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This is how solar panels can be kept clean – without using water

Posted on April 26, 2022 by dishanth

Solar power is expected to reach 10% of global power generation by 2030.
But the accumulation of dust on the solar panels can reduce output by 30%, while cleaning them uses about 10 billion gallons of water a year.
MIT engineers have developed a waterless cleaning method to remove dust on solar installations in water-limited regions.
The new system uses electrostatic repulsion to cause dust particles to detach and virtually leap off the panel’s surface.

Solar power is expected to reach 10 percent of global power generation by the year 2030, and much of that is likely to be located in desert areas, where sunlight is abundant. But the accumulation of dust on solar panels or mirrors is already a significant issue — it can reduce the output of photovoltaic panels by as much as 30 percent in just one month — so regular cleaning is essential for such installations.

But cleaning solar panels currently is estimated to use about 10 billion gallons of water per year — enough to supply drinking water for up to 2 million people. Attempts at waterless cleaning are labor intensive and tend to cause irreversible scratching of the surfaces, which also reduces efficiency. Now, a team of researchers at MIT has devised a way of automatically cleaning solar panels, or the mirrors of solar thermal plants, in a waterless, no-contact system that could significantly reduce the dust problem, they say.

The new system uses electrostatic repulsion to cause dust particles to detach and virtually leap off the panel’s surface Image: MIT News Office/ David L. Chandler

The new system uses electrostatic repulsion to cause dust particles to detach and virtually leap off the panel’s surface, without the need for water or brushes. To activate the system, a simple electrode passes just above the solar panel’s surface, imparting an electrical charge to the dust particles, which are then repelled by a charge applied to the panel itself. The system can be operated automatically using a simple electric motor and guide rails along the side of the panel. The research is described in the journal Science Advances, in a paper by MIT graduate student Sreedath Panat and professor of mechanical engineering Kripa Varanasi.

Despite concerted efforts worldwide to develop ever more efficient solar panels, Varanasi says, “a mundane problem like dust can actually put a serious dent in the whole thing.” Lab tests conducted by Panat and Varanasi showed that the dropoff of energy output from the panels happens steeply at the very beginning of the process of dust accumulation and can easily reach 30 percent reduction after just one month without cleaning. Even a 1 percent reduction in power, for a 150-megawatt solar installation, they calculated, could result in a $200,000 loss in annual revenue. The researchers say that globally, a 3 to 4 percent reduction in power output from solar plants would amount to a loss of between $3.3 billion and $5.5 billion.

“There is so much work going on in solar materials,” Varanasi says. “They’re pushing the boundaries, trying to gain a few percent here and there in improving the efficiency, and here you have something that can obliterate all of that right away.”

Many of the largest solar power installations in the world, including ones in China, India, the U.A.E., and the U.S., are located in desert regions. The water used for cleaning these solar panels using pressurized water jets has to be trucked in from a distance, and it has to be very pure to avoid leaving behind deposits on the surfaces. Dry scrubbing is sometimes used but is less effective at cleaning the surfaces and can cause permanent scratching that also reduces light transmission.

Water cleaning makes up about 10 percent of the operating costs of solar installations. The new system could potentially reduce these costs while improving the overall power output by allowing for more frequent automated cleanings, the researchers say.

“The water footprint of the solar industry is mind boggling,” Varanasi says, and it will be increasing as these installations continue to expand worldwide. “So, the industry has to be very careful and thoughtful about how to make this a sustainable solution.”

Other groups have tried to develop electrostatic based solutions, but these have relied on a layer called an electrodynamic screen, using interdigitated electrodes. These screens can have defects that allow moisture in and cause them to fail, Varanasi says. While they might be useful on a place like Mars, he says, where moisture is not an issue, even in desert environments on Earth this can be a serious problem.

The new system they developed only requires an electrode, which can be a simple metal bar, to pass over the panel, producing an electric field that imparts a charge to the dust particles as it goes. An opposite charge applied to a transparent conductive layer just a few nanometers thick deposited on the glass covering of the the solar panel then repels the particles, and by calculating the right voltage to apply, the researchers were able to find a voltage range sufficient to overcome the pull of gravity and adhesion forces, and cause the dust to lift away.

Using specially prepared laboratory samples of dust with a range of particle sizes, experiments proved that the process works effectively on a laboratory-scale test installation, Panat says. The tests showed that humidity in the air provided a thin coating of water on the particles, which turned out to be crucial to making the effect work. “We performed experiments at varying humidities from 5 percent to 95 percent,” Panat says. “As long as the ambient humidity is greater than 30 percent, you can remove almost all of the particles from the surface, but as humidity decreases, it becomes harder.”

Varanasi says that “the good news is that when you get to 30 percent humidity, most deserts actually fall in this regime.” And even those that are typically drier than that tend to have higher humidity in the early morning hours, leading to dew formation, so the cleaning could be timed accordingly.

“Moreover, unlike some of the prior work on electrodynamic screens, which actually do not work at high or even moderate humidity, our system can work at humidity even as high as 95 percent, indefinitely,” Panat says.

In practice, at scale, each solar panel could be fitted with railings on each side, with an electrode spanning across the panel. A small electric motor, perhaps using a tiny portion of the output from the panel itself, would drive a belt system to move the electrode from one end of the panel to the other, causing all the dust to fall away. The whole process could be automated or controlled remotely. Alternatively, thin strips of conductive transparent material could be permanently arranged above the panel, eliminating the need for moving parts.

By eliminating the dependency on trucked-in water, by eliminating the buildup of dust that can contain corrosive compounds, and by lowering the overall operational costs, such systems have the potential to significantly improve the overall efficiency and reliability of solar installations, Varanasi says.

The research was supported by Italian energy firm Eni. S.p.A. through the MIT Energy Initiative.

Source World Economic Forum

University of Massachusetts Amherst commits to 100 percent renewable energy

Posted on April 26, 2022April 26, 2022 by dishanth

The University of Massachusetts added to the Earth Day festivities Friday when Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy announced that the state’s flagship public university will power its campus entirely with renewable energy by 2032. MASSPIRG Students at UMass Amherst, with support from Environment Massachusetts Research & Policy Center and Environment America Research & Policy Center, led the effort in securing UMass’ commitment to generating 100% of its power from renewable energy sources.

“The University’s commitment to 100% renewable energy marks a culmination of work and passion from students, faculty and administrators,” said Caroline Sunuwar, a sophomore at UMass Amherst and the 100% Renewable Energy Campaign Coordinator with MASSPIRG Students. “This crucial issue has unified the UMass community to bring a vision of a better future to fruition and drive progress toward 100% renewable energy.”

The wide-ranging plan aims for 80% reliance on renewable energy by 2030, and 100% by 2032, with “energy” defined as electricity, heating/cooling and transportation. Core features of the plan include reducing energy waste on campus by adopting higher green building standards for new buildings & renovations, a behavior change initiative to promote voluntary conservation, and making strategic efficiency improvements that slash energy waste.

The plan also includes retiring the campus’ steam heating network and replacing it with low-temperature hot water for heating. Heat will come from geothermal wells drilled under the athletic fields, a solar thermal array, and other non-fossil fuel sources. The campus also plans to add more on-campus solar and shift the entire campus fleet to electric vehicles by 2030.

“This plan puts UMass Amherst among the leading universities in the transition to renewable energy,” said Johanna Neumann, Environment America Research & Policy Center’s Senior Director for 100% Renewable Energy and a resident of Amherst. “UMass students, faculty and staff built and demonstrated support for eliminating fossil fuel use on campus for years and it’s exciting to see the administration commit to that vision. Now, it’s time for other major colleges and universities to follow in UMass’ trailblazing footsteps toward a future powered exclusively by clean energy.”

The Student PIRGs, in partnership with Environment America Research & Policy Center, have worked with students on more than 50 campuses in 15 states to transition higher education to 100 percent renewable energy. Other universities, including Boston University and Harvard, have committed to 100% clean electricity, while the University of California, Berkeley has pledged to phase out all fossil fuels by 2050.

“This is a bold plan, worthy of the flagship university of a Commonwealth that aims to be at the forefront of the clean energy transition,” said Ben Hellerstein, Environment Massachusetts Research & Policy Center’s state director. “Repowering a major university campus with renewable energy is no small task, but it is a necessary one. The work underway at UMass sets a powerful example for other institutions, and state leaders on Beacon Hill, to follow.”

The Legislature is considering a bill sponsored by state Reps. Marjorie Decker and Sean Garballey, the 100% Clean Act (H.3288, S.2136), that would transition Massachusetts to 100% clean sources of energy for electricity, heating, and transportation.

“Congratulations to my alma mater UMass Amherst, which is paving the way forward by modeling its commitment to a future that is no longer reliant on fossil fuels,” said Rep. Decker. “I am a proud alumna and a grateful legislator and parent who knows the urgency of this transition is our best hope for a healthier future for all of us. We are already experiencing the devastating effects of climate change, which is threatening our security and harming many who are already economically and politically marginalized.”

For more information about the campaign to shift America’s colleges and universities to 100 percent renewable energy: https://www.go100renewablecampus.org/ or https://environmentamerica.org/feature/ame/100-renewable

Source Environment America

Sir David Attenborough named Champion of the Earth by UN

Posted on April 25, 2022 by dishanth

Sir David Attenborough has been named a Champion of the Earth by the UN’s Environment Programme.

The prestigious award recognises the 95-year-old’s commitment to telling stories about the natural world and climate change.

Accepting the award, Sir David said the world must take action now to protect nature and the planet.

His celebrated documentaries include The Green Planet and A Plastic Ocean.

Sir David said that environmental success stories should give us hope that change is possible.

“Fifty years ago, whales were on the very edge of extinction worldwide. Then people got together and now there are more whales in the sea than any living human being has ever seen,” he suggested.

“We know what the problems are and we know how to solve them. All we lack is unified action.”

UNEP Executive Director Inger Anderson said that the UN chose to recognise Sir David because of his devotion to broadcasting the natural world.

“If we stand a chance of averting climate and biodiversity breakdowns and cleaning up polluted ecosystems, it’s because millions of us fell in love with the planet that he captured on film and writing, in his voice,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP Executive Director.

Sir David began working on natural history programmes in the 1950s, and his programmes filmed in far-flung parts of the world became immensely popular. In the past four years, his warnings about the damage that climate change is causing the planet and humans have become more stark.

Sir David is particularly popular with children and teenagers worried about climate change. Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has said that meeting the broadcaster was “indescribable” and that everyone should strive to be like him.

Asked about Sir David, children visiting the London aquarium told BBC News they love watching him on TV and even have books about him.

“He does loads of things to support our planet and the animals. On his show, he tells us the natural world might be in danger if we don’t make a difference,” explains 10-year-old Raya.

She worries about the planet, saying she’s learned that “we need to stop using plastic, start using more electric cars, and we should plant more trees instead of cutting them down.”

Benjamin, 13, said watching Sir David’s programmes has inspired him to become a marine biologist. But they’ve also taught him about the danger we face from climate change and biodiversity loss.

“I want to be able to have a family and I want them to live a nice world. But if we start trying very hard, we can save the natural world,” he explained.

Sir David’s emphasis on success stories like bringing back whales from the point of extinction is important, Prof Rick Stafford, marine biologist at Bournemouth university, told BBC News.

“He really brought climate change and biodiversity loss to the forefront. Optimism is important but the major problems to be solved are not scientific – they are economic and political,” he explained.

Source BBC

UK consumers able to track renewable energy hourly under new plans

Posted on April 21, 2022April 20, 2022 by dishanth

Consumers will soon be able to check where their energy is coming from hourly, and get a discount on bills if they use electricity when renewables are in surplus.

Under plans by the startup Granular and energy giants including Elexon and National Grid, energy companies will allow UK consumers to track their power source.

This could help the country reduce emissions, as it will be easier for people to choose energy companies that are transparent about exactly how much renewable energy they use.

Because there are times of day when renewable energy is less available – for example when it is less windy or sunny – consumers could be incentivised to use power when it is in oversupply by offering a discount on their bills. This could lead to less gas being used.

The current system is based on annual matching, in which the energy provider looks at the previous year’s energy use and matches it with the equivalent amount of renewable energy, but there is a growing trend to move to hourly matching instead. Companies including Google and Microsoft have been calling for the move as it could lead to organisations being able to definitively say they use renewable energy 24/7.

It will also increase consumer demand, say experts, as they will be able to choose more renewable options. This is likely to lead to companies investing in renewables, and in battery technology for more efficient storage.

Toby Ferenczi, a co-founder of Granular, said consumers could be seeing this change by the end of the year. He said: “Long term, what this is enabling an acceleration towards a completely carbon-free grid as it is harnessing consumer spending power to source energy from carbon-free sources each hour.

“This drives investment in not just renewables but in energy storage and flexibility. Eventually customers will be able to buy green energy from their energy supplier by the hour.”

He said the method could allow people to get discounts on their bills. “It’s an incentive for load shifting and demand response so we want to provide a revenue stream for people who do that – renewable energy should be cheap when it’s in oversupply and more expensive when undersupplied, so it would give an incentive for consumers to shift their demand towards when it’s oversupplied.”

Source The Guardian

Boots to phase out all plastic-based wet wipes by the end of the year

Posted on April 20, 2022 by dishanth

High-street chemist Boots has pledged to stop selling all wet wipes containing plastic fibres in response to growing consumer demand for sustainable toiletries.

The chain has announced it will phase out plastic-based wet wipes and replace them with plant-based biodegradable products by the end of 2022.

Eleven billion single-use wet wipes are used in the UK every year of which around 90 per cent contain plastic, according to the Marine Conservation Society (MCS).

Boots openly admits to having sold 800 million disposable hand wipes, baby wipes and make-up removal wipes in the past year in its stores and online. The retailer accounted for an estimated 15 per cent of beauty wipes sold in the UK in that time, with more than 140 different lines stocked across skincare, baby, tissue and healthcare.

Most wipes are made from a non-woven fabric resembling cotton, but despite their soft texture they are woven together with plastic fibres such as polyester and polypropylene. Once disposed of, they break down into microplastics, which then pollute the oceans and enter the food chain.

Wet wipes should not be disposed of down the toilet, despite the labels on some products claiming they are flushable, because they end up clogging the sewers. The cloths cause hundreds of thousands of blockages every year and lead to “fatbergs” – rock-like masses of waste matter in the sewer system formed by the combination of flushed non-biodegradable solids and fat, oil and grease deposits.

Announcing the plastic-based wipe ban, Steve Ager, chief customer and commercial officer at Boots UK, said: “Our customers are more aware than ever before of their impact on the environment, and they are actively looking to brands and retailers to help them lead more sustainable lives.

“We removed plastics from our own brand and No7 wet wipe ranges in 2021, and now we are calling on other brands and retailers across the UK to follow suit in eliminating all plastic-based wet wipes.”

Healthcare chain Holland & Barrett announced a complete ban on the sale of all wet wipe products from its UK and Ireland stores in 2019, while Tesco – which sells 4.8 billion individual baby wipes each year – stopped stocking branded wipes containing plastic last month, after reformulating its own-brand wipes.

Environment minister Rebecca Pow praised Boots’ “encouraging commitment” to prevent the damaging plastics in wet wipes from entering the environment while MCS chief executive Sandy Luk described the announcement as a “fantastic step in the right direction”.

Ms Luk added that MCS volunteers collected nearly 6,000 wet wipes during its latest annual Great British Beach Clean.

“[That] is an average of 12.5 wet wipes for every 100 metres of beach surveyed,” she said.

Source iNews

This tiny solar-powered factory cleans up dirty water

Posted on April 19, 2022April 18, 2022 by dishanth

The world’s first completely solar-powered beverage micro-factory started its journey in the spring of 2020, when Swedish startup Wayout International waved its container-sized machine goodbye from the port of Norrköping, south of Stockholm.

With shipping options already radically reduced by Covid-19, the micro-factory set out across the Baltic, Atlantic and Mediterranean seas, via the Suez Canal, stopping by Saudi Arabia, India and Sri Lanka, landing at last in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. From there, it went by truck through the developing rural landscape, over the Ngorongoro crater wall at 2,640 metres above sea level, across the great Namiri plains and up to the Mara river. It’s a big change of scene from a noisy industrial site in Sweden to a peaceful eco-tourism camp in northern Serengeti.

It had taken Wayout 18 months to go from idea to complete product. The result is a module that converts sunshine and local groundwater into pristine, potable water – and which can also produce premium craft beer and soft drinks. A single module puts out 150,000 litres of clean, remineralised water per month and lets whoever operates it serve up to eight different types of drinks through the integrated tap station. The micro-famicro-factoryctory is offered for lease and the fully automated beverage production is done via a desktop app letting the local operator – and Wayout, in Stockholm – monitor and control the process remotely. The system in the Serengeti is powered through a 110 kWp solar field with the energy stored in 2,000Ah OPzS batteries.

In the Serengeti, water is abundant, but not fit for drinking. The natural mineral content is extreme, making it corrosive to teeth and internal organs, and the unique ecosystem – including the famous “great migration” of wildebeest – makes the living soil busy with bacterial processes. That is why the micro-factory takes its source water from a local groundwater bore hole and filters it through an advanced integrated treatment system that removes all impurities before remineralising it for optimal taste and quality.

“It started out as a fun project between friends, at a moment when craft beer and micro-brewing was a thing,” says Martin Renck, one of Wayout’s three founders. The first system was developed to be used in the hospitality industry and by major breweries and beverage brands that seek to produce locally and sustainably. As the trio started pitching the concept to prospective clients, they hadn’t realised how urgent the issue of water purification was. “When we listened to the feedback we got – not just in Africa but from all around the warm regions of the planet – it became clear that it was the mineral water that was the really remarkable thing. We realised we not only had a commercial opportunity, but also a greater mission to take on,” Renck says.

Martin Renck, co-founder of Wayout. Originally conceived as a way to easily create craft beer, the technology’s ability to produce clean drinking water from virtually any source has proved to be its greatest and most impactful innovation PHOTOGRAPHY CHRISTOPHER HUNT

Touching down on the red dirt track at the Kogatende Airstrip in Northern Serengeti, the infrastructural challenges of the region become instantly clear. Here, the dynamics of the natural world still rule; scorching days followed by chilly nights, dry seasons followed by torrential rains, wildebeest and zebras followed by big cats and hyenas, with termites, boomslangs, hyraxes, aardvarks and pangolins filling the gaps. Roads and rivers meander with the seasons. Man-made structures morph and merge with biomass. Good quality drinking water may be as far away as a few days by four-wheel drive, and the distribution logistics leave scars in the sensitive biotope. The effects of the Wayout micro-factory in this location have been profound.

In situ, at the safari operator Asilia’s Sayari Camp, this circular system has eliminated single-use plastic bottles by nearly 18,000 units per year, not only for the camp guests but also for the operating staff and the park rangers in the region. Together with the safari camp operators, the rangers are what protects the national park by maintaining fire breaks, educating locals on the economic upsides of a healthy ecosystem, deterring and removing poachers, and protecting wildlife and people from each other when needed. Easy access to eco-friendly safe drinking water lets the rangers focus on their mission and ultimately improve the experience for the close to 150,000 yearly eco-tourists to the region.

Through the localised production of beverages, Sayari Camp further reduces their environmental impact by avoiding unnecessary waste management and routine long-distance trips. In addition to obvious health benefits, the unlimited supply of safe drinking water also frees up time and resources for families, advancing educational and economic prospects that support long-term development. And the effects have exceeded expectations. “In this location, the transition to a circular and eco-friendly economy in and around the Sayari Camp was more or less instant, which really should make us all think: if this can be done in the far-out region of Northern Serengeti, couldn’t it then be done anywhere?” Renck asks.

Renck says that the pandemic has boosted the interest in their innovation. The company is currently busy finalising its second concept: a “water-as-a-service” offer aimed at regions and nations with greater need for desalination and safe drinking water. One such project is slated for roll-out in early 2022 in a large island nation. By producing drinking water through distributed desalination, the cascade effects of the infrastructure system could help replenish the island’s water table, restore local farming and revitalise important parts of the island’s economy.

“One of the things we as humanity learned from this pandemic is that we can no longer rely on global value chains,” Renck says. “A transition to local and sustainable production of food and beverages [could help] humanity greenwash – in the genuine, positive sense of the word – civilisation.”

Source Wired

Norway is running out of gas-guzzling cars to tax

Posted on April 19, 2022April 18, 2022 by dishanth

When it comes to sales of electric cars, Norway is in a league of its own. In September, battery-powered electric vehicles accounted for 77.5 percent of all new cars sold. That figure makes Norway a world leader by a long way—leapfrogging over the UK, where 15 percent of new car sales were electric as of October, and the US, where that number is just 2.6 percent.

Norway’s electric dream has been credited to a series of tax breaks and other financial carrots that mean brands like Tesla can compete on price with combustion engines. But these incentives—and their success—have created a unique predicament: Norway is running out of dirty cars to tax.

It’s quite a big problem. The previous government—a center-right coalition that was replaced by a center-left minority government in October—estimated that the popularity of EVs was creating a 19.2 billion Norwegian krone ($2.32 billion) hole in the country’s annual revenue. While EVs might be great news for the environment, their rapid success in Norway is now forcing some serious fiscal consternation.

The road to this point has been long—and offers lessons to other countries racing to ditch gas-guzzling combustion engines. In Norway, the most progressive electric vehicle policies in the world started with a pop group, an environmentalist, and a small red Fiat Panda. It was 1988 when activist Frederic Hauge, along with fellow green campaigners from the band A-ha, traveled to the Swiss city of Bern, where they found the red Fiat. A previous owner had converted the car to run off a lead battery, and the group planned to use the vehicle to persuade the Norwegian government to encourage electric vehicle uptake.

The Fiat became the centerpiece of a nine-year campaign in which Hauge and members of A-ha drove the car on Norway’s toll roads without paying. The fines racked up, and when they remained unpaid, the vehicle would be impounded and sold at auction, where Hauge would buy it back and repeat the cycle of toll dodging. A-ha’s celebrity members added glitz to the crusade against toll fees for EVs and Hauge—who has led an environmental group called Bellona since 1986—courted press attention to demand incentives for electric cars. “By being a positive vigilante, he made the media and also the politicians aware of the electric car,” says Øyvind Solberg Thorsen, director of Norway’s Road Traffic Information Council, which publishes statistics about the country’s roads and vehicles.

Eventually, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the incentives the group campaigned for started to materialize, handing EVs a superior status on Norway’s roads. Rules were introduced that exempted EVs from all toll charges and parking fees and allowed them to skip traffic by using bus lanes. More meaningfully, purchases of new EVs were exempted from hefty taxes—including VAT and purchase tax—meaning a new Volkswagen e-Golf cost €790 ($893) less than a VW Golf with a combustion engine.

The problem was that people responded to the policy so well that it eradicated an important source of income for the government, says Anette Berve, spokesperson for the Norwegian Automobile Federation, a group representing car owners. “So this is a clash of two different goals.”

In an attempt to claw back lost income, officials are stripping electric cars of special status, sparking fierce debate and concern that the country could jeopardize its goal of selling no new cars with combustion engines by 2025. The toll charge exemption was first to go in 2017. Now, Norway’s center-left coalition government is considering removing a much broader list of incentives as part of ongoing budget negotiations.

There is widespread uncertainty about which taxes will be reintroduced. But the country’s car associations and environmental groups believe the four most likely to make a comeback are taxes for plug-in hybrids, a tax for second-hand EV sales, a tax for “luxury EVs” that cost more than 600,000 Norwegian krone ($68,650), and the resurrection of an annual ownership tax for EVs.

Labor Party MP Frode Jacobsen would not comment in detail on the ongoing budget discussions, but he confirmed that current proposals include an increase in taxes for some plug-in hybrids. The tax for “luxury EVs” will not be included in next year’s budget, he added, although he did not say it had been ruled out for following years.

In another country, it would be surprising for a left-wing government to support such policies. But Lasse Fridstrøm, senior research economist at Oslo’s Institute of Transport Economics, a research institution, says there is a sense across the political spectrum that it’s time to tax EVs now that they are no longer a novelty. “The new Labor government has just kept the proposal made by the former right-wing or Conservative government,” he adds. “So yes, there is consensus. But the environmentalists, of course, are not happy.”

Norway’s environmentalists say they are not against the idea of taxing EVs so long as taxes for fossil fuel cars stay high, too. But there is concern about the wrong taxes coming too soon. “This could cause major setbacks,” says Hauge. “Reintroducing VAT for cars above 600,000 krone seems like a strange thing to do because those are the cars that are useful” in rural areas where people spend more time on the road—and need to drive EVs over long distances, he says.

Berve is also worried about timing. She believes a tax on used electric car sales would undermine the market before it’s had a chance to develop, while a tax on hybrids would disadvantage drivers living in the north of the country who don’t have access to the extensive charging infrastructure that exists in the south. She echoes the Norwegian consensus that hybrids are a “transitional technology” that will eventually stand in the way of full electrification. “However it is a transitional technology that we believe is still needed because [the EV market is] still not completely mature,” she adds. Case in point: EVs still only make up 15 percent of Norway’s entire vehicle population, according to the Road Traffic Information Council. It’s a substantial number by global standards, but there’s still a long way to go.

Unni Berge of the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association, a consumer group that represents EV drivers, says it’s not existing EV drivers who will be threatened by the withdrawal of incentives—but rather the people who haven’t yet joined their ranks. “We are not fighting for our members but fighting for new people to become EV drivers,” she says, adding that the group’s main goal was to make sure VAT and purchase tax exemptions stayed in place.

As well as facing pressure to maintain high levels of EV ownership among future generations of drivers, the government must also decide what happens after a country fills its roads with electric vehicles. Some believe the focus should shift to eradicating dirty commercial vehicles—from smaller vans to hulking trucks and even diesel-powered ships. But others are campaigning for a future where the emphasis shifts away from cars and focuses on buses, trains, and trams.

Halvard Raavand of Greenpeace Norway stresses that although EVs don’t release emissions as they drive around, they still have an environmental impact. More cars justify the development of bigger roads, he says. They demand energy during production and, depending on where they are charged, when they’re plugged in.

A country that pumps more oil per capita than Saudi Arabia or Russia seems an unlikely place for the post-car era to unfold. References to Norway’s vast oil exports—which make up more than one-sixth of the country’s GDP and more than a third of total exports—are also notably absent from the debate about travel inside the country. “We need to keep on electrifying,” says Raavand. “But at the same time, we also need to have in mind that we need to improve public transport and make sure we keep an emphasis on improving the railway infrastructure instead of just building new highways.”

Source Wired

The best eco denim to help you go green in style

Posted on April 18, 2022 by dishanth

Two billion pairs of jeans are produced globally each year, requiring around 1.4 million tonnes of raw cotton. According to a 2015 study by Levi Strauss & Co, the lifecycle of one pair of their 501s uses up 3,781 litres of H2O.

This is not a great statistic when more than 10 per cent of the world’s population currently has no access to clean water. Add chemical treatments, carcinogenic dyes, washing, rinsing and finishing, and you’ve got an industry that’s anything but sustainable. But technology is improving, making it easier to find the right shade of ‘green’ blue jeans.

Wrangler’s Indigood range has a dying process that cuts energy waste by 60 per centWRANGLER

Based in Vietnam, Saitex is a denim manufacturing plant producing 20,000 pairs of jeans a day, and while that doesn’t sound especially eco, they’re the first Asian factory to join B Corporation, and represent the easiest route to buying better jeans. Instead of 80 litres, each pair of jeans uses 1.5 litres of water during the rinsing process, saving them 430 million litres per year.

Saitex recycles 98 per cent of the water it uses, lasers have replaced traditional stone washing and sandblasting, and by air drying, energy use is cut by 85 per cent. They’ve even started producing building blocks and tiles for low-income housing projects using waste materials. Current brands working with Saitex include Edwin, Gap, Paul Smith and Everlane.

Replay’s Hyperflex Bio line combines organic cotton, recycled fabric and recycled PET bottles for eco stretchREPLAY

American stalwart Wrangler has developed Indigood, a new dying process that uses foam to eliminate the need for water in the process, and has cut energy waste by 60 per cent. One example that has caught our eye is the Indigood Texas slim low, £75.

Wrangler are also starting to make jeans with a percentage of recycled yarn, something that Replay has also adopted with their Hyperflex Bio range which combines organic cotton, recycled fabric and recycled PET bottles for eco stretch.

Candiani’s N-Denim jeans are dyed using Kitotex, made from recycling shrimp shells, and so need 75 per cent less water and 65 per cent fewer chemicals

Like Replay, Italian manufacturer Candiani has been striving to find a less thirsty way to make jeans. Their N-Denim jeans start with certified organic cotton and are dyed using Kitotex, an innovation made from recycling shrimp shells from the food industry which, combined with Indigo Juice, another innovative method for achieving vintage/faded looking jeans without multiple washes, requires a claimed 75 per cent less water and 65 per cent fewer chemicals per pair of strides.

Candiani has also developed Coreva Denim, the first biodegradable naturally sourced stretch denim, derived from natural rubber. Our pick? Candiani’s Razor Biostretch Selvedge Denim, €340, features both N-Denim and Coreva.

Levi’s Red High Loose Taper jeans are made with cottonised hemp, which requires less water and fewer chemicals to grow than traditional cotton

And as for Levi’s, they’ve been collaborating with re:newcell to introduce a substance called Circulose into their manufacturing loop. This material is made in a similar way to recycling paper, but the resulting cotton fibre, created using old jeans offcuts, makes up 50 per cent of the new pair.

Levi’s also has a whole range of sustainable, water-saving, waste-reducing styles. All their women’s loose-fit jeans fall into this category, too. The 90s-inspired High Loose Taper (£110), for example, is made with the brand’s cottonised hemp, which requires less water and fewer chemicals to grow than cotton, plus the finished fabric is softer.

Source Wired

This dam simple trick is a big green energy win

Posted on April 18, 2022 by dishanth

In November 2019 engineers switched on the 18th and final turbine at Brazil’s Belo Monte Dam: the final step in an odyssey of planning and construction that had started almost 50 years earlier. The vast hydroelectric complex—the fourth-largest in the world—completely upended the northern stretch of the Xingu River, one of the Amazon’s major tributaries. The waters held back by the main dam created a reservoir that flooded 260 square miles of lowlands and forests, and displaced more than 20,000 people.

Major hydroelectric dams can have catastrophic consequences—flooding homes and habitats and changing the flow, temperature, and chemistry of rivers for decades. Although few are quite as big as Belo Monte, there are a glut of new hydroelectric dams in the works all over the globe. In 2014 researchers estimated that there are at least 3,700 major hydroelectric dams in planning or under construction globally. Most of these new projects are located in low- and middle-income countries eager to fuel their growing economies with a crucial source of low-carbon power: In 2020, hydroelectric dams generated as much electricity as nuclear and wind power combined. But the race to tap the world’s rivers for renewable energy presents something of an environmental conundrum: Do the benefits outweigh the environmental chaos that dams can wreak?

Some researchers think there’s a smart way out of this dilemma. Rather than building more dams, why don’t we figure out a way to get more out of the ones that already exist? The majority of them aren’t generating electricity at all—they’re used for irrigation, water supply, flood control, or for fishing and boating. If we can figure out a way to put turbines into those dams so they also produce hydropower—a process known as retrofitting—we could unlock a huge renewable energy potential that isn’t being tapped.

In a retrofitted system, water falling through the dam would spin newly installed turbine blades connected to a generator—and that spinning would generate electricity that could be distributed to local homes or connected to a larger power grid. “How much more can we get out of revitalizing existing infrastructure, rather than expanding and building new infrastructure?” asks Ryan McManamay, an ecologist at Baylor University in Texas and coauthor of a paper exploring the untapped potential of non-powered dams. (McManamay’s own office in Waco is a short walk from one of these dams on the Brazos River. A wasted opportunity right on his doorstep, he points out.)

McManamay and his colleagues estimated that retrofitting dams and upgrading existing hydroelectric plants could boost their maximum output by an extra 78 gigawatts. That’s roughly the power generated by seven Belo Monte Dams, or more than double the average electricity demand in the whole of the United Kingdom. And in parts of the world where new dams are being planned and constructed, the change could be huge. Retrofitting and upgrading dams in the Amazon River basin could unlock 1.6 gigawatts of new electricity production. That’s roughly the amount of energy produced by a natural-gas-fired power station and enough to avoid the construction of 17 new smaller dams altogether. Upgrading and retrofitting dams in the Mekong River basin in Southeast Asia could generate so much power that all the new ones slated for construction in the region would be surplus above what’s required.

Some countries are already making use of this potential. Since 2000, 36 dams in the US have been retrofitted with turbines, adding more than 500 megawatts of renewable generation capacity. There is even more potential out there: A 2016 US Department of Energy report found that an additional 4.8 gigawatts of electricity could be generated by retrofitting non-powered dams over the next three decades. In places like the US and Western Europe, where the dam-building boom of the mid-20th century has long since faded, retrofitting may be the only option left for governments looking to eke out a little more hydropower. “If there are dams that are going to remain in place, let’s try and find solutions and work together to the most optimal solution,” says McManamay.

But before anyone starts upgrading all these dams, they might want to take another look at the numbers. It’s not easy to accurately predict how much electricity a retrofitted facility will actually produce, because it turns out not every dam is a good fit for conversion. Say someone wants to fit turbines in a dam that was built to hold back water so it can be used to irrigate farmers’ fields. During the growing season, a lot of that water would normally be directed toward crops, instead of flowing over the dam to generate electricity. Or perhaps it’s in an area where the water is only high enough to generate electricity for part of the year. Suddenly those retrofitted dams might not seem like such a smart idea.

One recent study on retrofitted dams in the US, also commissioned by the Department of Energy, found that projections of their power output veered toward the optimistic side: On average, those projections were 3.6 times greater than the actual output. The study found that the most successful retrofits tended to be concrete dams initially built to aid navigation. (Dams are often used to widen or deepen waterways to make it easier for boats to pass through.) “This is a complex issue. It’s not an easy fix,” says McManamay.

But in countries such as Brazil, big dams are still very much on the agenda. “If they’re going to develop and really raise the standard of living in the country as a whole, they need energy. That’s the long and short of it,” says Michael Goulding, a senior aquatic scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society. The country’s most recent 10-year energy plan outlines nine new large dams scheduled to be completed before 2029. Rather than hoping these dams won’t be built, it’s important to make sure that proper studies are carried out to make sure that they’re built in a way that minimizes environmental destruction, says Goulding: “Often the environmental impact frameworks aren’t very good. They’ll define an area of interest close to the dam and that area of interest doesn’t include all the downstream impacts and upstream impacts as well.”

The Belo Monte Dam is a good example of just how much of an effect large dams have on the surrounding environment. The dam complex redirected 80 percent of the Xingu’s flow away from a 62-mile stretch of the river known as Big Bend. This section of the Xingu also happens to be the only known wild habitat of the Zebra Pleco—an eye-catching striped catfish beloved by aquarists. “There is a huge risk that this species will go extinct,” says Thiago B. A. Couto, a postdoctoral researcher at Florida International University’s Tropical Rivers Lab. The impact of dams on fish species is well-documented elsewhere in the world. In Washington state, the Elwha Dam disconnected the upper and lower Elwha watersheds, reducing the habitat available to salmon by 90 percent. Some species local to the river disappeared altogether, while the populations of others—such as Chinook—fell to a fraction of their previous levels.

Eventually, however, even large dams may outlive their usefulness. In 2014, the last remnants of the Elwha Dam were removed forever. The Chinook salmon that for decades had remained locked behind two dams are now slowly making their way back upstream. A full recovery is expected to take decades. “Dams don’t last forever,” says Couto. “There are many that are abundant, but are not providing the minimum benefits that they are supposed to.”

Source Wired

This recyclable boat is made from wool

Posted on April 18, 2022April 18, 2022 by dishanth

Ask someone for a fact about New Zealand and chances are they’ll likely say, “There are more sheep than people.” It’s true, with 30 million sheep to 4.4 million humans, so it is little wonder that wool production is a major source of export revenue, and national pride, for the country. But the industry is in serious decline. Total wool exports fell 30.2 percent to NZ$367 million ($251.3 million USD) in the year to January 2021, and with wool prices so low it can often cost farmers more to shear sheep than they can get for the wool once sold.

We’re not talking about luxury Merino wool here. That ultrafine fiber still commands a high price, but it makes up only 10 percent of New Zealand wool products. Some 80 percent of New Zealand wool is actually strong wool, a coarser natural fiber more typically used for carpets and rugs.

Changing tastes and the popularity of man-made fibers means there’s a surfeit of strong wool in New Zealand—an estimated 1 million tons is stored waiting for the prices to improve—but 26-year-old inventor Logan Williams, and his company Shear Edge, is hoping to make the most of this increasingly ignored material by chopping it up and using it to make boats, knives, fencing, and just about anything that’s currently made using plastic.

Shear Edge’s plastic wool pellets can be used in existing machinery PHOTOGRAPH: SHEAR EDGE

Williams has pioneered a method of adding processed strong wool to polymers, including bio-based PLA (polylactic acid), typically made from corn starch. The result is a material that not only uses less plastic but is lighter and stronger—and, crucially, this wooly plastic can be processed by existing plastic-forming machinery.

“Wool is composed of keratin protein,” explains Williams. “It’s actually one of the strongest natural materials on the planet, so when it gets infused with the polymer it makes it incredibly strong, but also lighter, so the more wool we can put into the polymer the lighter the products will be and less plastic will be needed.”

The pellets, made in Shear Edge’s Hamilton factory, south of Auckland on New Zealand’s North Island, can be used as a substitute for plastic manufacturing without having to invest in new machinery. “Our pellets can be universally applied to almost all forms of manufacturing, says Williams. “This includes injection molding, extrusion, rotational molding, and thermoforming. Our customers may only have to slightly change the temperature and torque of their existing machinery, and aside from visible fibers, it looks almost identical to the industry standard.”

Shear Edge’s wool composites have been tested by Scion Research (a New Zealand government-owned company that carries out scientific research for the benefit of the country) to international ISO and ASTM standards, and the results show that wool makes composites lighter and stiffer, with higher impact and tensile strength.

Shear Edge is currently producing 4 tons a day, and Williams hopes that by using strong wool, he can give farmers an income stream for a product that is often considered worthless, especially as they can use parts of the fleece such as bellies, side,s and pieces that would otherwise be thrown away. Currently the company’s formula replaces as much as 35 per cent of the typical base polymer without a reduction in performance. It’s also worth noting that, unlike a material such as glass fiber, it is 100 percent recyclable.

“We’re trying to make pellets that can be ubiquitously added to any factory and lower the barrier of entry. So any customer can take our pellets and make their products,” says Williams.

So far Shear Edge has partnered with a number of companies to showcase its woolly pellets, including making handles for New Zealand-based Victory Knives, hi-tech fencing—for the sheep farming industry, obviously—and both a kayak and catamaran, the latter of which will be thoroughly tested by making the choppy crossing of the Cook Strait, which separates the North and South Islands of New Zealand, in February.

While keen to promote environmentally favorable and biodegradable solutions such as PLA, Shear Edge pellets are versatile enough to be incorporated with most common polymers including PHA, HDPE, LDPE, PP, PET, PA and PVC.

But no matter what base material is used, the pellets will reduce the amount of plastic in circulation. A standard kayak usually weighs 20 kilgrams, but by adding wool it drops to 18 kg, which equates to a saving in the region of around 2,000 plastic bags. Yes, it’s a drop in the proverbial ocean compared to the 9 million tons dumped in the oceans each year, but Williams is hoping that an innovation that benefits supplier, manufacturer, and planet will catch on to the extent that the numbers really do start to make a difference.

Shear Edge isn’t the only company looking to substitute wool for man-made materials. UK-based Solidwool has been producing bespoke furniture and accessories using a mix of Herdwick sheep wool and bio-resin for years, while a 2010 project between Scotland’s Strathclyde University and Spain’s University of Seville experimented with a reinforced eco-friendly brick made using a mix of wool and seaweed.

Shear Edge’s plastic wool utilizes parts of the sheep fleece traditionally considered unusable PHOTOGRAPH: SHEAR EDGE

And back in New Zealand, Woolcool has designs on the 1 million tons of wool in storage for its brilliantly efficient natural alternative to cold shipping made using 100 percent felted sheep’s wool which is washed, scoured, and sealed within a recyclable polyethylene wrap. It’s fully biodegradable, can be added to compost, yet has been proven to keep food chilled for at least 24 hours.

The question is whether Shear Edge’s approach, which costs some 20 percent more than the equivalent polymer, will entice enough manufacturers to make the global impact Williams is hoping for. The company goal is to sell 50,000 tons of material a year and to have about 50 core customers across 25 different industries. “The higher cost is mostly because our philosophy is to deliver a higher wool price to our hard-working farms, while reinforcing environmentally conscious and ethical practices,” Williams says. “But if the stores do run dry, and in the unlikely event that the New Zealand wool industry does collapse, we’ll switch to using recycled wool or find alternatives from other countries.”

Source Wired