FUTUROLOGY CHRONICLE No 22-WATER TECH

What does a fish know about the water in which he swims all his life?

Albert Einstein – 1948

Photo Credit: Iceland Tourism Authority

THE AGE OF WATER

The existence of life on Earth depends on water. However, throughout the scientific world, there is still disagreement over water’s genesis.

In a recent study, two researchers used isotopic data to demonstrate that water existed even before the solar system formed, according to recent studies of the water content of early developing planetary systems comparable to our own. This water would have eventually wound up on Earth and would be 4.5 billion years old.

The researchers demonstrated that water, an abundant and pervasive chemical, was first created on the surface of microscopic grains of interstellar dust by the hydrogenation of frozen oxygen.

The researchers found that when oxygen comes into contact with dust particles in the molecular cloud, it will eventually bonds and freeze on the particles. Water ice is created as soon as a hydrogen molecule passes this frozen oxygen in turn.

The two forms of water that may result from this reaction are light water, which is made up of oxygen and hydrogen, and heavy water, which is made up of oxygen and deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen with a proton and a neutron in its nucleus.

The first stage of the process, which the researchers refer to as the ‘cold phase,’ is the development of water ice surrounding the dust grains.

When it builds up in the nebula's core over time, gravity starts to act as a force. The ice transforms into water vapor as a consequence of the ensuing temperature increase all around the center, which specialists refer to as the hot ‘Corino.’

A typical hot Corino has nearly 10,000 times the water in Earth's seas wrote the two scientists, Fujun Du of Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing, China, and Cecilia Ceccarelli of the Institute of Planetary Sciences and Astrophysics in Grenoble, France.

The second phase of the process, which the researchers refer to as the ‘protostar phase,’ is when the ice is sublimated into vapor.

The surrounding gas and dust then gather together to create what is known as a protoplanetary disk, from which the many objects of this new system would originate.

This protostar has not yet begun its fusion processes, but it is revolving. The protoplanetary disk is still cool, and the newborn star is continuously adding mass but producing little heat. The process then enters its third phase, during which the water vapor from the previous phase condenses once again in the protoplanetary disk's coldest regions, reheating the dust particles in frozen sheaths.

The planetary system eventually emerges from these frozen water and dust grains, with planets, comets, and asteroids orbiting their star. The Earth was created in this manner. The researchers emphasize that a complete understanding of the formation of water in planetary bodies depends on the hydrogen isotope ratio.

AI Art Credit – Abelnour Aboauba- Fiverr ref. abdelnour233

The temperature drops dramatically during the cold phase, which causes a phenomenon known as super-deuteration. Under these circumstances, additional deuterium is added to the water ice.

One deuterium atom existed for every 100,000 normal hydrogen atoms at the beginning of the universe, only seconds after the Big Bang

The researchers demonstrated that the initial synthesis is characterized by an excess of heavy water. They compared the values of the ratio of heavy water and regular water, to determine how much of this water made it to Earth.

It was still up for debate, however, as to how much of the water that existed before the Earth's formation made it to the planet.

According to estimates, between 1% and 50% of the water on Earth came from the early stages of the solar system's formation; as a result, a significant portion of our water is therefore 4.5 billion years old.

Instead of coming from comets, the researchers claim that this water is "probably inherited" from planetesimals, although it's still unclear exactly how it works.

The answer is complicated since the emergence and development of water on Earth are inextricably tied to other significant components of our planet, such as carbon, atomic oxygen, and the magnetic field.

More study will be done to determine how this water got to Earth. The quantity of heavy water on Earth is our breadcrumb trail, allowing us to navigate the labyrinth of potential paths from which the solar system may come.

THE WATER CYCLE

Global ecosystems and human civilization face a great challenge as a result of alterations to the global water cycle brought on by climate change.

Nevertheless, due to a lack of direct measurements, especially over the ocean where 77% and 85% of the world's precipitation and evaporation, respectively, occurs, it is challenging to estimate historical water cycle change.

The ocean's salinity is lowest in its hottest and coldest regions and greatest at intermediate temperatures due to freshwater flows between the air and the sea.

Researchers from the Barcelona Institute of Marine Sciences have made this unsettling discovery. They quantified the observed net poleward movement of freshwater in the Earth’s system from 1970 to 2014 and follow salinity variations in the warm, salty ocean component.

A rate of 34–62 milli-Sverdrup’s (mSv = 103 m3 s1) of poleward freshwater movement from warm to cold ocean areas has been observed throughout this period. With minimal influence from mixing and circulation, surface freshwater flow amplification in warm ocean locations causes an essentially comparable change in ocean freshwater content.

The consequence is that the historical surface flux amplification is smaller compared with observations. Their findings indicate a historical restriction on the movement of freshwater poleward, which will help to correct errors in climate models. This will lead to a rise in the frequency and severity of droughts, storms, and floods, which the UN's predict there may be some 560 catastrophes worldwide per year by 2030. This prediction is supported by the findings of this research.

This new study uses worldwide satellite data to examine the water cycle and the new dedicated satellite SWOT will assist even more.

In contrast, most other studies rely on buoys (‘salinity buoys’) that measure the amount of salt in the seas. It was because of this that they were able to establish a marked acceleration of the global water cycle.

In more concrete terms, when global temperatures rise, climatologists anticipate more ocean surface evaporation, which will increase the salinity of the ocean's top layer and contribute moisture to the atmosphere.

As a result, there will be more rain in some regions of the earth, diluting certain bodies of water and making them even less salty. The wet becomes wetter, and the dry becomes drier as a consequence.

The water cycle will be drastically altered as a result of further global warming, which will have a significant impact on our communities.

Storms and other floods, as well as droughts and water shortages, will become more severe.

According to the IPCC report from February 28, certain ecosystems will be affected more severely than others. For instance, the Mediterranean region or Central America would both become drier, while monsoon areas will have more rain.

Snowmelt may have started to accelerate due to this shift in the water cycle. In fact, the polar areas have seen an increase in precipitation.

Yet, as Estrella Olmedo, a mathematician from the Institute of Marine Sciences in Barcelona, says, "the evident fact that it is pouring instead of snowing accelerates the melting."

Extreme occurrences would become 14% more intense, according to the IPCC, even if world governments succeed in restricting global warming to a limit of 2°C (compared to 1900).

The effects of this transition may be severe, given there is currently a water deficit in over a quarter of the world.

In fact, decades of scientific study have shown the obvious link between greenhouse gas emissions and increasing global temperatures, which in turn causes the water cycle to intensify.

Slow decision-making in slow motion contributes to an uncontrollable cascade of events. The best course of action is to purchase a home that is more than 70 meters above sea level. (Seriously. This is the level advised if glaciers melt.)

Effective, protective, and cynical! You may say…

UN WATER SUMMIT – 22-24 March – NEW YORK

The UN Water Summit, led by the Government of the Netherlands took place in New York from 22–24 March. It will be the first time in more than 40 years that the UN has met to examine water issues; earlier attempts were thwarted by states that were averse to any type of global administration of the resource.

Henk Ovink, a special envoy for international water affairs for the Netherlands said: “If we are to have a hope of solving our climate crisis, our biodiversity crisis and other global challenges on food, energy and health, we need to radically change our approach in how we value and manage water. This is the best opportunity we have to put water at the center of global action to ensure people, crops and the environment continue to have the water they need.” [Turning the Tide – Web (low res) (watercommission.org)]

This is the UN agenda for the seven calls to action on water:

1. Manage the global water cycle as a global common good, to be protected collectively and in our shared interests.

2. Ensure safe and adequate water for every vulnerable group, and work with industry to scale up investment in water.

3. Stop underpricing water. Proper pricing and targeted support for the poor will enable water to be used more efficiently, more equitably, and more sustainably.

4. Reduce the more than $700bn of subsidies in agriculture and water each year, which often fuel excessive water consumption, and reduce leakage in water systems.

5. Establish ‘just water partnerships’ which can mobilise finance for low- and middleincome countries.

6. Take urgent action this decade on issues such as restoring wetlands and depleted groundwater resources; recycling the water used in industry; moving to precision agriculture that uses water more efficiently; and having companies report on their ‘water footprint’.

7. Reform the governance of water at an international level and including water in trade agreements. Governance must also take into account women, farmers, indigenous people and others in the frontline of water conservation.

“To catch the reader's attention, place an interesting sentence or quote from the story here.”

WATER SHORTAGE SITUATION POINT

Although 1.8 billion people now have access to basic drinking water services as a result of progress since 2000, yet there are still significant disparities in these services' accessibility, availability, and quality.

Worldwide, one in every four individuals lacks access to properly managed drinking water. In 2020, only 39% of Africans were drinking water that was safely handled. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 794 million people lacked access to clean drinking water. According to UNICEF, most African nations have made poor progress against the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and in order to meet them by 2030, their efforts would need to be multiplied by 12 times. One of the most water-stressed nations is India, which has 18% of the world's population but just 4% of its water supply. In China, drilling for groundwater has contributed to the country's water supply becoming tainted: according to estimates, 80–90% of China's groundwater is unusable, and half of its aquifers are too polluted to draw water even for agricultural purposes.

Of the world's desalination plants, 70% are in the Middle East. Desalination is an energy intensive process that produces poisonous brine from concentrated salt, which is discharged back into the oceans and disrupts marine ecosystems.

WATER PURIFICATION: LOW TECH - BIG IMPACT

An effort is being made in Africa to supply individuals in rural regions without access to dependable water sources with clean, safe drinking water through the water kiosk program. Several programs, like the Ben Affleck-sponsored Asili, Swiss Fresh Water, and 1001 Fountains, work to better the lives and health of communities by supplying them with water kiosks that are both affordable and accessible.

These water kiosk initiatives offer a number of advantages. They first give people access to healthy drinking water, which helps to lower the prevalence of diseases like cholera, typhoid, and dysentery that are transmitted through contaminated water.

Second, they allow women and especially children to focus on schooling and other useful pursuits by reducing the time and effort needed to fetch water from far-off sources.

Third, the initiatives present local businesspeople with chances to operate and maintain the kiosks, which support the growth of regional businesses.

The communities that the 1001 Fountains initiative serves have benefited greatly from it. Almost 800,000 people now have access to clean water, and over 300 jobs have been created for local business owners.

In parallel the Aquaful group effort employs a cutting-edge strategy to provide access to clean water by installing water filtration devices in public locations like schools, marketplaces, and hospitals.

To ensure that the water is safe for drinking and cooking, these filtration systems use a multi-stage filtration process.

Aquaful focuses on educating people about water sanitation and hygiene in addition to giving access to clean water.

The initiative offers local people, particularly women and children, training, and education programs on the value of safe water, sanitation, and hygiene practices.

A fundamental point is their use of solar energy to run the filtration systems, which lessens its reliance on the grid and increases its sustainability.

The poorest communities in Africa will increasingly have access to clean, safe drinking water thanks to all these activities, including the water kiosks, three primary organizations, and Aquaful.

For the sake of the poorest members of humanity, let's hope that they will be heard, helped, and given adequate funding.

THE UN HIGH SEAS TREATY

In a momentous development, the United Nations has approved a historic pact that would protect marine life in international seas that are not under any nation's control.

High Seas are defined as the part of the sea that is not included in the exclusive economic zone, in the territorial sea, or in the internal waters of a coastal state or archipelagic waters of an archipelagic state.

More than 190 nations achieved a deal on 11 March 2023 in New York after almost two decades of diplomatic bickering and a frantic two-weeks final sprint.

The so-called high seas, which make up more than 60% of the world's oceans, are home to several ecosystems, a wide variety of marine life, and undiscovered species. Yet in the absence of a priority-setting agreement, the region has come under a patchwork of rules and laws that have encouraged exploitation and environmental destruction.

Countries discussed a variety of complex topics throughout the discussions, such as how to divide any possible earnings from marine resources and where to locate marine protected zones.

However, there are still some issues with implementation and the treaty has yet to be fully ratified.

Yet the accord alone represents a substantial advance that will open the door for stronger environmental protection.

The U.N. Environment Program’s executive director, Inger Andersen, referred to it as a "historic milestone," while Greenpeace praised it as "the largest conservation win ever."

"This action is a success for multilateralism and for global efforts to prevent the harmful trends threatening ocean health, now and for future generations," said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres.

ATLANTIC OCEAN DEAD ZONES FORECAST

Now the not good news.

Researchers from North Carolina University have shown that the expansion of ‘dead zones’ in the Atlantic Ocean is a result of climate change, according to an overview of the latter's condition in 100 years.

For instance, researchers have shown that oxygen dissolves less readily as temperature rises. The mapping of ‘dead zones,’ those areas with low oxygen levels that pose a hazard to species, are determined in connection to the constants of the Pliocene epoch (-5.3 to -2.6 million years ago) and remains the most fascinating aspect of their investigation.

The map that has been developed demonstrates that, at the present time, the Atlantic Ocean, particularly in its northern section, has substantially more waters with low oxygen concentration compared with the Pliocene era, where ‘dead zones’ are shown on the bottom map.

AlkaLINIty and Co2 soaking limits

In another study from the University of Oxford geoengineering program, researchers examined a climate simulation set up for the worst-case emissions scenario and discovered that the oceans' capacity to absorb carbon dioxide will peak by 2100 and decline to 50% by 2300.

The amount of CO2 that may dissolve in saltwater depends on a chemical characteristic called alkalinity.

The decrease is brought on by the development of a layer of low-alkalinity water at the ocean's surface that prevents the seas from absorbing CO2.

Around a third of the CO2 emissions produced by humans today are absorbed by the seas. Prior to this, climate models had shown that the oceans' rate of CO2 uptake slowed with time, but none had taken alkalinity into account.

The researchers came to their conclusion by recalculating portions of a 450-year simulation until they identified alkalinity as a significant factor in the slowdown.

The results show that severe climate change, which intensifies rainfall and slows ocean currents, is the first factor to have an impact. This results in a warm freshwater layer covering the ocean's top that is difficult to mix with the cooler, more alkaline waters below it.

Its top layer's alkalinity decreases as CO2 saturation increases, which affects its capacity to absorb CO2. A surface layer that serves as a barrier against CO2 absorption is the ultimate outcome.

As a result, fewer greenhouse gases enter the water and more remain in the atmosphere. Faster warming is the result, which maintains and fortifies the low-alkalinity surface layer. Simply said, a vicious cycle!

The revelation serves as a stark warning that to prevent reaching this and future tipping points, global CO2 emissions must be reduced.

There might be a chain of related disasters in our future that we must avert at all costs, whether it be this or the melting of the ice sheets.

WE NEED TO WEIGHT THE PLANET

Scientists have relentlessly warned that rising temperatures will result in increased severe rains and more extensive droughts, as well as wetter and drier worldwide extremes. Recent research from the University of Maryland that was just published in Nature demonstrates where that may already be taking place.

The research offers a growing picture of the distortions in the overall quantity of water, both above ground and in aquifers far below the Earth's surface, where most of the freshwater on which people rely originates.

It is based on information from NASA's Grace project, also known as the ‘Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment,’ which employs satellites that can monitor changes in gravity to quantify water variations in areas where other satellites cannot. In this manner, it may provide details about areas where wells or gauges would not otherwise be present. We just lack information on the evolution of groundwater storage for the majority of the planet.

Grace crosses those boundaries and disseminates knowledge everywhere. Between 2002 and 2021, the project discovered 505 wet episodes and 551 dry ones. It gave each one an "intensity" rating in order to rank them, based on the severity of an incident, its length, and the quantity of damaged land area.

The project used Python code for an ST-DBSCAN clustering technique to process this massive quantity of data.

The Grace data includes the measurement of changes that last over extended periods of time. It follows longer-lasting catastrophes that develop over months or years rather than transient flash floods during an otherwise typical season.

Using satellite measurements from the previous 20 years, the project set out to rank the greatest droughts and rainy spells. But when the data was analyzed, it quickly became clear that both kinds of incidents were more frequent – and becoming worse as the research came to a close.

The researchers evaluated the relationship between monthly wet and dry intensities and world average temperatures as well as other well-known climatic variables to determine if global warming should be blamed for the changes

The researchers discovered that global average temperatures and other indicators, such as El Nino, the sporadic change in Pacific Ocean water temperatures that may have a large impact on heat and precipitation, showed a stronger link with one another.

The discovery increases the likelihood that as the planet heats, severe events will occur more often and be stronger.

In terms of climatic time scales, 20 years of data is a very small sample size. More research is still needed on groundwater changes, especially at the extremes, to examine the impact of global warming. Yet, the association is more obvious for precipitation over shorter time frames.

The rise in severe precipitation with climate change is one of the reliably observed elements of water cycle extremes with the capacity to weigh on the planet constantly.

TRILLION OF PIECES OF PLASTIC IN THE OCEAN

According to the most recent figures from 2020, there may be over 170 trillion plastic particles in the world's seas.

The exponential rise of microplastics in the world's seas shifts our attention away from cleaning and recycling, and ushers in a new era of corporate accountability for the whole life of the products they produce.

We have heard about recycling for too long, but the plastic industry refuses any promises to acquire recycled material or design with recycling in mind.

Cleanup has no end and is consequently pointless if we keep producing plastic at the same pace. The evidence is that it is time to tackle the plastic issue from the root.

In UNEA (United Nations Environment Assembly) in 2020 Member States passed a resolution to stop plastic pollution.

But it is very uncertain how it will turn out. The onus for accountability may shift from consumers to producers if severe regulatory changes are required to encourage reduction and reuse rather than recycling.

Environmentalists want to see a worldwide agreement that covers the whole life cycle of plastic, from extraction and production to disposal.

Now what is wrong with disposables and single-use plastic? The issue is that there is now more single-use trash than we know what to deal with.

8.3 billion tons of plastic alone are thought to be in the environment, and 79% of all plastic ever produced is still present in our landfills and waterways. Just 9% of it has been recycled; the rest has been burned.

Businesses who care about the environment are converting to reusable products and packaging and this is a fairly reasonable beginning on this side.

But we have another giant problem: the Nurdles. Or the raw material for the plastics industry.

These lentil-sized plastic pellets are packed and exported in their billions throughout the globe, where they are subsequently melted down and utilized as the raw materials for a wide range of everyday things, including clothing, vehicles, computers, and drink bottles. While nurdles weren't initially discovered on beaches until 1970, they have subsequently been discovered on every continent.

They travel via storm drains, rivers, and streams before ending up in our seas, where they are ultimately carried by wind and ocean currents to every part of our planet. Nevertheless, because of their size, they are very hard to remove.

Nurdles are one of the most significant causes of pollution in our seas, but they are disregarded despite the destruction they do to the ecosystem and marine life. They often only make the news when big container leaks occur while being transported at sea.

One such incident occurred in 2021 in pristine waters off the coast of Sri Lanka. The resulting pollution has had a severe negative effect on the economy, society, and environment. Marine ecosystems are now destroyed, over 20,000 fishermen are unable to fish in the region, and they are losing their source of income: particularly on the shore, there are still a lot of burned microplastics and plastic needles buried in the water and sand.

They last for 500 to 1,000 years because they decay slowly. They will have an impact on tourism and way of life for years to come, in addition to the health of humans and marine life.

Seabirds and fish consume nurdles, which are sometimes mistaken for fish eggs, resulting in malnutrition and hunger.

Together with the chemicals employed in their manufacture, the high amounts of environmental contaminants that they take in also end up in marine life.

These dangerous compounds not only accumulate farther up the food chain, but they may also enter our bodies via the fish and shellfish we consume, leading to a range of health issues.

Microplastics were first discovered in human organs and newborns in 2020. They were even found in human blood in 2022.

For over 25 years, a multinational program by the plastics sector called Operation Clean Sweep (OCS) has aimed to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in the environment. Businesses who participate in this program since 2018 are given instructions on how to assist in avoiding pellet loss from their premises.

OCS is an excellent place to start, but enrollment is optional and there are no controls in place to ensure that commitments are kept.

A small portion of the estimated 55,000 enterprises participating in the supply chain in Europe have signed up for this plan, which does not reflect the whole of the global plastics supply chain.

Fidra is an environmental charity that works to eliminate chemical and plastic pollution. With its ‘Great World Nurdle Hunt,’ Fidra seeks to learn more about the density and dispersion of nurdles. In 91% of the participating nations in 2021, nurdles were discovered... Some 30 years after Operation Clean Sweep began, there are still no worldwide standards for people working in the plastics business to guarantee best practices, despite increased awareness of the critical need to stop nurdles escaping into the environment.

Supply chain management is what Fidra is urging. It is at this point that all firms handling plastic pellets, from petrochemical plants producing billions of pellets every hour to those shipping pellets across the globe to microbusinesses purchasing bags of pellets to build goods should employ best practice standards.

Wishful thinking or otherwise?

River clean up before plastics hit the ocean – by ‘Ocean Cleanup’ - Netherlands

DEEP-SEA MINING: THE DEBATE

The world's long overdue, stuttering shift to renewable energy is hindered by its Achilles' heel: it demands astounding amounts of natural resources.

It will need billions of tons of cobalt, lithium, copper, and other metals to produce enough electric cars to replace their counterparts that run on fossil fuels and fast following the latest 2035 measures by the EU and USA.

Mining firms, automobile manufacturers, and governments are combing the globe for new mine locations or enlarging those that already exist to fulfill the rising demand, from the Chilean deserts to the Indonesian rain forests.

The ocean bottom could be the richest supply of all, yet it is unexplored. According to the US Geological Survey, there are 21 billion tons of polymetallic nodules in one area of the Pacific, which contain more cemetals – such nickel and cobalt – than there are dryland deposits worldwide.

The possibility of deep-sea mining has led to a furious outcry. Environmental organizations, scientists, and even some firms in the market for battery metals worry about the potential chaos of seabed mining.

The seas provide a major source of food, a considerable portion of the world's biodiversity, and the planet's largest carbon sink. Nobody is certain how such a rare intrusion might impact the ocean, the many life forms that inhabit the deep ocean, or marine life higher up in the water column.

The European Parliament has joined dozens of groups in asking for at least a temporary halt on deep-sea mining, along with governments including Germany, Chile, Spain, and many Pacific island states.

Several banks have said they won't provide loans to projects involving ocean mining. Businesses including BMW, Microsoft, Google, Volvo, and Volkswagen have vowed not to purchase deep-sea metals until the effects on the environment are better known.

For millions of years, the nodules have grown in near-total stillness and complete darkness. Each one began as a piece of something else, such as a small fossil, a piece of basalt, or a shark tooth that floated down to the ocean's deepest plains.

They steadily accumulated watery nickel, copper, cobalt, and manganese particles as geologic time dragged on. Trillions now lie partially buried deep in the ocean bottom.

The Mineral Resources of the Sea, written in 1965 by John Mero, a geologist, generously claimed that the nodules contained enough manganese, cobalt, nickel, and other metals to meet the industrial requirements of the whole planet for thousands of years.

He said that mining the nodules "could assist in eliminating one of the traditional reasons of strife between states, supply of raw materials for growing populations.”

Of course, it might also have the reverse effect, igniting pointless disputes about who owns what parts of the ocean floor.

In 1972, it looked entirely realistic when billionaire Howard Hughes revealed that he was deploying a custom-built ship into the Pacific to seek for nodules.

Nevertheless, none of the real sea miners were able to develop a method that could complete the task at a reasonable cost, and the dynamism of the emerging sector was lost for a while.

The development of maritime technology at the start of the 21st century made sea mining once more conceivable.

Ships may float over precisely selected locations on the ocean bottom with the help of sophisticated motors and GPS. Remotely controlled underwater vehicles improved and descended farther. At this point, the nodules seemed to be within reach, just as expanding countries like China were insatiably hungry for metals.

Meanwhile, the Metals Corporation is one of the very active new players pursuing polymetallic nodules. And today all the projects have an additional environmental basis in addition to a new potential market due to the increasing demand for electric cars.

Ambitious investors have started pounding on the door of the International Seabed Authority (Jamaica, Kingston) with would-be new miners.

The ISA is responsible for both coordinating and safeguarding the economic exploitation of the ocean’s bottom.

The majority of the world's countries joined the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in the 1980s, with the notable exception of the United States.

The treaty founded the ISA, which presently has 167 member countries, among many other things. The group was tasked with creating regulations for the deep-sea mining sector, which do not yet exist.

So far, the Seabed Authority has authorized 22 businesses and governments to explore substantial portions of the seafloor under the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans.

Most are targeting nodules lying around 3 miles below in the Clarion Clipperton Zone, a region of the Pacific between Mexico and Hawaii totaling 450,000 square kilometers. There is a gap in the mining ban: the two-year trigger. The Seabed Authority has two years to create comprehensive rules in accordance with the treaty's Paragraph 15 if any Member States officially inform it that the state intends to begin sea mining in international seas. The treaty states that the ISA "must nevertheless evaluate and provisionally approve such plan of work."

If it fails to do so and according to an interpretation of this paragraph, mining must be permitted to continue even in the lack of complete restrictions.

Which desperate island jumped on the opportunity? Nauru. The president of Nauru officially informed the Seabed Authority that the nation and its wholly owned subsidiary, Nauru Ocean Resources (associated with the Metals Corporation), intended to start sea mining in the summer of 2022. The Metals Company's bold move could have made deep-sea mining possible for the first time.

In reality, not a lot is understood about the deep sea. It is quite challenging to collect data hundreds of miles from land and miles below the water's surface. A single day's labor may cost up to $80,000, and many scientists have only just lately had access to high-tech equipment like remotely controlled vehicles.

In 2022, a report by 31 marine scientists that evaluated many studies on deep-sea mining was released. The authors also spoke with 20 other scientists, industry managers, and policymakers.

They virtually all agreed that it would take at least another five years for the scientific community to "make suggestions based on facts" for regulating the sector.

The world's seas, which are already under a lot of stress from pollution, overfishing, and climate change are seriously at danger throughout every stage of the mining process. Unavoidably, some harm will result from a big piece of machinery a tank style traversing across the ocean bottom while yanking millions of nodules from the beds where they have been for millennia.

Several other creatures, including corals, sponges, nematodes, and many more, either dwell on the nodules themselves or find protection there. They are surrounded by floating animals such as ghostly white Dumbo octopuses, rippling squid worms, glass sponges, and anemones.

The collecting vehicles will also mix up silt and clay, which will rise up into the water and form plumes of sediment that might cover kilometers of water, persist for weeks or longer, and choke organisms higher up in the water column. These plumes might also include harmful materials like dissolved metals or other poisons that could endanger aquatic life.

The water that the nodules came in will need to be thrown back into the sea after being transported to a ship, perhaps causing another catastrophic sediment plume. Huge quantities are being discussed, in the order of 50,000 cubic meters per day.

The United Nations Environment Program 2022 study painted a bleak picture. The authors' conclusion is that deep-sea mining will be very harmful to ocean ecosystems, according to current scientific opinion.

A petition requesting a "hold" on sea mining until additional studies have been done has received the support of more than 700 marine scientific and policy specialists.

In the meantime, Global Sea Mineral Resources (Netherlands) announced it would enter cooperation with Transocean, a significant offshore oil-drilling company, after investing at least $100 million in developing its underwater mining equipment.

The sea-mining business is now developing the considerably bigger Patania III, which it expects will be the first of a fleet of fully operational mining robots that will arrive at the ocean bottom around 2028.

In the five years that will pass between now and then, the scientific knowledge required to create rules for properly mining the seafloor needs to be found and the rules made or the decision made over whether it should be done at all.

Or maybe it's time for alternatives, such as a decline in the use of personal vehicles or the acceleration in recycling of EV battery metals, to gather enough momentum to displace seabed mining.

Environmentalistsarefaintingwhenthedeepseaminersusetheirmarketingpitch: Let’ ssavetheplanetbyexploitingthedeep-seafloor!

OCEAN ENERGY POTENTIAL

There are four types of renewable marine energy: tidal, wave, osmotic and thermal. Tidal energy, which takes advantage of tide-related variations in sea level, is the oldest and most advanced.

Tidal turbines typically use submerged turbines to take advantage of the current's speed. In addition to many projects being developed in Canada and off the coast of Normandy, two pilot farms have already been built in the United Kingdom.

Orbital Marine 02 – Tidal 2 MW Power -Scotland

In the open ocean or next to a dike, wave energy utilizes the energy of the waves. The device that harvests the energy is called a wave energy converter (WEC). In Norway, Scotland, the Netherlands, Spain, and France, there are already dozens of operative demonstrators in the sea.

The least developed systems are those that use osmotic energy (see special chapter) and marine thermal energy.

The first is rather promising and makes use of the salinity differential between freshwater and seawater, and the second of the temperature difference between deep and surface waters. In the intertropical zones, the latter is rather crucial.

These energies have little to no influence on the environment, and we can immediately observe their benefits.

Many are submerged, which is a significant advantage given the aesthetic arguments that wind energy sparked in the public.

The energy extracted from the swell and tidal currents are predictable, many centuries in advance. This makes it possible for network management to see exactly how much energy will be available.

Although these methods are not so new, it is still unknown how they will affect the ecosystem, especially how they will affect the bottom, even with a typically smaller surface impact.

Despite this, the current consensus among energy transition specialists may be summed up as follows: in 2050, marine energies could account for barely 1% of all renewable energy sources worldwide.

Why so low? On paper, these technologies seem to be highly appealing, but from an industrial standpoint, they are exceedingly challenging to scale up.

The maritime environment is quite aggressive. For instance, a wave energy prototype that was placed in the seas off Reunion Island in 2014 was destroyed immediately after installation by a hurricane.

Nowadays, it still appears very difficult to produce installations that are sufficiently reliable at a reasonable price.

However, let’s be open-minded and go through the different technologies as a few will be able to scale up and lead the pack in this sector.

Several innovators have been inspired by the possibility of converting wave energy into usable energy since it was first patented in 1799. By 1980, more than 1,000 patents had been registered, and the number has steadily increased since then.

To date, a wide range of techniques have been created to transform wave energy into electrical energy; roughly 53 distinct methods of wave energy were described in a reference in 2006.

We'll categorize them by operational concept to make things clearer.

Oscillating water column (OWC)

An OWC is a floating, hollow, or stationary (onshore) apparatus that compresses and decompresses air by using variations in wave action caused by changes in the water level within the chamber.

A turbine connected to the generator is forced to move the air by the pressure differential in the chamber. OWCs can also function as breakwater constructions if constructed close to the beach to protect the shoreline.

Oscillating bodies

The phrase ‘oscillating body’ refers to WECs that obtain their energy from wave-induced oscillations of submerged or floating structures, typically in surge or heave.

To capture energy from the vertical motion of the wave, heaving-type devices are often built as axisymmetric buoys that are either below or on the surface of the water.

The development of heaving type point absorbers is the primary focus of 74 wave energy firms that are recognized by the Marine Energy Centre in Europe.

CorPower Ocean WEC - Sweden

Overtopping devices

These consist of a structure that has the potential to flap on the surface or use the water mass that overtops it to fall down into the structure, such as a plate with a bottom hinge or a reference base that is submerged.

Oscillating wave surge (OWS)

The OWS converters are composed of a structure that may flap, such a plate that is hinged to the bottom or submerged: 14 various OWS converters are now being developed globally. An example is AW-Energy’s ‘WaveRoller’.

Power Take-Off

To better understand these technologies, let’s consider the Power Take-Off (PTO). The PTO is the process by which kinetic energy that is transferred between the waves and the WEC is converted into an energy feed that can be transferred or stored.

The PTOs come in hydraulic, hydro, pneumatic, and direct-drive varieties.

WaveRoller – AW-Energy – Finland

As conventional electrical generators are designed for low torque and higher speed motion, the PTO presents a significant difficulty since the machines must operate at lower speeds and greater forces.

To conclude on tech matters: according to wave propagation, WECs are classified with three options; attenuator, terminator and quasi point absorber.

The quasi point is a characterized by asymmetric WECs that don’t need to be responsive to the direction of the wave, like point absorbers, but have fairly broad dimensions, comparable to wavelength like the terminators.

To avoid being too technical, the most effective operational system will combine an oscillating body coupled to a quasi-point absorber and with the best power take-off from a hydraulic drive.

An example is ‘Corpower’ from Sweden, with the smart originality that all is in composite fibers.

Since the reference base, which is designed to be stable, constantly tends to pass in waves and often does not have a sufficiently high response point of impedance, the (OWSC) power output is lower than that of bottom-fixed point absorbers.

I'm already hearing arguments from marine energy engineers on one of these projects who will not agree about my simplified – for specialists – explanations.

At the end of the day this is the state of the art today for this ever-promising renewable energy, but it’s so difficult to scale up until someone will come up with the solution… probably assisted by a bit of an AI!

NUCLEAR POWER AT SEA

The first phase of a study for the underwater nuclear reactor project – known as ‘Flexblue’ –was completed two and a half years after the project's initial inception, according to an announcement made by the French shipbuilding firm DCN.

These nuclear reactors resemble a cylinder 100 meters long, 15 meters in diameter, and weigh around 12,000 tonnes.

They are based on nuclear submarine models. The reactors will be positioned between 60 and 100 meters below the surface.

The most effective ones will have a power output of between 50 MW and 250 MW. These units will be outfitted with an electrical plant, a turbo-alternator group, and a small nuclear boiler.

According to the IAEA, 68 nations are expected to be interested in this initiative. These socalled ‘small’ power reactors would enable the provision of electricity to 100,000 to 1,000,000 people.

The ‘mini-reactors’ could be standardized and manufactured quickly and are estimated to cost a few hundred million euros, as opposed to several billion for the nuclear power plants currently in operation .

They would be transported by boat after being assembled at French shipyards to be used immediately and won't need extensive civil engineering work like onshore power projects. Safety and security concerns are crucial with any nuclear plant. A triple barrier will safeguard the reactor in the same manner as a third-generation reactor (EPR type).

Moreover, a mesh hull will defend it from outside threats like torpedo strikes. Nevertheless, it should be mentioned that the project is still in the research stage and that the effects of the heat emitted by the reactor on ecosystems and the dangers of leakage are not yet completely understood.

OSMOTIC ENERGY

Osmotic energy is the energy that is obtained from the salinity difference between fresh water and salt water, which are isolated from each other by a semi-permeable membrane. It involves applying a pressure caused by water molecules moving across the membrane or a height of water. The resultant water pressure guarantees a flow that is used to power a turbine.

Sodium and chloride, which are present in the water in the ionic forms Na+ and Cl-, make up most of the salts that are dissolved in saltwater.

Imagine two tanks that are separated by a semi-permeable membrane that blocks the large ions Na+ and Cl- and allows the smaller H2O water molecules to pass through.

One of the tanks is filled with freshwater and the other with a saltwater solution of the same volume.

Due to the two reservoirs' varying salt contents, their identical levels do not represent an equilibrium state.

As a result, water molecules move across the semi-permeable barrier from the freshwater solution to the saltwater solution. The resultant impact raises the level of the saltwater reservoir while simultaneously lowering the salt content of this solution, while the saline concentration of the freshwater solution increases in parallel.

When the osmotic balance, or the equilibrium between the couples of ‘pressures’ (the height of the water) and ‘concentration’ (in salts) of one and the other solutions is attained, the effect ceases to exist.

In other terms, the osmotic pressure is the pressure required to prevent the passage of a solvent (in this example, water) over a semi-permeable membrane from a less concentrated solution (here in salt) to a more concentrated solution.

By applying osmotic pressure to turn a turbine, the osmosis concept is used to generate energy. The water that is supplied to the turbine has the same amount of energy at a pressure of 12 bars as a volume of water falling 120 meters in a hydroelectric dam.

Osmotic energy harvesting by using thin film nanocomposite membrane via pressure retarded Osmosis-

An osmotic plant specifically tries to take advantage of the salinity differential at the natural confluence of fresh and salt water, or at river mouths.

Fresh water from the river is piped into the facility, while salt water from the sea is extracted, filtered, and then pressured in a pressure exchanger.

Almost 80% to 90% of the fresh water pulled into the plant goes through the osmotic plant's membrane, creating an overpressure that boosts the water flow in the saltwater tank.

The remaining two-thirds of this water are returned to the pressure exchanger to pressurize the entering saltwater, while almost a third is sent to the turbine to produce energy. Each nation with river mouths has the potential to use osmotic energy. It gives far better predictability of energy output than other renewable sources and is not reliant on the weather. An osmotic plant would likely run for up to 8,000 hours annually, which is close to three or four times longer than the typical working duration of a wind turbine.

The primary barrier now preventing the development of osmotic energy is semi-permeable membranes' high manufacturing and maintenance costs, although costs should decrease because of technological advancements like electro-osmosis and nanobiotechnology.

By 2030, CNR (Compagnie nationale du Rhone) and its partner Sweetch predict they will be able to generate more than four million MWh of energy at a "competitive price" as a result of this ground-breaking new generating membrane.

Long term production of twice the yearly consumption of the population of the city of Marseille (980,000 inhabitants) might therefore be achieved by only one plant in the Rhône delta.

Nice to hear some optimism after so many courageous but still half-baked energy solutions!

GLACIERS MATTERS.

Throughout Earth's history, glaciers slow-moving rivers of ice have molded mountains and carved out valleys.

Lakes, rivers, and seas get nutrients from glaciers’ melting. The foundation of aquatic and marine food systems, phytoplankton, flourishes due to those nutrients.

Meanwhile, slow glacier melting maintains animal and plant ecosystems in streams. Thus, glaciers often have a secondary effect on animals and fisheries. They also affect sea level. Any locations on Earth where water is frozen, such as snow, sea ice, ice sheets, and glaciers, are collectively referred to as the cryosphere. While making up just 0.5% of all terrestrial ice, glaciers and ice caps contributed more to sea level rise during the last century than ice sheets did.

Glaciers also provide risks to those who live downstream. When glacial lakes grow as a consequence of glacier reduction, hazards become worse in certain regions.

During a portion of the year, people who live in dry regions near mountains sometimes depend on glacier melt for their water supply. Many of the rivers that run across China, India, and other regions of Asia are primarily fueled by snowfall from the Himalayas, but in the late summer, glaciers melting contributes significantly to river flow.

Residents of La Paz, Bolivia, in South America, depend on glacial melting from a neighboring ice cap to provide water during the prolonged dry periods they sometimes suffer.

IceStupas

A Buddhist monument known as a stupa, which means "to stack" or "to pile up" in Sanskrit, often contains relics.

In 2013, the first ice stupa was built in Ladakh, Kashmir. The majority of the water used by the villages of Ladakh, a high mountain-desert area surrounded by the Himalayas, comes from glacier runoff.

The water flow has grown increasingly unpredictable as a result of the glaciers retreating due to climate change. Flash flooding occurs when there is too much precipitation or too little. Hence, the ice stupa is a kind of man-made glacier.

Throughout the winter, runoff or spring water that has been pumped underground and downhill is used to construct the stupas. When it is dark and below zero degrees Fahrenheit, the water is discharged. It flies through a sprinkler and freezes in the air.

Ice stupas may grow as tall as a ten-story structure. They begin to melt in March, and at higher altitudes—some Ladakh communities are more than 15,000 feet above sea level— the process may continue far into July.

The vital spring planting season, when farmers sow vegetables, barley, and potatoes, is made easier by the meltwater. The number of artificial glaciers is increasing, in contrast to the world's natural glaciers, which are quickly thinning off.

This past winter saw the construction of stupas in at least eleven communities in Ladakh as part of the Ice Stupa Project, which started with a single prototype. Moreover, stupas have been constructed in the Alps, and Canada has shown interest in the project.

Climate change and Glaciers

In addition to moving materials, glaciers also shape and erode the ground underneath them. Over hundreds or even thousands of years, a glacier's weight and slow movement may profoundly alter the terrain.

There are several fascinating glacial formations because of how the ice erodes the ground surface and transports soil debris and shattered rocks far from their original locations. Glacial erosion is widespread across the planet, and glaciated valleys are perhaps the most obvious glacial landform. They have a trough-like appearance, like fjords, and often have high, almost vertical cliffs where whole slopes were scraped by glacier activity.

At Yosemite National Park, glaciers physically scraped away rock, leaving deep valleys with sheer walls. This is one of the most stunning instances of glaciated valleys.

Glaciers are excellent markers of climate change. The International Commission of Snow and Ice was established in 1894 as a direct result of scientific research that began in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that focused on the connection between temperature and glacial changes.

With just a few notable exceptions, the great majority of glaciers are receding around the planet, one of the most obvious indicators of continuous climate change.

The 5,000-year-old iceman that was found in 1991 was preserved in a glacier in the European Alps. The find, however, indicated that the glacier had hit its 5,000-year minimum. During the last century, glaciers have receded at previously unheard-of speeds all over the planet. Some have completely vanished. Many more are vanishing so quickly that it might only take decades.

The quantity of carbon dioxide and methane (natural gas) in the atmosphere has grown as a result of human activities since the Industrial Revolution, which started about 1760. In fact, these gases are now more concentrated in the atmosphere than they have ever been in the previous 1,000,000 years. How do researchers know this?

Because glaciers capture samples of Earth's atmosphere like all forms of dense ice. The hanging air bubbles provide scientists with information on global warming.

How much of a warming does our atmosphere experience between ice ages? What impacts do humans have on the climate?

Direct glacier monitoring helps in addressing these questions since glaciers vary in response to climatic changes.

Glacier ice melt is accelerated by warming ocean and air temperatures. Scientists have established that the Industrial Revolution and current energy consumption had the unexpected consequence of causing glacier retreat.

There are other factors at play as well, however. Glacier retreat is further accelerated by increased dust and soot from farming, grazing, burning of fossil fuels, and burning of forests. Glaciers develop a black covering from dust and soot that absorbs more solar energy and accelerates glacial melt. In fact, it's probable that the smoke from coal burning in the late 1800s was what started the most recent glacial retreats in Europe.

In reaction to a changing climate, glaciers expand and contract by altering their extent, thickness, or both. A glacier's volume changes as a direct result of climate. While tied to climate, changes in a glacier's extent might be compounded by modifications to its dynamics. Like a conveyor belt, glaciers move continuously while moving mass downward.

If the glacier is moving forward due to a mix of climate and ice dynamics, the glacier area as a whole will grow as the glacier terminal advances.

Yet, since glaciers move slowly, there may be a delay between the climatic changes and the ensuing glacial advance or retreat.

The intricate systems that regulate how quickly the glacier advances are what cause this temporal lag, which might endure for many decades.

Yet, scientists have proven that the broad glacial retreat we are now seeing is a consequence of the world's temperature rising. In addition, studies of glacier volume changes, which directly reflect climate changes, demonstrate that glaciers everywhere in the globe are losing mass at increasing rates.

DAM HYDROPOWER: STILL SOME POTENTIAL?

Because of the many well-known negative effects on the environment and society, the development of hydropower is debatable.

Analyzing energy potential in terms of a number of limitations that are applied to a theoretical potential is a typical strategy for investigating alternatives for future growth of renewable energy.

The potential energy of water with regard to a base level defines this theoretical potential in the case of hydropower, which is produced by gravity acting from an elevation.

The first limitation is to capture a portion of the potential energy with structures like smooth pipelines – which reduce friction – and dams, which increase head gradients.

A second limitation is financial in nature: not all dams are profitable. Costs may be influenced by land usage, accessibility, or the size of the dam needed to cross extensive valleys. And as river valleys often include people, flooding the lands upstream of a dam is not always an attractive or practical choice.

Impacts on society and the environment are the subject of a third limitation. Hydropower projects may force people to relocate, alter stream flows, nutrient and sediment sources, and have an impact on fish populations and aquatic ecosystems.

Dr. Gernaat's and his team’s research, which was published in Nature, transformed the examination of hydropower potential by creating a high-resolution evaluation approach that takes into account both physical and socio-economic limits.

The technique included utilizing a high-resolution digital terrain model to conduct a systematic scan of (nearly) all the rivers around the globe.

Every 25 km along these rivers, potential locations for hydropower stations were investigated by analyzing climatic and topographical data and taking into account hydropower capacity and the socioeconomic costs as a function of station parameters, such dam height.

The cost model considered expenditures for building the dam, which is based on local topography, as well as technical installations (such as turbines and power lines) and socioeconomic costs associated with land usage in the upstream catchment that would be submerged by the dam reservoir.

The trade-off between energy output and cost was assessed using a cost optimization model, giving priority to the dams with the lowest cost per kWh. Lastly, ecological limits like protected areas and ecological flow restrictions were considered.

With better geographic coverage (60 S to 90 N instead of 56 S to 60 N, effectively including, for example, Scandinavia), higher resolution topography over a denser search grid (4.5 km instead of 25 km), and more consideration of social and environmental constraints, the recent research improves previous work.

For instance, this research expressly prohibits the construction of hydropower plants in historical sites, biodiversity hotspots, forests, peatlands, earthquake-prone regions, heavily inhabited areas, and sites where dams or reservoirs already exist.

According to their findings, the majority of the theoretically available hydropower (58 PWh/ year) is either already installed, impractical, or unprofitable.

Indeed, when both economic and environmental limits are taken into consideration, Europe and the Americas have already overused their hydropower potential.

The additional advantage of the analysis is that it enables a thorough assessment of the social and environmental effects of possible hydropower sites, which is important given the many debates surrounding hydropower.

The only remaining giant project left is referred to as ‘Grand Inga’, located in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Upon completion it will be the biggest hydroelectric plant in the world, in theory producing more than twice as much energy as China's Three Gorges Dam: a total of 40,000 megawatts (MW) of energy may be generated by six separate hydroelectric power plants, sufficient to power five southern African nations (70 million people), as well as DRC’s own 101 million citizens.

Please don't ask me why it is still in the air and has been suspended for dozens of years. I won't be very courteous...

RIVERS HYDRO POWER

The River Hydro Power turbine was created by Smart-Hydro to harness the kinetic energy of moving water to generate the most electrical power possible.

It is dubbed a ‘zero-head’ or ‘in-stream’ turbine because it is propelled by kinetic energy rather than potential energy. As a result, no dams or head differential are needed for the functioning of this device. A river's natural path is maintained, and no infrastructure investment is needed (other than the turbine).

The quantity of kinetic energy differs between rivers, with a higher velocity of water flow producing more energy.

These renewable energy systems can produce electricity at power levels of up to 5000 W. The floating body of the turbine is made up of a three-piece diffusor and two floats, together with a generator and rotor with three blades.

These turbines may be erected in the riverbed or canal bed; indeed, they are very appropriate for installation in canals. A river or canal must be 2 meters deep, 3 meters wide, and have a minimum velocity of 1.2 meters per second in order to function. The system just needs routine cleaning, no technical operations or maintenance.

For private owners or for small villages or towns looking to go off the grid, this is the easy choice!

WHEN CITIES SPONGE THE WATER!

Climate change isn't very good at moderation. A warmer atmosphere retains more moisture, supercharging storms to drop more water more quickly. This can overwhelm city sewage systems, designed for a climate from long-ago.

So, you have biblical deluges that have been drowning cities all over the globe, from Zhengzhou, China, to Seoul, South Korea, to Cologne, Germany, to New York City.

In response, urban planners are increasingly seeing cities as sponges rather than raincoats, which are designed to quickly remove water before it has a chance to build.

‘Sponge cities’ turn rain into a resource to be used rather than wasted by constructing thirsty green areas and creating enormous dirt bowls where water may collect and seep into underlying aquifers.

Where there were formerly wetlands, fields, and woods that would soak up the rain, they have been built over and replaced with hard surfaces like concrete sidewalks, asphalt roads, and roofs that channel runoff into gutters, storm drains, and sewers.

The effects of climate change are becoming greater as cities get denser and employ even more impermeable surfaces.

As the capacity of these sewage and water runoff facilities is reached, water begins to back up, and the issues it causes are made worse by the absence of significant expanses of naturally absorbent soil and plants.

Green areas are important for cities, although historically they have been mostly utilized for public pleasure.

But they are also a technique used by city planners to control the increasingly violent downpours. They call this, the ‘Sponge’.

Creating a surface out of concrete bricks that is more permeable is one method to deal with this new reality. The secret is to insert crushed stone into the tiny spaces between the blocks, allowing water to flow down between them.

Whenever there is no room for vegetation, such as in parking lots and alleyways, this form of pavement might be used.

Using a rain garden, a small area of vegetation on a property or by the side of the road that collects water runoff from the roadway, is another option. Building ‘vegetated swales,’ which are simply ditches covered with grass and other plants that collect rainwater and aid in its seepage into the earth, is yet another possibility.

For a different reason—a lack of water—Los Angeles has been installing specifically created green areas on highway medians for years.

Due to climate change, Southern California will see storms that are more violent than those that hit the East Coast, but less often. The value of large water dumps will increase as a result, and if the city can figure out how to collect them, it will be able to reduce its reliance on water imports from Northern California and the Colorado River.

“Permeable Concrete” to drain the water directly from surface

GREEN HYDROGEN FROM SEA WATER

Creating green hydrogen by the electrolytic separation of salty seawater is a novel and sustainable process. Nevertheless, the many contaminants in saltwater make it difficult for typical electrolysis systems to remain stable over time.

Two electrodes in the electrolysers, each covered with catalysts that enable the current to travel through the water, are the foundation of the electrolysis process. When the gases are split from the water on opposite sides, a membrane divides them into hydrogen and oxygen.

To complete this procedure without damaging the electrodes or encountering corrosion issues brought on by the various components of saltwater, the water must be completely clean. The issue is not resolved by using highly selective electro-catalysts or polyanion coatings to thwart chloride ion corrosion.

Magnesium and calcium ions in seawater also interact with the catalyst to generate byproducts that might block membranes, and the electrolyser's effectiveness is decreased by all these negative effects.

Chinese scientists of the Nanjin Technical University have created a method for electrolyzing saltwater without first desalinating it, which resolves the related side-reaction and corrosion issues.

To get around these problems, the team soaks the electrodes in a concentrated potassium hydroxide electrolyte solution, and a porous membrane aids in separating the electrolyte solution from saltwater.

The membrane, which is composed of affordable, fluorine-rich, waterproof, breathable, and anti-biofouling PTFE, stops liquid water but allows water vapor to pass through.

The researchers created a demonstration unit with 11 electrolysis cells to show how useful the technology is. They tested it using saltwater from Shenzhen Bay.

With a production rate of 386 liters of hydrogen per hour, this system ran steadily and faultlessly operated for more than 130 days.

In real-world application circumstances, this equates to a current density of 250 milliamps per square centimeter for more than 3200 hours.

Moreover, there were no indications of corrosion on the electrodes, indicating that the membranes were 100% successful in obstructing dangerous instrument ions. Now, scientists are evaluating electrolytes other than potassium hydroxide as well as other materials for electrodes and catalysts to increase the system's efficiency.

They argue that their invention can extract essential materials like lithium from water while simultaneously producing hydrogen. The method might be used for purposes other than producing hydrogen, such depolluting industrial effluent, which would significantly lessen its negative effects on the environment and water quality.

At time of writing this article, the University of Adelaide (Australia) also announced the same breakthrough with a slightly different conclusion but headed in the same direction.

Are we going to see a flurry of scientific inquiry in this once very futuristic field?

INLAND SURFING AND ENERGY

In the man-made surfing lake ‘The Wave’, in Gloucestershire, England, construction will soon begin on a solar and energy storage array.

It will create more energy than it consumes annually thanks to the solar system, making it totally carbon neutral. It will be finished by June 2023, at which point it should start producing electricity. While the installation currently consumes 2.25 million kWh annually, it is anticipated to produce 3 million kWh in its first year of operation.

To finance the development, the firm that runs The Wave obtained a commercial loan and $1.45 million in financing from the European Regional Development Fund Growth Program, in addition to matching funds in the form of a commercial loan from South Gloucestershire Council.

Nick Hounsfield, the creator of The Wave, stated: "From the beginning, we declared we would use 100% renewable energy – it would have been so terrible for us to be using fossil fuels to power our waves, so contributing to climate change and the acidification of the seas.”

When the intelligent minds in Britain begin to reflect ethically, they are really ticking all the necessary boxes.

Hats off to the Easter Compton guys!

WATER SOLAR DISTILLATION

This is a method to make even salty or unclean water drinkable. The water solution mimics the water cycle in its natural state: evaporation – condensation – mineralization.

The equipment is made up of a unique filter and a spherical ‘ball’ with two sections. Water that is dangerous or salty is treated in the first compartment, and then recovered, while clean water is stored in the second. The treated water evaporates and condenses on the globe's walls because of the sun's energy.

After producing water, the water is filtered and kept in the tank. This device has the benefit of using solar energy, a resource that is renewable and cost-free.

It can treat any kind of water and has complete autonomy. For the everyday requirements of five individuals, one module is sufficient, making it fairly economical.

It is naturally feasible to couple modules in a series, with each module lasting for more than 30 years and being resistant to the elements.

Conclusion: environmentally friendly first and foremost. What else do you want? To test it for real.

You are among the ones that wake up saying to nice to nice be true right? Email me and I will give you the contact details as this chronicle is non-profit with no advertising.

SNOW POWER GENERATION?

One community in northern Japan thinks it can take use of a resource that has been underutilized: snow.Every year, the test city of Aomori spends tens of millions of dollars clearing snow from the city's roadways to throw it into the ocean.

Now, a proving test has begun to see if other uses can be made of the snow. The test started in January and will go until April. It entails pouring snow cleared by municipal plows into a pool of a close by school. The difference in temperature between the snow and the surrounding air will be used to create electricity.

To generate a convection current in a coolant within a turbine, this temperature differential is employed. The snow, the cold air source, will have heat transfer tubes inserted in it. The sun, meantime, warms the outer air. The turbine is turned by the convection stream to generate energy.

They want to produce electricity by 2025 at around 14 cents per kilowatt-hour. According to projections from Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, this would be less expensive in 2030 than either offshore wind energy or oil-fired thermal power.

It is possible that snow power will be even more cost-effective to produce electricity since it takes advantage of greater temperature variations than ocean thermal energy conversion. The efficiency of power production increases with temperature changes.

The Japanese IT businesses behind the idea want to bring snow power production to colder parts of Europe and abroad as a low-cost renewable power generating technology with reasonable implementation costs if the final findings prove to be positive.

AQUATIC WEED INTO BIOFUEL

Scientists have genetically modified duckweed plants to yield seven times as much oil per acre than soybeans, the presently most-widely utilized source of biodiesel. John Shanklin, a scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy, is the study's primary author of this promising and intriguing concept.

Fuels derived from new and old vegetable oils, animal fat and algae have a significantly smaller carbon impact than fossil fuels.

According to the experts, duckweed, which is widespread around the globe and is among the most prolific plants per acre, has the potential to revolutionize the renewable energy industry for three important reasons.

First, it thrives in water and won't compete for agricultural space with food crops. Second, duckweed could clean up some of the nitrogen and phosphorus that agricultural pollution from sources like pig and poultry farms release into the water.

Third, the scientists inserted an oil-producing gene, which would initially be dormant, then switched it on like a light switch by injecting a certain chemical only after the plant had completed developed.

One of our most pressing problems—how to produce more oil in more plants without hindering growth can be resolved by doing this.

Since duckweed is a non-mainstream crop, it will not be difficult for scientists to develop and manufacture at large-scale altered plants and collect the oil. This will make huge innovation efforts worthwhile.

WATER DEPOLLUTION WITH PLANTS

The biomimicry and zero waste methodologies are used to collect heavy metals from chemical and mining facilities and recycle them with green methods from chemistry. Many plants draw metals from the earth and store them in their leaves. Due to their potential to spread pollutants into the soil and waterways, these plants are looked at with distrust.

In 2020, Claude Grison industrialized a method of collecting these metals by establishing the start-up Bioinspir after submitting more than 35 patent applications and winning the CNRS innovation prize in 2014.

Following a comparison of data from the National Institute for the Industrial Environment and Risks (INERIS) and the Pollutant Emissions Register (IREP), the start-up reports that industrial effluents in France are responsible for 100,000 tons of metal-polluted sludge, or roughly 5,000 tons of lost precious metals.

As a result, Bioinspir is working on four or five plant species that are found in French rivers, such as water mint.

The company gives these aquatic plants a second chance by grinding their roots, which continue to function even after the plant dies, and using the resulting powder to create highly thick filters.

These aquatic plants are then capable of storing different metals thanks to their roots. Through an eco-catalytic process, these tainted plants are reused. Consequently, they satisfy the need for bio-sourced compounds, notably in cosmetics, pharmaceutical, and phytosanitary industries.

It is comforting to be reassured that the country's industrial contaminated effluents will soon support the plant filters after so many challenges with the water environment.

“To catch the reader's attention, place an interesting sentence or quote from the story here.”

CELL BASED SEAFOOD?

Today, meat substitutes are commonplace. Several businesses think that similar processes might also apply to seafood, according to the proponents of this developing sector of the economy, who point to a variety of possible environmental and health advantages.

The recovery of fish populations in the ocean using cell-based seafood is a long and narrow road, and the interaction of several behavioral, economic, and ecological variables will ultimately decide its success.

The central concern is whether cell-based seafood, a novel technology, can help the oceans conserve their resources?

The lesson here is that there are many steps between developing this technology and increasing the number of fish in the ocean.

It is challenging to have a conservation result, in terms of more fish in the ocean, from this cell-based seafood.

Swordfish and beef are both cultured using comparable technology, yet the contexts could not be more unlikely. There are hundreds of distinct species of seafood, each with a unique life history, habitat, and nutrition.

Seafood still predominantly originates from the wild, unlike meats from other animals. Compared to cattle, fish supplies are less under human control, and fishing activities react differently to changes in consumer behavior, the economy, and the environment than does ranching. And fishermen are subject to different laws than farmers. Further, there is a mismatch between the fish species that the company in question is concentrating on and the fish that may gain the most from this technology. The most often consumed fish products and stocks are tuna and salmon, while the clean seafood technologies and the cell-based seafood enterprises are not concentrating their efforts on stocks where the need is highest.

For instance, fish used for feed and oil, such as anchovies and sardines, may be able to profit more from cell-based technology, but the price point for these species is now too low to justify the investment.

A marketable product must first be developed and introduced to the market, where it must then be priced to be competitive with other seafood. At this stage, a significant fraction of customers must switch to the new product in place of customary seafood. This crucial stage will be extremely challenging to do. Anyhow, they will never convince me to sacrifice my taste for oysters. Cell-based oysters in the year 2080 please, not before!

ELECTRICITY FROM VAPOR!

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have used a natural protein they've dubbed ‘Air-gen’ to generate energy from moisture in the air. The technique is inexpensive, renewable, and non-polluting since the it is made possible through the electrical charge in air moisture.

Air-gen can produce energy without the need for sunshine or wind, and it can do so even in arid environments like the desert since it just needs a thin layer of protein nanowires that is less than 10 microns thick.

The method works by having an electrode at the bottom of the film and a smaller electrode that only covers a portion of the nanowire film at the top, enabling the film to collect water vapor from the environment.

The circumstances that cause an electrical current to flow between the electrodes are created by the interaction of surface chemistry, electrical conductivity, and the tiny holes between the nanowires.

According to researchers, the Air-gen devices' current can generate enough energy to run tiny gadgets. They want to create a patch that can power electronic devices, like smart watches, in the future, doing away with the need for conventional batteries.

The ultimate objective is to create large-scale systems that might be built into a paint for the walls to assist in powering the house, or they may create standalone air-powered generators that provide energy off the grid.

Compliments to Amherst for this research of quality!

RAIN CLOUD SEEDING

By firing flares from aircraft that carry salt based substances (Silver iodide, potassium oxide and dry ice), which draws water into prospective clouds, seeding can effectively make rain from a cloud.After almost tripling its yearly number of cloud-seeding aircraft over the previous six years, the UAE is a pioneer in this sector and intensifying its effort to make it rain. Even if in many areas of the nation they ae expecting brief, heavy downpours, efforts to increase precipitation in a generally parched region remain vital.

Their main worry is that the immediate goal of rain enhancement is to increase rainfall, replenish groundwater, and increase freshwater supplies, an issue shared by so many other dry nations.We must not overlook the wider and more extensive effects of rain on tourism, food and water security, and weather regulation.

The UAE conducted 311 cloud-seeding missions in 2022, clocking up close to 1,000 flying hours.

The UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science has challenged the world's top thinkers to develop novel strategies for boosting rainfall.

As part of the study, scientists use artificial intelligence (AI) to increase precipitation. The best times and places for cloud seeding will be determined using an advanced framework that combines satellite observations, ground-based weather radar data, rain gauges, and numerical weather forecast projections.

ARTICULATED ROBOT IN WATER PIPE

During CES 2023, Acwa Robots didn't waste any time. The French start-up took home three innovation awards at the tech expo for its autonomous robot that searches for and identifies water pipelines and any of their potential issues. Acwa Robots have created the first intelligent machine capable of navigating water networks entirely on its own.

Robots are the key component of the system because they can adapt to a harsh environment (up to 300 PSI of pressure, flowing water, etc.), cause little disturbance to services and water quality, and provide a strong foundation for a wide variety of sensors.

The technology, which is based on the fusion of several data sources, enables the establishment of a precise network travel path in a single pass and the association of this route with the data captured, such as measurements and photographs.

Pathfinder, Acwa's first autonomous robot, can go through the center of the water supply system without interfering with the flow of water to consumers.

The operational findings include locating the pipe with centimeter-level precision, followed by a thorough evaluation of residual thicknesses, corrosion, and microcracks. Data on the quality, pressure, and hydraulics of water follows in third.

In water delivery networks, nearly 120 million m3 of water are lost annually. This loss is mostly caused by pipe damage, and these clever individuals have THE answer!

SONO LUMINESCNCE

Using 15,000 km/h ballistics experiments with an 18 millimeter diameter bullet that can vaporize water, supersonic scientific instruments are required in a water tank in order to examine the Sono luminescence.

This uses a 12-meters long apparatus called a ‘two-stage light gas cannon’. The devices contain two independent phases of propulsion, which leads to quicker launch rates (scientists often employ them to push items to imitate meteorites striking the atmosphere).

Although the impact is tremendous, it would be too quick for the spectator in the room to see with their unaided eyes.

Instead, a high-speed camera that can record up to 200 million frames per second is used to document the effect. For comparison, a smart phone ‘sees’ roughly 300 frames per second, compared to the equivalent of 30 frames per second for the human eye.

The speed of sound in water is more than four times faster than that in the air. When a liquid swiftly collapses as a consequence of a sound wave, the process is known as sonoluminescence. Researchers have been fascinated by this phenomenon for decades because of its potential to develop a waste-free energy source.

The bubbles may also achieve extraordinarily high temperatures and pressures for small periods of time.

An intriguing ballistic exercise. Let’s continue to observe what’s next…

WATER HAS MEMORIES!

Fascinating microscopic research has given deep insights into the nature of water through water droplets.

Regine C. Henschel, Prof. Dr. Bernd Kröplin, and their team's study systematically approached the mysteries of water.

They discovered water responds extremely precisely and delicately to external forces, storing information in the environment, as well as in our bodies.

They confirmed that water communicates over great distances and has a greater impact on our lives than we previously realized.

These phenomena of memory are permanent and visible to everyone as shown by the interesting water drop photographs from their book, which has been translated into four languages.

Their studies on water provide important insights into how various types of radiation, ultrasound, music, vibration therapy, and even feelings of love and thinking, affect the structure of water.

The information related to the impact of waves and turbulence on the creation of water droplets, specifically when subjected to music and simpler audio sine signals of varying frequencies, was published as a result of their study.

Another chapter focuses on observing drying water droplets with extracts from several sources, including thuja and aloe, under a microscope.

The intriguing chapter "Discovery - Mirrored in Water" sets the groundwork for a scientifically sound approach of differentiating the properties of water from different sources.

The pictures in the final chapter also show how outside factors, such electromagnetic radiation from a mobile phone, have a considerable impact.

Crucial for all of us today!

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CONCLUSION

The world watched as floods decimated parts of Pakistan and the Philippines, and as harsh heat and drought killed thousands in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

This year, coastal California has experienced flooding caused by excessive rain. These occurrences highlight the destructive impact that water may play in a changing climate, a topic I have been researching over the last 20 years.

Water insecurity is a direct result of climate change, as the Sixth IPCC report made abundantly evident last year.

The research from the UN also outlined the relationship between the natural water cycle and water extremes, such as floods, shortages, and droughts. Climate in turn has an impact on this.

Moreover, water and climate have an impact on the availability of food, and global food crises reflect this relationship.

What we are seeing now is failed agriculture and rising food insecurity, which is leading to higher levels of inequality, fragility, and instability than ever before. This heinous scenario is being played out in the most vulnerable and underprivileged regions.

By assisting countries (referred to as Parties in COP jargon) in their efforts to achieve the ambitious objectives of the Paris Agreement, organizations like the International Water Management Institute and others working on water may help solve these critical concerns.

They will be able to account for the increasing unpredictability of water via the greater supply of fresh scientific data and aid in building fresh approaches to measuring and reacting to unforeseen variations in rainfall using scientific innovation; scenario planning and satellite-based early warning systems may be used to find reliable water management solutions. We highlight the significance of climate-smart farming as a way to guarantee food security.

In light of what has been learned and as we move ahead with COP28 preparations, it is possible that organizations that work with water, like IWMI, may need to alter the way they approach negotiations and make a commitment to assisting COP representatives by delivering a new scientific agenda for water.

This agenda should be able to provide decision makers, frequently government officials, with the best data and evidence possible to help them navigate uncertainty and support their negotiations.

The world would suffer severe damage if those in positions of authority chose not to include water in their decisions. In addition to being a life-giving and destructive force, water also has an economic impact.

Local water instability has exacerbated the excessive grain prices and the ensuing food crisis brought on by trade interruptions due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

If we do not make plans now for how to withstand both the risks water may provide and the life it can provide, the circle of less food, less water, productivity, and instability will continue.

Water is both complex and simple. In the end, it comes down to having too much, not enough, or bad quality at a certain location and time.

Overall, the climate crisis is first a WATER crisis. Let's join forces to find solutions fast!

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Chronicle 19: EARTH POLYCRISIS -Part 1–Reality Check

Chronicle 20: EARTH POLYCRISIS -Part 2-Pragmatic Future

Chronicle 21: SPACE RACE 2.0.

Chronicle 22: WATER TECH

Chronicle 23: THE FUTURE OF FLYING

Chronicle 24: AI 2.0

Chronicle 25: JOURNEY TO MARS

Chronicle 26: BIOHACKING

Chronicle 27: NUCLEAR FUSION

Chronicle 28: SMART CITY 2024

Chronicle 29: HYDROGEN TRENDS

Chronicle 30: NEW ENERGY STORAGE

Chronicle 31: SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY

Chronicle 32: WASTE TO ENERGY

Chronicle 33: WEARABLES

Chronicle 34: QUANTUM Computing Trend

Chronicle 35: NEUROSCIENCES Trend

Chronicle 36: CLIMATE Change update

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