Category Archives: Environment

Climate Change Update

Education, Environment

Climate Change Update

The threshold for dangerous global warming will likely be crossed between 2027 and 2042, research indicates.

That’s a much narrower window than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s estimate of between now and 2052.

In a study published in Climate Dynamics, researchers introduce a new and more precise way to project the Earth’s temperature. Based on historical data, it considerably reduces uncertainties compared to previous approaches.

Scientists have been making projections of future global warming using climate models for decades. These models play an important role in understanding the Earth’s climate and how it will likely change. But how accurate are they?

Climate models are mathematical simulations of different factors that interact to affect Earth’s climate, such as the atmosphere, ocean, ice, land surface, and the sun. While they are based on the best understanding of the Earth’s systems available, when it comes to forecasting the future, uncertainties remain.

Climate uncertainty

“Climate skeptics have argued that global warming projections are unreliable because they depend on faulty supercomputer models. While these criticisms are unwarranted, they underscore the need for independent and different approaches to predicting future warming,” says coauthor Bruno Tremblay, a professor in the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at McGill University.

Until now, wide ranges in overall temperature projections have made it difficult to pinpoint outcomes in different mitigation scenarios. For instance, if atmospheric CO2 concentrations are doubled, the General Circulation Models (GCMs) used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), predict a very likely global average temperature increase between 1.9 and 4.5 degrees C—a vast range covering moderate climate changes on the lower end, and catastrophic ones on the other.

“Our new approach to projecting the Earth’s temperature is based on historical climate data, rather than the theoretical relationships that are imperfectly captured by the GCMs. Our approach allows climate sensitivity and its uncertainty to be estimated from direct observations with few assumptions,” says coauthor Raphaël Hébert of the Alfred-Wegener-Institut in Potsdam, Germany.

Global warming threshold

In the study, the researchers introduce the new Scaling Climate Response Function (SCRF) model to project the Earth’s temperature until 2100. Grounded in historical data, it reduces prediction uncertainties by about half, compared to the approach currently used by the IPCC.

In analyzing the results, the researchers found that we’ll likely cross threshold for dangerous warming (+1.5 C) between 2027 and 2042. This is a much narrower window than GCMs estimates of between now and 2052. On average, the researchers also found that expected warming was a little lower, by about 10 to 15%. They also find, however, that the “very likely warming ranges” of the SCRF were within those of the GCMs, giving the latter support.

We’ll likely cross threshold for dangerous warming (+1.5 C) between 2027 and 2042.Image: Climate Dynamics

“Now that governments have finally decided to act on climate change, we must avoid situations where leaders can claim that even the weakest policies can avert dangerous consequences,” says coauthor Shaun Lovejoy, a professor in the physics department at McGill University. “With our new climate model and its next generation improvements, there’s less wiggle room.”

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Coal Plants on the Decline

Broken in the USA, Environment

Coal Plants on the Decline

This state blew up its last coal plant to make way for a massive, community-changing construction project: ‘In our opinion, it’s irreversible’

Article by: Laurelle Stelle

August 26, 2023

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New Jersey has demolished Logan Generating Station, one of its last coal-fired power plants, Bloomberg reports.

Built only 28 years ago, the plant was purchased from Atlantic City Electric in 2018 by Starwood Energy Group, Bloomberg says. The investment company intends to convert it and the nearby Chambers plant to make affordable, clean energy — meaning electricity that’s generated without putting heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.

This project is part of a push in the U.S. and throughout the world to get rid of polluting energy sources that warm up the planet. Similar projects in Michigan, Hawaii, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, Massachusetts, and other states are making the country’s electric power healthier, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly.

This change could not be more timely, as a new report from the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign recently revealed the harm caused by the U.S.’s heavy reliance on coal.

The fine particle pollution from coal plants causes 3,800 premature deaths each year, often in states far away from the actual location of the plant. And that data doesn’t even include the health risks caused by other types of coal pollution.

Coal is also expensive compared to other options. According to Forbes, “209 out of 210 existing U.S. coal plants are now more expensive to run compared to replacement by new cheaper wind or solar energy in the same region.”

Meanwhile, the heat-trapping gases generated by coal plants contribute to increasing temperatures worldwide. The heat, in turn, causes more frequent and more destructive natural disasters like hurricanes and floods.

Switching to eco-friendly solar, wind, and water power is the smart move for health, finances, and long-term safety — and after the transition, former coal plants will still play a crucial role. Because these areas are wired to the power grid, they’re the perfect places to put energy storage projects, Bloomberg reports.

Most clean energy sources need battery storage because, unlike coal which generates power on demand, wind and solar depend on the weather. Providers will need to generate and store energy when conditions are favorable, then release it at night or in calm weather.

So far, New Jersey doesn’t have enough wind and solar sources to need battery storage, says Bloomberg. But Starwood Energy Group is investing in what it sees as the inevitable future.

“In our opinion, it’s irreversible,” Starwood’s CEO, Himanshu Saxena, told Bloomberg. “Folks just have to get on the train.”

Convert Air into Energy

Education, Environment, Science

Convert Air into Energy

A team of scientists have discovered an enzyme that converts air into energy

The finding, published in the top journal Nature, reveals that this enzyme uses the low amounts of the hydrogen in the atmosphere to create an electrical current. This finding opens the way to create devices that literally make energy from thin air.

The research team, led by Dr Rhys Grinter, Ashleigh Kropp, and Professor Chris Greening from the Monash University Biomedicine Discovery Institute in Melbourne, Australia, produced and analyzed a hydrogen-consuming enzyme from a common soil bacterium. Molecular modelling and simulations were performed by Oxford Biochemistry and Queens College undergraduate Jack Badley and postdoctoral research fellow Dr Ruyu Jiya, under the supervision of Professor Syma Khalid (Professor of Computational Microbiology in the Department of Biochemstry, Oxford). Professor Chris Greening is also an alumnus of the Department of Biochemistry at Oxford.

Many bacteria use hydrogen from the atmosphere as an energy source in nutrient-poor environments. In this Nature paper, the researchers extracted the enzyme responsible for using atmospheric hydrogen from a bacterium called Mycobacterium smegmatis. They showed that this enzyme, called Huc, turns hydrogen gas into an electrical current. The enzyme is extraordinarily efficient and is able to consume hydrogen below atmospheric levels – as little as 0.00005% of the air we breathe.

The researchers used several cutting-edge methods to reveal the molecular blueprint of atmospheric hydrogen oxidation. They used advanced microscopy (cryo-EM) to determine its atomic structure and electrical pathways, pushing boundaries to produce the most resolved enzyme structure reported by this method to date. Electrochemistry was used to demonstrate the purified enzyme creates electricity at minute hydrogen concentrations. Molecular modelling and simulations were used to identify the specific regions of the protein which allow hydrogen gas to enter the active site of the protein where it is transformed, but prevent oxygen getting through.

Huc is a “natural battery” that produces a sustained electrical current from air or added hydrogen. While this research is at an early stage, the discovery of Huc has considerable potential to develop small air-powered devices, for example as an alternative to solar-powered devices.

The bacteria that produce enzymes like Huc are common and can be grown in large quantities, meaning we have access to a sustainable source of the enzyme. Dr. Grinter says that a key objective for future work is to scale up Huc production. “Once we produce Huc in sufficient quantities, the sky is quite literally the limit for using it to produce clean energy.”

Syma Khalid: Jack Badley, an undergraduate student doing a research project in my group used computer simulations to show how the channels to the active site of Huc are too narrow for oxygen to pass through, but wide enough for hydrogen. Extension of Jack’s work by Ruyu Jia predicted mutations that would widen these channels to enable passage of oxygen. It was wonderful for us to work with the remarkably high-quality structure determined by the Monash team, and I think for all of us it really showed the power of doing experimental and simulation work in tandem.