Sunday, August 15, 2021

New evidence about Roman Britain executions revealed

Thrown to the Lions? New evidence from Roman Britain executions revealed — Credit: University of Leicester Archaeological Services

King's research has helped uncover new evidence showing the portrayal of the execution of captives in the arena by throwing them to lions. The evidence follows the discovery of an elaborately-decorated Roman bronze key handle.

The handle, discovered by archaeologists in Leicester, portrays a "Barbarian" grappling with a lion, together with four naked youths cowering in terror.

The key handle was discovered by University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS), buried below the floor of a late Roman town house excavated in the city in 2016. After conservation, this unique object was studied at King's and the findings are now published in the journal Britannia.

Dr. John Pearce, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, (Classics), is a co-author of the study, and helped decipher the key handle.

Dr. Gavin Speed, who led the excavations at a site off Great Central Street in Leicester, is a co-author on the study and described the moment the find was made. He said, "When first found, it appeared as an indistinguishable bronze object, but after we carefully cleaned off the soil remarkably we revealed several small faces looking back at us, it was absolutely astounding. Nothing quite like this has been discovered anywhere in the Roman Empire before."

Roman law sanctioned the execution of criminals and prisoners of war in the arena through the public spectacle of throwing them to the beasts; defined by the Latin term damnatio ad bestias.

This form of execution was often used to symbolize the destruction of Rome's enemies; members of those tribes who lived outside the Roman Empire and were collectively known as "Barbarians."

The main figure portrayed on the handle displays many of the features associated with such "Barbarians"' including mane-like hair, a bushy beard, bulging eyes, and the wearing of trousers below a naked torso. The lion is wrapped around his body and bites the side of his head. Beneath the struggle, four naked youths stare outwards; the older two appearing to protect their younger compatriots, one of whom may hold a stone. The youths are thought to symbolize the "children of the tribe" and their imminent demise demonstrates what happens when Roman conquest is opposed.

Direct evidence for violent spectacles in Roman Britain is otherwise extraordinarily scarce, a rare exception being the puncture wound inflicted by a large carnivore on the pelvis of a male skeleton from Roman York.

Archaeologists believe the key was probably made a century or more after Britain itself had been conquered, and it is interesting to reflect on the idea that those whose recent ancestors were themselves considered Barbarians, now shared in the Roman contempt and fear of those who remained outside the Empire.

Many Roman towns in Britain possessed either an amphitheater or a theater, where such spectacles could have been witnessed by large crowds. The town house where the key handle was found stands next door to the newly-discovered Roman theater in Leicester, and it is tempting to think that life did indeed imitate art and that the holders of the key had witnessed such scenes at close quarters.

Lions are portrayed on other key handles from Roman Britain and probably symbolized security and the protection of the household. This sense of security extended beyond the life of the key as a functional object, as the detached handle clearly continued to be valued. It was placed upright in the makeup of a new floor laid long after the heyday of the opulent house it had once secured, in the hope that it would still offer protection.

ULAS post-excavation manager and co-author, Nick Cooper, added that the key handle was one of the most significant finds from Roman Leicester and would be displayed to the public at Jewry Wall Museum in Leicester, following completion of major refurbishment work expected to be completed by 2023.Dutch unearth Roman canal, road near UNESCO heritage sites

More information: Pearce, J., Speed, G., & Cooper, N. (2021). At Death's Door: A Scene of Damnatio ad Bestias on a Key Handle from Leicester. Britannia, 1-16. DOI: 10.1017/S0068113X21000118

Provided by King's College London

Wildfires ravage vast area of eastern Bolivia: NGO

Firefighters battle flames close to the Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia on August 1, 2021.

Devastating wildfires in Bolivia consumed 749,000 hectares from January to July, the Friends of Nature Foundation (FAN) NGO said on Thursday night

FAN said it had used images from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-2 satellite to study the damage.

As in neighboring Brazil, the fires have been aggravated by widespread deforestation aimed at expanding farming or pastureland.

The eastern Santa Cruz and northeastern Beni departments account for 94 percent of burnt areas, FAN said.

Up to the end of July, 137,000 hectares (3400,000 acres) had been burnt in Santa Cruz but the local governor said Thursday that figure had since passed 200,000.

Beni had registered 564,000 hectares of damage in the seven-month period.

Santa Cruz, which lies close to the border with Brazil, declared a "red alert" on Thursday.

"The red alert was declared because of the progressive increase in heat sources and because of the climactic conditions we're facing," said Yovenka Rosado, the coordinator for forest fires in Santa Cruz.

According to the FAN report, the vast majority of the burnt area was pastureland, shrubs and grasslands.

Just three percent was woodland while eight percent was land used for farming.

FAN estimates that more than 2.3 million hectares of forests and prairies were destroyed by fire in 2020 and 6.4 million hectares the year before.

Forest fires in Bolivia consume vast area: official

Northwest heat wave and bad air from wildfires pose danger

by Gillian Flaccus

Chad Messenger collects cooling supplies including bottled water donated by the Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare's street outreach team on Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021, in Portland, Ore. Credit: AP Photo/Nathan Howard

Temperatures were expected to soar to triple digits again Friday in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle as a heat wave bakes the Pacific Northwest, and forecasters said hot weather and wildfire smoke would pose a problem through the weekend.

An air quality alert was issued through Saturday night for much northwestern Washington because of smoke drifting in from blazes in British Columbia and eastern Washington. However, forecasters said the hazy sky could drop temperatures slightly lower than predicted Friday and Saturday.

Temperatures reached 103 F (39 C) on Thursday in Portland and the 90s in Seattle. In Bellingham, Washington, the high hit 100 F (38 C) for the first time on record. It's the second major heat wave in less than a month in a normally temperate region where many don't have air conditioning. Record-breaking hot weather in late June caused hundreds of deaths in Washington state, Oregon and British Columbia when the thermometer went as high as 116 F (47 C).

A detailed scientific analysis found the June heat was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change. Meteorologist Jeff Masters with Yale Climate Connections said a similar study would need to be done with other heat waves, but there's a general link between global warming and worsening heat waves.

Scott Zalitis carries freezer pops and water provided by Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare's street outreach team on Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021, in Portland, Ore. People have headed to cooling centers as the Pacific Northwest began sweltering under another major, multiday heat wave. Credit: AP Photo/Nathan Howard

"If you increase your baseline temperature, you great increase your odds of extreme heat events," said Masters, co-founder of the private Weather Underground company.

Much of the Northwest was under an excessive heat warning through Saturday. The National Weather Service said heat advisories and warnings were also in effect from the Midwest to the Northeast and mid-Atlantic through at least Friday.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has declared a state of emergency and activated an emergency operations center. City and county governments have opened cooling centers, extended public library hours and waived bus fare for those headed to cooling centers. A 24-hour statewide help line will direct callers to the nearest cooling shelter and offer safety tips.

Authorities scrambled to provide relief to the vulnerable, including low-income older people and those living outdoors. Oregon volunteers handed out water, portable fans, popsicles and information about cooling shelters to homeless people living in encampments along the Columbia River on the outskirts of Portland.

A fan at T-Mobile Park keeps cool with a portable fan during a sunny day baseball game between the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021, in Seattle. The usually temperate Pacific Northwest region entered the peak days of a scorching heat wave Thursday. Credit: AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

Darlene McApline, an administrative coordinator with Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare's street outreach team, dumps a bottle of water on her head to cool off while loading supplies on Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021, in Portland, Ore. Credit: AP Photo/Nathan Howard

Katherine Morgan wipes sweat from her forehead while walking to work in high temperatures on Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021, in Portland, Ore. People have headed to cooling centers as the Pacific Northwest began sweltering under another major, multiday heat wave. Credit: AP Photo/Nathan Howard

Vivek Shandas, a professor of climate adaptation at Portland State University, takes a temperature reading of almost 106 degrees in downtown Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021, in Portland, Ore. People have headed to cooling centers as the Pacific Northwest began sweltering under another major, multiday heat wave. Credit: AP Photo/Nathan Howard

Chris Cowan with Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare's street outreach team loads water and other cooling supplies before visiting homeless camps on Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021, in Portland, Ore. Credit: AP Photo/Nathan Howard

A woman living along the Columbia River who declined to be named, drinks a bottle of water delivered by Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare's street outreach team on Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021, in Portland, Ore. Credit: AP Photo/Nathan Howard

Katherine Morgan drinks water in front of a box fan while trying to stay cool in her downtown apartment without air conditioning on Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021, in Portland, Ore. People have headed to cooling centers as the Pacific Northwest began sweltering under another major, multiday heat wave. Credit: AP Photo/Nathan Howard

Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare's street outreach team loads water and other cooling supplies before visiting homeless camps on Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021, in Portland, Ore. Credit: AP Photo/Nathan Howard

A fan at T-Mobile Park adjusts a cloth on his head during a sunny day baseball game between the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021, in Seattle. The usually temperate Pacific Northwest region entered the peak days of a scorching heat wave Thursday. Credit: AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

People experiencing homelessness are often reluctant to go to cooling centers, said Kim James, director of homeless and housing support for Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare, a nonprofit group that serves the homeless and those with mental illness.

Scott Zalitis, who was shirtless in the heat, ate lime-green popsicles handed out by the group Thursday and told volunteers that the temperature at his campsite reached 105 F (41 C) the day before.

"It's miserable. I can't handle the heat no matter what. So, I mean, it's hard to stand. Even in the shade it's too hot," Zalitis said. "You want to stay somewhere that's cool, as cool as possible."

The encampment, where rusted-out cars and broken-down RVs mixed with tents and piles of garbage, was in sharp contrast to downtown Portland, where sweaty pedestrians cooled off by running through a large public fountain in a riverfront park.

Explore further Northwest sizzles as heat wave hits many parts of US

© 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Crop insurance and unintended consequences

by North Carolina State University

A new study suggests that crop insurance serves as a disincentive for farmers to adopt climate change mitigation measures on their croplands.

The study by researchers at North Carolina State University examined the interactions of warmer temperatures, crop yield risk and crop insurance participation by farmers. For the study, researchers developed models using historical county-level corn and soybean production data in the United States, with an eye toward understanding the production impacts of rising temperatures.

The researchers found that variation in crop yields due to higher temperatures rose when more farmers had crop insurance. Interestingly, the results showed greater variability effects for corn yields than for soybean yields.

"This could be an unintended consequence of providing subsidies for crop insurance," said Rod M. Rejesus, professor of agricultural and resource economics at NC State and the corresponding author of the research study. "The concept of moral hazard could be present here. If insurance will cover crop losses due to various effects like drought or severe weather, a farmer may not want to pay the extra expense for climate change adaptation efforts such as using cover crops to improve soil health, for example."

Climate change—including warmer temperatures—increases the variability of crop yields; farming becomes a riskier proposition as this variability rises.

The study models indicate that an increase of daily minimum and maximum temperatures of 1 degree Celsius would increase county-level corn yield variability by 8.6 bushels per acre if 80% of farmers in a county have crop insurance. The same temperature rise in a county with 10% crop insurance participation would increase corn yield variability by just 6.2 bushels per acre.

The researchers pose possible solutions to this quandary for policymakers. They include providing more subsidies to encourage farmers' use of climate change mitigation efforts—like soil health practices—and starting high-level policy conversations about how to possibly tweak rules and guidelines that govern crop insurance contracts in order to reduce the disincentive effects.

Rejesus will continue to study the effects of climate change, crop yields and crop insurance, including the role of certain climate mitigation efforts by farmers.

The paper appears in the European Review of Agricultural Economics. Former NC State Ph.D. student Ruixue Wang is the paper's first author. NC State postdoctoral researcher Serkan Aglassan also co-authored paper.US corn and soybean maladapted to climate variations, study shows

More information: Ruixue Wang et al, Warming Temperatures, Yield Risk and Crop Insurance Participation, European Review of Agricultural Economics (2021). DOI: 10.1093/erae/jbab034

Provided by North Carolina State University

Men, Conservative Party supporters and Brexit-backers more likely to support the use of nuclear weapons, study shows

by University of Exeter

Men, Conservative Party supporters and those who wanted Britain to leave the EU, are more likely to want to retain Britain's nuclear deterrent, a study shows.

Those who endorse superior military power worldwide as an important foreign policy goal and people who want to protect the transatlantic relationship are also more likely to be in favour of nuclear weapons, according to the research.

Those who voted 'remain' in the EU referendum are less likely to support keeping nuclear weapons relative to those who voted to leave the EU. Supporters of Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, UKIP, the Green Party, and Plaid Cymru are less likely to support keeping nuclear weapons.

The study, published in the European Journal of International Security, was carried out by Ben Clements, from the University of Leicester, and Catarina Thomson, from the University of Exeter.

Academics used data from the new UK Security Survey to analyse attitudes towards the possession of nuclear weapons among the British public, the majority of who supported retaining nuclear weapons.

Dr. Thomson said: "We have found the recurring 'gender gap' found on state use of conventional military force extends to Britain's nuclear force capabilities, with men more in favour of retaining the nuclear deterrent than women.

"Political preferences have a significant role to play in affecting people's likelihood of supporting of Britain retaining its nuclear weapons. Identifying with political parties with a clear nuclear stance is generally significant in affecting people's views on the UK nuclear programme.

"Our data suggest that supporters of parties that do not take an anti-nuclear stance, such as the Liberal Democrats or UKIP, are less likely to support keeping nuclear weapons. Those who voted for Britain to remain in the EU are less likely to agree with the statement that the UK should keep its nuclear weapons. This provides further evidence of the potency of views on the Brexit debate for other issues in the post-referendum political landscape, concerning both domestic and external policy."

Dr. Clements said: "Views on nuclear weapons are clearly underpinned by attitudes towards core foreign policy debates relating to Britain's international role and relationships. Those who consider it is important for Britain to maintain a superior military power worldwide are more likely to agree that the country should retain its nuclear weapons compared to those who do not hold these views.

"It seems people perceive the nuclear dimension of US-UK bilateral relations to be particularly important to the overall stability of the broader 'special relationship' and to be particularly beneficial for Britain's defence capabilities. This may be because so few countries in Europe possess nuclear weapons—just Britain and France—so such capabilities are seen as less relevant or even undesirable for those who support security cooperation with the continent."

The survey was fielded by YouGov between 1– 25 April 2017 (before the official announcement of the snap general election), with a representative sample of 2,002 adults in Britain. The data was weighed by age, gender, social class, region, level of education, how respondents voted at the previous election, how respondents voted at the EU referendum, and their general level of political interest

Can we track the world's nuclear weapons?

More information: Ben Clements et al, The 'ultimate insurance' or an 'irrelevance' for national security needs? Partisanship, foreign policy attitudes, and the gender gap in British public opinion towards nuclear weapons, European Journal of International Security (2021). DOI: 10.1017/eis.2021.17

Provided by University of Exeter

NREL's thermoplastic blade research dives deep with verdant power's tidal energy turbines

by National Renewable Energy Laboratory

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researchers have been exploring the use of thermoplastic composite materials for wind turbines for several years, but they have only just begun to scrape the surface of how these materials perform underwater. For the first time in history, thermoplastic composite blades, which have the potential to revolutionize the marine energy industry, are being tested on a large-scale tidal power turbine.

Previous laboratory-scale research performed at Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER) demonstrated how thermoplastic materials can improve fatigue performance, decreasing the probability for catastrophic blade failures and making tidal turbine blades more sustainable for marine energy applications. The manufacturing process is also faster and more energy efficient. Additionally, thermoplastics, which make up about 75% of worldwide plastic production, can be recycled because the plastic polymer material can be remolded at high temperatures and resolidifies upon cooling.

Thanks to funding from the U.S. Department of Energy's Water Power Technologies Office and a collaboration with Verdant Power, NREL researchers have constructed turbine blades using thermoplastic composite materials and are now testing them on one of Verdant Power's tidal turbines, which are currently deployed in New York City's East River.

Evaluation of the loads and performance of the turbines at the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy (RITE) project site in New York began in October 2020 with the installation of Verdant Power's TriFrame mount, which holds three tidal turbines. Because of strong tidal currents that change direction multiple times per day, the East River is an ideal location for testing and validating the performance of marine energy turbines. Both the TriFrame and three-bladed turbines were designed to be modular and scalable, allowing researchers to study the 5-meter (m)-diameter turbines and then scale them up to the more economically viable 10- to 15-m-class turbine systems that are more likely to be used in the field.

During their first 6 months in the water, the tidal turbines, whichinitially had epoxy blades, generated almost 200 megawatt-hours of energy—a U.S. record for marine energy production. After a 6-month deployment, in May 2021, the Verdant Power team performed a retrieve-and-replace (R&R) operation, swapping out one of the epoxy-bladed rotors with a new, NREL-manufactured rotor with thermoplastic blades that are identical to the original epoxy blades except for their material.

"Verdant Power provided the NREL team with the blade tooling and geometry details so we could produce thermoplastic blades that are identical to the epoxy blades that they've already manufactured, which allows us to do a side-by-side comparison with traditional materials," Murray said. "We're really interested in using these thermoplastic materials because they could potentially prolong the life of the blades and have improved structural properties for marine applications.

For several months prior to the R&R deployment, NREL Research Engineer Robynne Murray and her team have been tapping into the manufacturing and materials characterization capabilities at NREL's Composites Manufacturing Education and Technology (CoMET) facility. There, they built the 2.5-m blades using a vacuum infusion method with Elium thermoplastic resin. They then worked to confirm that these blades had similar structural performance to the traditional epoxy resin blades prior to deployment, structurally validating the full-scale, thermoplastic, tidal power turbine blades that are now generating power in the East River. After its trial run ends and the blades are retrieved by the end of 2021, the team will measure the blades' structural response to applied loads to quantify the impact of seawater on these materials.

An NREL-built data acquisition system sits inside the tail cone of the newly installed tidal turbine, allowing researchers to measure the strain and angular position of the thermoplastic blades while in action in the East River. The data acquisition system design and validation process, which included submerging the system in water for several days, meets several requirements, including the ability to continuously and reliably acquire, measure, and store all the data generated during the turbine's entire deployment period—estimated to be up to 28 gigabytes.

"This work will demonstrate a potentially game-changing material for marine applications at a meaningful scale," Murray said. "It will also produce strain and acceleration data for full-scale turbines that we can use to validate design tools and derisk future deployments, industrywide. The collaboration with Verdant Power and the ability to join their innovative R&R operation has been key to obtaining these data that will benefit the marine energy industry for years to come."

Since the May 2021 R&R, NREL's tidal turbine has been producing power for New York City's electric grid and even experienced some of the highest loads the blades will see during the deployment. That data will be particularly useful in examining how these turbines perform during the most extreme conditions, adding key information to the growing understanding of operational turbine limits and saturated thermoplastic materials and their promise to resolve tomorrow's marine energy challenges.

This summer, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will be performing a survey of the TriFrame's flow speeds at the RITE Project site to obtain flow data for the operational tidal turbines. These data will be used to validate flow velocity models, which will be publicly accessible to the marine energy industry.

Until its deployment ends, the NREL team watches and waits while their thermoplastic blades help generate tidal energy at scale for the first time

NREL advanced manufacturing research moves wind turbine blades toward recyclability

Provided by National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Hydrogen-powered vehicles: A realistic path to clean energy?

by Mark Gillispie and Tom Krisher

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Each morning at a transit facility in Canton, Ohio, more than a dozen buses pull up to a fueling station before fanning out to their routes in this city south of Cleveland.

The buses—made by El Dorado National and owned by the Stark Area Regional Transit Authority—look like any others. Yet collectively, they reflect the cutting edge of a technology that could play a key role in producing cleaner inter-city transportation. In place of pollution-belching diesel fuel, one-fourth of the agency's buses run on hydrogen. They emit nothing but harmless water vapor.

Hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, is increasingly viewed, along with electric vehicles, as one way to slow the environmentally destructive impact of the planet's 1.2 billion vehicles, most of which burn gasoline and diesel fuel. Manufacturers of large trucks and commercial vehicles are beginning to embrace hydrogen fuel cell technologies as a way forward. So are makers of planes, trains and passenger vehicles.

Transportation is the single biggest U.S. contributor to climate change, which is why hydrogen power, in the long run, is seen as a potentially important way to help reduce carbon emissions.

To be sure, hydrogen remains far from a magic solution. For now, the hydrogen that is produced globally each year, mainly for refineries and fertilizer manufacturing, is made using natural gas or coal. That process pollutes the air, warming the planet rather than saving it. Indeed, a new study by researchers from Cornell and Stanford universities found that most hydrogen production emits carbon dioxide, which means that hydrogen-fueled transportation cannot yet be considered clean energy.

Yet proponents of hydrogen-powered transportation say that in the long run, hydrogen production is destined to become more environmentally safe. They envision a growing use of electricity from wind and solar energy, which can separate hydrogen and oxygen in water. As such renewable forms of energy gain broader use, hydrogen production should become a cleaner and less expensive process.

Within three years, General Motors, Navistar and the trucking firm J.B. Hunt plan to build fueling stations and run hydrogen trucks on several U.S. freeways. Toyota, Kenworth and the Port of Los Angeles have begun testing hydrogen trucks to haul goods from ships to warehouses.

In Germany, a hydrogen-powered train began operating in 2018, and more are coming. French-based Airbus, the world's largest manufacturer of airliners, is considering hydrogen as well.Volvo Trucks, Daimler Trucks AG and other manufacturers have announced partnerships, too. The companies hope to commercialize their research, offering zero-emissions trucks that save money and meet stricter pollution regulations.

"This is about the closest I've seen us get so far to that real turning point," said Shawn Litster, a professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University who has studied hydrogen fuel cells for nearly two decades.

Hydrogen has long been a feedstock for the production of fertilizer, steel, petroleum, concrete and chemicals. It's also been running vehicles for years: Around 35,000 forklifts in the United States, about 4% of the nation's total, are powered by hydrogen. Its eventual use on roadways, to haul heavy loads of cargo, could begin to replace diesel-burning polluters.

No one knows when, or even whether, hydrogen will be adopted for widespread use. Craig Scott, Toyota's head of advanced technology in North America, says the company is perhaps two years from having a hydrogen truck ready for sale. Building more fueling stations will be crucial to widespread adoption.

Kirt Conrad, CEO of Canton's transit authority since 2009, says other transit systems have shown so much interest in the technology that SARTA takes its buses around the country for demonstrations. Canton's system, which bought its first three hydrogen buses in 2016, has since added 11. It's also built a fueling station. Two California transit systems, in Oakland and Riverside County, have hydrogen buses in their fleets.

"We've demonstrated that our buses are reliable and cost-efficient, and as a result, we're breaking down barriers that have slowed wider adoption of the technology," Conrad said.

The test at the Port of Los Angeles started in April, when the first of five semis with Toyota hydrogen powertrains began hauling freight to warehouses in Ontario, California, about 60 miles away. The $82.5 million public-private project eventually will have 10 semis.

Hydrogen fuel is included in President Joe Biden's plans to cut emissions in half by 2030. The infrastructure bill the Senate approved passed this week includes $9 billion for research to reduce the cost of making clean hydrogen, and for regional hydrogen manufacturing hubs.

The long-haul trucking industry appears to be the best bet for early adoption of hydrogen. Fuel cells, which convert hydrogen gas into electricity, provide a longer range than battery-electric trucks, fare better in cold weather and can be refueled much faster than electric batteries can be recharged. Proponents say the short refueling time for hydrogen vehicles gives them an edge over electric vehicles for use in taxis or delivery trucks, which are in constant use.

That advantage was important for London-based Green Tomato Cars, which uses 60 hydrogen fuel cell-powered Toyota Mirai cars in its 500-car zero emission fleet to transport corporate customers. Co-founder Jonny Goldstone said his drivers can travel over 300 miles (500 kilometers) on a tank and refuel in three minutes.

Because drivers' earnings depend on fares, Goldstone said, "if they have to spend 40, 50 minutes, an hour, two hours plugging a car in in in the middle of the working day, that for them is just not acceptable."

For now, Green Tomato is among the largest operators of hydrogen vehicles in what is still a tiny market in Europe, with about 2,000 fuel cell cars, garbage trucks and delivery vans on the roads.

About 7,500 hydrogen fuel cell cars are on the road in the U.S., mostly in California. Toyota, Honda and Hyundai produce the cars, which are priced thousands more than gasoline-powered vehicles. California has 45 public fueling stations, with more planned or under construction.

Unlike with buses and heavy trucks, experts say the future of passenger vehicles in the U.S. lies mainly with electric battery power, not hydrogen. Fully electric vehicles can travel farther than most people need to go on a relatively small battery.

And for now, hydrogen production is adding to rather than reducing pollution. The world produces about 75 million tons a year, most of it in a carbon emission-creating processes involving steam reformation of natural gas. China uses higher-polluting coal.

So-called "blue" hydrogen, made from natural gas, requires an additional step. Carbon dioxide emitted in the process is sent below the earth's surface for storage. The Cornell and Stanford study found that manufacturing blue hydrogen emitted 20% more carbon than burning natural gas or coal for heat.

That's why industry researchers are focused on electrolysis, which uses electricity to separate hydrogen and oxygen in water. Hydrogen mixes with oxygen in a vehicle's fuel cell to produce power. The amount of electricity generated by wind and solar is growing worldwide, making electrolysis cleaner and cheaper, said Joe Cargnelli, director of hydrogen technologies for Cummins, which makes electrolyzers and fuel cell power systems.

Currently, it costs more to make a hydrogen truck and produce the fuel than to put a diesel-powered truck on the road. Hydrogen costs about $13 per kilogram in California, and 1 kilogram can deliver slightly more energy than a gallon of diesel fuel. By contrast, diesel fuel is only about $3.25 per gallon in the U.S.

But experts say that disparity will narrow.

"As they scale up the technology for production, the hydrogen should come down," said Carnegie Mellon's Litster.

While a diesel semi can cost around $150,000 depending on how it's equipped, it's unclear how much fuel cell trucks would cost. Nikola, a startup electric and hydrogen fuel cell truck maker, estimated last year that it would receive about $235,000 for each hydrogen semi it sells.

Clean electricity might eventually be used to make and store hydrogen at a rail yard, where it could refuel locomotives and semis, all with zero emissions.

Cummins foresees the widespread use of hydrogen in the U.S. by 2030, sped by stricter diesel emissions regulations and government zero-emissions vehicle requirements. Already, Europe has set ambitious green hydrogen targets designed to accelerate its use.

"That's just going to blow the market open and kind of drive it," Cargnelli said. "Then you'll see other places like North America kind of follow suit."GM, Wabtec to develop hydrogen powered locomotives

© 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Touted as clean, 'blue' hydrogen may be worse than gas, coal

by Cornell University

energy grid — Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

"Blue" hydrogen—an energy source that involves a process for making hydrogen by using methane in natural gas—is being lauded as a clean, green energy to help reduce global warming. But Cornell and Stanford University researchers believe it may harm the climate more than burning fossil fuel.

The carbon footprint to create blue hydrogen is more than 20% greater than using either natural gas or coal directly for heat, or about 60% greater than using diesel oil for heat, according to new research published in Energy Science & Engineering.

Robert Howarth, professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell, together with Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, authored the report.

Blue hydrogen starts with converting methane to hydrogen and carbon dioxide by using heat, steam and pressure, or gray hydrogen, but goes further to capture some of the carbon dioxide. Once the byproduct carbon dioxide and the other impurities are sequestered, it becomes blue hydrogen, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

The process to make blue hydrogen takes a large amount of energy, according to the researchers, which is generally provided by burning more natural gas.

"In the past, no effort was made to capture the carbon dioxide byproduct of gray hydrogen, and the greenhouse gas emissions have been huge," Howarth said. "Now the industry promotes blue hydrogen as a solution, an approach that still uses the methane from natural gas, while attempting to capture the byproduct carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, emissions remain very large."

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, Howarth said. It is more than 100 times stronger as an atmospheric warming agent than carbon dioxide when first emitted. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released on Aug. 9 shows that cumulatively to date over the past century, methane has contributed about two-thirds as much to global warming as carbon dioxide has, he said.

Emissions of blue hydrogen are less than for gray hydrogen, but only by about 9% to 12%.

"Blue hydrogen is hardly emissions free," wrote the researchers. "Blue hydrogen as a strategy only works to the extent it is possible to store carbon dioxide long-term indefinitely into the future without leakage back to the atmosphere."

On Aug. 10, the U.S. Senate passed its version of the $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which includes several billion dollars to develop, subsidize and strengthen hydrogen technology and its industry.

"Political forces may not have caught up with the science yet," Howarth said. "Even progressive politicians may not understand for what they're voting. Blue hydrogen sounds good, sounds modern and sounds like a path to our energy future. It is not."

An ecologically friendly "green" hydrogen does exist, but it remains a small sector and it has not been commercially realized. Green hydrogen is achieved when water goes through electrolysis (with electricity supplied by solar, wind or hydroelectric power) and the water is separated into hydrogen and oxygen.

"The best hydrogen, the green hydrogen derived from electrolysis—if used wisely and efficiently—can be that path to a sustainable future," Howarth said. "Blue hydrogen is totally different."

This research was supported by a grant from the Park Foundation. Howarth is a fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.

A clean US hydrogen economy is within reach, but needs a game plan, energy researchers say

More information: Robert W. Howarth et al, How green is blue hydrogen?, Energy Science & Engineering (2021). DOI: 10.1002/ese3.956

Provided by Cornell University

Effectively removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

by Sebastian Jutzi, Paul Scherrer Institute

Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and ETH Zurich have investigated the extent to which direct capture of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the ambient air can help to effectively remove greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere. The result: With careful planning, for example with regard to location and provision of the necessary energy, CO2 can be removed in a climate-effective manner. The researchers have now published their analysis in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) is a comparatively new technology for removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Since it would allow large amounts of CO2 to be, in effect, trapped, this technology could also reduce the greenhouse effect. Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and ETH Zurich have now investigated how effectively this could be implemented with different system configurations of a certain process. To do this, they analyzed a total of five different configurations for capturing CO2 from the air and their use at eight different locations around the world. One result: Depending on the combination of technology used and the specific location, CO2 can be removed from the air with an effectiveness of up to 97 percent.

To separate CO2 from the atmosphere, air is first passed over a so-called absorbent with the help of fans. This binds CO2 until its capacity to absorb the greenhouse gas is exhausted. Then, in the second, so-called desorption step, the CO2 is released from the absorbent again. Depending on the absorbent, this happens at comparatively high temperatures of up to 900 degrees Celsius or at rather low temperatures of about 100 degrees Celsius. In addition to the energy required for the production and installation of the equipment, the operation of the fans and generation of the required heat produce greenhouse gas emissions. "The use of this technology only makes sense if these emissions are significantly lower than the amounts of CO2 it helps to store," says Tom Terlouw, who conducts research at PSI's Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis and is first author of the study.

Efficiency of up to 97 percent

In their study, the researchers focused their examination on a system from the Swiss company Climeworks, which works with the low-temperature process. The PSI researchers analyzed the use of the technology at eight locations worldwide: Chile, Greece, Jordan, Mexico, Spain, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland. For each location, they calculated the overall greenhouse gas emissions over the entire life cycle of a plant. For example, they compared the efficiency of the process when the required electricity is provided by solar energy or comes from the existing electricity grid. As sources for the necessary thermal energy they assumed, for example, solar thermal plants, waste heat from industrial processes, or heat pumps. For the study, they drew up five different system layouts for atmospheric CO2 capture for each of the eight sites. With respect to efficiency, the results show an enormous range, from 9 to 97 percent, in terms of actual greenhouse-gas removal through the use of DACCS.

No substitute for reducing emissions

"The technologies for CO2 capture are merely complementary to an overall decarbonisation strategy—that is, for the reduction of CO2 emissions—and cannot replace it," stresses Christian Bauer, a scientist at the Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis and a co-author of the study. "However, they can be helpful in achieving the goals defined in the Paris Agreement on climate change, because certain emissions, for example from agriculture, cannot be avoided." Thus a net-zero emissions target can only be achieved with the help of suitable negative-emissions technologies.Study says 'blue hydrogen' likely bad for climate

More information: Terlouw, Tom et al, Life Cycle Assessment of Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage with Low-Carbon Energy Sources ,Environmental Science & Technology (2021) DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.1c0326

Journal information: Environmental Science & Technology

Provided by Paul Scherrer Institute

New study on costs and benefits of new transportation technologies the most comprehensive to date

by Jake Malooley, Argonne National Laboratory

A new Argonne study offers the most complete understanding yet of the costs of owning and operating a vehicle and how those costs vary by powertrain, from the conventional to the cutting-edge.

Advanced vehicle technologies are sometimes more expensive to purchase than conventional technologies but often pay for themselves in reduced operational costs. Now a new study from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory offers the most complete understanding yet of the costs of owning and operating a vehicle, and how those costs vary by powertrain, from the conventional to the cutting-edge.

Building on its pioneering past work quantifying the costs and benefits of new transportation technologies, Argonne published "Comprehensive total cost of ownership quantification for vehicles with different size classes and powertrains." The study considers vehicle purchase cost, depreciation, financing and fuel costs, in addition to aspects missing from previous technical analysis: costs related to insurance, maintenance and repair, and taxes and fees—all to calculate a holistic total cost of ownership (TCO).

"There has been a lot of past research on the cost of vehicles and the cost of fuel, but these other operating costs haven't been studied in quite the same detail before," said David Gohlke, an energy and environmental analyst at Argonne and co-author of the study. "There were gaps in the data, especially with respect to alternative fuel powertrains—electric vehicles, fuel cell vehicles. They are newer to the road, so it was hard to know, for instance, their historic needs for maintenance over their operational life. Our analysis helped fill those data gaps."

The study, sponsored by the DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's Vehicle Technologies Office, is the result of a collaboration between Argonne and four other DOE national labs: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories.

The report covers light-duty passenger vehicles—compact and midsize sedans, small and large sport utility vehicles, and pickup trucks—as well as medium-/heavy-duty commercial vehicles: semi-tractors; medium-duty vans and pickups; transit buses; box, utility aerial and dump trucks; and garbage trucks. The study looked at several powertrains: internal combustion engine, hybrid electric vehicle, plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, fuel cell electric vehicle and battery electric vehicle.

The study finds, for instance, that battery electric vehicles have maintenance costs 40% lower than ICE vehicles. Overall, hybrid electric vehicles tend to be the lowest-cost powertrain. Hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicles will reach cost parity with conventional vehicles as the price of hydrogen falls. Battery electric vehicles, meanwhile, will reach cost parity as battery prices drop. "There is uncertainty with how quickly these costs will drop," Gohlke noted, "but the technology is trending in the right direction."Key findings include insights into vehicle depreciation, an in-depth examination of insurance premium costs, comprehensive maintenance and repair estimates, an analysis of all relevant taxes and fees, and considerations of specific costs applicable to commercial vehicles.

Other findings of note include that cars depreciate faster than light trucks, and that older electric vehicles have a greater depreciation rate than newer electric vehicles. Light-duty vehicle insurance costs are comparable for different powertrains, and vehicle size and vocation both affect incurred costs for medium/heavy-duty commercial vehicle insurance. Light-duty vehicle taxes and fees are comparable across powertrain types and size classes, though marginally higher registration fees exist for alternative fuel vehicles in many states. Many electric tractor trailers would be affected by additional battery weight, reducing the available payload capacity, and this cost can be substantial. Electric vehicle charging for commercial vehicles can be time-consuming; if this charging is paid at an hourly rate, labor can cause this cost to dominate total cost of ownership.

For a simulated small sport utility vehicle in 2025—modeled using Autonomie, Argonne's tool for simulating vehicle energy consumption and performance—the hybrid electric vehicle has the lowest cost, followed by the conventional internal combustion engine vehicle. In the realm of commercial vehicles, the study shows that long-haul battery electric vehicle semi-tractors, which are the most expensive today due to their large batteries, will become the least expensive powertrain in 2035 as battery prices continue to drop. However, for local delivery vehicles such as the Class 4 truck, the battery electric vehicle is the lowest cost option in 2025, the baseline year for the study's modeling.

The study's results will inform future research related to vehicle technology, contribute to Argonne's regular assessments of the potential benefits from the technologies being developed by the DOE and others, and improve Argonne's Alternative Fuel Life-cycle Environmental and Economic Transportation (AFLEET) tool, which assists fleet managers with examining the economic and environmental costs of alternative fuel vehicles. "Fleet owners are particularly sensitive to the bottom line and choose vehicles that can perform the necessary work at the least cost," said Andrew Burnham, an environmental scientist at Argonne, creator of AFLEET, and co-author of the study, "so making this data publicly available and accessible with AFLEET will help them in planning alternative fuel vehicle purchases."

More energy-efficient powertrains for hybrid and electric trucks

Provided by Argonne National Laboratory

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