carbon offsetting – Save the Planet

Super-enzyme breaks down plastic bottles in ‘a matter of days’

By David Shepherd|2021-04-23T14:32:49+01:00September 29th, 2020|

From BBC Science Focus Magazine:

Professor John McGeehan, director of the Centre for Enzyme Innovation (CEI) at the University of Portsmouth

Professor John McGeehan at work

The enhanced protein is made up of two enzymes produced by a type of bacteria that feeds on plastic bottles.

A so-called “super-enzyme” that eats plastic could be “a significant leap forward” in finding solutions to tackle the pollution crisis, scientists hope.

The enhanced protein is made up of two enzymes produced by a type of bacteria that feeds on plastic bottles, known as Ideonella sakaiensis.

Professor John McGeehan, director of the Centre for Enzyme Innovation (CEI) at the University of Portsmouth, said that unlike natural degradation, which can take hundreds of years, the super-enzyme is able to convert the plastic back to its original materials, or building blocks, in just a few days.

“Currently, we get those building blocks from fossil resources such as oil and gas, which is really unsustainable,” he said. “But if we can add enzymes to the waste plastic, we can start to break it down in a matter of days.”

He said the process would also allow plastics to be “made and reused endlessly, reducing our reliance on fossil resources”.

In 2018, Prof McGeehan and his team accidentally discovered that an engineered version of one of the enzymes, known as PETase, was able to break down plastic in a matter of days.

As part of their current study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team mixed PETase with the second enzyme, called MHETase, and found “the digestion of the plastic bottles literally doubled”. The researchers then connected the two enzymes together in the lab, like “two Pac-men joined by a piece of string”, using genetic engineering.

The super enzyme, which is two proteins joined together © Aaron McGeehan/Knott et al

“This allowed us to create a super-enzyme six times faster than the original PETase enzyme alone. This is quite a significant leap forward because the plastic that ends up in our oceans today is going to take hundreds of years to break down naturally,” Prof McGeehan said.

“[Eventually] through sunlight and wave action, it will start to break down into smaller and smaller pieces – and we will end up with microplastics, which is a serious problem for the organisms that live in the environment.”

Tests showed that this super-enzyme was able to break down a type of plastic used in soft drinks and fruit juice packaging, known as PET (polyethylene terephthalate). Although it is said to be highly recyclable, discarded PET persists for hundreds of years in the environment before it degrades.

Aside from PET, the super-enzyme also works on PEF (polyethylene furanoate), a sugar-based bioplastic used in beer bottles. However, Prof McGeehan said it is unable to break down other types of plastic.

Working with US colleagues, Prof McGeehan used intense X-ray beams at the Diamond Light Source synchrotron facility in Harwell, Oxfordshire, to map 3D structures of the enzymes. These molecular blueprints allowed the researchers to create the super-enzyme with an enhanced ability to attack plastic.

As part of the next steps, the researchers are looking at ways to even further speed up the break-down process, so the technology can be used for commercial purposes.

“The faster we can make the enzymes, the quicker we can break down the plastic, and the more commercially viable it will be,” Prof McGeehan said. “Oil is very cheap so we need to compete with that by having a very cheap recycling process.”

Reader Q&A: Why are some plastics recyclable and others are not?

Most of the plastics we use are either thermoplastic or thermosetting.

Thermoplastics include acrylics, nylon and polyethylene (polythene). As you heat them up they get soft, so they can be shaped into any form you like, which also makes them easy to recycle. Milk containers can be melted and reformed into furniture, plastic water bottles become fleece jackets, and hard bottle tops can get a new lease of life as storage boxes.

Thermosetting plastics, like Bakelite or polyurethane, are different because they harden as you heat them. Once they have set, you can’t melt them. This makes thermosetting plastics almost impossible to recycle.

Global climate goals ‘virtually impossible’ without carbon capture – IEA

By David Shepherd|2021-04-23T14:39:07+01:00September 28th, 2020|

Up to $160 billion needs to be invested in the technology by 2030, a ten-fold increase from the previous decade, it added. “Without it, our energy and climate goals will become virtually impossible to reach,” the IEA head Fatih Birol said in a statement.

A sharp rise in the deployment of carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technology is needed globally if countries are to meet net-zero emissions targets designed to slow climate change, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday.A growing number of countries and companies are targeting net zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by around the middle of the century in the wake of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

To reach that, the amount of CO2 captured must rocket to 800 million tonnes in 2030 from around 40 million tonnes today, the IEA, which advises industrialised nations on energy policies, said in a report.

Up to $160 billion needs to be invested in the technology by 2030, a ten-fold increase from the previous decade, it added.

“Without it, our energy and climate goals will become virtually impossible to reach,” the IEA head Fatih Birol said in a statement.

The global economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic risks delaying or cancelling projects dependent on public support, the IEA said.

An oil price slide had also reduced revenues for existing CCUS facilities selling CO2 for so-called enhanced oil recovery (EOR). However, the IEA added: “Economic recovery packages are a unique window of opportunity for governments to support CCUS alongside other clean energy technologies.”

Referring to a major investment to build two carbon capture plants and an offshore CO2 storage facility, Birol said: “Norway showed its leadership in Europe by making a major funding commitment to the Longship project.” Nonetheless, the story of CCUS has largely been “one of unmet expectations”, marred by lack of commercial incentives, large capital costs and public opposition to storage, especially onshore, the IEA said.

In 2009, the IEA called for 100 large-scale CCUS projects to be built by 2020 to store around 300 million tonnes of CO2 per year. To date, just 20 commercial projects are in operation, capturing around 40 million tonnes per year.

Scottish officials raised concerns that Shell’s £5m tree-planting scheme would be seen as “greenwashing”

By David Shepherd|2020-07-31T15:26:12+01:00July 31st, 2020|

As a result of UK Freedom of Information requests, internal emails seen by The Ferret investigative blog have revealed that, in the run-up to an announcement by Shell last October that it was funding a new £5m tree-planting initiative, Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) officials raised a number of concerns.

In August 2019, Jo Ellis, FLS head of planning and environment, noted “I do think we need to be cautious about how we communicate this…I don’t want us to come across as falling for the greenwashing. The fact remains that mitigation work such as tree planting will not be sufficient to offset carbon emissions for the long term (we need to be reducing the use of fossil fuels).”

“The tiny amount Shell is putting into green initiatives is dwarfed by what it is still spending on investigating new oil and gas reserves, and in blocking initiatives to set legally binding emissions reductions targets.” she added.

“What we should actually be doing is reducing emissions – e.g. stop using petrol, which Shell is not planning to do. But until such time as technology moves us to a low emissions, projects that sequester carbon such as this one will buy us time.”

Ellis continued: “Personally I would have a problem with them saying anything that implies that this is going to make what they do environmentally friendly. This is all about reducing the harm that they do, not about them doing good.”

FLS director of land management, Trefor Owen, supported her concerns: “What Shell are offering us is relatively small beer for them, but it gets a shiny new organisation (us) to add to the list of green organisations supporting their offsetting ambitions.”

Over the next five years, as the first phase of this initiative, Shell UK is funding the co-operation to preserve and extend native woodland at Glen Garry in Lochaber, including a scheme to plant more than 200,000 trees in the first two years. As reported in the Guardian, “the fund sounds big, and it is – until you compare it with Shell’s annual income of $24bn”.

Pulling carbon dioxide from the air by farming

By David Shepherd|2020-07-20T16:18:26+01:00July 20th, 2020|

Exciting news as ‘rock weathering’ experiment pulls carbon dioxide from the air and boosts crop production by 12%.

The Working Lands Innovation Center (WLIC) has been partnering with farmers, ranchers, government, the mining industry and Native American tribes in California on some 50 acres of cropland soil amendment trials and their experiments have yielded results that may be another important step in fighting climate change.

Rock chemistry

Many processes weather rocks on Earth’s surface, influenced by chemistry, biology, climate, and plate tectonics. The dominant form of chemical weathering occurs when carbon dioxide combines with water in the soil and the ocean to make carbonic acid.

About 95% of Earth’s crust and mantle – the thick layer between the planet’s crust and its core – is made of silicate minerals, which are compounds of silicon and oxygen.

When carbonic acid comes in contact with certain silicate minerals, it triggers a chemical process known as the ‘Urey reaction’. This reaction pulls gaseous carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and combines it with water and calcium or magnesium silicates, producing two bicarbonate ions. Once the carbon dioxide is trapped in these soil carbonates, or ultimately washed into the ocean, it no longer warms the climate

Now, emerging science – including at the California Collaborative for Climate Change Solutions’ (C4) WLIC – shows that it is possible to accelerate rock weathering rates.

Enhanced rock weathering could both slow global warming and improve soil health, making it possible to grow crops more efficiently and bolster food security.

Farming with rocks

One compelling aspect of enhanced weathering is that, in controlled-environment studies involving basalt amendments of soil, cereal grain yields are improved by roughly 12%.

As basalt weathers, it increases vital plant nutrients that can boost production and increase crops yields. Mineral nutrients such as calcium, potassium and magnesium create healthier soils. Farmers have been amending soil with rock minerals for centuries, so the concept is nothing new.

Why negative emissions matter

Under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, nations have pledged to limit global warming to less then 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. This will require massive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Pulling carbon dioxide from the air – also known as negative emissions – is also necessary to avoid the worst climate change outcomes, because atmospheric carbon dioxide has an average lifespan of more than 100 years. Every molecule of carbon dioxide that is released to the atmosphere through fossil fuel combustion or land clearing will remain there for many decades trapping heat and warming Earth’s surface.

When the taps run dry in England

By David Shepherd|2020-07-10T13:37:47+01:00July 10th, 2020|

There is a serious risk that some parts of England will run out of water within the next 20 years.

The UK Commons Select Committee published a damning report today continuing “Some areas are facing shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic. The responsible bodies – the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (the Department), the Environment Agency and Ofwat – have collectively taken their “eye off the ball” and urgent action is now required if we are to have a reliable water supply in the years ahead.”

“Over 3 billion litres, a fifth of the volume used, is lost to leakage every day. Despite this, no progress has been made in reducing leakage over the last 20 years. The government’s weak efforts to encourage reductions in water consumption have achieved very little. Water companies have at least now been given tougher targets to make improvements, but we are calling for the responsible bodies to go further, and annually publish clear performance tables so that the government and the water companies can be properly held to account.”

“Government has been too slow to implement policies that could improve water efficiency such as product labelling and changes to building regulations. Nor has it done enough to resolve the tension that water companies face between needing to invest in infrastructure to improve water supply and the pressure to keep water bills affordable for consumers, particularly where consumers say they are prepared to pay more.”

“We are sceptical about the effectiveness of water companies’ efforts to mitigate environmental damage and are not convinced the UK’s net zero emissions target has been sufficiently embedded in the oversight and regulation of the industry. The Department has shown a lack of leadership in getting to grips with these issues. We look now to the Department to step up, make up for lost time and ensure all parties act with the urgency required.”

Save the Planet .Org says that it is time that UK water authorities stopped sending begging letters to their consumers asking them to conserve water when they have failed to take action to stop leaks that are wasting millions of gallons of water across the country, every day.

The irony of this will not be lost on householders who witnessed the abundance of water (inside their own homes) as a result of severe flooding earlier this year. Living in one of the wettest countries in Western Europe appears to be no guarantee of a water supply in the future, it seems.

Perhaps it is time that the water companies ceased maximising profits and paying dividends to shareholders until they achieve meaningful leakage targets, renumerating their board members for failure and instead, used their “profits” to invest in our national water infrastructure as they are paid to do.

Then, if they cannot achieve a very significant turnaround, it will be time to renationalise our water industry – before the nation’s taps run dry.

Beautiful pink snow in the Italian Alps heralds another environmental catastrophe

By David Shepherd|2020-07-09T21:15:31+01:00July 9th, 2020|

An alarming, yet beautiful new phenomena, has gripped both Alpine tourists and scientists alike – the appearance of pink snow on the Presena glacier in Italy.

Known as the “giant of the alps”, Presena sits 3,069 metres above sea level and is described as a paradise for all those who love nature, history and mountain sports. Situated on the border between Val di Sole and Valle Camonica, between Trentino and Lombardy, the glacier is part of the Presanella mountain group.

A type of algae usually found in Greenland has started to grow there – and it’s turning the glacier pink. The plant, known as Ancylonema nordenskioeldii, is present in Greenland’s so-called Dark Zone, where the ice is also melting.

Despite its rosy appearance, pink snow is not good news on the climate change front. Usually, ice reflects over 80 per cent of the sun’s radiation back into the atmosphere. As the ice changes colour, it loses the ability to reflect heat, meaning the glaciers are starting to melt faster.

The pace of melting ice in the mountains was already sufficient cause for concern that a local ski resort, Pontedilegno-Tonale, initiated a conservation project in 2008 using enormous pieces of geotextile fabric to cover up the glaciers all summer, keeping them cold and protecting them from melting.

Biagio Di Mauro of Italy’s National Research Council has been investigating the mysterious appearance of the pink glacial ice and stated “The alga is not dangerous, it is a natural phenomenon that occurs during the spring and summer periods in the middle latitudes but also at the Poles” and has previously studied the algae at the Morteratsch glacier in Switzerland.

More algae appear as the ice melts more rapidly, giving them vital water and air and adding red hues to the white ice.

“Everything that darkens the snow causes it to melt because it accelerates the absorption of radiation,” said Di Mauro.

“We are trying to quantify the effect of other phenomena besides the human one on the overheating of the Earth,” said Di Mauro, noting that the presence of hikers and ski lifts could also have an impact on the algae.

Tourists at the glacier lamented the impact of climate change. “Overheating of the planet is a problem, the last thing we needed was algae,” said tourist Marta Durante.

“Unfortunately we are doing irreversible damage. We are already at the point of no return, I think.”

Ellie Goulding loses 1,000 followers every time she posts about climate change

By David Shepherd|2020-07-03T15:58:58+01:00July 3rd, 2020|

Long-time climate advocate and activist Ellie Goulding joined Tom Mustell and Lucy Siegle for the So Hot Right Now podcast this week and spoke openly about the fears and real impact to artists speaking out on environmental issues.

Despite her tremendous personal reach, with 22 billion social media streamings and 33 million followers overall, across combined social platforms, it’s clear that she has felt obliged to tread carefully in the past.

“Protesting wasn’t seen as cool…. I was really conscious to begin with, not to merge the two and keep my activism really separate. I genuinely thought that activism could jeopardise my job and I believe it has.”

“I lose followers every time I post anything about climate change. I lose at least a thousand followers.”

“Because people are following me for a very specific reason and it’s not the environment.”

“People say ”F**k you for posting this, we don’t want to hear this, it’s not what we’re interested in. Stop preaching. Climate change isn’t real.”

“That’s why there is a lack of artists speaking out about it because they’re just terrified for their job. I get that. I understand that. We can all be honest and say that it has affected some artists’ careers.”

Let’s hope that principled and brave artists like Ellie feel able to continue speaking out despite the cost and use their platforms to provoke thought and debate, on the most important issue of our time.

During lockdown, when freedom seemed lost, the world outside opened up

By David Shepherd|2020-07-03T10:03:40+01:00July 3rd, 2020|

During lockdown, when freedom seemed lost, the world outside opened up. Wildlife, much unseen, appeared, fleetingly at first. Tentative, cautious steps, but over time the natural world became bolder, more daring. A new kingdom, once forgotten emerged into the pure, unpolluted air.

UK’s National Grid goes coal-free for the longest period since the Industrial Revolution

By David Shepherd|2020-06-09T17:45:45+01:00June 9th, 2020|

Coal has not been used to generate power for 60 days

Partly due to a collapse in demand during the Coranavirus lockdown and a greater emphasis on using solar power, the UK National Grid managed to take coal plants off the network on April 10th and to avoid bringing them back online in Britain since.

Britain continues to phase it out, with two of Britain’s oldest coal-fired power stations having closed at the end of March this year, leaving just three left on the mainland.

This is a major shift from 10 years ago when 40% of the nation’s energy came from coal and only 3% came from renewables such as wind and solar power.

In 2020, the UK has the biggest offshore wind industry in the world, with the 659MW Walney Extension the world’s biggest operational offshore wind farm to date. Located in the Irish Sea near Cumbria and covering an area equal to 20,000 football pitches, it is designed to operate for 25 years and supplies enough electricity to power 590,000 UK homes. Overall, Britain’s wind farms had a bumper quarter, with output up 40% on this time last year.

The Walney Extension offshore wind farm is the largest in the world.

In parallel, UK solar farms generated more than 9.6GW of electricity for the first time on April 20th, setting a new solar power record.

Whilst energy sector transitions are meant to be slow, Britain’s energy sector has transformed its electricity generation mix more in the 2010s than in the previous ninety years combined.

As the oil crises in the 1970s caused a switch from oil to coal, the miners’ strike that followed in the 1980s, coinciding with expanding gas production in the North Sea, encouraged a switch from coal to gas in the 1990s. Now renewables have sparked a revolution in the UK power generating industry.

DRAX Electric Insights reports that “if this pace of change can be maintained, renewable sources could be providing more than half of Britain’s electricity by the end of this decade and Britain’s power system could be practically carbon free.”

David Shepherd
Save the Planet .Org
9th June 2020

Seeing the wood for the trees in carbon offsetting

By David Shepherd|2020-06-04T17:15:41+01:00June 4th, 2020|

Operation Arch of Fire combatting illegal logging in Brazil

Companies are falling over themselves to offer their customers ways of contributing to cutting carbon emissions with good intent, offering them easy, “tick-box” options at the end of their on-line purchases to participate.

But are these schemes any good ? How can the consumer be assured of the benefits of the scheme they have implicitly signed up to ?

A major part of the problem is that the majority of carbon offsetting projects require a long-term investment which needs to be protected for its lifetime if it is to deliver all the benefits promised when first initiated.

Worldwide tree-planting schemes are an excellent example of how good intentions can go astray.

An endangered Mogno tree in Brazil will have to stand for 25 years, in good health, to sequester 275 Kg of carbon dioxide. It must be protected against illegal logging, disease and land clearing, often in remote sites where the indigenous people struggle to achieve even a rudimentary standard of living. At state level, the government may be committed to the success of a reforestation scheme but local officials, militia, tribal leaders and working populations may not – corruption and basic human needs will win (almost) every time. According to Haley Dixon, writing for the Daily Telegraph, “in eastern Madagascar, in the Ankeniheny-Zahamena Corridor, an area of ecological importance known as the CAZ, do not realise that the trees they cut down to clear space for mining and agriculture, or to build their homes and fuel their stoves, have already been turned into carbon credits.”

If a scheme offers clean-cook stoves to local people in India to replace the centuries-old practices of burning charcoal on open fires, how does anyone know if they use it or discard it ?

Illegal mining on protected land is often tolerated, bringing the twin perils of land clearing and pollution of local watercourses with heavy metals.

And the final nail is a lack of transparency and accountability. If a piece of land cannot be monitored continuously and the benefits of schemes measured continuously, can we assume that they are delivering ? One thing that we can be assured of – even if we did not hear the sound of a tree falling in a remote forest, it will have actually fallen.

Working in companies committed to saving the planet, or as consumers, we can make a real difference by supporting independent, verifiable carbon offsetting projects where that measurement is carried out by trusted independent accrediting bodies such as the QAS, the Climate Group or International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) promoting standards such as the Gold Standard, Clean Development Mechanism and the Voluntary Carbon Standard 2007 (VCS 2007).

Ignore the airlines and energy companies’ tick-boxes and do your own homework. Seek out worthy carbon-saving initiatives that you know are making a difference, who can prove that they will be delivering in the years to come and support those instead !

David Shepherd
Save the Planet .Org
https://www-save-the-planet.org/editorial