Story 1: Styrofoam-eating ‘super worm’ could help solve a huge worldwide garbage crisis
Source: The Washington Post Story by Pransu Verma
Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/17/plastic-eating-superworm-garbage-crisis/
See video here: https://wapo.st/3N7avgq
- Recently scientists from the University of Queensland in Australia, showed that the larvae of the darkling beetle can survive solely on polystyrene, commonly called Styrofoam.
- Their research findings come amid a flurry of research on ways bacteria and other organisms can consume plastic materials, like Styrofoam and drinking bottles.
- The researchers plan to study the enzymes that allow the darkling beetle “superworms” to digest styrofoam. And their goal is to find a way to transform their research into a commercial product.
- If successful, industrial deployment of a natural enzyme-based treatment to dispose and recycle styrofoam would transform the way waste managers deal with a material that accounts for as much as 30 percent of landfill space worldwide!
Story 2: Scientists create bionic robotic fish to remove microplastics from the Earth’s oceans and our water supplies
Source: The Guardian newspaper Story by Sofia Quaglia
- Microplastics in our oceans and fresh water sources is one of the biggest environmental problems today.
- Microplastics are the billions of tiny plastic particles which fragment from bigger plastic things such as water bottles, car tires, synthetic T-shirts, and so much more!
- Microplastics can have a damaging impact on aquatic and terrestrial life, with their ability to absorb toxic chemicals and then release them in an animal’s digestive system.
- To combat microplastics scientists at the Polymer Research Institute of Sichuan University in China recently announced a remarkable new weapon.
- They have created a tiny robot-fish that can remove microplastics from the Earth’s oceans and fresh water bodies by swimming around and adsorbing them on its soft, flexible body.
- Measuring only one-half inch in length, the tiny self-propelled robo-fish can swim around, latch on to free-floating microplastics, and even self-heal its synthetic body if it gets cut or damaged.
- Using a light activated propulsion system in its tail the robo-fish can swim at a speed of about 1.2 inches a second. Similar to the speed at which plankton drift around in moving water.
- Here’s how the Sichuan University robo-fish can adsorb nearby free-floating bits of microplastics — the organic dyes and heavy metals in the microplastics have strong chemical bonds that cause an electrostatic interaction that attracts them to the materials that make up the robo-fish’s body.
- Reality check: The Sichuan University team stressed this is just a proof of concept, and much more research is needed.
- My take –
- First, you would need trillions of these tiny robot-fish to significantly tackle the challenge of microplastics in our oceans and fresh water sources.
- And then how would you collect all these robo fish once they’ve done their job?
- But I give the idea an A+ for creativity!
Story 3: Now there’s a new steel manufacturing technology that does not rely on fossil fuels
Source: ArsTechnica.com Story by Marcello Rossi
Link: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/06/the-race-to-produce-green-steel/
- More than 2 billion tons of steel are produced annually worldwide.
- But, here’s the problem – Steelmaking accounts for 7 to 11 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions, making it one of the largest industrial sources of atmospheric pollution.
- And here’s why – Most steel is made using a process that involves extracting iron from its ores using a coke smelting process in a blast furnace.
- The coke used in the smelting process is produced by heating coal at high temperatures
- Then the coke is used to fuel a blast furnace to make steel by chemically reducing and physically converting iron oxides into liquid iron called “hot metal”.
- The bottom line – it’s all a very climate unfriendly fossil-fuel-based process!
- Here’s the good news — Boston Metal, a spinoff from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recently revealed a game-changing alternative to traditional coke-fuel-based blast furnaces.
- They created an electrolysis process for making steel that uses electricity instead to separate iron from its ores.
- Electrolysis is an electro-chemical process that uses direct electric current to separate chemical compounds into their constituent parts.
- With it’s new electrolysis process Boston Metal claims it can make steel without releasing carbon dioxide, helping to clean up one of the world’s worst industries for greenhouse gas emissions.
Story 4: New world’s largest underwater turbine generates electricity using deep ocean currents
Source: Futurism.com Story by Victor Tangermann
Link: https://futurism.com/the-byte/giant-turbine-generates-electricity-deep-ocean-currents
Source: Bloomberg Story by Erica Yokoyama
- The idea of using ocean power to generate electricity is not new. For years we’ve had research and deployment of ocean wave, tidal, and current electricity generating solutions.
- Although not a world’s first, this new ocean current-based solution from a heavy machinery outfit in Japan called IHI Corporation grabbed my attention for its remarkable size.
- The recently tested prototype is a massive, 330 ton, underwater system measuring about 66 feet long, and 66 feet wide.
- To give you a visual…The giant machine somewhat resembles a passenger jet airplane with two jet engines.
- The central tube-shaped ‘fuselage’ houses a buoyancy adjustment system.
- Once anchored to the sea floor, the center buoyancy unit enables the entire 3-part system to hover between 100 and 160 feet below the surface to capture strong ocean currents.
- On the underside of the central flotation unit is a cross bar that connects to cylindrical-shaped turbine units [one on the left and one on the right].
- Each turbine unit measures about 36 feet in diameter and contains powerful counter-rotating turbine fans to generate electricity from ocean currents.
- IHI Corporation’s recent first successful test was conducted off the eastern coast of Japan to take advantage of powerful currents present in that area.
- IHI Corp’s ultimate goal is to deploy numerous systems in the Kuroshio Current of eastern Japan to generate as much as 200 gigawatts — about 60% of Japan’s present generating capacity, with plans to kick off commercial operations in the next decade.
- Note: A megawatt hour is equivalent to 1 million watts of electricity being used for an hour.
- In 2012, the average American home consumed 10,837 kilowatt-hours per year. This works out to an average use of 0.34 watt being used per second, which means that one megawatt of energy generated could furnish power to approximately 2,941,176 homes per second.