Sub's Alternative Energy Thread

[SubGod22]

World's First CO2 Battery to Offer Long-Duration Energy Storage at Half the Cost

At its first facility in Sardinia, Italy, operators completed trouble-shooting for the CO2 Battery technology and are now entering the commercial scaling phase, becoming the first commercial long-duration energy storage technology on the market offering “a reliable alternative to fossil fuels for dispatchable baseload power globally”.

The initial phase of operations has confirmed the performance of the CO2 Battery and its capability of storing energy for a long duration, all while maintaining highly competitive round-trip efficiency, without degradation or site dependency.
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Energy Dome’s CO2 Batteries can be quickly deployed anywhere in the world at less than half the cost of similar-sized lithium-ion battery storage facilities, and use readily available materials, such as carbon dioxide, steel, and water. They are now preparing for their first full-scale 20MW-200MWh plant, expected to be deployed by the end of 2023.

Cleaner and cheaper than what's currently on the market?

[SubGod22]

Eagle - Nuclear industry hopes to expand output with new reactors

The U.S. nuclear industry is generating less electricity as reactors retire, but now plant operators are hoping to nearly double their output over the next three decades, according to the industry's trade association.

The massive scaling-up envisioned by the utilities hangs on the functionality of a new type of nuclear reactor that’s far smaller than traditional reactors. About two dozen U.S. companies are developing advanced reactors, with some that could come online by the end of the decade if the technology succeeds and federal regulators approve.

Utilities that are members of the Nuclear Energy Institute project they could add 90 gigawatts of nuclear power, combined, to the U.S. grid, with the bulk of that coming online by 2050, according to the association. That translates to about 300 new small modular reactors, estimated Maria Korsnick, president and chief executive officer of the institute.

[SubGod22]

Not sure if this really falls under the global warming umbrella, but it is an environmentally friendly tech that could help a number of places around the world, including California.

How Fog Nets are Making Water Abundant in the Atlas Mountains - And May Be Useful in California

During the Moroccan desert summertime drought, fog nets are being used to provide drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people in remote mountain villages.

Now villagers can irrigate agricultural fields, turning desertified land back into green gardens, all thanks to mathematician and businessman Aissa Derhem.
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When stakeholders were developing the fog catchers in Chile’s Atacama, the funding they received from the Australian embassy allowed them to build six of these fog nets. Across an area of around 2,600 square feet, they used nearly a mile of tubing and a fiber glass container to capture more than 1,000 litters of water daily.

At over ten-thousand square feet of installed capacity, Dehrem’s is the largest fog collection site on Earth, and around 1,600 inhabitants in this remote region will each have a water supply of 18 liters per day, exclusively from the fog collection nets.

I'm sure they'd get blocked in California because they'd be considered an eye sore or they'd find a random bird that would be slightly inconvenienced by having these around. But it's a cool tech that has already done wonders in Morocco and Chile.

[SubGod22]

I could have put this in the 316 thread, but I'm putting it here. Eagle - What happens when you mix oil and water? Wichita engineers say it makes a better diesel

Fuel Technology is patenting a method of combining water and diesel in a way that it converts the soot generated in the normal diesel-burning process into carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas, which are less harmful and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It also allows everything in the fuel cylinder to burn, which improves fuel efficiency, provides more engine power, and can even help engine equipment’s longevity.

Fuel Technology achieves this by replacing up to 35% of the volume of a diesel source with water through a mixture of compounds that let the diesel and water work together. In other words, this process isn’t exactly something to try at home. Adding water into the process breaks up a layer of soot that forms around fuel drops, allowing them to burn entirely and not build up that harmful layer of soot.

Sina Davani, Fuel Technology’s COO and chief engineer, said the technology was born out of an initial study led by Wichita State researchers including his professor, Dr. Ramazan Asmatulu, associate professor of Mechanical Engineering at Wichita State University.

Davani, who is working toward his PhD in Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Systems Manufacturing from WSU, joined the company in June 2020 because he said he wanted to help make a difference to people’s lives and livelihoods.

[SubGod22]

Not necessarily a global warming issue, but one of vital importance to specific ocean regions, which may have some impact on sea life and a positive benefit to coastal communities. I don't know, that stuff is outside of my realm of knowledge, but I found this article to be interesting and an inventive way to deal with invasive species that can be beneficial to number groups as well as ocean life.

This Gorgeous Leather is Made From the Hide of an Invasive Predatory Fish

An exotic aquarium staple, the spectacular lionfish is unfortunately an invasive species that spells catastrophe for Atlantic and Caribbean ecosystems it happens upon.

Fortunately for these seas, Inversa Leathers is harvesting these fish every day to make equally-spectacular leather for fashion products.

The garment and fashion industries are some of the largest polluters in the consumer goods sector. Invasive species, however, represent a uniquely beneficial opportunity to transform supply chains into ones which work for the planet, not against it.
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“Unfortunately, there are millions of lionfish in these ecosystems, and we have a long way to go to thinning out this population,” Chavda told Fast Company. “But there are many other invasive species out there. We believe all of them can be used in fashion products.”

His company buys lionfish from fishermen and fishing firms across Florida, Mexico, and the Caribbean, to the tune of several thousand per day. It wasn’t that these fisherrmen didn’t know the lionfish were destroying reef and shallow sea ecosystems before, but there was no-one paying for them.

Inversa ships the lionfish to a tanning facility in Ohio after selling all the meat to local restaurants in Tampa. In Ohio, the leather is put through a sixty-step tanning process, and sold to a variety of designers, including Italian shoe brand P448, Teton Leather Company, and others.

There are others doing similar things to monetize the killing and thinning of invasive species, but this is the closest one to home that I know of.

[SubGod22]

Floating Drones Are Swallowing Tons of Plastic Waste Before it Reaches Ocean

Developed by RanMarine in Rotterdam, the drone project was both straightforward, but with a pretty long checklist. It had to be automated, zero-emissions, easy to use, economic to deploy and maintain, and be able to clean a freshwater environment without harming it.

The result is WasteShark, which is about 4 feet long, and quietly captures trash in a tray between its two pontoons. Like the whale shark that provided its inspiration, a grid stops anything sizeable from entering its mouth, until it detects trash and the grid is lowered.

One the drone is filled, it’s steered back to the water’s edge, where the tray can be easily removed, and emptied into a larger receptacle.

'Mr. Trash Wheel' Gobbles Up 15 Tons of Trash Every Day From Harbors - And More Cities Are Adopting

For years, the ambiguous yet contented face of Mr. Trash Wheel has been an icon of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

The googly-eyed trash collector has been gobbling up millions of pounds of the city’s river-borne garbage for years, and led to the creation of several water-wheel allies like Capt. Trash Wheel, and Prof. Trash Wheel.

The idea for some sort of garbage collector came from local inventor John Kellet, who would walk across the footbridge spanning the Jones Falls stream that feeds the Baltimore harbor—and be disturbed on seeing the unabated flow of garbage floating towards it.

[SubGod22]

New Type of Plastic Made Directly From Organic Plant Waste Could Be the Game-Changer We Need

The new material is easy to make and could be used in everything from packaging and textiles to medicine and electronics.

The researchers in Switzerland have already used the technique to make packaging films, fibres that can be spun into clothes or other textiles and filaments for 3D printing.

Conventional plastic is so widespread because making it combines low cost, heat stability, mechanical strength, processability, and compatibility, the researchers say.

Until now, few if any alternative plastics have managed to match or surpass conventional plastic on these metrics, which is vital if they are to be used more widely.

To make the plastic, scientists ‘cooked’ wood and other non-edible plant materials in inexpensive chemicals to make a plastic precursor.

The sugar structure stays intact within the molecular structure of the plastic, making the chemistry much cheaper than other types of alternative plastic.

Another potential alternative that could help cut back on oil based plastics.

[SubGod22]

Another pulling water out of the air device that could be of value in certain places to provide clean water.

Tunisians Make Generator That Produces Drinking Water From Thin Air - 25 Liters Per Day

“The Kumulus technology is a replication of the dew effect and condensation of water from the air,” a Kumulus spokesperson said. “Humid air is drawn into the machine and passes through a particle filter then goes through a cooling process that causes droplets of water to appear in the collector.

“The dry air is now pushed out of the machine, while the water collected gets filtered multiple times to ensure the absence of any particles or bacteria and then gets mineralized and saved in the water reservoir, ready to be served on demand.”

The company has an ongoing mission to give the whole world access to drinking water and plans on further developing ideas to replace current systems that are already in place.

“We aim to provide everyone with their own sustainable and autonomous source of drinking water,” a spokesperson added.

“Currently, we are targeting locations that have access problems with a solution that brings fresh water to their hands.

“In the future, we aim to provide the Kumulus technology as a more sustainable and economical alternative to the solutions currently present in the market.”

[SubGod22]

We all know trees are crucial to life on a number of levels.

He Planted a Giant Sequoia in the UK to Offset His Carbon Footprint for Life - And 700 More to Make a Forest

Rather than sending money off to some questionable and unconfirmable carbon-capture forest, Henry Emson figured he would plant his own trees so he could look into the face of society and say “my carbon footprint is accounted for.”

As it turns out, Emson realized that it was better to go big, and so planted a giant sequoia sapling for each member of his family. Now, he can plant a giant sequoia for you and yours as well, with his business of growing small sequoia groves across Great Britain seeing 700 saplings already in the ground.

One Tree One Life buys land where these giants can grow in safety, and for that each tree costs around $450. The benefit however is knowing that throughout the hundreds, potentially thousands of years the tree is alive, it will be pulling CO2 from the atmosphere and burying it in its root system. Furthermore, Britain will be populated with what is undoubtedly the great emperor of all trees.

Simple tree planting can go a long way in cleaning the air and making life better. Granted, we don't all have access to land where we can plant a forest of sequoia's, but having a few more efforts like this wouldn't be a bad thing. As the article states, certain trees are more resilient than others and where you live plays a factor into what trees can thrive. And we don't require government to do it.

I also learned something about the sequoia in this article in how they thrive together and not alone. Found that to be interesting.

[RoyalShock]

Not necessarily a global warming issue, but one of vital importance to specific ocean regions, which may have some impact on sea life and a positive benefit to coastal communities. I don't know, that stuff is outside of my realm of knowledge, but I found this article to be interesting and an inventive way to deal with invasive species that can be beneficial to number groups as well as ocean life.

This Gorgeous Leather is Made From the Hide of an Invasive Predatory Fish



There are others doing similar things to monetize the killing and thinning of invasive species, but this is the closest one to home that I know of.

Interesting. We were at the Dry Tortugas National Park (a 19th-century fort 70 miles west of Key West) a couple of weeks ago. During our snorkeling a guide said to let a park ranger know if we spotted a lionfish. It was the first I'd heard it was an invasive species.

[SubGod22]

Breakthrough Zero-Carbon Fertilizer Set to Take Root Across the World as 'Biochar'

Making “biochar” as it’s called, has been modernized recently in Sweden, and is done by putting grass trimmings, hedge clippings, tree branches, or any other kind of yard waste, into an enclosed space and “pyrolyzing it” in such a way as to avoid the rapid oxidation of CO2.

Turned into a charcoal-like substance, it’s not only carbon negative, meaning it removes more CO2 than it produces, but also more effective soil nutrition than other traditional soil amendments like nitrogen-phosphorus fertilizer.

On Tuesday, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced it was awarding grants of $400,000 to seven major cities in Scandinavia and the U.S. to implement the winning-project of the charity’s 2014 Mayor’s Challenge: The Stockholm Biochar Project.
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Extensive scientific research has shown that compared to traditional soil amendments and fertilizer, biochar, when combined with animal waste such as cow urine or manure, can increase yields more than 100%. A meta-analysis of meta-analyses examining the benefits of biochar in agriculture found that, especially for acidic soils like those in the tropics, and especially when combined with other fertilizers, biochar can significantly increase crop yield.

Root length, mass, and number of tips all increased substantially in crops grown with biochar, which could significantly impact carbon-capturing forest farms. Microbial content in the soil was also increased substantially through the use of biochar.

Research done at the Ithaka Institute in Nepal showed that cow urine-enriched biochar blended with compost resulted on average in 123% greater crop yield compared to organic farming practices done with cow urine-enriched compost, and 100% greater crop yield compared to the use of nitrogen-potassium-phosphorus fertilizer.

This is pretty interesting. Apparently there's a biochar plant in Missouri and Minneapolis has seen a great deal of success with it. I'd never heard of the stuff but it's around.

[SubGod22]

Artificial Photosynthesis Can Produce More Food in the Dark Than With Sunshine

Photosynthesis has evolved in plants for millions of years to turn water, carbon dioxide, and the energy from sunlight into plant biomass and the foods we eat.

This process, however, is very inefficient, with only about 1% of the energy found in sunlight ending up in the plant.

Scientists at UC Riverside and the University of Delaware have found a way to bypass the need for biological photosynthesis altogether and create food independent of sunlight by using artificial photosynthesis.

Plants growing in an electrolyzed medium containing acetate that replaces natural photosynthesis

The research uses a two-step electrocatalytic process to convert carbon dioxide, electricity, and water into acetate, the form of the main component of vinegar. Food-producing organisms then consume acetate in the dark to grow.

Combined with solar panels to generate the electricity to power the electrocatalysis, this hybrid organic-inorganic system could increase the conversion efficiency of sunlight into food, up to 18 times more efficient for some foods.

“With our approach we sought to identify a new way of producing food that could break through the limits normally imposed by biological photosynthesis,” said corresponding author Robert Jinkerson, a UC Riverside assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering.

By liberating agriculture from complete dependence on the sun, artificial photosynthesis opens the door to countless possibilities for growing food under the increasingly difficult conditions imposed by anthropogenic climate change. Drought, floods, and reduced land availability would be less of a threat to global food security if crops for humans and animals grew in less resource-intensive, controlled environments. Crops could also be grown in cities and other areas currently unsuitable for agriculture, and even provide food for future space explorers.

“Using artificial photosynthesis approaches to produce food could be a paradigm shift for how we feed people. By increasing the efficiency of food production, less land is needed, lessening the impact agriculture has on the environment. And for agriculture in non-traditional environments, like outer space, the increased energy efficiency could help feed more crew members with less inputs,” said Jinkerson.

This approach to food production was submitted to NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge where it was a Phase I winner. The Deep Space Food Challenge is an international competition where prizes are awarded to teams to create novel and game-changing food technologies that require minimal inputs and maximize safe, nutritious, and palatable food outputs for long-duration space missions.

Yea science.

[SubGod22]

Scientists Discover Simple Way to Remove Heavy Metal From Water Using Plant Waste

Scientists just announced they have created a membrane made from a waste by-product of vegetable oil manufacturing, which can filter out heavy metals from contaminated water.

They discovered that proteins derived from the by-products of peanut or sunflower oil production can attract heavy metal ions very effectively.

The study showed that this process of attraction, called adsorption, was able to purify contaminated water so it meets international drinking standards.

Current technologies are energy-intensive, require power to operate, or are highly selective in what they filter. However, their membrane has the potential to be a cheap, low-power, sustainable, and scalable method.

“Heavy metals represent a large group of water pollutants that can accumulate in the human body, causing cancer and mutagenic diseases,” said Professor Ali Miserez at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (NTU). Our work puts heavy metal where it belongs—as a music genre and not a pollutant in drinking water.”

The production of household vegetable oils generates waste by-products called oilseed meals. These are the protein-rich leftovers that remain after the oil has been extracted from the raw plant.

The NTU-led research team used the oilseed meals from two common vegetable oils—sunflower and peanut oils. After extracting the proteins from oilseed meals, the team turned them into nano-sized protein amyloid fibrils, which are rope-like structures made of tightly-wound proteins. These protein fibrils are drawn to heavy metals and act like a molecular sieve, trapping heavy metal ions as they pass by.

They also mention in the article that it can be used to attract and clear things like platinum, which can be collected and used for other things. I believe the article mentioned something like for less than $1 worth of the industrial waste used to create the membrane, it could collect around 2 pounds of platinum which has a value of over $30,000. So it could be yet another way to get materials such as platinum in a cheaper and more environmentally friendly way. And that's on top of the good it would do leading to more drinkable water in areas that need it.

[SubGod22]

A could be win for renewable/solar power.

158 Tesla Mega-Batteries Will Boost Hawaii Green Energy By 10%, And Shut Down Coal-Fired Power Plant

Oahu aims to free itself from the shadow of a major coal-fired power plant with the introduction of 158 Tesla Energy Megapacks to installed for a 565 megawatt-hours project.

Recently, state power company Hawaiian Electric selected 16 renewable energy and battery storage projects located across three islands. Among them was Plus Power’s Kapolei Energy Storage project (KES) located in Kapolei on the island of Oahu.

Oahu and Hawai’i as a whole are looking to accelerate a transition to 100% renewable energy, with the former set to decommission a coal power plant that generates 15% of the island’s electricity through its 180 megawatt capacity.

KES matches this capacity, and can provide 565 megawatt-hours in total, making it one of the largest autonomous batteries in the world. The project will provide load shifting and fast-frequency response services to Hawaiian Electric, enhancing grid reliability and accelerating the integration of readily available renewable energy.

It sounds as if they believe that the batteries should be able to absorb and contain enough energy that it has more than enough to maintain the electric grid at night and in case of emergencies. I believe this is all set to go live next March and it will be interesting to see how it plays out and if it works. Hawaii is blessed with a lot of sun and a relatively smaller area to distribute power amongst the individual islands. They may very well be able to do it and time will tell.

[SubGod22]

This one has some government involvement, but not some mandate forced upon others and instead, using what's already available in private industry to upgrade an existing park.

State Park Unveils New Trail Made of Illegally Dumped Tires

Officials from Tennessee State Parks, the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT), and local leaders today cut the ribbon on a new hard-surface walking and biking trail in T.O. Fuller State Park that’s over 2.5 miles long—made from rubber crumbs derived from tires.

The tires had been illegally dumped in the area around the park, gathered by volunteers and local contractors, then transformed into crumbs by Patriot Tire Recycling in Bristol, the only facility in the state with the ability to recycle tires in such a way. It is one of the longest rubber-bearing trails in the U.S.

Once the tires were recycled into crumbs, the material was brought back to the park for construction of the trail.

I've seen a number of places that have been utilizing used products for roads and sidewalks and I do wonder why such things aren't more common these days. Being able to repurpose used tires to get more out of them seems like a no-brainer when it comes to trying to be environmentally friendly and in a lot of cases it also ends up costing less in the long run.