collaboration

Wave energy in LA

March 6, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Ocean waves form as wind blows over the surface of open water. Globally, waves contain tremendous amounts of energy. Theoretically, the energy generating potential of waves off the coasts of the U.S. would meet more than 60% of the country’s electricity needs. There are a variety of methods and technologies for tapping into this energy source, but none have reached the point of commercial adoption to date. There are many problems that remain to be solved.

Eco Wave Power, a wave energy company, announced that it has received the necessary permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to operate the first onshore wave energy installation in the United States. The installation will be at the Port of Los Angeles at the facilities of AltaSea, a public-private ocean institute that conducts research on food and energy supply, climate change, and ocean exploration.

The system will utilize eight of Eco Wave Power’s energy floaters that will be installed on the piles of an existing concrete wharf structure on Municipal Pier One. The system will also include an energy conversion unit enclosed in two shipping containers and connected to the floaters. The installation is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of this year.

Floaters draw energy from waves by using their rising and falling motion to generate electricity. The bobbing motion of the floaters compresses and decompresses hydraulic pistons. These transmit hydraulic fluid into land-based accumulators that build up pressure. The pressure rotates a hydraulic motor, which then operates a generator, producing electricity.

The project is a collaboration on the development of wave energy in the Port of Los Angeles between Eco Wave Power and Shell Marine Renewable Program.

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Eco Wave Power secures final USACE permit for its first U.S. wave energy project

Photo courtesy of Eco Wave Power.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The Colorado River crisis

May 15, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Colorado River serves nearly 40 million people in seven U.S. states and Mexico. It provides water for 5 million acres of farmland. Increasing demand from growing populations, damming, diversion, and drought have been draining the Colorado at alarming rates. This critical resource supports countless economies, communities, and ecologies stretching from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California. The Colorado River essentially has made the cities of Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Denver, and Phoenix possible.

How the water of the Colorado is distributed is determined by an agreement that is over 100 years old: the Colorado River Compact. It was made at a time when people thought there was more water than really was there. And at the time, no one thought that the seven states would need to use the water they were allocated down to the last drop.

There have been various measures over the years to conserve water from the Colorado River, including the Colorado River Interim Guidelines in 2007. Those guidelines will expire in 2026 and negotiations are beginning to take place among the many stakeholders scrambling for water rights. Apart from the seven U.S. states and Mexico, there are 30 tribal nations involved. Collaborative governance is complicated when it crosses multiple jurisdictions with their own laws and legal precedents. The goal is to put in place a new agreement to protect the Colorado River.

Rapidly-growing populations in major cities, a 20-year megadrought, and historically low water levels in America’s two largest reservoirs have put enormous pressure on the Colorado River. Creating a plan to protect the lifeblood of the American West is essential.

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Addressing the Colorado River crisis

Photo, posted June 18, 2022, courtesy of Jeff Hollett via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Air pollution in India

February 19, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

India is one of the world’s most polluted countries. In fact, of the 30 cities with the worst air pollution around the globe, 21 of them can be found in India.

India’s capital city, New Delhi, is the most polluted city in the world. Concentrations of fine particulate matter (known as PM2.5) in Delhi, which is the name of the larger city that includes the capital New Delhi, are nearly 10 times greater than the World Health Organization guidelines.

To reduce air pollution in Delhi, officials have focused on measures within the city limits, including boosting public transportation and regulating pollution from industry.

But according to a review carried out by the University of Surrey and regional government officials in Delhi, the city will also need the help of its neighbors to tackle its killer smog problem. Some of the pollution plaguing Delhi comes from rural areas in the region – from things like crop burning, wood stoves, and power plants. The review, which was part of a paper recently published in the journal Sustainable Horizons, also recommends drafting regional air quality plans, producing smog forecasts, and creating airshed councils to help improve coordination.

Exposure to air pollution can cause all sorts of major health problems, including asthma, respiratory inflammation, as well as jeopardize lung function, and even promote cancer. Long-term exposure to PM2.5 is linked to premature death. In fact, air pollution causes an estimated 670,000 deaths every year in India.

Since air pollution doesn’t respect boundaries or borders, solutions require collaboration and the need to focus efforts more broadly in order to achieve emissions reduction goals.

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Delhi smog: India’s cities must look beyond their limits to clean up air pollution

Photo, posted December 27, 2019, courtesy of Ninara via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Wild pigs in the U.S.

November 17, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

In the U.S., there are as many as nine million feral swine living in 38 states. A conservative estimate indicates that they cause about $1.5 billion in property and agricultural damage each year in this country.

Pigs were introduced to the United States centuries ago as a food source, but they quickly established wild populations. Feral domestic pigs bred with purebred Eurasian boar that were introduced for hunting, and these hybridized wild pigs spread across the landscape thanks to their prolific reproductive rates and willingness to eat just about anything.

When wild pigs forage, they upturn roots and soil with their snouts, damaging natural habitats and other animals. A 2021 study found that wild pigs are releasing over five million tons of carbon dioxide annually by uprooting carbon trapped in soil.

As a result, many programs were implemented nationwide to try to reduce populations, usually through lethal methods.

According to new research from the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory and Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, recent conservation efforts have proven effective at controlling wild pig populations in the Southeastern U.S. Within 24 months of the start of control efforts in the study area in South Carolina, the research team found a reduction of about 70% in relative abundance of pigs, and a corresponding decline in environmental rooting damage of about 99%.

Wild pigs are basically a human-caused problem, and controlling their populations will require continued cooperation and collaboration.

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Wild pig populations in U.S. can be managed

Wild Pigs And The Environment

Photo, posted January 28, 2013, courtesy of Don and Janet Beasley via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Building Resilient Food Systems | Earth Wise

August 12, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

According to the United Nations and The World Bank, global hunger levels in 2021 surpassed the previous record set in 2020. The organizations also found that acute food insecurity – defined as when a person’s inability to consume adequate food puts their lives or livelihoods in immediate danger – could continue to worsen this year in many countries around the world.

According to a new study led by researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder, increased demand for water will be the biggest threat to food security during the next 20 years, followed closely by heat waves, droughts, income inequality, and political instability.

The report, which was recently published in the journal One Earth, calls for increased collaboration to build a more resilient global food supply. The impacts of conflict and climate change are already measured and studied around the world. While these pressing threats are not new, the researchers found that better collaboration between these areas of research could fortify and strengthen global food security.

In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, the researchers surveyed 69 experts in various fields related to food security. They found that many effects of climate change – such as unpredictable weather changes – could have the greatest negative impacts on food security. The researchers also found that threats to food security from income inequality, global price shocks, and political instability and migration are highly likely during the next two decades. More than half of the world’s food insecure populations also live in conflict-prone regions.

According to the research team, food security has never been a problem of production. It’s a problem of distribution, access, and poverty, and can be exacerbated by conflict.

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Amid climate change and conflict, more resilient food systems a must, report shows

Photo, posted July 19, 2009, courtesy of Danumurthi Mahendra via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Getting Value From Plastic Waste | Earth Wise

November 30, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

To date, the world has produced more than five billion tons of plastic and is making more all the time. Based on the way things are currently done, most of that will end up in landfills or in the natural environment. By 2050, the amount of plastic is expected to exceed 13 billion tons. This is one of the world’s biggest environmental problems.

Recently, an international collaboration by universities and institutions in the UK, China, and Saudi Arabia has developed a method of converting plastic waste into hydrogen gas and high-value solid carbon.

The technique was achieved with a new type of catalysis that uses microwaves to activate catalyst particles that effectively strip hydrogen from plastic polymers. The work was recently published in the journal Nature Catalysis and details how the researchers mixed mechanically pulverized plastic particles with a microwave-susceptor catalyst of iron oxide and aluminum oxide. That mixture was then subjected to microwave treatment and yielded a large volume of hydrogen gas and a residue of carbonaceous material, most of which was identified as carbon nanotubes.

The process is more rapid than most methods for dealing with plastic waste and can extract over 97% of the hydrogen in plastic without producing any carbon dioxide emissions.

The new method represents an attractive potential solution to the problem of plastic waste. Instead of polluting the planet, plastics could become a valuable feedstock for producing clean hydrogen fuel as well as valuable carbon materials. Proponents of the so-called hydrogen economy have continued to seek a green and economical way to produce hydrogen. This new work might be just what they are looking for.

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Turning plastic waste into hydrogen and high-value carbons

Photo, posted April 21, 2007, courtesy of Redwin Law via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Artificial Aquatic Polyps | Earth Wise

September 16, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Corals are often mistaken for rocks because of their hardened surfaces. And, since they attach or “take root” to the sea floor, they are often mistaken for plants. But unlike rocks, corals are alive. And unlike plants, corals do not make their own food. Corals are actually animals.

Most of these structures that we call “coral” are made up of hundreds to thousands of tiny coral creatures called polyps. A coral polyp, which is often no thicker than a nickel, has a saclike body and mouth that is encircled by stinging tentacles. Polyps are responsible for a host of ecosystem services, including nourishing corals, and aiding coral survival by generating self-made currents through the motion of their soft bodies.

Inspired by these marine organisms, researchers from the University of Warwick in the UK and Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands have collaborated to develop an artificial aquatic polyp capable of removing contaminants from water. The 1 square centimeter wireless robot polyp can attract, grasp, and release objects, moving under the influence of a magnetic field and whose “tentacles” are triggered by light.

The next step for the researchers is to see if the technology can be successfully scaled up from laboratory to pilot scale. In order for that to happen, the team has to design an array of artificial polyps capable of working harmoniously together.

Corals are an incredibly important part of ocean ecosystems. And while it remains to be seen how much value artificial polyps can achieve in future applications, it serves as another example of scientists emulating nature to create more sustainable designs.

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Aquatic robots can remove contaminant particles from water

An artificial aquatic polyp that wirelessly attracts, grasps, and releases objects

Photo, posted April 14, 2011, courtesy of Derek Keats via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.