Anthropogenic Global Warming

[pinstripers]

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/foreign-automaker-lays-off-thousands-of-michigan-workers-after-pocketing-hundreds-of-millions-in-biden-ev-subsidies/

typical green

[asiseeit]

Two very good posts. You could give the politicians unlimited amounts of money and they would only make things worse while making themselves and their friends/benefactors even richer. Let free markets work.

[Atxshoxfan]

100% agree with sub on this.
I hate the name of this thread, it implies we have some sort of major control on the climate, which I totally disagree with. Climate change is nothing more than a money grab for companies willing to pay off the politicians who push the narrative.
Keeping our environment preserved and clean, is a different story, that I agree with, as do about 100% of humanity. Just keep the politicians out of the money loop though.

[SubGod22]

Also..:Nuclear energy is the most dense energy source available to humanity. Petroleum is second. We should continue to exploit these resources to their maximum capacity and increase human flourishing.

You won't find a bigger supporter of nuclear energy than I. I have no major issue with petroleum, but I fully support research and efforts to move away from it as it isn't the cleanest of energies and anything we can do to clean up our air, water, and environment without crushing the economy and the people. Petroleum will always have a place if it's for energy or other things.

With that said, wind and solar have limited capabilities in most areas and have other concerns that many environmentalists ignore. They're not bad on their own, but it is bad when government forces it on people. There are certain areas where each might be more efficient and make more sense than other areas and it should be a part of the grid in such places.

I'm generally not a fan of solar farms. Seems to be a waste of good land. I am intrigued by some of the work done along rivers in drought areas where they use solar panels above the river to help reduce loss of water. I need to look into results on how that's going, but in theory it seemed like a way to not take away potentially valuable land and produce energy while also potentially save some water. I am a big fan of utilizing solar on tops of buildings, storage units, and even as cover in parking lots. That space is already being used and you can potentially use the same land twice and produce energy and keep cars a little cooler while they sit outside. There's also been some interesting research into ways to get them more efficient, durable, and lighter.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm for an all of the above approach as long as it doesn't come at the expense of the consumer. We have it hard enough as it is.

But in the shorter term, we really do need more nuclear in this country. A while back I shared some articles on smaller nuclear plants that can still produce a lot of energy and take up less space that are cheaper and faster to build and operate than the more massive plants we're used to. And they've even found ways to reuse the little waste that is produced in the process. There's really no reason to fear nuclear energy at this point. It's the cleanest and most reliable option available and takes up the least amount of space as well compared to all the other alternatives.

[Kung Wu]

Also..:Nuclear energy is the most dense energy source available to humanity. Petroleum is second. We should continue to exploit these resources to their maximum capacity and increase human flourishing.

wufan sighting!

[wufan]

Also..:Nuclear energy is the most dense energy source available to humanity. Petroleum is second. We should continue to exploit these resources to their maximum capacity and increase human flourishing.

[SubGod22]

Aesthetically pleasing and helps reduce energy costs. Definitely interesting.

Tuscany's New Airport Terminal Will Have a Vineyard on the Roof, Obviously

With more visitors than ever before, the new airport terminal in Florence will have a green roof and sport a vineyard.

The Italians are passionate about greening their buildings, with the famous Bosco Verticale in Milan being the flagship example.

To celebrate its heritage as one of the wine capitals of the world, the Amerigo Vespucci International Airport in Florence will feature an eight-hectare (19-acre) vineyard on top of its long, sloping roof.

A local, prestigious wine company will harvest the grapes and manage the green vineyard roof, and the vinting will also be done on-site in a cellar on the airport grounds.

The creative minds behind the project are Rafael Viñoly Architects, an American firm that was tasked with redesigning the international terminal as part of renovations to reorient the existing airport runway which is inadequately short and adversely affected by nearby hills.

Linear structures of precast concrete contain the soil and irrigation to sustain the vineyard and are held aloft by a network of branching columns, inspired by the vines they hold up.

The columns shade most of the terminal areas, which will help reduce energy from heating. Skylights will flood these areas with natural light.

“This enormous surface, which hides the airport terminal when viewed from Brunelleschi’s Duomo and other prominent vantage points in the city, will not only serve as a new landmark for the city’s sustainable future, but also as a symbol of the traditions, history and innovative spirit that continue to drive the Italian economy into the 21st century,” the firm wrote on their website.

[SubGod22]

Recycling plastics could get cheaper and more efficient and reduce the amount of new plastic needed.

New Process 'Vaporizes' Plastic Bags and Bottles to Help Make Recycled Materials

An innovative chemical procedure turns ubiquitous waste plastic items in our society into hydrocarbon building blocks for use in making new plastics.

The scientists behind the project explained that the process works “equally well” with the two dominant types of consumer plastic waste: polyethylene, the component of most single-use plastic bags; and polypropylene, the stuff of hard plastics, from microwavable dishes to luggage—which together are called polyolefins.

It also efficiently degrades a mix of the two types of plastics, according to the findings published in the journal Science.

The research team says the catalytic process, developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, could help bring about a circular economy for many throwaway plastics, with the plastic waste converted back into the monomers used to make polymers, thereby reducing the fossil fuels used in making virgin plastic.

“We have an enormous amount of polyethylene and polypropylene in everyday objects, from lunch bags to laundry soap bottles to milk jugs—so much of what’s around us is made of these polyolefins,” said research leader Professor John Hartwig, of University of California, Berkeley.

Hartwig and his collaborators in a public sector-academia partnership developed a chemical process that employed three different bespoke heavy metal catalysts: one to add a carbon-carbon double bond to the polyethylene polymer and the other two to break the chain at this double bond and repeatedly snip off a carbon atom. However, the catalysts broke down in the liquid reaction and were rarely recoverable, making the process difficult to scale.

That was two years ago. Today, as part of a new process, the expensive, soluble metal catalysts have been replaced by cheaper solid ones commonly used in the chemical industry for continuous flow processes that reuse the catalyst, including sodium on alumina, and tungsten oxide on silica.

“You can’t get much cheaper than sodium,” Hartwig said, “and tungsten is an earth-abundant metal used in the chemical industry in large scale, as opposed to our ruthenium metal catalysts that were more sensitive and more expensive.”

[Atxshoxfan]

[SubGod22]

More innovation to reduce waste and provide energy.

Scientists Make Stunning Breakthrough, Turning Banana Peels into Textiles and Renewable Fuels

Off-grid communities in parts of rural Pakistan could soon have access to a reliable source of electricity for the first time thanks to a new project that aims to convert waste from the banana-growing industry into energy.

80 million metric tons of agricultural waste are generated in Pakistan every year from growing bananas.

Academics from Northumbria University have now teamed up with partners in the UK and Pakistan to create a new solution that will make use of this waste product and provide benefits for local people at the same time.

Together the project partners are developing an innovative two-part system – the first part of which will use new technology to convert the banana waste into textile fibers, with the second part taking the waste generated from that process and using it to produce renewable energy.

This will not only reduce the environmental impact of Pakistan’s textile industry, but also bring cleaner electricity to the 50% of people living in rural areas of the country who live off-grid and currently rely on fossil fuels for energy.

The process has the potential to be applied to almost any form of agricultural waste, meaning it could be used all over the world, benefitting communities and the environment through the supply of renewable textiles and energy.

Entitled, Improving access to sustainable energy in rural Pakistan using food and fiber agro-waste as a renewable fuel (SAFER), the project has been awarded around $330,000 through Innovate UK’s Energy Catalyst program.

Funding through the scheme is awarded to support UK and overseas businesses and organizations to develop highly innovative, market-focused energy technologies that enable energy access in Sub-Saharan Africa and South or Southeast Asia.

Dr. Jibran Khaliq, of Northumbria University’s Department of Mechanical and Construction Engineering, is a material scientist who researches converting waste energy.

This will be interesting to see how it develops. I've always been an all of the above type when it comes to producing energy and if you can get it cleaner and more efficient the better everyone is. The fact that they believe they can do this with any and all agro-waste could be significant as being able to use every part of whatever we're growing is always a good thing. And if it can potentially alleviate the need for fossil fuels down the road and ease that burden then that would be a win for everyone as well. Not saying this kind of thing could ever be the total power source for a country like the US, but it could help with the burden of powering certain areas and take pressure off of certain aspects of a grid that is starting to struggle at times.

I still think nuclear makes the most sense as a trusted power source, but I'm all for thinking outside of the box and finding other sources and help cleaning up the air and water and such around us.

[Atxshoxfan]

6 million plastic bags?! That's every single woman in Los Angeles!

Not nags, not hags, he said bags.

[Kung Wu]

Startup Replaces 6 Million Plastic Bags with Prototype Made from Corn Waste That Decomposes in 180 Days

6 million plastic bags?! That's every single woman in Los Angeles!

[SubGod22]

I didn't have this on my sustainable resource bingo card.

Taiwan Business Spinning Oyster Shells into Yarn

A man in Taiwan is helping reduce fashion waste by creating a sustainable alternative to artificial textiles from an already existing waste stream.

He’s using oyster shells—which when ground up and processed can produce a flexible yarn similar to sheep’s wool that’s been appropriately dubbed “sea wool.”

According to the Taiwanese Department of Agriculture, 160,000 metric tons of mollusk shells are discarded annually from restaurant and fishing businesses.

This isn’t necessarily a waste material, as many fisheries have a policy to dump discarded shells onto oyster reefs. The shells are made of 95% calcium carbonate which is the perfect ingredient to repair and grow living oyster reefs as it greatly increases the number of surfaces the oyster larvae can glom onto.

Eddie Wang grew up in western Taiwan, where oysters and other shellfish have long been a profitable and delicious local industry. The South China Morning Post reports that Wang first got the idea to turn the shells into a thread from lower-income locals who use(d) crushed oysters to insulate their homes.

It was a great idea as it turns out, and materials scientists were keen to work with Wang to develop the industry and make it competitive with existing garment production.

One minute video at the bottom of the article if you want a quick explanation of it all.

[SubGod22]

Another way to help keep buildings cooler during intense heat waves.

Build Zigzag Patterns On Exterior Walls to Keep Buildings Cooler During Heat Waves

Structural engineers have discovered that if you build an apartment building with angled, shark-fin-shaped protrusions on the side where the Sun’s heat is the strongest, the angles keep the building cooler.

It’s one of a variety of simple new building and design elements being proposed for a world where July and August routinely feature stories of droughts, heat waves, and temperature records.

From the dawn of time, humans have been forced to live in hot environs. From the dawn of construction, humans have figured out how to build buildings in a way that takes advantage of thermodynamics to cool them naturally. Many of these are delightful architectural features visible in buildings from antiquity such as the Roman amphitheaters, the Taj Mahal, and the wind towers of Yazd.

Much of that planning was ignored with the advent of the modern age, and homes, whether those of the lower-middle class or the upper-middle class, took on the same character of modular boxes exposed to the mercy of any element that batters them.

In a study from Purdue and Colombia universities, researchers sought to find a simple way to retrofit boxy buildings with features that could help keep them cooler amid rising global temperatures.

One issue their research encountered is that heat hits most urban buildings from two angles—from the sun, and the ground, where cement and asphalt absorb heat and radiate it upwards all day.

They found that this can keep the interiors over 5 degrees cooler and reduce HVAC energy use by 14%.

[SubGod22]

Startup Replaces 6 Million Plastic Bags with Prototype Made from Corn Waste That Decomposes in 180 Days

An Indian entrepreneur is using sugar, cellulose, and corn fibers to make a plastic-like carrier bag for small Indian businesses.

His company Bio Reform has already replaced 6 million plastic bags in the checkout counters of stores all over India.

Based in Hyderabad, Mohammed Azhar Mohiuddin first got the idea during the general mayhem that arose during the pandemic. Mohiuddin was looking at global environmental issues with the hope of finding one his entrepreneurial spirit had the capacity to tackle.

He would eventually settle on plastic use, the overreliance on it in society, and the dangers of plastic contamination in the form of microplastic particles. Specifically, he wanted to find an alternative to one of the most common plastic products used today: the plastic shopping bag.

Mohiuddin saw the largest brands substituting plastic ones for those made of paper or even jute, but for medium and small businesses that power the majority of the Indian economy, the small increase in costs from using biodegradable bags was too prohibitive.

According to The Better India, he started studying a biodegradable polymer that was first formed and researched in the 1980s called PBAT (Polybutylene adipate-co-terephthalate). At the time, it was made with corn and potatoes.

After dodging scams and government-mandated quarantines to identify a suitable class of machinery to manufacture the PBAT bags in Gujurat, his presentation on PBAT landed nearly $100,000 (RS1 crore) in seed funding that allowed him to launch the project.