And as Sascha Deri, Co-founder and CEO of altE Store, sees it, “It’s far easier and more affordable for us to take care of our own planet than trying to force some other planet to be hospitable to humans.”

True to his word, Deri is doing his part. At altE, a Massachusetts-based company that designs and sells DIY solar power systems and renewable energy products, Deri is committed to a greener future. His team is making clean energy generation more accessible and affordable for homeowners and businesses.

A world together
With his ideals he is in good company. In a pretty-well unanimous push by global leaders to be good to our home planet, practically every country on earth has joined the Paris Agreement on climate change to achieve carbon neutrality – or “net zero” emissions – by 2050.

Those greenhouse gas emissions will continue, but they’ll be balanced by absorbing an equal amount from the atmosphere. This way, climate change won’t see temperatures rise to levels that threaten people’s lives and livelihoods, and to the point of no return.

As it is, India, one of the world’s most populous countries, is already facing rising sea levels, melting glaciers and extreme weather events. Climate refugees may soon be a reality.

Green mindset
A greener world is a mindset Deri embraced early on, growing up in a remote cabin in Maine without running water or electricity, completely off the grid. He remembers his dad building a solar air heater to help heat the cabin that relied on a wood stove, and his parents bringing in water from a nearby spring in the forest to heat up for his bath.

(Now he’s in a suburban house where he says he prefers hot showers and won’t go back to compostable toilets.)

The absence of video games and lack of screen time didn’t have a negative impact on his youth. Instead, the challenges of self-sufficiency fired him up in a good way.

“I have a real passion and curiosity for the universe and how it works,” he says. His second business is a rocket company that develops launch vehicles powered by bio-derived, non-toxic fuel.

“Growing up, I developed an appreciation for nature and it put a heavy bias on how I conduct my own life and what I see as responsible.”

It’s that sense of responsibility he wants to see others adopt, with ease and with the right tools for powering everything from their home appliances and electronics to business computers and the office HVAC.

Bringing the right tools
“I wanted to find a way in which technology could benefit humanity and our planet,” he says. With degrees in physics and electrical engineering, he co-founded altE in 1999 and saw the company grow 50 to 70 percent in the first few years (head cheerleader and first salesperson was his father.)

Back then, solar and wind power weren’t widely understood and he had to tackle a lot of myths in bringing the message of how clean, alternative power can be stored and why it makes sense. Today, he’s still producing popular how-to videos on YouTube for the company’s customers and wholesale clients around the world.

“The cost of solar panels and the systems have come way down,” he says of the numerous benefits for the pocketbook and the environment.

In the early 2000s, you would need to spend $50,000 to $60,000 on an independent system and live very frugally off the energy. Whereas today, you could spend $20,000 or $30,000 and almost do nothing differently in terms of your power consumption, although Deri would like to see people reduce demand and live more sustainably.

“So if you look at it as a way of making a future purchase on your electricity, at a certain point it’s paid for itself and it really becomes close to free electricity, except for maintenance costs of the system. It’s a great way to invest in your future. You’re going to need electricity down the road. Whereas, when you buy a property or a car, you don’t know if you’re going to need it and you don’t know what the return on investment is going to be.”

A few months ago Deri installed solar panels on his own house, which now cover 80 to 90 percent of his family’s power needs – a significant boon when you consider that residential electricity rates in the U.S. are expected to rise by 1.3 percent between 2021 and 2022.

KiloVault technology
On that note, his altE team has had a hand in introducing products like the KiloVault range that uses lithium iron phosphate battery technology for energy storage. These unique systems provide higher current and peak power ratings for demanding applications like clothes dryers and electric water heaters and will charge your electric car. Bonus!

The company also offers portable energy-storage units and handy wall-mount units like the popular KiloVault HAB series that offers a 7.5 kilowatt-hour battery in a single unit along with built-in WiFi for smart performance monitoring.

The advantage here is that instead of sending solar power produced during daylight hours to the electrical grid, these hybrid systems can easily store the energy produced for flexible use.

“We’re finding more and more customers are choosing to have their own lithium storage-battery bank in their home. So they’re able to store any excess energy and use the electrical grid as their backup power system.”

Banking on batteries
Some customers have moved completely off-grid and rely on renewable energy power and storage, a move that’s gained momentum during the pandemic. In fact, altE has seen business thrive as people re-evaluate their lifestyles and become more environmentally aware.

And as power blackouts become more common – through the knock-on effect of climate change, more destructive storms, and toppling trees taking out power lines – having a battery bank makes a difference.

“When my neighbors have to go start up noisy, smelly generators to get the power back on, we don’t even notice it because there’s just a flicker of light for a second,” Deri says. “Sometimes we don’t even know that a blackout has occurred.”

Another evolution in renewable-energy systems that makes them even more cost-effective is that you don’t have to start with a battery-based system that adds to the cost. You can begin with solar panels and add batteries later when battery system prices drop further, as they likely will.

All in all, Deri feels his company is an integral part of helping people navigate the future of power generation – which may look a whole lot different from today’s.

The cloud in our future
“Eventually we will see the electric utility grid go the way of the internet or computers to cloud computing,” he says. “I think the way forward is a distributed network where we’ll see people producing power independently, getting to the point where everybody has an intelligent enough system where we are like a gigantic cloud computer.”

He envisions a day where every home is generating electricity and is interconnected. When a home requires power to do the daily chores, like vacuuming or dish washing, it would draw on its own smart systems. Then when additional power is needed for high-demand things like air conditioning or swimming pools, it would seamlessly draw from a home around the block, for example.

This system would be intelligent, efficient and far less prone to the system-wide outages experienced by grids conceived and developed in the early 1900s.

“We have these gigantic central sources of power that are very expensive and where half the power is lost in transmission as it is being transmitted halfway across the country or even halfway across the state,” he says. “So not only does a home-based system reduce the waste, it creates an incredibly robust network.”

The post Shine On – How DIY Solar Power Pays Off<p class="company">altE Store</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Just how far have we come? As of 2020, women represented almost half of the workforce—47 percent—according to the U.S. Department of Labor. In many sectors, women continue to make strides and a greater impact in the fields they participate in. And while women are represented in all sectors, they gravitate toward some industries more than others.

Looking more closely at the natural resources sector in particular, women make up only 15 percent of the oil and gas industry in the U.S. That’s a pretty slim statistic. As Cecilia Tam, principal policy analyst with the International Energy Agency writes in a 2018 commentary, “The energy sector remains one of the least gender-diverse sectors in the economy, despite recent efforts to promote and encourage women’s participation.” And she went on to add, “This is especially important given the role that women can often play as key drivers of innovative and inclusive solutions.”

With the energy sector shifting from fossil fuels to alternate forms of power, innovation is critical, so it’s time for women to take on a larger role. As Hillary Clinton said, “Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world.”

So the question is, what is keeping this number so low, and what can be done to change the industry to make it more appealing to women?

The quick answer to this question could be the nature of the work. Often it takes place in more remote areas that require extensive travel, and there is also the inherent risk of the work that comes from resource extraction—but those are not the leading reasons. There’s something else at play that creates a barrier for women entering and pursuing careers in this sector.

It’s not a stretch to say that the natural resources sector as a whole has been traditionally composed of mostly male workers. And the majority of women who do work in this space are more often than not in administration roles rather than in the actual mines or on the rigs at sea. But that long-lasting trend may be slowly starting to change.

More companies in natural resources are taking positive steps to include women in a diverse workforce. For example, in Australia, the female workforce in mining has reached 18 percent, while in Spain it’s about 8 percent. In Canada, women in mining comprise around 15 percent of the workforce, with Chile at 7.5 percent. And while these may not seem very high, they are much higher than 0 percent, which was the case not that long ago. Women’s participation in mining in Mexico, for instance, is now at 16 percent where there was no participation in 2008.

The issues at the heart of the low participation rate of women in the natural resources sector are hardly surprising: the struggle for wage equality, work-life balance, opportunities to advance, and exposure to new learning prospects. These factors, of course, happen to be pretty much identical to what many men look for in a career in resources. One main difference, however, is in how women and men experience these challenges.

In a CNBC article, Katie Menhart, CEO of Pink Petro, a recruiting company for the energy industry that focuses on hiring women, talks about two of the key obstacles to hiring more women to work in the industry. The first is convincing women to apply to what is viewed as a male-dominated industry. Then, once they do get hired for the work, they face limited opportunities to advance.

To help solve for the first issue, Pink Petro focuses on capturing women’s attention. Menhart, who also has extensive experience in the industry, says there’s a need to describe what it all looks like for women on the job. “It’s a story that nobody really understands,” she says. “I’ve flown the world, I’ve seen things I never would have believed.”

For the second issue of helping women advance, she acknowledges the challenge. “The biggest barrier women face in the industry is visibility and access to what opportunities exist.”

That is an internal cultural issue that each company has to face. Lori Freeman, a long-tenured general manager for surface engineering for Deepwater Gulf of Mexico, a Shell rig, says that the company has made a genuine effort to help all employees recognize their biases. “I come in, I do my job, I work hard, I want to learn, I like to help people, and because of that, I feel heard,” says Freeman.

Advocacy organizations in the industry are doing their part as well, like Women In Mining USA. The organization has chapters in a growing number of states, run by volunteers, to create networking and mentorship opportunities for mining students and women and men dedicated to pushing for inclusivity.

And if there are any questions about why it’s important to have women as part of the workforce, multiple studies state that you are losing out if women are not well represented among your employees. Consulting firm McKinsey & Company notes the following in an article about including women in mining: “In one data set, diverse teams were reported to be more productive (11 percent higher adherence to production schedules) and have safer practices (67 percent lower total recordable injury frequency).”

In that same report, McKinsey & Company also discusses why women leave the mining industry. “There is a sense that opportunities for operational experience and frontline mentorship are created proactively for men, while women are expected to have acquired frontline experience ‘elsewhere’ in order to qualify for advanced technical and leadership roles.”

This parallels the barriers Menhart describes in oil extraction and is something that requires intention, planning, and resources on the part of these companies to resolve.

But a challenge to all this may be built into the industry itself. The natural resources sector is prone to boom and bust cycles, and that can make it hard to plan for the long term. While there is recognition that change is needed to help develop a pipeline of future employees, there is always that pressure of the next change in price or production that may delay or derail any new initiatives.

For companies operating in natural resources, long-term positive change will start with the companies in the sector who make it a priority to diversify and create environments that actively promote including women in their workforce. As Denise Morrison, former president and CEO of the Campbell Soup Company, famously said: “The path to diversity begins with supporting, mentoring, and sponsoring diverse women and men to become leaders and entrepreneurs.”

The bottom line for most sectors, including natural resources, is that the workforce is aging, and as the pool of eligible employees shrinks, it will become even more important to encourage women to take jobs in the sector. Not only will companies benefit from stable numbers of workers, they will also gain boosts in productivity, creativity, and safety that can help them stay relevant and competitive.

The post A Pipeline of Talent<p class="company">Women in the Field</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, hydroelectricity accounted for about 6.3 percent of electricity generation and about 31.5 percent of total renewable electricity generation in 2021.

For a quick refresher on how hydroelectricity works, you need to begin with the water cycle. Water, for the most part, has spent all its time on the planet in the following way: it evaporates from the ground, then comes back down as rain or snow, and then makes its way to rivers, lakes, or oceans.

To make hydroelectric power, moving water is needed. The hydroelectric plants use pipes to force the water through turbines to generate electricity. Most of this is done by way of large dams, situated on major rivers bringing the water, where it evaporates and enters the cycle all over again.

Global hydroelectric power capacity comes in at 1,270 gigawatts (give or take). One gigawatt is equal to a billion watts, and just one gigawatt is enough to power 100 million LED lights, or about 2,000 Corvette Z06s (if you are a gearhead).

The top five hydroelectric-producing countries are China, the U.S., Brazil, Canada, and Russia. And it’s China that produces the most by a longshot; of the 1270 gigawatts produced worldwide, China generates more than a third at 341 gigawatts.

Hydroelectricity itself has become one of the most used sources of renewable energy around the world. The key to its success in many ways is that it is one of the most reliable and renewable sources of power.

There’s the advantage that hydroelectric plants convert 90 percent of energy into electricity. This compares to fossil fuel plants that top out at 60 percent efficiency.

Also, hydroelectric facilities last for a very long time. For example, the Chaudière Falls plant along the Ottawa River in Canada has been operating since 1891. Ultimately, with maintenance and updates, hydroelectric power can be extended practically indefinitely. That’s one of the reasons for Canada being one of the few countries in the world that’s a net exporter of hydroelectricity.

And while all this may sound utopic, there are, however, serious issues that are making some think twice about hydroelectric energy as a clean solution to power generation.

A growing threat to hydroelectricity generation is lack of rainfall and drought. In the U.K. and Europe, old villages are re-emerging that were once drowned by new dams and reservoirs. These falling water levels have reduced electricity generated to the tune of 20 percent, complicating Europe’s overall energy woes.

In a BBC article, Eddie Rich from the International Hydro Association commented on the seriousness of the situation: “We are going to face a problem this winter. And that should be a wake-up call to have more investment in infrastructure for the next few years.”

All of this, combined with the crisis in Ukraine, may add up to energy-use restrictions for people in Europe over winter.

The challenge for producing more hydroelectricity in developing countries is finding a suitable site to build a power plant. Since nations have been building power plants for about 140 years, it’s become harder to locate sites that are both stable and will not heavily impact the environment. This is leading would-be dam builders to search out more treacherous locations deeper into the Amazon and the Himalayas, locations that are often more treacherous.

In a Bloomberg article, Homero Paltán, a water and climate researcher at Oxford and the World Bank points out how environmental changes are making it harder to plan hydroelectric plants. “Hydroelectric projects are often planned according to a climate that is probably not relevant anymore,” says Paltán. “This is not well discussed, and it has repercussions for global energy markets.”

The scary data is that as much as 80 percent of planned hydroelectric sites are in areas where droughts are expected to become 10 percent longer. This will present challenges, especially in developing countries where clean and renewable sources of power are most needed.

And the big knock against hydroelectric power is what troubles most clean power generation—the sheer massiveness, in this case, of the dams.

The scale of some dams is mind-blowing. An example is the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in China. This dam produces 22,500 megawatts of power (the most productive hydroelectric dam in the world) but it also displaced 3.67 million people. Likewise, projects in South America, Southeast Asia, and Ethiopia are exerting massive pressure on biodiversity and wildlife habitats.

You don’t have to go far to see the impact of damming rivers. The Grand Coulee Dam built on the Columbia River in Washington State is the biggest power producer in the country at 6,809 megawatts. But the cost includes disrupting salmon migrations and the displacement of native peoples during its construction in 1941. As a result, billions of dollars have been spent trying to solve the problems the dam caused, including $1 billion on saving salmon.

All of this leaves the question: is this form of hydroelectric power ultimately worth the true cost generated by these dams?

The good news is there are alternatives. One example is microgrids, which are small, decentralized power hubs that use local sources to produce energy. And while they have been around for some time, AI technology is helping them turn into low carbon emitting projects that also reduce the overall costs of power for communities.

Rotterdam in The Netherlands is Europe’s biggest port, handling 30,000 vessels a year. It’s also now the world’s first high-frequency, decentralized energy market. Port users are equipped with an AI application that uses blockchain technology to validate transactions, and energy prices fluctuate based on supply and demand.

Since the opening of the market, port users have enjoyed an 11 percent reduction in their costs, while producers have seen a 14 percent increase in revenues, all the while reducing wasteful excess energy.

James Rilett, Global Innovation Director at S&P Global Platts, one of the firms behind the AI application, says, “When we first met to discuss the project, the Dutch government was being sued by citizens for failing to meet its carbon emissions targets. The port is a state asset that accounts for a third of the country’s emissions, so people were very interested in the initiative.”

The goal is to ultimately save up to 30 million tons and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

There’s the somewhat staggering fact that tens of thousands of dams in the U.S. don’t produce power, so converting some into power plants could greatly benefit the country’s power grid.

Another alternative in use now is pumped-storage hydropower. This essentially means charging a big battery when plentiful power is available that then pumps water to a higher elevation (which is key to power production). The water can then be released to turn power turbines at any chosen time to feed into and stabilize the power grid.

Other concepts that are a little far out include wave and tidal energy. For tidal energy, a difference of 16 feet is required between low and high tides. Both the Pacific Northwest and the Atlantic Northeast are good candidates for this but work on developing tidal turbines is ongoing.

Like the tides, the waves of the oceans are also jampacked with potential energy. The waves have the potential to power everything from coastal cities to de-salinization plants (that remove salt from ocean water so that it’s drinkable) and even naval bases. But these are still in the future as research to make them cost-effective continues.

While it would be nice to say that hydroelectricity is a no-brainer in a greener power grid, there’s much to ponder when comparing what it offers to what it takes to set up. Ultimately, it may be a combination of the existing traditional sources of hydroelectric plants that are already in use—and could well remain in use for the foreseeable future—while looking to harness new sources of water to create green power.

The post From Rivers to Ocean Waves<p class="company">Is Water the Answer to Renewable Power?</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

The theory has been around since 1962 and was prominent during the oil embargo brought on by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1973.

While this theory has been on the horizon for decades for oil producers, ironically, we may actually be approaching peak use of oil as fuel.

Supply and demand

As Reuters reported in September 2021, oil producers and analysts are revising their forecast about the future of oil: “The COVID-19 pandemic this year has dented oil consumption and brought forward forecasts by energy majors, producers and analysts for when the world’s demand for oil may peak. Demand was about 100 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2019 and has yet to recover to that level because of the pandemic. The rise of electric vehicles and a shift to renewable energy has also led to revisions in forecasts. There is no consensus on when oil demand could peak, but the predictions could affect oil exploration and development plans.”

Not only does it appear that demand will peak, the capacity to produce oil is also diminishing. In fact, according to the United States Energy Information Administration, the last refinery that had significant capacity was built in Garyville, Louisiana back in 1977. Refineries have since been upgraded but no significant new builds have taken place.

According to S&P Global Commodity Insights, “The nation’s ability to refine crude oil into fuel and other products fell below 18 million barrels a day at the beginning of 2022 and hit its lowest level since 2014.” This dip comes amid refinery closures and a surge in oil prices as gasoline and diesel at retail have hit record highs.

The pandemic triggered a crash in crude demand, both in the U.S. and Canada, including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, but there are bigger questions for the industry’s future. What are the challenges ahead for U.S. refiners?

“I don’t think you are ever going to see a refinery built again this country,” Chevron CEO Michael Wirth told the Washington Post in an article about the change in oil demand. “It’s been 50 years since we built a new one in a country where the policy environment is trying to reduce demand for these products, you are not going to find companies to put billions and billions of dollars into this.”

An example of how this is playing out can be seen in a large refinery in Houston, Texas which was up for sale recently. It received exactly zero viable bids and the current owner plans to shut down the 700-acre operation within the next year. This is a site that refines approximately 264,000 barrels of crude per day.

And owners of one of the largest refineries in the U.S. northeast, the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery, are spending hundreds of millions to convert the 1,300-acre site along the Schuylkill River into a high-tech campus for green e-commerce and life sciences companies.

The U.S. administration’s environmental priorities, along with rising public and corporate concern over climate change, will likely see many refineries obsolete in the not-too-distant future.

Energy for transport

When it comes to crude oil use, it is vehicles first and everything else a distant second. Road-related vehicles account for nearly 50 percent of oil demand.

From big-thinking Elon Musk’s Tesla to the major car manufacturers, there is a very clear shift to electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) that either dramatically reduce the need for crude oil or eliminate it altogether.

Deloitte research projects a compound growth rate of 29 percent over the next 10 years, which could potentially add up to more than 31 million EV sales by 2030. And early naysayers about the supporting infrastructure for those vehicles to power up on route have a more positive view of what’s to come: EV charging ports will soon outnumber gas stations in the U.S.

Governments are also setting goals to move the auto industry away from dependence on crude oil. For instance, the Biden administration is introducing standards that require manufacturers to ensure that 50 percent of the cars they build have fuel cells or are hybrid electric vehicles by 2030. And if half of all vehicles were electric by 2030, it could lead to somewhere between 60 and 70 percent of all vehicles being electric by 2050.

When you look at these numbers, the question for oil producers is, what will the future hold for the industry and what can be done to adapt to a changing market?

Low carbon, carbon-neutral, and green technology have all become common terms as countries around the word introduce industrial policies that will reduce emissions to help the health of the planet.

Pressure on petroleum producers

At first blush it may seem that petrol producers and this shift to green resources are mutually incompatible. But the truth is that if the world is to reach climate-related goals, the oil and gas industry that will have one of the largest roles to play in this future. The industry is currently producing fuels that generate about 33 percent of the world’s emissions.

The change for these companies is already beginning to come from within with activist investors pushing some of the big players in the industry for plans to lower emissions. And both retail and institutional investors are also becoming more conscious of investing in sustainable technologies.

How the industry adapts to these pressures will have a direct impact on the future level of emissions.

An NPR article examining the future of big oil notes the following about European oil and gas producers: “Companies such as Total in France, BP in Britain, Eni in Italy and Equinor in Norway are making ambitious pledges to switch, over time, from making money off oil to making money off sunshine and wind. In fact, they no longer even want to be called oil companies, preferring energy companies.”

The article goes on to add, “There are signs of real resources being dedicated to this promised strategic shift toward renewables. BP just bought a pipeline of nine gigawatts of solar projects in the United States. Total invested billions in a major solar producer in India.”

Industry dilemma

Ultimately there are three main obstacles that oil and gas companies need to address to not only help the environment, but also secure their future growth. They need to find a way to produce more energy while at the same time cutting the emissions they produce.

They need to manage demand for oil while struggling with diminished capacity. This is where the issue of reduced investment in refineries has made it harder to produce oil for customers. We have already experienced the oil shock in the first half of 2022.

And the third challenge is that they will need to meet investor expectations as they transition to becoming energy companies. After all, investors will still demand growth.

Looking at the oil and gas industry in 2022 seems very much like looking at a fork in a road.

Continuing business the way it has always been done no longer looks like a viable option. The future for the industry, and in many ways the health of the planet, will depend on the choices oil companies are making now to adapt to a future that will increasing rely on renewable energy sources and less on crude oil.

The post Big Oil & Rising Renewables<p class="company">Fossil Fuels at a Fork in the Road</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

The rewards can be spectacular, especially when the world is craving the resources you are extracting.

Taking a look at a list of some of the world’s countries with the largest amounts of national resources – the United States, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Canada – the potential economic value of resources totals about $210.6 trillion.

However, the risks of extracting these resources are unique and often much bigger compared to other jobs. Falls, electrical accidents, cave-ins, explosions, falling trees, vehicular accidents, and cold and heat exposure are some of the biggest categories of risk that workers face under the umbrella of extraction industries. That includes mining and oil and gas production as well as dredging and quarry work.

To further complicate things, the work means you have to go to where the resources are. So consider the logistical challenges of remote locations that do not have quick and easy access to comprehensive medical care if an accident does occur.

In 2021, a scoop bucket dislodged and a part fell down the shaft in the Totten Mine near Sudbury, Ontario in Canada, causing major damage and leaving 35 miners stuck at various levels all the way down to 960 meters, or more than half a mile, underground.

If this was a disaster movie, we would see a scene of miners huddled around flickering lanterns, but technology has changed the reality of mining work. The workers had access to Wi-Fi so they could communicate with the surface and even watch videos on their devices while the rescuers worked their way down to them.

As with most mining situations, the only way out was up and that meant miners having to climb and climb the many series of ladders to get clear of the mine. This was possible for those who were relatively close to the top, but the stress was just too much for those deep in the mine. The team from Ontario Mine Rescue had to use a number of different options to pull up those miners from the depths.

Rescue worker Jason Tailefer shared his experience with the Canadian Press, saying, “They had been down there for 40 hours at that point, they were all exhausted, and some of these guys just physically couldn’t climb a ladder due to old injuries or ailments.”

To get these miners out of the deepest parts of the mine, the team used an AZTEK rope system which can be attached to an anchor and used to pull people by significantly reducing the effort it takes to lift them. In the end, after two days of intense effort, all the miners were safely rescued and there were no injuries reported. While this was the best outcome for this kind of scenario, the rescue workers were at risk as they worked to help others.

What if, in situations as dangerous as a mine collapse or a toxic leak on a site, the first responders could be robots? It may not be that far from becoming a reality.

For instance, recently The New York Fire Department announced the purchase of Spot, a robot dog (yes, it really does look like a dog), who can go into situations that may be too risky for people and provide critical information for rescuers. Having the ability to crawl through debris or into toxic environments to measure levels of flammable chemicals or carbon monoxide will help rescuers make informed decisions about these highly dangerous situations.

And while robots currently are not as nimble as people and can’t crawl over unstable surfaces, they can be made much smaller to get into places where people just can’t go. Think about crawling through a collapsed mine tunnel and sending a robot the size of an insect in to crawl through the gaps to get to people trapped on the other side. Sound like a stretch? Maybe not. Right now Stanford University researchers are developing a robot that can essentially grow in the environment like a vine with a camera on one end to get through impossibly small gaps.

Help can also come from the air as well as the ground. Drones, which have become much more common and more capable, can fly over virtually all terrain to provide an aerial overview of a situation. They can also map out the scope of a situation, using cameras as well as thermal and infrared sensors. This eye in the sky can be invaluable, especially in remote areas where drones can dramatically reduce the time it takes to spot survivors in a vast area.

In addition to visuals and mapping an area, drones can also act as critical first responders by carrying essentials like medical supplies, first aid kits and pharmaceuticals to people, potentially spelling the difference between life and death.

Ultimately, the best way to get through accidents is to avoid them altogether. And there are few work areas where this is more important than offshore oil rigs. Surrounded by hundreds of miles of water, the margin for error is pretty much zero.

Oil rigs need to be well managed by necessity. Small problems can become big problems very quickly, but help is often a long way away. Technology in the form of AI can become a major part of catching a potential problem before it becomes an incident. AI has the capacity to collect vast amounts of data and look for patterns that help prevent accidents before they happen through predictive maintenance.

Take, for example, scrubbers, which are a series of pipes and tanks that are used scrub away hazardous and harmful materials like gases and particles. As a scrubber ages, there are certain signs that begin to appear before it fails. By analyzing the data that comes from the operating scrubber and applying a predictive algorithm, AI can determine when to replace a scrubber or components before a sudden failure occurs which can lead to damage and safety incidents.

Then there’s safety training to consider. When it comes to preventing incidents before they happen, additional training can help prepare inexperienced workers for potentially dangerous situations.

But how can you train new workers in what are by nature more hazardous environments? This is where virtual reality can make a big difference. Inexperienced workers can be exposed to potentially hazardous situations and learn from them without being exposed to actual risk. While virtual reality can’t perfectly capture a dangerous environment, it is a good way to help new workers think more about what to do when they are facing a dangerous situation in real life.

Although robot rescuers, drones and AI might not be ready yet for situations like that at the Totten Mine, today’s miners do have wearables that can make a big impact on safety. As the name implies, these are devices that miners wear during a shift which tap into RFID (Radio-frequency Identification) or the Internet of Things (IoT) to track a worker’s activity during their day while giving them the added safety of being able to press a button in case of an emergency. If there’s a cave-in, wearables can also be used to pinpoint a worker’s location.

It’s important to keep in mind that the need for innovation in places like mines in particular will not be going away even as more countries shift toward green infrastructure and supply chains. Take the rise of EVs (electric vehicles). While these vehicles may not need gasoline, they do need batteries, and many of the key components that go into them like cobalt, nickel and lithium will need to be extracted.

Countries like Canada have large deposits of all of these materials and the demand will only continue to increase. And even though the techniques to extract them will advance to reduce their environmental impact, there will still be risk involved in the extraction process.

That’s why even as we shift toward a greener infrastructure, these high-risk industries will rely on innovations to get to victims faster and to protect workers on the job.

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Well, if technology is the future of food, we might be more apt to say we digitize than digest.

With 2 billion more people living on the planet in the next 30 years, global population is expected to outpace current food production supply by as early as 2050. Compounding this situation is that in some countries, such as the U.S., irrigation-thirsty agricultural land is pumping groundwater faster than nature can replenish.

“Everything we think about regarding sustainability – from energy to agriculture to manufacturing to population – has a water footprint. Almost all of the water on Earth is saltwater, and the remaining freshwater supplies are split between agricultural use and human use, as well as maintaining the existing natural environment,” says California author and futurist Jamais Cascio.

Add in the realities – and the unknowns of climate change – plus the fact that only 40 percent of the Earth’s surface can support agricultural activities, and you have a market that is ripe for new technologies.

The good news is that digital technology, increased precision, and automated farming are reshaping the rural landscape. A potent combination of data-driven technology and biotechnology is creating substantial changes in the sector by introducing new processes or radically changing the way things have been done for generations.

An evolving industry

Understandably, with a third of U.S. farmers over the age of 65, adoption of technology in the industry has been slow. Many food growers who have relied on the same processes for a lifetime can be skeptical when it comes to new technologies. Once the primary driver of the U.S. economy, farming employed almost half the population in related businesses just over 100 years ago. Farming is now a $3 trillion dollar industry but employs only two percent of the workforce. Chalk that up to the marvels of technology.

Tools we take for granted, like tractors, revolutionized the amount of work that could be accomplished. A staple of the farming industry, the old two-row-horse-drawn planter could, in ideal conditions from sunrise to sunset, plant about five acres a day. The multi-row planter of today can accomplish the work of 300 farmers in a single day, planting 1,500 acres a day.

“Over a lifetime, farmers can expect to have about 40 growing seasons, giving them just 40 chances to improve on every harvest,” Howard G. Buffett writes in his book 40 Chances: Finding Hope in A Hungry World. With the technological changes that are occurring, farmers now have 40 chances every week to improve on what they are doing.

These days, the information revolution is squarely focused on agriculture and there are no clear winners yet (the farming equal of Amazon or Google). Some industry experts say the ag sector reminds them of the early days of the internet, with new startups sprouting daily.

“I think the sky is the limit. I think as far as the imagination can dream is where we’ll be, just give it time, especially when you look at how far we’ve came in the past 10, 20, 30 years,” Nick Elchinger, a farmer in Deshler, Ohio told AgWeb.

Indeed, agricultural technologies are evolving quickly. Smart irrigation systems optimize water use through the deployment of in-field sensors. Vision-enabled systems are allowing for precision seeding and weed application spraying, bringing about better growth outcomes with fewer environmental and health implications. However, there is a very real reluctance among many food growers who are not used to purchasing, yet alone using, these new advances in their daily jobs. And the vast number of tools and platforms available can be overwhelming for those who have relied on tried-and-true methods which have worked well throughout a career.

A robust demonstration of ROI is often needed to convince the skeptics. Farmers are a cautious bunch, and especially so of pitches offering “new and improved” but which may cost more than the value they generate.

What’s interesting, too, is that technologies are not only producing more and better crops; they are also driving up the value of farmland. As each acre of land becomes more profitable, the cost of land increases accordingly. Fruit-picking robots, for example, have helped to reduce labour costs, estimated at 25 to 75 percent of a crop’s value, leading to higher profits. When market prices are low, some growers opt to let fruit wither on the vine rather than harvest as labour costs make the crop unprofitable.

The 2019 USDA Farms and Land Summary indicated that while the total number of farms has declined, the average size of a farm has increased. More than 40 percent of farmland is operated by farms with sales volumes in excess of $500,000. Among the reasons attributed to this increase in sales is that technology has transformed what was once undesirable and difficult into productive and valuable land.

Ag goes high-tech

The technologies revolutionizing farming influence growing, harvesting and gene-editing the foods we eat – which gives a whole new ring to the push for farm-to-table eating.

With in-field sensors that constantly monitor moisture levels, smart irrigation systems can provide precise amounts water to improve crop growth. The volume of water delivered can be adjusted to the zone where the monitor is located, saving water and energy.

GPS guided soil-monitoring machines can collect soil samples at preset intervals from predetermined locations. Data can be collected during all seasons, from planting to harvest to winter dormancy, and reviewed and analyzed to get the best performance from soil. Although farmers have used GPS for years for farm planning and mapping, this technology is now used in autonomous vehicles for planting and harvesting. Fields are tended more efficiently with less worker involvement, and the net outcome is more profit and sustainability for farmers.

Drones are also becoming synonymous with farming and helping to monitor crops. Farmers are using this technology to study their fields and avoid costly yield losses. They can make real-time decisions on inputs like pesticides or fertilizers and pinpoint areas where resources are best directed.

Driven by data

With all this data, farmers are now relying on farm management software for important business decisions, including what inputs need to be applied to the land. This allows farmers to make decisions on the fly based on predicted earnings.

FarmLead online grain marketplace helps growers find the highest bidders for their crops. Buyers and sellers register anonymously and negotiate deals, so farmers can reach markets beyond their traditional trading area.

And big data isn’t just limited to soil, crops, and the business of farming. Biotech startups are also utilizing big data to make quantum leaps at the genetic and molecular level. Gene-editing tools use machine learning to make crops like wheat and soy drought- and disease-resistant, so less than ideal conditions aren’t as much of a challenge for producers.

These solutions are already having a profound impact on farming efforts in developing countries. Some African nations, for example, are now reaping improved harvests of biotech-guided corn, cotton, and black-eyed peas.

Crop advances provide a social and economic benefit to farmers, and make farms more environmentally sustainable. The production reduces greenhouse gases, soil and water pollution – and provides food security for billions.

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But are these resources unlimited? Is this a sustainable path?

Unfortunately, this demand for materials and increased efficiency in extracting them adds up to about half of the world’s carbon emissions and more than 90 percent of its biodiversity loss.

Biodiversity, the variety of all living things on the planet, has been declining at a troubling rate in recent years because of the human impact in such things as land use changes, pollution, and climate change. The National Wildlife Federation, for one, has called it a “biodiversity crisis.”

And in 2019, the UN released its Global Resources Outlook, which is a report on the use and management of natural resources around the world. This report has a lot to do with how resources are being extracted, the volumes that are being extracted, and the environmental and social effect that comes with the extraction process.

“Historical and current patterns of natural resource use are resulting in increasingly negative impacts on the environment and human health. Resource extraction and processing to materials, fuels, and food make up about half of the total global greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, and water stress,” notes the report.

So what’s coming next?

Markets for green products are growing significantly faster than conventional products. Environmental agencies and governments are focusing more and more on the impact that resource extraction has on wildlife and the environment. And beyond the environment, there is increased public awareness of the social implications of extracting resources in poorer countries, including potentially exploitative actions that can result in corruption within the local governments and lower safety standards in extracting resources.

Consumers are also moving beyond being focused on value alone when they shop. Many are becoming increasingly concerned about whether their ethical and political values are reflected in what they choose to buy. Every aspect of the products we consume has become more scrutinized with regard to greenhouse emissions and impact on environmentally sensitive land from manufacturing to transportation and to the starting point of extraction.

It doesn’t take much work to find images of clear cut forests or open-pit mining that stem from resource extraction. All of this comes back to a harder look at the supply chain, especially its first point, extraction.

But it’s not all gloom; back to our Global Resources Outlook, the report also offers the following: “Through a combination of resource efficiency, climate mitigation, carbon removal, and biodiversity protection policies, it is feasible and possible to grow our economies, increase our well-being and remain within our planetary boundaries, but action must begin now.” The report points to the opportunity to slow the impact of industry on the environment and people. The popular umbrella term for these efforts is called sustainability.

Governments around the world have taken increased actions to encourage companies and businesses to try to make their processes more environmentally friendly or “green.” And one of the biggest tools that governments have at their disposal is economic stimulus through investments in processes and subsidies for innovations to transform the supply chain as a whole, including extraction processes.

The Biden administration recently announced its green manufacturing push which includes an $8 billion initiative for regional clean hydrogen hubs that will advance the fuel’s production, processing, delivery, storage and end-use. If you’re not familiar with the term, hydrogen energy is created when hydrogen reacts with oxygen atoms in a battery-like fuel cell to produce electricity. “Hydrogen efforts will be particularly important for hard-to-decarbonize sectors and processes, including steel manufacturing,” The Hill reports.

The result of this increasing government involvement and oversight is that more and more industries are moving to make sustainability a priority, which can have several benefits including getting ahead of government-mandated standards, meeting increasing pressures from investors for transparency, and ultimately maintain stability and profits.

Certification and labelling for voluntary sustainability standards have become a market tool for promoting green trade and a greener supply chain. These labels identify sustainable products for consumers, and producers are remunerated for the extra investment that sustainable production often needs.

Among 2,000 of the biggest companies in the world, nearly 20 percent of them now have net-zero targets. To put that in perspective, these companies represent sales of about $14 trillion. This also includes companies representing household goods, big industrial firms and big tech, to name a few.

These companies are taking it upon themselves to enact specific social and environmentally voluntary sustainable standards, and a big part of that push for sustainability comes from examining supply chains that go into a company’s products and services. And a large part of any supply chain is the extraction processes that anchor them.

To help meet these sustainability standards, more companies in the extraction industry, such as mining, are turning to innovations to find more green ways to extract minerals from the earth.

Take lithium for example. As our world becomes more driven by smart devices and machines, people are looking to lithium to help power all kinds of electronics, including cellphones to electric cars. And, as a result, the demand for lithium is rapidly increasing.

In the south of England, a company called Geothermal Engineering Limited, or GEL for short, is exploring how lithium can be extracted through geothermal waters. In a really oversimplified way, the idea here is extract lithium from the naturally occurring geothermal water found in the rock formation with methods that leave a zero carbon footprint. This project is a collaboration with another company called Cornish Lithium. The goal is to then extract lithium hydroxide, which in turn is used in lithium-ion batteries.

GEL founder Ryan Law explains in an interview with CNBC how this process will work. “The combination of the granite rock being rich in lithium and hot water – hot water can absorb more lithium – means that the more water that we bring to the surface to drive our power plant has a very high lithium count.” So a very clean way to extract the element from the earth.

Another example of applying sustainability standards comes from finding ways to make general mining processes greener. One of the larger sources of greenhouse gas emissions come not from the actual removal of raw minerals from mines, but from transporting them from the mines in diesel powered trucks.

Potential solutions that are now being tried are trolley lines to move trucks using less power and cleaner power. Picture the overhead wires that trucks tap into to move along the haul road from the mine to where the materials are dumped. While this has been talked about since the oil crisis of 1970s, it has never really taken off.

Copper Mountain, a mine in British Columbia, Canada, which produces about 100 million pounds of copper per year, will become the first site in North America to start integrating a trolley system into a mining operation. The plan is to set up a 25kW trolley system over a 1 kilometer stretch of road. The company hopes to eliminate 400 liters (or about 88 gallons) of diesel per hour from the operations. The network will set up a system where four trucks will be on the line at a given time while seven others are loading or unloading elsewhere in the mine site.

And beyond trolley lines for trucks, there are also advances in automated charging systems that can provide up to 600kW of power for hauling trucks to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and at the same time boost efficiency in the mining process. There are also benefits to workers like reduced noise at the mine site.

When you think about it, the extraction process is the starting point for all supply chains. As more consumers and governments look closely at how materials are extracted and reducing the impact of this process, those companies that begin to take steps now will not only help build brands as sustainable but also prevent potential disruptions to operations in the future with new standards needing to be met.

Here’s the thing: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality,” American engineer and futurist R. Buckminster Fuller said. “To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

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And as Sascha Deri, Co-founder and CEO of altE Store, sees it, “It’s far easier and more affordable for us to take care of our own planet than trying to force some other planet to be hospitable to humans.”

True to his word, Deri is doing his part. At altE, a Massachusetts-based company that designs and sells DIY solar power systems and renewable energy products, Deri is committed to a greener future. His team is making clean energy generation more accessible and affordable for homeowners and businesses.

A world together
With his ideals he is in good company. In a pretty-well unanimous push by global leaders to be good to our home planet, practically every country on earth has joined the Paris Agreement on climate change to achieve carbon neutrality – or “net zero” emissions – by 2050.

Those greenhouse gas emissions will continue, but they’ll be balanced by absorbing an equal amount from the atmosphere. This way, climate change won’t see temperatures rise to levels that threaten people’s lives and livelihoods, and to the point of no return.

As it is, India, one of the world’s most populous countries, is already facing rising sea levels, melting glaciers and extreme weather events. Climate refugees may soon be a reality.

Green mindset
A greener world is a mindset Deri embraced early on, growing up in a remote cabin in Maine without running water or electricity, completely off the grid. He remembers his dad building a solar air heater to help heat the cabin that relied on a wood stove, and his parents bringing in water from a nearby spring in the forest to heat up for his bath.

(Now he’s in a suburban house where he says he prefers hot showers and won’t go back to compostable toilets.)

The absence of video games and lack of screen time didn’t have a negative impact on his youth. Instead, the challenges of self-sufficiency fired him up in a good way.

“I have a real passion and curiosity for the universe and how it works,” he says. His second business is a rocket company that develops launch vehicles powered by bio-derived, non-toxic fuel.

“Growing up, I developed an appreciation for nature and it put a heavy bias on how I conduct my own life and what I see as responsible.”

It’s that sense of responsibility he wants to see others adopt, with ease and with the right tools for powering everything from their home appliances and electronics to business computers and the office HVAC.

Bringing the right tools
“I wanted to find a way in which technology could benefit humanity and our planet,” he says. With degrees in physics and electrical engineering, he co-founded altE in 1999 and saw the company grow 50 to 70 percent in the first few years (head cheerleader and first salesperson was his father.)

Back then, solar and wind power weren’t widely understood and he had to tackle a lot of myths in bringing the message of how clean, alternative power can be stored and why it makes sense. Today, he’s still producing popular how-to videos on YouTube for the company’s customers and wholesale clients around the world.

“The cost of solar panels and the systems have come way down,” he says of the numerous benefits for the pocketbook and the environment.

In the early 2000s, you would need to spend $50,000 to $60,000 on an independent system and live very frugally off the energy. Whereas today, you could spend $20,000 or $30,000 and almost do nothing differently in terms of your power consumption, although Deri would like to see people reduce demand and live more sustainably.

“So if you look at it as a way of making a future purchase on your electricity, at a certain point it’s paid for itself and it really becomes close to free electricity, except for maintenance costs of the system. It’s a great way to invest in your future. You’re going to need electricity down the road. Whereas, when you buy a property or a car, you don’t know if you’re going to need it and you don’t know what the return on investment is going to be.”

A few months ago Deri installed solar panels on his own house, which now cover 80 to 90 percent of his family’s power needs – a significant boon when you consider that residential electricity rates in the U.S. are expected to rise by 1.3 percent between 2021 and 2022.

KiloVault technology
On that note, his altE team has had a hand in introducing products like the KiloVault range that uses lithium iron phosphate battery technology for energy storage. These unique systems provide higher current and peak power ratings for demanding applications like clothes dryers and electric water heaters and will charge your electric car. Bonus!

The company also offers portable energy-storage units and handy wall-mount units like the popular KiloVault HAB series that offers a 7.5 kilowatt-hour battery in a single unit along with built-in WiFi for smart performance monitoring.

The advantage here is that instead of sending solar power produced during daylight hours to the electrical grid, these hybrid systems can easily store the energy produced for flexible use.

“We’re finding more and more customers are choosing to have their own lithium storage-battery bank in their home. So they’re able to store any excess energy and use the electrical grid as their backup power system.”

Banking on batteries
Some customers have moved completely off-grid and rely on renewable energy power and storage, a move that’s gained momentum during the pandemic. In fact, altE has seen business thrive as people re-evaluate their lifestyles and become more environmentally aware.

And as power blackouts become more common – through the knock-on effect of climate change, more destructive storms, and toppling trees taking out power lines – having a battery bank makes a difference.

“When my neighbors have to go start up noisy, smelly generators to get the power back on, we don’t even notice it because there’s just a flicker of light for a second,” Deri says. “Sometimes we don’t even know that a blackout has occurred.”

Another evolution in renewable-energy systems that makes them even more cost-effective is that you don’t have to start with a battery-based system that adds to the cost. You can begin with solar panels and add batteries later when battery system prices drop further, as they likely will.

All in all, Deri feels his company is an integral part of helping people navigate the future of power generation – which may look a whole lot different from today’s.

The cloud in our future
“Eventually we will see the electric utility grid go the way of the internet or computers to cloud computing,” he says. “I think the way forward is a distributed network where we’ll see people producing power independently, getting to the point where everybody has an intelligent enough system where we are like a gigantic cloud computer.”

He envisions a day where every home is generating electricity and is interconnected. When a home requires power to do the daily chores, like vacuuming or dish washing, it would draw on its own smart systems. Then when additional power is needed for high-demand things like air conditioning or swimming pools, it would seamlessly draw from a home around the block, for example.

This system would be intelligent, efficient and far less prone to the system-wide outages experienced by grids conceived and developed in the early 1900s.

“We have these gigantic central sources of power that are very expensive and where half the power is lost in transmission as it is being transmitted halfway across the country or even halfway across the state,” he says. “So not only does a home-based system reduce the waste, it creates an incredibly robust network.”

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Well, that’s about to change. Farms are now associated with sources of fuel that can help power vehicles and even towns and cities. Hardworking farmers are future-proofing the planet with alternative energy.

It makes sense in a lot of ways for agriculture and renewable sources of fuels to go hand in hand. After all, the concept of biofuel has been around for quite a while. For instance, ethanol, which is far and away the largest source of biofuel, has been produced in the U.S. for more than 40 years, dating back to the Energy Policy Act of 1978. Ethanol is proven to reduce carbon emissions by almost 40 percent in vehicular emissions – one of the largest culprits of greenhouse gas emissions.

The connection between ethanol and agriculture is that, by and large, most of it is produced from corn, with a small portion coming from sugar cane. In fact, ethanol is actually the same type of alcohol that is found in our adult beverages.

And, like the alcohol found in that tasty margarita, the process of creating ethanol is achieved through fermentation. After it is processed, what you end up with is a fuel that is measured at a gasoline gallon equivalency of 1.5. So it takes a gallon and a half of ethanol to produce the same amount of energy that a gallon of gas does.

Since its introduction in the 1970s, ethanol usage has grown to the point that now nearly all of the gasoline sold in the U.S. contains about 10 percent ethanol. Not only that, but an ethanol blended 98 octane is the official fuel used by NASCAR. And, in 2019, NASCAR drivers hit a cumulative total of 15 million miles using the high performance biofuel blend.

Other crops like soybeans and canola can also be dual purposed. However, there are increasing challenges with using these kinds of crops, known as feedstock, for fuel – primarily, the growing demand for food and animal feed from these crops. The result is that what were once components of biofuel production are quickly becoming too pricy to be viable.

“As many of the world’s governments continue pushing to a greener future, the energy transition is colliding with another challenge facing the world as it struggles to emerge from the pandemic: skyrocketing food prices,” says Yahoo Finance.

So there is a real challenge when looking to feedstock as potential sources of clean energy.

As a possible solution to this, research into the use of carinata and camelina crops, also known as false flax, is being explored.

In a Reuters article, Jerry Steiner, executive board chair at CoverCress Inc., a St. Louis company that converts native field pennycress to improve yields, fiber and oil composition for fuel production, says, “The solution to this feedstock problem is going to come from a whole lot of sources.” The company is aiming to plant up to 1,000 acres this fall, and ramp that up to 3 million acres by 2030.

Likewise, Yield10 Bioscience in Massachusetts is also working with camelina to produce a high-value crop that can be used for fuel production.

“One of the goals of Biden’s climate plan is to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent to 52 percent by 2030, which he will need help from farmers to achieve. Farming produces roughly 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency,” Oliver Peoples, CEO of Yield 10 Bioscience, told Forbes.

There is a lot of potential in using these types of plants as they naturally pop up across North America on their own, so farmers need to put less work into them and they can be ultimately cheaper to produce. And not only are these easier to grow, they can be used as what’s called a cover crop, which farmers can grow outside of their primary growing seasons to store carbon and protect the soil from nutrient loss.

The process for converting biomass into energy begins when these crops are harvested from a farm. Next, they’re transferred to a power plant. The materials are then burned to heat water, and the steam that is produced turns the turbines to produce power.

As a side note, biomass materials not only come from specifically planted crops; other by-products that come out of industries like agriculture, forestry and construction can also be converted to energy. Think of the dead wood in managed forests, the trimmings of vegetables that are sold for food, and what’s left over from construction sites. Ultimately, what this does is take the materials that would otherwise end up in landfill and convert them into energy that can help power a grid.

While it may seem like a slam dunk for the environment and for farmers to just start converting these crops and by-products into sources of alternative energy, there are challenges that are part of the bigger picture of biofuels. The first issue is the cost of producing biofuels. As mentioned before, while feedstock sources to this point were cost-effective for use in fuel production, they are quickly increasing in price because of growing global demand, pushing the related costs beyond feasibility.

And ironically, while these alternate fuels are based on naturally occurring sources, there is still an environmental footprint, from growing to transporting them, as well as the larger amounts of materials needed to achieve the desired results. Plus, there could also be significant impacts to land use and water sources to grow these crops.

But the tipping point for all of these alternate sources of fuel could well be happening now, with a renewed emphasis on finding alternate sources of power.

As economies around the globe emerge from the pandemic, there is a renewed sense of urgency about environmental change and what can be done to slow it. Not only has the U.S. set new goals for reducing the impact of climate change, so have the Group of Seven (G7) countries.

As the New York Times reports, “Mr. Biden and six other leaders of the Group of 7 nations promised to cut collective emissions in half by 2030 and to try to stem the rapid extinction of animals and plants, calling it an equally important existential threat.”

To meet these new goals, these governments are going to have to look to a number of sources for biofuels, including the agriculture sector. Europe has already increased production of biodiesel (a process similar to ethanol blended gasoline) with more than 14 million tons consumed yearly.

In turn, this has led to significant growth to agricultural and rural economies. In addition, 25,000 jobs are also directly linked to the production of biodiesel. And beyond that, 220,000 jobs are connected to the biofuel industry as a whole in Europe. Europe is expected to increase these numbers in order to meet its emission-reduction goals.

In the U.S., the government will also likely face an increasing need to rely on agriculture and farmers to help reduce emissions and increase alternate sources of fuel to help achieve its new, ambitious goals.

As Zippy Duvall, a Georgia farmer and president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, sees it: “The fundamental truth about biofuels is more important than ever: They are helping reduce our emissions and play an important role in agriculture’s sustainability story. As the Biden administration focuses on climate, farmers stand ready to provide the crops needed to produce more biofuels and help achieve clean energy goals, in addition to our climate-smart farming practices.”

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The history of nuclear power is well known and, frankly, a lot of it isn’t pretty. But while people can be quick to jump to seeing its ominous power as a weapon, there have been all manner of benefits that are the result of nuclear science – not only power for our communities, but the ability to help treat different forms of cancer.

The perception of nuclear power has a lot of myths connected to it, but how much do we really know about what goes into it? The best place to start a discussion about nuclear power may be a crash course in how it works.

There are currently 96 commercial reactors in the United States, according to the Office of Nuclear Energy. The amount of power produced by these in a year depends on the size of the plant and how many hours it runs.

To provide an example, let’s take the R.E. Gina Nuclear Power Plant located in New York. This is actually the smallest plant operation in the country right now and it produces just under 14,000 megawatts worth of power in 24 hours. This translates to about 14 gigawatts worth of energy.

For scale, one gigawatt of power is approximately enough energy to light up 100 million LED bulbs. In fact, these nuclear reactors are producing 20 percent of the country’s current electricity, and nuclear power has played a role in providing power to the U.S. for 60 years.

So how does nuclear power work? In a nutshell, it is a chain reaction that produces a very large amount of heat. The term for this process is called fission, where a larger atom is split into two or more smaller atoms. This is achieved by literally slamming a neutron into a larger atom to break it up and cause a chain reaction.

The process releases a vast amount of energy. Elements like uranium and plutonium are used to control this process because they tend to be fairly stable.

Once the heat is released from this reaction, it is converted to steam which turns a turbine to create electricity. This part of the process is similar to a number of other power generating processes. The big advantage of nuclear power over other forms of energy is that that while it is complicated, it does not release carbon into the atmosphere so it is actually one of the cleaner ways to keep the lights on.

That’s the basic explanation of nuclear power and there are myriad other engineering components that go into making reactors work. Some people might also say that this was the Pollyanna version of nuclear energy and that there are potentially dangerous and damaging impacts from using nuclear power.

Names like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima represent those nightmare scenarios of meltdowns at nuclear reactors. A meltdown is literally when the core of a nuclear reactor melts. In the case of Fukushima in 2011, the cooling systems failed because of damage from a massive tsunami and the fuel rod component of the reactor became exposed to the air and rapidly heated up, cracked and released radioactive gasses.

This is the greatest fear about the nuclear industry – and it should be. The potential damage from a meltdown scenario can be catastrophic. And this is precisely why nuclear power plants have a number of safety systems to minimize the risk.

These systems include multiple barriers such as canned fuel, pressure valves and containment to protect from the release of gasses. Other safety systems include redundancies whereby there are multiple points that will shut down the reactor as well as constant monitoring of the machinery and systems the make the nuclear process work.

Put another way, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima are the only major incidents that have occurred in what is 17,000 cumulative reactor years of generating power in 33 countries around the world.

But even if nuclear reactors are working well, they also produce waste. Throughout the stages of generating power, quantities of radioactive materials are produced. The high-level nuclear waste is especially concerning as it remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years. The safe containment of these materials has been the source of debate throughout the history of the nuclear power industry.

“Vertical boreholes up to 5,000 meters deep have been proposed, and this option is said by some scientists to be promising,” The Guardian reports. “But there have been doubts, because it is likely to be nearly impossible to retrieve waste from vertical boreholes.”

Another solution on the table is a new generation of power plants that would actually run on depleted uranium. Bill Gates famously founded TerraPower back in 2011. The concept is called a traveling-wave reactor which, according to Popular Mechanics, “… is appealing on several levels – not only would its small design lower the currently rising price of nuclear energy, it would actually consume the trash pumped out by today’s modern reactors.”

Gates has made his pro-nuclear stance clear: “Nuclear is ideal for dealing with climate change because it is the only carbon-free, scalable energy source that’s available 24 hours a day,” he said in a public letter released at the end of 2019. Human ingenuity is what’s required next. “Problems with today’s reactors such as the risk of accidents, can be solved through innovation,” he said.

It’s also worth mentioning that the total amount of waste produced by nuclear plants is not nearly as much as you might expect. Since the 1950s, the U.S. has produced about 83,000 metric tons of used fuel. And yes, that sounds like a lot, but that amount can also fit into a single football field that is buried to a depth under 10 yards. And while there are challenges that come with this nuclear energy, its enormous potential to meet our energy needs without polluting our environment with carbons makes it so appealing to many countries.

About 63 percent of America’s energy comes from fossil fuels like coal, natural gas, petroleum and other gases. This pumps 1,619 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is roughly 32 percent of total energy-related CO₂ emissions. Scientists report that carbon dioxide levels are at a record high, contributing globally to respiratory disease from smog and air pollution and creating extreme weather, causing food supply disruptions, and damaging wildlife habitat. Clean, green power is the key we need to unlock a sustainable future.

Remember how that plant in New York produces 14 gigawatts of power in 24 hours?

It would take 3.125 million solar panels or 431 utility scale wind turbines to produce a gigawatt of power. And as Bill Gates says, nuclear power provides a reliable energy source that is available 24 hours a day. So when nuclear is used in conjunction with wind and solar power sources, we can create new energy grids that produce power while leaving next to no carbon footprint.

Plus, the advancements being made to how power plants are designed are opening up even more efficient energy production potential. According to Scientific American, “The world demand for energy is projected to rise by about 50 percent by 2030 and to nearly double by 2050.”

To meet this growing demand, the Generation IV project is a nine country coalition that is collaborating to develop reactors that include modular reactor processes, gas-cooled reactors and next generation fast-spectrum reactors.

Small modular reactors are particularly promising because of their size. They fit into an average-sized gymnasium, and have the additional benefits of being able to provide power to remote communities as well as uses for water desalination. These reactors are also considered to be safer thanks to their compact size compared to full-sized plants. In Canada, three provinces have pledged to work together to develop these reactors to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent below 2005 levels.

Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, shut its coal plants in 2014. Since then the province has experienced only one smog day. In contrast, in 2005 alone, residents of the Greater Toronto Area suffered through 53 smog days while coal, with its toxic emissions, provided 19 percent of Ontario’s power.

While no form of energy production is perfect, nuclear power does offer a lot of potential – especially as we continue to improve the design and manage the risks and waste produced. The biggest barrier to its advancement may be public perception of the myths around it. There has been a 30-year period where virtually no reactors have been built in the U.S. But, after 2020, two new reactors are expected to come online.

Meeting the power demands of the future while trying to reduce our carbon emissions is a tough challenge, and it will only become increasingly difficult to not seriously consider nuclear power as a main source of power generation going forward.

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