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French and Australian experts on solving the world's sustainability challenge

Fri, 2017-04-28 06:04
Still from the French documentary Tomorrow. MOVE MOVIE, FRANCE 2 CINÉMA, MARS FILMS, MELY PRODUCTIONS

The Conversation and the Australian French Embassy presented a panel between French and Australian experts at the University of New South Wales in March, opened by the French Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Development Jean-Marc Ayrault.

In his opening remarks, Ayrault celebrated the signing and coming into force of the 2015 Paris Agreement, under which countries agreed to limit warming to well-below 2℃, however he highlighted that more action needs to be taken around the world.

“Some are tempted to slow it down, or worse, to take a step backwards. We can currently see this in the United States.

"Tackling climate change is a democratic fight. Individual actions are like votes: on their own, they seem powerless, but together, they give new meaning to our societies,” he said.

The panel discussion included screenings of clips from the French documentary Tomorrow. View the complete discussion below.

The Conversation asked French and Australian experts what they consider to be the major challenges to overcome in transitioning to a more sustainable world.

Better valuing sustainable development in transport

François Raulin, Researcher, The Territory Development Institute, Normandy Business School

Since the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, sustainable development has gradually become a key issue for public policy in many countries. Despite many global efforts - for example - to reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, most small initiatives are being taken at the local level.

Take the example of sustainable mobility in cities. The majority of urban agglomerations have been designed or redeveloped for cars. In order to limit the use of cars, various devices have been put in place, such as the introduction of urban road tolls (for example in Singapore, London and Stockholm), the removal of parking lots in inner city centres, or more recently the installation of eco stickers (road tax) for polluting vehicles in Paris.

In parallel, many French cities have seen a reduction in car use in favour of more sustainable forms of transport. As well as public transport such as trains, buses or trams, bikes and walking are alternative solutions to cars. However, depending on the urban environment, bicycling or walking is not always possible, or is dangerous.

How can these modes of active transport be promoted? Here are three possible solutions:

  • First, by promoting their health benefits, including the fight against obesity, the decline in cardiovascular diseases or the preservation of mental health.

  • Second, by encouraging their intermodality with other transport system, which would reduce the use of cars over short distances. The development of bike-sharing systems or improved walkability are various solutions proposed to encourage their use in the city.

  • Third, by increasing the ground area dedicated to cycling (bike paths) and walking (footpaths) while decreasing that of cars.

Beyond environmental issues, the development of sustainable mobility in cities also improves the quality of life of the inhabitants (less pollution, less noise, and so on) and make it more attractive, especially among young people.

Overcoming inertia in the energy system

Dani Alexander, Research principal, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

Overcoming inertia, both culturally and technologically, will be the key to unlocking our clean energy transition.

Power has been shifting to the energy consumers with the rapid rise of rooftop solar and falling costs of battery storage. However, with this has come discontent with the large electricity businesses that were built in the traditional model of “big energy” to “small consumer”.

As Belgian historian David Van Reybrouck argues in the film Tomorrow, there is an “increasing sense of theft” among consumers, which can drive action against the system such as “going off-grid”. The majority of Australians are ready to move to a renewable energy system despite the political inertia.

Our researchers at the Institute for Sustainable Futures have investigated the risk of a “death spiral” where, as more people leave the grid, the shared cost of our electricity infrastructure becomes more concentrated among fewer people, leading in turn to yet more people leaving the grid.

Unfortunately, it is often those who are more vulnerable (such as those who cannot afford a personal energy system) that pay the highest price. There are options to improve the way that our energy market works to provide a fairer deal for everyone, but regulatory inertia seems to be strong as well.

But what about technically? Can we move to a renewable energy system without risking the system or soaring electricity bills? Or is a rapid transition irresponsible, as some in our federal government would have us believe? Can renewables provide the same reliable services?

Moving towards more local generation, such as more rooftop solar, does make managing electricity more complex, for example in keeping network voltage in check. Luckily, renewable technologies have already advanced and have the capability to provide the network support services we need. Solar panels with storage will be able to moderate voltage at the source of the problem. Wind turbines already have the ability to provide the “synthetic” inertia to keep the grid stable – if the market allows and promotes it.

So what we need now is a new momentum. Strong enough to overcome the inertia and fast enough to divert our path away from irreversible climate change.

Working from the ground up

Joachim Claudet, Researcher, CNRS/PSL University

Global change is a major challenge for human societies. It is modifying ecosystems all over the world, hence threatening our wellbeing through alterations to the flow of ecosystem services. However, global change is not affecting societies everywhere in the same way. Global drivers interact with local drivers.

They can combine with local stresses, such as overfishing or land clearing, creating additive or even multiplicative impacts. Understanding and predicting global change impacts thus requires strong knowledge of local social-ecological systems, of human-nature interactions (such as human use of the environment, natural disturbance history).

Global drivers also emerge from local processes. Hence, attempts to minimise the magnitude of global drivers or strategies to mitigate their impacts require local interventions. These can include incentives to modify human uses or adaptive management to foster resilience of social-ecological systems.

The latter requires a deep understanding of local world views as effective strategies in a place can be culturally inappropriate in another. This is particularly true in some Pacific Island countries – those countries being some of the most vulnerable to climate change – where wellbeing is strongly tied to the connectedness of people and places and where there is no distinction between nature and culture.

The Conversation

Dani Alexander is a member of the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF), which undertakes paid sustainability research for a wide range of government, NGO and corporate clients, including energy businesses.

François Raulin and Joachim Claudet do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Categories: Around The Web

Five things the east coast can learn from WA about energy

Wed, 2017-04-26 05:54

It’s an interesting time to be involved in energy policy. Thanks to the east coast energy crisis, the closure of Hazelwood power station and South Australia’s blackouts, the broadsheet-reading public suddenly finds itself conversant with all sorts of esoteric concepts, from gas peaking to five-minute price settlements.

Amid all the disruption, it’s perhaps not surprising that a long-term, coherent national energy policy remains as elusive as ever. Instead we see piecemeal announcements like pumped hydro and battery storage, none of which is itself a panacea. Some innovations can hinge on a single tweet which, while exciting, hardly gives the impression of joined-up policymaking.

Despite its name, the much-maligned National Electricity Market doesn’t extend to Western Australia, which means that federal energy policy discussions don’t always reach across the Nullarbor.

But we suggest looking west for inspiration. In our view, WA is well placed to research, develop and deploy the energy solutions that the whole country could ultimately use. Here are five reasons why.

1. An appetite for change

WA electricity customers have long recognised the advantages that energy innovations provide. More than 200,000 homes have solar panels (rapidly closing in on the penetration levels of Queensland and South Australia), and the appetite for residential battery storage is steadily growing.

This is due to a combination of factors. First, there’s the consistently sunny weather. Then there’s the fact that WA customers cannot yet choose their electricity retailer, meaning that households are more motivated to shop for solar panels to gain independence from government owned monopoly utilities, and can’t simply rely on the innovative price deals of the more nimble retailers found over east.

The vast distance and separation from the rest of Australia’s network means the WA grid won’t be joined to the NEM any time soon, meaning it will need to address the issues for itself, hopefully aided by a newly elected state government with the political capital to reform energy markets.

2. Micro grids, maximum resilience

To move successfully away from the traditional, centralised model of electricity generation, you need to maintain one of its cornerstone qualities: resilience. Being so far from literally everywhere else on the planet has embedded these traits into WA’s energy network, but has also reinforced the need to incorporate “microgrids” into network planning.

Microgrids are best thought of as small electricity sub-grids, able to function in concert with the main grid or in isolation if necessary. This increases the entire network’s resilience – you can’t have a state-wide blackout if you have plenty of microgrids.

WA currently has over 30 isolated microgrids, and is in prime position to be a test bed for more complex systems of network control, which will become necessary as these grids attempt to incorporate ever higher levels of distributed renewable energy from solar panels and other sources.

3. Trials and tests beat reviews and reports

The forthcoming Finkel Review of the National Electricity Market is clearly necessary and welcome. But while the media and political circus focuses on it, the utilities in WA are already out there testing the solutions.

The government-owned retailer Synergy and network operators Western Powerhave helped to investigate a range of innovations, such as strata peer-to-peer electricity trading, microgrids, utility-scale battery storage, demand-management, and standalone power systems for fringe-of-grid areas.

Meanwhile, the state-owned regional provider Horizon Power provides several valuable test case opportunities to understand how future grids and networks will need to operate in more remote areas. For example, it has successfully installed advanced metering infrastructure (‘smart meters’) for every one of its 47,000 customers, spread over 2.3 million square kilometres, no less.

4. Skilled labour is plentiful

During WA’s decade-long mining boom, technical skills were in high demand and short supply. It’s fair to say the opposite is now the case. Meanwhile, the state government has committed to removing 380 megawatts of fossil-fuel generation capacity from the WA energy market, most of which is situated around Collie, south of Perth.

If this pledge leads to greater opportunities for new renewable energy infrastructure it would provide welcome relief for a job market awash with underemployed technical experts, still reeling from the mining downturn.

WA’s world-leading reserves of lithium ore also offer a significance chance to join in the burgeoning battery storage industry.

With the recent closure of Hazelwood’s ancient coal-fired power station, Victoria’s Latrobe valley will no doubt be investigating similar opportunities, and the coal regions of Queensland and New South Wales should not be too far behind.

5. Strong links between government and experts

For WA, the disruptive transition in the energy sector is more acute, partly because its market is dominated by government-owned monopoly utilities that rely heavily on subsidies to ensure consistent power prices. But mostly because in WA there is a very direct link between power prices and politics, and electricity is always a hot topic at state elections.

Because of its physical isolation, WA’s energy policies are also largely independent from the rest of the COAG Energy Council.

As described in point 3 above, utilities will need to be prepared to spend significantly on research and development if they want to survive. WA’s utilities already rely heavily on state government support for technology innovation, but also have strong networks of local experts that are able to bridge the silos across academia, industry and government and keep the momentum going in WA’s smaller markets and grids.

So that was five reasons, among many more, why we think WA has a chance for not just Australian, but global leadership in the renewable power transition. As the rest of the country grapples with its energy headaches, it should consider looking west once in a while.

The Conversation

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

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Want to boost the domestic gas industry? Put a price on carbon

Mon, 2017-04-24 10:24
With the right power policies, gas can have a brighter future. Steven Bradley, CC BY-SA

Australia’s gas industry is under scrutiny from the competition watchdog after apparently failing to deliver on its pledge to bring down domestic prices and ease the east coast gas supply crisis.

The current domestic supply squeeze will be over soon enough. But other, longer-term factors threaten the role of gas in Australia’s energy mix.

Gas producers claim that gas is a vital fuel in the transition to a low-carbon economy (although not everyone agrees). But to achieve this they need to ensure that coal is replaced by gas in the generation of electricity. It is increasingly unlikely that this will happen in Australia, unless the industry can persuade the government to reinstate a price on carbon.

At the moment, the idea of gas as a transition fuel seems academic anyway. Gas is now in such short supply on the east coast that any policy aimed at increasing demand seems ludicrous. The shortage has driven gas prices to unprecedented levels, which has in turn has driven up electricity prices. In the gas industry, the talk is mainly about finding new supplies, not new customers.

But the present east coast gas shortage may well be shortlived, because there is currently an oversupply of gas on the international market. With prodding from government, this could bring about a drop in domestic prices in various ways.

For example, the liquid natural gas (LNG) exporters in Queensland who are sucking up so much of Australia’s gas might find it profitable to meet some of their international contract commitments by buying LNG on the international market and shipping it direct to their customers. This would release gas they have contracted to buy in Australia into the local market, thereby saving the (not inconsiderable) cost of liquefaction. This is the strategy of the gas swaps currently being touted as a solution to the domestic supply squeeze.

Alternatively, shiploads of LNG bought on the open market could be brought to southeast Australia, re-gasified, and then fed into the gas transmission system relatively close to the point of consumption, thus reducing transmission costs. This idea has been floated by gas producer AGL.

The government has not yet prodded hard enough to make these things happen, but a worsening gas crisis may stiffen its resolve.

Finally, extra supplies of Northern Territory gas will become available on the east coast when the Northern Gas Pipeline is completed next year.

None of these strategies depends on increasing the production of unconventional gas on the east coast, although that too, if it happened, might ease the domestic supply problem.

Crisis over?

In summary, there are grounds for thinking that in the reasonably short term we will see a significant increase in gas supply on the east coast, and a corresponding drop in price. As soon as that happens, the gas industry will again be interested in stimulating demand, particularly in the electricity sector. But by then it may be too late. Here’s why.

Without a national strategy that puts a price on carbon, the states will continue to go it alone with renewable energy targets. As the new renewable energy generators come online, they will push the most expensive generators out of business. Unfortunately for gas, even with more reasonable gas prices, coal-fired electricity will remain cheaper.

So, to the extent that the market can rely on renewables and coal alone, gas will be out of business. As large-scale battery storage becomes a reality, gas may not even be needed to cope with spikes in demand. Meanwhile, the current high price of power means the quiet revolution in rooftop solar panels is set to continue. The most recent data shows new installations are up 43% on a year ago.

There is, however, hope for gas in the medium term if the government legislates to impose a price on carbon in the electricity sector. One way to do this has already been widely proposed: an emissions intensity scheme.

Such a scheme would impose penalty payments on the most carbon-intensive emitters, such as coal-fired power stations and pay subsidies to lower-emitting industries such as renewables and gas.

This would put gas in a much better position to compete with coal, especially if the penalties were ratcheted up over time. Under modelling done for the Climate Change Authority, this would see brown coal power stations disappear within three years, while black coal would follow suit in little more than a decade.

Coal’s place would be taken mainly by wind and by new, efficient, gas-fired power stations. If by that time gas-fired power stations are able to capture and store their carbon dioxide emissions, then we would truly have arrived in a golden age for gas. If not, the gas industry will at least have had some profitable years before going into decline.

A price on carbon would let gas win the battle with coal and step in to take its place. Eventually, however, renewables will sweep away all fossil fuel power generation, so of course the long-term future for gas in this sector is bleak (as befits a transition fuel). But without a price on carbon, coal will be around for longer, undermining whatever market there may be for gas.

It is therefore in the gas industry’s interest to lobby hard for a price on carbon in the electricity sector, as part of the upcoming government review of climate policy. Other industry groups are virtually unanimous in their support for carbon pricing, but the oil and gas industry’s peak body, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, has been rather more equivocal. While in theory it supports a carbon price, it qualifies this support so extensively that in practice it opposes every pricing proposal that is placed on the table.

If the peak oil and gas body could be persuaded to join with the rest of industry on this matter, it might just make the difference. Pricing carbon is not only good for the environment, in the medium term it is good for gas too.

The Conversation

Andrew Hopkins is affiliated with the Climate Council and the Citizens' Climate Lobby.

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Bigfoot, the Kraken and night parrots: searching for the mythical or mysterious

Mon, 2017-04-24 06:02
In 2012 scientists succeeded in filming for the first time ever a giant squid in its natural habitat. EPA/NHK/NEP/DISCOVERY CHANNEL/AAP

It’s remarkable how little we know about Earth. How many species do we share this planet with? We don’t know, but estimates vary from millions to a trillion. In some respects we know more about the Moon, Mars and Venus than we do about the ocean’s depths and the vast sea floors.

But humans are inquisitive creatures, and we’re driven to explore. Chasing mythical or mysterious animals grabs media headlines and spurs debates, but it can also lead to remarkable discoveries.

The recent photographing of a live night parrot in Western Australia brought much joy. These enigmatic nocturnal birds have been only sporadically sighted over decades.

Another Australian species that inspires dedicated searchers is the Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine. A new hunt is under way, not in Tasmania but in Queensland’s vast wilderness region of Cape York.

This is the first photograph of a live night parrot, taken in Western Australia in March 2017. Bruce Greatwitch

Other plans are afoot to search for the long-beaked echidna in Western Australia’s Kimberley region.

In the case of the thylacine, old accounts from the region that sound very much like descriptions of the species raise the prospect that perhaps Cape York isn’t such a bad place to look after all.

But in reality, and tragically, it’s very unlikely that either of these species still survives in Australia. For some species there is scientific research that estimates just how improbable such an event would be; in the case of thylacines, one model suggests the odds are 1 in 1.6 trillion.

Chasing myths

The study and pursuit of “hidden” animals, thought to be extinct or fictitious, is often called cryptozoology. The word itself invites scorn – notorious examples include the search for Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster or Victoria’s legendary black panthers.

The search for Bigfoot is an extreme case of cryptozoology.

Granted, it’s probably apt to describe those searches as wild goose chases, but we must also acknowledge that genuine species – often quite sizeable ones – have been discovered.

Remarkable discoveries of animals thought to be fantasies or long extinct include giant squid, mountain gorillas, okapi, Komodo dragons and coelacanths.

In some cases, like the giant squid, these animals have been dismissed as legends. The reclusive oarfish, for example, are thought to be the inspiration for centuries of stories about sea serpents.

Oarfish can grow up to 8 metres long and swim vertically through the water. Commonly inhabiting the deep ocean, they occasionally come to shallow water for unknown reasons. AAP Image/ Coastal Otago District Office Technology to the rescue

Finding rare and cryptic species is self-evidently challenging, but rapid advances in technology open up amazing possibilities. Camera traps now provide us with regular selfies of once highly elusive snow leopards, and could equally be used with other difficult-to-find animals.

Candid camera, snow leopards in the Himalayas.

Environmental DNA is allowing us to detect species otherwise difficult to observe. Animal DNA found in the blood of leeches has uncovered rare and endangered mammals, meaning these and other much maligned blood-sucking parasites could be powerful biodiversity survey tools.

Acoustic recording devices can be left in areas for extended time periods, allowing us to eavesdrop on ecosystems and look out for sounds that might indicate otherwise hidden biological treasures. And coupling drones with thermal sensors and high resolution cameras means we can now take an eagle eye to remote and challenging environments.

Drones are opening up amazing possibilities for biological survey and wildlife conservation. The benefits of exploration and lessons learned

It’s easy to criticise the pursuit of the unlikely, but “miracles” can and do occur, sometimes on our doorstep. The discovery of the ancient Wollemi pine is a case in point. Even if we don’t find what we’re after, we may still benefit from what we learn along the way.

I’ve often wondered how many more species might be revealed to us if scientists invested more time in carefully listening to, recording and following up on the knowledge of Indigenous, farming, and other communities who have long and intimate associations with the land and sea.

Such an approach, combined with the deployment of new technologies, could create a boom of biological discovery.

The Conversation

Euan Ritchie receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Euan Ritchie is a Director (Media Working Group) of the Ecological Society of Australia, and a member of the Australian Mammal Society.

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Crop probiotics: how more science and less hype can help Australian farmers

Fri, 2017-04-21 11:14
Farmers are turning to natural bacteria to improve crops like cane – but they might be getting rubbish. Gavin Fordham/Flickr

Australian farmers are at risk of missing out on a global boom in “crop probiotics”, because lax regulations make it less likely the supplements they buy to boost their crops will actually work.

Similar to the probiotics that offer health benefits for humans, certain natural bacteria can make crops healthier, hardier and more productive, by increasing their resilience to pests, pathogens and environmental stresses and improving access to soil nutrients.

But our research has found that the quality of products sold as “biostimulants” in Australia (which includes crop probiotics) varies wildly, with many available that do not deliver the promised benefits.

This potentially deprives our farmers of genuine products developed and tested with scientific principles. It muddies the waters, as companies selling effective products compete with those peddling “snake oil”. It also raises concerns about biosafety: importers can simply tick a few boxes and claim there aren’t pathogens in the bottle, without hard proof.

How do crop probiotics work?

Bacterial biostimulants naturally form a mutually beneficial bond with plants. One of the better known examples involves legumes, like clover and soybeans, which have rhizobia bacteria living in their roots. Rhizobia absorb nitrogen from air and deliver it as a natural fertiliser to their plant host in a symbiotic exchange.

As well as helping the plants thrive, farmers can use legumes to replenish nitrogen in soil, reducing the use of man-made nitrogen fertiliser. This symbiosis has been researched for over a century, and is well understood.

While we know less about other crop-beneficial bacteria, our understanding is growing. Microbes have been found that make crops more resistant to heat, waterlogging, drought and certain diseases.

But although the effects have been studied extensively in laboratories, it’s a big step to translate fundamental science to farm-relevant application.

Many factors, including the particular crop, soil and climate, influence the effectiveness of crop probiotics. The bacteria must survive transport and storage, and have to associate effectively with crops in the presence of many potentially competing microbes.

The communication between beneficial bacteria and crops is finicky as both partners have to produce mutually understandable chemical signals. We listened in on the conversation between beneficial Burkholderia bacteria and sugarcane, confirming that both undergo complex change to accommodate the partnership.

Finding the right microbes and making them work with crops in field settings remains difficult. Each group of useful microbes has many species and subtypes, and only few generally convey benefits, and often only in certain situations. Scientists are working to address these constraints.

Bold claims, inconsistent results

While crop probiotics offer an ecologically friendly option for farmers looking to improve and protect their harvests, the Australian market is far from reliable.

Our research group was asked to evaluate commercial crop probiotics. Over a year of experimentation on a sugarcane farm, we tracked the supposedly beneficial bacteria and fungi of two Australian probiotics products from soil to crop.

DNA analysis didn’t detect changes in root-associated bacteria, but the composition of root-associated fungi changed. Whether these changes are meaningful is unclear, as the manufacturers didn’t specify how the products work and which changes are to be expected. Clearly, studies over multiple years and sites are needed to confirm if and when products are beneficial.

The problem isn’t that biostimulants don’t work in principle. Many laboratory experiments have shown bacteria can help plants grow faster, stronger and bigger. But the real world is messy, with plenty of variables. Manufacturers who aren’t pushed by legislation can take shortcuts, and nebulous marketing is common.

Soybean root nodules, containing billions of nitrogen-fixing rhizobia. via Wikimedia commons

Our second investigation involved a commercial seedling nursery. The international manufacturer of the probiotic didn’t provide instructions for dosage, leaving us to guess at the correct application rate. In the first round of experimentation, the seedlings died. Feedback from the manufacturer was quick: we had used the wrong dose.

The next round of research used a lower dosage, per the manufacturer’s advice, that did not improve seedling growth. In its absurdity, this example highlights the need for tighter market regulation.

Since the benefits of currently available biostimulants are imprecise, many people are divided on their use. Better regulations would promote certainty, and prevent farmers wasting money on unreliable products.

The future of crop probiotics

Currently Australian regulations emphasise flexibility, offering multiple options for manufacturers to prove their crop probiotics work. But this leaves the door open for ineffective products.

Crop probiotics are currently regulated under the umbrella of pesticides (although they’re often marketed as providing other benefits). The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority guidelines say “up to 10 field trials may be required depending on the crop’s economic importance”, making it difficult to tell how many trials are expected. One industry partner we spoke to said that, while he has chosen to do field trials, he didn’t have to supply that data to the APVMA to get his product registered.

Companies have to prove their products are “effective as per the label claims”. But as we found in our research, this doesn’t help when manufacturers exclude crucial information from their labels.

Manufacturers can sell probiotics that have been tested overseas, although studies “should be done under conditions that are typical of Australian climatic conditions”. However, because they’re not automatically required to retest in Australia, different soils, climates and crop types can render them essentially useless.

Consequently, many products exist on the Australian market which don’t have clear label instructions for effective use, claim to work on an outlandish number of crops and don’t even touch on the topic of which soils they work effectively in.

Australia contrasts with the European Union, which demands multi-step scientific testing of products. For a product to be permitted for use in agriculture, EU legislation requires 10 or more field trials, conducted over two growing seasons in different climates and soil types. Delivery methods and dosage must be evaluated and effects confirmed. Crop trials have to ensure statistical validity. The EU has created an online database of detailed reports and standards that can be easily searched by the public.

These regulations have an impact on which biostimulants reach the market. European products often contain only one type of active microbe, as it’s otherwise difficult to meet the strict criteria. On the other hand, many biostimulants sold in Australia contain multiple microbes that are not clearly classified on labels.

This makes it more difficult to tell what’s actually in a product, how useful it will be under different conditions, or if it contains bacteria that are beneficial for certain crops but harmful for others.

We recommend that Australia adopts the EU model of a regulated biostimulant market to encourage investment. Scientifically rigorous, multi-year studies are also needed, to test and develop effective products.

There is much research expertise in Australia, but currently farmers must rely on marketing rather than science.

The Conversation

Susanne Schmidt receives funding from industry and government including Sugar Research Australia and Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.

Shelby Berg receives funding from Sugar Research Australia.

Paul G. Dennis and Richard Brackin do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

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March for science? After decades of climate attacks, it's high time

Thu, 2017-04-20 12:39
Will you be marching on Saturday? Michele Paccione/Shutterstock.com

This Saturday, the March for Science will be held in cities around the world – coincidentally enough, ten years to the day since John Howard urged Australians to pray for rain.

While such marches are not the answer to everything, their very existence tells us that science is under attack, not merely from defunding of research bodies, but also via attacks on the inconvenient truths of climate science.

While scientists weep over the Great Barrier Reef, some politicians respond by laughing and joking.

Two years ago, Joss Whedon (he of Firefly and Buffy fame) captured the frustration when he fired off a tweet that went viral:

Policy makers who deny basic scientific truth should also be denied penicillin, horseless carriages, [and] air time on the magic box of shadows.

Many marchers will doubtless agree, not least because various forms of denial have been going on for decades, in Australia and elsewhere.

In the early 1970s there was much international concern about the prolonged drought and crop failures in the Sahel region of Africa. US national security adviser Henry Kissinger spoke of the issue and the CIA produced assessments of the geopolitical implications.

Against this backdrop, the legendary Australian public servant Nugget Coombs persuaded the Whitlam government to request a report on the possible impacts of climate change for Australia.

The report, delivered to the new Fraser government in March 1976, declared that there was “no convincing evidence of an imminent climatic change on a global scale, or in Australia” but that nonetheless “climatic variability must be incorporated into economic and land-use planning”.

On the evidence available at the time, it was a reasonable conclusion. But while the US National Academy of Sciences was investigating thoroughly, Australia’s climate investigations were muted. A 1978 conference organised by CSIRO and ATSE investigated climate impacts, but had little impact itself.

Someone, however, was paying attention to international research – in 1981 the Office of National Assessment produced a report called Fossil Fuels and the Greenhouse Effect, which forecast temperature rises of 4-6℃ by 2100 if action was not taken. Malcolm Fraser’s response is not recorded.

In the 1980s CSIRO scientists like Barrie Pittock and Graeme Pearman, together with the then science minister Barry Jones, worked hard to get the issue of climate change onto the political agenda. In 1987 Jones’s “Commission for the Future” launched an educative “Greenhouse Project”, and the following year the issue exploded onto the international stage. It was not to last.

From indifference to attack

When Paul Keating took charge in 1991, Australia found itself with a prime minister who was far less interested in green issues. His government did not attack the science directly but did seek to emphasise the costs of climate action, and only grudgingly accepted the “Berlin Mandate” which called on developed countries to set emissions targets.

Next came John Howard, who was actively hostile to the need for action. Under domestic pressure in the runup to the Kyoto negotiations in December 1997, Howard announced a renewable energy target and the creation of an “Australian Greenhouse Office.” But its head, Gwen Andrews, resigned in 2002, saying she had never once been asked to brief Howard.

Howard listened to other voices - in 1999 the Howard government appointed Rio Tinto’s head of research Robin Batterham as its chief scientific adviser. Batterham stepped down after a 2004 Senate inquiry found a “clear conflict of interest” between his two jobs.

CSIRO scientists, meanwhile, were feeling the heat. Graeme Pearman, head of the atmospheric research division, described how he was reprimanded for daring to join the WWF-affiliated Australian Climate Group.

He told the Age that he had been admonished by his Canberra superiors for “making public expressions of what I believed were scientific views, on the basis that they were deemed to be political views”.

The meddling continued. Barney Foran, a 30-year CSIRO veteran, said his managers told him they had fielded a call from the Prime Minister’s Department suggesting he should say nothing critical about ethanol as an alternative fuel.

While there was a change in mood under Kevin Rudd, CSIRO economist Clive Spash nevertheless found himself attacked in parliament for his doubts about emissions trading.

Things did not improve under Julia Gillard, who presided over further budget cuts and the unexplained departure of Chief Scientist Penny Sackett. Commentators lamented that Australia – unlike the UK and US – does not have a truly independent research council.

The record of the Abbott government is too vivid to need – or bear – repeating. It seems that the relentless disparagement and defunding of science has gained a momentum that the current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, perhaps captive to his backbenchers, cannot halt.

Global patterns

The problem is that while we claim to love science, what we often mean is the kind of science that leads to new production techniques and capacities. But as the US environmental sociologist Alvin Schnaiberg has pointed out, there is another kind of science – one that speaks of the impacts of those production techniques.

The dilemma - captured in the very name of the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation - is not one that we have solved, or look like solving any decade soon.

Although the Australian government’s response to climate advice is woeful, it is not inexplicable or unusual. US climate scientists such as James Hansen, the late Stephen Schneider and Michael Mann have been under sustained attack for more than 20 years (see Mann’s “The Serengeti Strategy” for a brief summary).

Some American scientists have decided to leave and conduct their research elsewhere. Neither have Canadian scientists been immune to attack.

Scientists understandably worry about losing credibility if they enter the public arena.

The Nobel prizewinning chemist Sherwin Rowland poignantly asked:

What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?

Carl Sagan concurred:

Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water. Don’t sit this one out. Do something.

So yes, we need to march for science, and more besides. This is an “all hands on deck, every single day” situation, which calls on us to act locally and creating pressure for some real action at last from our political leaders.

The Conversation
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We need to get rid of carbon in the atmosphere, not just reduce emissions

Thu, 2017-04-20 05:52
Humans have burned 420 billion tonnes of carbon since the start of the industrial revolution. Half of it is still in the atmosphere. Reuters/Stringer

Getting climate change under control is a formidable, multifaceted challenge. Analysis by my colleagues and me suggests that staying within safe warming levels now requires removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The technology to do this is in its infancy and will take years, even decades, to develop, but our analysis suggests that this must be a priority. If pushed, operational large-scale systems should be available by 2050.

We created a simple climate model and looked at the implications of different levels of carbon in the ocean and the atmosphere. This lets us make projections about greenhouse warming, and see what we need to do to limit global warming to within 1.5℃ of pre-industrial temperatures – one of the ambitions of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

To put the problem in perspective, here are some of the key numbers.

Humans have emitted 1,540 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide gas since the industrial revolution. To put it another way, that’s equivalent to burning enough coal to form a square tower 22 metres wide that reaches from Earth to the Moon.

Half of these emissions have remained in the atmosphere, causing a rise of CO₂ levels that is at least 10 times faster than any known natural increase during Earth’s long history. Most of the other half has dissolved into the ocean, causing acidification with its own detrimental impacts.

Although nature does remove CO₂, for example through growth and burial of plants and algae, we emit it at least 100 times faster than it’s eliminated. We can’t rely on natural mechanisms to handle this problem: people will need to help as well.

What’s the goal?

The Paris climate agreement aims to limit global warming to well below 2℃, and ideally no higher than 1.5℃. (Others say that 1℃ is what we should be really aiming for, although the world is already reaching and breaching this milestone.)

In our research, we considered 1℃ a better safe warming limit because any more would take us into the territory of the Eemian period, 125,000 years ago. For natural reasons, during this era the Earth warmed by a little more than 1℃. Looking back, we can see the catastrophic consequences of global temperatures staying this high over an extended period.

Sea levels during the Eemian period were up to 10 metres higher than present levels. Today, the zone within 10m of sea level is home to 10% of the world’s population, and even a 2m sea-level rise today would displace almost 200 million people.

Clearly, pushing towards an Eemian-like climate is not safe. In fact, with 2016 having been 1.2℃ warmer than the pre-industrial average, and extra warming locked in thanks to heat storage in the oceans, we may already have crossed the 1℃ average threshold. To keep warming below the 1.5℃ goal of the Paris agreement, it’s vital that we remove CO₂ from the atmosphere as well as limiting the amount we put in.

So how much CO₂ do we need to remove to prevent global disaster?

Are you a pessimist or an optimist?

Currently, humanity’s net emissions amount to roughly 37 gigatonnes of CO₂ per year, which represents 10 gigatonnes of carbon burned (a gigatonne is a billion tonnes). We need to reduce this drastically. But even with strong emissions reductions, enough carbon will remain in the atmosphere to cause unsafe warming.

Using these facts, we identified two rough scenarios for the future.

The first scenario is pessimistic. It has CO₂ emissions remaining stable after 2020. To keep warming within safe limits, we then need to remove almost 700 gigatonnes of carbon from the atmosphere and ocean, which freely exchange CO₂. To start, reforestation and improved land use can lock up to 100 gigatonnes away into trees and soils. This leaves a further 600 gigatonnes to be extracted via technological means by 2100.

Technological extraction currently costs at least US$150 per tonne. At this price, over the rest of the century, the cost would add up to US$90 trillion. This is similar in scale to current global military spending, which – if it holds steady at around US$1.6 trillion a year – will add up to roughly US$132 trillion over the same period.

The second scenario is optimistic. It assumes that we reduce emissions by 6% each year starting in 2020. We then still need to remove about 150 gigatonnes of carbon.

As before, reforestation and improved land use can account for 100 gigatonnes, leaving 50 gigatonnes to be technologically extracted by 2100. The cost for that would be US$7.5 trillion by 2100 – only 6% of the global military spend.

Of course, these numbers are a rough guide. But they do illustrate the crossroads at which we find ourselves.

The job to be done

Right now is the time to choose: without action, we’ll be locked into the pessimistic scenario within a decade. Nothing can justify burdening future generations with this enormous cost.

For success in either scenario, we need to do more than develop new technology. We also need new international legal, policy, and ethical frameworks to deal with its widespread use, including the inevitable environmental impacts.

Releasing large amounts of iron or mineral dust into the oceans could remove CO₂ by changing environmental chemistry and ecology. But doing so requires revision of international legal structures that currently forbid such activities.

Similarly, certain minerals can help remove CO₂ by increasing the weathering of rocks and enriching soils. But large-scale mining for such minerals will impact on landscapes and communities, which also requires legal and regulatory revisions.

And finally, direct CO₂ capture from the air relies on industrial-scale installations, with their own environmental and social repercussions.

Without new legal, policy, and ethical frameworks, no significant advances will be possible, no matter how great the technological developments. Progressive nations may forge ahead toward delivering the combined package.

The costs of this are high. But countries that take the lead stand to gain technology, jobs, energy independence, better health, and international gravitas.

The Conversation

Eelco Rohling receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the UK Natural Environment Research Council. Eelco Rohling is also affiliated with the University of Southampton, UK.

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How English-style drizzle killed the Ice Age's giants

Wed, 2017-04-19 05:49
Giant sloths: killed by rainy weather? Kamraman/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Wet weather at the end of the last ice age appears to have helped drive the ecosystems of large grazing animals, such as mammoths and giant sloths, extinct across vast swathes of Eurasia and the Americas, according to our new research.

The study, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution today, shows that landscapes in many regions became suddenly wetter between 11,000 and 15,000 years ago, turning grasslands into peat bogs and forest, and ushering in the demise of many megafaunal species.

By examining the bone chemistry of megafauna fossils from Eurasia, North America and South America over the time leading up to the extinction, we found that all three continents experienced the same dramatic increase in moisture. This would have rapidly altered the grassland ecosystems that once covered a third of the globe.

The period after the world thawed from the most recent ice age is already very well studied, thanks largely to the tonnes of animal bones preserved in permafrost. The period is a goldmine for researchers – literally, given that many fossils were first found during gold prospecting operations.

Our work at the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA usually concerns genetic material from long-dead organisms. As a result, we have accrued a vast collection of bones from around the world during this period.

But we made our latest discovery by shifting our attention away from DNA and towards the nitrogen atoms preserved the fossils’ bone collagen.

Lead Author Tim Rabanus-Wallace hunts for megafaunal fossils in the Canadian permafrost in 2015. Julien Soubrier Chemical signatures

Nitrogen has two stable isotopes (atoms with the same number of protons but differing number of neutrons), called nitrogen-14 and nitrogen-15. Changes in environmental conditions can alter the ratio of these two isotopes in the soil. That, in turn, is reflected in the tissues of growing plants, and ultimately in the bones of the animals that eat those plants. In arid conditions, processes like evaporation preferentially remove the lighter nitrogen-14 from the soil. This contributes to a useful correlation seen in many grassland mammals: less nitrogen-14 in the bones means more moisture in the environment.

We studied 511 accurately dated bones, from species including bison, horses and llamas, and found that a pronounced spike in moisture occurred between 11,000 and 15,000 years ago, affecting grasslands in Europe, Siberia, North America, and South America.

Alan Cooper inspects ice age bones from the Yukon Palaeontology Program’s collection, Canada, 2015. Julien Soubrier

At the time of this moisture spike, dramatic changes were occurring on the landscapes. Giant, continent-sized ice sheets were collapsing and retreating, leaving lakes and rivers in their wake. Sea levels were rising, and altered wind and water currents were bringing rains to once-dry continental interiors.

The study shows that a peak in moisture occurred between the time of the ice sheets melting, and the invasion of new vegetation types such as peatlands (data shown from Canada and northern United States). http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/s41559-017-0125

As a result, forests and peatlands were forming where grass, which specialises in dry environments, once dominated. Grasses are also specially adapted to tolerate grazing – in fact, they depend upon grazers to distribute nutrients and clear dead litter from the ground each season. Forest plants, on the other hand, produce toxic compounds specifically to deter herbivores. For decades, researchers have discussed the idea that the invading forests drove the grassland communities into collapse.

Our new study provides the crime scene’s smoking gun. Not only was moisture affecting the grassland mammals during the forest invasion and the subsequent extinctions, but this was happening right around the globe.

Extinction rethink

This discovery prompts a rethink on some of the key mysteries in the extinction event, such as the curious case of Africa. Many of Africa’s megafauna — elephants, wildebeest, hippopotamus, and so on — escaped the extinction events, and unlike their counterparts on other continents have survived to this day.

It has been argued that this is because African megafauna evolved alongside humans, and were naturally wary of human hunters. However, this argument cannot explain the pronounced phase of extinctions in Europe. Neanderthals have existed there for at least 200,000 years, while anatomically modern humans arrive around 43,000 years ago.

We suggest instead that the moisture-driven extinction hypothesis provides a much better explanation. Africa’s position astride the Equator means that its central forested monsoon belt has always been surrounded by continuous stretches of grassland, which graded into the deserts of the north and south. It was the persistence of these grasslands that allowed the local megafauna to survive relatively intact.

Our study may also offers insights into the question of how the current climate change might affect today’s ecosystems.

Understanding how climate changes affected ecosystems in the past is imperative to making informed predictions about how climate changes may influence ecosystems in the future. The consequences of human-induced global warming are often depicted using images of droughts and famines. But our discovery is a reminder that all rapid environmental changes — wet as well as dry — can cause dramatic changes in biological communities and ecosystems.

In this case, warming expressed itself not through parched drought but through centuries of persistent English drizzle, with rain, slush and grey skies. It seems like a rather unpleasant way to go.

The Conversation

Alan Cooper receives funding from the Australian Research Council

Matthew Wooller receives funding from US National Science Foundation

Tim Rabanus-Wallace does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

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Where the old things are: Australia's most ancient trees

Tue, 2017-04-18 12:14
Wollemia pine pollen cone. Wollemia pines (found in the wild only in Australia) are one of the most ancient tree species in the world, dating back 200 million years. Velela/Wikipedia

They say that trees live for thousands of years. Like many things that “they” say, there is a germ of truth in the saying (even though it is mostly false).

The vast majority of trees that burst forth from seeds dropped on the Australian continent die before reaching maturity, and in fact most die within a few years of germination.

But depending on how you define a tree, a very select few trees can live for an astoundingly long time.

What are the oldest trees?

If we define a “tree” as a single stemmed woody plant at least 2 metres tall, which is what most people would identify as a tree, then the oldest in Australia could be a Huon Pine (Lagarostrobos franklinii) in Tasmania, the oldest stem of which is up to 2,000 years old.

However, the Huon Pine is also a clonal life form – the above-ground stems share a common root stock. If that common root stock is considered to be the base of multi-trunked tree, then that tree could be as old as 11,000 years.

But if you accept a clonal life form as a tree, even that ancient Huon age pales into insignificance against the 43,000-year-old king’s holly (Lomatia tasmanica), also found in Tasmania.

King’s Holly, or Lomatia tasmanica, can form clones nearly 50,000 years old. Natalie Tapson/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA

Once you accept that a common, genetically identical stock can define a tree, then the absolute “winner” for oldest tree (or the oldest clonal material belonging to a tree) must go to the Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis). It may be more than 60 million years old.

The Wollemi pine clones itself, forming exact genetic copies. It was thought to be extinct until a tiny remnant population was discovered in Wollemi National Park in 1994. The trunk of the oldest above-ground component, known as the Bill Tree, is about 400-450 years old. But the pine sprouts multiple trunks, so the Bill Tree’s roots may be more than 1,000 years old.

There is also substantial evidence that the tree has been cloning itself and its unique genes ever since it disappeared from the fossil record more than 60 million years ago.

How do you date a tree?

If no humans were around to record the planting or germination of a tree, how can its age be determined? The trees themselves can help tell us their age, but not just by looking at their size. Big trees are not necessarily old trees - they might just be very healthy or fast-growing individuals.

A much more reliable way to determine age of a tree is through their wood and the science of dendrochronology (tree-ring dating).

Dendrochronology involves counting tree rings to date a tree. The wider the ring, the more water the tree absorbed in a given year. sheila miguez/flickr, CC BY-SA

Many trees lay down different types of cell wall material in response to seasonal patterns of light, temperature or moisture. Where the cell walls laid down at the beginning of the growth season look different to those laid down at the end of the season, rings of annual growth can be seen in cross-sections of the tree.

This map of growth patterns can also be cross-dated or correlated with major events like multi-year droughts or volcanic eruptions that spewed material into the atmosphere to be incorporated into the wood of the tree. But the cell walls are more than just calendars.

Why so old?

Individual tree stems can live for so long because of the structure of the wood and the tree’s defence mechanisms. The woody cell walls are very strong and resist breakage.

In fact, scientists have recently discovered that these walls contain a structure – nanocrystaline cellulose – that is currently the strongest known substance for its weight.

Wood can, however, be broken down by insects and fungi. Even though there is little nutrition or energy in wood, there is some – and there are plenty of organisms that will try and use it.

But trees are not defenceless, and can fight back with physical barriers or even chemical warfare. When one tree is attacked by these destructive forces, individuals may even signal to other trees to be aware and prepare their own defences to fight off death and decay.

The death of trees

So why don’t all trees live for centuries or millennia, and why do so many die before even reaching maturity?

Adult Wollemi pines in the wild. J.Plaza/Van Berkel Distributors

Seedlings and young trees may die because they have germinated in an area where there’s not enough water, nutrients or light to keep them alive as adults. Young trees also haven’t had much time to develop barriers or defences against other organisms and may be browsed or eaten to death.

Some trees simply fall prey to accidents: wind storms, fires or droughts. This is just as well, because there is a vast number of plants and animals – including humans – which rely on the wood and other components of these dead trees for their food and shelter.

But increasingly we may see trees dying because the environment is changing around them and they may not be able to cope. This is not just due to climate change; urban development and agricultural expansion, pollution and even too much fertiliser acting as a poison – even our most remote environments are subject to these changes.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean we will have no more very old trees. The Wollemi Pine’s genes have already survived over millions of years, multiple ice ages and warming periods and even the fall of the dinosaurs and rise of humans. And now, people have deliberately spread Wollemi Pine trees all around the world so they are living in a wide range of countries and climates, meaning that the risk of them all dying out is substantially reduced.

Maybe we can do the same for other trees, ensuring that trees will outlive us all.

The Conversation

Cris Brack is a member of the Institute of Foresters of Australia and Director National Arboretum, Canberra Foundation.

Matthew Brookhouse does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

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The 'clean coal' row shouldn't distract us from using carbon capture for other industries

Tue, 2017-04-18 05:51
Has carbon capture and storage been tarnished by its association with the coal industry? Peabody Energy/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Since the February blackouts in South Australia, the Australian government has increased its interest in carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS). However, in Australia and elsewhere, CCS is closely associated to so-called “clean coal” technologies. The media sometimes treats them as one and the same thing.

Given the negativity with which the general public, and expert commentators view “clean coal”, this confusion is distracting attention from other sectors where CCS can make a unique and substantial contribution.

CCS is vital for “clean coal”. Even the most efficient coal-fired power plants emit huge amounts of carbon dioxide. Unless these emissions are captured and stored in rock formations thanks to CCS, meeting climate targets with coal power is impossible.

But here’s the thing: carbon dioxide can be captured from any large-scale source. This means that CCS has a valuable role to play in other industrial sectors – as long as clean coal’s bad reputation doesn’t drag CCS down with it.

Other industries

About half of the global potential for CCS by 2050 has been estimated to lie in industry. Some sectors like synthetic fuels and hydrogen production may not grow as predicted. But others such as cement, steel and ammonia, are here to stay.

Several recent UK reports on industrial decarbonisation argue that CCS brings emissions reductions beyond the 50% needed by 2050 required in most sectors and countries.

For cement in the UK, the report argues, efficiency and other measures could deliver a roughly 20% emissions reduction by 2050. But adding CCS could bring this figure to 54%.

Meanwhile, the British steel industry could cut emission reductions by 60% compared to 34% without CCS. For UK chemical manufacturers, these figures are 78.8% versus 34%. These processes often produce a high-purity stream of carbon dioxide that avoids the costly capture methods used for power applications.

So why aren’t industries like these the stars of carbon capture and storage right now?

Money and hype

Unlike the power sector, which is under pressure to reduce emissions, other high-carbon industries currently have little incentive to pay the estimated cost of US$50-150 per tonne of carbon dioxide captured. Carbon pricing has been hard to introduce even far below such levels.

However, if CCS is to be deployed by mid-century, concept demonstration and confirmation of suitable storage sites needs to start now, and on a wide enough scale to deliver useful emissions cuts. Other strategies may be needed to incentivise it.

CCS was first mooted in 1976, but it only caught world leaders’ attention in the mid-2000s. However, over the past decade its popularity seems to have waned, perhaps because of the “clean coal” issue.

In 2005, WWF joined Europe’s CCS platform, and the following year the environmentalist George Monbiot described the technology as crucial.

But over the ensuing ten years, as a “hype process” around CCS for clean coal developed, industrial CCS was largely ignored. At its peak in 2007, proponents announced some 39 CCS power projects, most of them coal-fired, aiming to capture an average per project of 2.2 million tonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide per year.

Yet by early 2017, only two large-scale power projects have been completed around the world: Boundary Dam, capturing 1Mt per year, and Petra Nova, capturing 1.4Mt per year.

Number of carbon capture and storage projects by type since first concept. Mature refers to projects in sectors in which capture is routinely commercial, such as in natural gas processing. Immature refers to projects in sectors where capture is not the norm, including power generation, steelmaking, and certain chemicals. The share of power generation projects among immature is highlighted.

Cynicism around the technology has grown, with the Australia-founded Global CCS Institute recently being described as a “coal lobby group”. Unfortunately for CCS, the focus has been mostly on the gap between announced and successful “clean coal” projects, rather than on its contribution to industrial emissions reduction.

Last year, Emirates Steel Industries completed its steelmaking CCS project, which now captures 0.8Mt of CO₂ per year.

Australia will soon be host to the world’s largest CCS development, at the Gorgon LNG Project, which will store 4Mt a year from 2018.

Steel, gas-produced ammonia and other industrial products will be fixtures of the 21st century, whereas coal-fired electricity has no such certainty. Economies that aspire to 100% renewable energy will have no room at all for coal, “clean” or otherwise.

Even if our electricity and transport were to become 100% renewables-based, there will be parts of the economy where greenhouse emissions are hard to eliminate. It is important that the unpopularity of “clean coal” does not distract from the importance of CCS in decarbonising other industries.

The Conversation

Alfonso Martínez Arranz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

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Death metal: how nickel played a role in the world's worst mass extinction

Mon, 2017-04-17 05:32

Around 250 million years ago, life on Earth nearly came to an end, in a mass extinction between the Permian and Triassic periods known as the Great Dying. Some 90% of the species in the oceans and 70% of vertebrate families on land were killed, and the great marine life experiment of the Palaeozoic era was brought to a halt.

What does this have to do with nickel? Well, as part of my recent work as a mining geologist, which involves studying the world’s most valuable nickel ore deposits in Siberia, I uncovered evidence of a link between ore genesis – how the nickel got there – and the onset of the Great Dying. These results were recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It was an exceedingly strange world 250 million years ago, and finding the culprits for the world’s worst mass extinction is like putting together a puzzle.

Earth, fire, water

This catastrophic episode was triggered by several different events, which in turn killed the world’s species in different ways: declining oxygen levels in the ocean, massively rising temperatures, and a possible meteor impact.

One of these trigger events involved a major jolt to the carbon cycle, which had dramatic climate effects. Some scientists think the temperature of the upper level of the world’s oceans and rivers increased from 21℃ to 38℃ in the late Smithian era (250.7 million years ago).

This shift in the carbon cycle has been attributed to a major burst of activity of deep marine colonies of Archaea methanosarcina, relatives of bacteria. These colonies had acquired a new way of getting energy from their environment. In much the same way as human bodies get energy from food, producing carbon dioxide in the process, these organisms got energy from transforming organic carbon into methane.

The archaea colonies were normally limited by the amount of nickel in the oceans, but for some reason, 250 million years ago, nickel seems to have been in abundant supply compared with today.

At the same time as the Great Dying, in an area on Earth that we now call Siberia, an astronomical amount of lava generated in the guts of the Earth erupted over an area the size of Europe. This province is the host to the Noril’sk ore deposits, the Earth’s most valuable source of mined nickel.

Scientists previously thought that nickel released into the atmosphere could explain the glut of marine nickel 250 million years ago. But how could nickel get into the air? This is where our work comes in.

Volcanoes and champagne

Let’s take a step back: how do nickel ore deposits form from molten rock (or magma)? Magma rich in nickel needs to come all the way to shallow depths beneath volcanoes, where it becomes enriched with sulfur, and forms liquid sulfide droplets.

The volcanic plumbing system then acts as a smelter. The sulfide liquid droplets scrub the nickel out of the magma. Ore deposits form when the sulphide droplets finally sink and accumulate at the bottom of the magma under the volcanoes. The nickel never reaches the surface – making it hard to explain how so much nickel got into the atmosphere.

A previous paper by our group showed that when liquid sulfide droplets and gas bubbles form together in the same magma they have a strong tendency to stick together. So, if there is a gas present, sulfide droplets can rise to the top of the magma chambers, taking the metals with them.

In a big eruption, like the one that produced the Siberian lava, the pressure drops, and it’s like opening a bottle of champagne. A swarm of bubbles forms and floats to the top. The liquid sulfide droplets hitch a ride like baskets beneath hot air balloons.

We think that this “bubble riding” is how nickel got from the bottom of the Noril’sk magma all the way to the surface and into volcanic gases and aerosols.

During our recent studies of the Noril’sk nickel ores, we found the smoking gun: we used 2D and 3D X-ray imaging to show nickel-rich sulfide droplets physically attached to former gas bubbles, frozen in the ore.

We combined this observation with simple thermodynamic models to show that this transport mechanism greatly increases the amount of nickel content in volcanic aerosols.

The perils of methane

The Noril’sk nickel deposits are unique. They are the only known place where nickel had a direct path to the atmosphere. Explosive eruptions helped to release colossal amounts of gas into the air.

During these massive gas episodes, our sulfide-carrying champagne bubbles transported large amount of nickel and tipped it into the atmosphere to feed the blooming archaea, playing an important role in the Great Dying.

The Noril'sk ores formed in a freak event, but if the broader hypothesis is correct they hold a lesson for life on Earth: release large amounts of methane into the atmosphere at enormous peril.

Under normal circumstances, volcanic eruptions are a relatively minor source of methane in the atmosphere, but lethal time bombs exist in methane frozen into permafrost, much of it, coincidentally, to be found in the tundra wastelands covering the Siberian lava fields. Here, melting of the permafrost releases bubbles of methane into the atmosphere, creating a climate changing feedback loop – to potentially devastating effect.


Margaux Le Vaillant would like to acknowledge the contribution of Steve Barnes, James Mungall and Emma Mungall.

The Conversation

Margaux Le Vaillant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

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Millions of rotting fish: turtles and crays can save us from Carpageddon

Thu, 2017-04-13 12:08

The Australian government plans to target invasive European carp with a herpes virus, leaving hundreds of thousands of tonnes of carp rotting in the river systems that supply our drinking water and irrigate the fruit and vegetables we eat.

The aim of “Carpageddon” is to return Australian aquatic ecosystems to their pre-carp state by eliminating or reducing the serious pest species.

Carp currently make up 83% of the fish biomass in the Murray-Darling Basin in New South Wales. They alter river and lake habitats in a way that reduces habitability for native species, including five threatened species. They also have a major impact on inland fisheries, with an estimated annual economic cost of A$22 million.

This all makes a substantial argument for releasing a carp killing herpes virus. However, dealing with the aftermath could cost A$30 million for NSW alone.

Cleanup costs could be reduced by introducing viruses to discrete populations. However, if the virus escapes into the Murray-Darling Catchment, we will lose control of the virus spread and carp death will be rapid and widespread.

Without a dedicated cleanup effort, the sudden influx of millions of dead fish could permanently pollute our waterways. A potential solution is to recruit nature’s cleaners to do our work for us – scavengers like turtles and crayfish. They could save us from carcass-choked rivers and wetlands, but only if we can protect them from endangerment and extinction.

Turtles and crayfish are our unlikely saviours

Carp carcasses are normally eaten by scavengers, a process that’s vital to the food web (the system of what eats what in a given environment). In fact, the majority of dead fish are consumed by scavengers.

As such, simply removing the carp carcasses may reduce the overall amount of nutrients in the ecosystem. This would destabilise the food web, especially for scavengers such as turtles and crayfish who rely on them.

Instead, these scavenging species can provide crucial biocontrol. They would eat any decomposing flesh in our water systems, particularly in areas we can’t easily access with nets, boats and trucks. They would maintain the quality of our waterways in three ways:

  • Slow the spread of bacteria that break down dead fish, keeping water safe to drink and limiting deoxygenation that could devastate native fish species;

  • Digest carp directly into basic nutrients (fertiliser) that is more readily absorbed by plants and primary producers;

  • Semi-permanently store carp nutrients in their slow to decompose shells and exoskeletons, preventing or limiting toxic algal blooms caused by excess nutrients in water.

Our unlikely saviours are also dying

Threats to crayfish include agricultural and urban expansion, recreational fishing, pollution from surface runoff and insecticides, and introduced species such as trout and cane toads.

Consequently, native crayfish are declining, with nearly 80% of Spiny Crayfish recognised as threatened. However, yabbies have expanded their range.

Turtles on the other hand, are in sharp decline throughout the Murray Catchment and elsewhere in Australia. A recent gathering of turtle experts in Canberra discussed major threats to turtles, and ways to protect them.

The meeting addressed major causes behind the 2% annual mortality rate of adult turtles that is leading the species to rapid extinction. Cars and foxes kill a significant number of adult turtles every year, and foxes destroy more than 95% of turtle nests in the Murray-Darling Basin.

Changes to the hydrology of the Murray Catchment may also impact turtles. Some species require permanent wetlands, while others prefer to move between temporarily flooded wetlands and more permanent waters.

Following modern water management, some temporary wetlands are permanently flooded or gone and some permanent wetlands are dry.

All of these threats together may cause turtles to become functionally extinct in the near future, meaning they cannot play their significant role in the ecosystem anymore.

How can we help conserve the turtle population?

Such a sudden decimation of carp has potentially catastrophic consequences. But it may also be an excellent opportunity to recognise the importance of turtles and prioritise their conservation.

In a recent study, headstarting was named as the only management tool that could protect freshwater turtles from the multiple threats throughout their life cycle and eliminate all risks of extinction.

Headstarting involves rearing eggs or newborn animals in captivity, then releasing them into the wild. It has been controversial for decades, but releasing thousands of little turtles throughout the Murray River just might rescue us from the post-apocalyptic effects of Carpageddon.

The Conversation

Ricky Spencer receives funding from Australian Research Council, North-Central Catchment Management Authority, Yorta Yorta Aboriginal Corporation, Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife, Victorian Department of Land, Environment, Water and Planning, Winton Wetlands, Turtles Australia, Inc. and Save Lake Bonney Group Inc.

Claudia Santori receives funding from the University of Sydney.

James Van Dyke receives funding from Australian Research Council, North-Central Catchment Management Authority, Yorta Yorta Aboriginal Corporation, Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife, Victorian Department of Land, Environment, Water and Planning, Winton Wetlands, Turtles Australia, Inc. and Save Lake Bonney Group Inc.

Michael B. Thompson receives funding from the ARC and the University of Sydney.

Categories: Around The Web

Why does the Carmichael coal mine need to use so much water?

Thu, 2017-04-13 09:09
Coal mines, such as this one near Bowen, use water for everything from equipment cooling to dust management. CSIRO, CC BY

From accidental water spills into coastal wetlands, to proposed taxpayer-funded loans, Adani’s planned Carmichael coal mine and the associated Abbot Point coal terminal can’t keep out of the news at the moment.

Last week, the granting of an unlimited 60-year water licence to the Carmichael mine, in Queensland’s Galilee Basin, rattled environmentalists, farmers and community groups alike.

In a region experiencing prolonged drought conditions, the provision of unlimited water for one of the largest mining operations in the Southern Hemisphere seems like a commitment at odds with current climate predictions. The decision has also prompted a raft of wider questions about the industry’s water use.

Why do coal mines need so much water?

Underground coal mines rely on water to reduce the hazard of fires or explosion, by using it to cool the cutting surfaces of mining equipment and prevent coal dust from catching fire.

Water also helps to manage dust produced during the processing stage, when coal is crushed and ground. Coal is then transported through pipelines as a water-based slurry for further processing.

Mines also need water for things like equipment maintenance, and for consumption by the mining communities themselves.

In total, about 250 litres of freshwater are required per tonne of coal produced. This freshwater makes up around a quarter of the total water demand during coal production, the rest being “worked” (recycled) water.

What other industries use lots of water?

The Great Artesian Basin is one of the largest underground water reservoirs in the world. It underlies 22% of Australia’s land area, beneath the arid and semi-arid parts of Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and the Northern Territory.

Its aquifers supply water to around 200 towns or settlements, most of which are allowed to draw between 100 and 500 million litres (ML) per year.

The Great Artesian Basin covers almost a quarter of Australia. Tentotwo/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

The Great Artesian Basin underpins A$12.8 billion of economic activity annually, according to a 2016 report commissioned by the federal government. Almost all of this is from mining and coal seam gas (A$8 billion) and livestock farming (A$4.7 billion).

In Queensland, mining and industry hold just over 1% (by number) of the water licences linked to the Great Artesian Basin but account for 10% of the water extracted. Coal seam gas accounts for a further 22% of water, with no licensing required. In contrast, livestock production accounts for 88% of water licences but just 46% of the extracted water.

The Carmichael mine’s 12,000ML forecasted use (equivalent to 4% of the water extracted from the Great Artesian Basin in Queensland last year) would put it alongside the biggest annual users of Great Artesian Basin water, such as the Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine in South Australia, which currently draws 10,000ML each year.

Why does Adani need unlimited water anyway?

According to the company’s own modelling, the Carmichael mine’s annual freshwater use is projected to peak at just over 12,000ML – or roughly 13 Olympic swimming pools per day.

Despite these estimates, the water licence granted to Adani puts no limit on the water it can take from the Great Artesian Basin. However, it calls for regular monitoring of water levels, quality and flow in each aquifer that is tapped.

Unlike other controversial Queensland mining projects, such as the New Acland coal mine, Adani’s water licence application was exempted from public scrutiny, courtesy of a November 2016 amendment to the existing laws.

Water licences usually specify the total amount, and/or the daily rate, of groundwater that can be taken. Changes to a water licence to increase the amount of water must be assessed like a new application and pass public scrutiny. But with an unlimited licence, there is no need for Adani to apply for a new licence if they need more water than originally predicted.

What are the environmental effects of industrial-scale water usage on the basin?

Despite a net yearly decrease of 286,000ML in the water stored within the Great Artesian Basin, it is in no danger of running dry. The past 120 years of exploitation have used up less than 0.1% of the water stored.

The real issue is water pressure. Flows from artesian bores are now roughly half what they were in 1915. Since then, the water level in some bores has fallen by as much as 80 metres, and a third of bores have stopped flowing altogether. This directly affects the human, plant and animal communities that rely on artesian water.

Because of their isolation, the natural springs of the Great Artesian Basin are home to many unique plant and animal species. Desert springs are particularly vulnerable to declining water pressure, and many spring habitats have been irreversibly damaged by invasive species, excavation, livestock, industrial activity and even tourists.

An oasis in South Australia’s arid interior. Tandrew/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Can mining industries be more water-wise?

Recycled water is an integral part of coal mining, but it contains salt, added in the dust-management stage, which can leave the water unusable for certain processes. Nevertheless, a recent study suggests that Queensland coal mines could cut their freshwater use by 62% simply by using recycled water for processes that are not sensitive to salt levels. Diluting salty recycled water could also reduce freshwater use by 50%, and cut water costs by 40%.

Untreated seawater is perhaps the most sustainable water of all, although transporting it from coast to mine costs energy and therefore money. Its saltiness also creates chemical challenges during coal and uranium processing.

Another option to address climate-induced water challenges might be for mines to share water allocations.

Where do we go from here?

Understandably, there is significant concern that Adani’s unlimited licence will allow the mine to draw more water than predicted. Should the mine go ahead, it is important that the research community continues to scrutinise the regular water quality and usage reports that Adani is required to provide. Water licences can, after all, be revoked.

We should also be concerned about industries like coal seam gas that currently do not require water licensing, but nevertheless use huge amounts of artesian water.

Although water is an important issue, it is vital not to lose sight of the numerous other environmental impacts of the Carmichael mine. For example, an estimated 4.7 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions will result from the mining and burning of Carmichael coal. Climate warming will impact Australia on multiple fronts, including bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, increasing the intensity of tropical cyclones, causing more heat-related deaths, diseases and droughts.

The Conversation

Ellen Moon works on a project funded by the Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment.

Categories: Around The Web

Australia’s climate bomb: the senselessness of Adani's Carmichael coal mine

Wed, 2017-04-12 17:26
AAP/Lukas Coch

Veteran environmental campaigner and former Greens senator Bob Brown has previously pointed to Adani’s proposed Carmichael coal mine as the new Franklin River of environmental protest in Australia. Yet the future of this “climate bomb” hangs in the balance.

The ongoing contest over the mine’s approval is about to get very heated. Some of the final decisions are to be made very soon.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull declared that native title claims would not impede the approval process, and that Adani would press ahead with its plans to seek A$1 billion in funding for the rail line needed to transport coal to Abbot Point for export.

The consequences of going ahead with the mine are almost incalculable. This is not simply because of the emissions it will produce, but from the fact it promotes and normalises the insanity that coal can still be “good for humanity”.

Here’s my list of the ten most-absurd things about the Adani mine.

1) As the largest coal mine in the Australia when completed, Adani will legitimise the idea of mining all of the coal in the Galilee Basin. If extracted and burnt, this will get the world one-third of the way toward 2℃ of global warming.

The Adani mine alone will see up to 2.3 billion tonnes of coal extracted from an area five times the size of Sydney Harbour over 60 years. This is equivalent to putting out 7.7 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases. The global budget is now less than 500 billion tonnes in order to have an 80% chance of keeping global average temperature rise to less than 2℃.

2) The mine lies adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef. The heaviest risk to the reef’s future is a continued increase in greenhouse gases.

You couldn’t invent a greater insult to the beloved reef than begin mining operations that amount to an affront to those who have begun to mourn for its imminent death.

3) After years of bashing renewables as unviable without government subsidy, contemplating a $1 billion subsidy to the mine by the Turnbull government is quite perverse.

Fossil-fuel companies already receive $2,000 in rebates and subsidies for every $1 they donate to Australia’s major political parties. So, this additional subsidy makes a mockery of any serious attempt to tackle climate change.

4) With climate-change-induced extreme weather events exacting billions of dollars of damage across Australia, and especially in Queensland, the idea that public money would be used to increase these damage bills by injecting even more energy into the world’s climate system by accelerating greenhouse gas emissions is absurd.

Cyclone Debbie – a category-four cyclone – actually impacted on the areas of the mine itself, and delivered more peak rainfall than Cyclone Yasi, which was a category-five cyclone only six years ago. Since 2006, insurers have paid more than $6.8 billion in cyclone- and flood-related claims in Queensland alone. Debbie is expected to add another $1 billion.

5) That the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund could be used to subsidise the mine is in contempt of any claim to responsible climate – and financial – policy. That such a fund could be so directly controlled by so few people and have such enormous impact on greenhouse concentrations is a travesty.

6) The argument that the royalties from the mine would benefit Australia are not supported by the recent revelations that Adani has set up an elaborate network of subsidiaries and trusts which are ultimately owned and controlled from the tax haven of the Cayman Islands.

7) That the Queensland Labor government could buy into a jobs campaign around the mine when renewable technologies can carry the promise of even more jobs, and without risk to the Great Barrier Reef that is threatened by the dredging associated with the mine, and therefore is a danger to the tourism industry, is outrageous.

Adani’s own consultants have suggested the mine would produce fewer than 1,500 full-time jobs. This amounts to a public subsidy of $683,000 per job.

8) Adani’s argument that somehow the mine will be lifting Indians out of poverty is a PR disguise for a company that has been accused of blatant human rights abuses.

This argument, invented by the now-failed Peabody Energy and most famously popularised by Bjorn Lomborg, has also been a favourite of Coalition MPs. This argument is thoroughly patronising – not simply because India itself has declared renewables to be more important than coal, but because it is the oppressive legacy of colonialism that under-developed third-world countries in the first place.

9) The desperate plea by Resources Minister Matt Canavan, mounted in the face of a greater lunacy, that the coal Adani would export is “clean coal” that would actually cut emissions, has been dismissed by analysts at the International Energy Agency.

10) To commit to a mine that it supposed to run for 60 years as the price of coal continues to be devalued in the face of investment moving to renewables is business suicide.

It does not even take account of what the world’s climate will be like in 35 years. With the equator in a permanent heatwave and so much more storm-feeding energy in the system, coal won’t just be the new tobacco. It will become the grim reaper we see in our rear-view mirror.

With thanks to Tahnee Burgess for research assistance on this article.

The Conversation
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Back-to-back bleaching has now hit two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef

Wed, 2017-04-12 11:13

Corals on the Great Barrier Reef have bleached again in 2017 as a result of extreme summer temperatures. It’s the fourth such event and the second in as many years, following earlier mass bleachings in 1998, 2002 and 2016.

The consecutive bleaching in 2016 and 2017 is concerning for two reasons. First, the 12-month gap between the two events is far too short for any meaningful recovery on reefs that were affected in 2016.

Second, last year’s bleaching was most severe in the northern section of the reef, from the Torres Strait to Port Douglas, whereas this year the most intense bleaching has occurred further south, between Cooktown and Townsville. The combined footprint of this unprecedented back-to-back bleaching now stretches along two-thirds of the length of the Great Barrier Reef.

Last year, after the peak temperatures in March, 67% of the corals died along a 700km northern section of the reef – the single greatest loss of corals ever recorded on the reef.

Further offshore and to the south, most of the bleached corals regained their colour after the 2016 bleaching, and survived. The patchiness of the bleaching means that there are still sections of the Great Barrier Reef that remain in good condition.

It is still too early to tell how many corals will survive or die over the next few months in the central section as a result of this year’s bleaching.

Four major events

Each of the four bleaching events has a distinctive geographic pattern that can be explained by where the water was hottest for sustained periods during each summer.

For example, the southern Great Barrier Reef escaped bleaching in both 2016 and 2017 because the summer sea temperatures there remained close to normal. Similarly, the earlier mass bleaching events in 1998 and 2002 were relatively moderate, because the elevated water temperatures experienced then were lower than those in 2017 and especially 2016.

The marine heatwaves in 1998 and 2016 coincided with El Niño periods, but this was not the case in 2002 or this year, when water temperatures were also abnormally high. Increasingly around the tropics, we are seeing more and more bleaching events, regardless of the timing relative to the El Niño-La Niña cycle. This reflects the growing impact of global warming on these events.

The local weather also plays an important role in determining where and when bleaching occurs. For example, in 2016, ex-Tropical Cyclone Winston came from Fiji to Australia at the end of February as a rain depression, and cooled the southern region of the Great Barrier Reef, saving it from bleaching.

This year, the category 4 Tropical Cyclone Debbie tracked across the reef in late March, close to the southern boundary of the latest bleaching.

But TC Debbie was too far south to prevent the bleaching that was already under way in the reef’s central and northern sections. Instead of helping to ameliorate the bleaching, this powerful cyclone has added to the pressures on some southern reefs by smashing corals and exacerbating coastal runoff.

Prospects for the future

The fallout from this and last year’s events will continue to unfold in the coming months and years. It takes several months for severely bleached corals to regain their colour, or to die. On some reefs in the Great Barrier Reef’s central region, underwater surveys in 2017 are already documenting substantial loss of corals.

The recovery times for northern and now central reefs that have lost many corals will be at least 10-15 years, assuming that conditions remain favourable for corals during that period.

We have a narrowing window of opportunity to tackle global warming, and no time to lose in moving to zero net carbon emissions. We have already seen four major bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef with just 1℃ of global average warming.

The goals enshrined in the Paris climate agreement, which aims to hold global warming well below 2℃ and as close as possible to 1.5℃, will not be sufficient to restore the Great Barrier Reef to its former glory. But they should at least ensure that we continue to have a functioning coral reef system.

In contrast, if the world continues its business-as-usual greenhouse emissions for several more decades, it will almost certainly spell the end of the Great Barrier Reef as we now know it.

The Conversation

Terry Hughes receives competitive research funding from the Australian Research Council, and provides regular advice to both the Commonwealth and Queensland governments.

James Kerry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Categories: Around The Web

Feeling helpless about the Great Barrier Reef? Here's one way you can help

Wed, 2017-04-12 06:11

It is easy to feel overwhelmed when confronted with reports of the second mass bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef in as many years. But there is a way to help scientists monitor the reef’s condition.

CoralWatch is a citizen science program started at The University of Queensland 15 years ago, with two main aims: to monitor the environment on a vast scale, and to help people get informed about marine science.

These goals come together with coral health monitoring. Divers, snorkelers or people walking around reef areas during low tides can send us crucial information about coral bleaching, helping us to build detailed pictures of the health of different reefs.

Participants can use a colour chart, backed up through the CoralWatch app or website, to measure accurately the colour and type of coral they see. The chart covers 75% of known corals, and can be used with no prior training.

We also ask people to enter the type of coral (branching, boulder, plate or soft), the location, and the weather. This allows scientists to identify the location and extent of any problems quickly (and is an excellent way to learn more about our reefs).

In fact, you don’t even have to go to a reef to participate and discover through CoralWatch; we have classroom and virtual reef systems, and just talking the problem through can help.

CoralWatch chart. Volunteers match the colour and four basic coral types: branching, boulder, plate and soft. CoralWatch

The graphs shown below are samples of CoralWatch data from the northern and southern reef during 2016’s catastrophic mass bleaching event, while the pair of graphs further down the page show data from just a few days ago at Lady Elliot Island and the very remote North Mariana Islands in the West pacific.

The Heron Island graph shows a healthy reef, as the southern areas of the reef escaped the worst of the bleaching last year. In contrast, Monsoon Reef (which lies off Port Douglas) and many others in the north bleached badly, or in some cases simply died.

Scores averaging between four and six are normal and represent good levels of symbiotic algae, which generate nutrients for the coral. Scores below three signify that coral is in distress.

The impact of this year’s mass bleaching is still being quantified. However, reefs in the middle section and far south of the reef – such as Lady Elliot Island – are now showing varying degrees of bleaching, from light to severe. Many of the remaining corals in the north are also showing signs of bleaching again.

What seems certain is that we will lose many more corals, along with the fish and invertebrate life they support, again this year.

The results for the North Mariana Islands, from a CoralWatch survey conducted last week, shows mid-level coral bleaching and demonstrates that even very remote reefs are not climate-proof.

Australians increasingly believe the government needs to act on climate change, and some of this change in opinion is likely fuelled by continued reports of coral bleaching.

CoralWatch doesn’t only help build a detailed picture of reef health. Like other citizen science projects, such as Reef Check, it can help speed up our fatally slow response to climate change. There are three key benefits.

First, we need to improve mutual understanding between scientists and the public. The CoralWatch mantra is: tell me and I’ll forget; teach me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll learn. Citizen science is a natural fit for everyone, no matter your level of education or knowledge.

Children are the citizens of the future, and helping them to understand their changing world is a moral and social imperative. CoralWatch works closely with schools and groups like the Marine Teachers Association of Queensland, and is used in more than 75 countries worldwide.

Second, we need to encourage lifestyle change. Many people, as they become more engaged in citizen science, will naturally adopt more environmentally friendly habits. Getting involved in protecting the Great Barrier Reef – and other citizen science projects – can be a great dose of perspective on our place in the natural world.

However, as personally rewarding as they can be, individual lifestyle choices alone won’t deliver the rapid and widespread change we need to save our reefs. That’s why we need to bridge the disconnect between what most of Australia wants and the politicians who ultimately have the power to fast-track change. Citizen scientists are also informed voters and consumers, who can demand better policies from companies and governments.

The future of the Great Barrier Reef is in the hands of Australians, and it will take all of us to preserve it for our children.

The Conversation

Justin Marshall is affiliated with Coral Watch which has recently received Queensland State Government funding for this project and previously from the Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre, the Australia Indonesia Institute and the Information Society Innovation Fund Asia.

Chris Roelfsema is affiliated with CoralWatch as a volunteer trainer and science adviser.

Diana Kleine is a project manager for CoralWatch, which has recently received Queensland State Government funding for this project and previously from the Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre, the Australia Indonesia Institute and the Information Society Innovation Fund Asia.

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Three ways to improve commercial shipping's environmental footprint

Tue, 2017-04-11 06:18
A man stretches his leg on the bank of the Han River as a ship passes by amid thick haze. Tens of thousands of premature deaths in east Asia every year are caused by shipping pollution. REUTERS/Stringer

Do you wear runners, drink coffee or own a mobile phone? The chances are that these products cruised to you on a ship. In 2015, the global merchant fleet carried a record 10 billion tonnes of cargo, a 2.1% increase from the previous year.

However, while it’s an essential part of international trade, shipping also poses serious risks to the environment. Apart from damage caused by dredging shipping channels and the spread of marine pests around the world, there is also growing concern about pollution. According to a report from the European Union, international shipping contributes 2.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions annually. This is predicted to rise by between 50% and 250% by 2050.

As well as contributing to global warming, ship pollution includes toxic compounds and particles that cause a host of other health hazards. A 2016 Chinese-led study found the shipping boom in east Asia has caused tens of thousands of premature deaths a year, largely from heart and lung disease and cancer.

Commercial ships are designed to be used for a long time. As a result, their engines are typically older and less efficient than those used in many other industries, and replacing them is prohibitively expensive. But there are some immediate solutions to this problem that use existing technology: increasing fuel quality, treating engine emissions, and adopting other energy-conservation measures so that ships burn less fuel.

Improve fuel quality

When diesel ship engines burn poor-quality fuel, their smoke stacks release oxides of nitrogen and sulfur as well as carbon. These pollutants, as well as contributing to greenhouse warming, are highly toxic. Sulfur dioxide readily dissolves in water, creating acid rain that causes harm to both people and the environment.

Refinement of crude oil removes sulfur, which reduces the amount of sulfur dioxide produced when the fuel is burned. Higher-grade diesel also reduces the volume of heat-trapping nitrous oxide, but is more expensive to produce because it requires more purification at the refinery.

The International Maritime Organization, the UN body that regulates the safety and security of shipping, is planning to reduce the amount of sulfur allowed in fuel. However, it is currently considering whether the change will take place in 2020 or will be deferred to 2025.

Install exhaust scrubbers

Clean fuel is an important part of reducing emissions, but the higher cost of low-sulfur fuel will deter many companies. Another way for ships to meet clean-air requirements is by capturing engine exhaust and passing it through scrubbers. These scrubbers convert nitrous oxide gases into harmless nitrogen and water.

This process requires retrofitting older ships, and updating the design of new ship exhaust systems. One advantage of this approach is that it allows ships to meet the different pollution regulations around the world without having to swap fuels.

Another way to reduce production of nitrous oxide is by reducing the temperature at which diesel fuel burns, but this leads to decreased fuel efficiency and increased fuel consumption. Scrubbers are potentially a cheaper and more accessible option.

Reduce energy use overall

Ships don’t just burn diesel fuel to propel themselves through the water. Fuel also generates electricity so that people on board can do things like use computers and read at night.

To increase fuel efficiency, other energy conservation measures can be adopted so that ships burn less fuel and decrease their emissions. The US Navy’s Green Fleet has, for example, replaced their old light fixtures with energy-saving LEDs.

They have also undertaken a temperature control initiative, where thermostats have been checked to ensure they are in proper working order and faulty parts in their water cooling systems replaced. Some ships have gone further, and installed stern flaps that modify the flow of water under the ship’s hull to reduce drag, thus increasing fuel efficiency.

All of this means the shipping industry can lower its fuel bill through conserving energy, and at the same time reduce its negative impacts on the health of humans and the planet. With more than 20,000 ships in the global fleet, these immediate solutions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other types of pollution will make a real difference.

The Conversation

Martina Doblin has received funding from the Australian government to advise them on the risks of invasive species being introduced to Australian waters via shipping.

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Is Paris climate deal really 'cactus', and would it matter if it was?

Mon, 2017-04-10 12:19

President Donald Trump is keeping some of his promises. Late last month he signed an executive order that tore up Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan. Some commentators see this as putting the world on “the road to climate catastrophe”, while others have described it as an effort at “killing the international order”.

Will America lose out? Will China, which has chided Trump for selfishness, be the prime beneficiary as its solar panel industry continues to expand?

Here in Australia, in response to Trump’s order, Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly, chair of the government’s Environment Committee, took predictable aim at Australia’s international climate commitments, labelling the 2015 Paris Agreement “cactus”.

Kelly is on the record as disputing climate science and poured scorn on the Paris deal when it was struck. He is certainly not alone among the government’s ranks in this view.

The day after Trump’s election win last November, Australia ratified the Paris deal and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that it would take four years for Trump to pull out.

So is the Paris deal really “cactus”? What would we have lost if so? And does it matter?

What was agreed in Paris?

The Paris Agreement came after the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (agreed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992) had suffered a body blow at the 2009 UN climate talks in Copenhagen .

Opinion was divided on the reasons for the failure of the Copenhagen summit, but the then prime minister Kevin Rudd didn’t mince words in blaming the Chinese, infamously accusing them during the negotiations of trying to “rat-fuck us”. (For what it is worth, the British climate writer Mark Lynas agreed, albeit in less incendiary tones.)

A series of fence-mending meetings and careful smoothing of frayed nerves and wounded egos followed over the next five years. The French took charge and, with the price of renewable energy generation plummeting (and so making emissions reductions at least theoretically “affordable”), a deal was struck at the Paris summit in December 2015.

The agreement, notably silent on fossil fuels, calls on nations to take actions to reduce their emissions so that temperatures can be held to less than 2℃ above the pre-industrial average. This limit, which is not actually “safe”, will require a herculean effort and luck. If you add up all the national commitments, they will most likely take us to roughly 3℃ or beyond.

Australia’s commitment of a 26-28% reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2030, relative to 2005 levels, was seen as being at the low end of acceptable, and not enough to help meet the 2℃ limit.

Eminent climate scientist James Hansen labelled Paris a fraud, while Clive Spash (the economist monstered by Labor in 2009 for pointing out that Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme was not much cop) thought it was worthless.

British climatologist Kevin Anderson is similarly dubious, arguing that the agreement assumes we will invent technologies that can suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in, well, industrial quantities in the second half of this century.

So why the relative optimism among the climate commentariat? They’re desperate for a win after so many defeats, which stretch back all the way to the Kyoto climate conference of 1997.

Second time as farce?

After Australia’s initial promises to be a “good international citizen”, reality quickly set in during the early years of serious climate diplomacy.

Although Australia was an early ratifier of the treaty that emerged from the Rio summit, it nevertheless went to the first annual UN climate talks (chaired by a young Angela Merkel) determined to get a good deal for itself, as a country reliant on coal for electricity generation and eyeing big bucks from coal exports.

That meeting resulted in the “Berlin Mandate”, which called on developed nations to cut emissions first. Australia, gritting its teeth, agreed. Later that year the Keating Government released economic modelling (paid for in part by fossil fuel interests) which predicted economic Armageddon for Australia if a uniform emissions-reduction target was applied. This work was picked up by the new Howard government.

After much special pleading and swift footwork, Australia got two very sweet deals at Kyoto in 1997. First, its “reduction” target was 108% of 1990 levels within the 2008-12 period (the then environment minister Robert Hill reportedly refused to push for Howard’s preferred 118%).

Second, Australia successfully lobbied for a clause in the Kyoto treaty allowing reductions in land clearing to count as emissions reductions. This meant that Australia could bank benefits for things that were happening for entirely different reasons.

Australia signed the Kyoto Protocol in April 1998, but in September of the same year the cabinet decided not to ratify the deal unless the United States did. In March 2001 President George W. Bush pulled out, and Howard followed suit on World Environment Day in 2002.

Kyoto ratification then became a symbol of green virtue out of all proportion with its actual impact. Rudd got enormous kudos for ratifying it as his first official act as Prime Minister. And then reality set in again when he tried to actually implement an emissions-reduction policy.

Why does it matter?

Reality keeps on impinging. In a beautifully written piece in the New York Times, Ariel Dorfman lists disasters befalling Chile (readers in Queensland will feel like they know what he is on about). He concludes:

As we get ready to return to the United States, our friends and relatives ask, over and over, can it be true? Can President Trump be beset with such suicidal stupidity as to deny climate change and install an enemy of the earth as his environmental czar? Can he be so beholden to the blind greed of the mineral extraction industry, so ignorant of science, so monumentally arrogant, not to realize that he is inviting apocalypse? Can it be, they ask. The answer, alas, is yes.

Will the opinions of politicians like Donald Trump and Craig Kelly matter at all as long as the price of renewables keeps dropping? Well, possibly. “Shots across the bow” of renewables policy have in the past made investors nervous.

As Alan Pears on this website, and Giles Parkinson at Reneweconomy have explained, investors in electricity generation got spooked by the policy uncertainty caused by former prime minister Tony Abbott’s hostility to the Renewable Energy Target. That’s the real (and presumably intended) effect of statements like Kelly’s.

Will it work? Optimists will point to last week’s announcement that a $1bn solar farm will be built in South Australia, regardless of the concatenating Canberra catastrophe. Perennial pessimists will point to the Keeling Curve, which shows a remorseless and escalating rise in the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Time and prevailing politics are certainly not on our side.

The Conversation
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Australian gas: between a fracked rock and a socially hard place

Mon, 2017-04-10 05:59

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s response to the looming east coast gas shortage has been to secure a promise from gas producers to increase domestic supply.

In a televised press conference last month, he said:

We must continue the pressure on state and territory governments to revisit the restrictions on gas development and exploration.

But if an onshore gas boom is indeed in the offing, my research suggests that gas companies should tread carefully and take more seriously the social context of their operations.

Shell chief executive Erik van Beurden, one of the big players in the Australian gas industry, recently admitted that “social acceptance [for our industry] is just disappearing”, while Shell Australia’s chairman Andrew Smith last year urged the industry to be less hubristic and more willing to collaborate.

Industrial developments have social consequences, particularly in the case of unconventional gas extraction. But my analysis of the social research done by gas firms in the Darling Downs – Queensland’s coal seam gas heartland – indicates a lack of rigorous research to identify community attitudes.

I looked specifically at the “social impact assessments” carried out for Arrow Energy’s Surat Gas Project. I evaluated this assessment against the academic literature on best-practice methods and the results of my own anthropological fieldwork on coal seam gas developments in the Darling Downs, including interviews and participant-observations among a broad variety of residents. This included farmers with and without gas wells on their land, town residents, Indigenous people, activists, and those who viewed the industry favourably.

In my experience, the industry’s social impact assessments do not generally meet the benchmark of good social anthropological research. They are largely completed using computer surveys, with limited amounts of direct local fieldwork and relatively little real attention paid to the particular issues raised by vulnerable groups or what actually matters to local communities.

Social impact assessments should be participatory and take into account the unequal distribution of the impacts among local populations. Some people will feel the impacts more than others – this means that in-depth research in the region is required.

A desktop analysis of census data, complemented with information obtained during a few “consultation” meetings, is unlikely to reveal the variety of impacts caused by industrial projects. The conclusion is that such studies, combined with a regulatory agenda that prioritises economics, have created problematic “silences in the boom”.

Conflicting priorities

In Australia, policies governing extractive industries such as onshore gas are mostly viewed in terms of economic cost and benefit – or to use the current mantra, jobs and growth. The projects themselves, meanwhile, are seen chiefly as a series of technical challenges to be overcome by scientists and engineers.

Public concerns about the effect on quality of life or uncertainties about underground impacts are commonly dismissed as irrational, emotional or uninformed. But the main problem faced by onshore gas producers is not an engineering one.

Social research has shown that the fundamental problems include lack of trust between gas producers and local communities, as well as differing views on livelihoods, culture and the environment.

In the coal seam gas fields of the Darling Downs – a rural and agricultural area – the effects on the ground, including concerns about extraction techniques such as fracking really matter. While individual gas wells typically have a relatively small footprint of about one hectare, the cumulative regional footprint of numerous connected gas fields and associated infrastructure is considerable.

The management of the impacts is negotiated in individual agreements with landholders as well as indigenous groups with traditional connections to country. Dealing with this social world is relatively new to many oil and gas companies that have previously focused mainly on offshore projects.

Unconventional gas and fracking developments have led to demonstrations, blockades, and the rise of vocal anti-fracking groups both in Australia and around the world. Gas producers in Colorado, for example, seem to have been shocked and surprised at the level of protest against fracking, a technique they have used for decades.

Instead of dismissing public concerns as irrational or ill-informed, politicians and gas producers could look carefully at why their proposals provoke these reactions. Just calling for more gas, more science, and less red tape is unlikely to diminish anti-fracking sentiment.

Invisible gas

Gas can be scary. It is everywhere and nowhere. You can’t feel it, see it, hear it or smell it unless you add something to it or measure it with an expensive device. Gas doesn’t have the same cultural symbolism as coal, the black gold of our settler history, or the Snowy Mountains, scene of the great “nation-building” hydroelectric project that Turnbull has pledged to make even bigger.

Anti-fracking activists, meanwhile, have sought to imbue gas with a cultural symbolism that draws on the underground world of demons and danger. Footage of burning tapwater is a potent example of “matter out of place”. No matter that methane is sometimes found naturally in water. Cultural anxieties are rarely be eased by natural science.

So while the federal government and industry figures call on states and territories to ease restrictions on gas exploration, they should bear in mind that unconventional gas can provoke strong anxiety and opposition. The architects of Queensland’s coal seam gas boom were slow to recognise this.

Energy is fundamental to our ways of life, and social support is crucial for the companies that provide this energy. Such support is not earned with desktop studies or by dismissing non-economic concerns. It is earned with genuine engagement and social policies that take seriously the experiences and diverse views of people now on fractured and uncertain ground.

The Conversation

Kim de Rijke works for The University Queensland and intermittently undertakes contract native title research for Indigenous groups around Australia. He received funding for his postdoctoral research on coal seam gas and fracking disputes in Queensland and the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales from The University of Queensland.

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Northern NSW is no stranger to floods, but this one was different

Fri, 2017-04-07 05:31

The devastating flood damage wreaked by Tropical Cyclone Debbie has left many residents in northern New South Wales facing an enormous cleanup that could take months.

Any Lismore local will tell you that flooding is a fact of life in the Northern Rivers. In the floods of 1954 and 1974, the Wilsons River rose to a record 12.17 metres. This time around, the river peaked at 11.59m, breaching the flood levee built in 2005 for the first time.

So what are the conditions that caused those historic floods? And are they any different to the conditions of 2017?

Like the current flood, cyclonic rains also caused the 1954 and 1974 events. But unlike those past events, both of which were preceded by prolonged wet weather, almost all of the extreme rainfall from ex-Tropical Cyclone Debbie fell within 24 hours.

More interesting still is the fact that we are not currently experiencing La Niña conditions, which have historically formed the backdrop to severe flooding in eastern Australia.

The 1954 flood was preceded by an east coast low from February 9-11, followed by a decaying tropical cyclone from February 19-22. Thirty people were killed as flood records were set in Lismore, Kyogle, Casino, Nimbin and Murwillumbah. Some places received more than 1,000mm of rain in 14 days.

In 1974, former Tropical Cyclone Zoe unleashed torrential rain over Lismore, Wyrallah and Coraki. From March 10-13, some stations received almost 1,000mm in just four days. One analysis described the flood as a once-in-70-year event.

This time around, the remains of Tropical Cyclone Debbie delivered extreme rainfall to northern NSW towns including Murwillumbah, Chinderah and Lismore, despite having crossed the coast several days earlier and more than 1,200km to the north. Floods as far apart as Rockhampton in central Queensland and northern New Zealand show the storm’s colossal area of influence.

During the event, 20 rainfall stations in Queensland and 11 sites in NSW recorded their wettest March day on record. Mullumbimby, in the Brunswick River catchment, received a staggering 925mm during March – over half the annual average in a single month – causing major flooding in the region.

The heaviest rainfall in the Wilsons River catchment was at Terania Creek, which received 627mm over March 30-31, 99% of it in the 24 hours from 3am on March 30. Lismore recorded 324.8mm of rain in the 18 hours to 3am on March 31, its wettest March day in more than 100 years. A little further out of town, floodwaters submerged the gauge at Lismore Airport, so unfortunately we do not have reliable figures for that site.

March 2017 rainfall across Australia. Tropical Cyclone Debbie’s track down the east coast is visible in the trail of above-average falls. Bureau of Meteorology

The main difference between the current flooding and the 1954 and 1974 floods is that the previous events both occurred against a background of sustained La Niña conditions. These tend to deliver above-average tropical cyclone activity and high rainfall totals, which increase flood risk.

During the early 1970s, Australia experienced the longest period of La Niña conditions in the instrumental record. This unleashed phenomenal deluges across virtually the entire country. By the end of 1973, many catchments were already saturated as the wet season started early, culminating in the wettest January in Australia’s rainfall records.

In 1974 the Indian Ocean was also unusually warm (what meteorologists call a “negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) phase”), further enhancing rainfall in the region. When negative IOD events coincide with La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific, the warm sea temperatures reinforce one another, resulting in more evaporation and increased rainfall. This double whammy resulted in the exceptionally wet conditions experienced across the country during 1974.

In January 1974, the Northern Territory, Queensland and Australia as a whole recorded their wettest month on record, while South Australia and New South Wales recorded their second-wettest January on record. Torrential monsoon rains in the gulf country of Queensland transformed the normally dry interior into vast inland seas, flooding all the way to Lake Eyre in the arid zone of South Australia.

Vast swathes of Australia were much wetter than average during the mid-1970s. Bureau of Meteorology

In contrast, Tropical Cyclone Debbie formed under neutral conditions, rather than during a La Niña. In fact, the Bureau of Meteorology is currently on El Niño watch, meaning that there is double the normal risk of an El Niño event bringing low rainfall and high temperatures to Australia by mid-2017.

So, unlike the 1950s and 1970s, the current flooding happened despite the absence of conditions that have driven major flooding in the past. It seems extraordinary that such a damaging cyclone could develop under these circumstances, and deliver such high rainfall over such a short time. This suggests that other factors may be at play.

A rapidly warming climate means that storms are now occurring in a “super-charged” atmosphere. As temperatures increase, so does the water-holding capacity of the lower atmosphere. The oceans are also warming, especially at the surface, driving up evaporation rates. Global average surface temperature has already risen by about 1℃ above pre-industrial levels, leading to an increase of 7% in the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere.

Ocean evaporation, before and after ocean warming. Climate Council

Of course, it is hard to determine the exact impact of climate change on individual storms. However, climate scientists are confident about the overall trends.

Australia’s land and oceans have warmed by 1℃ since 1910, with much of this warming occurring since 1970. This influences the background conditions under which both extremes of the rainfall cycle will operate as the planet continues to warm. We have high confidence that the warming trend will increase the intensity of extreme rainfall experienced in eastern Australia, including southeast Queensland and northern NSW.

While it will take more time to determine the exact factors that led to the extreme flooding witnessed in March 2017, we cannot rule out the role of climate change as a possible contributing factor.

CSIRO’s latest climate change projections predict that in a hotter climate we will experience intense dry spells interspersed with periods of increasingly extreme rainfall over much of Australia. Tropical cyclones are projected to be less frequent but more intense on average.

That potentially means longer and more severe droughts, followed by deluges capable of washing away houses, roads and crops. Tropical Cyclone Debbie’s formation after the exceptionally hot summer of 2016-2017 may well be a perfect case in point, and an ominous sign of things to come.

The Conversation

Joelle Gergis receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

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