Fonterra has partnered with US energy storage company, PolyJoule, to trial an industrial-scale organic battery at its Waitoa UHT site in New Zealand.
Made from electrically conductive polymers, the battery is an organic-based compound that acts like a metal. Fonterra describes it as a low-cost, sustainable and long-life battery capable of providing energy security and distributed electricity generation in the country.
The battery was first installed last year on a Fonterra farm at Te Rapa, where it was cycled daily, supporting dairy shed operations for ten months. With the move to the co-op’s Waitoa UHT site, the battery can be hit by power disturbances leading to downtime and waste.
Fonterra COO, Fraser Whineray, said: “As a significant electricity user at about 2.5% of the national grid, a sustainable and secure electricity supply is vital to the co-operative’s local sales and exports”.
He continued: “At Fonterra, we have a strategy to lead in sustainability, and innovation partnerships are a critical ingredient to achieving this. The PolyJoule battery has a remarkable discharge rate, which may ultimately link with ultra-fast charging our fleet, including Milk-E, our electric milk tanker.”
PolyJoule CEO, Eli Paster, commented that he “sees great opportunity for growth in New Zealand both in terms of supporting energy security and job creation in the manufacturing and technology sectors”.
He continued: “We both have sustainability front and centre of our strategy and understand the importance of a reliable, green supply of electricity for quickly chilling the raw milk on farm, processing and distribution…Since PolyJoule batteries do not rely on lithium, nickel or lead, the materials are easier to source, and the batteries are safer and easier to manufacture anywhere in the world, including New Zealand.”
“When you look at where the grid is heading, and the number of batteries needed for the region, building a manufacturing base in New Zealand could create hundreds of new jobs and a new green energy hub.”
E-scooters are an interesting form of “e-thing,” our term for the devices that are popping up in our Cambrian explosion of micromobility options and devices. As one reader noted recently, “Long live the eThings! This is a wonderful period of exploration.” The Bo e-scooter is a very different beast than the shared e-scooters from Lime and Bird that people complain are begriming sidewalks around the world. Almost all of the problems with e-scooters start with rental e-scooters, where people may not know how to ride them properly and park them anywhere. Nobody who owns a Bo e-scooter is going to abandon it in the middle of the sidewalk—it costs $2,400.
The problems with regular e-scooters are legion: The wheels are small and hard. When I was riding one in Lisbon on their marble sidewalks, I thought my teeth would shake out. Since the rider is standing, the center of gravity is high and this makes them unstable. They are great fun and useful transportation, but it certainly seemed to me that they could be a lot better, and probably a lot safer.
The Bo appears to address many of these problems. According to Bo CEO Oscar Morgan, “We spent 3 years developing the Bo M for everyone who can see the potential of the e-scooter, but who finds today’s scooters too unsafe, impractical for daily use, or simply not well designed.” It has what they call Safesteer, described as “a one-of-a-kind dynamic steering stabilization feature to increase rider safety and enjoyment.” Unusually for an e-scooter, it doesn’t fold.
“Aware that to some it is controversial, we made a conscious decision to eliminate the fold, launching Bo M with an unbroken Monocurve chassis,” said Bo CTO Harry Wills. “Bo M is designed for commuters traveling home to work who value exceptional ride, safety, and reliability above all else. Creating this new category, between a traditional e-scooter and an e-bike, our research discovered that the majority of people seldom or never use the fold. It represented a point of weakness, so that directed us to this final design.”
The Bo has 10-inch pneumatic tires and a special shock-absorbing deck so that it is not teeth-rattling. It has a 31-mile range, a 500-watt motor, regenerative braking, and a top speed of 24 miles per hour, depending on regulation. And of course, there are anti-theft systems and GPS tracking.
One of the big benefits of e-scooters is they are light and fold up, so you can take them wherever you go. The Bo does not fold and it weighs 40 pounds, which makes it a different kind of e-thing. So the company has also designed a different kind of storage. It’s a docking station with a monolithic, vertically integrated solar PV panel that charges an internal 2-kilowatt-hour battery in the day and charges the Bo M at night.
Morgan commented in a statement: “An essential feature of the Bo team is that we are scooter users, as well as designers and engineers. When we compared car ownership to life with the Bo M, security and ease of charging stood out as areas of opportunity to build a great rider experience. Bo M is highly efficient, with energy consumption as low as 15Wh per mile. This opened up the potential for a compact, stand-alone charge and security solution which could deliver meaningful range.”
My first reaction was that this is silly. If you have an e-thing that only consumes 15-watt-hours per mile and “can consume less energy in a week of commuting than a single hot shower,” then why bother? I really don’t think it makes much sense to park a scooter out in the rain on an expensive docking station when it is in front of a house with a big garage where you could plug it into a small charger.
However, the docking station doesn’t need an electric outlet so it can be put anywhere. One can imagine many places where this might be useful, including commuter train stations and office buildings that now have vast concrete parking garages. Cities and employers would be better off just giving people these instead of building those lots.
Perhaps the more important feature is the security technology, which is impressive. A secure place to park is one of the three pillars of the e-revolution. The security system is based on its own three pillars: mechanical, e-secure, and service-secure:
Mechanical-secure: Inaccessible, high-tensile steel pins deploy through the Bo M, fixing it securely to the base plate of the Bo E.
E-secure: Tamper sensors trigger high decibel audio alarm, camera filming, and live playback along with 4G notification to your smartphone. This is all synced with Bo M’s onboard alarm, GPS tracking, and audio alarms.
Service Secure: Bo is building the specification for an insurance product that reflects the increased safety of the vehicle when secured with Bo E.
E-scooters are an interesting niche. It is clear we have to separate the issues that come with shared scooters compared to privately owned units. A Swiss study found that shared e-scooters do not replace cars, but trips taken by foot, bike, or public transport. It also found that privately owned scooters last much longer and have a much lower carbon footprint. The Bo E is a very different e-thing.
We have noted before that e-bikes and e-scooters are climate action, and welcome the Bo to the party.
Located in the picturesque Marovo lagoon, honey producers in the Malemale community have created a sustainable beekeeping model that produces high profits but at the same time allows the environment around it to flourish.
With funding support from UNDPs Small Grants Programme (SGP) through the Global Environment Fund (GEF) Mr Calvin Charles’ has been working with the Malemale community to develop this new beekeeping model, and in a short time has proved successful.
This has become our sweet success. As from the first five hives we received as part of the SGP support, we’re working to increase the number of colonies up to 50.”
“The honeybees collect nectar from flowers, but then we found that the kerosene wood tree flowers provide one of the best nectar for the honeybees. When I saw that I thought that this two project can go together,” said Calvin, the project coordinator.
“This has become our sweet success. As from the first five hives we received as part of the SGP support, we’re working to increase the number of colonies up to 50.”
Jesina Moses is one of the project members and together with other women in her family are involved in looking after and replanting the kerosene wood tree.
“So we come and work on Malemale, work such as cleaning, brushing and weeding in areas involved in the project.
“Main thing also is we manage the nursery then afterwards we transfer them to polyethylene bags then after 3 weeks we plant them,” said Jesina, as she transferred plants that are ready to be planted.
The support from UNDP’s Small Grants Programme (SGP) has helped the group purchase tools and equipment to turn their beekeeping plan into reality.
“If we manage this well it will help to improve the livelihoods of those in our community,” Calvin said.
Owing to the rising woes of apparel waste management globally and how they contribute to a whopping 10 per cent of global carbon emissions due to the fast fashion trend, Harbour9 – a homegrown premium apparel brand in India – is investing mindfully to make its apparel range increasingly sustainable.
Introducing a range of sustainable outdoor casual apparel for the whole family, Harbour9 is using recycled, tailoring-scrap-made yarn to make sweatshirts and tees for men, tops for women, and solid and patterned tees for kids between 0 and 12 years.
The futuristic fashion brand is even devising a way to turn polyester fibres from discarded PET bottles into new-age clothes.
Made by using conscious amounts of recycled materials, the finished products from the house of Harbour9 are pre-dyed to ensure minimal environmental impact, while being in line with the current fashion trends.
Inclusive in their approach, Harbour9 is also making available its sustainable clothing range in plus-size options.
Breathable and trendy in design, the brand will introduce premium and cost-efficient eco-friendly clothing ranging from casual outdoor wear to performance gear for fitness aficionados.
Manoj Jain, Director, Harbour9, said “Climate change due to global warming is a big reason of worry for mankind to get back to basics and transition their lifestyle to being sustainable. One of the basic needs of humans, that is, clothing has kept evolving so quickly in recent years that has led to the adoption of fast fashion and its negative impact on the environment by involving in animal cruelty and quickly mounting landfills. To avert the negative impact of wastage and its impact on climate change, we at Harbour9 have come up with this range of sustainable clothing which is ethically sourced.”
To help enable businesses to launch, analyse and manage sustainability targets, Tech Mahindra has announced its end-to-end ESG portfolio, which will also aim to help them achieve their ESG goals.
Through the portfolio, Tech Mahindra will help customers reduce their current carbon emissions footprint by renovating across operations, supply chains and processes.
“Sustainability has always been at the core of how we do business at Tech Mahindra. We have been a proud flag bearer of sustainable development and over the years, we have improved our sustainability strategy and scaled our spending on sustainability measures to mitigate the impacts of climate change while also creating value for our stakeholders. With our comprehensive ESG offerings, we are taking a step further to help our customers shape a better and sustainable future,” said Sandeep Chandna, Chief Sustainability Officer, Tech Mahindra.
Using technologies to create a greener future
Founded in 1986, Tech Mahindra is part of the Mahinda group, which is one of the largest multinational federation of companies with more than 158,000 professionals across 90 countries.
The company has pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 and 50% renewable energy mix by 2025. It is also a Signatory to 1.5degree supply chain and ESG Centre of Excellence. In 2020, it ensured carbon emission reduction by 31% and aims to reach 50% GHG emissions reduction by 2035 and net-zero by 2050.
With this new announcement, Tech Mahindra will assist customers in measuring, monitoring, improving, and achieving ESG plans by offering tailored solutions for distinct needs. The organisation’s ESG offerings are developed by leveraging the research and insights garnered during the last 15 years of operations in the domain.
According to the company, artificial intelligence (AI) levers could reduce worldwide GHG emissions by 4% by 2030, an amount equivalent to 2.4 Gt CO2e. The Internet of Things (IoT) is projected to reduce global carbon emissions by around 20% and data centre management, wherein moving to cloud can reduce energy and emissions up to 35% on server management.
The US state of Wyoming is set to welcome the world’s largest direct air capture plant for the removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Called Project Bison, the facility is slated to swing into action next year and, all going to plan, will scale up its operations by the end of the decade to suck up five million tons of CO2 each year, and safely lock it away underground.
Project Bison enters the fray as the first massively scalable direct air capture plant in the US, according to the company behind the technology, Carbon Capture. The LA-based outfit has teamed up with Dallas-based company Frontier Carbon Solutions on the venture, which will lock the captured carbon away underground to prevent it from re-entering the atmosphere.
Carbon capture activity is expected to kick off at Project Bison in 2023
For its part, Carbon Capture describes its system as “deeply modular.” The reactors slot into shipping-container-sized modules that can be stacked into tiers. This enables upgrades to individual reactors, for example, or for different types of plug-and-play sorbent cartridges to be slotted in to suit different climates or seasons. These modules can be grouped together in clusters to share resources like power and heat, with those clusters then able to be scaled up to form gigantic arrays.
Wyoming was chosen as the site for Project Bison owing to its ready access to renewable energy sources and friendly regulatory conditions for carbon storage. Pending approvals, it will be the first direct air capture plant to use Class IV wells for carbon sequestration, injecting it into deep saline aquifers. Phase 1 carbon capture operations are expected to begin next year, removing around 10,000 tons annually.
Carbon Capture says there are no practical limits when it comes to scaling up the project, however, and plans to do just that to remove 200,000 tons a year by 2026, one megaton a year by 2028 and then five megatons a year by 2030. At this point, it expects Project Bison to be the largest single atmospheric carbon removal project in the world.
When that time comes, it may have some competition, however. Aside from Clime works’ efforts in this area, we’ve seen London startup Brilliant Planet outline plans to offer gigaton-scale carbon capture using algae, and Australian startup Southern Green Gas’s vision of capturing billions of tons each year. The US government is also investing billions of dollars into carbon capture, with the aim of developing regional hubs that can help drive down the considerable cost of the technology.
This is no small sticking point when it comes to making carbon capture a viable weapon in the fight against climate change, considering the size of the problem. Clime works’ first plant captured carbon at around US$600 a ton, but it aims to do so at around $100 a ton as it scales up, while others are aiming even lower.
Carbon Capture will be betting big on the effects of the Biden government’s recently passed Inflation Reduction Act to make its carbon capture commercially viable. The act sees tax credits for carbon capture plants increase from $50 per ton to as much as $180 if the carbon is stored underground, and is designed to accelerate innovations in the carbon removal sector.
“With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the proliferation of companies seeking high-quality carbon removal credits, and a disruptive low-cost technology, we now have the ingredients needed to scale DAC (direct air capture) to megaton levels by the end of this decade,” said Adrian Corless, CEO and CTO, Carbon Capture Inc. “We plan to have our first DAC modules fielded by the end of next year and to continue installing capacity as quickly as modules come off our production line. Our goal is to leverage economies of scale to offer the lowest priced DAC-based carbon removal credits in the market.”
Scientists from the University of Leicester in the UK have discovered a process to recover silver and aluminum from used PV cells that is cheaper and more environmentally friendly than current recycling processes using mineral acids.
The researchers used the technology on crystalline solar cells measuring 12 × 15 cm, weighing 2 g, and consisting of a 100 µm thick silicon wafer, coated with a 100 nm thick silicon nitride anti-reflective layer on the front side and a 20 µm thick layer of aluminum on the back side, both stripped with silver electrodes approximately 30 μm high.
“First, we place the solar cell in an aluminum chloride solution. The aluminum electrode is removed from the silicon wafer. We use ultrasound to promote the dissolution of the aluminum, which takes place within a few minutes,” researcher Guillaume Zante told pv magazine.
Given the low cost of aluminum, there may be no economic interest in recovering it, but the aluminum salt solution could be used for wastewater treatment purposes, according to the scientists. “In the second step, the silver is dissolved from the solar cell using iron chloride, an oxidizing agent, in a choline chloride or calcium chloride brine, which takes around 10 minutes,” Zante explained, noting that the components of these two brines, or salt water, are found in chicken feed and grit used on roads to avoid ice, respectively, and are thus widely available, cheap, and low on toxicity.
“It is interesting to note that iron dissolved in water cannot oxidize silver, but iron dissolved in the brine can. Using a brine instead of water improves the ability of iron to oxidize silver and improves the solubility of silver in the brine,” Zante said. “This is due to the presence of chloride ions in the brine. The addition of water to the brine dilutes the chloride ions, allowing the silver chloride to precipitate. Silver chloride is easily filtered from the solution.”
This process successfully recovers silver chloride with a purity of 98%, which according to the researchers could be converted into metallic silver in a further step, thereby increasing its purity. The process does not affect the silicon wafer and nitride anti-reflective coating, leaving open the possibility to reuse the silicon in PV panels or processing it for other uses.
The results were obtained in a lab setting, using a few grams of solar cells, and may differ at an industrial scale. However, the authors believe that industrialization is feasible due to their use of cheap, low-toxicity and readily available chemicals. “Since we are using cheap chemicals, the price could be as low as the processing costs with mineral acids and in some cases cheaper, around $0.4 lower per kilogram of solar cell as compared to mineral acids,” Zante affirmed.
They presented their findings in “Efficient recycling of metals from solar cells using catalytic etchants,” which was recently published in the Journal of Cleaner Production. The scientists are currently developing a strategy to scale up the technology and to extract other metals from waste sources, including bismuth, tellurium and copper from thermoelectric materials, which are used in perovskite, thin film, and wiring and cabling in solar cells, respectively. They are also attempting to extract gold, nickel and copper from printed circuit-boards, as well as neodymium and dysprosium from waste magnets. The academics are part of the Met4Tech project, which supports the creation of a circular economy for technology metals.
We’ve all heard of planting trees to combat climate change. Now, a team in Nova Scotia is working on “reforestation” for the ocean.
Dalhousie University and the Ecology Action Centre in Halifax are managing a project this summer to plant an often overlooked species — eelgrass — in the race to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
To the untrained eye, eelgrass looks like your average seaweed, but project lead Kristina Boerder says it’s much more.
“It’s a bit of a treasure, a secret treasure. Not a lot of people know about it,” said Boerder.
Eelgrass boosts biodiversity along shorelines by providing shelter for young fish, crustaceans and even food for some waterfowl. It also has many benefits for humans.
Eelgrass stores carbon and methane in its root system
“It protects our coasts from erosion. It’s good for water quality. And also it stores our emissions. So it’s a secret weapon in our fight [against] climate change,” she says.
Seagrasses on the whole absorb carbon and methane through photosynthesis and sequester them in their root systems. One study estimates an acre of seagrass can store over 335 kilograms of carbon per year — the equivalent of carbon emitted by a car driving from Yarmouth, N.S. to Dingwall, N.S. eight times.
Researchers are working to see how effective eelgrass is at carbon storage in Nova Scotia specifically.
The group is using different methods of planting eelgrass to see which is most effective.
Its carbon-storing root system also helps moderate levels of acid in the ocean, which are rising due to climate change and damaging the health of some marine life.
But eelgrass meadows are shrinking, according to researchers due to damage from coastal development, pollution, invasive species and some types of fisheries mooring and anchoring practices.
This loss of seagrass meadows is a global phenomenon. One study estimated the world loses up to two football fields worth of seagrass each hour. Boerder says something needs to be done.
Boerder, along with students from Dalhousie and volunteers from the Ecology Action Centre, have spent the summer with snorkels and wetsuits out in the water, working to regenerate this precious plant.
Amy Irvine is a marine biology masters student involved with the project who endures long, muddy, cold days to plant the eelgrass.
“When you see all the trees around you, you recognize how important they are. But then when you come to the ocean, you don’t think about this,” she said, holding up a piece of the eelgrass.
The study
The team’s days are long. Starting at 7 a.m. and going until 6 in the evening.
They meet at Cherry Hill Beach to harvest eelgrass from a lush bed where they suit up, wade in and fill buckets with the green grass.
“This is actually the easiest part of the day,” said Irvine. This area is shallow and warm compared to the area where the eelgrass is transplanted.
The planters swim out, with Boerder following them in a boat. She hands them the grass and they dive down through the cloudy water to plant it.
They are trying different planting methods to see which is most effective.
“We don’t know what works best for Nova Scotian Water. So we’ve got to explore that first,” said Boerder.
The experiment consists of four different methods: planting seeds on their own, planting seeds in burlap sacks, planting sods, or the full plant with its roots, and planting shoots. They’ve planted over 6,000 eelgrass plants using these methods.
When it comes to improving biodiversity, planter Lauren La Porte says she’s already seeing some results.
“Every time we’re snorkeling, we see little critters swimming along in there, we see crabs and lobsters, and those are super beneficial to our local fisheries. ”
Civilian science
Jordy Thomson, the senior marine coordinator for the Ecology Action Centre, is happy to see volunteers coming out to help plant the eelgrass.
“We want to build up public momentum for an interest in conservation of eelgrass as a really critical coastal species for us here in Nova Scotia.”
Thomson says community involvement has been key for the project. People offered up their private land for the group to provide access to ocean beds, and volunteers have been helping collect data on eelgrass by filming from their kayaks.
Many people have also been sending information about eelgrass through the iNaturalist app.
INaturalist is an app that encourages citizen science and the Ecology Action Centre asks people to upload photos of eelgrass beds to the app to help map their distribution and better understand their health throughout the province.
“We really are looking for anybody in Nova Scotia who lives or spends time along the coast to get involved and to send in some photos of eelgrass meadows in their area,” Thomson said.
Samsung has made a commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions for the whole company by 2050 and will spend US$5bn to do so
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics has announced an environmental strategy to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The company intends to spend more than KRW7tn (US$5bn) over the next seven and a half years to achieve that goal. This money will go towards reducing process gases, conserving water, expanding electronic waste collection and reducing pollutants.
By reaching net zero direct and indirect carbon emissions, Samsung Electronics expects to reduce the equivalent of about 17 million tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e) emissions based on 2021 figures.
“The climate crisis is one of the greatest challenges of our time. The consequences of inaction are unimaginable and require the contribution of every one of us, including businesses and governments. Samsung is responding to the threats of climate change with a comprehensive plan that includes reducing emissions, new sustainability practices and the development of innovative technologies and products that are better for our planet,” said Jong-Hee Han, Vice Chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics.
Developing technologies for a better planet
The company plans to develop new technologies to reduce process gases — a byproduct of semiconductor manufacturing — and install treatment facilities on its semiconductor manufacturing lines by 2030.
Samsung Electronics has also joined RE100, in an effort to reduce indirect carbon emissions from power consumption, and aims to match electric power needs with renewable energy by 2050 for all operations globally.
The company will implement low-power technologies in major models of seven consumer electronics products — smartphones, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, TVs, monitors and PCs, with the goal of lowering power consumption levels by an average of 30% in 2030 compared to products with the same specifications in 2019.
To ensure accountability, Samsung Electronics will have its efforts objectively verified by designated organisations. Its performance will be assessed via participation in the Samsung Institute of EHS Strategy’s certification system and verified by a Carbon Reduction Verification Committee that includes third-party experts.
Microsoft and McKinsey are combining their tech and sustainability expertise to help businesses measure and reduce their overall carbon footprint
Microsoft and McKinsey have joined forces to help organisations with a scalable technology solution to help in the fight against climate change.
The integrated solution combines sustainability data intelligence from Microsoft Sustainability Manager with decarbonisation planning and an execution engine using McKinsey Sustainability’s Catalyst Zero.
According to the two companies, this technological collaboration will enhance companies’ sustainability transformations by integrating their data from activities that produce emissions with initiatives to abate them.
“Urgent and decisive action to curtail emissions is needed if we are to reach net zero by 2050. By combining our tech and sustainability expertise and experience, Microsoft and McKinsey will help businesses accurately and swiftly measure and reduce their overall carbon footprint,” says Tomas Nauclér, senior partner at McKinsey and global co-leader of McKinsey Sustainability.
Using sustainability knowledge to meet specific needs
Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability is the company’s first horizontal industry cloud designed to work across multiple industries. Its solutions can be customised to specific industry needs, whether a customer is in retail, energy, manufacturing, or another industry.
The new solution is powered by Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, and it uses Sustainability Manager to automate and scale the collection of companies’ sustainability-related data and support establishing an emission baseline. Following that, McKinsey’s Catalyst Zero solution, which draws on sustainability expertise and experience, provides a holistic understanding of emissions at company, product and value chain levels, and helps leaders create a detailed decarbonisation plan by leveraging a vast proprietary library of decarbonization levers.
The ongoing data feed between Microsoft’s and McKinsey’s solutions regularly monitors whether the impact forecasted in the decarbonisation plan is happening as planned. The joint solution is powered with tens of thousands of emission factors and decarbonisation levers across 70+ industry sectors to rapidly quantify baseline emissions, generate a company-specific Marginal Abatement Cost Curve (MACC), and also plan and track granular decarbonisation initiatives.
“We are focused on accelerating progress to achieve a more sustainable future, and our collaboration with McKinsey, to deliver innovative Cloud for Sustainability solutions will help customers unify their data intelligence, build robust IT infrastructure and gain insights into their overall carbon footprint in order to help them develop and execute robust decarbonisation strategies to achieve their sustainability goals,” says Elisabeth Brinton, Microsoft Corporate Vice President for Sustainability.
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