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Better Plastic Recycling | Earth Wise

September 14, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Many of us are careful to put our plastic trash into the appropriate recycling bins hoping that we are helping to stem the global tide of plastic waste. But many plastics are not recyclable at all and recycling those that are is not even always a good thing. Breaking down plastics can generate polluting microplastics that are themselves a major environmental problem. And perhaps the biggest problem for recycling efforts is that they are not cost effective and generally incur huge losses.

Chemical engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently published a study in the journal Nature outlining a new technique for turning low-value waste plastic into high-value industrial chemicals.

The technique makes use of two existing chemical processing techniques. The first is pyrolysis, which is high-temperature heating in an oxygen-free environment. Heating waste plastic in this way produces pyrolysis oil, a liquid mix of various compounds that includes large amounts of olefins. Olefins are simple hydrocarbons that are a central building block of many chemicals and polymers. Olefins are most often produced by energy-intensive processes like steam cracking of petroleum.

The UW-Madison process takes the olefins and subjects them to a process called homogenous hydroformylation catalysis, which converts them into aldehydes, which can then be further reduced into important industrial chemicals.

The payoff is that the process can take waste plastics, which are only worth about $100 a ton, and turn them into high-value chemicals worth $1,200-$6,000 a ton. If the process can be optimized and otherwise made ready for industrial-scale use, it would be a real game-changer in the battle against plastic waste.

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New recycling process could find markets for ‘junk’ plastic waste

Photo, posted September 16, 2015, courtesy of Oregon State University via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Upcycling Plastic Waste | Earth Wise

August 23, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

People have generated 8 billion tons of plastic waste over time and less than 10% of it has been recycled. Millions of tons of it escapes into the oceans. Plastic piles up virtually everywhere on earth.

There are many approaches to dealing with the plastic waste problem and no one of them is a magic bullet. Engineers at Stanford University have investigated the prospects for upcycling plastic waste for use in infrastructure like buildings and roads.

They used a mix of computer modeling, scientific research, experimental and field data to analyze the potential for using plastic waste in infrastructure.

Among their findings is that recycled glass fiber reinforced polymer composite – which is a tensile plastic commonly used in car, boat, and plane parts – is a promising material for reuse in buildings.

Roads in which waste plastic is melted down and mixed with conventional paving materials are becoming more common around the world. India has installed over 60,000 miles of these roads. Studies show that roads containing waste plastic have the potential to perform better than conventional roads. They can last longer, are more durable, can tolerate wide temperature swings, and are more resistant to water damage, cracking, and potholes. Such roads rely less upon virgin fossil resources, which is obviously advantageous.

Upcycling plastic waste in infrastructure is attracting increasing interest because it creates value from something that is strictly a liability and may end up having regulatory advantages as societies move toward more environmentally friendly and sustainable policies.

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Can we use plastic waste to build roads, buildings, and more?

Photo, posted October 7, 2022, courtesy of the Grand Canyon National Park via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The Value Of Seagrass | Earth Wise

August 7, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Seagrasses are found in shallow salty and brackish waters in many places around the world, from the tropics to the Arctic Circle. They get their name from their long green, grass-like leaves. They are not seaweeds at all but are more closely related to flowering plants on land.

We hear a lot about threatened ocean ecosystems and most of the attention is on coral reefs and coastal mangrove forests. Seagrass meadows get much less press, but they in fact provide wide-ranging services to society and store a great deal of carbon.

A new study by the University of Michigan demonstrates that seagrass ecosystems should be high up on the global conservation agenda. The study puts a dollar value on the many services – which include storm protection, fish habitat, and carbon storage – provided by seagrasses in the Caribbean. The numbers are enormous.

The researchers estimate that the Caribbean holds up to half of the world’s seagrass meadows by surface area, and it contains about a third of the global carbon storage by seagrasses. They calculated that the Caribbean seagrasses provide about $255 billion in services to society each year, which includes $88 billion in carbon storage.

In the Bahamas alone, ecosystems services provided by seagrasses are valued at more than 15 times the country’s 2020 gross domestic product.

Blue carbon is the name used to describe carbon stored in coastal and open-ocean ecosystems. The idea of selling blue carbon offset credits, which monetize the carbon stored in this way, is gaining traction. For many Caribbean nations, this is likely to provide impetus for protecting seagrass ecosystems from human impacts, including nutrient pollution and overfishing.

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Caribbean seagrasses provide services worth $255B annually, including vast carbon storage, study shows

Photo, posted June 27, 2023, courtesy of Daniel Eidsmoe via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Help For Kelp | Earth Wise

April 10, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The warming of the oceans has been causing the decimation of kelp forests. The thick canopies covering coastal ocean regions have been wilting in warmer and nutrient-poor water. Making matters much worse has been the explosion in population of sea urchins that thrive in warmer water. The urchins gobble up the kelp, often resulting in so-called urchin barrens, largely devoid of life.

Kelp are considered a foundation species that occupy nearly half of the world’s marine ecoregions. They thrive in cold water, where they form large underwater forests that provide essential habitat, food, and refuge for many species. Kelp are often harvested for use in products ranging from toothpaste and shampoo to puddings and cakes. Including the other services kelp provide, they are associated with billions of dollars in value annually.

On the North American Pacific Coast, a species of sea star consumes sea urchins. However, these creatures are critically endangered. A marine wildlife epidemic known as sea star wasting syndrome, which began 10 years ago, has killed off more than 90% of the sunflower sea star population. A new study by researchers at Oregon State University looked at the ability of sea stars to control sea urchin populations.

Lab experiments showed that sea stars consume urchins at a rate sufficient to maintain and possibly even restore the health of kelp forests. The study shows that there is a clear link between the population crash of sea stars, the explosion in sea urchin populations, and the decline in kelp.

The study’s authors are calling for active management and a coordinated sea star recovery program to try to deal with the effects of a disease whose cause has not been determined.

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Sea stars able to consume kelp-eating urchins fast enough to protect kelp forests, research shows

Photo, posted December 14, 2015, courtesy of Ed Dunens via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Bitcoin Mining And The Environment | Earth Wise

November 7, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Bitcoin mining, the process by which the prominent cryptocurrency is created, is well-known to be energy intensive, but the environmental impact of it has not been extensively studied. People have described Bitcoin as ‘digital gold.’ A new analysis by researchers at the University of New Mexico has found that Bitcoin mining shouldn’t be compared to gold mining. It is more appropriately compared to the creation of much more energy-intensive products such as beef, natural gas, and crude oil.

Furthermore, the study found that rather than becoming more sustainable over time, Bitcoin mining is becoming dirtier and more damaging to the climate as long as it relies upon fossil-fuel generated electricity. Estimates are that in 2020, Bitcoin mining used 75.4 terawatt hours of electricity, which is more electricity than the entire country of Austria, as well as 150 other nations around the world.

The study looked at the economic cost of the air pollution and carbon emissions associated with Bitcoin mining and found that in many instances, the negative economic impact of creating a single Bitcoin is more than what the resultant coin is worth.

Based on the market value of Bitcoins, the cost of climate damage for that value is a little less that that of electricity produced by natural gas and gasoline produced from crude oil, but actually more than that of beef production.

There are multiple cryptocurrencies. Ether is one that voluntarily switched away from so-called proof-of-work mining. Whether Bitcoin or others will act similarly absent potential regulation remains to be seen. Until such time, Bitcoin mining remains an increasingly dirty and damaging business.

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Technology: UNM researchers find Bitcoin mining is environmentally unsustainable

Photo, posted May 11, 2017, courtesy of Komers Real via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Pacific Bluefin Tuna On The Rebound | Earth Wise

September 21, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Pacific Bluefin Tuna is a commercially valuable species that is especially prized in Japan. The fish is particularly valued for sashimi and sushi and large specimens have been known to fetch enormous prices at seafood auctions.

Aggressive fishing reduced the bluefin biomass through the late 1990s and 2000s to only a few percent of its potential unfished levels. Beginning in 2011, The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission began management measures that reduced the catch of smaller bluefin as well as limited the catch of larger bluefin. The goal was to allow more fish to grow to maturity. The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission adopted similar resolutions a year later. Despite these efforts, increasing concern about declining bluefin levels led to a petition to list the species as endangered. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries organization determined that while the population was near historical lows, the remaining 1.6 million fish was a sufficient number to avoid the risk of extinction and that the measures in place were sufficient.

A new assessment of the bluefin population has shown that the species is now increasing and includes many younger fish that will help accelerate its rebound. The assessment by NOAA showed that the bluefin stock was greater than the first rebuilding target set for 2019.

According to the NOAA Fisheries biologists that performed the assessment, the species has responded exactly as predicted given the actions that were taken. The bluefin tuna is an amazingly resilient fish and it is continuing to demonstrate that fact.

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International Actions Pay Off For Pacific Bluefin Tuna as Species Rebounds at Accelerating Rate

Photo, posted June 1, 2022, courtesy of Philippe Yuan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Bitcoin And Energy Use | Earth Wise

October 6, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

In recent years we’ve heard more and more about cryptocurrencies. They are digital currencies managed by a decentralized network of users. No country, person, or other entity controls the value of a cryptocurrency. Some people think that they will ultimately replace traditional currencies.

The eventual status of cryptocurrencies can be debated endlessly but there is one thing that is certain: in the process of simply existing as they do today, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin consume astonishing amounts of electricity.

Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, uses about half a percent of all the electricity consumed in the world. The process of creating Bitcoin consumes over 90 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, which is more than the entire country of Finland with its 5.5 million people. Where does all the energy go?

The answer is something called Bitcoin mining. It is the process by which new Bitcoins are created. It is something like playing a lottery. Miners effectively have to guess an extremely long number called the “target hash” in order to be awarded Bitcoins. There is no magic formula to finding the answer. It isn’t really advanced math; it is brute force searching among trillions of possibilities. Specialized computer equipment is designed to make as many guesses as possible as quickly as possible. The faster the electronic circuits and the more of them there are, the better the chances are of beating out other miners to win the mining lottery. As a result, the amount of power-hungry computing equipment dedicated across the globe to mining Bitcoins has mushroomed.

Whether it pays to be a Bitcoin miner is increasingly difficult, but those that are doing it are consuming extraordinary amounts of energy in the effort to make a few more digital bucks.

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Bitcoin Uses More Electricity Than Many Countries. How Is That Possible?

Photo, posted February 14, 2018, courtesy of Stock Catalog via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Protecting Nature Is Valuable | Earth Wise

April 15, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

A study by the University of Vermont, the University of Cambridge, and several other institutions compared the value of protecting nature at particular locations with that of exploiting it. The study concluded that the economic benefits of conserving or restoring natural sites outweigh the profit potential of converting them for intensive human use.

The study analyzed dozens of sites across the globe – from Kenya to Fiji and China to the UK across six continents. It was published in the journal Nature Sustainability.

The analysis utilized a methodology devised ten years ago called TESSA (the Toolkit for Ecosystem Service Site-based Assessment) which enables users to measure, and in many cases, assign monetary values to services provided by sites – clean water, nature-based recreation, crop pollination, and so on. This is then compared with the economic benefits that can be derived by converting the site for farming, logging, or other human uses.

A major economic benefit of natural sites comes from their ability to sequester carbon and thereby help regulate the quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. If one assigns a value to global society of $31 a ton of carbon removed, over 70% of the sites surveyed had a greater value to society when kept natural rather than being converted. Many scientists actually consider this carbon price to be conservative. Nevertheless, if carbon is assigned the paltry cost of $5 a ton, 60% of the sites are still more valuable in their natural state.

Beyond these economic calculations, there is the pressing issue that current rates of habitat conversion are driving a species extinction crisis unprecedented in human history. But even if one is only interested in dollars and cents, conserving and restoring nature is now very often the best bet for human prosperity.

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Economic Benefits of Protecting Nature Exceed Value of Exploiting it, Global Study Finds

Photo, posted June 7, 2017, courtesy of Mouli Choudari 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.

The Changing Climate Is Changing Insurance

October 21, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

As the climate changes, wildfires get bigger and more destructive and hurricanes and powerful storms are more frequent and damaging. In places where these things are occurring, it is getting harder and more expensive for many homeowners to get insurance. The affordability of home insurance in the face of climate change has become a huge issue in many states.

In California, the number of homeowners who got non-renewal notices from their insurance companies rose by 6% between 2017 and 2018. In areas directly affected by wildfires between 2015 and 2017, that number jumped by 10%. Similar things have happened in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, where hurricanes and flooding have caused extensive damage. Because of this, many homeowners have been forced to turn to bare-bone plans such as the California Fair Access to Insurance Plan, which can cost two or three times as much as normal insurance policies.

According to a 2019 survey of insurance companies, more than half of insurance regulators said that climate change was likely to have a high impact or an extremely high impact on the availability of insurance coverage and the assumptions used for underwriting. In the past, governments have been able to mandate coverage in certain areas or even provide coverage themselves in some cases. As the occurrence of climate-related damage becomes increasingly frequent, homeowners have to face up to a grim reality.

The challenges of dealing with wildfires, floods, powerful storms, and the like are significant enough for people who live in high-risk areas. Increasingly, home insurance in these places is becoming much more expensive, harder to find, and is worth less.

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As Climate Impacts Worsen, Homeowners Struggle to Find Affordable Insurance

Photo, posted September 1, 2020, courtesy of The National Guard via Flickr.

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Recycling Coal Plants | Earth Wise

April 27, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Over 300 coal-fired power plants in the US have stopping burning coal over the past decade. Only about 224 plants still produce power by burning coal. As a result, a new sort of recycling industry is taking shape: repurposing of coal plants.

Across the country, utilities are finding ways to redevelop these facilities. Some are industrial in nature and others a far cry from their original purpose.

In January, Beloit College in Wisconsin opened a student union and recreation center in what used to be an Alliant Energy coal-fired power plant. On the southern coast of Massachusetts, a shuttered 1,600 MW coal plant is being demolished to make way for a logistical port and support center for a planned wind farm 35 miles off shore.

In Independence, Missouri, the city is considering competing plans to recycle the Blue Valley Power plant. It may become a 50 MW battery storage facility, or possibly a biofuel plant.

Another popular reuse strategy is data centers. Data centers use tremendous amounts of power and therefore can make use of the former coal plants’ capacity to handle large amounts of electricity.

Retired coal-fired plants have built-in infrastructure and components that can be repurposed for new industry. The plants typically have access to rail, ports and waterways, as well as proximity to good highway transportation. The electrical grids to which they are connected can be reused for solar or wind farms at the site.

Given that coal plants are continuing to close, the potential to redevelop them in various ways continues to grow as well. There is a surge in interest in coal plant redevelopment because these facilities are assets of value.

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Coal-fired power plants finding new uses as data centers, clean energy hubs

Photo, posted January 10, 2017, courtesy of Rusty Clark via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Value Of Abandoned Agricultural Lands | Earth Wise

February 18, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

It is perhaps surprising to learn that more land is now being abandoned by farming than converted to it. In fact, abandonment of rural lands has become one of the most dramatic planet-wide changes of the modern era, affecting millions of square miles of land.

In part, it is due to rural flight driven by the economic, social, and educational appeal of cities. It is also a result of climate change and the globalization of the food supply chain. The global footprint of agriculture has been decreasing over the past twenty years but the global food supply isn’t shrinking. The lost land has generally been marginal and farming elsewhere has become more productive.

Many researchers see abandoned agricultural lands as a huge opportunity for ecological restoration and strengthening of biodiversity. Others see these lands as an opportunity for a massive program to plant trees to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. A recent study published in Science estimated that planting trees on abandoned agricultural lands could remove 25% of the carbon dioxide humans have added to the atmosphere.

There are strong criticisms to all of these ideas. In most cases, the studies don’t incorporate the social context of why these lands are in transition, the potential effects on local populations, whether the lands are publicly or privately owned, and whether lands now suitable for regeneration will remain so as climate change advances.

Current government initiatives on degraded lands typically lack even rudimentary planning. There are real opportunities presented by the vast amounts of abandoned agricultural lands, but there are many caveats and many issues to confront. As a society, we have barely begun to even think about what to do.

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Could Abandoned Agricultural Lands Help Save the Planet?

Photo, posted May 9, 2010. courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Keeping Lights On For Turtles

August 8, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Gillnets are one of the most common types of fishing gear and are used extensively in most places where people fish for food. They operate by suspending a wall of netting in the water column.

Unfortunately, they are not selective in the species they catch. Sea turtles are one of the most common bycatch species that become entangled in these nets. When turtles are caught in gillnets, they can drown and die. Marine mammals, seabirds, and sharks are also frequently caught in gillnets.

Recently, researchers have been experimenting with illuminating the nets with LED lights to see if increasing net visibility reduces sea turtle bycatch.

Studies in Mexico show green sea turtle bycatch is reduced between 40-60% with no changes in target catch. Studies in Peru show green sea turtle bycatch is reduced between 65-80% with no changes in target catch. Studies in Indonesia show green olive ridley, and hawksbill sea turtle bycatch is reduced by 60% with increases in target catch and catch value.

Recent research shows that net illumination also reduces bycatch of other protected species such as seabirds, sharks and rays, as well as dolphins and porpoises.

The use of illuminated gillnets could prove beneficial to both sea turtles and fisherman by reducing the bycatch that can damage fishing gear.

Studies are now underway off the coast of North Carolina, where state gillnet fisheries are carefully managed to reduce turtle bycatch. Initial studies show that net illumination does not change target catch rates and may even decrease the bycatch of unwanted fish species. When it comes to protecting sea turtles, it looks like a good idea to keep the lights on.

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