Transcript

4.3.25 · Science Show KY

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Radioized Dinary of Science and Nature. Here's Kelly Taylor.
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I have articles related to the topics of science and nature.
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But first a reminder that radiois a reading service intended
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for people who are blind or have other disabilities that
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make it difficult to read printed material. So from the
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Wall Street Journal, we have an article that's entitled the
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next Big Thing in carbon capture Trash. This is from
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April first, a group of technology companies is investing in
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a new form of carbon capture that aims to cut
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emissions from household waste in an effort to reduce landfill
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use and to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in
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the atmosphere. Frontier, an umbrella group of tech companies including
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payments from Stripe, internet giant Google and software company Salesforce,
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is investing just under thirty two million dollars in a
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carbon capture and storage project in Norway in the hope
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of removing one hundred thousand metric tons of carbon from
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the atmosphere between twenty twenty nine and twenty thirty. Under
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the plan, carbon dioxide emissions that are generated when trash
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from the Norwegian capital Oslo is burned to produce energy
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for heating will be captured and then stored under the
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north sea. The initiative is part of a larger carbon
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capture project known as the Northern Lights Project. The project
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is being put together in conjunction with the Norwegian government
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and Halfsland Celco, Norway's largest supplier of district heating, which
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runs the waste to energy site. At the site in Norway,
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household waste is sorted into fossil waste and biogenic waste.
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Fossil waste includes materials like plastics which can't be broken
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down quickly. Biogenic waste includes trash that has come from
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organic sources such as food scraps or garden waste. After sorting,
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the waste is then burned by Hafsland Celsio, with the
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energy created used to heat the city of Oslo. The
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company is retrofitting the plant with a carbon capture system
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to collect an estimated ninety percent of the emissions from burning.
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Those emissions are then compressed and shipped to be stored
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under the ocean floor in massive caverns left from oil
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and gas exploration. By burning and storing the emissions from
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the biogenic waste, Halfsland Celsio creates high value carbon removal credits,
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which it plans to sell to frontier. Plants naturally draw
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down carbon dioxide or CO two from the atmosphere when
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they are burned. The CO two is res least, but
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at the Norwegian incinerator the carbon is immediately captured and
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CO two is thus taken out of the atmospheric cycle.
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When biogenic waste is sent to landfill, methane is emitted
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once it breaks down. Methane is much more potent in
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terms of its effect on global warming than CO two. Meanwhile,
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avoidance carbon credits are created by capturing the CO two
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from burning the plastics and other products made from fossil fuels.
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This is because the emissions that would have been emitted
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from burning the plastics are largely avoided. That said, these
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credits are much lower in value because no carbon dioxide
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is actually removed through the process.
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Speaker 2: The two main options of dealing with waste either involve
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land filling or incineration. According to Hassan Mussulamani, head of
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Carbon Management research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
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The issue with landfilling, he said, is that this eventually
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creates methane, which is about thirty times worse for the
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atmosphere from a global warming potential quote. With incineration, CO
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two directly enters the atmosphere. This is where CCS comes in.
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It brings the best of both worlds. No CO two
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entering the air today or methane in the future. You're
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also producing low carbon energy, electricity and heat, which can
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potentially be sold at a premium. Muslimani said this process
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could be replicated across five hundred other sites in Europe alone,
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with places such as Germany and the UK particularly suited
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for waste to energy carbon capture. According to Frontier, by
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doing so, some four hundred million tons of carbon dioxide
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could be removed from the atmosphere by twenty fifty. The
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Frontier group of buyers was set was set up to
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scale carbon removal. Experts say that more than ten billion
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tons of carbon will need to be removed from the
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atmosphere to help limit the effects of climate change. However,
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the carbon removal market is very much in its early
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days and most technologies are limited in deployment, cash flow,
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and maturity. Frontier says that by buying forward commitments for
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removal projects, it helps to provide finance and get the
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market off the ground. Quote there are new technologies that
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exist in the lab or exist at small scales and
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they're really expensive today. But there's a lot of technology risk,
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says Hannah Babington, head of deployment for Frontier. The group
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says that by purchasing credits in advance, it sends a
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signal to the market that there will be demand for
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carbon remowals in the future. Quote. We will be the
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customer of the product if you build it to the
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speck that we're interested in. Bevington sid Norway is an
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ideal place to run a project like this Musliman. He
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said the country's long had a carbon tax in place,
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incentivizing projects such as this one, and with the funding
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from the Norwegian and local governments, this helps to provide
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cash to get projects up and running. He added that
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similar projects in the UK could copy this, with the
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country eyeing carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes to provide
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incentives for this. In terms of revenue from the carbon credits,
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the removal credits could be sold for as much as
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two hundred dollars a ton. All the avoidance credits for
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twenty dollars a time, which, along with the green energy production,
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makes projects like this financially viable. Muslimani said, Now we'll
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turn to the Weather Channel. The articles headline reads, Cicadas
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set to emerge again in thirteen states. Want to know
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about Brood fourteen. It's one of the biggest broods and
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if you're in one of these thirteen states, you're likely
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to hear their noisy mating calls soon enter the cicada
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Noisy and large. These insects only emerge from the ground periodically,
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but in twenty twenty five it's Brood fourteen's term. We
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haven't seen this particular brood since two thousand and eight,
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but they return above ground to mate once every seventeen years.
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Expect these red eyed buggers to show up by the
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billions in parts of the East and South in late
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May or late April or early May. They head towards
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the surface once the soil temperatures reach sixty four degrees
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according to Cicada Mania, so they could appear a little
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sooner in the Southern States. Brood fourteen is the second
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largest of the fifteen periodically emerging broods according to the
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University of Connecticut. Only brood nineteen, which popped up last
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year across vast stretches of the Eastern US, is larger.
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It's important to note that cicadas won't flank every corner
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of all thirteen states when Brewed fourteen emerges, but they're
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expected to be seen in at least parts of Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland,
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North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia,
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and West Virginia. If you like to get up close
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and personal with big bugs, you're in luck. Cicadas aren't
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harmful to humans in any way, so feel free to
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get a good look when they arrive. In fact, they're
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great for your yard, as they airate lawns and can
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help with filtering water into the ground, according to the
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US Environmental Protection Agency, and once they've made it and
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died off, their decomposition is also nutritious for the soil.
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There's no need for pesticide sprays, but the UPA does
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warn that if you have young trees, protect against damage
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that could be caused by egg lane. This can be
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a mesh covering with small openings. Now let's turn to
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BBC Wildlife This strange animal survives winter by stopping its
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heart for eight months and dying in quotes before leaping
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back to life in spring. This is from March the
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thirtieth the only amphibian to live north of the Arctic circle.
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The wood frog has an amazing ability to undergo freezing
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and thowing to survive cold winters. As you might guess
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from its common name, it lives mainly in woodland, only
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taking to shallow pools in springtime to breed, the males
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uttering a distinctive quacking call to attract mates. The most
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recognizable characteristic of this small frog is a band of
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dark brown or black running from the tip of its
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snout out over its eyes like a mask. Otherwise, the
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wood frog is well camouflaged for its woodland environment, its
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coloring varying from tan to dark brown, rust red to
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greenish with splotches or bands of darker pigmentation. Thanks to
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pigment containing cells in their skin called chromatophores, wood frogs
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are able to change color in response to environmental acues
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such as temperature, light, and surrounding vegetation. Unlike with famous
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color changers like chameleons or octopus. However, this transition takes
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place over hours and days rather than seconds. Female wood
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frogs tend to be more brightly colored. Adult wood frogs
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typically grow to between three point seven and eight centimeters
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in length, weighing up to eight grams. Females are larger
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than males. Wood Frogs live on the ground in woodland,
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forested swamps, tundra, and grassland areas across Alaska, Canada, and
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the northeastern states of the United States. There are small
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populations living as far south as the state of Alabama.
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They are the only frog, and indeed the only amphibian
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to live north of the Arctic Circle, capable of doing
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so because of their abilities to survive being frozen solid
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during winter, unlike most amphibians, who spend much of their
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lives in water. Amphibian is derived from a Greek word
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meaning living a double life. The wood frog lives mostly
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on the forest floor, only seeking out pools to breed
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in springtime. With the coming of winter in northern climates,
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most frogs will hibernate under water, where temperatures get very
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cold but crucially stay above freezing. Not wood frogs, who
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instead take shelter in leaf litter. Ready to undergo an
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extraordinary transition. As the temperature drops below freezing, the frog
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freezes solid, with up to seventy percent of the water
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in its body turning to ice. Crucially, though, it is
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the liquid outside itself and organs that freezes, rather than inside,
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where freezing would cause irreparable damage. The frog prevents its
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cells freezing by producing substances called cryo protectants, essentially anti
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freeze made from glucose and urea. More cryoprotectants are produced
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in populations in colder locations. This adaptation means that the
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wood frog can survive at temperatures as low as negative
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sixteen degrees celsius. During this time, the frog stops breathing,
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its heart stops beating, and its kidneys stop functioning. Wood
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frogs have been recorded staying frozen for as long as
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eight months. As temperatures rise in the spring, the frog thaws,
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starting with its heart and brain. Within ten hours, it
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is back to normal function. Scientists are studying this freeze
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through freeze process in the hope of developing technology for
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the storage and transportation of human organs or transplants. Human
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organs cannot survive the freezing process. Currently, breeding takes place
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in so called vernal pools areas of wetland that only
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fill up in the wet season Because they are dry
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the rest of the year. These pools tend to be
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free from predatory fish that would feed on the frog's eggs.
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Male wood frogs make duck like calls to attract females
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from early springtime. Female frogs will follow the sound of
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the calls to the center of the pool, where a
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mating frenzy takes place, with males grabbing onto other frogs
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indiscriminately until they find one large enough likely to be
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a female. Females are grabbed by multiple males, forming a
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mating ball of up to more than a dozen individuals.
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A male who holds on on the longest, using thumbs
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that have swollen up during breeding season for the purpose,
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wins mating rights. The male then wraps his forelimbs around
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the female's torso, a move known as amplexus, and squeezes
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her until she lays a mass of up to three
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thousand eggs into the water, ready for him to fertilize.
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Wood Frog eggs hatch into tadpoles after between nine and
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thirty days. It takes a further two months for the
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tadpoles to turn into froglets, during which time they tend
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to associate with siblings from their own egg mass. Scientists
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don't know why wood frogs reach sexual maturity at around
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two years old and have a lifespan of around three years.
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In the wild, adult wood frogs enjoy a varied diet
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of small invertebrates, including insects, spiders, snails, slugs, and worms.
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Tadpoles meanwhile, tend to be herbifer us, mainly feeding on
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algae and plant detritis. They will, however, sometimes feed on
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the eggs or tadpoles of other amphibians. As adults, wood
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frogs are prey for a wide range of predators, including snakes, raccoons,
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snapping turtles, coyotes, foxes, and birds. Tadpoles are preyed upon
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by salamanders, beetles, wood turtles, and adult wood frogs. Wood
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Frogs are a species of Least Concern on the International
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Union for Conservation of Nature Red List with a stable population.
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Next we have an article from Axios Rainstorms are getting
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more intense amid climate change. Rainstorms are getting more intense
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in many US cities amid human driven climate change, and
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new analysis signs. More intense precipitation events can cause flash flooding, landslides,
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dangerous driving conditions, and other potentially deadly hazards. Hourly rainfall
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intensity increased between nineteen seventy and twenty twenty four in
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nearly ninety percent of the one hundred and forty four
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locations analyzed, per a new report from Climate Central, a
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research and communications group. Among the cities with an increase,
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hourly rainfall intensity rose by an average of fifteen percent.
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The researchers divided each location's total annual rainfall by its
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total hours of annual rainfall using Noah weather station data.
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That approach quantifies how much rain fell for each hour
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it was raining in a given year, in other words,
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rainfall intensity. Some locations were not included because their stations
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haven't consistently collected hourly precipitation data. Human driven climate changes
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resulting in warmer air, which holds more more fisture and
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thus can drive more intense precipitation. Hotter temperatures also evaporate
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more water vapor from lakes, oceans, and vegetation. Wichita, Kansas
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plus thirty eight percent, Reno, Nevada plus thirty seven percent,
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and Fairbanks, Alaska plus thirty seven percent had the biggest
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gains in hourly rainfall intensity between nineteen seventy and twenty
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twenty four. That Reno is in the top three underscores
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Climate Central's point that rainfall intensity is rising in places
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that are generally dry, not just those that get at
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least a decent amount of annual rainfall. Flooding costs the
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US economy up to nearly five hundred billion dollars annually
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and is creating climate abandonment zones as people flee for
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safer areas. Researchers have also found that predominantly black coastal
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commune unities may be particularly vulnerable to increase flooding risk
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over the coming decades. The group recommends that people stay
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aware of their area's flooding risks and suggests homeowners carry
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flood insurance and improve their homes resiliency against flooding as
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they are able. Now we have an article from the
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Los Angeles Times and the headline is the most important
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part of the ocean You've never heard of. This is
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from March twenty eighth. The most important place on Earth
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that virtually no one has ever heard of is called
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the Saya de Mala Bank, among the world's largest sea
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grass fields and the planet's most important carbon sinks. This
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high seas patch of ocean covers an area the size
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of Switzerland, more than two hundred miles from land. The
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submerged bank is situated in the Indian Ocean between Mauritius
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and the Seychelles. It has been called the world's largest
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invisible island, and it is formed by a massive plateau
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in some spots barely hidden under thirty feet of water,
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offering safe haven to an unprecedented biodiversity of seagrass, habitats
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for turtles, and breeding grounds for sharks, humpback and blue whales.
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Researchers say that the bank is one of the least
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scientifically studied areas of the planet, partly because of its remoteness.
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The area's unpredictable depths have also meant that over the centuries,
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merchant ships and explorers tended to avoid these waters. It
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has long been the type of fantastical realms so uncharted
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that on the old maps it would be designated quote
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here be monsters. More recently, though, the bank is traversed
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by a diverse cast of characters, including sharp pinners, bottom trawlers,
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seabed miners, stranded fishers, starving crews, wealthy yachters, and libertarian seasteaders.
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The tragedy, however, is that since the Saya de Mala
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Bank is mostly located in international waters where few rules apply,
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its biodiversity is being systematically decimated by a huge fleet
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of industrial fishing ships that remain largely unchecked by government oversight.
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The bank remains unprotected by any major binding treaties, largely
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due to an anemia of political will by national authorities
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and of profits now costs later outlook of fishing interests.
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The question now who will safeguard this public treasure. More
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than five hundred years ago, when Portuguese sailors came across
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a shallow water bank on the high seas over seven
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hundred miles east of the northern tip of Mauritius, they
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named it Sayat de Malha or mesh skirt, to describe
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the rolling waves of sea grass below the surface. Sea
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grasses are frequently overlooked because they are rare, estimated to
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cover only a tenth of one percent of the ocean floor.
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They are the forgotten ecosystem, said Ronald Jumeaux, the Seychelle's
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ambassador for climate change. Nevertheless, sea grasses are far less
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protected than other offshore areas. Only twenty six percent of
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recorded sea grass meadows fall within marine protected areas, compared
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with forty percent of coral reefs and forty three percent
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of the world's mangroves. The Saya de Mala Bank is
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essential existentially crucial to the planet because it is one
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of the world's biggest carbon sinks. Much like trees on land,
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sea grass absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stores
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it in its roots and soil, but seagrass does it
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especially fast, at a rate thirty five times that of
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tropical rainforest. What makes the situation in the Sia de
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Malabank even more urgent is that it's being systematically decimated
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by a multinational fleet of fishing ships that virtually no
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one tracks or polices. Often described as the lungs of
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the ocean, seagrasses capture about a fifth of all its carbon,
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and they are home to vast biodiversity. Sea grass also
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cleans polluted water and protects coastlines from erosion. At a
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time when ocean acidification threatens the survival of the world's
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coral reefs and the thousands of fish species that inhabit them.
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Seagrass is reduced acidity by absorbing carbon through photosynthesis. According
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to a twenty twenty one report of the University of California,
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seagrasses provide shelters, nurseries, and feeding grounds for thousands of species,
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including endangered animals such as dowgongs, stalked jellyfish, and small
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tooth sawfish, but the Saya Deemala is under threat. More
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than two hundred distant water vessels, most of them from
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Sri Lanka and Taiwan, have parked in the deeper waters
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along the edge of the bank. Ocean. Conservationists say that
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efforts to conserve the bank sea grass are not moving
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fast enough to make a difference. It's like walking north
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on a southbound train, said Heidi Weiskel, acting head of
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Global Ocean Team of the International Union for Conservation Nature.
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On May twenty third, twenty twenty two, the United Nations
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General Assembly adopted a resolution to declare March the first
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as World Seagrass Day. The resolution was sponsored by Sri Lanka.
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Speaking at the Assembly, the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka
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to the U N Ambassador Mohan Peiris said sea grasses
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were one of the most valuable marine ecosystems on Earth, highlighting,
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among other things, their outsized contribution to carbon sequestration. But
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recognition is one thing, action is another. As the ambassador
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gave his speech in New York, dozens of ships from
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his country's fishing fleet were nine thousand miles away, busily
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scraping the biggest of those very ecosystems he was calling
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on the world to protect. For the past decade, the
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mining industry has argued that the ocean floors and essential
24:44
frontier for rare earth metals needed in the batteries used
24:49
in cell phones and laptops. As company's eye the best
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patches of ocean to search for the precious sulfides and nodules,
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dubbed truffles of the ocean. The waters near the Saya
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del Malhab Bank have emerged as an attractive target. To
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vacuum up the treasured nodules requires industrial extraction by massive excavators,
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typically thirty times the weight of regular bulldozers. These machines
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drive along the seafloor, suctioning up the rocks, crushing them
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and sending a slurry of pulverized nodules and seabed sediment
25:29
through a series of pipes to a vessel above. After
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separating out the minerals, the mining ships then pipe back
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overboard of processed waters, sediment and mining fines, which are
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the small particles of the ground up nodule ore. Most
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of the bank is too shallow to be a likely
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candidate for such mining, but cobalt deposits were found in
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the mass Karene Basin, an area that includes the Saya
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de mal Bank, in nineteen eighty seven. South Korea holds
26:04
a contract from the International Seabed Authority, the international agency
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that regulates seabed mining, to explore hydro thermal events on
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the Central Indian Ridge about two hundred fifty miles east
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of Saya Dei Maala. In twenty twenty nine, India and
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Germany also hold exploration contracts for an area about eight
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hundred miles southeast of the Saya Deimala Bank. All of
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this activity could be disastrous for the bank's ecosystem. According
26:35
to ocean researchers, mining and exploration activity will raise sediments
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from the ocean floor, reducing the seagrass's access to the
26:44
sunlight it depends on. Sediment clouds for mining can travel
26:48
hundreds or even thousands of miles, potentially disrupting the entire
26:52
midwater food web and affecting important species such as tuna.
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Research published in twenty twenty three we found that a
27:00
year after test seabed mining disturbed the ocean floor in
27:04
Japanese waters, the density of fish, crustaceans, and jellyfish in
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nearby areas was cut in half. Proponents of deep seabed
27:14
mining stress a growing need for these resources. In twenty twenty,
27:18
the World Bank estimated that global production of minerals such
27:21
as cobalt and lithium would have to be increased by
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over four hundred and fifty percent of twenty fifty to
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meet the growing demand. However, skeptics of the industry say that,
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because of the long transport distance and corrosive and unpredictable
27:35
conditions at sea, cost of mining nodules offshore will far
27:39
outstrip the price of doing so on land. Other critics
27:44
contend that technology is changing so quickly that batteries used
27:47
in the near future will be different from those that
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are used now. Well, that's all for Today's Diary of
27:55
Science and Nature. Your reader is Kelly Taylor. Now stay
27:58
tuned for the Health Corner on RADIOI