Hawaii Becomes First US State to Ban Sunscreens Harmful to Coral Reefs

04.05.2018

summer-2425506_960_720 — Foto-ilustracija: Pixabay

Coral reefs and sunshine keep tourists flocking to Hawaii but add sunscreen to that holiday mix and the result can be serious damage to the marine environment that makes the islands so attractive to visitors in the first place.

This week Hawaii took action on the issue, passing a bill that will make it the first US state to ban sunscreens that are harmful to coral reefs. If subsequently signed by state governor David Ige, the ban will come into place in January 2021.

The bill focuses on two chemicals – oxybenzone and octinoxate – that are found in many sunscreens and notes that they “have significant harmful impacts on Hawaii’s marine environment and residing ecosystems”. It indicates that high levels of these chemicals have been found at popular swimming beaches and reef areas, including Waimea Bay, Hanauma Bay, and Waikiki Beach on Oahu and Honolua Bay and Ahihi-Kīnau natural area reserve on Maui.

A study in 2015, published in the journal Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, found the chemicals have a range of effects on coral, including mortality in developing coral, bleaching of coral and genetic damage to coral and other organisms. It also found both chemicals can induce feminisation in adult male fish and increase reproductive diseases in creatures from sea urchins to parrotfish and mammal species similar to the Hawaiian monk seal. The chemicals can also induce neurological behavioural changes in fish and have possible impact on the many endangered species found in Hawaii’s waters, including sea turtles.

The study found oxybenzone had a toxic effect at a concentration of 62 parts per trillion – equivalent to one drop in six-and-a-half Olympic-size swimming pools.

“This is the first real chance that local reefs have to recover,” said Craig Downs, a scientist whose 2015 peer-reviewed study found oxybenzone was a threat to coral reefs. He found up to 14,000 tonnes of sunscreen lotion ends up in coral reefs each year. “Lots of things kill coral reefs but we know oxybenzone prevents them from coming back.”

Critics of the bill have argued that it’s just a “feel-good measure”, pointing out that other factors pose equally significant threats to coral, such as global warming and coastal development. The American Chemistry Council opposed the bill on the basis that sun exposure to humans is also a danger.

Reef-friendly sunscreens are already available. Edgewell Personal Care, which makes Banana Boat and Hawaiian Tropic sunscreen lotions, said it makes products free of the two chemicals. The company “will continue to ensure we comply with all relevant regulations concerning oxybenzone and octinoxate”.

In April, Hawaiian Airlines partnered with RAW Elements USA, to offer complimentary samples of its reef safe sunscreens to its passengers.

Authorities in other marine park locations – such as the Virgin Islands, south Florida and destinations in Mexico – have already been taking measures to encourage visitors to use sunscreens made with biodegradable chemicals such as zinc oxide and titanium oxide.

Source: Guardian

Goran Trivan The Minister of Environmental Protection: We Must Take Care of the Branch We are Sitting on

03.05.2018

20171218_111824 — Foto: Kabinet ministra zaštite životne sredine

The term “sustainable development” origins from forestry and in short, it means that a man can cut down as many old trees as he has planted. In an attempt to come up with an answer to the question whether we have cut down too many “trees”, we spoke to Goran Trivan, the Minister of Environmental Protection.

EP: When we talk about harmful effects of human impact on the environment, would you say that we are already cutting the branch that we are sitting on?

Goran Trivan: We are cutting it very successfully. It does not sound optimistic, but it is realistic. If you take into consideration that civilization has been dealing with a sustainable development strategy for fifty years, as well as the results that have been achieved in the meantime, the fact is that there is a shift in various areas, from construction to CO2 emissions. However, these are sporadic successes that are actually the paradigm of failure. The process of preserving the environment has been going on for fifty years, and the mean annual temperatures are growing. Although I am an optimist by nature, I am very realistic about this. You need to observe the past uncompromisingly in order to know what to do. In my opinion, civilization makes catastrophic mistakes that cannot be corrected in a short term. Here we go back to the concept that ecology is proud of – think globally, act locally. It is necessary to return to the roots and nature, actually the life itself. In that sense, afforestation is an ideal solution. This is the simplest, cheapest and most effective way to mitigate the effects of climate change. We should bear in mind that climate change is not only a consequence of man’s actions but also that they are happening for millions of years on the planet beyond human influence. Nevertheless, a man certainly made a decisive contribution to making those changes tangible and visible more quickly.

While I was City Secretary for Environmental Protection in Belgrade, I could experiment with this idea of afforestation. In the period of six years, we planted more than 700 hectares of new areas in Belgrade. It is not enough, but it’s certainly much better than doing nothing. This effect will be felt by our children in ten years, if we take care of every tree and if we replace each tree that dries out. That does not even cost much.

EP: Do you feel that the public is sufficiently familiar with what you achieved so far on the position of the City Secretary for Environmental Protection?

Goran Trivan: I did not work with the goal that someone notices and acknowledges my efforts, but out of the conviction that any positive change that I bring into living environment continues to live. However, my team and I realized that our activities were not well known to the public. We have been slowly changing our approach for several years now so that the result of our effort does not remain within the limits of a narrow circle of people. We are now coming to my favourite point of view – without the media and the civil sector, there are no significant results.

Goran Trivan: There are two categories of people in each city. One category is quite ordinary and honest citizens, and the other is completely honest and unusual citizens who are in office and they must know what we have achieved so far. They also must know that nothing starts with them, but that we all replace people who already achieved something before us. So I inherited the previous secretary Branislav Bozovic who initiated the adoption of afforestation in Belgrade. And he is not even a forest engineer, but a geologist, but he obviously knew what he was doing. I relied on the results of his work and continued to afforest Belgrade. The result is obvious, so we all have to realize that we are not islands and that nothing starts with us. We are part of series.

EP: To what extent is the concept of sustainable development applicable in Serbia and what are the means for its implementation at present?

Goran Trivan: I do not like to use the syntagm sustainable development because the very strategy of sustainable development is compromised at a global level. However, development can exist in a practical way, without great philosophy, as I did through afforestation in Belgrade. Serbia lags behind the developed European countries in the field of sustainable development for twenty-five years. This can sound depressing, but it can be inspiring as well. We were observing what the developed countries were doing in the past few decades, we realized what they had skipped, and so I can say that we have the opportunity to cross the road, they travelled for a long time, in two or three cascades. And that will happen. In technological terms, it took them a long time to overcome all the challenges. We will not need so much time. For example, a Fund for energy efficiency was established in Belgrade, that you could not even dream about ten years ago. The facades are financed by this Fund – which means insulation, numerous other energy efficiency measures, and ultimately aesthetic design.

Interview by: Tamara Zjačić

Read the whole interview in the new issue of the Energy portal Magazine on SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, March 2018

Air Pollution Inequality Widens Between Rich and Poor Nations

03.05.2018

Pollution inequality between the world’s rich and poor is widening, according to the latest global data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) which shows that 7 million people – mostly in developing nations – die every year from airborne contaminants.

Overall, nine in 10 people on the planet live with poor, even dangerous, air, says the WHO report, which is considered the most comprehensive collection of global air quality data. But levels of contamination vary widely depending on government actions and financial resources.

For the first time, the report included regional historic data, which showed that more than 57% of cities in the Americas and more than 61% of cities in Europe had seen a fall in PM10 and PM2.5 particulate matter between 2010 and 2016.

But these gains were set against a worsening trend in other regions.

The most rapid deterioration was in south and south-east Asia, where more than 70% of poor cities suffered worsening air quality. The Middle East was also badly affected.

Delhi and Cairo are by far the most polluted mega-cities in the world with average PM10 levels more than 10 times the WHO guidelines. They are followed by Dhaka, Mumbai and Beijing, each with particulate concentrations about five times the recommended level.

The Americas, principally the US and Canada, was the only region where a sizeable majority of people – 80% – breathe air that meets WHO guidelines on particulates. In Asia and the Middle East, the figure was close to zero.

In terms of household air pollution, which contributed to 3.8m deaths, the gap is also wide because families in poorer nations are more dependent on burning wood, coal and kerosene for cooking and heating.

Overall, the authors said the global annual death toll of 7 million is largely unchanged from the previous 2016 air pollution report by the WHO, despite growing awareness of the problem and government promises of action.

“There are cities and regions where improvement is happening,” said Sophie Gumy, one of the authors of the report. “But even if things have started to move, they aren’t moving quickly enough. Seven million deaths is a totally unacceptable figure. The fact that 92% [of people] are still breathing unacceptable air is the news. Pollution remains at dangerously high levels.”

More than 90% of air pollution-related deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, mainly in Asia and Africa, followed by low- and middle-income countries of the eastern Mediterranean region, Europe and the Americas.

Airborne contaminants from cars, factories, wood fires and other sources cause a quarter of fatal heart attacks and strokes, 29% of lung cancer deaths and 43% of mortalities from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the report shows.

Reducing these risks depends on public awareness and political will, as well as income. The authors of the report praised China, which has tightened pollution controls in the wake of “airpocalypse” scandals, public protests and health concerns.

“One of the reasons for that, is the health argument is strongly presented and citizens felt the link between air pollution and their own health,” said Dr Maria Neira, director of public health at WHO. “We’d like to see the same movement now in India, which is a country of particular concern.”

There are signs of progress from specific projects, such as India’s Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana scheme which has provided 37 million women living below the poverty line with free liquified petroleum gas connections, and Mexico City, which has committed to cleaner vehicle standards. More cities are also measuring air quality, which is pushing the subject up the political agenda.

But there is much to be done, even in wealthy nations with relatively progressive policies. The new data reveals 49 towns and cities in the UK – ranging from London and Manchester to Prestonpans and Eccles – are at or over WHO standards for PM2.5. Jenny Bates, Friends of the Earth air pollution campaigner, said this showed the need for more research and stronger policies.

“As more air quality data becomes available, we are uncovering a deeply concerning number of seemingly quaint, fresh aired places across the UK with dangerously polluted air,” she said.

WHO cautions that its data remains incomplete. More than 4,300 cities in 108 countries now provide ambient air quality information, a rise of more than 30% from 2016. This is supplemented by satellite, but there are relatively few data collection points in Africa, standards vary from country to country, yearly variations can be affected by climate, and there is currently little to distinguish between airborne sand from desert regions and toxic particulates in big cities.

But the overall picture is clear. WHO says the threat remains enormous across the globe with the worst impacts hitting the poor.

“Air pollution threatens us all, but the poorest and most marginalised people bear the brunt of the burden,” says Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyes.

Source: Guardian

Personal Care Products as Dangerous for the Air as Car Exhaust, Study Finds

03.05.2018

traffic-2906245 — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

People’s efforts to keep themselves clean are actually making the air dirtier, at least in Boulder, Colorado.

A study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Cooperative Institute for Research In Environmental Sciences (CIRES) found that emissions from personal care products commuters use before leaving in the morning were roughly equivalent in magnitude to emissions from the tailpipes of their cars, a CIRES press release reported Monday.

“We detected a pattern of emissions that coincides with human activity: people apply these products in the morning, leave their homes, and drive to work or school. So emissions spike during commuting hours,” lead author Matthew Coggon, a CIRES scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, said in the release.

The results are in keeping with an earlier NOAA and CIRES study that found personal care and cleaning products were a major contributor to air pollution in Los Angeles.

“We all have a personal plume, from our cars and our personal care products. It’s likely that emissions from personal care product also affect the air quality in other cities besides Boulder and L.A. Our team wants to learn more about these understudied sources of pollution,” Coggon said.

The results, published April 16 in Environmental Science and Technology, were a bit of a surprise.

In December 2015, February 2016 and January 2017, researchers measured volatile organic compounds (VOC) that react with nitrogen oxide in sunlight to form particulate matter and ozone, two types of air pollution dangerous to human health.

One VOC they measured was benzene, a common car emission used to monitor traffic pollution. But they also found large quantities of an unknown VOC.

“We found a big peak in the data but we didn’t know what it was,” Coggon said in the release.

Then NOAA scientist and study co-author Patrick Veres identified it as siloxane. Since the siloxane peaked at the same time as benzene, researchers hypothesized it was also coming from car exhaust, but when they tested car emissions directly, they couldn’t find it.

But siloxane is also commonly used in personal care products such as shampoo, lotions and deodorants to make them silky and smooth. The researchers realized that siloxane levels peaked with benzene levels in the morning because people were leaving their homes leaving their homes showered and lotioned to drive to work.

Both decreased during the day and peaked again in the evening, but by then siloxane levels were lower than benzene levels, since much of the compound had already evaporated off of commuters’ bodies and hair.

While the researchers hadn’t set out to look for pollution from personal care products, their findings, as mentioned, connected to a February NOAA and CIRES study that found VOCs released by personal care products, cleaning products, paints and pesticides made up half of the VOCs measured by the researchers in Los Angeles.

The CIRES press release also comes the same day as another study found that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data had overestimated the decline in U.S. air pollution.

The authors of that study suggested that, as efforts to target transportation and industrial emissions gained headway, other untargeted pollution sources like boilers and off-road vehicles were now playing a bigger role in overall pollution levels.

In his comments on the recent Boulder study, the leader of the Los Angeles study, Brian McDonald, suggested something similar might be taking place with VOCs from personal care products.

“This study provides further evidence that as transportation emissions of VOCs have declined, other sources of VOCs, including from personal care products, are emerging as important contributors to urban air pollution,” McDonald said in the CIRES press release.

Source: Eco Watch

To Power Villages And Oil Rigs, Russia Sent A Nuclear Reactor On A “Tsunami-Proof” Barge

02.05.2018

If the world is going to end, why not have it be for a ridiculous, insane reason?

Like, say, building nuclear power plants on top of a barge and sending it floating up to the Arctic?

Well, that one’s real. If you wanted to panic now, we wouldn’t blame you.

On Saturday, Russia launched Akademik Lomonosov, the world’s first floating nuclear power plant, out of the St. Petersburg shipyard. It’s currently being towed to Murmansk, a port town in northwest Russia, where it will be loaded up with fuel; its destination is a town in the Arctic Circle called Pevek, where it will begin generating power in the Summer of 2019, according to The Independent.

The power plant has no propulsion of its own, but is being towed up North to avoid the steep cost of shipping it by land piece by piece to remote areas. Once it’s there, it will provide electricity to a town of 100,000 people. The Lomonosov will also power oil and gas mining rigs — now that global warming has opened up new shipping routes and access to fossil fuels in what used to be impassable parts of the Arctic, Russia is deploying more resources to take advantage.

Once it arrives, the reactor will replace the Bilibino nuclear power plant and Chaunskaya coal power plant, which were built in 1974 and 1961, respectively. Nuclear power, though cleaner and arguably a better option for our warming planet than the coal plan that Lomonosov will replace, is still a risky business. And put that on a boat, which, unlike a nuclear submarine, is exposed to the weather conditions of the Arctic? It feels risky to say the least. Critics have dubbed the project “floating Chernobyl” and “nuclear Titanic.”

Rosatom, the government-owned Russian energy company that developed the Lomonosov, released a statement saying that the floating reactor will be “invincible” to tsunamis and other natural disasters, and that it has met all the requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The company argues that they have rendered Lomonosov harmless to the environment.

Yet for some reason activist groups, as well as the governments of Norway and Sweden haven’t been reassured that a big-ass, freely-floating nuclear reactor will be safe. The same goes for the oil mining operations, which have a tendency to leak, polluting the delicate (and already threatened) Arctic ecosystem.

The stakes are high, and surely Rosatom has every incentive to get this right — should something go wrong, years of expensive planning and testing go down the toilet, along with any fossil fuel mining operations that the plant would have powered. Oh and, you know, the widespread devastation that would result from a nuclear accident in the already-threatened Arctic ecosystem, and everywhere else the irradiated ocean water may travel.

Fingers crossed everything goes the way Rosatom says it will, and not the way an apocalyptic film might.

Source: Futurism

Paris Agreement Needs a Boost: Climate Talks Underway in Bonn With 193 Governments

02.05.2018

climate-change- — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

The global climate treaty, the Paris agreement, already ratified by a huge majority of the world’s governments, is for the next 10 days in intensive care.

That doesn’t mean it’s in danger of expiring, but that it needs a hefty boost so that the countries which signed up to it in 2015 will make commitments that will give it teeth.

So talks aimed at ramping up international action to cut carbon emissions and speed up progress on the treaty have begun in the German city of Bonn, attended by representatives of 193 governments.

The talks last until May 10, and the basic agreements which the organizers, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, hope they will have reached by then will go to a summit meeting in December for approval.

Today the world is on course to heat up by 3°C under the impact of the increasing consumption of fossil fuels, double the amount that scientists say is likely to be sustainable by human civilization and the natural world. The talks are aimed at getting governments to be far more ambitious than their current national plans for greenhouse gas emissions cuts.

With 2017 already the costliest on record for climate-related disasters as well as the third hottest ever recorded for the U.S., the effects of climate change are already causing severe economic and political problems. The World Bank says 143 million people may soon become climate migrants.

With this background the grouping of Small Island States, currently led by Fiji, is starting a new conversation between governments and society, called the Talanoa Dialogue. The plan is to share ideas and methods of speeding up progress on combatting climate change. These ideas will then be submitted to the government ministers at the December conference of the signatories to the Agreement, known in UN jargon as COP 24, in Katowice, Poland.

Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the UN Climate Change secretariat, said: “The Talanoa Dialogue is a key opportunity for all stakeholders to come together and share stories on how we can significantly step up climate action to prevent even greater human suffering in the future.”

This first phase of the Fiji-led Dialogue will introduce a new element to the talks on May 6, when countries and other stakeholders, including cities, businesses, investors and regions, engage for the first time in what is billed as interactive story-telling around their ambitions.

This will include many U.S. stakeholders who disagree with Donald Trump. He has repudiated the Paris agreement and seems unable to accept the scientific consensus that human activity is warming the world—a setback which seems to have redoubled some countries’ efforts to act to reduce their own emissions.

There are hopes that, by COP 24, 30 more countries will have joined the 111 that have already ratified another agreement, the Doha Amendment, which is aimed at implementing extra emissions reductions for developed countries.

The Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, an international group of U.S.-based grass roots organizations, says there are only four years left to take the radical action needed if the Paris agreement’s ambitious target of keeping global average temperature rise at no more than 1°5C above pre-industrial levels is to be achieved (Paris’s other, more modest target is 2°C). It says countries must step up their action in both the short and the long term.

As ever, one sticking point in Bonn is finance, particularly how the rich countries that have largely caused the problem of climate change should help poorer countries adapt to rising temperatures and sea levels. Developed countries pledged in 2009 to provide $100 billion a year by 2020 to help this adaptation, but they are far from reaching their goal—and President Trump has withdrawn a U.S. pledge of $2 billion.

But there is some optimism at the talks. The giant strides that China and now India are taking towards adopting renewables and phasing out coal for generating electricity could not have been predicted five years ago. The world-wide programs by cities to clean up air pollution and introduce electric vehicles are also expected to have a dramatic effect on reducing emissions, and there are hopes that some countries will reach their Paris targets more easily than they expected.

The chair of the Least Developed Countries group (LDC), Gebru Jember Endalew, said, “Climate change is a critical issue and an urgent, global response is required. Lives and livelihoods across the world are on the line, particularly in the LDCs.

“We have a very small window of time left to develop a set of clear, comprehensive and robust rules to enable full and ambitious implementation of the Paris agreement before the December 2018 deadline.

“Keeping global temperature increase below 1°5C is a matter of survival … science tells us that even full implementation of current commitments under the Paris Agreement will not be enough to reach 1°5C.”

Source: Eco Watch

Scientists Develop ‘Infinitely’ Recyclable Plastics Replacement

01.05.2018

plasticne-flase — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

One of the factors driving the plastic pollution crisis is that very little of it gets reused effectively—as of 2015, only 9 percent of all plastics ever made had been recycled, a 2017 Science Advances study found.

This is because, as ScienceNews explained, when plastics break down, they usually break down into molecules that can’t be easily reshaped into plastics or other useful items without going through many different chemical processes.

But researchers at Colorado State University (CSU) have developed a potential solution to the plastic recycling problem.

In an article published in Science today, they unveiled a new polymer with many of the same characteristics as plastic that can be more easily returned to its original molecules to be recycled, without the need for toxic chemicals or complicated lab processes, a CSU press release reported Thursday.

“The polymers can be chemically recycled and reused, in principle, infinitely,” Eugene Chen, a CSU chemistry professor whose lab developed the material, said.

Polymers, of which plastics are one type, are made from chains of repeating molecules. The new polymer developed by Chen’s lab shares important characteristics with plastic such as strength, durability, lightness and heat resistance.

The recent polymer builds on another developed by Chen’s lab in 2015, which could only be made under commercially impractical cold conditions. It was also softer than plastic, with less heat resistance and molecular weight.

But Chen said the lessons learned from that polymer were essential to developing the newer model, which can be made without solvents and under room temperature conditions that could be more easily replicated by industry. It can also be easily broken down using a catalyst and returned to its original shape for reuse.

The polymer still needs more work before it will be available commercially. Chen and his team have received a grant from CSU ventures that they are using to develop an even cheaper, more efficient process for developing similar polymers, as well as exploring how they can be produced on a larger scale. But Chen thinks he and his team are headed in the right direction.

“It would be our dream to see this chemically recyclable polymer technology materialize in the marketplace,” Chen said in the press release.

If Chen makes that dream come true, his work could aid governments and businesses as they work to reduce plastic pollution. Just a day before his paper was published, more than 40 UK businesses joined a UK Plastics Pact that aims, among other things, to source 30 percent of the UK’s packaging from recyclable sources by 2025.

Source: Eco Watch

£20m Study to Investigate Collapse Risk of Major Antarctic Glacier

01.05.2018

iceberg-antarctica — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

British and US scientists are to collaborate on a £20m project to examine the Thwaites glacier in west Antarctica, a major glacier that drains an area about the size of the UK.

The collapse of the glacier could begin within the next few decades or centuries. Understanding more about the likely timing should help the researchers to predict future sea-level rises under global warming. The Thwaites glacier alone is thought to have accounted for about 4% of global sea-level rises, doubling its contribution since the mid-1990s.

Melting ice in Antarctica has different effects from the melting observed in the Arctic, because the glaciers in the southern polar regions are on land, whereas the Arctic ice cap is above the sea. When Antarctic glaciers melt, they contribute directly to sea-level rises, but the extent to which melting is occurring and the effects of it are still insufficiently understood for scientists to make predictions of the effects of climate change on them.

The funds will be used by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council and the National Science Foundation of the US, involving about 100 scientists, in the biggest joint project by the two countries in Antarctica since the end of a mapping project in the region in the late 1940s. Researchers from other countries, including South Korea, Germany, Sweden, New Zealand and Finland, will also contribute.

UK science minister Sam Gyimah said: “Rising sea levels are a globally important issue, which cannot be tackled by one country alone. The Thwaites glacier already contributes to rising sea levels, and understanding its likely collapse in the coming century is vitally important.”

William Easterling, assistant director for the National Science Foundation’s Geosciences directorate in the US, added: “Satellites show the Thwaites region is changing rapidly, but to answer the key questions of how much, and how quickly, sea level will change in the future requires scientists on the ground with sophisticated equipment collecting the data we need to measure rates of ice volume and ice mass change. The challenges of conducting fieldwork of this scope and scale in such remote locations are enormous.”

The five-year project will begin this October, and the data gathered will be shared with other scientists.

Source: Guardian

World’s Largest Offshore Wind Turbine Can Power 16,000 Homes

30.04.2018

The world’s largest and most powerful offshore wind turbine will test its wings at an innovative facility in northeast England.

The 12-megawatt Haliade-X, developed by GE Renewable Energy, stands 853 feet tall, or about three times the height of the Flat Iron building in New York City. Its massive rotor diameter of 722 feet is roughly the tower height of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge above water.

GE touts that a single one of these turbines can generate enough power to supply 16,000 European households. A 750-megawatt wind farm configuration could produce enough power for up to 1 million homes.

GE Renewable Energy and the British government-funded Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult signed a five-year agreement to test the massive machine at a power train test facility at the National Renewable Energy Centre in Blyth, Northumberland.

“This is an important agreement because it will enable us to prove Haliade-X in a faster way by putting it under controlled and extreme conditions,” John Lavelle, president and CEO of GE’s Offshore Wind business said in a statement.

Lavelle also noted, “Traditional testing methods rely on local wind conditions and therefore have limited repeatability for testing. By using ORE Catapult’s facilities and expertise, we will be in a better position to adapt our technology in a shortened time, reduce unplanned maintenance, increase availability and power output, while introducing new features to meet customers’ demands.”

Once installed, GE’s turbine will surpass MHI Vestas’ 9-megawatt turbines at Vattenfall’s offshore wind farm off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland. One rotation of those turbines is sufficient to power the average UK home for an entire day, the developers boasted.

As EcoWatch mentioned previously, companies are making larger and larger offshore turbines that can capture more wind and produce more power. This is appealing for wind farm operators because fewer turbines can simplify operations and lower maintenance costs.

GreenTech Media reported in March that more than $400 million will be invested over the next three to five years to develop the Haliade-X. The company aims to supply its first nacelle, or power generating unit, for demonstration in 2019 and ship the first units in 2021.

Britain’s Energy and Clean Growth Minister Claire Perry welcomed the collaboration between GE and ORE Catapult.

“We are making the UK a global leader in renewables, including offshore wind, with more support available than any other country in the world,” Perry said in a statement, noting that 22 percent of all investment in European wind projects are coming to the UK.

Source: ecowatch.com

Renewable Energy Dominates Early 2018 Power Plant Construction

30.04.2018

The February Infrastructure Update from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) reported that 98 percent of power plants built in the first two months of 2018 were renewable, Popular Mechanics reported Thursday.

During January and February, the U.S. saw an additional 2,173 megawatts of electricity generation constructed. A full 1,568 of those megawatts came from wind power and 565 from solar. The only fossil fuel to add megawatts to the grid was natural gas, with a mere 40.

This isn’t an isolated uptick. The update indicates a hopeful trend away from fossil fuels, estimating that 69 percent of new energy sources built over the next three years will be renewable.

The FERC update also suggests that, for all of President Donald Trump’s rhetoric about “bring[ing] the coal industry back 100 percent” and “end[ing] the war on beautiful, clean coal,” the future is against him. No new coal plants were added at the start of 2018, and the update estimates that 15,000 megawatts of coal power will be removed from the grid due to plant closures by 2021.

This confirms the trajectory outlined in a Climate News Network piece published by EcoWatch in January, which reported that, while coal mine production went up 10 percent in 2017, that was an upward blip in a downward trend due to a 50 percent rise in international coal exports last year. As countries like India, China and Brazil shift towards renewables to combat air pollution and climate change, that blip is likely to disappear. On a longer time-scale, U.S. coal production has decreased by a third over the last five years.

In addition to touting coal, Trump has also thrown a wrench in the renewable energy industry by introducing a new tax on imported solar cells and modules, which went into effect in February, the Union of Concerned Scientists reported. The Union of Concerned Scientists further reported that an estimated 7,600 megawatts of solar power would not be added to the grid because of the tariffs over the next five years, but the news from the FERC suggests that the new taxes won’t prevent renewables from growing overall.

The FERC update isn’t the only good news for renewable energy this week. Kaiserwetter Energy Asset Management, an industry asset manager based in Germany, wrote in a note to clients that the production costs for renewable energy are lower than the production costs for fossil fuels for the first time in history, Forbes reported Tuesday.

Kaiserwetter used data from Bloomberg, the Frankfurt School, Renewable Cost Database of the International Agency for Renewable Energy (IRENA) and UN Environment and concluded that it cost G20 countries $49 to $174 per megawatt hour to generate energy from fossil fuels in 2017 and only $35 to $54 per megawatt hour to generate energy from renewable sources.

Source: ecowatch.com

Climate Change Could Displace Half a Million Atoll Residents Within Decades

30.04.2018

Klimatske promene, Suša — Photo: Pixabay

A new study published in Science Advances Wednesday has bad news for the residents of low-lying atolls: If current greenhouse gas emission rates continue, climate change will render most of these islands uninhabitable by mid-century, not by the end of the century as previously believed.

This could turn the more than half a million people who live on atolls into climate refugees, The Guardian reported Wednesday.

The dramatic difference between these and previous findings is because previous studies only looked at sea level rise.

However, this study, conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Deltares, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, also looked at the impact of flooding from “wave overwash” when waves from storms wash over the islands. The scientists found that this flooding would pose a serious threat to the islands’ supply of fresh drinking water, rendering it non-potable between 2030 and 2060 and forcing residents to leave.

“The tipping point when potable groundwater on the majority of atoll islands will be unavailable is projected to be reached no later than the middle of the 21st century,” lead author and USGS geologist Curt Storlazzi said in a USGS press release.

Overwash flooding will also impact infrastructure and wildlife habitats, but the danger it poses to drinking water is especially severe.

“The overwash events generally result in salty ocean water seeping into the ground and contaminating the freshwater aquifer. Rainfall later in the year is not enough to flush out the saltwater and refresh the island’s water supply before the next year’s storms arrive repeating the overwash events,” USGS hydrologist and study author Stephen Gingerich explained in the release.

For this study, the researchers looked at Roi-Namur Island on Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. However, they said their findings would apply to atolls worldwide, which have similar shapes and lower average elevations. These include the more than 1,100 low-lying islands on 29 atolls in the Marshall Islands and atolls in the Caroline Islands, Cook Islands, Gilbert Islands, Line Islands, Society Islands, Spratly Islands, Maldives, Seychelles and Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Most atolls are located in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

A study published Tuesday found that climate change had not been the driving force behind the past 50 years of forced displacement in East Africa.

But the atoll study is one of many that points to a looming crisis of global displacement that will come sooner than expected if the world doesn’t act quickly to reduce emissions and curb climate change.

“Millions of people are going to be at risk from extreme heat, extreme water shortages and flooding as well as sea level rises … we are talking about something that is going to play a huge role in the years ahead in terms of forcing people to leave their homes,” Dina Ionesco of the International Organization for Migration told The Guardian.

Source: ecowatch.com

More Than 40 Companies Sign Onto Historic UK Plastics Pact

30.04.2018

plastic-bottles-115074_960_720 — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

In a historic move, more than 40 UK companies have signed up to fight plastic pollution as part of the UK Plastics Pact, The Independent reported Wednesday.

The pact, which officially launches today, is a groundbreaking alliance of companies, non-governmental organizations and governments working to transform packaging in the UK by 2025.

“We need to move away from a linear plastics economy, where we take, make and dispose of plastic, and towards a circular system where we keep plastic in the economy and out of the natural environment,” the pact website reads.

Specifically, the pact sets out four targets to meet by that date:

1. Ensure that 100 percent of packaging is reusable, recyclable or compostable.
2. Eliminate “unnecessary or problematic” single-use plastic packaging.
3. Make sure that 70 percent of packaging is actually recycled or composted.
4. Source 30 percent of packaging from recycled plastic.

The pact stands to make a difference, since major brands responsible for 80 percent of the UK’s supermarket packaging—among them Coca-Cola, Nestlé and major UK grocery store Sainsbury’s—have all signed on.

The pact is an initiative of WRAP, which seeks to work with businesses, governments and communities to use resources more sustainably.

It comes a week after the UK government overall has stepped up to fight plastic pollution in major ways. On April 18, the government announced plans to ban plastic straws, drink stirrers and cotton-swabs containing plastic. On April 15, Prime Minister Theresa May pledged £61.4 million towards a Commonwealth Clean Oceans Alliance that seeks to rid the oceans of plastic pollution.

Individual UK companies have also taken a stand. For example, Costa, the country’s largest coffee chain, pledged April 18 to recycle as many plastic-lined coffee cups as it sells.

But this new pact marks the first time businesses have united around such a goal.

Chile is expected to follow the pact’s example later this year, The Independent reported.

However, environmental groups warned that, while the pact is encouraging, it won’t be enough if government plans don’t provide sufficient mechanisms to ensure companies honor their pledges.

Environmentalists have criticized May’s 25-year environment plan, which seeks to eliminate plastic waste by 2042, among other goals, for not outlining any new laws to ensure its benchmarks are attained.

“The Plastic Pact is certainly a move in the right direction, however government measures are also needed to ensure everyone plays their part, and that these targets are actually met,” Greenpeace UK senior oceans campaigner Louise Edge told The Independent.

“That is what makes the UK Plastics pact unique. It unites everybody, business and organization with a will to act on plastic pollution. We will never have a better time to act, and together we can,” Wrap CEO Marcus Gover told The Independent.

Source: Eco Watch

EU Agrees Total Ban on Bee-Harming Pesticides

30.04.2018

The European Union will ban the world’s most widely used insecticides from all fields due to the serious danger they pose to bees.

The ban on neonicotinoids, approved by member nations on Friday, is expected to come into force by the end of 2018 and will mean they can only be used in closed greenhouses.

Bees and other insects are vital for global food production as they pollinate three-quarters of all crops. The plummeting numbers of pollinators in recent years has been blamed, in part, on the widespread use of pesticides. The EU banned the use of neonicotinoids on flowering crops that attract bees, such as oil seed rape, in 2013.

But in February, a major report from the European Union’s scientific risk assessors (Efsa) concluded that the high risk to both honeybees and wild bees resulted from any outdoor use, because the pesticides contaminate soil and water. This leads to the pesticides appearing in wildflowers or succeeding crops. A recent study of honey samples revealed global contamination by neonicotinoids.

Vytenis Andriukaitis, European commissioner for Health and Food Safety, welcomed Friday’s vote: “The commission had proposed these measures months ago, on the basis of the scientific advice from Efsa. Bee health remains of paramount importance for me since it concerns biodiversity, food production and the environment.”

The ban on the three main neonicotinoids has widespread public support, with almost 5 million people signing a petition from campaign group Avaaz. “Banning these toxic pesticides is a beacon of hope for bees,” said Antonia Staats at Avaaz. “Finally, our governments are listening to their citizens, the scientific evidence and farmers who know that bees can’t live with these chemicals and we can’t live without bees.”

Martin Dermine, at Pesticide Action Network Europe, said: “Authorising neonicotinoids a quarter of a century ago was a mistake and led to an environmental disaster. Today’s vote is historic.”

However, the pesticide manufacturers and some farming groups have accused the EU of being overly cautious and suggested crop yields could fall, a claim rejected by others. “European agriculture will suffer as a result of this decision,” said Graeme Taylor, at the European Crop Protection Association. “Perhaps not today, perhaps not tomorrow, but in time decision makers will see the clear impact of removing a vital tool for farmers.”

The UK’s National Farmers’ Union (NFU) said the ban was regrettable and not justified by the evidence. Guy Smith, NFU deputy president, said: “The pest problems that neonicotinoids helped farmers tackle have not gone away. There is a real risk that these restrictions will do nothing measurable to improve bee health, while compromising the effectiveness of crop protection.”

A spokesman for the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs welcomed the ban, but added: “We recognise the impact a ban will have on farmers and will continue to work with them to explore alternative approaches.” In November, UK environment secretary Michael Gove overturned the UK’s previous opposition to a full outdoor ban.

Neonicotinoids, which are nerve agents, have been shown to cause a wide range of harm to individual bees, such as damaging memory and reducing queen numbers.

But this evidence has strengthened recently to show damage to colonies of bees. Other research has also revealed that 75% of all flying insects have disappeared in Germany and probably much further afield, prompting warnings of “ecological armageddon”.

Prof Dave Goulson, at the University of Sussex, said the EU ban was logical given the weight of evidence but that disease and lack of flowery habitats were also harming bees. “Also, if these neonicotinoids are simply replaced by other similar compounds, then we will simply be going round in circles. What is needed is a move towards truly sustainable farming,” he said.
Some experts are worried that the exemption for greenhouses means neonicotinoids will be washed out into water courses, where they can severely harm aquatic life.

Prof Jeroen van der Sluijs, at the University of Bergen, Norway, said neonicotinoids will also continue to be used in flea treatments for pets and in stables and animal transport vehicles, which account for about a third of all uses: “Environmental pollution will continue.”

The EU decision could have global ramifications, according to Prof Nigel Raine, at the University of Guelph in Canada: “Policy makers in other jurisdictions will be paying close attention to these decisions. We rely on both farmers and pollinators for the food we eat. Pesticide regulation is a balancing act between unintended consequences of their use for non-target organisms, including pollinators, and giving farmers the tools they need to control crop pests.”

Source: Guardian

European Investment Bank Commits €50 Million To Build 9 Spanish Wind Farms With 300 Megawatts Of Capacity

30.04.2018

The European Investment Bank announced on Thursday that it would commit €50 million in loans to finance 9 wind power projects developed by the Spanish firm Forestalia Renovables which will be built in the Aragón region of Spain.

With support from the Investment Plan for Europe, the European Investment Bank (EIB) signed a €50 million to finance the Goya project, which is a collection of 9 onshore wind farms to be built in the region of Aragón, located the northeast of Spain. Spanish firm Forestalia Renovables will develop the Goya project, which is backed by shareholders Mirova, a subsidiary of Natixis dedicated to responsible investment,

General Electric, Engie, and Forestalia itself, which together signed an agreement earlier this week.

Forestalia Renovables was awarded the contract to build the Goya project as part of Spain’s first clean energy auction back in early 2016, and it will be the first wind power concession to be awarded without public subsidies or incentives.

The Goya project will build 9 new wind farms — Argovento, Cañacoloma, El Saso, Sierra Luna, and Las Majas I, II, III, IV, and V — in Aragón, which will consist of 82 GE Renewable Energy wind turbines with a total capacity of 300 megawatts (MW) and a power generation capacity of 900 gigawatts-hours each year. Together with the €50 million loan committed by the EIB, investment for the project includes €120 million provided by a syndicate of commercial banks.

“The European Commission welcomes the financing of these nine wind farms in Aragón,” said Miguel Arias Cañetem, EU Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy. “Europe will always endeavour to support projects that invest in the transition to clean energy and job creation. Investing in renewables means investing in quality jobs. Spain has the potential to be the benchmark for renewable energies and sustainable long-term job creation. These projects provide an example of this potential and they will certainly not be the last.”

Source: cleantechnica.com

Solar Jobs Could More Than Double In New Mexico

30.04.2018

An American Jobs Project report has found that solar jobs in New Mexico could more than double by 2030. Projected growth of the New Mexico solar industry over the next 12 years could increase solar jobs to 6,800 from the current figure of about 2,500.

“New Mexico has already made significant investments to tap into the $1.4 trillion global advanced energy industry through natural gas and wind projects. Our research shows that the state can continue to capitalize on this opportunity by becoming a hub for advanced solar technologies,” explained the director of the American Jobs Project and co-author of the report, Kate Ringness.

State and regional solar job counts are significant because they reveal local industry conditions. National numbers are important too, but solar power growth is greater in some states and much slower in others. The states with faster growth and more solar power jobs can be examples to the ones which are struggling.

Right now there are about 173,000 homes in New Mexico with solar power systems. Almost 700 megawatts (MW) of solar power has been installed in New Mexico, but that figure may reach nearly 1,700 MW by 2023.

New Mexico has a very high solar power potential, and this fact is important for a number of reasons, including the fact that solar uses very little water compared to coal power plants. Tremendous amounts of water are used at these facilities. Obviously, having to utilize huge amounts of water for electricity production in a water-constrained region is a problem.

Natural gas and coal are the leading sources of electricity generation in New Mexico right now. The state is one of the top natural gas producers and sells some of it to Texas and Arizona.

New Mexico is also blessed with natural wind and solar resources, so its renewable energy future looks very promising. New planned electricity generation will come in the form of natural gas or renewables, and the state has indicated interest in selling some electricity from renewables to neighboring states.

In fact, the Renewable Energy Transmission Authority (RETA) has a goal to sell 5,200 MW of renewable electricity to them.

Source: cleantechnica.com

First-Of-Its-Kind Farm Uses Seawater and Solar Power to Grow Crops

29.04.2018

Much of the current innovation in farming focuses on how to integrate technology into the food we produce by genetically engineering crops and livestock for improved production, increased resilience to disease, or better adaptability to weather-changing climate patterns. But a new development out of Australia doesn’t want to change what we farm — it wants to change how we farm.

Sundrop Farms in South Australia is using a combination of solar power and seawater to produce food in the middle of a desert and completely independent of nonrenewable resources. Every day, seawater is pumped 2 km (1.24 miles) from the Spencer Gulf to the 20-hectare farm. The water is then run through a desalination system that produces up to 1 million liters of fresh water every day, which is then used to irrigate 18,000 tomato plants inside a greenhouse.

That desalination system is powered by solar energy. 23,000 mirrors focus sunlight onto a receiver tower 115 meters (377 feet) tall to produce up to 39 megawatts of energy per day. There is no need for pesticides since the plants are grown in coconut husks and seawater sterilizes the air. Herbicides are also unnecessary as the employees weed the plants by hand.

The whole process at Sundrop Farms is less about creating new technology and more about combining existing technologies in a new way, and while the farm’s system has been criticized as unnecessary by some since tomatoes can still be grown in non-desert parts of Australia, that may not be the case 20 or 50 years from now.

Right now, current farming practices cost the whole world some $3 trillion per year, according to Trucost. That cost is based on the environmental price of farming — land use, water pollution, deforestation, etc. — and it’s just going to keep climbing. Climate change is going to continue to eat at the resources we use for farming, and the expected increase in population by 2050 will result in a 50 percent increase in food demand. The pesticides that we currently use are also having a devastating effect on the environment that may soon become irreversible.

Those future projections make innovative, sustainable farming practices like those used by Sundrop Farms even more of a priority for combating hunger in the years to come.

Source: Futurism

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