaining green-transition know-how, including clean energy storage, green fuels, agriculture and industry.

As hydrogen is scheduled to replace natural gas in production processes, GreenLab is, for example, expected to tackle the complexity of the shift and redesign production processes. GreenLab offers services to the companies located in the industrial park in order to find the gaps in their processes and overcome them with the support of researchers from Denmark's technical universities.

"We plan to start training projects directly within a year, which will serve entire Northern Europe for what concerns PtX [Power to Gas] project skills, but also integration with district heating, and water treatment," said GreenLab Chief Executive Christopher Sorensen.

Sorensen told DW that current investors are Norway's Quantafuel and Equinor and as well as consortia of local fishermen and farmers. Spanish-German Siemens Gamesa is active in the industrial complex too, as part of the EU-funded hydrogen project.

At the moment, GreenLab's partner Eurowind is installing the last wind turbines, while installations for a solar park will start in September. A hydrogen production complex is also planned and will be commissioned in phases. The first 6 MW of hydrogen electrolyzer capacity should enter operation within this year, with another 106 MW  being added within the next two years.

Solar and wind energy will play a key role at GreenLab, where Eurowind Energy is an investor

Symbiosis at work

GreenLab is trying to merge corporate efforts with those of local green transition initiatives. Biomass and residuals from farms in the area are, for example, used to produce jet fuel. Manure is planned to become the primary feedstock for a biogas facility that will eventually power production processes. 

Sun and wind though, will remain the primary energy sources that power the electrolyzers to produce green hydrogen. The gas will then be mixed with CO2 — a byproduct of biogas production — to produce bio-methanol. Finally, excess green hydrogen is planned to be used in biogas production where it interacts with bacteria to boost output.

Moreover, one company in the industrial park aims to extract proteins from Denmark's endemic starfish to replace soy-based animal feed for the region's farmers. And Quantafuel, which is working on solutions to the world's plastic waste problem, has set up a plant to transform soiled plastic into new products, collaborating with clients like BASF and Lego.

CEO Sorensen thinks "everything that is locally based makes the puzzle easier."

"You identify the resources available in the region, create community engagement, and identify the things you don't have in order to achieve a circular economy. At that point, you invite new possible companies in," he said.

A former business consultant who moved from New York to Denmark more than two decades ago, Sorensen said companies' values and long-term commitment are key factors. Wind turbines and large-scale industry are often not attractive for local communities, he added, but it is different when they are part of a concept to create new competencies, supporting green transition and local growth. "This methodology could be soon replicated."

Denmark's greening

GreenLab is part of a broader decarbonization effort throughout Denmark. Under plans, the country's largest coal-fired power station will replace coal entirely with wood chips by 2023.

Denmark is also building a vast artificial island off the coast of Jutland to set up around 200 offshore wind turbines with a combined capacity of 3 gigawatts.

Another pilot project is being developed in Kalundborg, near the capital Copenhagen, where a plant will use industrial waste as a new source of revenue.

Denmark's renewable energy plans, including the buildup of green industrial parks and the urban-industrial symbiosis, are closely monitored by academic research to ensure that best-practice solutions are adopted on a wider scale.

GREEN CAPITALI$M'S TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM

 

Explaining the Circular Economy and How Society Can Re-think Progress | Animated Video Essay

 

Rethinking The World's Waste: Circular Economy | Climate For Change: Closing The Loop | Ep 1/2

Jul 30, 2021

CNA Insider

By 2050, there will be more plastic in our oceans than marine life. And plastic has a notoriously long life in landfills. We meet entrepreneurs discovering new ways to retrieve plastic from our waterways, turning it into fuel or back into plastic again. Others look to reduce single-use plastic in our daily lives, by working on alternative materials.

Food waste does not seem to make sense in a world where so many are hungry, but it’s a major problem. And food in landfills releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas. We meet the people trying to divert food from landfills in New Zealand and Singapore by repurposing it for human consumption, animal feed and now even biofuel.

We also meet entrepreneurs in the USA and Europe going a step further to avoid producing food from animals completely. They’re developing cultivated meat, now on sale in Singapore. Is this the food of the future?

Part 2 of Climate For Change: Closing The Loop: https://youtu.be/E_FGmc3EYGw

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About the show: Waste is generated on an epic scale. Unless we go ‘circular,’ it's game over for the planet. How can waste from one industry become another’s resource?  And how do we unlock the economic benefits?

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Natural Capitalism: definition & examples

Mar 15, 2016

Sustainability Illustrated

This whiteboard animation video presents the concept of Natural Capitalism: a way of doing business that recognizes the market value of natural and human resources and life-supporting ecological services. In a nutshell, natural capitalism means taking good care of the goose that lays the golden egg: what nature provides for your business should be on your balance sheet.

Natural Capitalism Book: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution -- https://amzn.to/2PyEYJF (by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins & L. Hunter Lovins)

"Natural Capitalism" - Hunter Lovins

Feb 7, 2019

Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation

October 6, 2006 | Hunter Lovins introduces the concept of Natural Capitalism and how it pertains to sustainability.

 

Paul Hawken - Natural Capitalism to Distract the Ruling Elites from a Green Coup d'Etat | Bioneers

May 5, 2020

Paul Hawken is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, author and activist who has dedicated his life to environmental sustainability and changing the relationship between business and the environment. He is one of the environmental movement’s leading voices, and a pioneering architect of corporate reform with respect to ecological practices. His work includes founding successful, ecologically conscious businesses, writing about the impacts of commerce on living systems, and consulting with heads of state and CEOs on economic development, industrial ecology, and environmental policy. Paul is Founder of Project Drawdown, a non-profit dedicated to researching when and how global warming can be reversed. The organization maps and models the scaling of one hundred substantive technological, social, and ecological solutions to global warming. This speech was presented at the 1999 Bioneers National Conference. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year. For more information on Bioneers, please visit http://www.bioneers.org