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Author: John Hanno
Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. Bogan High School. Worked in Alaska after the earthquake. Joined U.S. Army at 17. Sergeant, B Battery, 3rd Battalion, 84th Artillery, 7th Army. Member of 12 different unions, including 4 different locals of the I.B.E.W. Worked for fortune 50, 100 and 200 companies as an industrial electrician, electrical/electronic technician.
Ron DeSantis unveils energy platform, aims to “stop inflation and achieve $2 gas in 2025”
Katie Akin, Des Moines Register – September 20, 2023
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled an energy platform Wednesday that emphasizes American fuel production and dismisses concerns about climate change.
DeSantis announced a six-point energy plan during a campaign visit to Texas on Wednesday. The plan centers on increasing domestic production of oil and gas, while repealing or withdrawing from initiatives meant to lower carbon emissions and curb the effects of climate change.
“As president, I will fight to ensure our energy is abundant, affordable, and American,” DeSantis told the Des Moines Register in a statement. “That means protecting all liquid fuels, including biofuels, from harmful government regulation and preventing California from setting America’s environmental standards. Under my administration, we will get back to commonsense energy policies that help Iowa farmers and families, starting with eliminating mandates for electric vehicles and ending our energy sector’s reliance on China.”
DeSantis said prioritizing “American energy dominance” will “stop inflation and achieve $2 gas in 2025.”
What does Ron DeSantis have planned for Iowa biofuels?
In a Wednesday news release, DeSantis pledged to protect biofuels from “harmful government regulation” and to eliminate surtaxes on liquid fuels.
However, his policy announcement did not include details about the renewable fuel standard, a goal set by the Environmental Protection Agency to mix a certain amount of renewable fuels — like ethanol — into gasoline and diesel.
While serving in Congress, DeSantis co-sponsored a bill that would eliminate the renewable fuel standard.
A column published in the Register earlier this month offers more insight into DeSantis’ plan for biofuels. DeSantis wrote that he will work with Gov. Kim Reynolds to support the year-round sale of E15, and he would introduce higher ethanol blends, like E30, to consumers.
How would Ron DeSantis address climate change?
DeSantis calls for American energy dominance to take priority over “climate change ideology.”
He would repeal President Joe Biden’s incentives for Americans to buy electric vehicles and Biden-era rule to protect thousands of small waterways. DeSantis said he would also withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords, the Global Methane Pledge and all “Net Zero” commitments.
During the first GOP presidential debate, candidates were asked to raise their hands if they believe human activities are warming the planet. DeSantis bristled at the question, telling the moderators “We’re not school children” and launching into a criticism of the media.
When pressed on the question, DeSantis said, “No, no, no — I didn’t raise a hand.”
USA Today reporter Zac Anderson contributed reporting.
How one arid city is attempting to grow 15 soccer fields of crops in the desert: ‘The world’s most food self-sufficient city’
Wes Stenzel – September 19, 2023
Saudi Arabia has enlisted Dutch greenhouse company Van Der Hoeven to synthesize a climate that will “make the desert bloom,” according to Al Arabiya News, with the goal of building “the world’s most food self-sufficient city.”
What is Saudi Arabia’s synthetic climate project?
Saudi Arabia is building Neom, a brand-new city, in the desert on the coast of the Red Sea. In order to supply food for Neom, the kingdom is paying Van Der Hoeven $120 million to create a synthetic oasis about the size of 15 soccer fields, which will allow crops to be grown in an area that ordinarily cannot sustain much life.
The greenhouses are intended to yield over 300,000 tons of produce in the next eight to 10 years.
The project is expected to begin operating its first site in August 2024 and will be using vertical farming, artificial intelligence, solar and seawater-driven cooling systems, advanced water filtration, and numerous other technologies to bolster Neom’s agricultural capabilities.
“We will scale up to hundreds of hectares with different types of greenhouses,” said Juan Carlos Motamayor, the CEO of Neom Food.
Why is this project important?
Expanding countries’ agriculture infrastructure via synthetic means, like greenhouses, will be an essential part of adapting to our planet’s overheating.
As ecosystems change with rising temperatures, so will their capabilities to grow particular kinds of food, as many fruit, vegetable, and grain plants can only survive in a fairly narrow window of average temperatures.
As such, hotter regions may be unable to grow staple crops that they used to be able to produce to feed their populations, which means they will have to turn to alternative synthetic methods like greenhouses.
By developing and improving technologies and systems that make agriculture possible in difficult climates, we better prepare our societies for rising temperatures.
Greenhouse farming is already an important part of our agricultural systems. In the United States, greenhouse vegetable production made $3 billion in 2021, according to Extrapolate. Tomatoes make up the majority of greenhouse veggies grown in the U.S., but cucumbers, bell peppers, lettuce, and herbs are also commonly grown in greenhouses.
“We are building a synthetic climate where outdoor growing is difficult, with a goal for plants to yield produce year-round,” said Michiel Schoenmaeckers, the CEO of Van Der Hoeven.
“There is no other place in the world that is trying to develop at the scale we want to develop and implement agriculture for arid conditions,” said Motamayor.
Proper treatment for hypertension could avert 76 million deaths globally by 2050, WHO says
Amanda Musa, CNN – September 19, 2023
Adobe Stock
The dangerous effects of high blood pressure are highlighted in a new report by the World Health Organization that identifies the condition as one of the world’s leading risk factors for death and disability.
Published Tuesday, WHO’s first report on the global impact of high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, offers recommendations on ways to combat the “silent killer.”
Hypertension, categorized as a blood pressure reading of 140/90 mmHg or higher, affects 1 in 3 adults worldwide, according to the report. It commonly leads to a number of other health problems including stroke, heart attack, heart failure and kidney damage.
“Hypertension can be controlled effectively with simple, low-cost medication regimens, and yet only about one in five people with hypertension have controlled it,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, said in a news release.
High-performing countries like Canada and South Korea have delivered comprehensive national hypertension treatment programs, according to WHO, and both nations have surpassed the 50% mark for blood pressure control in adults with hypertension.
An increase in the number of people effectively treated for hypertension to levels observed in high-performing countries could prevent 76 million deaths between 2023 and 2050, the WHO says.
These preventative measures include eating a healthy diet, maintaining a healthy weight, avoiding alcohol and tobacco, and exercising regularly, the report says. These strategies should be implemented in specific settings like schools and in the workplace to further promote healthier lifestyle choices, it says.
Another tactic is lowering daily sodium intake.
“Most heart attacks and strokes in the world today can be prevented with affordable, safe, accessible medicines and other interventions, such as sodium reduction,” said Michael Bloomberg, former New York mayor and the WHO global ambassador for noncommunicable diseases and injuries.
Recommended sodium intake varies from country to country, but WHO recommends less than 2,000 milligrams a day. The estimated global average salt intake is more than twice that: 10.8 grams per day, the organization says.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends an intake of less than 2,300 mg of sodium a day. On average, Americans consume more than 3,400 mg of sodium daily.
In 2013, all 194 WHO member countries committed to reducing sodium intake 30% by 2025, but a report released this year showed that only 5% had implemented comprehensive sodium-reduction policies.
The United States scored 3 out of 4 in the report for having at least one mandatory sodium policy and a declaration of sodium on pre-packaged food.
Hypertension is prevalent in the US, affecting about 32% of people ages 30 to 79.
As many as 1.2 million US deaths could be averted by 2040 if the condition is effectively controlled, the report estimates. But in order for the nation to achieve a 50% control rate, 693,000 more people with hypertension would need to be effectively treated.
Every hour, more than 1,000 people die from strokes and heart attacks, according to Dr. Tom Frieden, president and CEO of the organization Resolve to Save Lives and former director of the CDC. “Most of these deaths are caused by high blood pressure, and most could have been prevented.”
WHO also noted that hypertension and its complications result in “enormous” costs worldwide for patients, health care systems and national economies.
“Good hypertension care is affordable, within reach, and strengthens primary health care,” Frieden added. “The challenge now is to go from ‘within reach’ to ‘reached.’ This will require commitment of governments around the world.”
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the span of years by which 76 million deaths could be prevented with hypertension treatment.
Stepping toward lower blood sugar: The benefits of walking
Emma Pitts – September 18, 2023
Walking could be the key to your digestive health. | Adobe Stock
After a big meal, the last thing you might want to do is exercise. The good news is something as simple as a short walk can benefit your health and lower blood sugar levels, according to a study published in the journal Sports Medicine.
This doesn’t mean Olympic speed walking. It simply means walking as little as five minutes to get the blood flowing, the study said.
The study delved into whether standing was effective as well, and though it had more benefits than simply sitting, walking showed greater health benefits in lowering blood sugar.
“Intermittent standing breaks throughout the day and after meals reduced glucose on average by 9.51% compared to prolonged sitting. However, intermittent light-intensity walking throughout the day saw a greater reduction of glucose by an average of 17.01% compared to prolonged sitting,” study co-author Aidan Buffey told CNN.
Adding that, “This suggests that breaking prolonged sitting with standing and light-walking breaks throughout the day is beneficial for glucose levels.”
Benefits of walking
There is a plethora of health benefits that come with taking a stroll around the park, the Mayo Clinic said, emphasizing that exercising does not have to be a vigorous activity for you to see benefits.
Health benefits that come with walking, according to the Mayo Clinic, include:
Maintain a healthy body.
Prevent or manage high blood pressure and heart disease.
Blood pressure is the pace at which blood moves throughout your arteries. If blood pressure is high, your heart is working harder to pump the blood through your body, per Catholic Health.
According to Eating Well, “After you eat, your blood sugar increases, and the pancreas secretes a hormone called insulin. … This hormone signals the body to soak up glucose, lowering blood sugar along the way.”
Walking helps kickstart your body’s blood flow and helps send glucose from outside the muscle cell to the inside, fitness nutritionist Michele Canon told Eating Well.
How to get started
It is important that you monitor your blood sugar levels more often when just starting to workout, especially if it’s been a while since being active, per the American Diabetes Association.
Repetition will allow improvement. “Start slowly and walk for just a few minutes the first time. The more you walk, the easier it will get, and you’ll be able to add intensity by increasing your time, pace, or distance,” the American Diabetes Association added.
Easy ways to incorporate walking into your day could include the following:
Avoid driving to walkable destinations.
Get a friend to walk with and hold each other accountable.
Invest in a treadmill or march in place.
Listen to a podcast or interactive app to encourage you.
Now a pilot study has found toxic “forever chemicals” in kale samples — especially organic ones — though its authors present this as a critique of chemical pervasiveness, not an anti-kale attack.
What happened?
The nonprofit Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH) tested supermarket kale from four states and detected the toxic chemicals in seven of eight samples.
PFAS, also known as forever chemicals because of their practically endless lifespans, are compounds manufactured for special properties, including fire and water resistance. They appear in products ranging from fire extinguishers to dental floss.
Robert Verkerk, founder of ANH, told the Guardian that his group tested kale “to look at an archetypal healthy vegetable.” Researchers expected to find small amounts of PFAS, but the levels “stunned” them.
“The fact that kale, one of the healthiest foods you can get at the supermarket, is contaminated, is particularly concerning,” ANH notes online.
Verkerk told the Guardian it was also a “shock finding” that organic kale had high PFAS levels. The contamination source is unclear, though Verkerk suspected dirty water or sewage sludge spread as fertilizer.
The results, released in June, contradict previous Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analyses that reported no PFAS kale contamination.
The FDA states online that “we have found that most foods not grown or produced in specific geographic areas with known PFAS contamination do not have detectable levels of PFAS.”
ANH takes issue with the FDA and Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) testing as “grossly inadequate.”
Although there are no limits for PFAS in U.S. foods, the EPA recently proposed a PFAS drinking water standard.
What can I do about PFAS in produce?
The EPA lists steps to reduce risks, including learning more.
ANH notes that washing produce may not be effective against PFAS. The organization urges a PFAS ban and has tools for individuals to learn more and take action.
Efforts to control PFAS may help reduce planet-heating pollution. The EPA has linked PFAS production to heat-trapping gases.
For its part, ANH plans more tests, and it calls for government agencies to improve their tests and regulations: “The issue isn’t PFAS-contaminated kale per se, it’s more that we likely live in a PFAS-contaminated world.”
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Climate Week NYC: Large cities are at the forefront of climate change, experts say
Julia Jacobo – September 18, 2023
Climate Week NYC: Large cities are at the forefront of climate change, experts say
America’s largest cities are at the forefront of climate change.
About 80% of the U.S. population live in urban settings, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Some of the country’s most densely populated cities, like New York City, are already at the frontlines of global warming, according to experts.
“This particular section of the population is very vulnerable to a range of climate impacts,” Rachel Cleetus, policy director for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told ABC News.
Hotter temperatures are posing threats to city dwellers
Heat is one of the two major impacts expected to plague cities as climate change continues to worsen, the experts told ABC News.
“Extreme heat is one of the most clearly recognized signals of climate change,” Cleetus said.
Not only are residents and infrastructure experiencing a steady rise in average temperatures, but when the extreme heat waves come, they pose an even greater danger, Malgosia Madajewicz, an associate research scientist for Columbia University’s Center for Climate Systems Research, told ABC News.
PHOTO: FILE – People keep cool in a fountain in Battery Park in Manhattan, July 27, 2023 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images, FILE)
One of the biggest concerns for residents of large cities when a heat wave arrives are for those living in disadvantaged communities who do not have access to air conditioning or can not afford to run it all the time, Madajewicz said.
Extreme summertime heat overburdens vulnerable populations, especially communities of color living with low incomes, Cleetus said, citing mapping research the Union of Concerned Scientists has done to show the inequities of keeping cool in cities.
Heat illness is the number one weather-related killer in the world, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And while cooling centers are available during business hours, they do not help people stay cool at night, which tends to be the most dangerous time for people in vulnerable populations or with preexisting conditions to succumb to heat illness, Madajewicz said.
Urban environments are prone to overheating because of the lack of greenery and abundance of concrete, which absorbs the heat and does not release it easily, creating the phenomenon known as an urban heat island. Heavy traffic also contributes to air pollution, which helps to trap the heat even more.
“There’s a very inequitable impact of extreme heat and cities because of these urban heat islands,” Cleetus said.
Several consequences of climate change are causing increased flooding in cities
Historically, large cities all over the world have been built on coasts, which allowed for easy access to transportation and trade. But the convenience of location has also left these cities vulnerable to sea level rise and high tide flooding, the experts said.
As sea levels continue to rise about 3.5 millimeters per year, mostly due to melting in the Arctic, the additional water is contributing to chronic flooding in metropolitan regions, Cleetus said.
High-tide flooding, or “sunny day flooding,” is becoming increasingly common due to decades of sea level rise, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a report released last year.
PHOTO: FILE – Commuters walk into a flooded 3rd Avenue / 149th st subway station and disrupted service due to extremely heavy rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Ida, Sept. 2, 2021, in the Bronx borough of New York City. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images, FILE)
Changing storm patterns, with an increase of stronger storms that contain more moisture, are also partly responsible for increased flooding. In 2021, more than 50 people in the Northeast died after the remnants of Hurricane Ida caused flash flooding in major cities along the East Coast.
In some New York City neighborhoods, the chronic flooding has become so regular that it is occurring on a weekly basis, Madajewicz said.
“There are areas in New York City that are going to be difficult to sustain neighborhoods in in the long term,” she said.
The prevalence of concrete also contributes to the flooding, as there is no soil to help absorb the excess water, Madajewicz said. The lack of wetlands and dunes in coastal areas that have been heavily developed, such as the Rockaways in Queens, make those neighborhoods more susceptible to flooding, especially when a major storm comes in, like Tropical Storm Sandy in 2012.
PHOTO: FILE – A person makes their way in rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Ida, Sept. 1, 2021, in the Bronx borough of New York City. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images, FILE)
About 1.3 million residents of New York City live within or directly adjacent to the floodplain, according to Rebuild by Design, a climate research and development group. As sea levels continue to rise, that number could increase to 2.2 million New Yorkers.
Both heat waves and flooding can have an impact on people’s health, their livelihoods as well as the economy, Madajewicz said. They can also have these impacts of various channels like water quality, air quality and infrastructure, such as roads and the power grid, Cleetus said.
Once that infrastructure starts to get affected, a domino affect of threats to public health ensues, which includes a potential rise in energy and food prices, Cleetus said.
The food supply could even be interrupted because there are only so many access points in which sustenance can be shipped in, Madajewicz said.
“If those access points are disrupted, with flooding or effects of heat, that affects a very large population,” she said.
Rising groundwater is also being pushed to the surface — both due to rising sea levels, but also due to human consumption and waste, Madajewicz said. Then, when the rain and storm surge comes, there’s nowhere for the extra water to go, and there is potential for polluted water or raw sewage to also rise to the surface.
People living in the suburbs will also acutely feel the affects of climate change, according to a new study by JW Surety Bonds, an insurance brokerage and consulting firm.
The paper, which used artificial intelligence to project climate change effects on major U.S. cities by 2123, found that homes in cities like New York City, Oakland, California, Miami and Cape Coral, Florida would be underwater in 100 years.
PHOTO: FILE – A woman looks on as she stands outside of his flooded home after heavy rain in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., April 13, 2023. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images, FILE)
Conversely, places like Phoenix will be even more dry and deserted, due to an increase of drought, the researchers found.
PHOTO: FILE – A damaged 7-Eleven gas station following Hurricane Ian in Cape Coral, Fla., Sept. 30, 2022. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE)
People who live in the suburbs are more likely to settle there with a family and therefore pure for permanent solutions to create environmentally friendly homes and infrastructure that will withstand future threats from climate change, including green spacing, urban farming and sustainable water management, James Campigotto, a data journalist for JW Surety Bonds and researcher for the study, told ABC News.
Big cities are “engines of solutions,” and are tasked with implementing climate resiliency strategies to protect its citizens from future threats, Cleetus said.
The Big Apple has already started implementing infrastructure improvements that will protect its residents from future extreme events, but the work is nowhere near finished, Madajewicz said.
New York City enacted new building regulations in 2021 that take climate change into account, such as requiring all new construction to be above base flood elevation and take various other flood considerations into account.
There are also efforts being made to raise subway entrances, make the electricity grid and telecommunications more resilient and improve the infrastructure for public transportation, which can shut down when inundated with water — especially certain subway and train lines as well as New York City’s airports, which are located right on the coast in extremely flood-prone areas, Madajewicz said. After Superstorm Sandy, Con Edison, the utility company that serves that majority of New Yorkers, upgraded the infrastructure to the power grid.
“Right now, even a city like New York, which has considerable resources, does not have enough for the scale of investments that are needed,” Cleetus said.
PHOTO: FILE – Caution tape is seen at a construction site near saguaro cactus at the Phoenix botanical gardens in Phoenix, Aug. 1, 2023. (Andrew Caballero-reynolds/AFP via Getty Images, FILE)
But other large cities may not have the same resources or as sizeable a budget as New York, and the challenge will be to prioritize those transformations before it’s too late, Madajewicz said. In Miami and other costal cities in Florida, city planners have prioritized the installation of stormwater pumps, for instance.
“There is more to be done, and it’s important to recognize the gaps as well as the need for more funding going forward to fill those gaps,” Cleetus said.
If not, people may need to move further inland — a budding trend of climate migration that experts expect to see more often in the coming years.
“There’s going to be huge issue with availability of housing for the people who need to live,” Madajewicz said.
Russia is exhausting its resources and ‘a reckoning is coming,’ says Ukraine’s spy chief
Thibault Spirlet – September 18, 2023
Russian forces ride on an armored vehicle in Armyansk on February 22, 2022.STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images
Russia is running out of military resources, Ukraine’s spy chief told The Economist.
Kyrylo Budanov cited Russia’s struggling mobilization and Putin’s meeting with Kim Jong Un.
Budanov predicts Russia’s supply of weapons will dry up by 2026, if not sooner.
Russia is running out of reserve troops and weapons it desperately needs to sustain its fighting in Ukraine, Ukraine’s intelligence chief said.
“Contrary to what the Russian Federation declares, it has absolutely no strategic reserve,” Kyrylo Budanov told The Economist in an interview published on Sunday.
Budanov cited Russia’s underperforming troops, its poor-quality equipment, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong Un, as evidence for his claim.
“If everything is fine and Russia has enough resources, why are they looking for them all over the world? The answer is obvious. There is nothing to extract any more,” he said.
Budanov pointed to the “premature” deployment of Russia’s 25th Combined Arms Army in early August, which he said had only 80% of the manpower and 55% of the equipment it needed to operate effectively.
The UK Ministry of Defence also reported earlier this month that Russia had likely deployed the 25th early, in August instead of December.
It’s likely that it was “rushed into action early” as Russia “continues to grapple with an over-stretched force along the front and Ukraine continues its counter-offensive on three different axes,” the MOD said.
While Russia is reportedly poised to step up its mobilization drive, Budanov told The Economist that head count is the only obvious advantage that Russia retains over Ukraine.
When it comes to Russian human resources “the quality is low, but the quantity is sufficient,” he said.
That’s not the case for military hardware. Given what he called Russia’s dwindling military resources, Budanov predicted that Russia’s economy will survive only until 2025, and its flow of weapons will dry up in 2026, or “perhaps earlier,” he told the outlet.
“A reckoning is coming,” Burdanov said, per The Economist.
Later in the interview, Burdanov acknowledged that Ukraine also risks running out of resources, but he insisted his country has Western allies ready to supply them with aid, whereas Russia is dependent on itself.
While some Ukrainian officials have said they are noticing a “shift” in their partners’ readiness to continue supplying support at the same level, Budanov said he had “good intelligence” about realities in the West.
“Warehouses in Western countries are not completely empty. No matter what anyone says,” he added. “We can see this very clearly as an intelligence agency.”
State Farm is closing its doors to millions of new customers exposed to ‘rapidly growing’ catastrophes — here’s who’s affected
Laurelle Stelle – September 18, 2023
The EPA reports that wildfires are getting worse as the planet gets warmer. In response to this and other factors, major insurer State Farm has announced that it will no longer offer homeowner’s insurance to new applicants in fire-prone California.
What’s happening?
According to the EPA, the area burned by wildfires each year has been increasing since the 1980s. The 10 most destructive years on record have happened in the past 20 years, causing more damage thanks to the plentiful dry plants left behind by drought.
While the effects are felt across the U.S., California is famous for its yearly wildfires and the resulting smoke. This year has been particularly hard for the state due to a devastating combination of storms, floods, drought, and fire.
As Axios reports, this became too much risk for State Farm. The company cited “historic increases in construction costs outpacing inflation” and “rapidly growing catastrophe exposure” in its decision to close applications across California in May.
Why does it matter?
For homeowners in California, it will now be harder to find affordable coverage for their property. Without it, residents run the risk of losing everything in a fire. Owners that already have coverage are still protected, but State Farm won’t accept any new applications in California, it says.
But the problem extends beyond California. Disasters of all kinds have become more common and more destructive as rising temperatures across the world have caused the weather to become less stable.
If insurers find it too risky to cover areas affected by these disasters, then more and more regions could find themselves without coverage. Louisiana and Florida are already losing coverage thanks to predictions of an active hurricane season, Axios reports. Ironically, State Farm has announced its intent to remain in Florida despite large competitors like Farmers and AAA pulling out.
What’s being done?
Michael Soller, the California deputy insurance commissioner, told Axios in an email that the California Department of Insurance is dedicated to protecting consumers in the long run.
“We have been here before after major wildfires,” he said. “What’s different is the actions that we are taking with the first-ever insurance discount program for wildfire safety and unprecedented wildfire mitigation investments from the Legislature and Governor.”
In other words, the CDI is working with the state government to lower insurance costs and reduce the risk of wildfires so that insurers can be secure operating in the area once again.
Water-starved Saudi confronts desalination’s heavy toll
Robbie Corey-Boulet – September 16, 2023
General manager Mohamed Ali al-Qahtani checks the quality of the ouput at the Ras al-Khair desalination plant (Fayez Nureldine)
Solar panels soak up blinding noontime rays that help power a water desalination facility in eastern Saudi Arabia, a step towards making the notoriously emissions-heavy process less environmentally taxing.
The Jazlah plant in Jubail city applies the latest technological advances in a country that first turned to desalination more than a century ago, when Ottoman-era administrators enlisted filtration machines for hajj pilgrims menaced by drought and cholera.
Lacking lakes, rivers and regular rainfall, Saudi Arabia today relies instead on dozens of facilities that transform water from the Gulf and Red Sea into something potable, supplying cities and towns that otherwise would not survive.
But the kingdom’s growing desalination needs –- fuelled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s dreams of presiding over a global business and tourism hub –- risk clashing with its sustainability goals, including achieving net-zero emissions by 2060.
Projects like Jazlah, the first plant to integrate desalination with solar power on a large scale, are meant to ease that conflict: officials say the panels will help save around 60,000 tons of carbon emissions annually.
It is the type of innovation that must be scaled up fast, with Prince Mohammed targeting a population of 100 million people by 2040, up from 32.2 million today.
“Typically, the population grows, and then the quality of life of the population grows,” necessitating more and more water, said CEO Marco Arcelli of ACWA Power, which runs Jazlah.
Using desalination to keep pace is a “do or die” challenge, said historian Michael Christopher Low at the University of Utah, who has studied the kingdom’s struggle with water scarcity.
“This is existential for the Gulf states. So when anyone is sort of critical about what they’re doing in terms of ecological consequences, I shake my head a bit,” he said.
At the same time, he added, “there are limits” as to how green desalination can be.
– Drinking the sea –
The search for potable water bedevilled Saudi Arabia in the first decades after its founding in 1932, spurring geological surveys that contributed to the mapping of its massive oil reserves.
Prince Mohammed al-Faisal, a son of King Faisal whom Low has dubbed the “Water Prince”, at one point even explored the possibility of towing icebergs from Antarctica to quench the kingdom’s growing thirst, drawing widespread ridicule.
But Prince Mohammed also oversaw the birth of the kingdom’s modern desalination infrastructure beginning in 1970.
The national Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) now reports production capacity of 11.5 million cubic metres per day at 30 facilities.
That growth has come at a cost, especially at thermal plants running on fossil fuels.
By 2010, Saudi desalination facilities were consuming 1.5 million barrels of oil per day, more than 15 percent of today’s production.
The Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture did not respond to AFP’s request for comment on current energy consumption at desalination plants.
Going forward, there is little doubt Saudi Arabia will be able to build the infrastructure required to produce the water it needs.
“They have already done it in some of the most challenging settings, like massively desalinating on the Red Sea and providing desalinated water up to the highlands of the holy cities in Mecca and Medina,” said Laurent Lambert of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.
– Going green? –
The question is how much the environmental toll will continue to climb.
The SWCC says it wants to cut 37 million metric tonnes of carbon emissions by 2025.
This will be achieved largely by transitioning away from thermal plants to plants like Jazlah that use electricity-powered reverse osmosis.
Solar power, meanwhile, will expand to 770 megawatts from 120 megawatts today, according to the SWCC’s latest sustainability report, although the timeline is unclear.
“It’s still going to be energy-intensive, unfortunately, but energy-intensive compared to what?” Lambert said.
“Compared to countries which have naturally flowing water from major rivers or falling from the sky for free? Yeah, sure, it’s always going to be more.”
At desalination plants across the kingdom, Saudi employees understand just how crucial their work is to the population’s survival.
The Ras al-Khair plant produces 1.1 million cubic metres of water per day –- 740,000 from thermal technology, the rest from reverse osmosis –- and struggles to keep reserve tanks full because of high demand.
Much of the water goes to Riyadh, which requires 1.6 million cubic metres per day and could require as much as six million by the end of the decade, said an employee who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to brief the media.
Looking out over pipes that draw seawater from the Gulf into the plant, he described the work as high-stakes, with clear national security implications.
If the plant did not exist, he said, “Riyadh would die”.
Scientists find shocking new use for cocoa beans that could affect our entire planet — and it has nothing to do with chocolate
Roberto Guerra – September 17, 2023
A novel way to counter climate change is taking place in the German port city of Hamburg.
It’s a process that begins with cocoa bean shells going in one end of a factory and coming out as a black powder called biochar, which is doing its part to slow climate change.
What is biochar?
Biochar is the black powder mentioned above, and it’s produced by — in this case — heating cocoa husks in a room that has no oxygen to a temperature of 1,112 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Phys.org. Biochar producers can also use other organic wastes as raw materials.
The process prevents plant-warming toxic gases from entering the atmosphere, and the final product can be turned into fertilizer or an ingredient for concrete that is environmentally friendlier than traditional concrete, per Phys.org.
How does the process work?
Biochar captures the carbon dioxide present in the husks of the cocoa shells from the European plant mentioned above, and this method can be implemented by any other facility.
If the cocoa shells were discarded conventionally, the carbon within the unused byproduct would be released into the atmosphere during its decomposition.
Rather than following the usual disposal method, where the carbon within the unused cocoa shells would be released into the atmosphere, which heats up the planet, it is instead stored in the biochar for a very long time.
David Houben, an environmental scientist at the UniLaSalle Institute in France, told Phys.org that the biochar could hold onto the planet-warming gas for centuries.
Why is biochar important?
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that biochar could potentially capture billions of tons of the environmentally damaging gases released by our species every year.
This is important because human activities, such as electricity production and transportation, spew around 77 billion tons of planet-warming gases into the atmosphere each year. So far, this warming has triggered an increase in heatwaves, floods, droughts, and forest fires over the past few decades.
Some experts believe implementing renewable energy to reduce the amount of planet-warming emissions into the atmosphere isn’t enough and that it may already be too late to prevent the most damaging effects of a warming planet.
That’s why carbon sequestration, or the process of removing the planet-warming gases we’ve already injected into the atmosphere, is considered so important by many climate experts, and the use of biochar does exactly that.
However, the production of biochar is still difficult to scale up to the levels where it could actually slow the overheating of the planet.
“To ensure the system stores more carbon than it produces, everything needs to be done locally, with little or no transport. Otherwise it makes no sense,” Houben, the environmental scientist, told Phys.org.
However, even though challenges remain, the number of biochar initiatives is increasing rapidly. As reported by Phys.org, the production of biochar is expected to nearly double this year compared to last year.
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