Category: Climate change innovation

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Could fossil fuels be pushed out of electricity generation by 2035 simply by market forces?

A report from Carbon Tracker (a London based non-profit) points out that Solar and wind have the potential of creating thousands of Petawatt hours of electricity a year, while current electricity demands stand at just 27PWh.

More crazy still is the space that it would take to get all our electricity from Solar. It would take 450,000 square km, which sounds like an insane amount of land. However, this is just 0.3% of land and significantly less than the land currently given over to the Fossil fuel industry. Given that much of our energy needs will come from wind, this is likely to be significantly lower. Another analysis suggests just 0.2% of land for solar, with 0.5% covered in wind turbines.

End of Oil Age? might we as a society end the need for oil within the next few decades? Photo credit Alexey
Continue reading “Could fossil fuels be pushed out of electricity generation by 2035 simply by market forces?”
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Fusion breakthrough!

I wrote (rather poorly) back in October about fusion and its potential positives. In the middle of December, we had a breakthrough of incredible proportions.

For the first time, it took less energy to start fusion and sustain it, than was released in the reaction. This is obviously essential, as if it takes more energy to get the reaction to take place, than is generated you are using electricity not generating it.

Could this be the future of all energy creation?
Continue reading “Fusion breakthrough!”
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Easyjet has switched its green aviation focus from electric planes to hydrogen (though it is not giving up on battery planes)

Easyjet has switched its green aviation plans from electric to hydrogen. The aim is now to be flying a 200 person plane by 2035 on hydrogen. Previously, they were working with wright electric on a battery electric plane by 2030.

Currently, aviation emits roughly 2.5% of carbon emissions, and when taking into account non carbon effects, it accounts for roughly 3.5% of human global warming effects.

They have hastened to add, that this does not mean that they are giving up on battery electric, but that they wish to have multiple options. It is also recognized, that at least in the short-term, that while battery electric might be able to replace 80% of easyjets flight paths, the rest are to far for battery electric, unless power density takes a bigger leap forwards than currently expected.

In the meantime, inefficient aircraft are gradually being replaced. Of course this is good both for the environment and the company, as an inefficient plane uses more fuel to fly.

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Vast seagrass forest is discovered by strapping cameras to sharks, and extend the area of seagrass by more than 40%

Tiger sharks are incredibly fierce, and can grow to be more than 16 foot (nearly 5m long). However, by strapping cameras to these fascinating animals (researchers attached cameras and trackers to the dorsal fins of tiger sharks, giving them hours of footage each time.

seagrass meadows are incredibly biodiverse, incredible carbon sinks and a huge new one increase the amount by 40%
Continue reading “Vast seagrass forest is discovered by strapping cameras to sharks, and extend the area of seagrass by more than 40%”
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Could we increase the yields of wheat 600 times through vertical farming?

Vertical farming is a new concept. By growing crops indoors under lights, the crops grow far faster and so can be harvested multiple times a year. Furthermore, by using artificial lights it is possible to have many layers of food.

At the current time, indoor vertical farms only work for expensive fast growing plants, but this will change if electricity prices fall significantly
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Indonesia has signed a $20 billion deal with the G7 to accelerate their clean energy transition

The clean energy transition is accelerating in some parts of the world. It is often cheaper to install solar or wind turbines, than to continue to buy coal to keep using the coal power plant, never-the-less this has not stopped developing countries from failing to make the change.

Coal power plants are a large source of carbon emissions
Continue reading “Indonesia has signed a $20 billion deal with the G7 to accelerate their clean energy transition”
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How can the worlds central banks help get the market going, without financing logging? Its proving hard

Following on from my last post, we are trying to deal with the problems which have been pushing the website offline – it is in hand, but for now the website is still fragile. When all is sorted, we will go back to trying to move forwards with fulfilling the aims of this website. For now, as much as possible I am able to post some entries.

For a long time, governments in the west have injected bonds into the market in order to get it going in times when it is struggling. Between the Covid epidemic and various other issues there are far more countries that are trying to do this.

When central banks are directly financing deforestation it is no wonder that the deforestation continues. We must change our behaviour before there is none left
Continue reading “How can the worlds central banks help get the market going, without financing logging? Its proving hard”
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Brazil has enough unutilized cattle pastureland, to allow soy cultivation to increase by a third without any further deforestation

There is a constant tug of war, between developed countries which are encouraging developing countries to continue to protect their wildernesses, and the developing countries wish to be able to develop – to lift their citizens out of poverty.

Granted, the majority of deforestation does not benefit the people on the ground, but it does not stop politicians in these countries arguing that those in the west cannot stop development by demanding conservation of ecosystems.

However, the amount of land that has been deforested in Brazil, is far in excess of what is needed for cattle pasture and experts have calculated that Brazil (the worlds number one Soy producer, and biggest beef exporter) could increase the amount of land used to grow Soy by a third without cutting one extra tree down.

We can only hope that with the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the unregulated deforestation will stop. There is a great deal of space in Brazil for intensifying agriculture, which would allow a significant increase in productivity and goods coming from the agriculture lands, without cutting down any more rainforest.

Of course, this is partly a matter of survival. While some people on the ground in Brazil may wish to cut down more rainforest in order to have more cropland, the more forest is cut down, the less rain the remaining forest produces.

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Are elderly people afraid of the EV switch? and is Toyota correct?

This morning, I read an article in the Express. Now it is true, that the express is strongly leaning towards Conservative thinking point, but this argument is absurd. According to the article 2/3 of UK drivers want this ban pushed further into the future.

If elderly people are afraid of the cost of electric cars, then the solution is education – costs are lower
Continue reading “Are elderly people afraid of the EV switch? and is Toyota correct?”
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