It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
UT School of Natural Resources team receives grant to remove ‘forever chemicals’ from water
Student team led by assistant professor Mi Li to participate in the EPA’s national student design expo
UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE INSTITUTE OF AGRICULTURE
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MI LI, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN THE UT CENTER FOR RENEWABLE CARBON (CENTER), RECEIVED A GRANT FROM THE U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY TO RESEARCH REMOVING HARMFUL CHEMICALS FROM WATER. KAILONG ZHANG, A PH.D. STUDENT IN THE SCHOOL OF NATURAL RESOURCES (LEFT), AND RYAN BASKETTE, AN UNDERGRADUATE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF BIOCHEMISTRY AND CELLULAR AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY, ARE MEMBERS OF THE TEAM.
Mi Li, assistant professor in the University of Tennessee Center for Renewable Carbon and the UT School of Natural Resources, received a $75,000 research grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a two-year project using a cellulose-functionalized adsorbent to remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from water. Li has built a student team to work on this project including Kailong Zhang, a Ph.D. student in the School of Natural Resources, and Ryan Baskette, an undergraduate student in the Department of Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular Biology.
The grant comes from the EPA’s People, Prosperity, and the Planet Program, which provided almost $1.2 million to 16 college student teams across the U.S. to develop solutions for environmental and public health challenges. The team plans to create a cellulose-metal organic frameworks (Cello-MOFs) hybrid adsorbent to remove PFAS from water. PFAS are synthetic chemicals that resist heat, oil, stains, grease, and water. “They’re forever chemicals. They’re applied almost everywhere from firefighting foams to nonstick cooking utensils to textiles and cosmetics. After leaching, they accumulate in the soil, water, and environment, and they’ve been there for a long time, harming the environment, wildlife, and humans,” Li said.
The team will demonstrate how their judiciously designed adsorbent cleans water contaminated with PFAS at the EPA’s National Student Design Expo in 2025. “Our team aims to functionalize naturally derived cellulose with MOFs to capture these substances and contribute to a cleaner and safer environment,” Li said.
Li said the showing at the expo could lead to additional funding for the project or its commercialization. The team also plans to put the project’s results in a technical manuscript for a peer-reviewed journal. Li added, “Having one or two co-authored, peer-reviewed journal publications will benefit the students when applying for graduate school or jobs. It is a big deal!”
“I am thrilled to be a part of the U.S. EPA P3 project as a graduate student team member. This project offers more than just an opportunity for my academic research exploration. It is a valuable hands-on learning experience crucial for my future academic pursuits,” Zhang said.
“As an undergraduate, the lab skills and research experience I have gained as part of this team will be invaluable to my future endeavors. Working on sustainable solutions to environmental and health issues, like PFAS pollution, has been fulfilling and impactful,” Baskette said.
The project will continue through December 2025.
The UT School of Natural Resources is part of the Herbert College of Agriculture, UT AgResearch and UT Extension at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture. The curricula focus on a mastery learning approach, emphasizing practical, hands-on experiences. The School’s faculty, staff and students conduct research and extension that advances the science and sustainable management of our natural resources. For more information, visit naturalresources.tennessee.edu.
Through its mission of research, teaching and extension, the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture touches lives and provides Real. Life. Solutions. utia.tennessee.edu
Thursday, April 18, 2024
21ST CENTURY ALCHEMY
Gold may be key element for cleaner drinking water
UCF researchers are using gold to develop a novel method to remove toxins from drinking water
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA
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UCF RESEARCHERS WOO HYOUNG LEE AND YANG YANG ARE LEADING A PROJECT TO USE GOLD TO DEVELOP A NOVEL METHOD TO RID DRINKING WATER OF HARMFUL ALGAL BLOOMS.
ORLANDO, April 18, 2024 – Gold may be a coveted precious metal, but it could also be the key to cleaner drinking water.
A team of UCF researchers is exploring the use of the metal to develop a novel method to rid drinking water of harmful algal blooms, or HABs, which occur when colonies of algae grow out of control and produce toxic or harmful effects on people, fish, birds and other living creatures.
Their project is supported through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) program, which recently awarded $1.2 million to 16 collegiate teams across the United States.
UCF received $75,000 for their two-year project that aims to develop a gold-decorated nickel metal-organic framework (MOF) that removes microcystins — toxins produced by harmful algae blooms — from the water. MOFs are porous clusters of metal polymers that are used in many practical applications.
“MOFs have been used as a catalyst for many research areas such as hydrogen storage, carbon capture, electrocatalysis, biological imaging and sensing, semiconductors and drug delivery systems,” Lee says. “In this project, we’re using the gold-decorated nickel MOF as a photocatalyst to remove water pollutants.”
The gold will be coated in an MOF, which will help it react to the sunlight. That reaction, known as photocatalysis, will result in the oxidation of the microcystins, removing them from the water.
Microcystins are the most common cyanotoxins linked to harmful algal blooms in freshwater environments, notably in regions such as Florida with abundant lakes. They’re known to cause liver damage, kidney failure, gastroenteritis and allergic reactions in humans. With the UCF team’s novel solution, water treatment facilities can produce cleaner, safer drinking water.
"Clean drinking water isn't just a necessity, it's a fundamental right, especially for Floridians who rely on our abundant lakes and waterways,” Lee says. “By leveraging the innovative nanotechnology for water treatment, we're not only removing toxins but also safeguarding the health and well-being of our communities, ensuring a brighter, healthier future for all.”
This is Lee’s second consecutive year receiving the P3 award. In 2023, his team was selected for their work on a biosensor that could detect microcystins early in their formation for faster eradication.
This is the 20th anniversary of the P3 program. Projects funded this year will tackle critical issues such as removing PFAS from water, combating harmful algal blooms, and materials recovery and reuse, says Chris Frey, assistant administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development, in a release.
“I commend these hardworking and creative students and look forward to seeing the results of their innovative projects that are addressing some of our thorniest sustainability and environmental challenges,” Frey says.
About the Researchers
Lee is an associate professor in the UCF Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering. He received his bachelor's degree in environmental engineering from Chonnam National University in 1996, his master's degree in environmental engineering from Korea University in 2001 and his doctoral degree in environmental engineering from the University of Cincinnati in 2009. Before joining UCF, he was an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education postdoctoral research fellow at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Risk Management Research Laboratory in Ohio.
Yang holds joint appointments in UCF’s NanoScience Technology Center and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, which is part of the university’s College of Engineering and Computer Science. He is a member of UCF’s Renewable Energy and Chemical Transformation Cluster. Before joining UCF in 2015, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Rice University and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany. He received his doctoral degree in materials science from Tsinghua University in China.
Debt-plagued Thames Water has failed to raise a major cash injection from shareholders, it revealed Thursday, blaming industry regulations that made its rescue plan “uninvestable”.
Britain’s biggest water supplier said in a statement that £500 million ($630-million) of new equity would “not be provided by Thames Water’s shareholders” this month.
The cash represented most of a £750-million funding lifeline agreed with investors in July to stay afloat.
The company on Thursday said it was in talks with industry regulator Ofwat over a plan that is “affordable for customers, deliverable and financeable for Thames Water, as well as investible for equity investors”.
Britain’s domestic Press Association news agency said Ofwat had refused to bow to Thames Water’s demands for concessions, which it said included a 40-percent jump in water bills that would worsen the country’s cost-of-living crisis.
Thames Water is Britain’s biggest water supplier – Copyright AFP SAUL LOEB
Other concessions sought reportedly include an easing in capital spending requirements and leniency over regulatory penalties.
– ‘Pursue all options’ –
“Safeguards are in place to ensure that services to customers are protected regardless of issues faced by shareholders of Thames Water,” said an Ofwat spokesperson.
“Today’s update… means the company must now pursue all options to seek further equity for the business to turn around the performance of the company for customers.” Thames Water, which supplies more than 15 million homes and businesses in London and elsewhere in southern England, is saddled with debts of almost £15 billion that have placed it at risk of nationalisation.
“We prepare for a range of scenarios across our regulated industries — including water — as any responsible government would,” said a statement Thursday from the Conservative administration led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Steve Reed, environment spokesman for the main opposition Labour party, said “the government and regulators must do everything in their power to stabilise the company and ensure new investment comes through to fix the broken sewage system without taxpayers being left to foot the bill.”
Labour, widely tipped to win a UK general election this year according to several polls, “will strengthen the regulator’s powers and make financial stability a priority to prevent this situation from happening again” should it win power, Reed added in a statement.
Thames Water has faced fierce criticism over missing targets to reduce leaks and slash sewage discharges into rivers, despite major infrastructure investment.
Environmentalists have increasingly voiced outrage at the rise in pollution on the UK’s beaches and waterways, and have pointed the finger at privatised water companies.
Elsewhere on Thursday, researchers revealed that high levels of E.coli, a bacteria found in human waste, had been found in London’s River Thames.
The river will Saturday host the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race — an annual event featuring competing rowing crews from England’s two oldest universities.
P3 PENSION FUNDS PRIVATE PARTNER Syrah Resources to raise $65m for Mozambique, US projects
Reuters | March 12, 2024 | Syrah’s Vidalia facility in Louisiana. Credit: Syrah Resources
Australia’s Syrah Resources said on Wednesday it would raise A$98 million ($64.73 million) through a placement and an entitlement offer for funding its Balama graphite operations in Mozambique and its US-based Vidalia project.
Syrah’s largest shareholder and the country’s top pension fund AustralianSuper have agreed to the conversion of a 5-year unsecured convertible note issued in June 2019 and December 2023 into fresh shares in the miner, it said in a statement.
AustralianSuper had committed to subscribing for all shares under the placement and taking up its full pro-rata entitlement in the institutional entitlement offer, the company said.
The placement would be at a fixed price of A$0.55 per new share, which represented a discount of 19.1% to stock’s last closing price on March 12.
The company said it had agreed with AustralianSuper to the conversion of series 1 and 3 notes into new shares at a revised conversion price of A$0.6688 per share.
The company added that AustralianSuper’s shareholding would increase to no more than 31.9% post the completion of funding round, from around 17.8% earlier.
Around 178.2 million new shares would be issued under the placement and entitlement offer, Syrah said.
($1 = 1.5140 Australian dollars)
(By Roshan Thomas; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Rashmi Aich)
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
Australia Development
Third Way Love for Public-Private Partnerships Turns Deadly
Since Labor PM Paul Keating’s early ’90s privatization spree, Australian governments have been obsessed with public-private partnerships. It’s a model that spends public money to subsidize private profits — often with disastrous outcomes.
ALBERTA FOLLOWED AUSTRALIA'S P3 PLANS
An asbestos warning sign is seen along the foreshore at Bicentennial Park on February 29, 2024 in Sydney, Australia.
(Jenny Evans / Getty Images)
When the Rozelle Interchange opened to traffic in November 2023, it cemented the status of Sydney’s WestConnex as one of the most extensive underground road networks on the planet. As cars poured into the tunnel, the general manager of one company involved in its construction predicted “a sustainable and joyful future for the people of Sydney.”
City councils bore the brunt of residents’ anger at the new traffic congestion. Then, in January this year, parents noticed asbestos mixed in with the tanbark covering their children’s playgrounds in Rozelle Parklands. They reported it to the authorities and, after a week’s delay that the New South Wales (NSW) transport authority blamed on the Christmas holidays, an investigation began.
The investigation found that the parklands — built to mollify residents’ concerns about the environmental impact of WestConnex — contained more than ten tons of asbestos-contaminated mulch. And it wasn’t an isolated accident. Soon, it emerged that hundreds of other schools, playgrounds, and parks across the city were are also contaminated. These discoveries have prompted the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) to launch the biggest criminal investigation in its history. Although WestConnex developers John Holland CPB have some responsibility, given they constructed the Rozelle Parklands playgrounds, the investigation has not yet determined which waste management companies are directly responsible.
But the roots of the disaster run deeper than isolated criminal companies or “regulatory failure” associated with a single government agency. Rather, it should be understood as an outcome of a development model dominated by massive corporations that have molded infrastructure and planning to their interests. Working hand in hand with governments under the public-private partnership model, multibillion dollar developers have ensured that profits are systematically prioritized over the good of cities, public health, and the environment.
Star-Crossed Lucre
When Tony Abbott’s Liberal-National Coalition won government in 2013, Australia’s long mining boom had already peaked. Unemployment was growing, and excess capacity in the nonmining sector had led to a kind of capital strike. The prospects for economic growth were looking grim.
So, Tony Abbott — flanked by Liberal Party premiers Barry O’Farrell and Denis Napthine — decided to hitch his economic recovery wagon to two signature toll road projects: WestConnex in Sydney, and the East West Link in Melbourne, Victoria. At projected costs of $17 billion and $13 billion respectively, each ranked among the biggest infrastructure projects in the world.
Both projects were profoundly flawed from the outset. Abbott aimed to use public funds to subsidize construction of what were to be privately owned and operated toll roads. Both roads required the demolition of housing and parklands, both came at the expense of vitally needed public transport infrastructure, and both were sure to cause environmental destruction. And given the huge public expenditure, the financial case for both projects was dodgy, to say the least. Liberal Party state and federal governments addressed this weakness by keeping the business plans secret.
In both NSW and Victoria, local communities launched campaigns against the proposed toll roads. However, the outcome was markedly different in each state. In Victoria, socialists grouped around local councilor Stephen Jolly led the campaign. It involved daily pickets against drill sites as well as mass protests aimed at pressuring both the major parties. In the end, the campaign against the East West Link won when Labor’s Daniel Andrews came to power and scrapped the initiative.What was touted as a gridlock-busting gift to the suburbs has proven to be an environmentally disastrous money pit.
In NSW, however, the campaign mostly employed softer tactics. As a consequence, it failed to cajole the opposition Labor Party — historically well to the right of its interstate counterpart — into withdrawing support from WestConnex. Despite vehement community opposition, construction proceeded as planned.
Now, some ten years later, WestConnex is nearing completion, albeit with new extensions in the works. Already, the almost-finished product is vindicating predictions made by activists at the outset. In short, the road is a black hole for public funds that has worsened pollution while increasing congestion. What was touted as a gridlock-busting gift to the suburbs has proven to be an environmentally disastrous money pit.
“Big and Ugly Enough”
Both WestConnex and the East West Link were twenty-first-century incarnations of the 1950s dream of building Los Angeles–style freeway systems in Australia’s major cities. But while the idea was old, its twenty-first-century execution was neoliberal from top to bottom.
State and federal governments conceived of both projects as public-private partnerships (PPPs), a catchall term referring to infrastructure projects where governments offer tax concessions, lavish indemnities, and risk guarantees to attract private investment.
The PPP financing model kicked off in Australia in the early 1990s, when mania for deregulation swept the country under then Labor prime minister Paul Keating. The craze for marketization saw governments award generous contracts to transport companies like Mayne Nickless, essentially handing them public money to build, own, and operate core infrastructure like hospitals. To paraphrase the NSW auditor general at the time, under the PPP model, the public paid for infrastructure twice before giving it away.
The results have been predictably disastrous. Almost half of the hospitals built in the 1990s under NSW’s PPP model reverted to government ownership decades before the contracts were due to end.
These scandals were enough of an embarrassment that, by the early 2000s, governments began offering slightly less freewheeling PPP contracts. This, however, had a downside: it made PPPs less profitable for private investors.
Take the 2003 Sydney Lane Cove Tunnel contract. The group behind Lane Cove Tunnel Connector Motorways included Leighton Holdings (now CIMIC), Mirvac, and CK Infrastructure Holdings, some of the world’s biggest road and construction giants, as well as Transfield, which was to manage the tunnel’s day-to-day maintenance. These private companies sold the Lane Cove Tunnel project to the government and public using questionable traffic predictions. Unsurprisingly, it failed to make money and did not alleviate congestion. Then, in 2010, the consortium behind the Lane Cove Tunnel went into receivership with $1.14 billion in debt.At times, the public-private partnership infrastructure development paradigm has seen governments bankroll private profits to a farcical extent.
At the time, Transfield executive Tony Shepherd — who went on to become WestConnex delivery authority chairman — responded to the scandal by declaring that “the private sector is big and ugly enough to look after itself.” This might suggest that infrastructure giants would wean themselves off PPP money or simply absorb future losses, as free-market ideology would have it. Instead, the industry looked after itself — and used its weight to force governments to simply guarantee profitability, again, at public expense.
Privatized Profit, Socialized Risk
By 2010, the economic terrain had changed. Thanks to the 2008 global financial crisis, capital investment had slowed significantly, adding to industry pressure on governments to publicly subsidize profitability on major projects. So, despite increased public skepticism around PPPs, the Victorian and NSW governments moved to decrease risks to private investors in infrastructure projects by making state governments their financial guarantors.
At times, the resulting PPP infrastructure development paradigm has seen governments bankroll private profits to a farcical extent. The scrapped East West Link, for example, would have returned only 45 cents for every dollar invested. Despite this, it guaranteed private investors taxpayer-funded subsidies of $335 million per year for twenty-five years.
Governments have even turned to bribery to entice investors. Just weeks before the 2014 Victorian election, when public opposition to the East West Link was at a high point, most consortia had withdrawn their tenders. Although the project looked increasingly in doubt, the beleaguered Liberal state government lured developer Lendlease into bidding by promising as much as $1 billion dollars in compensation if the project did not go ahead. In part, it was a political maneuver aimed at forcing the incoming Labor government to go ahead with the project.
After coming to power, Labor premier Daniel Andrews made good on his campaign promise to cancel the East West Link. But he also partly honored his predecessor’s promise, “compensating” Lendlease hundreds of millions of dollars for absolutely nothing.
The situation in NSW is similar. In 2018, when construction of WestConnex was well underway, a NSW parliamentary inquiry found that the business case for the tunnel made no sense. Despite this, the inquiry recommended that the project should proceed — but only because the government had guaranteed inordinate taxpayer compensation, should the project halt.In practice, the New South Wales government is paying the private sector for failing at business.
WestConnex went ahead — and the tolls are so punitive that former Liberal premier Dominic Perrottet brought in subsidies compensating road users for costs surpassing $60 per week. In practice, the NSW government is paying the private sector for failing at business.
The new PPP paradigm encourages developers to gamble irresponsibly and win big regardless of how the cards fall. There are now seemingly no lengths to which governments won’t go to guarantee profits.
State-Sponsored Greenwash
Compounding the economic pain inflicted on the public by WestConnex is the environmental devastation. And unfortunately, asbestos contamination is just one part of a bigger picture.
To begin with, there is growing evidence that the project may be responsible for an increase in deadly air pollution in the state. Exhaust fumes are vented out of WestConnex through many huge, unfiltered exhaust stacks. As two recent reports suggest, the environmental, human, and economic cost of traffic pollution like this could be worse than previously thought.
The first report, published in February 2023 by University of Melbourne researchers, found that traffic pollution in Australia is causing around eleven thousand premature deaths each year. The second study, produced by the NSW state government in March 2023, found that across the state, premature deaths directly attributable to air pollution are costing the around US$3.4 billion a year. Thanks to campaigning by environmental groups in Sydney, the NSW minister for roads has now asked the NSW chief scientist to review his recent report on traffic-related air pollution that, somewhat dubiously, did not reflect any of these new findings.
But whether the environmental impacts of the WestConnex tunnel stacks were knowingly or unknowingly underestimated, there is little the current environmental authorities can or will do about it. To begin with, there is no national environmental protection agency in Australia. And beyond this, a cursory glance at recent developments shows that existing state agencies are largely ineffective, underfunded, or captured by business interests. As a result, the agencies tasked with protecting the environment often perform the opposite role.
For example, the former head of the West Australian (WA) Environmental Protection Authority, Tom Hatton, recently claimed that former WA premier Mark McGowan directly pressured the agency to withdraw policy proposals that the fossil fuel industry objected to. Or, on the other side of the continent, after conducting a three year review, Victoria’s EPA decided to not to impose any limits on greenhouse gas emissions under new coal power station licenses.
This reality is perhaps most glaring in NSW, where the EPA has found that 94 percent of industry players are not complying with environmental regulations. As the extent of asbestos contamination was revealed, it emerged that a staggering 43 percent of waste management companies have been ordering laboratories to repeatedly retest toxic waste samples until they meet acceptable contamination thresholds.In New South Wales, the Environment Protection Authority has found that 94 percent of industry players are not complying with environmental regulations.
There were also clear warning signs. In a 2019 review, the NSW EPA also found that 57 percent of facilities producing “recovered fines” — a soil substitute used in landscaping — were contaminated with asbestos. Despite this, the agency refused to tighten regulations, citing industry claims that it would cost too much. In this context, the NSW EPA’s leniency toward the big developers behind the current asbestos outbreak looks borderline complicit.
And although there is no nationwide agency tasked with protecting the environment, the federal government also shares responsibility. A 2020 inquiry into the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 found the act “is not fit to address current or future environmental challenges.” Since the act came into force, governments have approved 740 fossil fuel projects — and a staggering 75 percent of these did not require any environmental impact assessment.
As the Australia Institute’s 2022 State-Sponsored Greenwash report put it, “the fossil fuel industry and major emitters have set Australia’s policy agenda on climate.”
New Tactics Needed
The slow-motion WestConnex trainwreck has vindicated the concerns that campaigners raised way back in 2013 against Tony Abbott’s toll road projects. But given that the Victorian campaign won, while the NSW campaign failed to prevent the disaster it predicted, it’s worth considering the strengths of the former.
Firstly, when it comes to public relations, the fossil fuel lobby basically relies on a divide-and-rule strategy that smears environmental groups as representing spoiled inner-city elites. When protesters interrupted a speech by WestConnex Delivery Authority executive Dennis Cliche, he retorted that
it is a very, I would say, inequitable debate that’s being had. The people who are making the most noise . . . don’t have kids who are to some extent excluded socially from the opportunities that some people have. It’s not right for the people in an inner-city community to come in and enjoy their lifestyle and try and apply that to everybody else.
Cliche’s argument was obviously disingenuous. But it can’t be dismissed out of hand. The reality is that only a campaign that draws in broad, working-class support has any hope of being successful. The anti–East West Link campaign spent months drumming up opposition to the project in the outer suburbs and regional Victoria, signing up thousands of new people to the campaign. It predicted the developers and Liberal Party’s PR strategy and preempted it, denying them the chance to drive a wedge between inner-city and suburban residents.
Secondly, the failure of the WestConnex campaign shows that moderate tactics and well-researched appeals to authority are not enough. Both major parties receive copious amounts of money from the oil and roads lobby, and there is a revolving door between federal and state governments and the big polluting companies.
By contrast, the East West Link campaign employed a dual strategy. Activists built the campaign outward by engaging large numbers of residents, including in the suburbs, while simultaneously engaging in direct, tactical, collective confrontation with the government and big developers. As a result, it dominated the news cycle, won the battle of public opinion, applied tangible pressure — and it ultimately won.
CONTRIBUTOR Chris Dite is a teacher and union member.
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
P3
India seeks $35 billion of private nuclear power investments: Sources
This is the first time New Delhi is pursuing private investment in nuclear power – a non-carbon-emitting energy source.
FEB 21, 2024
NEW DELHI – India will invite private firms to invest about US$26 billion (S$35 billion) in its nuclear energy sector to increase the amount of electricity from sources that don’t produce carbon dioxide emissions, two government sources told Reuters.
This is the first time New Delhi is pursuing private investment in nuclear power, a non-carbon-emitting energy source that contributes less than 2 per cent of India’s total electricity generation. The funding would help India to achieve its target of having 50 per cent of its installed electric generation capacity use non-fossil fuels by 2030, up from 42 per cent now.
The government is in talks with at least five private firms including Reliance Industries, Tata Power, Adani Power and Vedanta to invest around 440 billion rupees (S$7.13 billion) each, the two sources, who are directly involved in the matter, said last week.
The federal Department of Atomic Energy and state-run Nuclear Power Corp of India (NPCIL) have held multiple rounds of discussions with the private companies in the past year on the investment plan, the sources said.
The Department of Atomic Energy, NPCIL, Tata Power, Reliance Industries, Adani Power, and Vedanta did not respond to queries sent by Reuters.
With the investment, the government hopes to build 11,000MW of new nuclear power generation capacity by 2040, said the sources, who did not want to be identified as the plan is still being finalised.
NPCIL owns and operates India’s current fleet of nuclear power plants, with a capacity of 7,500MW, and has committed investments for another 13,000MW.
The sources said under the funding plan the private companies will make the investments in the nuclear plants, acquire land, water and undertake construction in areas outside the reactor complex of the plants.
But the rights to build and run the stations and their fuel management will rest with NPCIL, as allowed under the law, they said.
The private companies are expected to earn revenue from the power plant’s electricity sales and NPCIL would operate the projects for a fee, the sources said.
“This hybrid model of nuclear power project development is an innovative solution to accelerate the nuclear capacity,” said Mr Charudatta Palekar, an independent power sector consultant who formerly worked for PwC.
The plan will not require any amendment to India’s Atomic Energy Act of 1962 but will need a final go-ahead from the Department of Atomic Energy, said one of the two sources.
Indian law bars private companies from setting up nuclear power plants but allows them to supply components, equipment and sign construction contracts for work outside of the reactors.
New Delhi has not met its nuclear power capacity addition targets for years mainly because it could not procure nuclear fuel supplies. However in 2010, India struck a deal with the United States for supplies of reprocessed nuclear fuel.
India’s stringent nuclear compensation laws have hampered talks with foreign power plant builders such as General Electric and Westinghouse. The country has deferred a target to add 20,000MW of nuclear power from 2020 to 2030.
Children and adults with rare, deadly genetic diseases have fresh hope for curative therapies, thanks to a new collaboration between the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) and Danaher Corporation, a global life sciences and diagnostics innovator.
The new Danaher-IGI Beacon for CRISPR Cures center will use genome editing to address potentially hundreds of diseases, including rare genetic disorders that have no cure. The goal is to ensure treatments can be developed and brought to patients more quickly and efficiently.
The IGI comprises genetics researchers and clinician experts from three University of California campuses: UCSF, UCLA and UC Berkeley, where the institute is housed, as well as other research institutions. Danaher will provide tools, reagents, resources and expertise to accelerate preclinical and clinical development and establish new standards for safety and efficacy.
The center will work first on CRISPR treatments for two genetic defects of the immune system: familial hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), which causes immune cells to become overactive, damaging tissues and organs throughout the body; and Artemis-deficient severe combined immunodeficiency (ART-SCID), in which T and B lymphocytes fail to mature, making infants vulnerable to fatal infections.
The standard treatment for both conditions, a bone marrow transplant, is inadequate due to frequent complications.
“With CRISPR, we can speed up the development of improved therapies that can reach all the patients who need them,” said Jennifer Puck, MD, a pediatrics professor who directs the UCSF Jeffrey Modell Diagnostic Center for Primary Immunodeficiencies. “All patients deserve a sense of urgency – including those with rare diseases, many of whom are children.”
Since the CRISPR platform being created at IGI could, in theory, be reprogrammed to address any gene mutation, the goal is to use treatments for HLH and ART-SCID as models to develop a scalable approach from which new medicine for other genetic diseases can be rapidly developed.
“The unique nature of CRISPR makes it ideal for developing and deploying a platform capability for CRISPR cures on demand,” said Fyodor Urnov, IGI’s Director of Technology and Translation, who is overseeing the project along with Doudna and IGI Executive Director Brad Ringeisen. “Danaher and the IGI are in a unique position to potentially create a first-of-its-kind CRISPR cures ‘cookbook’ that could be used by any team wishing to take on other diseases.”
ART-SCID and HLH are typical of many rare diseases in that they have small patient populations, making drug development challenging and cost prohibitive. On average, it takes 10 years for a single clinical trial.
HLH and ART-SCID are two examples of a class known as inborn errors of immunity or IEIs. Each IEI is very rare, but collectively there are about 500 such diseases affecting more than 112,000 patients.
“We can develop CRISPR cures in a laboratory, but at the end of the day we need a way to turn those into clinical products for thousands of patients,” says IGI founder Jennifer Doudna, PhD, a UC Berkeley biochemist who won the Nobel Prize for co-developing CRISPR.
Currently there are only a few hundred patients in clinical trials for CRISPR-based therapies; the IGI hopes its work will allow that number to ramp up ten-fold over the next decade.
After decades of research, Puck and UCSF Pediatrics Professor Mort Cowan, MD, successfully treated 14 children with ART-SCID, known colloquially as Bubble Baby Disease, by inserting a corrected version of the Artemis gene into the children’s own bone marrow stem cells using a delivery system known as a lentivirus. A CRISPR-based version of this treatment could more precisely target where the gene copies go, avoiding possible toxicity from lentiviral interference with genes near sites of insertion in the genome.
Both ART-SCID and HLH have extensive patient registries to facilitate enrollment in future clinical trials. Since both are diseases of blood-forming bone marrow stem cells that renew the immune system throughout the life span, targeting these cells can bypass challenges in delivering CRISPR molecules to tissues in other disorders.
“We know how to deliver the CRISPR molecules into the cells to fix them,” Cowan said. “We also know how to reach patients, because there is an existing registry and network of expert physicians. By focusing on ART-SCID and HLH first, we aim to create a roadmap through pre-clinical and clinical development and lead the way for other indications, whether they are rare or not.”
The IGI team includes UCSF physician-scientists Matthew Kan, MD, PhD, Puck and Cowan focusing on ART-SCID; and David Nguyen, MD, PhD, Michelle Hermiston, MD, PhD and Bryan Shy, MD, PhD, focusing on HLH. Petros Giannikopoulos, MD, director of IGI’s Clinical Laboratory, will be the center’s diagnostic and analytical lead. Donald Kohn, MD, of UCLA will be involved in translating the gene editing approaches developed at UCSF and UC Berkeley to clinical cell manufacturing in the UCLA Human Gene and Cell Therapy Facility.
Cowan, Kan, Kohn and Puck are recipients of grants from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, CIRM, which have enabled them to reach the current stage of their work with the Beacon center.
About UCSF: The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF's primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area. UCSF School of Medicine also has a regional campus in Fresno. Learn more at https://ucsf.edu, or see our Fact Sheet.
About the Innovative Genomics Institute: The Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) is a joint effort between the Bay Area’s leading scientific research institutions, UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco, with affiliates at UC Davis, UCLA, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Gladstone Institutes, and other institutions. Founded by Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna, the IGI’s mission is to bridge revolutionary genome-editing tool development to affordable and accessible solutions in human health, climate, and agriculture. We are working toward a world where genomic technology is routinely applied to treat genetic disease, enable sustainable agriculture, and help achieve a carbon-neutral economy. www.innovativegenomics.org.
Top lithium miners eye partnership with Chilean government
Cecilia Jamasmie | January 3, 2024 | SQM already has a deal with Codelco to mine lithium in northern Chile. (Image courtesy of SQM.)
Some of the world’s top lithium miners including Tianqi Lithium Corp. (SHE: 002466), LG Energy Solution (KRX: 373220) and Eramet SA (EPA: ERA) have met with Chilean government representatives in the past two months to explore potential partnerships to develop the country’s vast resources of the battery metal.
Data released on Chile’s transparency platform shows the three companies and Tesla’s representatives held meetings with authorities to discuss the new public-private lithium exploitation model announced in April.
Under President Gabriel Boric’s ambitious plan, any company wishing to explore for or mine lithium in the copper-rich nation must be in a partnership with the government, with the state holding a controlling stake.
The strategy aims to expand the extraction of lithium while using pioneering environmentally-friendly technology and including the input of local Indigenous communities.
Executives from China’s Tianqi, already a major SQM shareholder, discussed investment intentions in a meeting in December. So did LG Energy, while France’s Erament had approached authorities in November to explore an alliance in the 120,000-hectare lithium concession it owns in the Atacama region.
According to local paper El Mercurio, Tesla’s regional business development manager, Eugenio Grandio, also met with government officials to talk about strategies for electric mobility.
Tesla executives had met with the ministers of foreign affairs and mining in early 2023, just weeks before Boric announced the country’s new lithium strategy.
The two largest lithium producers, Albemarle (NYSE: ALB) and SQM (NYSE: SQM), already have operations in the country, which is the world’s second largest producer of the battery metal.
Only day before the end of 2023, Chilean lithium miner SQM managed to ink a deal with copper giant Codelco for the future development and production of the metal in the Atacama salt flat, in a tie-up set to kick off in 2025 and run through 2060.
Albemarle’s current contract with Chile expires in 2043, but CEO Kent Masters has said he is open to negotiating before the deadline.
Saturday, December 16, 2023
NSF-funded project provides digital maps to improve accessibility and navigation for persons with disabilities
Lehigh University researcher awarded grant for MABLE: Mapping for Accessibility in BuiLt Environments, using crowdsensing, AI and robotics to empower individuals with responsive maps and turn-by-turn instructions through a digital app.
USING CROWDSENSING, AI AND ROBOTICS, MABLE: MAPPING FOR ACCESSIBILITY IN BUILT ENVIRONMENTS EMPOWERS INDIVIDUALS WITH RESPONSIVE MAPS AND TURN-BY-TURN INSTRUCTIONS THROUGH A DIGITAL APP TO HELP THEM NAVIGATE INDOOR ENVIRONMENTS SUCCESSFULLY. THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION-FUNDED MABLE PROJECT AT LEHIGH UNIVERSITY PROVIDES PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES INDEPENDENCE TO EXPERIENCE LARGE EVENTS, CONFERENCES AND EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS.
(IMAGE SHOWS A SMARTPHONE SCREEN WITH AN APP INDICATING A USER SELECTED A SINGLE CANE/CRUTCH AND PREFERENCE FOR USING AN ELEVATOR. BEHIND THE PHONE SCREEN IS AN ORANGE BACKGROUND AND, IN WHITE, THE WORDS "REIMAGINE NAVIGATION.")
MABLE: Mapping for Accessibility in BuiLt Environments provides persons with disabilities independence to experience large events, conferences and educational programs. Using crowdsensing, AI and robotics, MABLE empowers individuals with responsive maps and turn-by-turn instructions through a digital app to help them navigate indoor environments successfully.
Key users include those with visual or mobility impairments, such as people with low vision and wheelchair users, as well as other persons with planning and navigation assistance needs.
“The premise of the challenge that I’ve been trying to solve is ‘How do you make it easier for everyone?’” said Namboodiri. “Not necessarily those who know the building well, but anyone in unfamiliar environments. Even those without disabilities often struggle.”
Namboodiri’s team was one of the 16 teams that participated in Phase 1 of the NSF’s Convergence Accelerator, Track H: Enhancing Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities. At the end of Phase 1, the teams participated in a formal pitch and proposal evaluation. In December 2023, the NSF selected MABLE and five other projects to move forward in Phase 2, investing $30 million across all projects with up to $5 million in funding for each project.
In Phase 2, Namboodiri and his team will continue to apply Convergence Accelerator fundamentals to develop solution prototypes and to build a sustainability model to continue impact beyond NSF support. By the end of the 24-month Phase 2 effort, teams are expected to provide high-impact solutions that address societal needs at scale.
Namboodiri’s project and Convergence Accelerator funding connect directly with the College of Health’s core focus on advancing health equity. Specifically, the College of Health recently started a research cluster focused on disability health equity—with Namboodiri at its head— coinciding in focus with the Convergence Accelerator’s Track H.
Additionally, the College of Health takes a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach to health research, and emphasizes the importance of Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) and community involvement in the pursuit of health equity. Similarly, Convergence Accelerator research topics begin through gathering input from the community, meet a societal need at scale, and are built upon foundational research and are suitable for a multidisciplinary, convergence research approach.
“A convergence approach between researchers, innovators, and persons with disabilities spanning organizations and communities across multiple sectors is crucial to ensure these NSF-funded solutions address barriers to employment, freedom of movement and quality of life for persons with disabilities,” said Douglas Maughan, head of the NSF Convergence Accelerator program. “The selected Phase 2 teams are fostering strong partnerships to ensure their use-inspired solutions assist a wide range of people.”
The NSF’s Convergence Accelerator transitions basic research and discovery into practice through innovation processes like human-centered design, user discovery and team science, as well as integration of multidisciplinary research and partnerships. By making timely investments, such as Namboodiri’s project, the Convergence Accelerator aims to solve high-risk societal challenges through use-inspired convergence research.
NSF awards $6M to Lehigh University to speed up translation of research into real-world application
The new Accelerating Research Translation (ART) program addresses the gap between academic research and practical solutions for society’s complex problems.
THE ART LEADERSHIP TEAM AT LEHIGH UNIVERSITY, FROM LEFT: DOMINIC PACKER, ASSOCIATE VICE PROVOST FOR RESEARCH; LEE KERN, PROFESSOR OF SPECIAL EDUCATION AND DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR PROMOTING RESEARCH TO PRACTICE; HIMANSHU JAIN, THE T.L. DIAMOND DISTINGUISHED CHAIR IN ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE, PROFESSOR OF MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, AND DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE FOR FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS AND DEVICES (I-FMD); HENRY ODI, DEPUTY VICE PRESIDENT FOR EQUITY AND COMMUNITY AND ASSOCIATE PROVOST FOR ACADEMIC DIVERSITY; AND JOHN COULTER, SENIOR ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR RESEARCH IN THE P.C. ROSSIN COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE,
The National Science Foundation has awarded Lehigh University $6 million to increase the translation of scientific discoveries by faculty, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers into prototypes, products and programs that will benefit society.
The award will support Lehigh’s work to speed up and support its research activities in engineering, science, health, humanities, business, education and myriad other areas that have the potential to lead to products and services for the general good. Lehigh also will train graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in translational research.
“While it’s essential to make discoveries and do fundamental research, as a university we must also be effective in translating new knowledge to solve important problems in the world. This is how we enhance the impact of the research done by our faculty, staff and students,” said Lehigh Provost Nathan Urban. “We are excited that NSF has recognized and decided to support Lehigh’s efforts to take ideas and discoveries from the lab and develop them into practical solutions to societal and economic challenges.”
A portion of the funding will support seed translational research projects that are on the “cusp” of being applied to practical outcomes, and the rest will support education and training as well as other research translation enhancement activities.
“This is a high-priority initiative,” Coulter said. “Lehigh will create and operate a comprehensive, inclusive and accessible research translation ecosystem that will guide researchers and project teams along the paths of venture creation, research translation into existing industry, and societal impact."
The investments are not just important to Lehigh, but to funding agencies as well, Coulter said. “This is a national and international trend to have research be more use-inspired, more connected to the end users … and more rapidly translated for positive societal impact. That's what this is meant to do.”
Carnegie Mellon University will serve as a peer mentor institution, helping Lehigh leverage its existing strengths to grow its translational research work and transform its culture.
The first-ever awards address a long-standing gap between academic research and practical solutions for society’s complex problems.
“On the faculty side, we all say we want impact,” said Dominic Packer, associate vice provost for research at Lehigh and a member of the ART leadership team. “Some of the greatest impact is when you discover something new and it actually creates something that changes how doctors deliver medicine, or is a new invention that people put to use out in the field, or is an intervention for kids in schools.”
But translating that research into usable products or services can be challenging, he said.
“Every university has this problem. It's sometimes called the Valley of Death between work that happens on a campus and then actually gets into the world.” he said. “It's in part because, as researchers, we don't have those skill sets. We're not business people. We've never thought entrepreneurially for the most part. …This is a program to really help elevate that.”
The NSF award advances the goals outlined in Lehigh’s strategic plan, Inspiring the Future Makers. The 10-year plan outlines a bold vision for the university centered around breaking boundaries to address societal challenges, innovate in academics and research, and cultivate collaborations and partnerships to amplify Lehigh’s global, national and regional impact. The plan aims to allow Lehigh to find pragmatic solutions to the world’s problems through research and scholarship.
The work will build on Lehigh’s strengths and past successes, such as the innovative Pasteur Partners PhD (P3) Fellowship, a launchpad for advanced students who are focused on creating immediate impact in their fields through use-driven research.
In all, 18 academic institutions across the nation were awarded the ART funding, which totaled more than $100 million.
“NSF endeavors to empower academic institutions to build the pathways and structures needed to speed and scale their research into products and services that benefit the nation," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. "The Accelerating Research Translation program in NSF’s new Technology, Innovation and Partnerships Directorate identifies, and champions institutions positioned to expand their research translation capacity by investing in activities essential to move results to practice."
In its proposal, Lehigh indicated that the funding could prove transformational, especially for Ph.D. education as the university implements its strategic plan and helps students with practical questions: How do you make a business plan? How do you talk to potential investors? How do you ideate and take things from one’s intellectual world into the real world?
“Lehigh, despite the great research we do, does not have a great track record of startup companies, of patents, of that kind of translational work,” Packer said. “So we really think this is a chance for us to elevate that and start us, in some ways, on a new pathway. … We're aiming to double research activity. We aim to more than double—maybe triple or quadruple— translational work, because we have so much room to grow.”
Kate Bullard, director of research development at Lehigh, said each institution that received funding will have ambassadors who will regularly gather in Washington, D.C., to share experiences and lessons learned.
“It's not just the work that's going to happen here,” Bullard said. “But we're going to be part of a national conversation around research translation, and I think that's massively important.”
The Lehigh team intends to build an inclusive capacity and infrastructure for research translation, provide accessible education and training, and drive a culture change toward research translation throughout the university community.
To help accomplish these goals, Lehigh will develop one-credit course modules with incentives for participation, a fellows program and a summer research translation bootcamp. Lehigh also plans to add personnel, expand its existing undergraduate and graduate programming in research translation, and mentor students through career options and offerings.
Research translation will be emphasized at all orientation sessions for new faculty, graduate students and postdocs and research scientists.
Additionally, Lehigh aims to grow its involvement with Ben Franklin Technology Partners, which provides funding, business and technical expertise and other resources to early-stage and established companies to help with growth. It also hopes to utilize a Lehigh Research Translation External Advisory Council, and form external partner networks, such as a New Ventures Executives Network to lead new startups and an Entrepreneurs-in-Residence program.
“We’re at a moment of big, big challenges [in society], and the federal agencies can't fund enough to solve them,” Bullard said. “The federal government can't do everything. So how do we form partnerships that solve these big problems? It's training graduate students and postdocs to tackle these problems.”
The ART Leadership Team at Lehigh
In addition to Coulter as principal investigator (PI) and Packer as co-PI, other co-PIs are:
—Lee Kern, professor of special education and director of the Center for Promoting Research to Practice at Lehigh
—Henry Odi, deputy vice president for equity and community and associate provost for academic diversity
—Himanshu Jain, the T.L. Diamond Distinguished Chair in engineering and applied science, professor of materials science and engineering, and director of the Institute for Functional Materials and Devices (I-FMD) at Lehigh.
Three faculty members will lead primary research-translation ecosystem components:
—Mike Lehman, director of Lehigh’s technical entrepreneurship program, professor of practice.
—Hannah Dailey '02 '06G '09 Ph.D., associate professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics
Additional members of the Lehigh senior personnel team are:
— Anand Jagota, vice provost for research and founding chair of the bioengineering program —Lesley Chow, associate professor, bioengineering, materials science and engineering —Andreea Kiss, the Ferdinand Thun ‘56 Chair in Family Business —Rick Smith, director of technology transfer
—Kevin Major, research engagement officer, I-FMD —Lisa Getzler, vice provost for entrepreneurship —Won Choi, epidemiologist; professor, Department of Community and Population Health in the College of Health; associate dean, research and graduate studies. —Minyi Dennis, associate professor of special education
