Time to invest in some hives, London!

Just a quick post here. I regularly look at the TED website for great short talks and lectures on all sorts of topics, science included. I would really recommend this site to everyone; learning via videos on the sofa, what more could you want?!

Honey bees are a natural resource, much the same as cattle or sheep, except instead of using them for their meat (which I can't imagine would be too tasty!) we collect their honey and also require their input into pollination of flowers to keep up our plant biodiversity level.

They have been in the press for a few years now as their numbers are depleting in the countryside rather rapidly. However, it seems that they are flourishing in cities, so perhaps it is here that we should be cultivating them and eventually supplementing rural areas by releasing bees there?

Watch the talk below to find out more...

(I apologise that the screen is a little big for the page, this was the smallest it would allow me to embed!)

Renewable Energy

The vast majority of my blog posts have been about how we are depleting our planet of its natural resources by means such as mining and fishing. For that reason, today we shall focus on renewable energy sources that could be the way of the future. Currently they still have a long way to go to reach the popularity of fossil fuel energy; Germany is the world front-runner in renewables yet uses just 14% renewable sources of energy. Here are summaries for four of the main types:

Wind

Wind turbines seem to be the icon of renewable energy, and wind farms (a combination of up to several hundred turbines) are an oddly captivating sight. They harness energy from the wind and then transfer this to huge electric power transmission networks that the turbines serve. This can be done more effectively offshore, where winds tend to be stronger, yet many turbines are still erected on land, a subject of much controversy.

Rygg (2012) has compiled the pros and cons of wind power very elegantly in a broad summary. Reasons for communities wanting wind farms are generally for modernization and increased employment opportunities, rather than for a source of green energy. Complaints stem from the turbines being eyesores and spoiling the landscape, as well as recent worrying affects to human health from living close to them. Despite these controversies wind power accounts for a huge 45% of the total renewable energy utilised worldwide, according to Solange et al (2011)

Main advantages: Turbines take up very little land space (despite being so tall) and so agriculture can carry on around them relatively undisturbed. They are very cheap to run once built.

Main disadvantages: They are eyesores, and there have been links to adverse health affects in humans living close to wind turbines; dubbed as ‘wind turbine syndrome’.

A lone wind turbine in rural England

Solar

Solange et al (2011) place solar energy as the best form of renewable energy due to it having the “least negative impacts on the environment”. The two main ways of turning solar energy into electricity are PV and CSP. PV (photovoltaics) directly converts light into electricity, whereas CSP (concentrated solar power) relies on mirrors to concentrate sunlight into a small and powerful beam, from which electricity can be produced. From the literature I have read it seems PV systems are favoured.

Main advantages: Very environmentally clean and can be used in places where people are not on a national grid (rural areas and LEDCs).

Main disadvantages: Weather dependent. Start up cost of the cells are very high.

A cartoon to illustrate the PV method

Tidal

Tidal power as the name suggests is harnessed from the tides of the oceans, which are brought about by the gravitational pull of the moon and the Sun. Currently tidal power has negative environmental impacts associated with it (despite being a renewable source). This is because tidal barrages (which are commonly implemented in bays) act as dams stopping the natural flow of rivers into the ocean and may affect migration patterns of organisms. Sluice gates in the barrages are periodically opened at high tide and the force of water coming through drives turbines to produce electricity. To try and get round this environmental issue tidal current turbine technology is being produced, as is discussed by Rouke et al (2009). This technology will harness kinetic energy from the tides to turn into electricity, in a similar mechanism to wind power. They can be attached to the sea floor, or float in the water and so are not as obtrusive as barrages.

Main advantages: It is extremely reliable and predictable

Main disadvantages: Due to the infancy of tidal current turbines they are not yet economically viable. Barrages have negative ecosystem impacts.

The proposed, less conspicuous, tidal current turbines

Geothermal

The Earth generates a vast amount of heat in it’s interior, from both radiation decay and gravitational processes. We can harness this heat and turn it into energy by forcing water down underground pipes, which are heated and produce steam. The steam rises and drives a turbine, which produces electricity. The water can then be cooled and the process started again, so it is very sustainable.

Lund et al did a world review in 2005 and the top 5 countries taking advantage of their geothermal heat were the USA, Sweden, China, Iceland and Turkey. However, on a world scale the use of geothermal energy was low because prior to the report the costs of fossil fuels and natural gas were very low. Their prices have rocketed in recent years and now geothermal energy is looking increasingly desirable. In a 2010 update to their studies it was indeed noted that between 2005 and 2010 the application of geothermal energy has risen by 55%.

Main advantages: Virtually unlimited sustainability and relatively safe to use.

Main disadvantages: It is not universally available (heat source points vary in intensity).

The process of geothermal energy production

(Note: papers linked to may need an institution log in to access the full text)

The Peak Phosphorous Issue

Hi guys, hope everyone is looking forward to the weekend! If you get a chance to relax with a cup of tea at any point I suggest you check out Experimentation Online, a science magazine written and run by students.

It's full of articles on loads of topics, and my article this month is on the peak phosphorous issue, and directly relates to the blog! Phosphorous (as you will find out) is a limited resource on Earth needed as a fertiliser, and is running out alarmingly quickly (in 30-40 years to be precise!)

Have a great weekend everyone!

BGS Risk List (8)

So, to recap so far we have had beryllium at 10 and carbon at 9, so now onto the element in at number 8…barium. Although it’s name might not be the most striking, keep on reading because this element has a colourful past (the pun will make sense by the time you’ve finished reading!)

(In case you can’t quite remember the scoring system for the rankings just click here)

RANKING:

8

ELEMENT NAME AND SYMBOL:

Barium (Ba)

RELATIVE SUPPLY RISK INDEX:

8.1

WHY?:

Barium is not found independently on Earth, it has to be isolated from minerals, the most common one used being barite (BaSO₄). Again, China holds the majority of the world’s barite supply, and so it risks include being held at a political ransom.

LEADING PRODUCER:

China

TOP RESERVE HOLDER:

China

WHY THE DEMAND?:

The coolest use of barium has to be that it is the pigment which gives green fireworks their colour! Aside from that it is also used for its colouring in paints and ceramics.

It is also added to some metal alloys because it refines their structures, as well as being used in taking X-rays on the gastrointestinal tract. The mineral barite is used in gas and oil as a drilling fluid, and therefore is very much in demand in this industry.

Ecosystem Services

In a recent New Scientist publication (27th Oct 2012) the topic of ecosystem services was highlighted by Fred Pearce. I don't believe it to be a very widely known concept (I certainly hadn't heard of it until it was addressed in one of my lectures) and so wish to give you the low down.

The idea behind ecosystem services is to give environments such as rainforests and savannahs a monetary value: a green bond. It has sprung up from the mantra of "you can't manage what you can't measure". Therefore if a cost can be assigned to the benefits of a site of land, investors may want to purchase it, protect it, and sell it on in the future.

But what actually would you be buying??

Worth $1.2million to you?

For an example let us look at the most valuable ecosystem in the world; coral reefs. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) have valued them at up to $1.2 million per hectare per year! This astronomical value is based mainly on the tourism opportunities that come with them.

Or if that is slightly out of your price range why not a hectare of mangroves; a steal at only $18,000 per year. In this case you are affectively buying coastal defences. Historically these areas have been used as shrimp farms, but the revenue bought in by them doesn't match the ecosystems services value. It is therefore better and more profitable to keep them in their natural state.

Mangroves: an important sea defence

A company founded by a University of Oxford zoologist and a banker, Canopy Capital, have so far paid half a million pounds for the right to market these services. Their aims can be accessed on their website, and they wish to not only protect our natural resources at the sites, but also the indigenous peoples that with within them. A win-win situation if you like. For example, keeping the mangroves means helping the natural environment and protecting locals from threats such as flooding from storm surges.

From a climate change perspective the biggest draw of these plans would be the carbon storage potential. For this forests are the obvious choice; having carbon stored in trees is far better than having it sitting in the atmosphere. If power companies for example (as Pearce uses) are forced by the government to salvage some of their carbon emissions is may cost them $30 per tonne of carbon to do so on site. However, if the equivalent carbon offset from ecosystem services cost $20 per tonne the plant would obviously take this option instead.

Hoovering up our carbon overspill?

The UN-REDD scheme of allowing that to happen is set to start in 2020, as can be seen from their programme strategy.

So the concept is a fairly simple one: buy and preserve a slice of our natural Earth and hopefully make some money out of it yourself. I wish the project luck, but as of 2007 Canopy Capital are yet to make a sale. Keep your eyes peeled though, it could happen one day soon!

A New Kind of Space Race (Part 2)

Hello again, sorry this post is later than scheduled, but it is time to meet up once again with the wacky world of meteorite mining. In part 1 we saw how the company Planetary Resources intend to access natural resources on asteroids, and now we shall explore what they are planning to do with them once their get their robotic hands on them. Helping me to do this is a recent essay from the online publication 'The Space Review'.

Although it would be fabulous to rock up to a meteorite, scavenge it's supply of platinum, iron and nickel and then fly back to Earth with it, this is not entirely possible. Perhaps one day this could be feasible, but putting aside technical issues, even the cost of doing this would make it invalid currently.

However, all hope is not lost. What if we could use asteroids to further our own space exploration? That is exactly what Planetary Resources and Virgin Galactic intend to do...

They propose to not utilise the valuable metals from these space bodies, but water ice. The point of this being that water ice can be used in rocket propellent in conjunction with other components. To launch just 1kg of propellent from Earth to a propellent depot in our orbit costs up to $100,000; not exactly good value for money. However, take out the step of having to haul the propellent through the Earth's atmosphere and suddenly the costs drop dramatically: to about a tenth of the price.

This makes it far more economically viable that we will be able to have propellent depots orbiting Earth which exploration rockets will be able to refuel at before continuing to carry on scouting out our universe and beyond, extending our knowledge of places beyond our own planet.

Virgin Galactic are giving Planetary Resources a helping hand (at a hefty price!) by taking satellites up on their commercial space flights, which will scout out potentially usable icy asteroids. This partnership is set to start out in 2016, so we still have a little while before these plans will be put in motion, but in my opinion it could be an exciting advancement in space exploration!

For more on this topic please watch this interesting short video on asteroid mining, a particular highlight is the quote used that a single asteroid could contain more platinum than we have ever mined on Earth:

BGS Risk List (9)

Hi again, next up on the countdown of the most at risk elements is.....graphite! As you're about to find out it has more uses than just allowing us to write in pencil!

RANKING:

9

ELEMENT NAME AND SYMBOL:

Carbon (Graphite) (C)

RELATIVE SUPPLY RISK INDEX:

8.1

WHY?:

80% of production is controlled by China making the rest of the world vulnerable to their export taxes and VAT. Additionally the demand of the highest quality graphite is rising, due to its use in lithium-ion batteries. The USGS predicts that general graphite demand could double by 2020.

LEADING PRODUCER:

China

TOP RESERVE HOLDER:

China

WHY THE DEMAND?:

Graphite has many applications beyond the humble pencil lead (although that does still account for 4% of our annual usage of graphite). It is an electrical and thermal conductor, and therefore lends itself to be used as a lining in blast furnaces and in electrodes amongst other uses. It also has a role to play in steelmaking and making batteries and brake linings.

One exciting future development in how we use graphite may be from extracting graphene, which occurs naturally within the element. It is one of the strongest substances known and so will be in great demand, but at the moment is extremely costly to separate so new technologies need to be developed.