Equilibrium — Scientists take steps toward ‘greener’ fertilizer
Scientists have set out to innovate a new type of ammonia that could help create “greener” fertilizer — and minimize the climate impacts of a ubiquitous but energy-intensive compound.
Industrial production of ammonia — a key ingredient in fertilizers — creates one of the world’s biggest chemical commodities but also takes a heavy toll on the environment.
Ammonia manufacturing consumes about 1 percent of all fossil fuels and unleashes 1 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, chemists at the University of California, Berkeley, warned.
One major obstacle thus far has been the huge amount of energy required to separate ammonia from the reactants — mainly nitrogen and hydrogen — involved in ammonia production, according to the scientists.
The process involves large temperature and pressure swings, which has also necessitated enormous inputs of energy, the chemists explained.
While the initial reaction needs to take place at extremely high temperatures, the ammonia must be removed by cooling the gas to well below freezing — at which point it condenses into a liquid.
But the UC Berkeley team designed porous materials that are capable of binding and releasing ammonia at more moderate pressures and temperatures, a mechanism the scientists revealed on Wednesday in Nature.
“You don’t want to have to put a lot of heat in your material to force the ammonia to come off,” lead author Benjamin Snyder, a UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow, said in a statement.
“Likewise, when the ammonia absorbs, you don’t want that to generate a lot of waste heat,” Synder added.
Because the process operates at lower temperatures and pressures, the production of ammonia — and therefore fertilizer — could potentially occur at smaller facilities located closer to farmers, the authors noted.
“The dream here would be enabling a technology where a farmer in some economically disadvantaged area of the world now has much more ready access to the ammonia that they need to grow their crops,” Snyder added.
Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. We’re Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Subscribe here.
Today we’ll follow the storm that battered California as it crosses the country. Then, we’ll look at how European oil sanctions have been impacting Russia, followed by a toxic side effect of the Gulf Coast gas export boom.
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Storms making way across country
A new line of storms will batter the Pacific Northwest through Thursday, pummeling as-yet-unscathed areas with heavy rains and strong winds, according to the National Weather Service.
“An enormous cyclone” sitting off the West Coast will send “heavy precipitation and gusty winds” into northern California.
By Thursday storms could bring “a few inches” of rain to Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.
U.S. tour: As this new storm system gathers strength, the storm that began battering California earlier this week will be heading inland, according to the weather service.
Thunderstorms and occasional tornadoes are expected in the southern U.S. later in the week following a powerful slow-moving weather system.
The Eastern Seaboard is expected to face showers and thunderstorms, with the low pressure system hitting New England early Friday, according to the weather service.
One good note: The repeated torrents of atmospheric rivers pouring into California are replenishing snowpack and slowly filling up depleted reservoirs, The Associated Press reported.
The hydrological benefits of the storms have particularly favored the same region its winds and floodwaters have ravaged: California’s Central Valley.
Reservoirs in this heavily agricultural region provide water for crops like almonds, rice and tomatoes — as well as cities downstream.
The state snowpack stood high above average for much of the Sierra Nevada — ranging from 184 percent of the yearly average in the Northern Sierra, and a staggering 269 percent for the Southern Sierra, according to the state Department of Water Resources.
Too soon to tell: But even with the recent flooding, Northern California could easily end the winter with average precipitation levels — or even ones below average, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) meteorologist Brad Pugh told The Wall Street Journal.
Big bucket to fill: “It’s going to be really hard to recover,” Richard Heim, another NOAA meteorologist, told the Journal regarding the state’s legacy of drought.
“I want to say, ‘Yay!’ in the short term. But we need more—a lot more—in the long term,” Heim said.
“Drought is not just what happened last week or what happened last month,” he added.
Putting a price tag on sanctions against Russian oil
The European Union’s ban on crude oil imports from Russia and its price cap on the country’s oil are costing Moscow about $172 million per day, a new report has found.
‘An extraordinary step’: Russia’s losses could rise to roughly $300 million per day (280 million euros) on Feb. 5, when the EU is will be implementing further restrictions, according to the report, published by the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
“The EU ban on Russian oil was an extraordinary step taken to axe the funds from Europe financing Putin’s war,” a statement from the authors said.
But the authors described current measures as “too lenient” and called upon Western nations to “further choke off Russia’s funding for the war.”
Rolling out sanctions: This past June, the European Council adopted a sanctions package to prohibit the purchase, import or maritime transport of Russian crude oil by Dec. 5.
These measures will expand to include other refined petroleum products on Feb. 5.
The EU and the Group of Seven countries — including the U.S. — also imposed a price cap on Russian oil last month, limiting sales to $60 per barrel.
A partial effect: Yet other countries such as China and India have continued to import Russian oil, with Moscow’s fossil fuel exports earning the country $688 million per day, according to the report.
A drop in shipment volumes and prices for Russian crude cut revenues by $194 million per day, while Germany’s pipeline halt cost another more than $21 million, the authors acknowledged.
But Moscow was able “to claw back” more than $21 million daily by boosting refined oil exports to the EU and the rest of the world, the researchers found.
Group: LNG expansion could hurt Louisiana coast
A planned expansion of natural gas export facilities could wreck large swaths of the Louisiana coast, a local citizen group warned on Tuesday.
Case study: Two liquified natural gas (LNG) export plants at opposite ends of a southern Louisiana lake have continuously released greenhouse gasses and toxic chemicals into the air, according to a report from the Louisiana Bucket Brigade.
The Brigade is a civil society group that represents communities near industrial sites.
Emissions problem: The report accuses Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass terminal and Sempra Energy’s Cameron LNG gas export facilities of consistently releasing illegal levels of toxic chemicals like benzene and sulfur dioxide.
In addition to dozens of listed reports, the two plants have also frequently released climate-warming or toxic chemicals without notifying state regulators, according to the Brigade.
Unless federal officials take action, the report warns, “commercial fishing and outdoor recreation activities will become impossible in Cameron Parish.”
Proposed expansion: Federal and state officials are backing plans to build a fleet of new LNG export terminals across the Gulf Coast, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
Construction is already ongoing or will soon begin on 11 such facilities, FERC reported.
In Cameron Parish alone, two new plants are under construction, with two more proposed.
Several others, including the Venture and Sempra plants, have big plans for expansion.
Flares in the dark: But while some local residents are pleased with the growth in the tax base, the continued venting from existing plants worries others.
Neighbors of the plants also described nearly continuous incidents of flaring, in which the facility burns off the potent greenhouse gas methane.
These residents report that the nights above Calcasieu Lake are often lit up with burning gas flares, “often going on for days with little or no break, and at all hours,” according to the Brigade.
Threat to fishing: “They come and take over everything. It’s really like an invasion. There’s no life for fishermen if this is done,” local commercial fisherman Travis Dardar said at a press conference, referring to the planned expansion.
“They say they’ll respectfully build through oyster reefs but how can you do it respectfully? If they build this here then it will be the end of commercial fishing,” Dardar added.
For the rest of the story, please click here.
MANY CAR OWNERS WOULD BENEFIT FROM EV SWITCH: STUDY
More than 90 percent of car-owning families could reduce both the amount they pay to power their vehicles and their household emissions by going electric, a new study has found.
At the same time, however, more than half of the lowest-income U.S. households — about 8.3 million — would still incur significant expenses when fueling their vehicles, according to the study, published in Environmental Research Letters.
For most, big savings: For 60 percent of car-owning households in the U.S., the money and emissions saved by switching to an electric vehicle (EV) would be considered “moderate to high,” the authors determined.
The regions where families stand to benefit the most are the American West and parts of the Northeast.
The authors attribute these potential gains to cleaner electricity grids, temperature-related impacts on fuel efficiency and lower electricity costs, relative to gas prices.
Energy burdens, emissions: The authors calculated census tract-level transportation energy burdens — the amount of money spent on fuel or electric charge — of both new EVs and international combustion engine vehicles.
They also estimated lifetime greenhouse gas emissions for each set of vehicles based on the same census information.
What did they find? Switching to an EV would more than double the percentage of U.S. households — to 80 percent of all U.S. households — that enjoy a low transportation energy burden, the authors found.
They defined a low burden as spending less than 2 percent of household income on fuel annually.
But more than half of the lowest-income households in the country would still have a high EV energy burden — or more than 4 percent of their income spent on fuel annually.
EVs are not equal: “EV ownership in the U.S. has thus far been dominated by households with higher incomes and education levels, leaving the most vulnerable populations behind,” co-author Joshua Newell, of the University of Michigan, said in a statement.
“Policy interventions are needed to increase EV accessibility so that all Americans can benefit from the EV transition,” he added.
To read the full story, please click here.
Wildlife Wednesday
Manatees are doing better but not yet out of danger, a landmark wildlife bill could rise from the ashes and how national parks can help elk cope with climate change.
Florida manatee deaths decrease, but concerns remain
Florida manatee deaths in 2022 fell from a record high the previous year, but officials are concerned about chronic starvation caused by pollution, The Associated Press reported. Statistics released by the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission showed 800 manatee deaths last year, in comparison to 1,100 in 2021, according to the AP.
Congress could still pass a major wildlife bill in 2023
Environmental campaigners are trying to resurrect the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act — which cleared the House and Senate last year only to die during the congressional budget process, Vox reported. While the nearly $13-billion landmark wildlife protection bill had wide bipartisan support, members of Congress failed to agree on how to pay for it.
To amplify conservation impacts of national parks, connect them
Connecting national parks by means of migration corridors could help save many iconic American mammal species from extinction, according to a report published on Wednesday in Scientific Reports. Such pathways would allow species like elk and moose to grow populations beyond what is possible in a single park, while shifting their ranges to better cope with climate change, the researchers found.
Please visit The Hill’s Sustainability section online for more and check out other newsletters here. We’ll see you tomorrow.
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