Clean energy future: New cheap and efficient electrode for splitting water -- ScienceDaily UNSW Australia scientists have developed a highly efficient oxygen-producing electrode for splitting water that has the potential to be scaled up for industrial production of the clean energy fuel, hydrogen. The new technology is based on an inexpensive, specially coated foam material that lets the bubbles of oxygen escape quickly. "Our electrode is the most efficient oxygen-producing electrode in alkaline electrolytes reported to date, to the best of our knowledge," says Associate Professor Chuan Zhao, of the UNSW School of Chemistry. "It is inexpensive, sturdy and simple to make, and can potentially be scaled up for industrial application of water splitting." The research, by Associate Professor Zhao and Dr Xunyu Lu, is published in the journal Nature Communications. Unlike other water electrolysers that use precious metals as catalysts, the new UNSW electrode is made entirely from two non-precious and abundant metals -- nickel and iron.
Drinking the Northwest Wind Like so many of Mao’s pronouncements, it sounded simple. “The South has a lot of water; the North lacks water. So if it can be done, borrowing a little water and bringing it up might do the trick.” Most environmentalists see the South-to-North Water Transfer Project as a necessary, though not sufficient solution to the severe water shortages suffered in China’s capital and surrounding areas—a situation that owes much to weather and climate but which has been compounded by the over-damming of the region’s rivers (another of Mao’s enthusiasms) and the severe pollution of its already small supply. Lovell and Wang’s focus is on the direct human costs of the transfer—who has won, and who has lost. —Susan Jakes
Facts of Global Warming Do you love to watch your normal captured videos to time lapse mode? Are you looking for alternative to Hyperlapse from Instagram? Grab this Hyper Timelapse app now!!! It’s really easy to create amazing time lapse of your captured videos with this amazingly simple timelapse video editor app. It's really easy to use, and has a beautiful interface. Just push record button to record the video, and then speed it up using customizable frame rate upto 8x as per your preference. Some classic subjects of time lapse photography include: cloudscapes and celestial motion, plants growing and flowers opening, fruit rotting, evolution of a construction project and people in the city. Hyper Timelapse App Features: 1) Record normal speed video using camera.2) Change the desired frame rate of your time-lapse video.3) Tap Convert to change normal video to amazing time-lapse video.4) Easily share on different social media sites.5) Well designed UI for visual and usability. So what you are waiting for?
Can Environmental Lawsuits in China Succeed? Air and water pollution are rising in China, and so is the number of lawsuits against polluters. Access to the courts is growing: Chinese prosecutors and some NGOs have been empowered to sue polluters, and activist lawyers increasingly participate in lawsuits. Recently, five activist lawyers brought a lawsuit against Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei Province, charging these local governments with not doing enough to reduce pollution. Previously, inspectors from China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection and its local Environmental Protection Bureaus (EPBs) had censured officials in Tianjin for failing to address serious environmental problems. It remains to be seen how activists and NGOs simultaneously exercising their rights will coexist with state agencies that are punishing polluters. A nationwide increase in lawsuits against polluters has been made possible by modifications in a number of laws: The growing role of lawsuits to punish illegal pollution is welcome, but progress is slow.
Golfstraumurinn er ekki að veikjast Miðvikudagur 13.05.2015 - 19:00 - Ummæli () Mynd/Getty images Nýlega sögðu margir fjölmiðlar frá því að Golfstraumurinn væri að veikjast og það gæti valdið miklum breytingum á veðurfari og búsetuskilyrðum í Evrópu, þar á meðal Íslandi. Golfstraumurinn flytur heitan sjó inn í Norður-Atlantshafið og tryggir milt loftslag. Norskir vísindamenn segja nú að það sé ekki rétt að Golfstraumurinn hafi veikst, hann sé nákvæmlega jafn öflugur og hann var 1995. Norskir vísindamenn hafa mælt hitastig og styrk Golfstraumsins á hverri klukkustund síðan 24. apríl 1995 og búa því yfir miklum upplýsingum um strauminn. Hann sagði að það væri mjög mikilvægt að hafa svo mikil gögn um Golfstrauminn eins og Norðmenn hafa en þeir hafa stundað mælingar á sama stað utan við Stad í 20 ár. Spá veikingu straumsins Tölvulíkön hafa reiknað út að Golfstraumurinn muni veikjast vegna hnattrænnar hlýnunnar og að kraftur hans geti verið orðinn helmingi minni fyrir næstu aldamót.
China’s Response to Climate Change: A Study in Contrasts and a Policy at a Crossroads ASPI Issue Paper July 30th, 2020 China is the world’s leading emitter of heat-trapping gases, by far. In 2019, Chinese emissions were greater than emissions from the United States, the European Union, and Japan combined. There is no solution to climate change without China. China’s response to climate change is a study in contrasts. This Asia Society Policy Institute issue paper, China’s Response to Climate Change: A Study in Contrasts and a Policy at a Crossroads, written by former senior policymaker and current Columbia University fellow David Sandalow, explores these contrasts. This issue paper also provides an up-to-date snapshot of China’s climate policies, drawing on data from 2019 and the beginning of 2020 (during the height of the COVID-19 economic lockdown), as well as recent remarks by Chinese leaders. This paper is the second in a series of policy products that the Asia Society Policy Institute will publish as part of a project exploring the possibilities around U.S.
Oil Companies Look to Join Climate Debate By Bill Spindle And Francis X. Rocca Oil companies are ratcheting up their involvement in the debate over climate change as governments, activists, churches and some big investors gear up for a global summit on the issue at the end of the year in Paris. The stated goal of the summit is to keep man-made warming limited to two degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, but governments remain far apart on how to achieve it. Meeting such a goal will require far-reaching changes in energy-consumption patterns and likely efforts to put a cost on carbon use, many experts believe. Pope Francis is also planning to weigh in on the environment in an encyclical--a letter intended to develop and explain Catholic teaching--due within the next few weeks, which has made Rome one of the focal points in the global- warming debate. For years, a number of shareholder activists have urged companies to curb emissions. This led to a change in behavior. The Vatican is another important constituency.
New Research Says China No Longer Biggest Sea Plastic Polluter China has lost its title as the world’s biggest source of sea plastic, according to a new study co-authored by researchers whose widely cited 2015 paper had bestowed the title on China in the first place — a designation some in the country felt was unfair. The paper, published Friday in the journal Science Advances, focuses on plastic trash generated by coastal populations in the U.S. It concludes that their contributions to sea waste are up to five times higher than the previous study estimated, possibly placing the country third behind Indonesia and India, with Thailand and China rounding out the top five. Plastic pollution has become an urgent environmental issue in recent years. In 2015, a team of American researchers for the first time modeled how much plastic trash had ended up in the oceans, and from which countries it had originated. That conclusion has since been widely cited. Moment/People Visual - Ted Siegler, resource economist and study co-author Editor: Kevin Schoenmakers.
Feature: The new shape of fusion ITER, the international fusion reactor being built in France, will stand 10 stories tall, weigh three times as much as the Eiffel Tower, and cost its seven international partners $18 billion or more. The result of decades of planning, ITER will not produce fusion energy until 2027 at the earliest. And it will be decades before an ITER-like plant pumps electricity into the grid. Fusion enthusiasts have a slew of schemes for achieving the starlike temperatures or crushing pressures needed to get hydrogen nuclei to come together in an energy-spawning union. Imagine the doughnut shape of a conventional tokamak plumped up into a shape more like a cored apple. Culham is one of two labs about to give these portly tokamaks a major test. A small company spun off from Culham is even making a long-shot bet that it can have a spherical tokamak reactor capable of generating more energy than it consumes—one of ITER's goals—up and running within the decade. But plasma is not easy to master.