We need action on the low-carbon technology targets – Tor Ivar Eikaas

HorizonJon Cartwright
It is critical that we deliver on the targets for low-carbon technologies in the 2020s, 2030s and beyond which have been set as part of the EU’s Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan, according to Tor Ivar Eikaas, a special adviser at the Research Council of Norway and a long-standing representative of the SET-Plan steering group.
The SET-Plan began 10 years ago with the aim of accelerating the development and deployment of low-carbon technologies. Are we on our way?
‘You do see continuous improvements and rollout of new technology. You see it for photovoltaics and offshore wind, you see smart cities and energy storage. These are all good examples.
‘Hopefully what we are now seeing is a clear change from planning to action, and from technology development towards more innovation. We are also seeing a more holistic view of the whole energy system where the whole system (is) interacting in a much stronger way. Like computer systems – in the past they were small and isolated, then we got the internet and they all became connected. It’s a similar shift.
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The tide is turning for underwater turbines

HorizonJon Cartwright

A scale-up of tidal energy projects aims to expand capacity, improve reliability and prove their worth to investors as a renewable energy source.

It’s clean, doesn’t spoil the landscape and is totally predictable, yet tidal power is one of the least exploited forms of renewable energy.

The challenge of building out at sea, the toll the salt water can take on equipment and the huge strain the currents can put on components has meant that it is seen as an expensive endeavour.

‘The sea is one of the world’s most challenging environments,’ said Simon Forrest, chief executive of Nova Innovation, a tidal power company based in Edinburgh, UK. ‘However, technical innovation and learnings from the wind sector are being used to make the dream of harnessing energy from the tide a reality.’

Last year, Nova Innovation deployed the world’s first array of tidal turbines, which were connected to the electricity grid in Shetland, UK. […]

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Show us your metal

Physics WorldJon Cartwright

One of the rarest metals in the universe, metallic hydrogen could solve many energy problems – but has it finally been isolated in the lab? Jon Cartwright tries to sort out claim from counter-claim

Scientists aren’t immune to the allure of rare metals. Isaac Newton’s interest in alchemy is well documented: when the natural philosopher wasn’t laying the groundwork for much of modern physics he was often secretively, obsessively, attempting to turn lead into gold. These days, physicists are hoping to turn a humble element into something yet more precious.

Hydrogen is the lightest of all atoms, not to mention the most abundant, accounting for three-quarters of all the universe’s normal matter. As we commonly know it, hydrogen is a molecular gas – colourless, odourless, mostly harmless and, some might say, rather dull. But under extreme pressure, hydrogen will supposedly turn into one of the rarest metals in the universe, one that is naturally non-existent here on Earth and perhaps only present in the underworlds of gas giants, such as Jupiter. The metal is coveted not just for its rarity, but also because it could turn out to be a stable room-temperature superconductor, and therefore go a great way to solving the world’s energy problems. For over a century physicists have sought metallic hydrogen. Within the past year, however, physicists Isaac Silvera and Ranga Dias (pictured above) at Harvard University in Massachusetts, US, claim they have finally made it, by squeezing hydrogen inside a diamond anvil cell to pressures of nearly five million atmospheres. Is it for real? “If it is true, it is a great achievement, fulfilling a long search for the atomic phase of hydrogen,” says David Ceperley, a theorist at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign in the US. “However, there is deep scepticism in the community about their experiment.”

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Cleaner engines and spinning sails propel emissions reductions in big ships

HorizonJon Cartwright

A major overhaul of ship propulsion is underway to make global shipping cleaner and more energy-efficient.

By redesigning ship engines to accommodate different fuels, or by doing away with fuel altogether, engineers are hoping to slash the billion tonnes of carbon dioxide that is estimated to be released currently by the maritime transport industry.

‘Shipping accounts for about 2.5 % of global greenhouse gas emissions,’ said Professor Nikolaos Kyrtatos, a marine engineer at the National Technical University of Athens, Greece. ‘We’re looking at every aspect of marine engines to make them cleaner, more efficient and more reliable.’

Prof. Kyrtatos is the coordinator of HERCULES-2, an EU-backed project that has brought together Europe’s two major engine manufacturing groups, MAN Diesel & Turbo and Wärtsilä, which hold 90 % of the world market.

Such manufacturers would not have considered working together in the 1990s, but after a downturn in the marine engine industry in the early 2000s, along with the tightening of emission standards, the two companies decided to cooperate on research and development. […]

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New York City was some 10°C hotter than local countryside during 2016 heatwaves

Energy & EnvironmentJon Cartwright

A study revealing the intensity of the “urban heat island” effect has prompted its US-based authors to say that more should be done to improve our understanding of coastal urban climates.

In heatwaves in July 2016, temperatures in New York City sometimes soared 10°C higher than the local countryside, according to the study by Prathap Ramamurthy and others at the City College of New York. Their research also revealed that New York’s heat island has internal boundary layers, which current weather models are unable to predict, according to the authors.

The study “challenges our current models that are overwhelmingly used to predict environmental flows in complex coastal urban areas,” said Ramamurthy. “Secondly, it shows that megacities like New York are highly vulnerable to extreme heat.” […]

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From hype to hyperloop

Physics WorldJon Cartwright

Vacuum-based hyperloop technology could transport passengers between cities cheaply at more than half the speed of sound – or so its proponents claim. Jon Cartwright takes a closer look

In the late summer of 1864, anyone wanting to travel along the east side of Crystal Palace Park in London could buy a train ticket for sixpence – but this was no ordinary railway. Designed by the British engineer Thomas Webster Rammell, the Crystal Palace pneumatic railway consisted of a carriage that fitted snugly inside a tunnel, such that when a huge fan was turned on, the carriage was sucked from one end of the tunnel to the other. Average speeds of around 40 km/h meant that passengers could make the 550 metre trip in a little under a minute – twice as fast as the carriage’s horse-drawn competitors.

Rammell’s pneumatic railway was experimental, and it only ran for two months. A century and a half later, however, the idea of getting from A to B inside depressurized passages is back, thanks to another entrepreneurial visionary: Elon Musk, the South-African born, Canadian-American multibillionaire behind Tesla electric cars and SpaceX rockets. In 2013 Musk published a white paper outlining the concept of a hyperloop: an evacuated steel tube through which passenger “pods” travel cheaply and efficiently over continental distances. Thanks to the minimal air resistance, Musk claimed, the pods could be accelerated to speeds of up to 760 km/h.

The hyperloop sounds almost too good to be true, and many critics have said as much, branding Musk’s idea impractical, unsafe and – for various political and economic reasons – unrealizable. But in the four years since Musk’s white paper, at least three major start-ups have been created, and dozens of academics and industry professionals have climbed on board – figuratively if not yet literally. Their hope is to revolutionize public transport and, in so doing, restructure society for the better. […]

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Fire impacts climate more than land use

Energy & EnvironmentJon Cartwright

Fire-induced changes to ecosystems have a greater impact on the climate than land-use and land-cover change, according to researchers in China and the US.

The study is the first to quantify the global impact of fire by its effect on ecosystems, rather than by its emission of trace gases and aerosols. Fire-induced changes to ecosystems boosted surface air temperatures by 0.18°C above the 20th century average, the researchers found.

“Our work is critical to improve our understanding of fire’s role in the Earth system as well as the potential broader impact of fire management, and to provide a direct reason supporting why Earth system models should include fire modelling for global research agendas,” said Fang Li of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. […]

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Namibian wetlands replenished by rainfall

Energy & EnvironmentJon Cartwright

The seasonal wetlands of north-central Namibia are likely to be replenished by surface water that is sourced from local rainfall, a study by researchers in Japan and Namibia has shown.

Measurements of isotopic ratios in water samples suggest that to conserve surface and subsurface waters, shallow groundwater should not be pumped intensively.

“We have to develop [a] new agricultural system to overcome climate change as quickly as possible,” said Morio Iijima of Kindai University, Japan. “It should be not only an environmentally-friendly system to preserve water balance in this semi-arid region, but also a beneficial one for small-scale farmers.” […]

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Slowly oxidizing peat releases as much carbon as burning in Southeast Asia

Energy & EnvironmentJon Cartwright

Peat oxidation in the west of insular Southeast Asia has resulted in the release of 2.5 gigatonnes of carbon since 1990, according to researchers in Singapore, the Netherlands and the UK.

The estimates, based on field emission studies carried out over two decades, also show that the latest year studied, 2015, saw levels of carbon emissions from peat amounting to two-thirds of that from the burning of fossil fuels, the production of cement, and gas flaring in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Although Jukka Miettinen of the National University of Singaporebelieves the estimates are “not surprising”, they should draw attention to the contribution of peatland oxidation to global greenhouse-gas emissions. […]

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