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Fusion Power And The Climate Crisis | Earth Wise

January 24, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

In December, the Department of Energy announced that scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California had achieved a breakthrough in nuclear fusion technology. Fusion is the process by which the sun generates energy. If we had the means to produce nuclear fusion in a controlled fashion, it would be an almost limitless source of clean energy.

Scientists have been trying to develop controllable fusion since the advent of the hydrogen bomb in the 1950s. H-Bombs are basically uncontrollable fusion.

There are massive experiments under development around the work seeking the means to create and control fusion. There are multi-billion-dollar projects such as the ITER tokamak project in southern France, that have been ongoing for decades. Colossal equipment is required to produce the temperatures of millions of degrees needed to fuse hydrogen atoms into helium atoms.

The Livermore project uses 192 powerful laser beams to vaporize a tiny pellet and provide the energy required to initiate fusion. The breakthrough is that the experiment released more energy than the lasers put in. This was the first time a fusion experiment produced a net gain of energy.

Is fusion the solution to de-carbonizing the energy system? Perhaps someday it might be. However, even the most optimistic fusion researchers believe it will be at least another decade before even the experimental fusion systems around the world can reliably produce energy and the efforts will cost untold billions of dollars.

The world cannot wait for fusion power to save the day. The focus must remain on currently available renewable energy technologies if we are to achieve the necessary emission reductions in time to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

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Can Fusion Solve the Climate Crisis?

Photo, posted July 29, 2010, courtesy of Steve Jurvetson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Better Way To Recycle Plastic | Earth Wise

July 25, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The current state of plastic recycling is not very effective. Plastic recycling is only able to replace 15-20% of the fossil-fuel-derived raw material needed to produce society’s demand for plastic.

Researchers at Chalmers University in Sweden have now demonstrated how the carbon content in mixed waste could be used to replace all of the fossil raw materials in the production of new plastic. In principle, their technology could completely eliminate the climate impact of plastic materials.

According to the researchers, there are enough carbon atoms in waste to meet the needs of all global plastic production.

The Chalmers process is based on thermochemical technology and involves heating waste to 1100-1500 degrees Fahrenheit. The waste is thereby vaporized and when hydrogen is added, becomes a carbon-based substance that can replace the fossil-fuel building blocks of plastic. The method does not require sorting the waste materials. Different types of waste, such as old plastic products and even paper cups, with or without food residues, can be fed into the recycling reactors. The researchers are now developing the techniques required to utilize their recycling technology in the same factories in which plastic products are currently being made from fossil oil or gas.

The principle of the process is inspired by the natural carbon cycle in which plants break down into carbon dioxide when they wither and die, and then photosynthesis uses carbon dioxide and solar energy to grow new plants.

Producing new plastics would no longer require petroleum or other fossil fuels as raw materials. If the energy needed to drive the recycling reactors is taken from renewable sources, plastics could become the basis of a sustainable and circular economy.

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Pioneering recycling turns mixed waste into premium plastics with no climate impact

Photo, posted August 10, 2013, courtesy of Lisa Risager via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A New “Wonder Material” | Earth Wise

February 11, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Graphene is a form of carbon made of single-atom-thick layers. It has many remarkable properties and researchers around the world continue to investigate its use in multiple applications.

In 2019, a new material composed of single-atom-thick layers was produced for the first time. It is phosphorene nanoribbons or PNRs, which are ribbon-like strands of two-dimensional phosphorous. These materials are tiny ribbons that can be a single atomic layer thick and less than 100 atoms wide but millions of atoms long. They are comparable in aspect ratio to the cables that span the Golden Gate Bridge. Theoretical studies have predicted how PNR properties could benefit all sorts of devices, including batteries, biomedical sensors, thermoelectric devices, nanoelectronics, and quantum computers.

As an example, nanoribbons have great potential to create faster-charging batteries because they can hold more ions than can be stored in conventional battery materials.

Recently, for the first time, a team of researchers led by Imperial College London and University College London researchers has used PNRs to significantly improve the efficiency of a device. The device is a new kind of solar cell, and it represents the first demonstration that this new wonder material might actually live up to its hype.

The researchers incorporated PNRs into solar cells made from perovskites. The resultant devices had an efficiency above 21%, which is comparable to traditional silicon solar cells. Apart from the measured results, the team was able to experimentally verify the mechanism by which the PNRs enhanced the improved efficiency.

Further studies using PNRs in devices will allow researchers to discover more mechanisms for how they can improve performance.

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‘Wonder material’ phosphorene nanoribbons live up to hype in first demonstration

Photo, posted October 6, 2010, courtesy of Alexander AlUS / CORE-Materials via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.