Tag: Carbon emissions reduction

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“EU must cut carbon emissions 3 times faster to meet targets”

A new report has calculated that the EU is only cutting carbon emissions at 1/3 of the rate which is required in order to meet the 55% cut – from buildings, transport and agriculture by 2030

While emissions are falling, they are not falling anywhere near fast enough

Over the last 30 years, carbon emissions have dropped by 32% . while this is an impressive amount, it is far short of the promise.

The best predictions for the future, are that by 2050 the EU will have cut emissions by around 43%. While this is an important step, it is far short of what has been promised.

More importantly, at the current rate, we will have only met a further 1/3 by 2050.

The job is not done – much of the carbon emissions from the last 3 decades have been easy to achieve. They have been achieved through efficiency gains, and moving production offshore. Very little change in the EU behaviour has been required.  

An easy gain, both for individual cost, and emissions is electric cars. A faster transition is likely to save countries much money too (though it is true that at the current time, there is an issue with the tax revenue coming from fossil fuel sales.

It is far cheaper to run clean alternatives, so we must make that show in the figures.

Some governments are making efforts to help, but not in every way. For instance, in the UK, you can get money towards an electric car, but not a used one (which given the reduction in price, is likely to go further and help more. On heat pump the government is doing better – with the increase in the air-source heat pump grant, the cost to individuals has reduced to around 3500 (on average buying a heat-pump as well as installing and changing radiators to work with the lower temperature (bigger) the cost is around £11,000. However, many people have missed the advertising, and are unaware. It is true that new build homes will not be allowed to install boilers after 2025. 

However, older houses with gas boilers will be unaffected by the change until 2035. But the average cost for a new boiler, plus installation is thought to be around £4000, in 2023, meaning that for many homes, it will be cheaper to replace now.

Furthermore, while an air-source heat pump is thought to be around £50 more to run each year, should something like a thermal solar panel be added, the cost is far lower.

With carefully designed rules for builders, the switch to low cost private transport, and low cost private house heating can be cheap and obvious. At the current rate, though, this is not being met.

In the UK, clearly better understanding and education is essential, and builders need to see that adding things like thermal solar panels is a must.

Will it happen? will the EU meet our 55% target? at current speed, it is clear that this will be hard work. However, if this money is not found, we are likely to need far more in the future to adapt to the world we are creating.

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Dairy without the animal?

In the west, for a large portion of the population a not insignificant proportion of their nutrients come from dairy. Unfortunately, though, this dairy requires various livestock to be kept, which are causing the methane emissions that are such a problem.

I have written before about milk without the cow, but this appears to be making some progress.

A company called Imagindairy is using a technique called precision fermentation. In a similar way to brewing beer, it uses microorganisms that have been genetically modified to produce casein and whey proteins, which is what makes up milk. A similar company called perfect day, is already creating similar products in the USA. However, with no lactose, hormones or cholesterol, which might one day make foods such as mozzarella or cream cheese a healthy option to eat. With the capacity to cut emissions on dairy products by as much as 97% it could also make it as good for the environment as vegetables.

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200 “Carbon bombs” are in the planning. What are they and can we survive them?

A carbon bomb is defined as a project (mine, oil well or similar) which if allowed to go ahead will emit 1 billion tonnes of carbon over its lifetime. A guardian analysis suggests that there are around 200 of these so called carbon bomb mega projects around the world. This is the equivalent of 18 years of total global emissions.

Despite what we know about the effects, there are still 200 “carbon bomb” plans in the pipeline
Continue reading “200 “Carbon bombs” are in the planning. What are they and can we survive them?”
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Coal power stations could cut coal use, and therefore emissions by 50%

Coal power plants have to be a thing of the past as soon as possible. This is because no matter how efficient they are, they are powered by digging up carbon and releasing it into the air.

However for the time being, there are many coal power stations across the world. Vishwanath Haily Dalvi of the institute of Chemical technology in Mumbai India has been looking at how we could assist this process with the suns energy.

By collecting the suns heat energy, and using this to heat the water, the amount of coal needed is reduced by 50%.

This could therefore be a more economic way of reducing emissions from power generation. Given that coal power emits 0.85 pounds of carbon per kwh (about 380g), cutting this in half would make carbon far cleaner. While this may well be expensive to set up, it might allow coal power plants to operate for a few years longer and therefore be worthwhile, as well as offsetting some of the damage from the large number of coal powered stations being built across countries such as India and China.

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Carbon footprint of ghost flights during the lockdown

One would think that during the height of lockdown. that no planes would fly. After all, few people wanted to travel, and many destinations were banned.

Unfortunately no such luck. Why do I say this? Well currently 2.1% of emissions come from aviation (in wealthy countries this is far higher as many poor countries have little or no aviation – in the USA aviation accounts for 3-4%).

So what happened in lockdown?

Continue reading “Carbon footprint of ghost flights during the lockdown”
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Large-scale wind and solar power ‘could green the Sahara’

There has been much conversation about how to power the world on green electricity.

One suggestion would be to fill the Sahara with solar panels. This would allow us to generate all the worlds power in a sustainable way (of course the world would need a significant amount of batteries as well for when the sun isn’t shining in the Sahara – it may be one of the sunniest places, but it is still night half the time.

Could we make the vast area of the Sahara desert habitable to wildlife at the same time as creating enough green electricity for the whole world?
Continue reading “Large-scale wind and solar power ‘could green the Sahara’”
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So earlier this year the EU increased their target for 2030 carbon emissions from 40% to 55%, progress?

As with the UK, there is an alarming habit (at the moment) within the EU, to make grandiose targets for cuts. Is this one of those or does the EU actually stand a chance of meeting this?

Well between 1990 and 2019 the EU cut its emissions by roughly 24% – a not insignificant achievement.

If the EU is to meet its carbon goals, sites like this will have to become a thing of the past
Continue reading “So earlier this year the EU increased their target for 2030 carbon emissions from 40% to 55%, progress?”
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A new disruptive airplane design?

The last time that I wrote about a potential Airline disrupter was back in late March. Interestingly, the source article was written back at this point but I didn’t find it for a few months.

In this case, the change is in design rather than in the fuel (the last article on planes was looking at using biofuels made from algae. I should note, that this is probably possible to power any aircraft, so both changes could team up.

In this case, rather than changing the fuel, the layout of the plane was changed. Rather than 1 relatively thick wing, they replaced it with 3 thin wings distributed along the body of the plane.

By having 3 sets of narrow wings, each part of the plane is supported.

One of the main advantages of this design, is that there is no natural rotating point. Generally the tail of the plan is required to keep the plane flying level (this tail is recognized as one of the most problematic parts of the plane in terms of efficiency).

Why is this design exciting? Well this plane would have a carbon footprint 70-80% lower than current aircraft. This means that it is incredibly cheap to run, and therefore cheaper for passengers to fly on. Also of interest is the fact that this design makes the aeroplane far safer. Due to its higher efficiency it can also fly an incredibly long way – 10,500 miles, far enough to easily fly London to Australia ( this would suggest that perhaps in the future, non stop flights to new Zealand are not too far off). Another advantage, is that due to its low drag coefficient, it would fly at 690 miles per hour (mach 0.9) – more than 100 miles an hour faster than normal passenger jets. In a similar way, London to Johannesburg would be a little over 8 hours.

So this plane would be cheaper to fuel, fly further and faster. It is predicted to be far cheaper to maintain, and to have a life span of twice current planes. It would have a wider body, so take more passengers than normal. It has a high lift coefficient, allowing it to take off from shorter runways, allowing it to access more of the world. Due to the how thing the wings are, they would not be able to store fuel anymore, so this would have to go in the proper body of the plane – current plans would be at the top of the plane over the passengers. As well as having a lifespan of roughly 50 years, it is thought that each plane will take half as long to build.

Whether we see an aircraft like this is anyone’s guess. Moving to one engine at the rear of the plane, probably rules out electric propulsion, though who knows. Of course with wings as slim as this it is unlikely to be able to accommodate dispersed power.

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Has the Pandemic forced a new way of working on the BBC natural history unit?

In filming for the BBCs mating game, the film-makers for the BBC were forced to work in a different way to normal.

Given rules that were put in place to stop the epidemics spread, it was impossible in many instances to send film makers on trips all over the world. As a result, they were forced to rely on local wildlife film-makers.

The producers of the series, found that not only did this make it easier to get the footage required, but also meant that it was easier to know timings of when specific parts of the series would be complete.

Over the last couple of decades high definition cameras have become the norm and in recent years, local people around the world have been trained to use them. With the advance of 4G signal in wilder parts of the world, it is now possible to stay in touch with crews even when they are in the field. This also means that the carbon price of the production can fall dramatically.

See Animals Wild