Going Green Podcast, Video blog and Daily News

  Traditional solar panels use photovoltaic cells to absorb sunlight and convert it into electricity, offering the promise of clean, renewable energy. While useful, conventional solar cells are opaque, limiting their use to only a few specific applications, such as roof top solar systems or large solar farms. Ubiquitous Energy has expanded what’s possible in photovoltaic technology. They have engineered new solar cells to selectively transmit visible light, what we see, while absorbing and converting invisible ultraviolet and infrared light into electricity. This makes Ubiquitous Energy™ technology the first truly transparent solar technology, allowing windows to convert ambient light into useful electricity without impacting aesthetics or performance.  Ubiquitous Energy’s coating harvests solar energy and serves as an invisible, onboard source of electricity, painted so to speak onto a traditional window. The window transmits about 80% of the light which makes it compara...

  Most US trains are diesel powered and there has been a lot of resistance to electrification over the last few years because the only account for 2% of the transportation costs for diesel freight trains do manage to admit 35000,000 metric tons of CO2 annually. The recent dramatic decline in battery prices have created a new possibility for electrification by retrofitting diesel trains to turn them into diesel electric trains. It is now economically viable to do this but whether America wants to do this is another matter. In diesel electric trains the diesel engine is connected to an alternator but then supplies electricity to electric motors using powerlines to power the trains is not usually feasible because of the vast distances involved however powering these trains by batteries is more feasible. Now the weights of batteries are less of a constraint and could make these trains more efficient and more carbon friendly.

  Recent results published in tree physiology from a large-scale experiment led by the University of Birmingham have shown that an old oak forest when subjected to increasing levels of carbon dioxide will consistently increase the rate of photosynthesis and thereby increase the rate of uptake of carbon dioxide. Researchers have been measuring the leaf size and the wood and the roots and the soil to find out where the extra carbon that is captured ends up and how long it stays locked up in this oak forest. The increase in photosynthesis is a cause greatest in strong sunlight however it has been shown that the extra carbon did not change in the leaves and the oak trees have found ways of redirecting all the elements to balance the amount of carbon they have gained from the atmosphere.

  Implementation of the energy efficiency existing ship index looks like it could reduce the carbon dioxide emissions by an estimated 6.6% on the movement of bulk carriers according to a new study carried out by the Helsinki-based Maritime software services NAPA. The energy efficiency existing ship index was adopted in June this year and will go further in November 2022 with the full requirement taking effect By the 1st of January 2023 and this will restrict their carbon dioxide emissions based on the ships design specifications which means limiting the engine power. The study by the NAPA has demonstrated that the energy efficiency existing ship index could reduce the amount of carbon intensity which would outweigh the reductions on the lost transport capacity. Photo by PhilipC under CC Licence

  A Canadian-based company fuel positive has developed a new system to produce green ammonia from water air powered by green energy, that can produce ammonia at a much cheaper price than the current Born-Haber systems. The company uses electrolysers which split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen with a new proprietary reactor that combines nitrogen from the air with the hydrogen using much lower temperatures and much lower pressures than the current system which results in ammonia being produced at 60% of the cost of current systems. The system is sold inside a plug and play shipping container sized box that can be installed anywhere the ammonia is required which also eliminates transport costs of the ammonia which can be up to 50% of the cost. Future expansions could bring down the cost even more. About 235 million tons of ammonia are produced globally every year and much of the energy required to make this is because current systems require high temperatures and very high p...

The number of wind turbines in nearly every country is increasing almost day by day. When we look at these wind turbines it’s really hard to imagine how large they really are. These wind turbine blades only have a short life. They need to be regularly repaired and sometimes they need to be replaced and replacing these wind turbine blades is very difficult. Many of these blades land up in landfill sites because of the difficulty in recycling them. The wind turbine blades are often made from a fibreglass composite material that is difficult to recycle some also have carbon fibres in them and there are no chemical processes to separate the individual composite materials from one another in a cheap and economical way and with these renewable energy machines it is not acceptable to dispose of the blades in landfill sites. Slowly companies are discovering ways of recycling these blades and it is hoped by 2030 that 100% of them will be able to be recycled.

  Over the past few years more and more electric vehicles have been sold in Norway and this is starting to create a problem for the country. Initially Norway proposed lots of incentives to buy electric vehicles. One of these major incentives was that electric vehicles could travel on the toll roads free of charge. These vehicles had toll charge exemption removed in 2017 and these vehicles were exempted from hefty taxes including VAT and purchase tax which made these cars cheaper than their equivalent cars with an internal combustion engine. With so many electric vehicles now on the road Norway is not managing to raise enough taxes from the petrol and diesel cars and so they are starting to scrap some of the new incentives to persuade people to buy electric cars which is putting into doubt the target of selling no more combustion engines by 2025.

  In Australia, 38 per cent of its assessed fish stocks were classified as ‘overfished’, while 60 per cent of the total catch in the country’s water could not be captured because there was insufficient data to estimate stock health, in a paper published by the Minderoo Flourishing Oceans Initiative. Many countries in South east Asia do not report any fishing catches at all. So the position is very hard to find out. Vietnam, Malaysia, Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Peru and Russia which are among the biggest fishing countries in the world, were among 18 other countries that received an F grade for their work, while the US, Chile and Norway received the highest mark but this was only a C Grade. The paper found that a tenth of fish stocks globally are on the brink of collapse, reduced to just 10 per cent of their original size. This was particularly concerning because fish populations could take several decades to recover. 49 per cent of the 1465 assessed fish stocks had ...

The prime minister Boris Johnson Is set today to announce that all new home will be required to have electric vehicle charging stations from 2022 and that major renovations also see these points having to be fitted. The government has already announced that by the end of 2030 there will be no more sales of traditional petrol and diesel cars and vans and that by 2035 the sale of hybrid vehicles will also end. This is not a major change in government thinking but trying to push on the adoption of electric vehicles. It is generally the young people that are more green conscious and new homes for these young people could be a way of driving the sales of more electric vehicles. If electric vehicles are to become more common then there is going to be a dramatic need for more charging points. Homes that have a garage or a hard standing space for cars will be easy to adapt so that they can have a charging point but for houses that have only on street parking there is still a dilemma here. Over...

  Young people see themselves often as eco-warriors they see the future of the world devastated my wildfires flooded by rising sea levels and polluted out of existence. Many of the right-wing parties in all countries seem to be reclaiming a green image. Many of these parties are saying that they are the only green party and able to save their country. Many of these parties also are using their current hates of immigrants and love nationalism to persuade young people to join them. There seems to be a strong interplay between environmentalism and racism and this is seen in the roots of the United States where more calls by these extremists are being made to keep out the Mexicans that caused all the problems in their country from entering. And many people seem to be believing this. Environmentalism nationalism, and racism seem to be combining in these extreme right-wing groups around the world.

  All pipelines leak and gas pipelines here are no exception in the UK we accept that about 5% of the methane gas can naturally escape out of pipes, but because our pipes are buried in fact this figure is lower and is currently at about 3% gas loss. The USA tolerates a lower loss limit of 4% however studies have shown that because pipes are above ground and probably not maintained as well the leakage rate of methane from these pipes is at least at 9%. These fugitive emissions equal 60% of all coal power CO2 emissions in the USA. This is also worrying because the USA is building more gas power stations to replace their aging and very dirty coal power stations. Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas and scientists say that the accounted for emissions could have significant impacts on the climate and on the USA economy the loss gas alone is worth an estimated $2 billion a year.

  We understand the chemistry of most materials very well but when these materials are made very tiny called nano-particles then the chemistry often changes dramatically. For instance silver a metal, silvery and shiny becomes yellow. Nano particles of many rocks such as silicon dioxide and magnesium and calcium salts behave such that they can on the surface hold onto large quantities of carbon and carbon dioxide. It has been found recently that when glaciers rub against rocks the fine powder or silt produced is often the size of nano particles and this salts can also sequester large amounts of carbon and carbon dioxide when spread over some ground. Rock powder has long been used to improve the physical properties of soil such as water retention and drainage but it’s also been found that this canal store vast amounts of carbon dioxide. Rocks are ground down either by natural means or mechanical means into a very fine nano particle powder and spreading this over a land surface enable...

In this episode Philip and Paul look at SailGP and its Sustainability Impact League. As well as being Powered by Nature, the organisers have gone one stage further by introducing a Green aspect to the competition. There is an additional prize for the most green team. A second leader board, which runs alongside the Season Championship, has been created to monitor the performance of the teams in the Impact League, with each team's score at each SailGP event being added to the overall Impact League leader board.At the end of the season it is proposed that there will be two podiums, with the winner of the Impact League crowned alongside the Season Champion and earning funding for its purpose partner, who supports and advises them throughout the season and is visible on the team’s livery. SailGP's Impact League has been set some sustainability criteria - social and environmental - to operate against with each team awarded points based on its fulfilment of these criteria. The criteri...

  The first aircraft powered by synthetic fuel was achieved by the Royal Air Force and Zero Petroleum Limited in Kemble, Cirencester, UK, on 2 November 2021. ​Synthetic fuels are made using renewable power (wind, solar) and efficient industrial processes (carbon capture, electrolysis, thermal reactions) and should not be confused with biofuels or fuels made from waste. The raw materials are just air and water from which are obtained the ingredients carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Zero Petroleum uses  Direct FT™  (a proprietary and highly advanced version of Fischer-Tropsch) to directly manufacture target fuels (gasoline, kerosene and diesel) at high yield and with no need for refinery upgrading. Zero Petroleum have an interesting article on this process available at  https://zeropetroleum.com/how-we-do-it/ Photo ​Zero Petroleum

  COP26 may have been a success or failure depending on how countries act from now on, but regardless we are going to see temperatures increase either to 1.5° or 2.7°C. So perhaps we need to look at other ways of helping staying cool. In Australia a new proposal is to stop dark roofs being put on houses. This will have an enormous impact on the urban heat island effect of the cities. There are no practical reasons why dark coloured roofs should be put on new homes and if instead light roofs or used then houses will remain cooler during the summer period. This means that less air-conditioning will be needed and there will be a saving of something in the excess of 150,000 tons of carbon a year. The simple change in using light coloured roof will keep houses significantly cooler during the hot summer months. The UK has also seen much hotter summers and the trend is for this to continue. Therefore, it might be a good idea that we adopt more of the Mediterranean style roofs of going lig...

  There is a company in Kenya that recycles plastic waste into a product that can be sold Plastic bricks. This is done by Nzambi Matee - Young Champion of the Earth 2020. Nzambi Matee, a 29-year-old trained engineer and schooled in biochemistry, created new ways of converting waste into sustainable materials. These bricks are stronger than concrete. As I look around the rest of the world I wonder why this can't be done anywhere else. I look at the amounts of plastic waste scattered around the countryside and in the oceans. I look at how much waste goes into landfills and I wonder if Nzambi Matee can do this making road paving and bricks for houses then why can't this happen in other parts of the world. Photo Gjenge makers ltd

  A study of birds body shapes, body size and wing length have shown that in parts of the Amazon that haven’t been touched by humans there is still a vast change occurring in the shapes of these birds. This is almost certainly due to the increasing hot and dry conditions that are happening in the Amazon from June to November. A study carried out by the Louisiana State University over the last four decades have shown that not only has the number of sensitive resident birds throughout the Amazon declines but the body size and wind length have changed for most of the species. The birds in the Amazon rainforest have become smaller and their wings have become longer over several generations showing a response to the shifting environmental conditions that include new physiological and nutritional challenges. The scientists studied 77 different species of rainforest birds and found that all of them had adapted to a hotter and drier climates by reducing their wing load and becoming therefo...

  It’s major news about COP26 of India with the help of China and Iran changing the wordings on coal emissions but it’s also noticed is that New Delhi has had to go into lockdown because of the serious air pollution caused by much of this coal. Schools and construction sites in New Delhi have been forced to close because of serious air pollution. New Delhi‘s air pollution index is at between 470 and 499 out of 500. So construction sites are having to close for four days and schools for a week to try to minimise the exposure of the people to this harmful pollution. all of the government activities will work from home as much as possible to try and limit the amount of traffic on the roads. And all of this comes when India forced the rest of the world to water down the agreements and India still setting their climate a mission to net zero 2070.

 It’s at the 11th hour for COP26. Still no agreement many countries are still there even though really COP26 has finished trying to argue out and solve some of the problems they need to get some resolutions but there are some stumbling blocks. Can we put it in the word fossil fuels, everyone knows what we’re talking about but countries like Saudi Arabia know that if they put in words like fossil fuels. It could damage their economy for good. Countries don’t want to give in they don’t want to accept that there is going to be some pain in moving away from coal oil and gas. China can’t afford it. With no coal there is no power and with no power there is no economy. India and Russia have the same problems. The USA also has problems with the coal and fossil fuel lobby these companies are very powerful and they hold great sway over the governments. Australian doesn’t want to let go of Coal because it will damage her economy Australia wants to sell coal for the next 50 years to keep them ...

  In this week's podcast, We discuss the expected outcomes of COP26. go through what has been agreed at COP26 and how those outcomes will help prevent or decrease global warming to 1.5 degrees of pre industrial levels. We talk about what isn't expected but need by others and how current Goals don't meet the outcomes of previous COP's. The Major Agreements are; More than 100 world leaders promised to end and reverse deforestation by 2030, The US and the EU announced a global partnership to cut emissions of the greenhouse gas methane by 2030 More than 40 countries committed to move away from coal Some new pots of money were announced to help developing countries adapt to climate change and deal with the damage and loss it brings. #podcast #climatechange #climatecrisis #climateemergency

The Major Agreements of COP26 have been; More than 100 world leaders promised to end and reverse deforestation by 2030, The US and the EU announced a global partnership to cut emissions of the greenhouse gas methane by 2030. More than 40 countries committed to move away from coal. Some new pots of money were announced to help developing countries adapt to climate change and deal with the damage and loss it brings. This is probably the most important one to help poorer nations actually do something about climate change, but is almost certainly nothing like enough. These are the successes, but there are many failures. Most countries are still putting economic gain ahead of anything else. The Countries don't want to work together. Countries like India are suffering at the hands of rising sea levels, but can't or won't get to net zero for another 50 or so years. They need coal power to survive and some of their people perishing in pursuit of this goal is an acceptable loss. Coa...