Climate change innovation – Page 12

October 20, 2021June 30, 2022

A tesla plane? what impact would this have

Elon Musk has talked about creating an electric plane, I think that this is a fantastic idea, but not from a tesla fanboy point of view.

Electric planes are in their infancy. There are a range of extremely light weight aircraft for learning to fly. There are also an increasing number of island hopper jets, which can allow easy access for small communities – at prices that are affordable, and therefore long-term as well as the far more environmentally friendly setup.

The other big move in this arena, is Ryanair. They are a budget airline operating throughout Europe, but they are building an aircraft which should be able to carry 186 people (31 rows of 6 seats) that would cover 80% of their routes. My hope is that this is a move into them behaving in a more compassionate way – they have a reputation of treating people poorly (I have experienced that first hand but that is another story)

Elon Musk envisaged a vertical take off and landing aircraft, and one which would fly high enough to travel at supersonic speeds. He did state that he thought batteries needed to reach 400wh/kg and the batteries that run tesla cars are currently 260wh/kg, so were still some way off. Having said that, tesla has some of the best battery research going on, and they are confident that the batteries will be ready in the next 3 or so years.

So what impact would a tesla plane have? Well what Musk is describing is largely a private jet, not a passenger jet. Never-the-less Tesla cars started and high cost and came down. It is likely that a Tesla plane would do something similar. Certainly, with the weight Tesla can bring to bare, it is likely that any involvement by Tesla would push the electrical aviation market place to new heights.

October 20, 2021June 30, 2022

Could fusion arrive in time?

Fusions is the safe version of nuclear power, indeed it is what happens in the sun. Fision is much easier to get going – this is why it is able to operate in nuclear weapons.

We still aren’t at commercial point, but it suggests more and more clearly that this could power the human race in the future.

Fusion is the promise of limitless green energy in the near future. Cutting our electricity use, as well as making electricity in a greener way shouldnt stop, but it may arrive to help in the future.

October 19, 2021June 30, 2022

I wrote in the past looking at consensus on human caused climate change – new study

There is a constant argument that we should not be acting on climate change because we have not reached consensus. This really is not the case.

A look at 90,000 studies which looked at the climate found that 99.9% of them agreed that humans were the cause. The degree of certainty is now the same as that on evolution or on plate tectonics -the debate is over.

It is true that you can still find supposedly learned men and women who will disagree, but we are now at the point where it is akin to arguing the world is flat. Yes there are thousands of “flat earthers” worldwide, but those denying climate change should be put in the same category as those who deny the shape of the earth (and think that the millions of people who would have to be in on it are all dutifully keeping quiet.

This study has been compiled by Cornell University and shows that the miniscule minority still fighting against this truth, is now just a small number of noisy voices.

This is terrifying! In the USA there are 30 US senators and 109 representatives who “refuse to acknowledge the scientific evidence of human-caused climate change”.

It is now time for Facebook and twitter to stop giving an unchallenged voice to purveyors of falsehoods. Denying the science of climate change is likely are more dangerous for the future of the human race than denying the obvious facts about vaccines.

October 18, 2021June 30, 2022

The whitest white paint ever created

In an effort to help with cooling the planet, scientists have created the whitest white paint ever. In a similar way to the formation of Vantablack – the blackest black paint, this paint has a variety of uses.

This paint is so reflective, it can cool surfaces it is painted onto by as much as 10.6°C. This paint reflects up to 98.1% of light hitting it.

In a warming planet, being able to cool things without energy is essential.

The manufacturers estimate that painting a 1000 square foot roof in this paint will give you the cooling power of about 10kw – more powerful than the air conditioning used by most houses. Currently, around 10% of electricity is used for cooling. On current trends, this is expected to grow to 40% by 2050.

Currently there is a lot of effort going into reducing energy used for heating, but it is clear that this effort also needs to go into cooling.

September 23, 2021June 30, 2022

Could mammoth help us fight climate change

Roughly speaking, there is 3000 billion tonnes of carbon in the atmosphere. This is a huge number, but then we have to remember that this is higher than at any other time in human history. Before humans were on the planet, there were time periods where carbon concentrations in the atmosphere were dramatically higher.

While rainforest hold large amounts of carbon, so do bogs. Having lost most of its mega fauna, the colder regions of the planet do not function as they should, so these

However, the problem is that there is thought to be roughly 1600 billion tonnes locked in the permafrost around the world. If global warming continues, this permafrost will melt and release its carbon stores – increasing the carbon concentration by around 50%.

This is obviously a point at which a significant amount of planet warming will be inescapable.

So what needs to happen?

In the past great mammals behaved in such ways that it largely kept this carbon locked in the soil. There were far fewer trees, vast grasslands often covering bogs.

If mammoths were to return, perhaps alongside woolly rhinoceros and bison the same processes could return allowing a far greater quantity of carbon to remain in the permafrost soil.

Will this happen? Who knows, though with the increasing quantity of carbon known to be locked in the Siberian soil, it seems worth giving it a go.

September 10, 2021June 30, 2022

Do over 50s want climate change addressed even if it costs more? Err, yes!

There have been a great deal of things that have happened over the last decade or two, which would suggest that the older generation don’t care what happens to the climate because they won’t be here to tolerate the effects.

Older generations also have a significant reputation for intransigence: adoption of new technology often spreads to the older people last. The problem with global warming is that the speed required to adjust is way too high to allow more senior members of society to wait.

This is why I found the results of a recent survey so encouraging. The survey wasn’t huge, only looking at 500 people, however it found more than two-thirds of respondents want ministers in our government to move faster even if it pushes up prices for services.

The survey found that these people were highly likely to be making adjustments to mitigate future climate change. These ranged from traveling less, to changing their diet and using less energy at home.

This is in some ways particularly encouraging, as the majority of home greening efforts take a significant length of time to pay off

If you are already advanced in age the benefit felt is unlikely to be by you.

Now of course for most elderly parents or grandparents, they are greatly interested in passing down their housing stock to their descendants – so any greening of the house can last longer. Nevertheless, for older people reducing the future carbon emissions of their house is less about their own financial interests – indeed the government should bear this in mind.

The other issue is that the majority of these people live in particularly large and expensive houses. These are often the houses that young people aspire to live in if they ever make it. Due to their size and age, many of these properties will cost several tens of thousands of pounds to upgrade and as such the current inhabitants must be thinking about their descendants if they’re willing to upgrade their house for the future fight on climate change.

August 18, 2021June 30, 2022

Why does the debate continue to be pay to fight climate change or … don’t?

We continue to hear ” fighting climate change is to expensive” in one form or another.

Problem is that this looks at this issue wrong. Sure, right now it is pay to fight or not, but if we don’t in a couple of decades our children will have to pay terms of times more to undo or damage.

In other words, the decision is pay a little now, or make our children pay huge amounts.

What parent makes that decision? What will future generations make of our collective ambivalence?

July 19, 2021June 30, 2022

A hydrogen powered world?

Hydrogen is an incredibly energy rich fuel. When Hydrogen is mixed with oxygen, a large amount of energy is released and the only waste is pure water.

The problem for many years has been that virtually all the hydrogen on earth is locked up as water. For a long time, it has been known that by running a current through water you can split the oxygen and hydrogen. Unfortunately, this process is incredibly energy intensive. Indeed it takes more energy than it gives.

July 15, 2021June 30, 2022

Lightyear one

The lightyear one is an incredible car. It is a highly efficient electric car, and gets over 440 miles from a battery smaller than the one in the long range tesla 3 which only has a range of 353.

This is partly because it is an incredibly efficient car – each wheel has its own, in wheel, motor. However, even more exciting, the car is covered in high efficiency solar panels – it has 5 square meters of solar panels, which is allow between 25 and 45 miles on solar power alone.

June 22, 2021July 1, 2022

Re-emergence of sails?

Freight shipping has a huge carbon footprint. It is true that the carbon footprint is far lower than freight carried by air, however this does not help.

However, it is also true that these ships do not travel particularly fast. With the new kite sails designs where a kite with roughly 100 square meters area, and the ability to be flown above 100m – an area where the wind speeds and directions are far more reliable.

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