Category: environment

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Plant-Based “Stem Cells” Could Possibly Drive an Environmental Revolution

For the last couple of years, my family has been making a conscious effort to buy less plastic.

Certainly we try to avoid single-use plastics, but even for things that we’ll use again and again we try to find more durable, organic or metal alternatives.

But of course, there’s often an environmental cost to wooden items, too. It presents a conundrum.

Until now. Are you ready to have your mind blown? Lab. Grown. Furniture.

I warned you.

Image credit: Goashape via Unsplash

Wooden furniture is gorgeous, and plant fibers are supremely useful for other everyday items too, like clothing.

That’s why bamboo has become so popular–it grows quickly, with less environmental impact.

But now a PhD candidate at MIT, Ashley Beckwith, and her co-author, Luis Fernando Velásquez-García, have a brilliant plan to reduce waste and environmental impacts even further by growing wood in useful shapes (like 2 by 4’s) right in a lab.

The MIT research team has been working with zinnia tissue, and they published their findings recently in the Journal of Cleaner Production.

As Fast Company reports, their goal is to:

…quickly produce in a lab what would take decades to grow in nature. From there, they could even coax wood tissue to grow into fully-formed shapes—like, say, a table—in order to mitigate the environmental harm of the logging and construction industries.

It’s not a completely new concept. Velásquez-García, a scientist in the university’s Microsystems Technology Lab, explains it in pretty simple terms.

“The plant cells are similar to stem cells. They have the potential to be many things.”

And it’s not just human stem cells. Other scientists have had similar success with lab grown meat products.

So isolating the ability to reduce plants down to a version of a stem cell is just the first step.

Like the meat manufactures who want to grow only the most desirable parts of the animal, Beckwith and team have similar plans for their saplings.

“Trees grow in tall cylindrical poles, and we rarely use tall cylindrical poles in industrial applications.

So you end up shaving off a bunch of material that you spent 20 years growing and that ends up being a waste product.”

Rather than stopping with just growing trees, the team could grow planks, or, rather like 3D printing, they could even guide the development of the plant fiber into the exact shape for its intended purpose.

Of course not every manufacturer has a noble drive to safe the planet.

That’s why this new process is so exciting. It’s so easy, that when compared with the cost of logging, transportation, and everything that goes into cutting down trees to shape them into boards, lab grown trees could actually come out on top, at a lower cost!

Image credit: Lukasz Szmigiel via Unsplash

If the idea of lab-grown veggies freaks you out though, don’t worry. The folks in charge don’t see this being a process that is used to grow food. More like the kinds of plants used to make clothes and industrial materials. There are so many things that could be made from biodegradable plant fibers! Deforestation could become a thing of the past! At least due to human consumption.

How’s that for exciting? Did it blow your mind?

Tell us what you think in the comments!

The post Plant-Based “Stem Cells” Could Possibly Drive an Environmental Revolution appeared first on UberFacts.

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People Debate if Nuclear Energy Is the Best Option for the Good of the Environment

Whenever the word “nuclear” is mentioned, some people seem to get nervous because of the negative connotation it has.

But maybe nuclear energy is the ideal component we need moving forward when it comes to concerns about the environment?

I really don’t know much of anything about this subject, so I’m gonna leave it to the folks on AskReddit to debate this one for me.

Let’s take a look at what they had to say about it.

1. Here’s a hot take.

“The amount of long term waste with solar and wind is undeniably higher than with nuclear energy. Nuclear power plants in America that are not on fault lines are safe and are designed to be impossible to melt down (really).

A decentralized power system will always be more expensive than a centralized one, and we have the ability to make our grid carbon neutral in a matter of years. What are the downsides?

Why are politicians ignoring this obvious option. I’m not even talking fusion, just fission.”

2. Fear mongering.

“Of course people don’t talk about it, they hear the word nuclear and they think of Hiroshima, Chernobyl, Nagasaki.

The idea of nuclear energy has been pushed to be something feared.”

3. Fired up.

“This gets me f*cking mad.

Chernobyl was an incredibly outdated reactor already at the time it exploded, there was a human and structural mistake and were talking about a time when you were allowed to smoke inside f*cking hospitals, let’s be honest it would never happen again.

And Fukushima just makes me laugh cause it was literally caused by a freaking tsunami.”

4. Perceived as dangerous.

“You can compare it with air traffic: Aeroplanes are statistically the safest method of traveling, but when something goes wrong there are hundreds of dead people, so we perceive it as dangerous, altough it is actually the safest way of travelling.

The same goes for nuclear energy: It is the safest and most efficient way to produce energy, even when you include (very rare) terrible cases such as Chernobyl and Fukushima.”

5. The best option.

“It’s all about energy capacity per acre of land. I heard a Ted Talk and the scientist was saying that to have the UK use only solar, it would require about 1/3 of the land to be covered in solar cells.

Plus, the solar system installed in the Mojave Desert which impact the Desert Tortoise habitat. Wind farms actually ensnare bats, birds, etc. Both however, only work on small portions of land (where the sun shines or the wind blows), but even these power sources are subject to mother nature.

Nuclear on the other hand is incredibly energy dense per acre. If we had invested in nuclear years ago, we would be on generation 250. Also, nuclear energy only produces steam. And finally, we have the land use available to store nuclear energy should we finally get a national plan on how to deal with it.

Again, it’s what options do you have today to solve climate change – warts and all?

Nuclear is the best.”

6. Fission and fusion.

“People are too afraid that a nuclear bomb will go off or something, which can’t possibly happen at a power plant.

Fission and fusion are the only renewables energy types we should even bother pursuing.”

7. Those politicians…

“The 1980s scared people away, once the majority of people who remember those times are dead, nuclear will be easier to push.

Nuclear being bad was the truth for them, people don’t like when you questions something they’ve fundamentally believed for decades, they will just push the discussion away.

Politicians ain’t discussing nuclear because they know this.”

8. Some good info.

“Nuclear plants in their traditional forms have numerous technical issues that can end up prematurely shuttering the plant. Graphic cracking for example.

There’s no denying that nuclear energy is great for base load generation normally provided by thermal fossil fuel generators but the cost of building nukes in their most updated and safe hi-tech forms is enormous compared to adding renewable capacity and using hydro storage or battery with renewables!

Obviously not every energy system is the same but in modern economies by the time FF thermal generation shifts off we could engineer completely renewable systems!”

9. Stigmatized.

“Chernobyl kinda put a stick in it. However it was because of faulty construction.

Nuclear energy provides constant, clean and efficient energy. If you want green energy, go Nuclear.

Today’s process is much safer with more knowledge and understanding in past mistakes. It is the best way to go forward. It’s because of either misinformation, fear and the general media/public view on it.”

10. We need new options.

“Yes nuclear has it’s benefits and fission is simple enough that I understood it when I was 10. And safety management is done very well, using the same principles as with aviation.

But the downsides to the rare but certain f*ck ups are so serious that they change nations and the planet. And we still don’t know the long term effects of all the strontium and other fall out chemicals we all carry around in us, along with every other mammal.

Are you are aware that our governments lied their rectums off about this, ruining lives and careers? And still are? That doesn’t necessarily negate the possibility but reasonable people hesitate in the face of interest-groups-fueled government f*ckery.

Your statement about centralized vs decentralized power systems is bold.

And the long term waste – what are you talking about? And the energy involved in the entirety of each cycle (and hence, the total cost) … are you are aware of how they compare?

Ultimately we need new and better nuclear power options in general and the ultimate aim is to get to a position of having endless energy available that is cheaper than water. Development depends on it. And the trick will be creating power cycles that remove the additional carbon and other compounds from the system over time.”

11. Not the way forward.

“The future of the energy industry is not nuclear.

I’ve spent my career so far building and running electricity companies, and there are a few simple facts that have become apparent:

In modern, deregulated electricity industries, off-grid low voltage generation (think household solar panels) is rapidly reaching cost/performance parity with on-grid power. Investment in storage-based supply in batteries (as opposed to peak generation such as fossil fuel) is f*cking massive – renewables and batteries are projected to take 80% of the $15.1 trillion forecast investment in new power generation.

We will reach a tipping point in about 2035 where transporting electricity (colossal steel pylons and cables across countries) is more expensive than generating it and storing it close to the consumer What this means: Tomorrow’s electricity grids are distributed, made of many small nodes of generation and consumption, and not made of giant power plants with long inefficient transmission lines.

Today’s solar and wind plants can be spun up to utility scale in under a year. A nuclear plant has historically taken over 8 years to build and cost massive up-front capital. Nuclear plants are also designed to have operating lifetimes of 60+ years. Investing in nuclear is not only making a bet that nuclear will stay at the top of the price/kWh curve, but also that it will be there in a decade’s time and then stay there for half a century.

What this means: Nuclear is not only a losing bet based on current economic forecasts, but it’s an absolutely colossal bet that ties you down for 70 years whether you win or lose.

Pro-nuclear research is tainted by pro-nuclear lobbies and governments. Schrader-Frechette found that the majority of research that has pro-nuclear conclusions is funded by parties with conflicts of interest.

Fossil fuels are dying anyway (never fast enough, sadly), so the true question is not if we go renewable but which renewable to take, and it seems we can’t take for granted that pro-nuclear attitudes are based in unbiased critical thought. What this means: It may not even be true that nuclear energy is a good option – nevermind the best option – if we cannot trust the research.

Now, this sucks for me. I’m a huge physics fanboy, and thorium reactors and fission are absolutely my favourite ideas for future energy production. I’m attracted to space-age nuclear ideals at a very emotional level – I know how it feels – but the facts just aren’t panning out that way.

In the end, it’s not true that politicians are ignoring the “obvious” nuclear option. This is a very serious issue that very, very many of the worlds smartest are working on, and the sensible option is already the one we’re taking.

Turns out scientists are largely pretty good at what they do. Who’d have thought?”

12. Fearful of nuclear.

“The fossil feul industry obviously has a vested interest to keep people fearful of nuclear. They’ll spend lots of money on add campaigns covered with nuclear bomb explosions and zero facts.

I read recently that nuclear deaths per year is even less than some other green energies, wind iirc and that has to be a wake up call for those that are fearful. As for fossil fuel, its a no contest in comparison.

Fossil fuel has powerful lobbies, powerful corps and the republican party receives about 90% of their donations or something.”

What do you think about this?

Is nuclear energy the way to go for the good of our environment?

Talk to us in the comments and share your thoughts. Thanks!

The post People Debate if Nuclear Energy Is the Best Option for the Good of the Environment appeared first on UberFacts.

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Hairdressers in Mauritius are offering free haircuts to residents, as their excess hair can be used as an ultra-absorbent material to clean up the oil spill on their shores.

Hairdressers in Mauritius are offering free haircuts to residents, as their excess hair can be used as an ultra-absorbent material to clean up the oil spill on their shores.

The post Hairdressers in Mauritius are offering free haircuts to residents, as their excess hair can be used as an ultra-absorbent material to clean up the oil spill on their shores. appeared first on Crazy Facts.

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By the End of 2020, China Plans to Ban Single-Use Plastic Bags in Every Major City

It’s a new decade – and China, for one, doesn’t plan to end it as a top contributor to the world’s pollution problem. At least, not when it comes to single-use plastic bags.

They plan to include plastic plates, cutlery, and straws in the ban as well.

 

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The Chinese National Development and Reform Commission detailed the plan, which includes the complete ban of non-degradable plastic bags in every major city in the country, with plans to expand to every city and town by 2022.

They’re providing exceptions to markets selling fresh products until 2025.

The government expects the hospitality industry to get on board by the same year, with restaurants stopping the use of plastic straws and cutlery, as well as reducing their other single-use plastic items by 30%. Hotels will operate under the same expectations.

Currently, China produces around 60 million tons of plastic waste every year, far and away the largest plastic polluter in the world. The U.S. is next on the list, throwing out 38 million tons of plastic per year – which, in case you’re not into math, means each person in the States creates almost 3x as much plastic pollution as each person in China.

China is also one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of plastics, and plans to expand its environmentally conscious approach to that area, as well: they’ve decided to no longer produce products that are less than 0.025mm thick. In a less environmental move, China no longer imports plastic recyclables from other countries, which has made it very difficult for recycling to maintain its cost efficiency in the United States.

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The FIRST baby leatherback turtle born in 2020 ?? after plastic ban in Thailand Thai citizens have been in full support of the single-use plastic ban campaign since the start of the year, and we deserve some celebrations ?for this small victory in protecting ocean lives — a rare baby leatherback turtle successfully hatched in Phang Nga province, under the close watch and protection from the officials at Khao Lam Pi – Hat Thai Mueang National Park. The impact of one single action is often more far-reaching than how we imagine it to be ? Together we can make change happen! #gogreenfortheplanet เต่าทะเลมีจำนวนลดลงโดยเฉพาะขยะพลาสติกในทะเล แต่โพสต์นี้เป็นพิเศษ เมื่อไหร่จะมีข่าวดีนะคะ ลูกเต่ามะเฟืองตัวแรก ของปี 2563 คลานขึ้นจากหลุม ซึ่งมาจากแม่เต่าตัวแรกที่พบ วางไข่ในรอบ 6 ปี ?? รณรงค์เรื่องขยะพลาสติกและมลภาวะในทะเลกันอย่างคึกคักช่วงนี้ #gogreenfortheplanet เพราะการแก้ปัญหาสิ่งแวดล้อม ลำพังจิตสำนึกอย่างเดียวไม่พอ ต้องอาศัยเครื่องมือหลายอย่าง และต้องลงมือทำกันทุกภาคส่วนค่ะ ?: @seetanubungalows, Chiang Rai Times #leatherbackturtle #gogreen #saveourocean #bansingleuseplastic #sustainableliving #zerowastegoals #protectnature #zerowastethailand #plasticban #ecothailand

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Let’s be honest – the average person doesn’t need to use plastic bags at the grocery store or get a straw and plastic silverware every time they order takeout. There are simple workarounds that people choose not to use because they’re lazy and plastic is convenient.

If this proves anything, it’s that the government is going to have to step in – because regular people aren’t going to voluntarily make their own lives slightly harder, even for the good of the planet.

At least, not in high enough numbers to really make a difference.

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