Feed aggregator

Global warming makes temperature patterns that cause heatwaves, droughts and floods across Europe, north America and Asia more likely, scientists find

The fingerprint of human-caused climate change has been found on heatwaves, droughts and floods across the world, according to scientists.

The discovery indicates that the impacts of global warming are already being felt by society and adds further urgency to the need to cut carbon emissions. A key factor is the fast-melting Arctic, which is now strongly linked to extreme weather across Europe, Asia and north America.

Continue reading...

During a record-breaking hot presidential election year, American news networks failed to report on climate change

Media Matters for America has published its annual review of American evening newscast climate coverage for 2016, and the results are stunning:

In 2016, evening newscasts and Sunday shows on ABC, CBS, and NBC, as well as Fox Broadcast Co.’s Fox News Sunday, collectively decreased their total coverage of climate change by 66 percent compared to 2015

Continue reading...

Scientists describe a remarkable collection of dinosaur tracks on beaches in Western Australia.

An Australian university has asked amateur stargazers to help find a possible ninth planet.

The Senate crossbench is holding up the government's $48 billion plan to cut the company tax rate.

The founder and chief executive of Murray Energy supports Donald Trump’s move to roll back Obama’s clean power plan but cautions the president to pump the brakes on talk of bringing back mining jobs

America’s biggest coal boss is hopeful that his industry will soon be freed of “fraudulent” green legislation that has hampered his industry, but warned Donald Trump to “temper” expectations about a boom in mining jobs.

Robert Murray, founder and chief executive of Murray Energy, the largest privately held coal miner in the US, is confident Trump will follow through with campaign plans to reinvigorate the coal industry and will start by scrapping Barack Obama’s clean power plan (CPP), Obama’s signature climate change plan.

Continue reading...

In her series This Is Not Real Life, photographer Dominika Gesicka celebrates the stark beauty of the Svalbard archipelago

Continue reading...

As geoengineer advocates enter Trump administration, plans advance to spray sun-reflecting chemicals into atmosphere

Harvard engineers who launched the world’s biggest solar geoengineering research program may get a dangerous boost from Donald Trump, environmental organizations are warning.

Under the Trump administration, enthusiasm appears to be growing for the controversial technology of solar geo-engineering, which aims to spray sulphate particles into the atmosphere to reflect the sun’s radiation back to space and decrease the temperature of Earth.

Continue reading...

Marshwood Vale, Dorset It’s gentle at first, a fine drizzle of notes, and then the volume swells and they warble full-throatedly

Mid-afternoon on a still, overcast day that feels as if the air will thicken into rain. Clusters of slim, pale, wild daffodils light the under-storey of the roadside hedge, still bare and broken from its winter flailing. In the Victorian language of flowers, they represented hope, folly and unrequited love. Lower down, the bank is patched with early dog violets, their tiny, scentless blooms scrunched into frowns of concentration. Both sides of the lane are splashed yellow with primroses and shiny celandines.

Continue reading...

Chemistry has been getting greener since the '80s. Chemistry image from www.shutterstock.com

The development and evolution of the chemical industry is directly responsible for many of the technological advancements that have emerged since the late 19th century.

However, it was not until the 1980s that the environment became a priority for the chemical industry. This was prompted largely by stricter environmental regulations and a need to address the sector’s poor reputation, particularly due to pollution and industrial accidents.

But the industry is now rapidly improving, and this changing mindset has provided the backdrop for the emergence of green chemistry.

What is green chemistry?

Sustainability is becoming increasingly important in almost every industry and chemistry is no different.

Green chemistry aims to minimise the environmental impact of the chemical industry. This includes shifting away from oil to renewable sources where possible.

Green chemistry also prioritises safety, improving energy efficiency and, most importantly, minimising (and ideally) eliminating toxic waste from the very beginning.

Important examples of green chemistry include: phasing out the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in refrigerants, which have played a role in creating the ozone hole; developing more efficient ways of making pharmaceuticals, including the well-known painkiller ibuprofen and chemotherapy drug Taxol; and developing cheaper, more efficient solar cells.

The need to adapt

Making chemical compounds, particularly organic molecules (composed predominantly of carbon and hydrogen atoms), is the basis of vast multinational industries from perfumes to plastics, farming to fabric, and dyes to drugs.

In a perfect world, these would be prepared from inexpensive, renewable sources in one practical, efficient, safe and environmentally benign chemical reaction. Unfortunately, with the exception of the chemical processes found in nature, the majority of chemical processes are not completely efficient, require multiple reaction steps and generate hazardous byproducts.

While in the past traditional waste management strategies focused only on the disposal of toxic byproducts, today efforts have shifted to eliminating waste from the outset by making chemical reactions more efficient.

This adjustment has, in part, led to the advent of more sophisticated and effective catalytic reactions, which reduce the amount of waste. The 2001 Chemistry Nobel Laureate Ryoji Noyori stressed that catalytic processes represent “the only methods that offer the rational means of producing useful compounds in an economical, energy-saving and environmentally benign way”.

A secret to cleaner chemistry

Catalysts are substances that accelerate reactions, typically by enabling chemical bonds to be broken and/or formed without being consumed in the process. Not only do they speed up reactions, but they can also facilitate chemical transformations that might not otherwise occur.

In principle, only a very small quantity of a catalyst is needed to generate copious amounts of a product, with reduced levels of waste.

The development of new catalytic reactions is one particularly important area of green chemistry. As well as being more environmentally friendly, these processes are also typically more cost effective.

Catalysts take many forms, including biological enzymes, small organic molecules, metals, and particles that provide a better surface for reactions to take place. Roughly 90% of industrial chemical processes use catalysts and at least 15 Nobel Prizes have been awarded for catalysis research. This represents a tremendously important and active area of both fundamental and applied research.

What’s the outlook?

In the past 20 years since green chemistry was established, there have been tremendous advances in the industry. Nevertheless, there remains considerable room for improvement.

The chemical industry faces a number of significant challenges, from reducing its dependence on fossil fuels to playing its part in addressing climate change more generally.

Specific challenges include: capturing and fixing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases; developing a greater range of biodegradable plastics; reducing the high levels of waste in pharmaceutical drug manufacture; and improving the efficiency of water-splitting employing visible light photocatalysts.

History suggests that society can develop creative solutions to complex, intractable problems. However, success will most likely require a concerted approach across all areas of science, strong leadership, and a willingness to strategically invest in human capital and value fundamental research.

Alex Bissember received a 2015 Green Chemistry for Life Grant from PhosAgro/UNESCO/IUPAC.

Deputy prime minister calls for critically endangered status to be downgraded to try to save Victorian logging jobs

Barnaby Joyce is pushing for the conservation status of the critically endangered Leadbeater’s possum to be downgraded to open up areas of protected forests in Victoria for logging, in an effort to save 250 jobs at the Heyfield sawmill.

Joyce wrote to Victorian premier Daniel Andrews on Sunday criticising the decision to reduce the sawlog quota offered to Heyfield mill operators Australian Sustainable Hardwood from 155,000 cubic metres a year to 80,000 cubic metres in 2017-18 and 60,000 cubic metres in 2018-19 and 2019-20, in order to protect habitat used by the possum.

Continue reading...

WA utility plans to eliminate $250 million subsidy - which amounts to $5,000 a year for each customer - with a focus on solar, battery storage and micro-grids to dramatically reduce the need for fossil fuels such as gas and diesel.

The producer squeeze on futures prices moved from Y18 to FY19 with 5% rises seen over the week in NSW and Victoria. All eyes are on the immediate impact as Hazelwood winds down.

Reposit Power has today acknowledged the Federal Government review into retail electricity prices, but said that many Australians have already installed solar battery storage systems to beat the rising prices.

Governments are using the confected gas crisis to push destructive projects like the Pilliga gas project on communities that don’t want them

It’s ludicrous to say there is a gas crisis in Australia when we are set to overtake Qatar to become the world’s biggest gas producer. Australia has plenty of gas to meet our needs and the world has three times as much fossil fuel reserves that can be used to keep global temperature rises below 2C.

We have so much gas that we export most of it. The gas companies are shipping off huge amounts of it because they can reap greater profits overseas, leaving Australian households and businesses to squabble over what’s left at inflated prices.

Continue reading...

Accompanying tweet of video of Model 3 release candidate going down a street, Tesla CEO Elon Musk reveals several things about Model 3 & Model Y.

SAPN says new algorithms needed to ensure that residential battery storage can address large swings in demand, not make them worse.

Hazelwood begins its winding down, with Wednesday to be the last day of generation of the last of the pre-1970 coal fired power stations.

First Solar's 48.5MW Manildra Solar Farm in regional NSW becomes latest from ARENA's large-scale solar round to reach financial close.

Murdoch media tries to outdo Fairfax and ABC with even more scary forecasts of energy shortages, despite AEMO saying it is predicting no such thing.