Huge carbon dioxide stores, with the gas held at high pressure (and therefore liquid, have been shown to be able to hold vast amounts of energy, and the ability to be released on demand.
Energy Dome’s CO2 Battery system has currently been show to be able to store and generate up to 24.5 megawatts (MW) of power (with 12 acres expected to be able to store up to 200MW), which sounds very impressive…. but…. current battery power means that 1 MW of battery can fit in a 20 by 40 foot container, which means that 1 acre could theoretically take 200MW of batteries.
When first thought of, it was thought that this would allow energy done to store energy at a cost of roughly $200 per kwh. At the time, lithium batteries cost $300 per kwh, however this has halved to just $150.
In other words, lithium batteries (and this assumes no breakthrough in sodium batteries or something else) are cheaper, smaller, simpler and safer – so why would you look to create another form of electricity storage, that is worse on so many levels.
The Northern right whale was hunted to the brink of extinction – with less than 500 left when hunting ended. To put this in perspective, only 300 Southern right whales were left when hunting stopped, it is thought that there are now 3000-4000 Southern right whales.
Now, it is true that historically the Southern right whale is thought to have numbered as 55,000-70,000 individuals, suggesting that the current population is 3-5% of historic numbers.
However, the current estimate for the Northern right whale population is 386. While has the Southern right whale population grown over 1000%, and in the same time, the northern right whale population declined?
There has been much discussion about the history of elephants in Borneo, and whether their loss is a problem
The origin of elephants in Borneo is unknown. Known for hosting the smallest elephants in the world, there are 2 theories as to how the elephants got to the island. The first is that they were released by a ruler in the 17th century (The most rapid population growth ever seen was 7,1% after the end of poaching in a reserve in Tanzania, a population of 30 elephants could become 1000 in just 50 years) – if this was the case, then their loss would not be bad; and the second is that actually the elephants arrived on the islands hundreds of thousands of years ago (as high as 300,000 years).
It is increasingly agreed that the second one of these ideas is likely to be correct. Though having said this, genetic analysis suggests that the whole population started with just 28 elephants.
Just 1000 are found on the island at the current time.
All wildlife on Borneo is at threat, as the palm oil industry continues to demand increasing quantities of prime rainforest be cut down. As this happens, elephants are forced into human areas, in their search for food, and then into conflict.
The Borneo elephant has only recently been assessed by the IUCN red list as a separate subspecies, but it is hoped that this recognition might increase tourism on this species as well as conservation dollars to save this species from its slow slide towards extincion
It is hard to believe that habitats like this could possible have previously held rainforest which produces enough soft fruit for monkeys like this. Just 10,000 years ago crops were a new thing, in the same way that cows and other livestock farming. Before this, we had to hunt for virtually everything.
The reason that they can work out what monkeys ate, is because they have seen the teeth, and they were not chipped at all, as a result of soft diet. There are thought to have been roughly 5 species of this small monkey family living at the time (30 million years ago). This is new, as formerly it was thought that early primates ate some fruit but also harder foods – clearly they specialized in fruit earlier than we thought.
Around the world, there are invasive species – from grey squirrels in the UK, to Macaques on Gibraltar, however, all these pale on comparison to having to live with wild elephants.
The elephants were bought to the Andaman islands in the late 19th century, to work in the timber operation, which continued until the last few decades. Thankfully, much of the forest in the islands survives – with some islands retaining almost 90% forest cover. This means that the elephants might well be able to thrive into the future.
The islands lie 850 miles from the coast of India, which means that while elephants would not have existed natively on the islands, there are many species which would be found in the same area.
Interview Island and North Andaman hosts these elephants – though they need to be watched, as a population of 100 elephants is already small, but if split between 2 islands, humans may well have to be helped to remain genetically varied enough to survive long-term.
While some have suggested that the elephants have damaged biodiversity, with some species having become less common, this ignores the impact of the timber extraction – it is far more likely that this is an impact of the many decades of pulling specific trees out of the forest.
Given the endangered status of the Indian elephant, this population is precious, but whether it can be left where it is long-term is something we do not know. There are still roughly 30,000 elephants in India, but the Andaman island elephants are going to need to be watch, long-term, to make sure that they do not damage species only found in their new home.
This is a video of one of the clashes that I am talking about. The Grizzley bear population in 1975 ( in the lower 48 states) was just 700-800 (this excludes Alaska, where the current figure is 30,000) . The lower 48 states population has grown to around 1000 or an almost 50% increase.
There is a problem with this. Both in and out of Alaska (as well as Canada) these bears need space, and so are colonizing land that they previously roamed. Unfortunately, people rapidly forget how to live with animals like grizzly bears, so it is taking some significant work to live alongside these large animals once again.
The problem is, that when those encounters spike, generally authorities panic, and this generally leads to them looking to allow hunting once again. THIS IS DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE POPULATION IS NO-WHERE NEAR RECOVERED AT THE CURRENT TIME.
The Ross ice shelf is vast, covering 182,000 square miles, it is only slightly smaller than France, and yet a study has shown, that the whole ice shelf can move 40 cm in just 10 minutes. These were generally caused by slips in the Whillans Ice Sheet, which is one of just a few ice flows into and through the area.
The whole shelf was found to move 6-8cm once or twice a day, triggered by these flows moving. This could be the cause of both icequakes, and fractures running through the ice (fractures are important, as they make it more likely that a section of the ice will break off the edge of Antarctica and head into the ocean. While this ice can, on occasion survive a long time – A23a broke of Antarctica in 1986 and has been floating free for much of the time since (except for a decade or so when it grounded); it was estimated to be 400m thick and weigh in at nearly 1 trillion tonnes.
This is a problem for a simple reason. Unlike the north pole, there is land under the ice in Antarctica. This means that while in the north pole, the ice sheet is already in the sea, so its melting cannot increase sea level, Antarctic ice all does increase sea levels.
The Ross ice shelf is known to have collapsed 120,000 years ago during the last interglacial period, and contains enough ice to raise sea levels by 11.5m (this would also cause another 2m of sea level rise because of the glaciers which would no longer be held back).
A Dutch startup, is trialling mitigating this in the Arctic, by pumping sea water onto the ice. This then freezes, thickening the ice. It is possible that this might work in the short term, however, what is clear, is that the only long-term solution, is to stop burning fossil fuels, so as to halt the heating of the earths climate.
Rioting and protesting are both activities that many would consider annoying. Yet, they are very different. Rioting, is a totally illegal activity, and the rioter in question punched a police officer in the face – he was given 3 years in prison. The Just Stop Oil protester was involved in a zoom call to talk about blocking the M25 and was given 5 years.
Peaceful protest is a protected right in the UK. It is true, that blocking a motorway is not covered, but there is an increasing part of the UK population which are so worried about this, and the governments low priority of this, that they could condone action like motorway blocking.
This law was only passed in 2022, and appears to be a direct attack on the right to peaceful protest. With Labour having recently taken power, we would hope that this ridiculous expansion of powers, and destruction of long-valued British rights might get reversed, but we will have to wait and see.
Whether tropical or not, old growth forests absorb far more carbon than new trees, and can increase this
Old growth trees, have the capacity to greatly increase their growing rate, when there is a lot of carbon dioxide in the air. This has been found, in a study by the University of Birmingham. This is important, as in many places around the world, an area of destroyed natural forest, is considered to be replaceable by a similar area of planted trees, but what is clear, is that in order to merely keep up with the absorption of the original trees, several multiples more of trees need planting. What is worse, is that this is not worrying about the huge amount of carbon that is stored in the trees that are cut down, or within its roots system and the surrounding soil.
To put this in perspective, at the current time, it is estimated that a football pitch of primary forest is lost every 6 seconds.
This experiment was done, by piping extra carbon dioxide into a forest area and monitoring its growth. Unfortunately, this does reinforce the conservationist point of view, that simply planting a similar area of woodland for each bit lost, is not good enough.
In 2020, wolf reintroduction into Colorado was agreed by the human population there, while this happened in December of 2023, the nearest wolf population lies around 400 miles north in Wyoming, and this is a distance that is easily covered by wolves. As a result, some wolves have turned up on their own.
Around the beginning of September this year, it was decided to move the pack, to halt hunting of livestock that the pack was doing (though generally hunting of livestock is at very low levels). Unfortunately, the male of the pack was killed in the attempt. Given that wolf packs generally contain a breeding pair, and their offspring (cubs and older offspring often from the year before), the female cannot pick another mate from her pack, as they are often all her cubs. The capture of the wolves for translocation, occurred through leg traps, which in this individual became infected and caused the death. A second of the moved wolves has died, after a suspected fight with a mountain lion.
The cubs are intended to be released in the winter, when they are old enough to hunt for themselves, though the fate of their mother is yet to be decided.
This gives an idea of the recovery of wolves around the USA. One thing to note, is that even Alaska has a wolf population that is very similar to the rest of the USA.
It should be noted, that the red wolf is a separate species. Genetic analysis has found that the red wolf has both grey wolf and coyote DNA, but is to distinct to be classed as a subspecies. The map above only lists 17 red wolves in the wild (other sites suggest 17-19). They were reintroduced in 1987, and while their population did grow to roughly 150, hybridization with local coyotes, meant that the population has since collapsed once again. There are an estimated 290 red wolves in captivity, and there has been action taken to remove coyotes in areas where they species were meeting – and people are working towards releasing more red wolves into its range.
Of interest, the Southwest wolf numbers are also known as the Mexican wolf. There are a further 45 across the border in Mexico. This population was thought originally to number in the several 10s of thousands (though given the USA population was estimated at between 250,000 and 2 million both have suffered horrific declines).
As with Europe, the recovery of the wolf is requiring people to learn to live alongside an incredibly wily and potentially dangerous species. However, wolves play important roles in the natural environment, and their return should be seen as a good thing. While occasional culls are necessary, these should be decided on scientific basis, and not at the whim of state politicians, who often choose unscientific culls because it is a vote winner. Many argued against delisting, as the wolf population is below 4% of the historic population (and excluding Alaska, below 2%) but Donald Trump rarely worried about science. What is going to happen to wolves now, as he has been returned to the white house for a second term, we will have to wait and see.
