Earth Wise

A look at our changing environment.

You are here: Home / Archives for storage

storage

The Energy Storage Boom | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Global energy storage deployment is increasing at a very rapid pace.  According to recent industry forecasts, there will be 12.4 gigawatts of new energy storage capacity online in 2021 breaking the previous annual record of 4.9 gigawatts set last year.

To understand these numbers, the world only reached 1 gigawatt of new capacity in a year for the first time in 2016.  Five years later, 1 gigawatt represents a good month.

Industry projections are that new global storage capacity will increase each year, reaching 70 gigawatts by 2030.

Almost all of this new storage capacity is in the form of batteries and most of that is lithium-ion batteries.  The largest battery storage facility in the world – the Manatee Energy Storage Center in Florida – is scheduled to be completed before the end of this year.  But there are other battery technologies that offer promise and there are other storage technologies apart from batteries.

Pumped hydroelectric storage is long established technology that still represents the largest amount of storage capacity in the world with more than 181 GW of capacity.  There is not much room for expansion of pumped hydro, which is limited to specific locations.   But it will be years before battery storage catches up to this total.

The United States and China have a large majority of energy storage capacity and projections are that the two countries will still have nearly three-quarters of the world’s total capacity in 2030.

With the ongoing rapid expansion of wind and solar power, the need for energy storage continues to grow and is the driving force for the energy storage boom.   It is not clear how it will all shake out, but energy storage is going to be a big deal from now on.

**********

Web Links

Inside Clean Energy: Taking Stock of the Energy Storage Boom Happening Right Now

Photo, posted March 15, 2013, courtesy of Portland General Electric via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Greenhouse Gas Removal And Net Zero | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions can slow the progress of global warming but only reaching and sustaining net zero global emissions can halt the progress of climate change.

The move to renewable power and the use of electric transport are substantial and essential ways to reduce emissions.  But even if these transitions take place on a rapid timescale, they will not eliminate all emissions.  Many industrial activities and, especially, agriculture will continue to contribute substantial greenhouse gas emissions.   There are efforts to reduce the contributions of these things, but there are no zero-emission substitutes for most of them.

As a result, actually removing CO2 from the atmosphere once it is there is essential to achieve net zero emissions.  If greenhouse gas removal can be scaled up sufficiently, it opens the option of going “net negative”, which would be the ideal way to mitigate and, better still, reverse the effects of climate change.

There are multiple approaches to carbon dioxide removal.  Some are natural, involving ways of capturing and storing carbon in trees, biochar, and peatlands.  Others are technological.  An example is the system that has just gone into operation in Iceland that uses fans, chemicals, and heat to capture CO2 and then mineralize it in volcanic rock.   Another is a system being tested in the UK that captures CO2 from growing biomass and pipes it to storage under the North Sea.

Much of the attention on carbon capture technology is aimed at trapping the emissions from fossil fuel power plants, but the need to remove carbon dioxide that has entered the atmosphere in other ways is ultimately far greater.

**********

Web Links

CO2 removal is essential to achieving net zero

Photo, posted August 17, 2013, courtesy of Joshua Mayer via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Wildfires And Algal Blooms

By Leave a Comment

Australia is no stranger to wildfires. But the 2019-2020 season proved to be particularly severe: wildfires destroyed 3,100 homes, displaced 65,000 people, and burned more than 72,000 square miles – roughly the same size as Washington State. The season is colloquially referred to as the Black Summer.

According to a new study recently published in the journal Nature, clouds of smoke and ash from these wildfires triggered widespread algal blooms thousands of miles downwind to the east in the Southern Ocean.

The study, which was led by researchers from Duke University, shows that aerosol particles in the smoke and ash fertilized the water as they fell into it.  This provided the nutrients that fueled unprecedented blooms in that region, conclusively linking for the first time a large-scale response in marine life to fertilization by pyrogenic iron aerosols from a wildfire.

This finding raises questions about the role wildfires may play in the growth of phytoplankton, the microscopic marine algae that – through photosynthesis – absorbs large amounts of climate-warming carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere. 

According to the research team, the Australian algal blooms were so extensive that the subsequent increase in photosynthesis may have temporarily offset a substantial portion of the wildfires’ CO2 emissions.  It remains to be seen how much of the absorbed CO2 remains safely stored in the ocean and how much it has been released back into the atmosphere. 

The researchers plan to investigate the fate of the phytoplankton further.  They also plan more research to better predict where and when aerosol deposition will boost phytoplankton growth in the future.  

**********

Web Links

Australian wildfires triggered massive algal blooms in Southern Ocean

Photo, posted January 12, 2020, courtesy of BLM-Idaho via Flickr.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Carbon Capture And The Infrastructure Bill | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

The trillion-dollar infrastructure bill contains a variety of provisions related to energy and the environment.  Among them is authorization for more than $12 billion for carbon capture technologies, including direct air capture and demonstration projects on coal, natural gas, and industrial plants and supporting carbon dioxide infrastructure.

Inclusion of this provision has largely been driven by energy companies, electrical utilities, and other industrial sectors.  The strongest proponents have been fossil fuel companies.  The reasons are fairly clear.

Support for carbon capture and storage (or CCS) technologies would yield billions of dollars for corporate polluters while allowing them to continue to burn fossil fuels.  To date, CCS technology has not progressed very far.  It is very expensive and has done little to reduce emissions. 

The strongest argument against directing significant resources into CCS for the power sector is that the plummeting costs of wind and solar energy have made renewable energy sources competitive with or cheaper than burning fossil fuels to generate electricity.  Adding expensive carbon capture equipment to a power plant only makes the economics of using fossil fuels worse.

The infrastructure bill does promote direct air capture technology, which is literally pulling carbon dioxide out of the air independent of any industrial activities generating it.  Given the world’s progress on reducing emissions, direct air capture technology may be an essential part of the global strategy to combat climate change.  If infrastructure funds largely go in that direction rather than for propping up fossil fuel companies, they may prove to be of great value.

**********

Web Links

Fossil Fuel Companies Are Quietly Scoring Big Money for Their Preferred Climate Solution: Carbon Capture and Storage

Photo, posted March 15, 2021, courtesy of Michael Swan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Better Batteries For The Grid | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

As more and more solar and wind power is added to the electric grid, the need for ways to store the energy produced increases.  Using batteries for this purpose is increasingly popular, mostly driven by the improving economics of the lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles as well as consumer electronics.

There are other battery technologies besides lithium ion that are not suitable for use in automobiles and cell phones but have potential advantages for the grid.  One such technology is molten sodium batteries.  These batteries have high energy density, a high efficiency of charge and discharge, and a long cycle life.  They are fabricated with inexpensive materials and they are especially suitable for large-scale grid energy storage because their economics improves with increasing size.

A drawback of molten sodium batteries is that they operate at 520-660 degrees Fahrenheit, which adds cost and complexity.  Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have designed a new class of molten sodium batteries that operates at a much cooler 230 degrees Fahrenheit instead.

The battery chemistry that works at 550 degrees doesn’t work at 230 degrees. The Sandia group developed something they call a catholyte, which is a liquid mixture of two salts, in this case sodium iodide and gallium chloride.  (Gallium chloride is rather costly, so the researchers hope to replace it in a future version of the battery).

By lowering the operating temperature, there are multiple cost savings including the use of less expensive materials, the requirement for less insulation, and the use of thinner wire.

This work is the first demonstration of long-term, stable cycling of a low-temperature molten-sodium battery.  The hope is to have a battery technology that requires fewer cells, fewer connections between cells, and an overall lower cost to store electricity for the grid.

**********

Web Links

Sandia designs better batteries for grid-scale energy storage

Photo, posted March 14, 2021, courtesy of Michael Mueller via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Cutting The Cost Of Energy Storage | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

The cost of both solar and wind power continues to drop making the two renewable energy sources the cheapest way to make electricity in more and more places.  Given the virtually inexhaustible supply of both wind and sun power, these clean electricity sources can in principle meet all our energy needs.  The hang up is that both of them are intermittent sources – the wind doesn’t blow all the time and the sun doesn’t shine all the time.

The solution to the intermittency problem is energy storage.  If energy produced by wind and sun can be stored so it can be made available for use at any time, then the goal of having 100% clean energy can be realized.

Energy storage technology has continued to improve over time and to get cheaper.  The Department of Energy recently announced a new initiative aimed at accelerating both of these trends.

The new program – called Long Duration Storage Shot –  has the goal of reducing the cost of grid-scale, long-duration energy storage by 90% within this decade.

Long-duration energy storage is defined as systems that can store energy for more than ten hours at a time.  Such systems can support a low-cost, reliable, carbon-free electric grid that can supply power even when energy generation is unavailable or lower than demand.  With long-duration storage, solar-generated power can be used at night.

The program will consider multiple types of storage technologies – electrochemical (that is: batteries), mechanical, thermal, chemical carriers, and various combinations thereof.  Any technology that has the potential to meet the necessary duration and cost targets for long-term grid storage are fair game for the program.

**********

Web Links

DOE announces goal to cut costs of long-duration energy storage by 90%

Photo, posted October 16, 2017, courtesy of UC Davis College of Engineering via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Floating Renewable Energy | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

A team of researchers at Texas A&M University believes that the next generation of offshore energy could come in the form of a synergistic combination of multiple renewable energy generators installed on a floating offshore platform.

Their concept for the ocean renewable energy station comprises wind, wave, ocean current, and solar energy elements that could generate electricity for anything from a coastal or island community to a research lab or military unit.  The station would be tethered to the sea bottom and could be used in locations where the water depth increases quickly, such as along the U.S. Pacific Coast or Hawaii.

Offshore wind is already commercially competitive, while wave-energy converters so far have been less cost-effective and only useful for specialized, smaller-scale applications.  The proposed ocean renewable energy station would make use of multiple different methods of electricity generation and incorporate innovative smart materials in the wave energy converters that respond to changes in wave height and frequency and allow for more consistent power production.

Denmark is already building a huge multi-source, multi-purpose ocean energy island.  This world’s first energy island will be 30 acres in area and serve as a hub for 200 giant offshore wind turbines generating 3 GW of electric power.  It is the largest construction project in Danish history, and will cost an estimate $34 billion.  As well as supplying other European countries with electricity, the goal is to use the new offshore island to produce green hydrogen from seawater, which can also be exported.  Large battery banks on the island will store surplus electricity for use in times of high demand.

**********

Web Links

Research Underway On Floating Renewable Energy Station

Photo, posted September 27, 2014, courtesy of Eric Gross via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Blue Carbon Credits | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Carbon credits have been around since the late 1990s.  The idea is to offset carbon emissions from some carbon emitting activity – anything from a wedding in California to a factory operating in Minnesota – by buying carbon credits earned from a carbon-absorbing activity, such as planting trees in the Amazon.

Blue carbon credits are credits earned by increasing the carbon stored in coastal and marine ecosystems. Coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, tidal marshes, and seagrass meadows in fact sequester and store more carbon per unit area than terrestrial forests and are increasingly being recognized for their important role in mitigating climate change. 

Blue carbon credit awards have to date been relatively few and far between and have mostly been granted for mangrove restoration efforts.  But mangrove projects are now ramping up dramatically in scope.  Scientists are working hard to analyze the amount of carbon in other ecosystem types – seagrasses, salt marshes, seaweeds, and seafloor sediments – so that these systems can also enter the carbon credit market.

Over the past 20 years, conservation scientists have spread over 70 million seeds in the bays of Virginia to restore over 9,000 acres of seagrass meadows that were devastated by disease in the 1930s.  The restored meadows are absorbing nearly half a ton of CO2 per acre. 

The rules to allow for blue carbon credits are recent and evolving, which is a big deal. The market may currently be small, but it is growing exponentially.  But as important as carbon credits are, it is still paramount to decarbonize before turning to offsets for existing emissions.

**********

Web Links

Why the Market for ‘Blue Carbon’ Credits May Be Poised to Take Off

Photo, posted July 2, 2009, courtesy of Nicolas Raymond via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Scaling Up Green Hydrogen | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

The global hydrogen market generates about $150 billion dollars a year.  The bulk of the market consists of hydrogen used to produce ammonia, refine oil, and produce methanol.  Advocates for hydrogen foresee a $600 billion a year market based on power and industry uses, mobility and transport uses, chemical feedstocks, and construction.  But the problem with expanding the use of hydrogen is that the vast majority of hydrogen in use today is produced from fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal and producing it creates carbon dioxide emissions.

The great hope of the industry is “green hydrogen”- hydrogen produced either without using fossil fuels at all or by capturing and storing the emissions generated. The most likely approach is electrolysis – using electricity to produce hydrogen from water.

Billions of dollars are being invested by both governments and by large oil companies in a race to scale up electrolysis and make it economically attractive.  According to the Hydrogen Council industry lobby group, at least $300 billion is expected to be invested globally over the next decade aimed at developing the green hydrogen that could one day meet almost a fifth of global energy demand.

Many argue that producing green hydrogen with electrolysis is an extremely inefficient way to utilize renewable energy.  Critics of hydrogen-powered vehicles particularly make this argument.   But industrial applications of hydrogen that currently use large amounts of fossil fuels – such as steel manufacturing – may be places where green hydrogen would make a real dent in global emissions.

The race to clean up hydrogen is definitely on.

**********

Web Links

The Race to Scale Up Green Hydrogen to Help Solve Some of the World’s Dirtiest Energy Problems

Photo, posted December 16, 2020, courtesy of Sharon Hahn Darlin via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Grid-Scale Battery Storage is on the Rise | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Driven by steeply falling prices and improving technology, grid-scale battery storage systems are seeing record growth in the U.S. and around the world. Battery storage is a way to overcome one of the biggest obstacles to renewable energy:  the cycling between oversupply when the sun shines or the wind blows, and shortage when the sun sets or the wind drops.  Storing excess energy in battery banks can smooth imbalances between supply and demand.

In California, a 300-megawatt lithium-ion battery plant is being readied for operation with another 100 megawatts to come online in 2021.  The system will be able to power roughly 300,000 California homes for four-hour periods when energy demand outstrips supply.  It will be the world’s largest battery system for a while until even larger systems in Florida and in Saudi Arabia come online.

Nationwide, a record 1.2 gigawatts of storage were installed last year and that number is projected to jump dramatically over the next five years to nearly 7.5 gigawatts in 2025.

The price tag for utility-scale battery storage in the U.S. has plummeted, dropping nearly 70% just between 2015 and 2018.  Prices are expected to drop by a further 45% over the next decade.  Battery performance has continued to improve dramatically with increased power capacity and the ability to store and discharge energy over ever-longer periods of time. 

Favorable energy policies including renewable energy mandates coupled with continued price drops will drive the widespread expansion of battery energy storage.

**********

Web Links

In Boost for Renewables, Grid-Scale Battery Storage Is on the Rise

Photo, posted November 17, 2016, courtesy of Steve Ryan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Hudson River Tidal Marshes And Sea Level Rise | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

A new study at the University of Massachusetts Amherst looked at the resilience of Hudson River Estuary marshes to rising sea levels.  They observed that these marshes are growing upward at a rate two or three times faster than sea level rise, suggesting that they should be resilient to accelerated sea level rise in the future.

The study documented the fact that more than half of Hudson River tidal marshes actually formed since 1850.  In that year, the river channel was straightened, and a riverside railroad, berms, jetties and human-made islands of dredged soil were built.  All of these human-made features trapped sediment and created backwaters that often turned into marshes.

The research centered on seven sites spanning more than 100 miles of the Hudson Estuary from Wall Street up to Albany.  Although these marshes were an unintended result of early industrial development, they serve to protect the shoreline and provide rich ecosystems in terms of direct ecological and human benefits.  Marshes are a first line of defense against coastal flooding, provide an essential habitat for juvenile commercial fish species, store huge amounts of carbon that mitigates climate change, provide habitat for migratory birds, and filter nutrients coming off the land.

The study determined that such marches form relatively quickly.  When sediment is readily available, freshwater tidal wetlands can develop rapidly in sheltered settings.   There is concern that marshes globally will be drowned by rising sea levels, but this Hudson River case study shows how marshes may be able to resist the rising seas.  The research will help guide future land acquisition and land conservation strategies for areas adjacent to the river.

**********

Web Links

New Study Finds More than Half of Hudson River Tidal Marshes were Created Accidentally by Humans; Resilient Against Sea Level Rise

Photo, posted December 4, 2008, courtesy of Daina Dajevskis via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Community Solar With Storage In New York | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Community solar allows members of a community to share the benefits of solar power even if they cannot or prefer not to install solar panels on their own property.  There are several models for how community solar works, but all of them allow members to benefit from solar power being generated by an offsite solar array by effectively allocating a portion of its output to them.  In any event, community solar can save money on electric bills and allow people to make use of renewable energy for their needs.

A next step in the evolution of a decentralized energy system is incorporating energy storage into community solar projects.  The first one of these in New York State has now been completed in Yorktown Heights in Westchester County.  The project consists of 557kW of rooftop solar in the form of nearly 1,500 solar panels paired with 490kW of four-hour Tesla Powerpack battery energy storage.  The system is expected to provide 150 participants with approximately 10% savings on their monthly electric bills over 25 years, as well as providing power to 12 Tesla electric vehicle charging stations.

The project was funded by NYSERDA, under its Retail Energy Storage Incentive program, which currently includes 50 community solar-storage paired projects across New York State that are expected to be installed in the next two to three years.

New York has been actively promoting community projects in support of goals announced by Governor Andrew Cuomo to install 6,000MW of solar in the state by 2025 and 3,000MW of energy storage by 2030.

**********

Web Links

First community solar-storage project completed in New York

Photo, posted June 21, 2017, courtesy of Franck Michel via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Hydropower And Floating Solar | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

According to a new analysis by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, hybrid systems of floating solar panels and hydroelectric plants have the potential to produce a significant portion of the world’s electricity.

According to their estimates, adding floating solar panels to bodies of water that host hydropower stations could produce up to 7.6 terawatts of power a year from the solar systems, resulting in about 10,600 terawatt-hours of energy.  The total global electricity consumption in 2018 was 22,300 terawatt-hours.  So, the potential in terms of the global appetite for electricity is very large.

This estimate is certainly optimistic.  It does not take into account economic feasibility or specific market demand.  What it does represent is an estimate of the technical and performance potential of floating photovoltaics at hydroelectric facilities.

Floating solar is just starting to be used in the U.S., but it has already caught on overseas where space for ground-mounted systems is at a greater premium. 

According to the NREL study, nearly 400,000 freshwater hydropower reservoirs across the globe could host floating PV sites that could be used in conjunction with the existing hydroelectric plants.  One important advantage of this approach is that the hybrid system would reduce transmission costs by linking to a common substation.  In addition, the two technologies could balance each other, with solar power taking up the slack in dry seasons and hydropower working well in rainy seasons.  In some places, pumped storage hydropower could be used to store excess solar generation.

There is great potential in hybrid floating solar/hydroelectric power.

**********

Web Links

Untapped potential exists for blending hydropower, floating solar panels

Photo, posted April 12, 2009, courtesy of Alexis Nyal via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Fitness Trackers For Lobsters | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

The lobster industry is somewhat unique, at least in this country, in that it involves an animal food that is kept alive until it has reached the destination where it will be consumed or used.  As a result, the industry has to deal with a problem they call “shrink”, which is the mortality lobsters experience as they change hands from capture to kitchen.

Maine’s lobster industry has reached out to the University of Maine Lobster Institute along with collaborators at other institutions to help quantify and mitigate stress points in the lobster supply chain that reduce survival and profitability.

A 2-year project was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to create miniature sensory devices – crustacean heart and activity trackers (called C-HATs).  These are essentially Fitbits for lobsters.  The noninvasive devices strapped on a lobster monitor its heart rate and movement as it passes from trap to on-board live tank to live storage crate to truck to wholesaler to retailer or processor.

A separate sensor-equipped device called the MockLobster travels along with the lobsters to log environmental conditions experienced, including temperature, light and dissolved oxygen levels.

The hope is to be able to get a good handle on the conditions lobsters experience from trap to market and learn where problems are likely to arise.  The researchers are also working to develop economical, standardized protocols to monitor water quality and the heath of lobsters during their movement through the supply chain.

The goal is to produce big improvements in the bottom lines of everyone along the supply chain along with big improvements in the health of the lobsters destined for market.

**********

Web Links

Fitness trackers, environmental sensors prototyped to improve survival in the lobster supply chain 

Photo, posted August 29, 2015, courtesy of Adam Grimes via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Dangers Of Negative Emissions Technologies | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Reducing carbon emissions is not easy and there are plenty of people who don’t even want to try for various reasons, generally related to their perceived economic interests and convenience.  As a result, there is a great deal of interest in so-called negative emissions technologies or NETs.   These are methods for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  Even the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assumes that NETs will play a role in mitigating the effects of climate change and meeting international goals.

The most widely studied approaches to negative emissions technology are bioenergy with carbon capture and storage – which entails growing crops for fuel, and then capturing and burying the CO2 produced from burning the fuel; planting more forests; and direct air capture, which involves actually pulling CO2 out of the air and storing it – probably underground. 

A new study published in Nature Climate Change points out that none of these technologies has even been tried at the demonstration scale, much less at the massive levels required to make a dent in current CO2 emissions. 

Their analysis of the biofuel and reforestation strategies show that each would take up vast land and water resources already needed for agriculture and nature.  Air capture uses less water than the other two approaches, but still uses quite a bit and even more energy, which if supplied by fossil fuels, would offset the benefits of carbon capture.

Negative emissions technologies may well play an important role in combating climate change, but it is essential that we understand what the consequences will be from implementing them.  We need to know the pitfalls that could arise.  It would be a major mistake to simply count on NETs to be some kind of silver bullet.

**********

Web Links

Remove CO2 from the air? Don’t bet on it before examining costs, researchers say

Photo, posted January 11, 2008, courtesy of Al Pavangkanan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Ocean Currents And Climate Change | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Oceans cover more than 70% of the earth and absorb 94% of incoming solar radiation.  As a result, oceans play a major role in the climate system.  With their massive size and capacity to store heat, oceans help keep temperature fluctuations in check.  But oceans also play a more active role.  Ocean currents are responsible for moving vast amounts of heat around the planet.  

According to a paper recently published in the journal Nature Communications, the world’s strongest ocean currents will experience more intense marine heatwaves than the global average in the coming decades.  These strong ocean currents play key roles in fisheries and ocean ecosystems.  

Sections of the Gulf Stream near the United States, the Kuroshio Current near Japan, the East Australian Current near Australia, and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current will all see more intense marine heatwaves over the next 30 years. 

Scientists from the University of Tasmania and CSIRO in Australia relied on high-resolution ocean modeling to carry out their research.  They confirmed the model’s accuracy by comparing outputs with observations from 1982-2018.  They then used the same model to project how marine heatwaves would alter with climate change out to 2050.

The model projects, for example, that intense marine heatwaves are more likely to form well off the coast of Tasmania, while more intense marine heatwaves along the Gulf Stream start to appear more frequently close to the shore from Virginia to New Brunswick, Canada. 

Marine heatwaves are on the rise globally, but knowing where they will occur and how much hotter they will be will help policymakers, ecologists, and fisheries experts in their regional decision-making. 

**********

Web Links

Where marine heatwaves will intensify fastest: New analysis

Photo, posted April 17, 2016, courtesy of Nicolas Henderson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Restoring Tropical Forests | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Tropical forests store more than half of the world’s above-ground carbon.  For this reason, deforestation is one of the greatest threats to global climate regulation.   Once forests are degraded through partial clearing and agricultural conversion, they are often perceived as no longer having much ecological value even though degraded forests still provide important ecosystem services despite no longer storing as much carbon.

As a result, once forests have been degraded, they tend to be seen as prime candidates for full conversion to agricultural plantations.   But this is not actually the case.

An international team of scientists, including researchers from Arizona State University’s Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science, has provided the first long-term comparison of above-ground carbon recovery rates between naturally regenerating and actively restored forests in Southeast Asia.

First of all, the research shows that allowing forests to regenerate naturally results in significant amounts of restored above-ground carbon storage.  It is definitely worthwhile to allow forests to recover rather than giving up on them and putting the land to other uses.

But more importantly, the researchers found that forest areas that undergo active restoration recover their carbon-storing ability 50% faster than naturally recovering forests.

Restoration methods include planting native tree species and thinning vegetation around saplings to improve their chances of survival.   

These findings suggest that restoring tropical forests is a viable and highly scalable solution to regaining lost carbon stocks on land.  What is needed is sufficient incentive to engage in active forest restoration.  The current price of carbon is not sufficient to pay for restoration, but as the climate crisis intensifies, this is likely to change.

**********

Web Links

Tempe to Hawaii: ASU professors teach Hawaiian youth about coral reef conservation

Photo, posted May 22, 2008, courtesy of Eric Chan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A New Problem For New York Apples | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

New York is the second largest apple-producing state in the country, trailing only Washington state.  New York averages nearly 30 million bushels of apples annually from approximately 600 commercial growers.  The apple industry supports 10,000 direct agricultural jobs as well as 7,500 indirect jobs involved with fruit handling, distribution, marketing and exporting.

Thus, there is considerable concern about the recent discovery by Cornell plant pathologists of a new fungal pathogen that causes bitter rot disease in apples.  They also found a second related fungus that is known to cause rot disease in other fruits but has now been found for the first time in apples.  The study was published in early July in the journal Scientific Reports.

Both of these pathogens belong to the genus Colletotichrum, which contains 189 species of fungi that cause devastating rot diseases in multiple fruit crops, including bananas, strawberries, citrus, avocados, papayas, mangoes and apples.

Unless protective measures are taken in a timely manner, apple losses from bitter rot in New York state can average up to 25% per year.  Some organic farms have lost essentially all of their crop at times.  Bitter rot also can destroy up to 5% of marketable fruit in post-harvest storage.

The Cornell study of samples from eight New York counties found both the Colletotrichum chrysophilum fungus, that had not been found in apples before, and a newly-discovered fungus that they named Colletotrichum noveboracense, after the Latin name for New York State.

The researchers plan to work with other plant pathologists and apple breeders to identify possible genes that confer natural resistance to Colletotrichum fungi that can be bred into apple cultivars.

**********

Web Links

Scientists identify new pathogen in NY apples

Photo, posted October 12, 2018, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Mangrove Trees And Climate Change | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Mangrove trees are small trees that grow in coastal saline or brackish water at tropical and subtropical latitudes.  Many mangrove trees can be identified by their dense tangle of prop roots.  These roots make the trees appear as if they are standing on stilts above the water.  The tangle of roots allows mangrove trees to handle the daily rise and fall of tides and to slow the movement of tidal waters.  

Mangrove forests provide many ecosystem services, including stabilizing the coastline by reducing erosion from storm surges, waves, and tides.  The intricate root system of mangrove trees are attractive to fish and other species seeking food and shelter from predators.  Mangrove forests also store large amounts of carbon.     

But according to a new study recently published in the journal Science, mangrove trees won’t survive sea level rise by 2050 if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t reduced.  

Using sediment data from 78 locations over the last 10,000 years, an international team of scientists led by Macquarie University in Australia estimated the chances of mangrove trees survival based on the projected rates of future sea-level rise.

When sea level rise rates exceeded 6 millimeters per year, which is similar to estimates under high-emissions scenarios for 2050, researchers found that mangrove trees were unlikely to keep pace with the rising water levels.  But when the annual increase was 5 millimeters or less – which is the projected low-emissions scenario this century – mangrove trees are much more likely to survive. 

These findings underscore the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate rapid sea level rise.  The future of mangrove trees may depend on it.  

**********

Web Links

Mangrove trees won’t survive sea-level rise by 2050 if emissions aren’t cut

Photo, posted December 17, 2012, courtesy of Edward Stojakovic via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

An Incentive For Carbon Capture | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Convincing industries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions has not been easy.  Many approaches have been debated, including carbon taxes, carbon tax-and-trade schemes, and passing a giant Green New Deal.  Most economists agree that putting a price on carbon is likely to be the most effective approach.

But there is already in place an adjustment to the US tax code that is more of a carrot than a stick.  It is a tax credit that is designed to make capturing CO2 a financial winner for a number of high-emitting industries.  The credit, called 45Q, was enacted in February 2018.

The 45Q credit earns industrial manufacturers $50 per metric ton of CO2 stored permanently or $35 per ton if the CO2 is put to use.  An earlier credit for capturing carbon dioxide was limited to only $20 per metric ton and was capped at 75 million tons.  Some large fossil fuel companies did make use of the earlier credit.

The new version does not have a cap, but to qualify, companies need to start constructing carbon-capture facilities within 7 years and have 12 years to claim their money.

Companies with emission-intensive operations are busy figuring out how to take advantage of the credit.  These include cement makers, steel and power plants, corn ethanol producers, and ammonia plants.

Because the credit mandates that companies start constructing their carbon-capture facilities within seven years, most companies will tend to rely on mature technologies.  But the tax credit should also drive demand for next-generation carbon-capture technologies, of which there are many under development.  Saving lots of money on taxes is likely to lure US companies to capture carbon dioxide.

**********

Web Links

45Q, the tax credit that’s luring US companies to capture CO2

Photo, posted October 2, 2014, courtesy of Sask Power via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

WAMC Northeast Public Radio

WAMC/Northeast Public Radio is a regional public radio network serving parts of seven northeastern states (more...)