Going Green Podcast, Video blog and Daily News

  Germany is a major gas importer of Russian Gas, given its high demand and low domestic production, and its net gas imports were around 84 Billion cm last year, showing that Russia accounted for over 60% of German gas imports last year. To help this situation, Germany has decided to accelerate work to build two Liquid Natural Gas terminals in the country to help reduce the dependence on Russian gas imports, said Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Germany does have some storage capacity but these are only 29% full. Building more storage will enable Germany to buy and store LGN from other places and not rely on Russia. In the short term Germany is looking at other renewable forms of gas supply, and more at green energy.

  Following on from the Dictator President Vladimir Putin‘s illegal invasion of Ukraine and the barbaric attacks on innocent civilian targets , now he has also ordered the destruction of oil refineries in Kyiv and the gas pipeline in Kharkiv . Pictures show huge amounts of smoke and burning polluting the atmosphere. Huge amounts of hydrocarbons and greenhouse gases put into the air in one day , neg ates most of the carbon measures that the rest of the world has put together and used over the past year. Driving through the Chernobyl exclusion zone and kicking up large amounts of radioactive dust and attacking a nuclear storage facility has increased the amount of radioactivity released into Ukraine and later the rest of the world. When this is all over President Vladimir Putin will have to pay for war crimes and his ecological crimes against the whole world.

  Researchers at Leibniz-Institut für Gewässerökologie und Binnenfischerei have shown that birch trees absorb microplastics through their roots during the growth phase. Birch trees ( Betula pendula  Roth.) have been used to clean contaminated land because they sequester and store industrial pollutants and heavy metals in their tissues, which then allows the colonisation of microbial communities that breakdown  all types of hydrocarbons. This tree species' roots grow close to the soil surface, where microplastic pollution are found. The researchers labelled microplastic beads (5-50μm) with fluorescent dye and added them to the soil of potted trees. After five months, they examined root samples using fluorescence and confocal laser scanning microscopy and found between 5 and 17 percent of the plastics absorbed. Kat Austen, Joana MacLean, Daniel Balanzategui, Franz Hölker; "Microplastic inclusion in birch tree roots"; Science of The Total Environment; V...

Just because it’s green that doesn’t make it safe all good there is a need to check on green substances to ensure that the level of environmental toxicity is safe and standardised . Natural resources of the planet are running short and a dilemma is on the new by own economy strategy role than just relying on fossil-based materials the mov e of the economy is to renewable materials including plants , wo o d , microorganisms and algae however some of these bio materials are more toxic than their fossil-based counterparts and the concentrations that are used are often less known. This is why there is a need for more investigation and knowledge on bio toxicity. Novel substances and new technologies often have potential hazards for humans and the environment and the need to examine whether these bio based chemicals are more environmentally friendly than the conventional chemical compounds needs to be thoroughly investigated.

  A research team led by Lund University in Sweden has shown how solar power can convert carbon dioxide into fuel, by using advanced materials and ultra-fast laser spectroscopy. Th is breakthrough could lead to reducing the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The researchers have studied a porous organic material called COF - covalent organic framework. The material is known for absorbing sunlight very efficiently. By adding a catalytic complex to COF, the researchers have succeeded, without adding any additional energy, a system of converting carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide. Carbon Monoxide is a very powerful and reactive chemical and this chemical once created can be used to make many other organic chemicals including fuels.

  Australians are now using far more renewable electricity and moving away from gas. Renewables provided five times more power than gas in 2021 and the gas generation has reached its lowest level in 15 years. There has been a 30% jump in the state of Victoria and a 26% rise in Western Australia. There have been major upgrades to the transmission lines across the whole of Australia increasing the capacity of their ageing electricity grid, to cope with the increase in renewable power. Because of the price of gas more Australians are moving towards renewable electricity and almost a third of Australian households have solar panels which is the highest rate in the world. The reliance on coal is still falling although it still remains the dominant source of power accounting for 66% of the electricity generation .

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have found several hundred different chemical substances in clean tap water stored in reusable plastic bottles for a few hours. In their experiments, the researchers mimicked the ways in which many people typically use plastic drinks bottles. The researchers left ordinary tap water in both new and used drinking bottles for 24 hours, both before and after machine washing, as well as after the bottles had been in the dishwasher and rinsed thoroughly in tap water. "What is released most after machine washing are the soap substances from the surface. Most of the chemicals that come from the water bottle itself remain after machine washing and extra rinsing. The most toxic substances that we identified actually came after the bottle had been in the dishwasher - presumably because washing wears down the plastic and thereby increases leaching," explained the researcher Selina Tisler of the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences. ...

  Peridotite dunite,  an igneous rock, that contains less than 45% silica, has been found to be able to sequester large amounts of carbon when the rock is recently fractured. In the experimental study Catalina Sanchez Roa and other researchers from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University used a triaxial deformational apparatus to facture the rock samples and show that the permeability of the rock to carbonation increased significantly. This is the first recorded experimental evidence of reaction-driven fracture during carbon mineralization and its role in maintaining permeability at advanced stages of the process. These results confirm that the carbon mineralization process can be self-perpetuating through reaction-driven cracking (at least at the local scale), a process that is fundamental to upscaling engineered carbon mineralization as an efficient, and safe method for CO 2  storage. Photo B Navez

  The Salton Sea in California is a large geothermal field which by pumping up the hot water powers turbines and makes electricity but the water also contains large amounts of lithium. There seems to be a very substantial deposit of lithium here but there is little understanding of where the lithium comes from and the rate at which it would decline as extraction takes place. This brown source of lithium is larger than the South American deposits and could possibly supply 50 to 100 years worth of lithium production to the United States. By during direct lithium extraction the lithium ions can be separated from all the other islands in the cold brine and this can be used to make lithium compounds for batteries . By using some of the electricity generated then much of this lithium can extracted in environmentally friendly way. This project has been carried out by the Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory.

  A group of Drexel University chemical engineers have found a way to introduce sulfur into lithium-ion batteries which has improved the capabilities of the battery. The discovery is a new way of producing and stabilizing a rare form of sulfur that functions in carbonate electrolyte, which is the electrolyte gel used in commercial Li-ion batteries. This development would not only make sulfur batteries commercially viable, but they would have three times the capacity of Li-ion batteries and last more than 4,000 recharges. Previous versions of the Li-S batteries have already been shown to have improved performance in experimental settings using an ether electrolyte, rather than using the traditional carbonate. But these batteries are not be commercially viable. Replacing the cathode in Li-ion batteries with a sulfur one would alleviate the need for sourcing cobalt, nickel and manganese, which are toxic.

  The Winter Olympics of 2022 are nearly over, in this weeks podcast, Paul and Philip look at the sustainability at Winter Olympics 2022. With the Beijing Winter Olympics using 100% artificial snow, a thing that could become the new norm as the planet heats up due to climate change.  It is estimated that 49 million gallons of water have been used to make the artificial snow for the 2022 Games, despite Beijing being one of the most water-scarce cities in the world. Beijing wrote a  sustainability report for the Games last year, it said it would use renewable energy for the venues and recycle water resources. It said: “We shall give priority to ecological and resource conservation, environmental friendliness, and contribute to a beautiful environment.”

  Red weather warnings don’t happen very often in the UK. Some years we have none at all. This year we have had two red weather warnings, and today we had two red weather warnings for different parts of the United Kingdom, as Storm Eunice hits the country. Many schools have been shut, the trains have been cancelled, people have been advised to stay at home and indoors, as up to 90 mile an hour winds hit the south of the country. The wind is building up so if you’re in the red area stay safe.

  If you watched the number of private jet planes leaving after the Super Bowl match in the USA then you certainly might think not. The Super Bowl is always attended by the wealthy the superstars the athletes and the millionaires and Sunday’s big game in Los Angeles who is no difference with over 140 private jets leaving LA within five hours of the Super Bowl ending. The planes flew across the United States and if you think of each plane only having a few passengers that was an awful lot of greenhouse gases produced just for one event. Perhaps if we are to measure how green events are then we need to take into account the audience and how they travel to and from the events and how much total greenhouse gas emissions are created.

Ma kai Ocean Engineering, an ocean technology and engineering firm based in Hawaii USA is developing a new mooring an anchoring method for large-scale floating offshore wind turbines. The new methods reduce the cost of offshore renewable energy and deploying the floating wind turbines in areas that would not otherwise be accessible .  M akai’s approach involves remotely installing micro piles on the sea floor which are strong enough to secure the floating platforms. Using this method costly equipment and vessels are not required and this dramatically reduces the installation cost.

  It’s long been known that we can use bacteria that fix nitrogen as a fertiliser. Plants like legumes use nitrogen fixing bacteria naturally. But using this nitrogen fixing bacteria on all types of crops has a problem because these bacteria only live for a few hours when sprayed on as a fertiliser. Daniel Nocera an energy professor at Harvard University has found a way to make these bacteria live for more than two weeks by putting them under stress so that they store and hoard energy and this helps these microbes last longer in the field. The farmers think and spray this bacterial mix onto the crops in the exactly the same way using the same machinery that they use for a synthetic fertiliser. The microbes don’t get washed away in the same way that the water runs off and as they sense the deficit of nitrogen in the soil around them they start fixing the nitrogen from the air for free and as these microbes die they have also captured carbon which makes the soil healthier as a by pro...

  Carsten Streb, a researcher at Ulm University along with a multidisciplinary team of researchers have produced a novel new molecule that can be used to allow hydrogen to be made from solar energy on demand. They have developed a photosensitizer–polyoxometalate dyad that changes from clear to a dark, inky blue in the presence of light and in the process captures hydrogen. When you want to release the hydrogen, you just add an acid, like the sulphuric acid. The hydrogen that’s released can then be used to power something. Unlike most molecules that degrade in sunlight the half-life of this molecule is about 40 hours. Once discharged the molecule needs to be reformed and at the moment the research does not cover how to recycle the molecule easily. The molecule can be charged and discharged multiple times, but there is some level of degradation that occurs with it. It’s still too early to say how useful this molecule could be but this is a promising line of research.

  The basic problem the world has with renewable energy sources is that solar and wind renewables are not consistently available, but the power they generate must be available all the time. The only way to overcome this problem is with either better battery storage, that is environmentally friendly and affordable, or to find new technologies to do this. Some of the new ideas that are coming out are to store the energy in unconventional ways such as freezing water, compressing air and pumping water from a low potential to a higher potential. All these are done when electricity manufacture is high, during the day when the solar is high or when the wind is high.   When production is low, ice can be thawed, compressed air can be released and water can power a turbine as it falls. Alternatives are to use new types of batteries like thermal energy storage batteries, storing heat in a rock like substance and recapturing the heat when needed.

Only a few years ago scientists found that ruthenium with carbon dioxide hydrogen pressure heat and some time they could make methane. The problem with the system of capturing carbon is that it is only a short carbon chain one carbon long. A new catalyst invented by Cargnello and his colleagues has increased the production of long carbon chains. This improved catalyst can produce 1000 times more butane the longest hydrocarbon it can make. Butane being for carbon is long sequesters more carbon and produces more energy in the fuel being made. The problem with the original catalyst was there was too much hydrogen so this new catalyst is coated in plastic which makes it more difficult for the hydrogen to get in and so longer carbon chains which are far more useful can be made. Because butane is liquid at room temperature it is now much easier to handle than the previous chemicals made. Using this type of system carbon can be captured from different industrial systems and then turns into fu...

  One of the basic problems of recycling plastics is that when they are recycled often they weaken with each reuse and sometimes recyclers have no idea how many times the plastic coming in has been recycled. Most plastics contain carbon hydrogen bonds which are some of the strongest chemical bonds found in nature and this heist ability makes it difficult to turn natural products into other chemicals and is a challenge to recycling commodity plastics. By modifying the carbon hydrogen bonds are in common polymers the lifespan of these polymers could be extended beyond a single use. The Leibfarth group how developed a system by selectively pulling hydrogen atoms from a polyolefin so that they can extend the life of a single use plastic into a high-value plastic known as an ionomer. Most recycle plastic is down cycled into lower quality products like carpets or polyester clothing and this still ends up in landfills, but if the chemistry can be repeatedly applied to polymers it will hel...

  It is now rapidly becoming a sign of the times as more companies drop coal, oil and gas and turn to renewables only. Muehlhan, which provides services in the offshore wind industry primarily by delivering pre-assembly work, has sold off its oil and gas division, which will enable the company to focus its investments in sustainable and high-growth markets. The Danish company sold the oil and gas business to French company Altrad on 31 December 2021. In their press release they said “Under the leadership of Søren Høffer, Muehlhan’s Renewables business will continue to grow in the wind energy market, which was latest demonstrated by Siemens Gamesa awarding Muehlhan Wind Service the pre-assembly contract for the 1.5 GW Hollandse Kust Zuid offshore Wind Farm” .

  For hundreds maybe even thousands of years the Bedouin tribes moved across the Arabian peninsula they followed the rainfall and they created pasture essential for their animals. The Bedouin settled in the 1950s and then they had to change their way of life which caused overgrazing and the gradual disappearance of all this native pasture. A new scheme is recreating this way of farming. When the rain is full there is usually a flash flood and the water runs off so a new project of building rock terraces and check dams slows the water so that it has time to sink into the ground. In 2012 a project moved drape resisting trees into the area and some did manage to survive providing a partial green landscape for some animals and improving the soil. Gradually the rains of 2018 and 19 have sprouted new life into the landscape and the arid desert land is starting to become a much richer and green land. Plants are now thriving including fruit and nut trees and hopefully this project at Al Ba...

  Ireland’s Gas was the primary source of electricity in 2021. The wind farms production fell from 35 per cent in 2020 to 29 per cent last year. The use of Coal for electrical generation increased from 5 per cent in 2020 to 11 per cent in 2021. At times last year Coal provided as much as 29 per cent of generation. At present Ireland is aiming to reduce its dependence on coal switching in favour to Gas to support its growing wind farms as the intermittent supply of electricity by renewable means needs to be complemented by a more steady and reliable source – namely Gas.

  The use of carbon dioxide refrigerants at the Beijing Games will help reduce carbon emissions by an equivalent of 3,900 cars per year, cutting them to nearly zero. The system also has a cooling efficiency that is 1.2 times more efficient than traditional HFC refrigerants for the ice rinks. The waste heat generated during the refrigeration process is recycled and used for the stadium’s ambient heating and hot water for the showers. It is estimated to save up to two million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually compared to the traditional HFC systems. The games’ estimated footprint, equivalent to 1.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, is a drop in the ocean compared with China’s annual emissions of about 11 billion tonnes. Beijing has reduced the impact of the current games by repurposing seven of the venues used in summer Olympics of 2008 and for other sporting events. The sites where the snow sports including skiing and snowboarding are held are cold, but have very little precip...

  Conventional wind turbines are criticized as being, large, ugly, and noisy and not for home consumption. But French firm New World Wind wants to change that with the ‘Wind Tree,’ a 26-foot-tall tree fitted with 63 tiny blades that can generate electricity. The company make a bush, a tree with 36 turbines or a modular tree. The Modular Tree is composed of 3 to 5 steel trunks that stem into tinier branches on which the 18 - 30 leaf-shaped wind turbines or Aeroleaves are attached. For an even bigger performance, photovoltaic petals can be added. The Tree can exploit all types of wind, from gentle breezes to powerful gusts of wind in both urban and rural environments. The Aeroleaf has a very low starting threshold of 2,5 m/s of wind. This allows the Aeroleaves to generate electricity for ±300 days/year. It is a technology that capitalizes on low urban wind speeds with small turbines to generate a lot of power, enough to power 15 street lamps or supply the average home with...

  Some countries can’t really host the Winter Olympic Games now because they have no snow perhaps like Beijing using artificial snow by 2050, 10 out of the 19 Olympic hosts will not be able to be reliable winter sport destination and by 2080 the number of suitable for my house will drop to just six. Organisers of the 2010 Vancouver Winter games wrote that it was the warmest weather on record and it challenge their ability to prepare the fields of play. Sochi 2014 was warmer still. The poor course conditions meant that most medal winners struggled and of course practice for these athletes is becoming more and more difficult. Proposals are there after 2030 any global sports events or tours that are not carbon zero should be cancelled or postponed, but this time is really already here.

  Lithium ion batteries are great but the scarcity and high cost of lithium means that new and better systems need to be used and one of these is a sodium based seawater battery. These seawater batteries are environmentally benign and naturally fire safe but they cost a lot to make because the electrode needs to be co-doped with multiple elements such as nitrogen and sulphur to boost their performance and systems to do this are very expensive potentially dangerous and don’t yield acceptable levels. A recent study by a team of scientists from the Korea Maritime and Ocean University have found a way to dope the electrodes at a higher level and in a much safer way. Although this is early research the potential maritime applications of this type of battery which can operate submerged in seawater is substantial. We watch this progress with interest. ​Hyeon-SuYang et al.; "Facile in situ synthesis of dual-heteroatom-doped high-rate capability carbon anode for rechargeable seawater-ba...

In April 2022 (till 2026), The UK government will give out grants of £5,000 for people who will install heat pumps instead of new gas boilers. the reason for this that heat pumps are a zero carbon heating solution that will help homeowners make the transition to low carbon heating solutions to heat up their homes and contribute to reduced emissions. However there are a few things to keep in mind which we are talking about in this podcast episode. or you can listen to the podcast

  Engineers at the University of Illinois have managed to construct a cost-effective artificial leaf that can capture carbon dioxide 100 times better than any current system works in normal air which is containing very dilute sources of carbon dioxide. This artificial leaf is a modified version of existing systems with a built-in water gradient creating a dry on a wet side across a charged membrane. On the dry side and organic solvent attaches to the carbon dioxide producing a concentrated by carbonate solution. As the bicarbonate solution increases these are pulled across the membrane towards a positively charged electrode in a water-based solution. The liquid solution dissolves the HCO3 back into carbon dioxide so that it can be released and harnessed for fuel uses. The current system is small enough to fit in a backpack and uses less than the electricity used by 1 W LED lightbulb. The system is stackable so that modules can be added or subtracted and could be affordable are used...

  Chemicals from one third of the plastic products found to contribute to fat cell development. A research group looked at 34 different plastic products in the laboratory and analysed the chemicals they contained. The products studied were many of the everyday products that many people use, like yoghurt containers, drink bottles and kitchen sponges. The researchers found over 55000 different chemical components in these products and identified 629 of the substances. Eleven of these substances were known to interfere with our metabolism. Instead of most plastic chemicals staying in the material the University team from Goethe University showed that many of these plastic products leach out a large number of chemicals which allows them to enter the body. These plastics have been shown to contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals that may affect our development and fertility. Now it appears that these chemicals may contribute to weight gain as well. The substances in these products r...

The average panels used on rooftops and in solar farms have an efficiency of around 22%. This is because silicon only responds to certain wavelengths of light, those that are in the red and yellow part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The longer light waves in the infrared part of the spectrum are too weak to create an electrical current and the shorter light waves in the blue and green part of the spectrum don’t create any electrical current but generate heat, which degrades the efficiency of panels. The maximum theoretical efficiency of a silicon-based solar panel is 30%. A group at the University of Cambridge have come up with a system as described in Nature, of converting the blue and green wavelengths to red with is part of the spectrum that the silicon can pick up. This can increase the maximum efficiency to 35% which is 50% more power than solar panels can currently do. “a photon multiplier film made up of a layer of an organic polymer called pentacene studded with lead selenide...