Turning waste plastic into fuel isn’t a new idea. Many researchers have achieved it through a process called pyrolysis, which involves heating plastic to between 300º C and 900º C in an oxygen-free environment. This breaks the substance down into fuel, along with some additional chemicals. Hongfei Lin, associate professor with The Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering at WSU, thinks that he and his team have discovered a way to make the process more efficient and environmentally friendly. //

Pyrolysis is an old technology, Rollinson told Ars. It was used to make things like creosote and methanol from wood, prior to the widespread use of petrochemicals, he said. Since the 1950s, attempts have been made to use the process on plastics. So far, it has not worked out, according to Rollinson.

Though the paper says the process is high-efficiency, it’s likely not, Rollinson says, as it requires a good deal of hydrogen pressure. Reaching the necessary pressure requires a lot of energy. Making and storing hydrogen also takes a lot of energy, reducing any green benefits. He said that the experiment was only in a laboratory setting. It would require a far greater amount of hydrogen and energy to pressurize it, if introduced at a commercial scale.

Further, Rollinson noted that the catalyst and solvents used would also need to be scaled up for larger amounts of plastics. Hexane, the solvent, is toxic, explosive, and environmentally harmful if released into the wild, he added. There’s also an energy input in the process of making these chemicals. In an email to Ars, Lin acknowledged that solvent recovery and reuse would add costs, but the technology itself would work to keep costs low. All the same, Rollinson has his doubts.

“No way it’s a go-er at all,” he said. “For science’s sake, it’s quite interesting. But as a practical answer to plastic … it’s not workable.” //

RindanArs Tribunus Militumet Subscriptorreply2 days agoignore user
SharpieFiend wrote:
If we want to reduce the amount of oil that gets pumped out of the ground then something needs to be done about jet fuel - it's a major demand driver. Even if the process is less efficient than refining crude it can still be worth while.

Sure, but why "recycle"? We know how to make jet fuel. We can make fossil fuels with no problem. The Germans were doing it during World War II when they couldn't important gas, and we have surely only gotten better at the process. There is a reason why we don't do this though; it isn't worth the cost. The amount of energy you have to dump in isn't worth it. It's like using electrolysis for to get hydrogen. Yeah, you can technically do that, you just have to accept a massive loss of energy and cost. The process that we end up using for carbon neutral jet fuel is going to end up being whatever is cheapest at scale, and we are only going to use that once the cost of jet fuel rises so that it

We don't need to recycle things into jet fuel; we need a process that is scalable and the least energy intensive possible. If starting from a plastic component gets us there, great, but recycling shouldn't be the goal, just a happy side effect if that's the path that ends up being the cheapest. I'm skeptical that this is the cheapest. We are far better off to bury our plastic in the ground and then make carbon neutral jet fuel, then to spend extra energy to recycle plastic into jet fuel. Plastic in a landfill isn't hurting anyone. Using a bunch of energy on the other hand, especially with our current electricity mix, is definitely hurting someone.

Maybe I'm being too skeptical, but this seems like a gimmick to me. We don't need to recycle plastic into jet fuel, we need jet fuel, and maybe if someone can find something energetically worthwhile, a separate method of recycling plastic. It's okay if those are two independent and completely different steps, especially if it takes less energy. //

WickwickArs Legatus Legionisreply2 days agoReader Favignore user
I wish people would get off the idea that high-temperature processes must be low-efficiency. There's nothing that says one cannot have heat exchangers used to preheat products headed to the pyrolysis chamber. This isn't a combustion cycle. There's no requirement to reject heat to the environment to make it work.

The only thermodynamic limit is that the fuel probably has lower entropy than the plastic (though that's not a given). If it does, you have to invest in some amount of energy to execute that conversion.

Terracycle and Loop founder and CEO Tom Szaky says the economics of the recycling business are broken in key ways, but consumer and corporate interest in building a circular economy continues to grow.

Low oil prices, bans on imported recyclables in countries like China, and the latest trends in packaging design make it harder to recycle. //

Recycling may make you feel better in a very small way about your role in helping to avert a global apocalypse, but even in "friendly" places, from John Oliver to NPR podcasts, recycling, especially of plastics, is being given a hard look. More people are wondering: Does it work?

The debate is not new. For years the economics of plastic recycling have been questioned. But the problem is not going away. The globe is already producing two trillion tons of solid waste a year and is on pace to add more than a trillion more on an annual basis in the coming decades, according to World Bank data. A recent study found that the 20 top petrochemical companies in the world, among the group Exxon Mobil and Dow, are responsible for 55% of the world's single-use plastic waste, and in the U.S., specifically, we are generating about 50 kilograms of throwaway plastic a year, per person. //

Reusable versus recyclable

Economics are busted but the recycling mindset matters

A member of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey crew lies beside a 240-pound lake sturgeon pulled from the Detroit River. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Japan’s government has backed a plan to dilute the processed water and release it into the sea.

The government says the process meets international standards, and it has been endorsed by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“Releasing into the ocean is done elsewhere,” IAEA’s director general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, has said. “It’s not something new. There is no scandal here.”

The release is not likely to begin for at least two years and will take decades.

A government spokesman, Katsunobo Kato, said the dilution would reduce tritium levels to well below standards set domestically and by the World Health Organization for drinking water, with IAEA supervision. //

Environmental groups like Greenpeace, which opposes nuclear power, say radioactive materials like carbon-14 that remain in the water can “be easily concentrated in the food chain”.

They allege that accumulated doses over time could damage DNA, and want to see the water stored until technology is developed to improve filtration. //

But “there is consensus among scientists that the impact on health is minuscule”, he told AFP.

Still, “it can’t be said the risk is zero, which is what causes controversy”.

Geraldine Thomas, chair of molecular pathology at Imperial College London and an expert on radiation, said tritium “does not pose a health risk at all – and particularly so when you factor in the dilution factor of the Pacific Ocean”.

She said carbon-14 was also not a health risk, arguing that chemical contaminants in seawater like mercury should concern consumers more “than anything that comes from the Fukushima site”.

On eating Fukushima seafood, “I would have no hesitation whatsoever,” she added.

Goodnight Irene
The Dutch have been using wind power for so long that it’s time to decommission the Irene Vorrink wind farm this year. The first-generation Irene Vorrink wind farm, named after a Dutch Labour Party politician who died in 1996, has been operational since 1997.

The 16.8 MW project (pictured above) features 28 Nordtank NTK600/43 wind turbines that stand in a long row, close to the shore of Lake IJsselmeer, in an average water depth of 16 feet (5 meters). The site is owned and operated by Swedish power company Vattenfall.

The site will be be repowered as part of the Windplanblauw project, which is being jointly developed by Vattenfall and wind cooperative SwifterwinT. Windplanblauw is expected to be online from 2023 and capable of powering around 400,000 households.

4COffshore reports on Windplanblauw’s details:

In total, 74 older turbines (28 of which are from Irene Vorrink) will be replaced with 61 new and more powerful ones. SwifterwinT will develop the onshore turbines and Vattenfall and SwifterwinT will develop the nearshore turbines together. The project is expected to yield 250 MW.

The life span of a wind turbine is currently around 25 years, depending on maintenance quality and environmental factors. (The oldest operating wind turbine is currently Tvindkraft in Denmark, which is now 43.)

Where do wind turbines go when they die? Technically, wind turbines are 85-90% recyclable, but their blades are currently challenging to break down. Further, blade recycling efforts have been hampered by a failure to match recovered materials to supply chain needs and end products

Lessons from a failed experiment mark new way forward.
Some invasive species targeted for total eradication bounce back with a vengeance, especially in aquatic systems, finds a study led by the University of California, Davis.

The study, published in the journal PNAS, chronicles the effort — and failure — to eradicate invasive European green crabs from a California estuary. The crabs increased 30-fold after about 90 percent had been removed. The study is the first experimental demonstration in a coastal ecosystem of a dramatic population increase in response to full eradication.

“A failure in science often leads to unexpected direction

s,” said lead author Edwin (Ted) Grosholz, a professor and ecologist with the UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy. “We slapped our foreheads at the time, but with thought and understanding, it’s told us a lot about what we shouldn’t be doing and provided a way forward for us. The world should get less focused on total eradication and work toward functional eradication.” //

The scientists did not observe such population explosions of green crab at any of the four other nearby bays they were monitoring, suggesting the increase was the result of eradication efforts and not atmospheric or oceanographic changes.

The study found the population explosion was due in part to the fact that adult decapod crustacea — such as shrimp, lobster, and crab — typically cannibalize younger individuals. When most adults were removed, juveniles grew unchecked and overcompensated for the loss of adults. //

As described in the Frontiers in Ecology study, the authors advise a “Goldilocks level” approach, where the population is low enough to protect native species and ecosystem functions without risking a population explosion of the invasive species.

Nuclear power offers an abundant supply of low-carbon energy. But what to do with the deadly radioactive waste?
The race is on to develop new strategies for permanently storing some of the most dangerous materials on the planet.

Last November, Japan’s Environment Ministry issued a stark warning: the amount of solar panel waste Japan produces every year will rise from 10,000 to 800,000 tons by 2040, and the nation has no plan for safely disposing of it.

Neither does California, a world leader in deploying solar panels. Only Europe requires solar panel makers to collect and dispose of solar waste at the end of their lives.

All of which raises the question: just how big of a problem is solar waste? //

• Solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of energy than do nuclear power plants.

• If solar and nuclear produce the same amount of electricity over the next 25 years that nuclear produced in 2016, and the wastes are stacked on football fields, the nuclear waste would reach the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa (52 meters), while the solar waste would reach the height of two Mt. Everests (16 km).

• In countries like China, India, and Ghana, communities living near e-waste dumps often burn the waste in order to salvage the valuable copper wires for resale. Since this process requires burning off the plastic, the resulting smoke contains toxic fumes that are carcinogenic and teratogenic (birth defect-causing) when inhaled. //

To make these calculations, EP estimated the total number of operational solar panels in 2016 and assumed they would all be retired in 25 years — the average lifespan of a solar panel. EP then estimated the total amount of spent nuclear fuel assemblies that would be generated over a 25 year period. EP then divided both estimates by the quantity of electricity they produced to come up with the waste per unit of energy measure.

While nuclear waste is contained in heavy drums and regularly monitored, solar waste outside of Europe today ends up in the larger global stream of electronic waste.

Solar panels contain toxic metals like lead, which can damage the nervous system, as well as cadmium, a known carcinogen. Both are known to leach out of existing e-waste dumps into drinking water supplies.

Carl-Ake Utterstrom
Mar. 13 07:36 pm JST
Renewable do not have a chance to fill the requirement for electric demand in the future. We need definitely nuclear.

In 2045 the Swedish requirement according to Danish research will be 500 TWh. Wind power have been built for €20 bln and resulted in 17 TWh which means that we need 26 times as much wind power to cover the requirement besides of water power and no nuclear.

The video "planet of the humans" has found out that renewable do require a huge demand of raw material and do have short life lengths and do destroy huge land areas and the operator just leave the area as restoring of nature depends on area owner.

In ten years we built nuclear resulting in 75 TWh output.

In cold weather the installed wind power of 10 000 MW just delivered 1 300 MW. Oh oh was the opinion. But why The Swedish Power Net have in many year informed that the nominal output in summer is 6 percent and in winter 11 percent. That is still 200 MW output less than expected.

For Sweden the amount of 2 MW wind power plants are therefore 91 000. But the main reason is that the yearly demand is 4 550 plants as effect of the low life length. In several years the erection of wind power have resulted in 3 500 plants for €20 bln. .

The waste from wind power is 50 percent higher than the nuclear waste if we calculate 300 wind power plants will give 9 000 m^3 waste while the total acumulated waste from nuclear are 6 000 m^3.

This is waste that never will be environmentally friendly and the epoxi exposures are strongly cancer activating,

In total 41 persons have been killed in nuclear accidents mainly Tjernobyl where the actual radiation is 800 mSv where still 200 persons live within restricted area. The worst radiation in Fukushima is yeardoses of 120 mSv which means one percent higher risk for lungcancer. A university in Ukraine have developed a unit for measuring the accumulated radiation an astronaut will be exposed for 350 mSv which according to the University increase the risk for lungcancer with three percent.

Norwegian Nuclear workers where evacuated with special chartred air transport to Norway as effect of the accident pity they landed in higher background radiation in Norway and Norway have had quite less deaths in Corona than Sweden. In India highly populated areas do have 200 mSv in background radiation.

Stunning rare photographs published by Nasa have revealed the extent of gold mining - much of it thought to be illegal - in Peru's Amazon rainforest.

The big question is what to do with these enormous structures when the fossil fuels stop flowing. With curbing climate change rising up the international agenda, and with some questioning whether we have already passed peak oil, hastened by the coronavirus pandemic, the number of defunct rigs in the ocean is set to get bigger. Removing them from the water is incredibly expensive and labour-intensive. Allowing them to rust and fall into disrepair is an environmental risk that could seriously damage marine ecosystems.

For some species, offshore rigs are even better nurseries than natural reefs. The towering pylons are the perfect spawning grounds for tiny fish larvae
But there is one way in which these old rigs can be remarkably useful: the subsurface rig provides the ideal skeleton for coral reefs. Teeming with fish and other wildlife, scientists say that offshore rigs like Platform Holly are in fact the most bountiful human-made marine habitats in the world.

A study published Monday shows that solar power developers in California have been using mostly undeveloped desert lands with sensitive wildlife habitat as sites for new solar power installations rather than building on less sensitive, previously developed open lands.

The study, by the Carnegie Institution for Science and Stanford University, shows the ecological footprint of solar power development could grow to more than 27,500 square miles — roughly the land area of South Carolina — if the U.S. were to adopt a more ambitious climate goal. When thousands of solar panels are built in undeveloped natural areas, the panels crowd out wildlife and destroy their habitat.

“Solar takes out a lot of territory, right? It obliterates everything,” University of California-Santa Cruz ecologist Barry Sinervo, who is unaffiliated with the study, said. “There is as much plant biodiversity in the Mojave as there is in a redwood forest. The key part of this is, do we want to tile out the last largest wilderness area that we have, which is the Western desert?”

The Carnegie study found that of the 161 planned or operating utility-scale solar power developments in California, more than half have been or will be built on natural shrub and scrublands totaling about 145 square miles of land, roughly the land area of the city of Bakersfield, Calif. About 28 percent have been built on agricultural land and 15 percent have been built in developed areas.

Areas that have already been developed and have little wildlife habitat would be better suited for solar development from an ecological standpoint, said study lead author Rebecca Hernandez, a postdoctoral fellow at University of California, Berkeley, and a former ecologist at the Carnegie Institution. //

“We can’t just throw them (solar installations) across a landscape and say biological diversity be damned,” he said.

“We have to find the right places to put these things,” he said. “If you’re in Washington or Spain or France and you just see this landscape that from a satellite looks like there’s nothing there, it’s hard for them to imagine why anyone would be upset about throwing 10 or 20 square miles of glass across this (desert) to produce solar energy. There are biological riches that are part of our natural heritage that we don’t want to lose.”

NASA Uses Powerful Supercomputers and AI to Map Earth’s Trees, Discovers Billions of Trees in West African Drylands //

Scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and international collaborators demonstrated a new method for mapping the location and size of trees growing outside of forests, discovering billions of trees in arid and semi-arid regions and laying the groundwork for more accurate global measurement of carbon storage on land.

what to do if you ever come in contact with a cougar, especially if you’re an avid hiker or trail runner. They suggest that you:

Stop. Never run from a cougar and do not approach the cougar
Maintain eye contact with the animal
Stand up tall
Do not crouch or squat
Make yourself look bigger by raising and waving your arms or jacket above your head
Talk firmly in a loud voice, back away slowly, and leave the area
Pick up children and pets or keep them very close
Fight back if you are attacked! Protect your head and neck

The Trump administration has scrapped environmental policy that would have driven up energy bills on American families for no meaningful global impact.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, speaking at the Nixon Presidential Library to mark the agency’s 50th anniversary, highlights the Trump administration’s environmental achievements.

“The left’s agenda isn’t about protecting the environment, it’s about punishing America,” the president says. //

During the Florida speech, Trump noted that his policies have been effective, in contrast with liberals’ proposals that he said are “all talk and no action.”

“The left’s agenda isn’t about protecting the environment, it’s about punishing America,” the president said. “Instead of focusing on radical ideology, my administration is focusing on delivering real results, and that’s what we have.” //

“We now have the cleanest air we’ve ever had in this country,” Trump said, before putting a qualifier on the word ever.

“Let’s say over the last 40 years, because I assume 200 years ago it was probably better, what do you think? I do want to preface that, because the fake news is back there.”

Nuclear energy is crisis. The world could lose twice as much nuclear as it gains, between now and 2030. Can radical innovation save nuclear? Yes, but it must be more radical than anyone imagines, argues EP's Michael Shellenberger in a major keynote address to the American Nuclear Society. //

What is atomic humanism? I would like to offer three first principles that are meant as the beginning, not the end of the discussion of what atomic humanism should be.

First, nuclear is special. Only nuclear can lift all humans out of poverty while saving the natural environment. Nothing else — not coal, not solar, not geo-engineering — can do that.

How does the special child, who is bullied for her specialness, survive? By pretending she’s ordinary. As good as — but no better than! — coal, natural gas or renewables.

Like other atomic humanists of his time, Weinberg knew nuclear was special. But he could not fully appreciate how special nuclear was given the low levels of deployment of solar and wind.

Now that these two technologies have been scaled up, we can see that nuclear’s specialness is due due an easy-to-understand physical reason: the energy density of the fuel. //

Second, nuclear is human. Nuclear is people using tools to make electrons through fission. And yet the picture in our minds when we think of nuclear has no people. Where are the people? What about when we think of a nuclear plant’s control room? Now picture in your mind the cockpit of an airplane. You walk on board and you see two men. If we didn’t trust these men, we wouldn’t get on the plane. The airlines ask us to trust them, the air traffic system, and the pilots, and we do. Why then are we asking the public to trust our machines?

In the movie “Sully,” the pilot loses both his engines to bird strikes shortly after taking off. The entire drama of the film is whether Sully made the right decision. Should he have returned to La Guardia airport, or was he right to make a water landing in the Hudson? At no point did anyone suggest we should ban jet planes because they could crash. Nor did anyone demand meltdown-proof jet turbines.

With all the loss of lives and financial destruction that the coronavirus has brought us, it’s hard to look at silver linings from this crisis, but there’s one that’s becoming obvious: cleaner air. It might not last for long, but it’s giving us a glimpse at what we could experience if the world was to …