#energy
1,000+ Scientists Worldwide Engaged in Civil Disobedience for Climate Action
“… “I’m taking action because I feel desperate,” said U.S. climate scientist Peter Kalmus, who along with several others locked himself to the front door of a JPMorgan Chase building in Los Angeles. A recent report found that the financial giant is the biggest private funder of oil and gas initiatives in the world.
“It’s the 11th hour in terms of Earth breakdown, and I feel terrified for my kids, and terrified for humanity,” Kalmus continued. “World leaders are still expanding the fossil fuel industry as fast as they can, but this is insane. The science clearly indicates that everything we hold dear is at risk, including even civilization itself and the wonderful, beautiful, cosmically precious life on this planet. I actually don’t get how any scientist who understands this could possibly stay on the sidelines at this point.” …”
Homo Sapiens will suffer a die-back in the next thirty years. Make your plans around that central event.
I like to have this saved in my phone so I can show friends, family, or random people who are curious to understand the spoon theory and for them to get a better understanding of what we have to do/think about every day.
Credit: MIT
What’s new?
A fine ash, made from pulverised volcanic rocks, can be added to traditional cement to improve its sustainability.
Who is involved?
MIT engineers working with scientists from the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research and Kuwait University. The paper, Impact of Embodied Energy on materials/buildings with partial replacement of ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) by natural Pozzolanic Volcanic Ash, can be viewed here bit.ly/2EwZQwr
How is it novel?
By replacing a percentage of traditional cement materials with volcanic ash, researchers reduced the total energy required to make concrete. Building 26 concrete buildings, using cement with 50% volcanic ash, required 16% less energy than if traditional Portland cement was use, according to calculations.
The researchers also found that concrete mixed with a very fine ash was stronger than concrete made from just Portland cement. However, the process of pulverising volcanic ash to a very fine particle size requires energy. Therefore, if stronger concrete is made using this method, it becomes less sustainable in terms of energy use.
Oral Buyukozturk, a professor in MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, commented, ‘You can customise this. If it is for a traffic block, for example, where you may not need as much strength as, say, for a high-rise building. So you could produce those things with much less energy. That is huge if you think of the amount of concrete that’s used over the world.’
To find out more visit, bit.ly/2seBZg3
Week in Brief (5–9 February)
Credit:claudia gabriela marques vieira. Studland Bay, Dorset.
An endangered species of seahorse is under threat from a proposal to drill for oil off the Dorset coast. The species achieved protection in 2008 under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, however in 2017 only 14 spin and short snouted seahorses were recorded around Studland Bay.
A proposal to drill an exploratory well 6km off the Dorset Coast, near Studland Bay, has been submitted by Corallian Energy to the UK Government. A decision is expected by 19 February. The proposal has angered environmentalists and conservationists who fear exploratory drilling could permanently damage the ecosystem.
The Seahorse Trust believes drilling in the area would disturb the seahorses’ environment. Director Neil Garrick-Maidment commented, ‘The latest seahorse sighting was just half a mile from where they are planning to drill, another was seen just under a mile in another direction and a third was two miles away from it.
‘Studland Bay has to become a Marine Conservation Zone because of the environmental impact the anchoring has caused and now we have the threat of an oil spill on the doorstep.’
To find out more visit, bit.ly/2C4e8POandwww.theseahorsetrust.org
In other news:
–Sandvik Mining is investing US$25m in a new titanium and nickel metal powder plant
– UK insurer Aviva has been criticised for investing in the Polish coal industry
To find out more on materials science, packaging and engineering news, visit our website IOM3 at or follow us on Twitter @MaterialsWorld for regular news updates.
sci:
Solar power is the third most used renewable energy source and its popularity is growing.
Determining the efficacy of organic solar cell mixtures is a time-consuming and tired practice, relying on post-manufacturing analysis to find the most effective combination of materials.
Now, an international group of researchers – from North Carolina State University in the US and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology – have developed a new quantitative approach that can identify effective mixtures quickly and before the cell goes through production.
Development of a thin-film solar cell. Image: science photo/Shutterstock
By using the solubility limit of a system as a parameter, the group looked to find the processing temperature providing the optimum performance and largest processing window for the system, said Harald Ade, co-corresponding author and Professor of Physics at NC State.
‘Forces between molecules within a solar cell’s layers govern how much they will mix – if they are very interactive they will mix but if they are repulsive they won’t,’ he said. ‘Efficient solar cells are a delicate balance. If the domains mix too much or too little, the charges can’t separate or be harvested effectively.’
‘We know that attraction and repulsion depend on temperature, much like sugar dissolving in coffee – the saturation, or maximum mixing of the sugar with the coffee, improves as the temperature increases. We figured out the saturation level of the ‘sugar in the coffee’ as a function of temperature,’ he said.
Ateam led by researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has developed nanostructures made from a compound of three metals that increases the efficiency and durability of fuel cells while lowering the cost to produce them. Their solution addresses vexing…
Developed by researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, the new membrane-free semi-liquid battery, consisting of a liquid ferrocene electrolyte, a liquid cathode and a solid lithium anode, exhibited encouraging early results, encompassing many of the features desired in a state-of-the-art…
A research team from the Georgia Institute of Technology and ExxonMobil has demonstrated a new carbon-based molecular sieve membrane that could dramatically reduce the energy required to separate a class of hydrocarbon molecules known as alkyl aromatics. The new material is based on polymer…
What will you do in 2022 for a #HealthierTomorrow?