Thursday, March 23rd, 2017
Umair Irfan, - Scientific American/E&E News
Stephan: The thing about trends is that they gather momentum and then reach a tipping point. Here is an example of what I mean.
Compared to the common lithium-ion battery (pictured above), lithium-sulfur batteries have important advantages, including cheaper materials and increased energy density.
Credit: Kristoferb Wikimedia
Researchers have developed a new component that could heal the Achilles’ heel of lithium-sulfur batteries.
Compared to the common lithium-ion battery, lithium-sulfur batteries have important advantages: They use cheaper materials and weigh less. A lithium-sulfur cell can have almost double the energy of a lithium-ion cell for the same mass, yielding an edge where energy density is critical, like in portable electronics or in cars.
Improving energy density and cutting costs in energy storage are important steps in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation and energy production.
However, over a few charge and discharge cycles, lithium-sulfur batteries gradually become unstable, and their electrodes break down, a flaw that has kept them from taking the energy storage throne.
In particular, ions of lithium react with sulfur to form compounds that migrate and reduce the capacity of the cell.
“When this happens, they clog the surface and prevent the lithium from getting within the cathode,” said Victor Batista, a […]
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Wednesday, March 22nd, 2017
Stephan A. Schwartz, Editor - The Schwartzreport
Stephan: In the midst of turmoil surrounding a President who, along with his associates, is under investigation for colluding with a foreign power to win the office, a Constitutional crisis greater than Watergate in my view, and I was in government during Watergate, we still have massive trends we must not lose sight of.
I realized that the political crisis the United States is going through would overwhelm everything else, as it has.
For that reason today's edition of SR, is about sea rise. This is not something like a real health care system that can be stalled by political bloviation. It's happening. We need to keep that in mind.
Today's stories present different aspects of this meta-trend.
-- Stephan
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Wednesday, March 22nd, 2017
Stephan: This data is three years out of date, 2014. At the time the report proposed "even these figures may be two to three times too low, meaning as many as 650 million people may be threatened." Time has proven the trend does indeed confirm the prediction.
Now consider the social disruption that will occur as a result of these mass dislocations.
Every global shore touches the same ocean, and the ocean is rising.
Climate Central just completed a novel analysis of worldwide exposure to sea level rise and coastal flooding. We found that 147 to 216 million people live on land that will be below sea level or regular flood levels by the end of the century, assuming emissions of heat-trapping gases continue on their current trend.
By far the largest group — 41 to 63 million — lives in China. The ranges depend on the ultimate sensitivity of sea level to warming.
But even these figures may be two to three times too low, meaning as many as 650 million people may be threatened.
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Wednesday, March 22nd, 2017
Oliver Milman, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: Donald Trump doesn't believe in climate change, His head of EPA doesn't either, and neither does anyone else in his administration. But for coastal cities such cretinous behavior is not possible. When your sewers are flooding, and your schools and hospitals are awash posturing such as happens at the federal level is not really possible. Mayors and fir chiefs have to actually do something.
However, as this report states: "...with no overarching national sea level rise plan and patchy commitment from states, many coastal communities are left to deal with the encroaching seas themselves. Wealthier areas are raising streets and houses, erecting walls and pumps. Those without the funds or political will have several state or federal grants they can access but often make muddled choices in the face of this sisyphean task."
Here's how that is playing out in Atlantic City and Miami.
Tom Quirk, a lifelong resident of Atlantic City, stands in a recently flooded area.
Credit: Laurence Mathieu-Leger/ Guardian
The Irish Pub near Atlantic City’s famed boardwalk doesn’t have any locks on the doors as it is open 24 hours a day. So when Hurricane Sandy crunched into what was once known as the Las Vegas of the east coast in 2012, some improvisation was needed.
Regular drinkers helped slot a cork board through the frame of the door, wedging it shut and keeping out the surging seawater. The wild night, which severely damaged more than 320 homes and caused a week-long power blackout, was seen out by those taking shelter with the help of several bottles of Jameson.
But Sandy was just the headline act among increasingly common flooding events that are gnawing away at the thin island upon which the city sits.
“Sandy, as devastating as it was, isn’t the greatest barometer because we have flash floods,” said Cathy Burke, who has run the Irish Pub since 1973. Burke, a gravelly voiced institution along the […]
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Wednesday, March 22nd, 2017
Stephan:
Life along the Nile.
Credit: deepstereo/Flickr
The Nile River Delta, once known as the bread basket of the world, may soon be unable to support even the population of Egypt. According to a multi-year study published in the Geological Society of America this week, the area where the Nile river drains out to the sea is suffering from decreased water flow, rising sea levels, and salt water intrusion—all of which damage food production and fresh water supplies.
“With a population expected to double in the next 50 years, Egypt is projected to have critical countrywide fresh water and food shortages by 2025,” the researchers from the Mediterranean Basin Program and the University of Maryland wrote in a summary of the study.
Egyptians have for centuries depended on the nutrient-rich soil of the Nile River Delta. Now, the Nile barely meets Egypt’s water needs, providing just 660 cubic meters per person, one of the lowest per capita water shares in the world.
That is likely to get worse as salinity in […]
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