I received the following letter from The Linnaean Society of New York. Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge is a world renown nature refuge that is in need of help. Please take a moment to read the letter. Thank you.
From newatlas.com:
Engineered "super-enzyme" gobbles plastic waste at six times the speed
By Nick Lavars
3-4 minutes
Back in 2018, scientists in Japan made the key discovery of a bacterium with a natural appetite for PET plastics. This raised the prospect of a low-cost solution to some of the most common forms of plastic pollution, and now scientists have used this bacterium as the basis for a newly engineered “super-enzyme” that can digest plastic waste six times faster.
Known as Ideonella sakaiensis, the bacterium discovered by scientists at the Kyoto Institute of Technology a couple of years ago showed a remarkable ability to use PET plastics as its energy source. These are the materials used to construct everything from soda to shampoo bottles, with hundreds of millions of tons produced every year, and the team was excited to find that the bacterium could completely break it down within a matter of weeks.
The bacterium was found to do so through a pair of enzymes, one of which, called PETase, was soon engineered in the lab by researchers from the University of Portsmouth and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to be around 20 percent faster at breaking down plastic than it was originally. Now, the same team has succeeded in combining it with its partner enzyme, called MHETase, to up the digestion rate even further.
The scientists achieved this by first studying the atomic structure of the enzymes with a synchrotron that uses X-ray beams 10 billion times brighter than the Sun. This serves as a microscope, allowing the team to solve their 3D structure and use these insights to engineer connections between the two enzymes. Simply combining the two enzymes doubled the speed of the plastic digestion, but engineering special connections between them resulted in a “super enzyme” that again increased the rate of plastic degradation by another three times.
“Our first experiments showed that they did indeed work better together, so we decided to try to physically link them, like two Pac-men joined by a piece of string,” says the University of Portsmouth’s Professor John McGeehan, “It took a great deal of work on both sides of the Atlantic, but it was worth the effort – we were delighted to see that our new chimeric enzyme is up to three times faster than the naturally evolved separate enzymes, opening new avenues for further improvements.”
Just like its predecessors, as the new super-enzyme digests PET plastics it returns the material to its original building blocks, which means the technique could be used as part of an infinite recycling loop. The original enzyme couldn’t do this fast enough to account for the huge amounts of PET waste generated around the globe each year, so producing an engineered version that increases the rate six-fold is seen as a significant step forward.
The research was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
...Read more
From the website "Science Digest":
From the website Newatlas.com:
American robins head north sooner due to Arctic snow melting earlier
By Nick Lavars
April 02, 2020
Climate change threatens to shake up the lifestyles of many animals around the world and a new study has revealed that for the American robin these wheels are already very much in motion. Scientists tagged the songbirds with GPS units to track their migration patterns and found that they are embarking on their annual Arctic-bound journey earlier each decade, with a shift in snow melt conditions a big part of the reason why.
American robins spend most of the year scattered around the US and Mexico, but each time spring rolls around they pack up and head north towards Canada and Alaska for a little summer vacation. There, they do their best to find a mate, put together a nest and raise a family, fattening up on insects, berries and worms while they’re at it.
With these warmer seasons in the Arctic kicking off earlier due to climate change, scientists at Columbia University began to wonder what impact this would have on the migration habits of the American robin. To find some answers, the research team turned to Canada’s Slave Lake, which acts as a pit stop for the birds on their journey north.
Researchers have been monitoring the migration patterns of birds at Slave Lake for a quarter of a century, with visual surveys and netting censuses revealing that robins are heading north around five days earlier per decade since 1994, or a total of 12 days earlier now than they did back then. To understand the reasons behind this, the Columbia researchers took things one step further and equipped 55 robins with tiny GPS devices.
This GPS data of the birds’ movements was able to be connected with weather data on temperatures, snow depth, winds, rain and other elements that could impact their migration behavior. This analysis revealed that the robins starting moving north earlier when the conditions were warmer and drier, with snow coverage a particularly important factor.
“The one factor that seemed the most consistent was snow conditions and when things melt. That’s very new,” says lead author Ruth Oliver. “We’ve generally felt like birds must be responding to when food is available – when snow melts and there are insects to get at – but we’ve never had data like this before.”
The team says this is the first study to reveal how environmental conditions are shifting migration patterns along this route. This kind of information can help them develop predictive models of how the birds will respond as the climate continues to change.
“Because the timing of migration can indirectly influence the reproductive success of an individual, understanding controls over the timing of migratory events is important,” Natalie Boelman, a coauthor on the paper.
From here, the team hopes to map out the birds’ entire migration path, rather than from a midway point, using tissue samples collected during the GPS fitting that could reveal clues about their earlier whereabouts.
The research was published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
Source: Columbia University
...Read more
From The Guardian:
How the world's fattest parrot came back from the brink
Kate Evans
March 14, 2020
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| Photograph: Jason Hosking |
Request for Bird Surveyors on May 2nd for NY Aquarium event at Coney Island Creek
The New York Aquarium has rescheduled their abbreviated bio-blitz that was postponed last fall for May, 2nd and are looking for 3-4 local birders to participate. The event will generally be in two parts, starting out with small surveys in the AM starting around 8am, and then inviting the public to participate in guided surveys starting at 12pm. Bird surveys will most likely take place only at Calvert Vaux Park, and survey protocols are TBD. Good news is that we can also incorporate the NY Breeding Bird Atlas into the survey!
If you are interested in volunteering to represent NYC Audubon in any or all parts of this day, check this link for more information:
From the website Earther:
The Great Barrier Reef Faces Third Mass Bleaching Event in Five Years
by Yessenia Funes
Australia’s forests burned over the summer, but now its underwater ecosystems are in trouble, too. The Great Barrier Reef is facing some severe stress due to extreme heat and faces a “widespread bleaching event,” according to an update from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch.
When a coral bleaches, it expels the symbiotic algae that help it produce food and turns white. This can push a coral to death, and the world has seen enough loss of corals over the past few years. The Great Barrier Reef has been hit particularly hard, though, and this year’s bleaching will deal yet another blow to one of the wonders of the natural world.
Sea surface temperatures began to rise in January. The waters have been 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the maximum monthly mean. High pressure is forecast to lock in sunny skies, which will further heat up the waters and worsen the impacts on coral.
The forecast from Coral Reef Watch shows that the entire swath of the Great Barrier Reef—which covers an area roughly the size of Germany—is projected to see level 2 bleaching, its highest level, for the rest of the month. The agency describes that as “severe, widespread bleaching and significant mortality.” The huge scale of the bleaching comes with an extremely slight sliver of good news: This year’s bleaching isn’t likely to be as intense as recent years.
Similar bleaching events in 2016 and 2017 left the Great Barrier Reef seriously degraded. Fast-growing coral species that help the reef maintain its structure haven’t been able to bounce back. Since then, the remaining corals have been having a rough time reproducing enough baby corals to keep the ecosystem thriving.
As with land heat waves, it’s becoming impossible to disentangle the influence of climate change. The Coral Sea where the Great Barrier Reef is found has warmed steadily over time, increasing the odds of extreme heating. Globally, research published last year showed what researchers call “surprise” marine heat events are increasing in every ocean basin.
These heat waves take a particularly hard toll on coral. Another mass bleaching event is the last thing this reef needs. This one, which is just getting started, appears to be less severe than what the reef experienced in 2016 and 2017. Bleaching should worsen beginning next week. Still, that doesn’t mean it won’t come without consequences.
The Great Barrier Reef is a major driver of the local economy. It’s worth an estimated $56 billion to the Australian economy as a source of tourism dollars and its status as a global icon, and 64,000 jobs are tied to its fate. However, it’s not just the tourism industry that benefits from the reef. Corals act as a buffer that protects coasts from cyclones and storms and provide homes to wildlife.
Losing the Great Barrier Reef would not only be a direct hit to the Australian economy. It would threaten the world’s biodiversity at large during a time when we’re already losing enough species to the climate crisis.
We’ve lost half of all this region’s corals since bleaching grew severe in 2016. This latest event is likely to continue a dangerous pattern of death and loss.
...Read more
From the website MNN:
20 minutes in nature a day is your ticket to feeling better
Noel Kirkpatrick
March 2, 2020
Nature soothes our stressed-out souls. We instinctively know nature is the best prescription, but research is revealing how little time we need to set aside to reap the benefits.
In one study, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, researchers tried to identify the most effective "dose" of nature within the context of normal daily life. As more doctors prescribe nature experiences for stress relief and other health benefits — sometimes referred to as a "nature pill" — the study's authors hoped to clarify the details of these treatments. More biophilia is generally better for us, but since not everyone can spend all day in deep wilderness, the study looked for a sweet spot.
"We know that spending time in nature reduces stress, but until now it was unclear how much is enough, how often to do it, or even what kind of nature experience will benefit us," says lead author Mary Carol Hunter, an associate professor at the University of Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability, in a statement. "Our study shows that for the greatest payoff, in terms of efficiently lowering levels of the stress hormone cortisol, you should spend 20 to 30 minutes sitting or walking in a place that provides you with a sense of nature."
A nature pill can be a low-cost, low-risk way to curb the negative health effects of urbanization and indoor lifestyles. To find the most efficient dosage, Hunter and her co-authors asked 36 city dwellers to have nature experiences of at least 10 minutes three times per week over eight weeks. (A nature experience was defined as "anywhere outside that, in the opinion of the participant, made them feel like they've interacted with nature," Hunter explains.) Every two weeks, the researchers collected saliva samples to measure levels of the stress hormone cortisol, both before and after the participants took their nature pill.
The data showed that just a 20-minute nature experience was enough to significantly reduce cortisol levels. The effect was most efficient between 20 to 30 minutes, after which benefits continued to accrue but at a slower rate. Researchers in the United Kingdom who analyzed the routines of roughly 20,000 people came up with a similar prescription: 2 hours a week total spent in a park or woodland setting will improve your health.
Nature time doesn't have to mean exercise, either
Those results dovetail with the findings of other studies, one of which found that spending 20 minutes in an urban park can make you happier, regardless of whether you use that time to exercise. That study was published in the International Journal of Environmental Health Research,
"Overall, we found park visitors reported an improvement in emotional well-being after the park visit," lead author and University of Alabama at Birmingham professor Hon K. Yuen said in a statement. "However, we did not find levels of physical activity are related to improved emotional well-being. Instead, we found time spent in the park is related to improved emotional well-being."
For this study, 94 adults visited three urban parks in Mountain Brook, Alabama, completing a questionnaire about their subjective well-being before and after their visit. An accelerometer tracked their physical activity. A visit lasting between 20 and 25 minutes demonstrated the best results, with a roughly 64 percent increase in the participants' self-reported well-being, even if they didn't move a great deal in the park. That last point is particularly positive, since it means most anyone can benefit from visiting a nearby park, regardless of age or physical ability.
The study's co-author and another UAB professor, Gavin Jenkins, acknowledges the study pool was small, but its findings illustrate the importance of urban parks.
"There is increasing pressure on green space within urban settings," Jenkins said in the statement. "Planners and developers look to replace green space with residential and commercial property. The challenge facing cities is that there is an increasing evidence about the value of city parks but we continue to see the demise of theses spaces."
In another review published in Frontiers in Psychology, researchers at Cornell University examined the results of 14 studies that focused on the impact of nature on college students. They found that you might not even need the full 20 minutes to reap the benefits of some outdoor time. The studies showed that as little as 10–20 minutes of sitting or walking in nature can help college students feel happier and less stressed.
“It doesn’t take much time for the positive benefits to kick in,” said lead author Gen Meredith, associate director of the Master of Public Health Program and lecturer at the College of Veterinary Medicine, in a statement. “We firmly believe that every student, no matter what subject or how high their workload, has that much discretionary time each day, or at least a few times per week.”
...Read more
From National Audubon:
These Beloved Warblers Migrate North Almost a Week Earlier Than 50 Years Ago
By Kevin Wheeler
Editorial Intern, Audubon Magazine
February 21, 2020
Black-throated Blue Warblers have shifted the timing of their spring and fall migrations over the past fifty years.
Photo: Kyle Horton
If you’ve spent much time observing the seasonal comings and goings of your backyard birds, you may have noticed some favorite species returning a little earlier in spring than they used to. No, your eyes do not deceive you—a new study on Black-throated Blue Warblers adds to a growing wealth of research showing that the timing of bird migration is indeed changing.
These neotropical warblers make an annual spring journey that spans 3,000 kilometers, from Central America to the eastern deciduous and boreal forests of North America. And it now starts about 5.5 days earlier than it did in the 1960s—a rate of around one day per decade, according to the study, published this week in the journal The Auk: Ornithological Advances. The researchers reached that conclusion by analyzing around 150,000 bird-banding records from the U.S. Geological Survey between 1965 and 2015.
While most migration research has focused on spring, the new study also examined trends in fall migration. “And with fall migration, we found that the peak of the migratory season is not changing, but early fall migration is getting earlier and late fall migration is getting later, which means a whole migratory season overall is getting longer,” says lead author Kristen Covino of Loyola Marymount University.
Read the entire article here
From the website Earther:
We're Drowning in Plastic. A New Bill Would Make Companies Pay to Fix the Crisis
Dharna Noor
February 17, 2020
Plastic is creating massive problems. Its production and disposal both release hundreds of millions of tons of greenhouse gases, which contribute to climate change and wreak havoc on public health, especially for the communities of color near which plastic production plants, incinerators, and landfills are often constructed. Plastic is also threatening the health of the world’s waterways: Every minute, the equivalent of one dump-truck load of plastic gets into the ocean, where it kills wildlife, carries diseases, and releases carcinogenic pollutants.
Despite all this, the oil industry is ramping up plastic production. Right now, U.S. production of the most common plastic, polyethylene, is on track to increase more than 40 percent by 2028, according to the research firm S&P Global Platts. Conservative predictions show that plastic production and incineration in the U.S. will produce 300 coal plants’ worth of greenhouse emissions by 2030, and by 2050, that pollution output could double.
Solutions to these crises are often framed in terms of consumer choice. Ads encourage us to buy reusable straws, water bottles, and shopping bags. Nonprofit organizations hold volunteer beach-cleanup days. Coca-Cola blames consumers’ preferences for its decision not to use less plastic.
On Tuesday, two Democratic Congresspeople introduced an ambitious bill to shift the responsibility to address the plastics crisis to the plastics producers.
“This bill is the single most effective bill to reduce plastic pollution in the history of U.S. Congress,” Judith Enck, former Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator and founder of Beyond Plastics, told reporters at a Tuesday press conference on Capitol Hill.
The Break Free From Plastic Act, proposed by Senator Tom Udall (D-New Mexico) and Representative Alan Lowenthal (D-California), calls for a pause of up to three years on permitting new plastic production facilities. It would also require big corporations to design, manage, and pay for recycling programs, like a national “bottle bill” that would call for consumers to return used plastic bottles in exchange for a 10 cent refund for each one.
“Plastics are a part of the fossil fuel industry,” said Representative Steve Cohen (D-Tennessee) at the press conference. “And they put less than 1 percent of what they put into their expansion of their industry into recycling programs.”
Right now, recycling systems are managed by municipal systems and funded by tax dollars. Under that system, U.S. recycling rates are currently falling—less than 5 percent of plastics were recycled in 2018. And since China stopped accepting much of the world’s recyclable material two years ago, recycling costs have skyrocketed, so the national rate could fall even lower. Some U.S. cities have stopped recycling plastic altogether. Funds from plastic-producing corporations could go a long way to boosting recycling rates.
Starting in 2022, the bill would also ban certain plastic disposables that have particularly low recyclability rates and high potential for pollution; it would also require manufacturers to use more recycled materials in their packaging.
The bill’s passage is a long shot. So far, it has no Republican co-sponsors, and it’s already drawn criticism from wealthy industry trade groups. But even still, it shows that the conversation about the plastics crisis—and who should be held responsible—is changing.
“Our plastic pollution process has reached a tipping point, and the American people are fed up,” said Udall at the press conference. “The time has come to break free from this failed system.”
From the New York Times:
Trump Administration Moves to Relax Rules Against Killing Birds
By Lisa Friedman
January 30, 2020
From the website "Treehugger":
How populism makes dealing with the climate crisis really hard
Lloyd Alter
January 23, 2020
Beware of the gilets jaunes, says Philip Stephens.
From the USA to Australia to Brazil to Canadian provinces like Ontario and Alberta, so-called populists are denying climate change and rolling back measures to stop it. In France, there was been a revolt of gilets jaunes (the yellow vests every car in France has to carry for emergencies), originally outraged over an increase in gas taxes.
Writing in the heavily paywalled Financial Times, Philip Stephens writes about the spread of populism around the world, and yet, notwithstanding Donald Trump, everyone who flew into Davos knows that "the phoney war about the climate is over. One way or another global warming is set radically to reshape our economies and societies." However, the politics are really hard. He quotes a warning from a politician from a few years ago: “We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.”
The problem is that nobody wants to face the necessary upheaval and the changes, but most importantly, the costs that will be born by people who don't have money to spare, like those original gilets jaunes.
Motorists will struggle, however, to accept that the internal combustion engine has had its day — at least until someone invents a cheap battery with a decent range. The switch from coal, oil and gas to sustainable energy will require the replacement of hundreds of millions of household heating systems. Cheap flights will disappear. A shift from consumption of meat to plant-based products will not invite universal applause. Nor will the tax increases needed to finance decent public transport and better insulation of buildings.
Stephens notes that some politicians are wrapping up the changes in "green deals" and big packages to recalibrate taxes and subsidies.
But no one, as far as I can see, has come up with plans to offset the cost of this on the people it will hurt most — those who need to drive to work in the ancient, gas-guzzling cars that spew out the most carbon; the householders least likely to have decent insulation or the cash to replace fossil fuel boilers; and the people for whom cheap air travel means a chance to take their one annual holiday.
Stephens notes that many voters look at green policies as something the rich inflict on the poor (before they get in their jets). Many probably agree with Sebastian Gorka, who said of Green New Deal types: “They want to take your pickup truck. They want to rebuild your home. They want to take away your hamburgers.” The problem is that at some point, we have to face the music and do exactly that.
Such an interesting article in the Financial Times. The great benefit of the FT paywall is that you can't read the hundred and thirty comments saying either that climate change isn't happening, or that life will be better when there is more CO2 and a warmer climate. Nor can you see that the Netherlands has survived below sea level for centuries, or my favorite, "Look at Bjorn Lomborg's data instead of Guardian and Thunberg scaremongering."
Beware of the gilets jaunes, says Philip Stephens.
From the website MNN:
Why the future of West Virginia's rare flying squirrel looks bright
Guest Columnist
January 21, 2020, 9:30 a.m.
The West Virginia northern flying squirrel was listed as an endangered species in 1985, but efforts to help the species rebound have been so successful that it has been delisted. (Photo: Barb Sargent/West Virginia DNR)
There's no better way to celebrate the squirrel, that tiny powerhouse of the forest, than with some good news about one of the more unique subspecies, the West Virginia northern flying squirrel.
The squirrel — called the Virginia northern flying squirrel or more commonly the West Virginia northern flying squirrel (WVNFS) — was listed as an endangered species in 1985. But restoration efforts have helped the species rebound, and in 2013 the West Virginia northern flying squirrel joined an exclusive group of success stories — species that have been taken off the endangered list.
Since then, restoration work has ramped up. Now a new report assessing the status of the squirrel in its first five years since coming off of the endangered species list indicates there are many reasons to be optimistic.
Read the entire article here
From MNN.com:
Scientists discover 10 new birds
Ben Bolton
January 10, 2020, 1:06 p.m.
5 new species, 5 subspecies found on small islands in Indonesia.
Birds discovered during Indonesian trek.
The Togian jungle flycatcher is one of the new subspecies discovered during the island trek. (Photo: James Eaton/Birdtour Asia)
A group of scientists set out on a six-week expedition near Sulawesi, Indonesia, in hopes of learning more about the region's bird population. What they discovered was far more exciting — undiscovered bird species.
Frank E. Rheindt, a professor from the University of Singapore, led the team through three small islands. They trekked through miles of forest, identifying dozens of birds along the way.
Shortly into the trip, the group began to encounter birds they had never seen before. Over the six weeks, the scientists discovered five new songbird species and five new subspecies.
Rheindt and others published their findings in the journal Science to share the discoveries.
Read the entire article here
I've been having a difficult time finding a positive piece to post. This article in Mother Nature Network was one of a very few:
Almost half of Denmark's electricity in 2019 came from wind power
Starre Vartan
January 3, 2020, 11:19 a.m.
Wind turbines and poppies on Bornholm Island, Denmark. (Photo: Milosz Maslanka/Shutterstock)
Denmark is only about half the size of South Carolina, but it produces more of its electricity from wind than any other country in the world. That's not because it's a particularly breezy country; it has pretty ordinary average wind speeds. The reason the Danes now get 47% of their electricity from wind, with more to come, comes down to a combination of history and policy.
First, the history: Paul la Cour was a scientist and inventor who experimented with and engineered early wind power machines at the start of the 20th century. So it's not surprising that Denmark invested in building wind power early, beginning at a national level in the 1970s. In the 1980s, due to a strong grassroots movement opposing nuclear power plants, Denmark ramped up production before many other countries were even considering it.
Denmark has also had significant government support for wind-energy projects, as well as support from the country's technology-focused universities. Even back in 2002, the country was taking climate change warnings seriously, aiming to cut fossil-fuel emissions by 20 percent, which they did via renewable energy investment and implementation.
Some of the world's largest companies in the sector — including Vestas, which builds turbines, and Orsted, which specializes in offshore wind projects — are Danish, so the country has an impact beyond its borders.
The outsized impact of Denmark's wind-energy business is important because it's a small country, so while an almost 50% rate of electricity from wind is admirable, it's also minor in terms of overall planetary impact.
While Denmark gets half its electricity needs covered from 5,758 megawatts (MW) of capacity, Spain’s 23,000 MW covers just 18 percent of its electricity supply as it's a much bigger country. China is the leader in wind energy at 221,000 MW, and the U.S. is second in the world at about 96,000 MW.
Denmark's long support of wind-energy technology and pro-wind policies have proven this approach can work to decarbonize the economy, even on a bigger scale. At the end of 2019, lawmakers in Denmark set a new goal: increasing the share of electricity sourced from renewable power to 100%.
The country aims to source 100% of its power from renewable sources by 2030.
A little bit of good news (for a change) from BirdLife International:
10 vital bird habitats saved through conservation action
BirdLife International
November 26, 2019
Since the late 1970s, the BirdLife Partnership has worked collectively to identify, document and protect the places of greatest significance for the conservation of the world’s birds. We call these vital places Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs). BirdLife Partners and other experts have, to date, identified and documented more than 13,000 of these sites in over 200 countries and territories worldwide, and in the oceans, too. These sites provide the BirdLife Partnership, and other organisations, with focus to their conservation action, planning, and advocacy.
This is because birds and other wildlife are not evenly distributed across the world. IBAs cover about 7% of the terrestrial and 2% of the global sea area. Thus, concentrating our efforts on these areas is a cost-effective and efficient way of ensuring the survival of a large number of species.
However, currently around 33% of IBAs lack formal protection, and a further 45% are only partially protected. While these stats are cause for worry, they only serve to highlight the value of documenting these vital habitats so we can mobilise action to protect them.
Our IBA Programme brings focus to our efforts both at local and global levels, and means that while it is impossible for us to protect every last bit of nature in existence, we can at least throw our energy and collective influence behind saving those that will have the greatest impact to the persistence of biodiversity on the planet. Here are just a few examples…
1. Cousin Island, Seychelles
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| © Styve Reineck / Shutterstock |
From the website mnn.com:
Wind and solar plants rise in the shadow of Fukushima's nuclear meltdown in Japan
Starre Vartan
November 14, 2019, 8:27 a.m.
Cherry trees in bloom can be seen behind the gate of an area evacuated in the town of Tomioka after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. In the spring, the government arranged buses for former residents to visit the zone for the first time in nine years to see the blossoms. It's a good metaphor for the next phase of the site's story, which will see renewable energy options bloom on the site. (Photo: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)
In March 2011, a chain of events led to the most complicated nuclear accident that has ever occurred. It began with a magnitude-9.0 earthquake, followed by a tsunami that caused a meltdown of the nuclear reactor in Fukushima, Japan. It was an event that experts say is comparable to Chernobyl. People in a 20-mile radius of the plant were eventually evacuated, some of them never to return to their homes.
But now the former nuclear power plant site will have a new life as a hub for renewable energy. The Japanese government along with private investors has put $2.75 billion into developing 11 solar plants and 10 wind-power plants on former farmland that's now unusable. And that work has already begun in earnest: "More than a gigawatt of solar-energy capacity has been added — the equivalent of more than three million solar panels," according to the Wall Street Journal. (WSJ stories are paywalled).
This is all part of the plan for the northeastern Fukushima prefecture to generate 100 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2040. In addition to the solar and wind power, the plan includes a large hydropower project, geothermal power and a hydrogen fuel plant. (The video below goes into more detail. The most interesting part starts around 18:42. For most users, the video will begin there automatically but it if doesn't for you, scroll to that moment manually.)
In what seems like an unexpected statistic, areas hit by disaster that also receive adequate recovery financing can end up growing faster than unaffected areas. When Kobe, also in Japan, suffered an earthquake and devastating fires in 1995, the city built a now-very-successful biomedical industry. Fukushima, with its host of clean-energy technology, may now have the chance to do something similar and become a leader for the rest of Japan in this area.
"The grass-roots energy movement you see in Fukushima — changing the perspective of how electricity can be generated — that really sets in motion the transition that you have seen in places like Germany," Fitch Solutions analyst David Brendan told the WSJ.
The energy produced at the Fukushima site will be sent to the Tokyo metropolitan area. Additional power will be up and running to power the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
It's not just the Fukushima prefecture that's investing in solar, wind, hydro and geothermal power: Japan as a whole plans to generate a quarter of its power from renewable sources by 2030. (It gets about 17 percent of its energy from renewables currently.) The country has already done some pioneering work in that respect, including large-scale solar arrays on waterways, and serious grassroots energy conservation.
Japan once relied heavily on nuclear power, with 54 reactors providing 30% of the country's power before the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Now, after vigorous counterterrorism and earthquake rules for reactors, there are just nine reactors left, and the future for those is uncertain. Meanwhile, solar, wind and other power are getting serious investment for the future.
Wind and solar plants rise in the shadow of Fukushima's nuclear meltdown in Japan
A $2.5 billion investment in a renewable energy hub will bring about 2/3 of the power that the nuclear plant once did.
From the website Mother Nature Network:
Ocean Cleanup mission takes aim at rivers
Mary Jo DiLonardo
October 28, 2019, 4:04 p.m.
Boyan Slat's plastic-free dream is taking shape.
The group behind the mission to rid our oceans of plastic has opened a second front in the war by pulling plastic from the world's most polluted waterways before it gets to the ocean.
The Ocean Cleanup team unveiled a group of Interceptors, which are currently in operation on two rivers in Malaysia and Indonesia. By their estimate, roughly 80% of the world's plastic reaches the ocean through 1,000 rivers. The goal is to clean up those rivers by 2025, pulling in roughly 50,000 kilograms of plastic a day with each river Interceptor.
"To truly rid the oceans of plastic, we need to both clean up the legacy and close the tap, preventing more plastic from reaching the oceans in the first place," said founder Boyan Slat.
The river element was unveiled less than a month after the team successfully collected plastic in the ocean after a rocky few months.
The ocean element is back on track
"Our ocean cleanup system is now finally catching plastic, from one-ton ghost nets to tiny microplastics! Also, anyone missing a wheel?" announced Slat. It was a buoyant moment for a project that has had its ups and downs.
Slat became the poster boy for entrepreneurship when he quit university and launched the project at 18. He had come up with the idea after diving in Greece as a teenager, recognizing the scope of the problem — and coming up with a potential solution. He has been the face of the project ever since, through good times and bad.
The Ocean Cleanup was redeployed in June after spending four months in the shop and has been in testing mode for the last few months. The second deployment was a quieter affair than the first, when the much-lauded cleanup system began trolling the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to collect plastic waste. However, the Ocean Cleanup was forced to return to port in Hawaii just a few months after being launched because the passive floating system was catching plastic, but it wasn't necessarily retaining it and an 18-meter end section had broken away from the main frame.
Undeterred by their critics, the team behind the Ocean Cleanup said the mishap was all part of the process.
The basic principle behind the iterative design process is to test, learn, and repeat until you have a proven concept. We do not know with certainty that these proposed options will solve the issues we have encountered. In fact, there may still be further unknowns, as is the nature when doing something that has never been done before. What we do know, is that every day we are not yet operational the plastic pollution problem is not getting better.
How it works (and why it didn't before)
Ocean Cleanup is a Netherlands-based group of about 80 engineers, researchers, scientists and computational modelers. Dubbed 001/B or Wilson, it consists of a 2,000-foot (600 meter) U-shaped boom with an attached woven skirt. It acts like a floating artificial coastline. The boom prevents plastic from flowing over it, while the skirt stops debris from escaping underneath it. It's set up to collect everything from big items like massive fishing nets as well as microplastics, all without disturbing marine life below.
It was the system's finally realized ability to capture the tiniest of plastic pieces that signaled the team had rounded the corner.
"After beginning this journey seven years ago, this first year of testing in the unforgivable environment of the high seas strongly indicates that our vision is attainable and that the beginning of our mission to rid the ocean of plastic garbage, which has accumulated for decades, is within our sights," Slat said in a news release and the video above.
However, with the Ocean Cleanup's success comes a new question: If you clean up the plastic, are your endangering the health of the neuston, an ecosystem that lives at the top surface of the water? This question about the neuston — which is comprised of bacteria, protozoans, certain species of fish, jellyfish, sea anemones, vellela and crabs — has come up several times this year, as the linked story explains. In response, the Ocean Cleanup has been communicating with the biologist who originally raised the question and that they are adjusting the system and its environmental impact as they go. (There's some continued back-and-forth on Twitter on the best way to do this.)
Learning from mistakes
The bumps and ongoing adjustments are part of the process. In fact, it was the problem that sent them back to port in December that helped them solve a deeper issue. The offshore crew noticed on Dec. 29 that the section was detached and after some debate, determined that the boom must return to port because both end sections contained sensors and satellite communication had been compromised.
Late last year, the boom was struggling in places to hold on to plastic that it gathered.
"It has been four weeks since we deployed System 001 in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). In this time, we have observed that plastic is exiting the system once it is collected, so we are currently working on causes and solutions to remedy this," Slat wrote on the group's website in late November. "Because this is our beta system, and this is the first deployment of any ocean cleanup system, we have been preparing ourselves for surprises."
"Although we are not harvesting plastic yet, based on the current results, we are positive we are close to making it work," Slat said at the time.
One reason the system didn't work as hoped has to do with speed. To catch the plastic, the system typically has to move faster — or in some cases, slower — than the plastic it's hoping to catch, Slat said. The fix put in place — one inspired by sailing — ensured that the the system will not travel at the same speed as the plastic.
There are still obstacles to be overcome and problems to be solved, but the team is making progress and building momentum as this BrightVibes video explains:
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From the website Earther:
Switching to Renewables May Spur Trillions Dollars Worth of Benefits in US
Yessenia Funes
October 29, 2019
The costs of installing renewable energy are far outweighed by the health benefits they would unlock, according to a new study. Those benefits could add up to upwards of $2.2 trillion.
Published in the journal Environmental Research Letters on Tuesday, the study looks at how transitioning away from fossil fuels—which spew nasty junk such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, and particulate matter in addition to carbon pollution—would benefit the economy by reducing the health burdens communities face due to this dirty energy. The authors analyzed the current use of coal, oil, and gas by region while examining what type of renewable would produce the best benefits there.
The total benefits, which include both climate and health, ranged from $1.7 million to $2.2 trillion depending on the region. The range is so wide because some regions saw dramatically higher benefits as they depend on much dirtier forms of energy. There are also, however, different values associated with benefits that can vary depending on how much we expect this reduction in pollution to benefit people.
The model built by the authors—who hail from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Carnegie Mellon—uses other already-existing models to simulate where renewable energy infrastructure would displace power plants and their accompanying emissions in 10 regions of the U.S. The researchers also estimate the climate benefits from this transition by measuring the reduction in carbon emissions using the social cost of carbon, a metric which looks at climate change impacts such as displacement and the spread of infectious disease and puts a price on them.
“When you include health, the cost-effectiveness equation completely changes,” lead author Jonathan Buonocore, a research associate at Harvard, told Earther. “In most areas of the country, if health is included, deploying renewable energy ends up being more cost-effective than installing carbon capture on a coal plant.”
The benefits vary by region. For example, installing 100 megawatts of wind in California could result in $4.2 million in benefits. That’s because installing rooftop solar, utility solar, and wind turbines would decrease the state’s gas production, as well as its emissions from burning biomass. However, California saw among the lowest benefits for its renewables—between $1.7 million and $4.2 million a year. That’s because other parts of the U.S. rely on energy that’s much dirty.
Take a look at regions in the eastern U.S., for instance. Due to the continuing reliance of coal in eastern regions, the health benefits were estimated to be the highest there, especially around the Great Lakes. Coal emits the most pollution, so removing it adds some of the best health benefits for communities.
And this study is likely a serious underestimate. While the authors estimate the reduced risk of dying due to the decreased pollution, they don’t include any data on the reduction to emergency room visits or other health benefits that would result from such a shift. We already know climate change is taking a toll and costing billions. They also don’t conduct any life cycle assessments for the energy infrastructure, which may add increased benefits as this would include the extraction of fossil fuels. Another big missing source of benefits is tied to methane leakage from gas infrastructure. That alone can increase benefits by 36 percent, according to the study.
As the world comes to terms with the work required to save the planet and protect public health in light of the climate crisis, leaders need to pay special attention to energy. This study shows that the cost of energy, in particular, needs some re-assessing. If health costs and benefits were considered as part of the actual price of energy, renewables could compete with fossil fuels (even without doing that, they already are in many places). Then, perhaps, officials would stop complaining about the economics of climate change and just hurry up and fix this mess.
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