New Gizmo That Converts Methane To Harmless Stuff To Help Combat Climate Change

The British tech firm Levidian has figured out a way to 
convert methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas into
two harmless but very useful byproducts. 

Levidian, a British carbon climate tech business, is on a mission to make methane into a hero instead of a villain. 

No, Levidian doesn't love methane. It's a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide. Increasing methane emissions are worsening climate change. 

The company has figured out ways to break methane down into two substances that actually can do a world of good. 

 As CBS explains:

"The technology uses microwave energy and a special nozzle system to split methane molecules intl the gas' component parts - hydrogen and carbon - and captures them."

That hydrogen left over from the process is pretty valuable. It can be used to power factories, vehicles, ships and machinery.  When burned, hydrogen provides heat and energy, but the only emission is water vapor.

Water vapor is pretty harmless, and I supposed if you have a big enough operation, you can capture the water emissions for,  I don't know, irrigation or something. But you'd need to break down a LOT of methane. 

The leftover carbon from Levidian's process turns out to be even better. That carbon left over from that technology becomes a solid called graphene. Scientists have only known about this stuff for about two decades but it turns out it's one of the strongest materials in the world. 

It's also a great conductor of heat and electricity.

So Levidian is working on ways to use graphene in everyday products. Putting graphene into tire treads, for instance, makes them stronger and yields a longer-lasting, more fuel-efficient tire.

Adding graphene to concrete makes that material stronger and less likely to crumble. 

Graphene is even flexible enough to include in the manufacture of medical gloves to make them stronger. 

This stuff can also boost the battery life in electric vehicles. And it can be mixed in with plastic to help factories make material that uses less petroleum based material. 

As the BBC reports, most efforts to combat climate change have been to reduce emissions. You know, electric, cars, heat pumps, efficiency improvements. 

Not so many outfits have found ways to remove emissions altogether, so Levidian's efforts are unique and laudable. 

Luckily, Levidian is British, as noted, so we don't have to worry about the mendacious Trump administration from discouraging this or banning public investment. (The UK government is interested in doing some funding for technologies like Levidian's).

We're hoping more companies find ways to innovate our way out of climate change. Anything helps in that global battle, 

 

Climate Change Footprint Is Everywhere, As I'm Learning In Scotland

A stormy late afternoon Monday in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Just like in many parts of the world, including back home
in Vermont, storms are getting more extreme in
Scotland due to climate change. 

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - As any good tourist would do, I'm trying to learn as much as I can about the city.  

Given my interest in weather and climate, that includes information on how climate change is affecting Scotland. 

Turns out climate change is affecting this area in similar ways to Vermont. Just as in the Green Mountain State, climate change is making Edinburgh warmer and wetter.  

Edinburgh is not a warm place.  It's almost as far north as Anchorage, Alaska. It's as far north as north-central Quebec.  

But it's not frigid here. The waters of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean keep things moderate and tolerable in Scotland, though. 

Daytime highs in the winter tend to be in the low 40s around Edinburgh and summertime highs are in the mid-60s . Extremes in Scotland are not as wild as they are in most of the United States, including Vermont. 

The coldest temperature on record here is 4 degrees (Fahrenheit). The hottest-ever reading hit pretty recently, 88 degrees on July 25, 2019. That being one sign of climate change right there.

By contrast, Burlington, Vermont has been as cold as 30 below and as hot as 101 degrees, so the range is much greater than in Scotland. 

Any sort of change in the climate anywhere is disconcerting and potentially destructive. That's of course true in Scotland. 

With climate change, summers in Scotland are expected to become drier overall, but with more intense storms thrown in.  That means a higher chance of drought, and also a higher chance of flash floods. That   scenario might sound familiar to us Vermonters, who in recent years dealt with summer droughts, and disastrous July and August flooding. 

Autumns are getting especially risky in Scotland, with flooding increasing at that time of year. Just this October, Storm Babet caused some of the worst flooding on record in much of Scotland. All seasons in Scotland are expected to be warmer than they are now. 

Climate change is on the minds of politicians and policy makers here in Scotland. 

The City of Edinburgh Council has a pretty detailed plan on their web site on dealing with the consequences of climate change.  They're most worried about flooding from storms and from sea level rise. 

Edinburgh is of course a coastal city, meaning it's prone to the effects of sea level rise. The estimates are sea levels at the Edinburgh harbor should rise by about six inches by 2050, That doesn't sound like much, but even a slight sea level change can add immensely to storm surge damage and waves.

Scotland as a whole has a goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2045. I have noticed a large number of EVs in Edinburgh. They make sense here. There's usually need to go any long distances. The streets are narrow and winding, so you don't want a large car here.  Since it's a compact city, it's easy to walk or bike to wherever you're going.

Also, Scotland has a robust public transit system, which is great if you want to reduce carbon emissions. Edinburgh is crawling with buses, and I always see plenty of passengers on them. The train network is extensive and very easy to use. 

We took a day trip from Edinburgh to New Berwick on the coast about 20 miles to the northeast Sunday. The train to and from there was efficient, clean and convenient.  Wish we had something like that in the states! 

Both Vermont and Scotland, along with local and regional governments around the world do seem to be  taking action against climate change, and girding themselves against the effects from it.  It seems like the top leaders of the world, and especially the wealthy billionaire class who made their money on fossil fuels and associated industries that are holding us back from solving the climate crisis. 

 

  

Covid Pandemic Reduced Carbon Emissions; Won't Make A Difference

 Carbon emissions declined in 2020 due to the Covid 
pandemic, but blip won't really have an
effect on climate change. 

We got an update from academics on now much the Covid pandemic has reduced carbon emissions. 

The "good" news is that carbon emissions plunged in 2020 by a record amount.  

The very bad news is two-fold.  The reduction in carbon emissions is basically a drop in the bucket and won't have much if any effect on climate change.

Worse, the price we paid for this year's carbon reductions was so, so not worth the price: Hundreds of thousands killed by the pandemic, and millions upon millions of people suffering because of it. 

According to CNBC:

"Global greenhouse gas emissions plunged by roughly 2.4 billion tons this year, a 7% drop from 2019 and the largest decline on record......according to new research from the University of East Anglia, the University of Exeter and the Global Carbon Project."

When Covid-related lockdowns were most prevalent in the spring, carbon emissions plunged by 17 percent, but recovered to nearly the same levels as 2019 later in the year as restrictions eased, at least temporarily. 

All this accounts for the 7% drop. 

Medical experts are hopeful that next year, with Covid vaccines being distributed, the pandemic will ease and perhaps disappear altogether by Christmas 2021. 

With that, carbon emissions are expected to rise again.  Climate activists are urging governments and industry use the anticipated 2021 economic recovery as an excuse to switch to cleaner energy sources as things ramp up. 

Even with this year's reduction in carbon emissions, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will continue to rise. Think of CO2 in the atmosphere as water filling a bathtub.  In 2020, the bathtub faucet was turned down, but was still running. That means the bathtub is still filling up, just more slowly. 

To really help with climate change, we'd need to cut an additional 2 billion tons of carbon emissions yearly for the next decade, according to the BBC.  At that point, maybe the drain in the "bathtub" would be partially opened, allowing our metaphorical water (atmospheric CO2 concentrations) to start receding. 

"The atmospheric CO2 level, and consequently the world;s climate, will only stabilize when global CO2 emissions are near zero, " lead researcher Prof. Pierre Friedlingstein from the University of Exeter UK told the BBC.

Meanwhile, the effects of climate change continue to trouble the world.  This year is set to be among the top 5 hottest years on record. The rest of the top 5 have been since 2015.  Disasters likely made worse by climate change, such as intense hurricanes and wildfires, have caused billions in dollars in damage. 

In 2021, many experts say we'll finally start to see some real relief from the Covid pandemic. Unfortunately, the effects of climate change will probably continue to worsen.