Going Green Podcast, Video blog and Daily News

 ​ Hurricane Ian hit Florida USA. As is came in as a massive Category 4 storm with winds of up to 155 miles (250 kilometres) per hour. This is one of the strongest storms to ever make landfall in the state as well as in the whole US. The storm was nearly a category 5. But as climate change increases and the severity of storms  and the extreme wind speed increases do we have to think about a new category - a Category 6, which could make this Category 4 storm seem like a gentle breeze. The winds of chance and climate change are moving and we will need to move with it. We will need to prepare the world for more severe storms in the future.

 While plastics remain a ubiquitous part of human life, biosourced and especially biodegradable plastics are a promising solution to alleviate further accumulation of plastic waste in the environment, while still allowing for mass manufacture of plastic products that are now integral to our daily lives.  Scientists at the University of California San Diego have developed new biodegradable materials that are designed to replace conventionally used plastic. After proving their polyurethane foams biodegrade in land-based composts, the researchers have now shown that the material biodegrades in seawater. The researchers i dentified individual microorganisms, from six marine sites around San Diego, CA, that were capable of depolymerizing, metabolizing, and accumulating biomass using these PU foams as a sole carbon source.  Shoes, including flip-flops, the world’s most popular shoe, make up a large percentage of plastic waste that ends up in the world’s oceans and landfills. Th...

EasyJet plans to curb their CO 2   emissions by 35% by 2035 and this has been validated by the Science-Based Targets initiative.  In a launch event on Monday at easyJet’s Luton airport headquarters, its partner Rolls-Royce displayed a jet engine to be powered by hydrogen.  The most significant imminent reduction, of about 15% of current emissions, would come through fleet replacement of conventional fuelled planes with hydrogen.  EasyJet has ordered 168 more A320neos from   Airbus , and the manufacturer will also retrofit the existing fleet with technology to optimise flight descent and fuel burn.  Since 2000, over a 20-year period, EasyJet have reduced their carbon emissions per passenger, per kilometre, by one-third.  EasyJet is to stop offsetting carbon emissions by its planes.  Other elements of easyJet’s new strategy include using sustainable aviation fuel, more fuel-efficient planes and carbon capture to reach the target.

  Showerheads in California USA use a maximum of 1.8 gallons of water a minute, compared with the 2.5-gallon max allowed by their Environmental Protection Agency.  Now the threat of extreme drought has more states considering these restrictions.  This  water-restricted future is being eased by bath brands themselves, which are investing in an array of efficient showerheads geared at water conservation. Innovations from rocket  science has involved modifying nozzle size and number of holes to boost distribution and pressure, and making individual water droplets larger by mixing them with air. After discovering that its most water-conscious users turn off the tap while applying shampoo, Kohler added a knob to let users throttle flow from 1.5 gallons per minute to just 0.5.  But there are limits to how much manufacturers can do. No matter how good the showerheads get, Americans need to actually replace their fixtures. Older homes, can use showerheads that use ...

 Loop Energy ™ a designer and manufacturer of hydrogen fuel cells for commercial mobility, has unveiled its landmark 120 kW fuel cell system at IAA Transportation 2022 in Hannover, Germany.  This new product is a significant achievement in advancing the global hydrogen industry and the transition of commercial transport industries by achieving fuel cost parity with diesel by up to eight years earlier than previously possible.   The 120 kW fuel cell system, the S1200, builds on Loop Energy’s existing technology, to provide an additional efficiency gain of 20% when it generates electricity. The S1200 is designed to deliver up to 60% in net system efficiency , this efficiency enables an electric vehicle powered by a Loop Energy fuel cell to deliver up to 54%    fuel to wheel efficiency compared to the typical fuel to wheel efficiency delivered by a diesel engine powered vehicle of 20% to 25% .  Loop Energy uses a signature trapezoid plate with narrowing channe...

By taking inspiration from biological porphyrins and combining it with the specificity of DNA hybridization, a group of researchers from MIT have developed an improved electrocatalyst platform for CO2 reduction. The addition of single-stranded DNA to the porphyrin-based catalysts improved their stability, and DNA-catalyst conjugates were immobilized on screen-printed carbon electrodes using DNA hybridization with nearly 100% efficiency. Increased turnover frequency (TOF) and catalyst stability were observed with the DNA-immobilized catalysts as compared to the unmodified small molecules. This work demonstrates the importance of taking inspiration from Nature and demonstrates the potential of DNA hybridization as a general strategy for molecular catalyst immobilization.

With the 2022 UN general assembly taking place this week, we thought it would be good to go through the Five burning climate issues that was identified by the Secretary-general António Guterres These five burning climate issues are; 5. Curbing windfall profits from fossil fuel companies 4. Championing more clean energy and the green transition 3. Funding for the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries 2. Keeping global warming below 1.5C 1. Creating a legal obligation for countries to protect there own people from climate harm