'MAYBE' SOMEDAY TECH

Canadian Startup to Build $400M UK Plant to Harness Nuclear Fusion in Entirely New Cost-Effective Way

By Andy Corbley
-Sep 30, 2021


A Canadian nuclear fusion power company has garnered a $400 million investment to build a demonstration energy plant in the UK.

They will showcase their proprietary method for generating electricity through the fusion of hydrogen atoms in the hopes of attracting additional private investors that can kickstart the last great revolution in energy technology.

The fusion plant, illustrated as a glittering cylindrical building of glass and curved hanger-bay doors, will be constructed in Culham, and construction is set to begin next summer in collaboration with the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority.

The Fusion Demonstration Plant will verify that General Fusion’s MTF technology can create fusion conditions in a practical and cost-effective manner at power plant relevant scales, as well as refine the economics of fusion energy production that would lead to a commercial fusion plant.

The Culham demonstration plant would be about 70% the size of a commercial facility.

GNN has reported extensively on nuclear fusion, a process that generates unlimited, clean, on-demand electricity that uses the same process that powers our Sun.

A field that twenty years ago was exclusively the domain of government-funded research has blossomed into a budding private industry rapidly growing in size, variation, and opportunity.

While the Massachusetts-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems uses enormous superconducting magnets and the inter-governmental fusion program called ITER uses magnets as heavy as passenger aircraft and cooled by the world’s largest cryogenic freezer, Canada’s General Fusion company uses much more modest and cheaper existing technology in the form of steam-powered pneumatic pistons.

RELATED: China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ Brings Nuclear Fusion One Step Closer, Breaking World Record

The pistons power the fusion process—creating a magnetic field that causes hydrogen atoms inside a superheated gas known as a plasma to overcome their electromagnetic resistance and fuse together.

General Fusion reactor

The fusion requires temperatures of at least 100 million Celsius, and existing fusion technologies are struggling to find a way to keep the plasma at that temperature for long periods.

For other methods and companies, it’s not a question of “can we generate electricity from fusion,” or even even “can we keep the plasma heated to generate electricity continuously,” but “how can we generate more electricity than we use?”
Ringing out hydrogen

General Fusion has focused on commercializing the technology which, for example, cost ITER over $20 billion for a prototype.

Instead of using magnets to heat and contain the plasma, General Fusion uses a plasma injector—a separate machine—to create a plasma under more economical conditions, and inject it into the fusion reactor’s main chamber.

MORE: Amazing Tech Developed by Private Firms Are on the Verge of Creating Nuclear Fusion Reactors to Power Humanity

Inside the chamber is a spinning wall of liquid lithium, which is compressed into a tiny sphere by the pistons. The compression heats the plasma to fusion temperatures, releasing huge amounts of heat, which the liquid metal absorbs easily. It is that heat that is exacted to create steam, which is used to power a turbine, which creates electricity with only helium as the waste product.

“This is incredibly exciting news for not only General Fusion, but also the global effort to develop practical fusion energy,” stated Christofer Mowry, CEO of General Fusion, who predicts the fusion market to be worth $1 trillion in the next decade.

One of the best parts of fusion is it’s completely safe, as there’s no radioactive anything, and helium is the only byproduct. While 100 million Celsius seems dangerous, “if you were to blow on this thing, it just turns itself off,” Dennis Whyte, a Canadian scientist who is director of plasma science fusion center at MIT, explained to the Financial Post.

SEE: How Scientists are Managing to Trap the World’s Coldest Plasma in a Magnetic Bottle

Furthermore, it uses a tiny amount of fuel, and Commonwealth Fusion Systems estimate a cup of something as simple as seawater would generate enough electricity to take care of the power usage of one human for their entire lifetime. Just 70 grams of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, which are captured during the fusion reaction is enough to power a small city.

“It’s probably the last energy source we’ll ever tame,” said Whyte. “I think of the trajectory from taming fire and it finally completes in fusion, because we’ll have tamed the energy source of the stars.”

(WATCH the videos for this story below.)

OCEAN WARMING

Swarms of giant jellyfish threaten fisheries along the Sea of Japan coast

Off the coast of Fukui Prefecture, dozens to hundreds of Nomura's jellyfish have been observed since mid-August, mainly in Wakasa Bay where about 800 jellyfish were caught in fixed nets on Sept. 7

Washington Post
Publishing date: Oct 03, 2021 

A Nomura's jellyfish is seen in Echizen, Fukui Prefecture, on Sept. 4.

 PHOTO BY JAPAN NEWS-YOMIURI /Japan News-Yomiuri

Swarms of giant jellyfish are floating along the coastline of the Sea of Japan, and the damage they may cause to fisheries is feared to be the worst in more than a decade.

Nomura’s jellyfish is one of the world’s largest jellyfish, with a bell of up to 2 meters in diameter and weighing up to 200 kilograms.

The jellyfish destroy fishing nets and damage freshly caught fish after being caught in the nets. In 2009, the last time a jellyfish bloom occurred, it caused an estimated 10 billion yen in damages to the fisheries industry nationwide.

Nomura’s jellyfish are usually found off the coast of China in the spring. These cnidarians are pushed by ocean currents and arrive in the waters near Japan in summer.

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Only about 10 Nomura’s jellyfish have been caught in fishing nets in Japan in recent years, according to the Japan Fisheries Information Service Center, an organization that disseminates fisheries-related information.

However, this year, about 1,000 of these jellyfish were caught in fixed nets near the Oki Islands in Shimane Prefecture in late August. Not only does each jellyfish appear to be larger, but their range has increased as well. They have been spotted from Nagasaki Prefecture to Aomori Prefecture.

Off the coast of Fukui Prefecture, dozens to hundreds of Nomura’s jellyfish have been observed since mid-August, mainly in Wakasa Bay where about 800 jellyfish were caught in fixed nets on Sept. 7. The Koshino fisheries cooperative in Fukui City suffered losses because the jellyfish damaged its catch of Spanish mackerel and horse mackerel.

“It takes a lot of work to remove the jellyfish from the nets,” said Motoaki Kawabata, the head of the cooperative. “Also, if the jellyfish’s tentacles touch the fish, they become discolored and damaged, making them unsellable.”

(Nemopilema nomurai) interfere with fishing in Japan. 

PHOTO BY SHIN-ICHI UYE

When the jellyfish bloom appeared in 2009, thousands to tens of thousands were caught in fixed nets in Fukui Prefecture. As a result, most fishermen had to end their fixed-net fishing season half a month earlier than usual. Normally, the season lasts until December. It has also affected crab fisheries in the prefecture.

Although there has been no damage to nets this year, the Fukui prefectural government held a liaison meeting on Sept. 8 with those involved in the fisheries industry.

In Ishikawa Prefecture, about 400 large jellyfish were caught in fixed nets on Sept. 5.

Nomura’s jellyfish tend to appear in large numbers in Japan when the water temperature along the coast of China is quite warm in February, according to Shinichi Ue, a special appointment professor at Hiroshima University who specializes in marine ecology.

“These jellyfish have been seen less and less since mid-September, but we need to keep an eye on them because the life cycle of Nomura’s jellyfish is not well understood,” said Ue.

Big Oil is going all-out to fight climate rules in Build Back Better

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Climate milestone: Big Oil sent clear message by investors, courts

By Matt Egan, CNN Business
Updated Sun October 3, 2021

New York (CNN Business)America's oil-and-gas industry is fighting tooth and nail to kill or scale back climate provisions in the President Joe Biden's $3.5 trillion Build Back Better plan.

"We're leaving everything on the field here in terms of our opposition to anti-energy provisions," Mike Sommers, president and CEO of the powerful American Petroleum Institute, told CNN in an interview.
The API is advertising in swing Congressional districts around the Build Back Better plan and blitzing social media with paid ads.

Since August 11, when the US Senate passed a budget resolution, the API has spent at least $423,000 on Facebook ads that have been viewed 21 million times, according to a report released Thursday by InfluenceMap, a think tank that tracks how business and finance impacts the climate crisis.


Home heating sticker shock: The cost of natural gas is up 180%

"We're using every tool at our disposal to work against these proposals," Sommers said.
Climate activists blasted the API for trying to stand in the way of what could be a once-in-a-generation effort to chip away at the climate crisis.

"API knows the future will be built with clean energy and they have a serious political problem. That's why they'll do everything they can to stop climate progress and continue lining the pockets of oil industry CEOs," Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power, a media operation founded by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, told CNN in a statement.

"But their lies don't work anymore. API is losing its power in Washington and Congress will pass the Build Back Better Act and invest in a clean energy future for the next generation," Lodes said.

Exxon spends to fight tax hikes

Despite the pressure from Big Oil, the Biden administration signaled that it remains undaunted in its push to fight climate change.

"Addressing the climate crisis is a top priority for President Biden, and this Administration is using all the tools in our tool chest to solve it. Full stop," a White House spokesperson told CNN.

ExxonMobil (XOM), the nation's largest oil-and-gas company, has spent at least $1.6 million since August 11 on political and issue ads on Facebook that have been viewed 31 million times, InfluenceMap said.

Exxon spent heavily in recent days as lawmakers have struggled to finalize an agreement. Between September 21 and September 27 alone, InfluenceMap said, Exxon spent $296,954 on Facebook ads that have garnered 5.4 million impressions.

In a statement to CNN, Exxon stressed its concern with Build Back Better is focused squarely on the legislation's proposal to lift the corporate tax rate.

"Our lobbying efforts are related to a tax burden that could disadvantage US businesses, and we have made that position known publicly," Exxon said in the statement.

 "ExxonMobil stands by our position that increased taxes on American businesses make the US less competitive."

Exxon emphasized it has supported the Paris climate agreement since its inception, and the company continues to "advocate for methane regulations and an economy-wide price on carbon."

Natural gas is a key battleground

However, the API, which Exxon, Chevron and many other energy companies are a member of, is taking issue with methane regulations in the Build Back Better plan.
The legislation would establish a methane fee on emissions from the oil-and-gas industry that are above a certain threshold. Biden recently announced the United States and the European Union have pledged to slash emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, by nearly 30% by the end of the decade.

Scientists say methane traps 25 times more heat than carbon dioxide, making it a central problem in the climate crisis. Methane is the main component of natural gas, the leading method of powering the US electric grid and heat homes.

"At its core, it's a tax on American natural gas," Sommers, the API CEO, told CNN in the interview. "That is one example of something we are trying to beat back."

The debate comes as natural gas prices have surged in the United States to the highest level since 2014. The price spikes have been far worse in Europe and Asia, setting off an energy crisis that has led to blackouts and bailouts.

"As natural gas prices increase, particularly as we go into the winter, the last thing lawmakers should be doing is increasing prices on American consumers," Sommers said of the methane fees.

Europe's gas crisis

Sommers added that Europe's experience with skyrocketing natural gas prices should serve as a cautionary tale to US politicians.

"In Europe, there has been a very fast rush to the energy transition. I would argue it was too fast," he said. "Lawmakers in the United States should pay close attention to what they are seeing in Europe as a warning sign for what could happen here."

Of course, Sommers conceded policy is just one factor in Europe. There is another factor: Russia.

"Russia continues to be a difficult actor in energy markets," Sommers said.

Climate change is intensifying the US border crisis. It will only get worse

Indeed, Goldman Sachs warned in a report Friday the wide availability of Russian natural gas supply is one of the biggest sources of uncertainty in Europe. "Russia can exacerbate or potentially resolve the EU gas shortage," Goldman Sachs wrote.

Greening the grid. But how fast?

The API is also trying to water down the Clean Electricity Payment Program, a key plank in Build Back Better. The $150 billion program would aim to incentivize a move towards renewable energy by rewarding utilities and electricity suppliers with federal grants if they increase their clean energy usage.

Sommers said the API is working hard to get the clean electricity program taken out of the legislation or modified, arguing natural gas has helped reduce emissions in the power industry.

"We think if you rush that transition, it will increase costs and decrease reliability," Sommers said.

Supporters argue that the clean energy program would create millions of new jobs while simultaneously addressing the climate crisis by slashing greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector.

Why October 19 could be a catastrophic day for the US economy

President Joe Biden's goal is to make the US power grid run on 100% clean energy by 2035, an ambitious target that would require a shift away from not only coal but natural gas as well.

The API said it will continue to push for government policies that will slash emissions, pointing to a climate action framework released earlier this year that calls for investing in groundbreaking technology, regulating methane and "market-based carbon pricing."

"Republicans and Democrats agree climate change has to be addressed," Sommers said. "Our industry does as well and is taking action through innovation and supporting policies like carbon pricing and the direct regulation of methane."

Still, the API's all-out effort to water down parts of Build Back Better underscores the behind-the-scenes stakes of the fight to shape legislation aimed at addressing the climate crisis.

'MAYBE' TECH WILL SAVE US

Study explores which carbon capture technology has the best benefits

Isabella O'Malley
Digital Reporter, Environmental Scientist

Sunday, October 3rd 2021  - Carbon capture and utilization is expected to play a greater role in the global climate change strategy as technology continues to develop.

While slashing greenhouse gas emissions is at the forefront of all climate actions that can improve the health of the planet, emerging carbon capture and utilization technologies are increasing the likelihood that impactful strides can be made in lowering atmospheric temperatures.

Current carbon capture technologies focus on extracting carbon dioxide from the air and either store it permanently underground or filter the compound so that it can be added to materials such as concrete.

Researchers from the University of Michigan say capturing carbon dioxide and using it to make materials like concrete, fuels, and plastics could generate revenues in excess of $800 billion each year by 2030. However, some of these materials have greater climate benefits than others, so the researchers conducted a study to explore which of these technologies has the most positive impacts.

 

Climework’s carbon capture plant in Iceland. The captured carbon dioxide is processed and treated so it can be pumped deep below the Earth’s surface where it will be permanently stored. (Climeworks)

The study evaluated 20 potential uses of captured carbon dioxide and organized them into three categories: concrete, chemical, and minerals. Of these uses, only four uses had more than a 50 per cent chance of creating a net climate benefit. The study says a net climate benefit occurs when “the emissions avoided by using carbon capture and utilization technology outweigh the emissions generated while capturing the carbon dioxide and making the final product.”

These four uses for captured carbon include two methods that mix carbon dioxide into concrete, creating formic acid (a preservative and antibacterial agent), and creating carbon monoxide for industrial uses. The researchers say that their findings will help inform research and development strategies

VIDEO https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/study-explores-which-carbon-capture-technology-has-the-best-benefits

“Decisions to globally scale carbon capture and utilization operations will require guidance on identifying products that maximize the climate benefits of using captured carbon dioxide,” said lead author Dwarak Ravikumar in the university’s press release

The study also reported that currently, electricity generated from renewable energies has a greater climate benefit if it supplies the grid instead of being used to repurpose captured carbon, but this will gradually change in the coming decades as fossil fuels are phased out.

Technologies that store carbon dioxide deep below the Earth’s surface, through a process called carbon capture and sequestration, are another way we can remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

One example of this is Climework’s Orca plant in Iceland, which has become the largest direct air capture and storage plant in the world. The company claims that its plant will be able to remove 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually, an amount roughly equal to the energy usage of 482 homes in the U.S. each year.

Given the infancy of the carbon sequestration and utilization industries, experts remain steadfast that keeping fossil fuels in the ground still remains the best approach for addressing climate change.

Credit: acilo/ E+/ Getty Images

COP26's success rests partly on global climate fund promised in 2015 — and it's short billions

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Canadian environment minister tasked with arm-twisting

 nations for additional funding

Chris Brown · CBC News · Posted: Sep 30, 2021 

Glasgow's historic downtown steeple warns of the climate emergency ahead of the UN COP26 conference, which begins there at the end of October. (Stephanie Jenzer/CBC)

Climate scientist Saleem Huq says the world should prepare for a big letdown when the UN climate conference gets under way next month in Glasgow, Scotland.

One of the major accomplishments of the Paris climate conference in 2015 was the promise that the world's richest nations would contribute to a $100 billion US fund that developing countries could draw upon to help speed up their economic transition away from fossil fuels. 

But six years later, that pot of money still doesn't exist. 

Have questions about climate science, policy or politics? Email us: ask@cbc.ca. Your input helps inform our coverage.

"They just failed to do it," said Huq, director of the Dhaka-based International Centre for Climate Change and Development and a prominent voice on the topic in low-lying Bangladesh, which is especially vulnerable to climate-related emergencies such as floods and rising sea levels.

"That strikes me as being totally incompetent and negligent."

With time running out before the start of the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26), host Britain has delegated the difficult task of trying to wrangle the missing billions to Canada — and Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson in particular.

Although he was re-elected in the Sept. 20 federal election, Wilkinson says he doesn't know if he'll be re-appointed to the environment portfolio in the upcoming cabinet. Regardless, he says he made the decision to head to Europe this week to try to twist some arms.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson has been tasked with drumming up money from richer countries for the $100 billion US climate transition fund for developing nations. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

The Italian city of Milan is hosting several crucial pre-COP26 gatherings this week, including a ministers meeting along with a summit of activists and youth leaders.

"We're working right now to corral commitments from all countries so that we're making progress toward that $100 billion," Wilkinson told CBC News in an interview before flying to Milan.

"I don't think there's been .. an organized effort to try to pull all of these threads together and to look at where we might find additional resources."

Wrangling money

COP26 organizers have set three key "deliverables" as the bar for success in Glasgow.

In addition to the financing deal, there's the commitment of ambitious emissions reduction targets from each nation — especially the biggest polluters — to keep global warming to less than 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels, as well as a timetable to make the burning of coal history.

• UN chief pressures rich countries to clarify how they'll help poorer nations tackle climate change

• How many climate disasters will today's children face? Scientists release estimate

Of those three priorities, raising the transition money should have been the easiest, says Huq.

Bangladeshi climate scientist Saleem Huq, seen during a Skype interview with CBC, said richer nations have had six years to collect the money they promised. (CBC News)

According to an OECD analysis, the total amount pledged to date for the fund was last pegged at $79 billion. Last week, President Joe Biden said the U.S. — one of the world's largest per capita emitters — would double its own contribution to more than $11 billion.

Huq said that falls short of what's required. The U.S. "owes probably five to 10 ten times more than it has given, in [light] of its own historic emissions."

In June, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Canada would double its commitment to the international climate fund to $5.3 billion over five years.

Wilkinson refused to name specific countries that he believes need to cough up more money, nor would he give an exact figure of what he's looking to raise.

WATCH | Global inaction is a key concern ahead of COP26:

Inaction and inequity keyconcerns ahead of COP26 climate summit

6 days ago

2:06

As world leaders prepare for next month's COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Greta Thunberg is criticizing governments for not living up to their promises while others are pointing to concerns about the inequity facing countries most impacted by climate change. 2:06

Dropping coal is key

Huq is disheartened by the state of co-operation and the likelihood that the world's richer nations will deliver what they have promised.

It's also clearly a worry for British Prime Boris Johnson, who vowed to make the Glasgow event a "turning point for humanity."

His government has kicked the equivalent of $15 billion into the fund, but Johnson has said he sees only a 60 per cent chance that countries will come through with the outstanding money.

Wilkinson said he believes predictions of the Glasgow summit's failure are premature.

"The most important first step the world can take [in reducing emissions] is to accelerate the phase-out of coal, and certainly to stop the construction of new coal-fired power plants," he said.

He noted that China, which releases more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than any other country, recently said it would stop financing new coal-power plants abroad. 

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has vowed to make the Glasgow event a 'turning point for humanity.' (Daniel Leal-Olivas/Reuters)

But to the disappointment of Glasgow organizers and climate campaigners everywhere, China still hasn't come out with a concrete timetable for reducing its own emissions to help hit the 1.5 degree target.

A UN report earlier this month contained little in the way of optimism that the target is even reachable anymore. After examining the pledges made by nations so far, it concluded global emissions would be 16 per cent higher in 2030 than in 2010 — far off the 45 per cent reduction by 2030 that scientists say is needed.

The question of inclusion

The city of Glasgow, meanwhile, is slowly gearing up for its moment in the global spotlight. 

In the city centre, the 400-year-old Tolbooth Steeple has been transformed into a minute-by-minute reminder of what's at stake if COP26 fails to deliver.

Glasgow's city council has beamed a projection of a countdown clock that ticks down the years, days and hours to when it will be too late to stop the planet from warming past 1.5 C, which is in less than seven years' time.

If that happens, there's broad scientific consensus that the result will be more extreme weather events, drought, greater economic losses and destruction of marine life.

There are ongoing concerns that the persistence of COVID-19 and the U.K.'s strict border measures will limit the participation at COP26 of many advocacy groups who claim they are already shut out of the formal talks.

A venue for COP26 on the banks of the River Clyde. (JF Bisson/CBC)

"We've got a situation where a lot of the people who should be at COP are not able to come," said Mim Black, a Glasgow-based climate justice activist.

The U.K. has promised to ensure any official delegate in need of a government-approved vaccine to enter the country will get it, but Black says that pledge does not extend to thousands of activists and campaigners who also want to attend.

Despite significant challenges, Wilkinson believes COP26 has the potential to build on the work of previous climate summits.

"I don't think we're necessarily going to resolve everything at Glasgow," he said.

"But I think what we need to do is show a big step forward in terms of global momentum. And I am very hopeful that we are going to see that, certainly on the international climate finance side of things."

Minister corralling $100B climate funds

 says he’s ‘cautiously optimistic’ on its

 delivery

By David Lao Global News
Posted October 3, 2021

WATCH : 06:43  Environment Minister ‘cautiously optimistic’ about securing                 $100-billion climate change fund on time

Canada’s environment minister says he’s “cautiously optimistic” that he, and his German counterpart, will be able to convince enough countries to help fund a $100-billion climate change pledge ahead of the rapidly approaching U.N. climate talks in Scotland next month.

Speaking with The West Block’s Mercedes Stephenson, Jonathan Wilkinson said that the fund, which is specifically earmarked to help developing countries fight climate change, was a “critical piece” in the Paris Accords’ architecture.

READ MORE: Climate change might be spiraling out of control. What does that mean for Canada?

According to Wilkinson, both Canada and Germany agreed to help corral the money in advance of the 2021 United Nations climate conference, also known as COP26, after funding for the program had slowed.

“We have been spending a lot of time over the last couple of months doing that, and certainly the last couple of days were meeting with a lot of countries to twist their arms about being more ambitious with respect to climate finance,” said Wilkinson, who at the time had spent several days in Milan for the conference’s final set-up in agenda.

“I would say that I am cautiously optimistic that we are going to be able to deliver on that when we get to COP. But of course, there’s still a bit more work for us to do over the coming days.”

2:04 Canada leads effort for $100-billion climate fund

On Friday, Wilkinson said that both Canada and Germany were making “a lot of progress” in their efforts and that he had spent the last two days in Milan in a series of bilateral meetings with some of the world’s most powerful and richest countries.

More than 10 years ago, those same nations had collectively agreed to raise $100-billion in climate financing a year by 2020 in order to help fund the developing worlds’ efforts to adapt and mitigate against climate change.

READ MORE: ‘Climate migrants’: Report warns 200 million could be pushed out of homes by 2050

Last month, the OECD revealed that those developed countries were US$20 billion short of that $100-billion goal — and with those wealthy nations producing a majority of the emissions responsible for destabilizing the planet’s climate and warming it at an increasingly rapid rate — Wilkinson and Germany’s environment state secretary Jochen Flasbarth both agreed to help get them to cough up the cash.

“I would say that we have made a lot of progress and certainly Germany and Canada are working very hard to ensure that we can and we will deliver on the $100-billion commitment,” said Wilkinson on Friday during a telephone news conference from Milan.

While he confirmed that no new promises of the cash had been announced by other countries yet, he said that he was given assurances by a number of them about incoming funding commitments.

1:23 COP26 president calls $100-billion climate finance pledge “vital”

Luckily for Wilkinson and Flasbarth, some of that gap had been bridged before taking up their efforts in July to round up the money in July.

Canada promised to double its funding to $1 billion a year over the next five years and Germany committed to at least US$7 billion by 2025.

READ MORE: ‘Code red for humanity’: Climate change spiraling out of control, U.N. report says

U.S. President Joe Biden had also fulfilled his promise to rejoin the Paris Agreement — an agreement former president Donald Trump backed out of, ending U.S. climate financing.

2:15 “Eyes of the world” will be on Scotland for climate summit, Queen Elizabeth says

Biden however said he’d double the U.S. contribution to the fund by 2024, earning praise from Wilkinson who added that the financial commitment was “critical” for them to hit that $100-billion goal.

A report documenting what has been promised so far and how Wilkinson and Flasbarth intended to get the rest is expected to be published later in October.

“But at the end of the day, we are facing an existential threat,” said Wilkinson.

“It’s not a question of whether we reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It’s about how we do it.”

© 2021 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

 

Graphene: 'Miracle material' singled out for COVID conspiracies

by Ana Prieto, Natalia Sanguino In Madrid

Graphic on the characteristics of graphene, the material of the future?

Graphene, a Nobel Prize-awarded material with promising applications for greener energy and nanomedicine, has been the topic of much disinformation by coronavirus anti-vaxxers claiming it can be used to "magnetize" and "control" people.

What is graphene?

Often referred to as a "miracle material," graphene is one of the world's strongest materials, and one of the lightest.

A form of carbon just one atom thick—many times thinner than a human hair—graphene is transparent, but stronger than steel.

It was aired as a theoretical substance in 1947, but for decades, physicists thought it would be impossible to isolate.

The problem was resolved in 2004 by scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who used ordinary sticky tape to lift a layer from a piece of graphite—the stuff in pencil lead.

That layer was itself pulled apart using more tape, and the process repeated until just the thinnest of layers remained—a graphene sheet.

In 2010, the pair received the Nobel Physics Prize for their efforts.

Graphene, a super conductor of heat and electric energy, is "among the most promising materials for technologies of the future," Argentine chemistry researcher Marcelo Mariscal, a specialist in nanotechnology, told AFP.

It is the focus of research into the manufacturing of ultra-strong but lightweight and flexible electronic devices, satellites, airplanes and cars, greener alternatives to batteries, and a delivery vehicle for gene or molecular therapy—potentially also for use in vaccines.

What is the link to COVID-19 vaccines?

As has been the case with 5G and microchip technology, graphene has been the subject of several "trojan horse" conspiracy theories according to which governments or powerful individuals are supposedly seeking to remotely "control" people who receive some sort of mini device through coronavirus vaccines, or track their whereabouts through GPS.

This control could be exercised from 5G towers transmitting signals to people supposedly carrying graphene particles, one theory goes.

In another widely-disseminated claim, social media users alleged they had been "magnetized" by the vaccine, posting images of magnets, coins or cutlery allegedly attached to the arm in which they received the jab.

Some conspiracy theorists have claimed that vaccines containing graphene have altered people's "electromagnetic field" and that this can be fatal.

What is the truth?

To start with, none of the vaccines approved for use by the World Health Organization contain graphene or its derivative, graphene oxide.

Conspiracies were fueled when Canada in April recalled certain anti-coronavirus facemasks with a graphene layer over concerns that inhaled particles inhaled could cause asbestos-like lung damage.

In July, their sale was resumed after a review found that "biomass graphene particles are not shed from these masks in quantities that are likely to cause adverse lung effects."

Experts also dispute the alleged magnetizing properties of graphene.

The material "is magnetic only in very specific laboratory conditions," Diego Pena of the Spanish Research Centre for Biological Chemistry and Molecular Materials told AFP.

A video of a brain autopsy widely circulated on social media as evidence of the alleged lethal effects of graphene in a vaccinated person, was in fact from a patient with bleeding on the brain, and filmed before COVID-19 was even identified.

Experts say the hype about graphene's promising applications—most of them still in the research phase—have contributed to it being a popular target for disinformation.

"The material is known, everyone knows it's real, but not everyone understand how it works," said Ester Vazquez Fernandez-Pacheco, director of the Regional Institute for Applied Scientific Research (IRICA) in Spain.

It is, therefore, "very easy to make people believe things that have no scientific basis."

Graphene is 3-D as well as 2-D

© 2021 AFP

Phytoplankton: Why These Tiny Oceanic Creatures Are Essential to Tackling Climate Change

SUNDAY OCTOBER 3, 2021
Mar Benavides
Research scientist, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD)

Fluorescence images of Crocosphaera. Image: Mar Benavides/Author provided



The ocean withdraws about one quarter of the CO₂ in the atmosphere, mitigating climate change and making life possible on Earth. An important share of this CO2 is removed thanks to phytoplankton, tiny marine creatures that use light to do photosynthesis, just as plants or trees on land. These cells fix CO2 to build up biomass and multiply, and take it down to the deep ocean when they die and sink. Phytoplankton are thus the basis of the marine food chain, and their productivity not only affects CO2 levels, but also fish catch and the world economy.

So why does phytoplankton go unnoticed to most of us, if they are so important? Try to find them in your next visit to the aquarium, you may have a hard time. Most phytoplankton species are 100 times smaller than the ants in your garden, meaning you need a really powerful magnifying glass (a microscope!) to study them. From our coasts to the middle of the ocean, phytoplankton are widespread and getting to know them requires some seafaring.
Phytoplankton are the Samaritans of the Ocean

Phytoplankton however need a key ingredient to be active: nitrogen. Just as fertilisers or legume plants are necessary to grow crops on land, nitrogen provides the nutrient value that phytoplankton need to grow in the ocean. Getting enough nitrogen in the ocean can be cumbersome. Coasts receive nitrogen through rivers or upwelling of deep waters rich in nitrogen, but most of the ocean is too remote to benefit from these sources.

To make matters worse, the surface tropical ocean is warm, making mixing with deep and nutrient rich waters very difficult. These “oceanic deserts” are great extensions of clear blue water which altogether make about 60 percent of the global ocean surface. How is life possible there without nitrogen? Luckily, other tiny creatures, diazotrophs, exist in these deserts

Diazotrophs come to the rescue performing a Herculean service : transforming inert nitrogen from the air into juicy nitrogenous forms available to phytoplankton. This transformation involves a great energy investment for the diazotrophs, to end up giving that nitrogen away to the community. Diazotrophs are the true Samaritans of the ocean.

Their crucial mission is likely to be impacted by climate change. Pollution, acidification, loss of oxygen and warming are among the negative effects of our economic development and ever-increasing population growth. Climate change is already impacting how much nitrogen reaches the ocean through changes in currents circulation, increased agricultural nitrogen loading through rivers, or atmospheric inputs through industrial activities.

But, how will climate change affect the activity and diversity of diazotrophs? It is hard to say when we even don’t know how many are out there and how diverse they are. Only about five species of diazotrophs have been studied in the ocean, and climate change simulation experiments have been only tested on two. Global circumnavigation expeditions have found that diazotrophs are much more diverse than we thought. Constraining their responses to the changing climate is crucial for predicting the ocean’s future productivity. The much larger diversity of diazotrophs implies not only overall higher provision of nitrogen to the oceans, but also higher efficiency and perhaps greater resilience to change, which awaits to be verified.

Experiments testing the response of diazotroph cells to simulated climate change scenarios expected until 2100, as part of the NOTION project. Photo: Mar Benavides

A Lens into the Future

The project Notion will look into the future of phytoplankton via a diazotroph lens. In the lab, we will recreate climate change conditions and observe how diazotrophs respond to them.

We will answer questions such as : does the extra CO2 in the water affect their growth? Do diazotrophs give even more of the “fertilizer” nitrogen away to other organisms in a high CO2 world? Global models of ocean circulation and phytoplankton species distribution already exist, but they need to be improved with experimental data to predict how our ocean will look like in the future. NOTION will integrate new global datasets and new experimental data to integrate the lacking information in models. We will thus transform biology into mathematics, using the response behaviour of diazotrophs as trends projectable to different future climate change scenarios.

With these tools, we aim at providing a better understanding of the ocean’s response to climate change, which will be critical for a sustainable use of the ocean and its resources, and essential to evaluate its capacity to act as a sink of CO2 in our near future.

The research project “Notion” of which this publication is part was supported by the BNP Paribas Foundation as part of the Climate and Biodiversity Initiative program. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

We Just Got Closer to Pinpointing a Major Moment in Earth's Evolutionary History

(Sciepro/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)

NATURE
CARLY CASSELLA
4 OCTOBER 2021

For the vast majority of animals on Earth, breath is synonymous with life. Yet for the first 2 billion years of our planet's existence, oxygen was in scarce supply.

That doesn't mean Earth was lifeless for all that time, but that life was rarer, and vastly different from what we know today.

It was only when more complex bacteria that could photosynthesize stepped onto the scene that everything began to change, triggering what scientists call a Great Oxidation Event. But when did all this happen? And how did it all shake out?

A new gene-analyzing technique has provided the hints of a new timeline. The estimates suggest it took bacteria 400 million years of gobbling sunlight and puffing out oxygen before life could really thrive.

In other words, there were likely organisms on our planet capable of photosynthesizing long before the Great Oxidation Event.

"In evolution, things always start small," explains geobiologist Greg Fournier from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Even though there's evidence for early oxygenic photosynthesis – which is the single most important and really amazing evolutionary innovation on Earth – it still took hundreds of millions of years for it to take off."

Currently there are two competing narratives to explain the evolution of photosynthesis in special bacteria known as cyanobacteria. Some think the natural process of turning sunlight into energy arrived on the evolutionary scene quite early on but that it progressed with "a slow fuse". Others think photosynthesis evolved later but "took off like wildfire".

Much of the disagreement comes down to assumptions about the speed at which bacteria evolve, and different interpretations of the fossil record.

So Fournier and his colleagues have now added another form of analysis to the mix. In rare cases, a bacterium can sometimes inherit genes not from its parents, but from another distantly related species. This can happen when one cell 'eats' another and incorporates the other's genes into its genome.

Scientists can use this information to figure out the relative ages of different bacterial groups; for example, those that have stolen genes must have pinched them from a species that existed at the same time as them.

Such relationships can then be compared to more specific dating attempts, like molecular clock models, which use the genetic sequences of organisms to trace a history of genetic changes.

To this end, researchers combed through the genomes of thousands of bacterial species, including cyanobacteria. They were looking for cases of horizontal gene transfer.

In total, they identified 34 clear examples. When comparing these examples to six molecular clock models, the authors found one in particular fit most consistently. Picking this model out of the mix, the team ran estimates to figure out how old photosynthesizing bacteria really are.

The findings suggest all the species of cyanobacteria living today have a common ancestor that existed around 2.9 billion years ago. Meanwhile, the ancestors of those ancestors branched off from non-photosynthetic bacteria roughly 3.4 billion years ago.

Photosynthesis probably evolved somewhere in between those two dates.

Under the team's preferred evolutionary model, cyanobacteria were probably photosynthesizing at least 360 million years before the GEO. If they're right, this further supports the "slow fuse" hypothesis.

"This new paper sheds essential new light on Earth's oxygenation history by bridging, in novel ways, the fossil record with genomic data, including horizontal gene transfers," says biogeochemist Timothy Lyons from the University of California at Riverside.

"The results speak to the beginnings of biological oxygen production and its ecological significance, in ways that provide vital constraints on the patterns and controls on the earliest oxygenation of the oceans and later accumulations in the atmosphere."

The authors hope to use similar gene analysis techniques to analyze organisms other than cyanobacteria in the future.

The study was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

In first, ocean drone captures footage from inside hurricane

NOAA and Saildrone Inc. are piloting five specially designed saildrones in the Atlantic

 Ocean to gather data around the clock to help understand the physical processes of

 hurricanes. Credit: Saildrone

In a world first, US scientists on Thursday piloted a camera-equipped ocean drone that looks like a robotic surfboard into a Category 4 hurricane barreling across the Atlantic Ocean.

Dramatic footage released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed the small craft battling 50-feet (15 meter) high waves and winds of over 120 mph (190 kph) inside Hurricane Sam.

The autonomous vehicle is called a "Saildrone" and was developed by a company with the same name.

Powered by wind and 23 feet (seven meters) in length, it carries a specially designed "hurricane wing," designed to withstand punishing conditions as it collects data to help scientists learn more about one of Earth's most destructive forces.

Saildrone's website indicates it can record measurements like wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, temperature, salinity, humidity and more.

Video footage from on board Saildrone 1045 in Hurricane Sam on Sept. 30, 2021.

"We expect to improve forecast models that predict rapid intensification of hurricanes," said NOAA scientist Greg Foltz in a statement.

"Rapid intensification, when hurricane winds strengthen in a matter of hours, is a serious threat to coastal communities," and data collected from uncrewed systems will help improve models, he added.

Scientists warn that climate change is warming the ocean and making hurricanes more powerful, posing an increasing risk to coastal communities.

Video footage from on board Saildrone 1045 and animation showing location in Hurricane Sam on Sept. 30, 2021.

Hurricane Ida turned into a monster thanks to a giant warm patch in the Gulf of Mexico

More information: www.noaa.gov/news-release/worl … rom-inside-hurricane

© 2021 AFP