Getting Creative to Battle Global Warming

California Bans Food Additives

California is the first state to ban the sale of four food additives linked to potential health issues even though they are permitted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The law will be enforced beginning in 2027. Already banned by the European Union and other countries, the four culprits are red dye No. 3, potassium bromate, brominated vegetable oil and propylparaben, which are used in some brands of orange soda, icing, hamburger rolls, candies and processed foods.

Experts say that reducing emissions won’t be enough to reach international goals for limiting global warming. It will require the removal of billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the air each year. There are a growing number of startups working on the issue with dollars generated from the carbon credit market. Here are three examples.

Seattle-based Lithos Carbon is spreading ground-up basalt on the soil. When rainwater mixes with the basalt, it traps CO2 as bicarbonate, which eventually flows to the ocean where it is stored for millions of years. Lithos buys basalt dust, a mining byproduct from quarries, and pays farmers to spread it instead of lime. Through this method, they expect to remove 20,000 tons of CO2 in 2023 while improving crop yields.

The nonprofit research organization Carbon to Sea Initiative is funding an experiment to see if modifying the ocean’s alkalinity could be an effective way to remove CO2. The team believes that increasing the alkalinity will convert CO2 already in the ocean into stable bicarbonate and carbonate molecules that sink to the bottom and, in turn, allow the water to absorb more CO2 from the air. Experiments are underway off the coast of Massachusetts. Much more work is needed to make it scalable and safe, as the alkalinity enhancement may pose risks to marine life.

Living Carbon, a California-based biotechnology company, has genetically modified poplar trees with pumpkin and green algae genes to make them grow faster. The trees absorb CO2 and turn it into wood at an increased rate. Pumpkins and green algae have genes that make the process of photosynthesis more efficient. In the greenhouse, the modified trees grew 53 percent faster than their natural counterparts. Trees have been planted outdoors to see if they produce similar results. Only female trees that don’t produce pollen are used to reduce the potential reproduction of trees with the altered genes.

Red dye No. 3, which is derived from petroleum, makes medicines and foods bright red. The FDA already bans it from cosmetics because studies show that high doses cause cancer in lab animals. Potassium bromate, used to improve the texture of baked goods, has also been linked to cancer in lab animals. Brominated vegetable oil in citrus drinks has been tied to behavioral and reproductive issues in lab animals, among other issues. Propylparaben is a cosmetic and food preservative that is believed to be an endocrine disruptor.

Keeping the Power Grid Humming

To date, large fossil-fuel power plants have maintained the stability of the United States power grid in times of power fluctuations and outages. But, as the country endeavors to switch to more sustainable forms of energy, it is estimated that half of the total electricity from coal-fired power plants will be eliminated by 2026, only to be replaced by renewable sources like wind and solar power, which are not as consistently reliable and subject to volatile weather events. A new solution is needed to keep the power grid humming during this transition. While inverters have traditionally been used in micro-grids and small electric power systems to facilitate the interface between the power production or power storage equipment and the grid, the challenge is to scale them for large power grids that incorporate renewable energy. The U.S. Department of Energy is funding a $25 million gridforming inverter effort. The initial focus is on setting technical specifications for the equipment and testing inverters from different manufacturers for performance and the ability to work together.