Fifth London garage joins electric bus revolution

Plans to decarbonize London's bus fleet are continuing apace after it was confirmed Shepherds Bush has become the fifth bus garage in the capital to install a bank of electric bus charging units. UK Power Networks announced late last week it has completed work at the Sulgrave Road site to enable 36 new electric buses to charge overnight. The work, which was commissioned by bus operator RATP Dev, provides an additional 2.5MW of capacity to power buses on two of the routes operated out of the garage.

UK Power Networks said the system makes use of a "timed connection", which will allow the buses to reliably charge overnight while avoiding the need to install extra electricity cables and infrastructure. It added that the approach helped reduce both pressures on the grid and costs, ensuring maximum power requirements are met between 11pm and 6am when local electricity demand is very low.

The upgrade follows similar work at Waterloo Bus Garage in August 2016, which made it the first depot in the UK to 'go electric' resulting in 900 tonnes of CO2 emissions savings in its first year. It has since been followed by charging installations at bus garages in Willesden, Camberwell and Northumberland Park. Stephen Bradley, head of major connections for UK Power Networks, said the upgrades were delivering a host of benefits to bus operators and the public. "By enabling more buses to run on electricity instead of diesel, we bring another breath of fresh air for Londoners and we are pleased to be playing our part as the city looks forward to a greener future," he said.

Catherine Guillouard, chairwoman and CEO of RATP Group, said the project underlined the company's commitment to slashing emissions across its fleet. "We have been looking forward to the upgrade of this depot, which very tangibly demonstrates our commitment to clean and sustainable travel," she said. "RATP Group's aim to switch to 100 percent clean buses reflects our ambition to be an innovative and trusted partner of the city of London in its journey towards being a smarter and more sustainable city."

The project is part of a city-wide push to ensure all of London's buses are zero emission by 2037. However, advocates of electric and hydrogen buses remain optimistic that falling costs could see the switch to zero-emission fleets made far earlier. Overall, Transport for London is aiming to have 240 electric buses running on the network by the end of next year and for all new double-decker buses to be zero-emissions or hybrid. Every single-decker bus operating in central London is expected to be zero-emission by the following year.

Energy revolution risks 'two-tier' society

Britain risks becoming a 'two-tier' energy society, according to a new report out today, which warns modern energy infrastructure such as electric vehicles (EVs), smart meters, and Internet-connected appliances are being adopted unevenly across the country. The report, commissioned by the Drax Group and conducted by Imperial College London and E4tech, breaks down the energy revolution into 20 distinct sectors and tracks progress against a range of metrics, including the rollout of smart meters, hydrogen transport stations, heat pumps, EV chargers, and electric buses.

It warns that regional divides are already emerging, with London and Scotland pulling ahead in terms of their access to new clean energy technologies. In contrast, the North of England and East Midlands lag furthest behind, the study warns. The disconnect risks a two-tier society emerging, argues Dr. Iain Staffell from Imperial College, one of the lead researchers on the report. "The country is going through an energy revolution," he said. "We are creating an energy system which will power our future economy and help tackle climate change."

"But, our research reveals that Britain is at risk of creating a two-tier economy, leaving millions of families and businesses less well equipped to enjoy cheaper bills and better health outcomes," he added. "Our concern is they will not be offered the same opportunities as people living in regions which are modernizing their energy infrastructure. "The differences in the pace of the energy revolution are the result of uneven investment from both national government and local authorities, the report said, as well as variations in average household income.

London is leading the way because of its high provision of public transport - it receives 45 per cent of national funds for rail electrification, for example - and the relatively low cost of owning an electric car in the capital. Residential homes in the capital also tend to be more energy efficient, while households in the south east tend to enjoy higher incomes.

The future is frozen why fresh may not be best when buying fish

Standing in your supermarket seafood department, you see a counter with fillets of salmon, cod, and tuna bedded on ice. Their tenderness beckons. Somewhere nearby, packages of those same fish and more, each fillet vacuum-sealed, wait behind a freezer glass door. They look... Well, you can’t quite tell, but the labels indicate where the stuff comes from and its sustainability. Which ones will go in your basket?

In many cases, the frozen fish is less expensive and ought to be a slam-dunk. Yet “fresh is best” has been hammered home as a selling point for so many people fortunate enough to have the choice that they will opt for what’s on display.

Why go frozen? “It is a major win for sustainability,” says Barton Seaver, the Maine-based chef and seafood educator who once called Washington home. “It decreases waste and takes advantage of seasonal bounty to spread its availability throughout the year.

“From the introduction of micro-misting to more powerful and rapid deep-freeze technologies at lower temperatures, the process has really turned the frozen product ... into a means to capture pristine quality,” he says.

Experts agree about those advances in technology, which can allow consumers to buy fish that is frozen mere hours after being harvested. The “fresh”-looking fish at the counter may be weeks old, and, these days, a good portion of it might be labeled “previously frozen” – all of which means that frozen can be fresher, or at least in better condition.

At the consumer level, though, frozen fish is still seen as less than optimal. You can’t open a package and smell it – a historically fail-safe test of quality – although I can’t remember the last time I saw a supermarket shopper ask to sniff first before buying.

Wegman's stocks half as much frozen fish as it does fresh, says Steve Philips, the East Coast grocery chain’s seafood group manager. With a few exceptions, the supermarket’s fresh fish on display has not been previously frozen – in part, he says because Wegmans noticed that its customers “weren’t moving over to the frozen case”. The result is that its seafood department pulls fresh fish after two days in the case and destroys it; none of it is repurposed for in-house use.

Nestle looks for sustainable label for water bottling sites

Nestle is moving to bolster the sustainability credentials of its bottled water business amid criticism that packaging the precious resource and transporting it across the world causes unnecessary environmental damage.

The maker of Perrier and Pure Life is strengthening its ties with Alliance for Water Stewardship, which will monitor whether 20 sites meet its standards on water use by 2020, the Vevey, Switzerland-based company said in a statement Wednesday.

Nestle already has four plants certified by the group in Pakistan and California. The announcement comes a month after competitor Danone said it aims to make Evian the first major carbon-neutral springwater brand. Nestle has reduced its additional water consumption to make a litre of bottled water by 20 per cent since 2011.

One of the company’s plants in Mexico is entirely water-self-sufficient, meeting all its needs with a liquid that’s left over when milk is dried into Nido brand powder.

The AWS certification process includes a commitment to improving water usage and gathering data on water collection.

Nestle’s water-saving approach will vary among factories, but in rural areas, it may work with farmers in the surrounding areas to help them optimise irrigation practices and avoid the use of pesticides.

Overflowing crater lakes carved canyons across Mars

Today, most of the water on Mars is locked away in frozen ice caps. But billions of years ago it flowed freely across the surface, forming rushing rivers that emptied into craters, forming lakes and seas. New research has found evidence that sometimes the lakes would take on so much water that they overflowed and burst from the sides of their basins, creating catastrophic floods that carved canyons very rapidly, perhaps in a matter of weeks.
The findings suggest that catastrophic geologic processes may have had a major role in shaping the landscape of Mars and other worlds without plate tectonics, said lead author Tim Goudge, a postdoctoral researcher at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences who will be starting as an assistant professor at the school in 2019.

The research was published Nov. 16 in the journal Geology. Co-authors include NASA scientist Caleb Fassett and Jackson School Professor and Associate Dean of Research David Mohrig.

From studying rock formations from satellite images, scientists know that hundreds of craters across the surface of Mars were once filled with water. More than 200 of these "paleolakes" have outlet canyons tens to hundreds of kilometers long and several kilometers wide carved by water flowing from the ancient lakes.

However, until this study, it was unknown whether the canyons were gradually carved over millions of years or carved rapidly by single floods.

Staggering extent of human impact on planet revealed in new report

Humanity and the way we feed, fuel and finance our societies and economies are pushing nature and the services that power and sustain us to the brink, according to a new report that presents a sobering picture of the impact of human activity on the world's wildlife, forests, oceans, rivers, and climate.
A comprehensive overview of the state of our natural world, through multiple indicators including the Living Planet Index (LPI), which examines trends in global wildlife abundance. Tracking 16,704 populations of 4,005 vertebrate species, the LPI finds that global populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians have declined, on average, by 60 percent between 1970 and 2014, the most recent year with available data.

The top threats to species identified in the report are directly linked to human activities, including habitat loss and degradation and overexploitation of wildlife.

"This report sounds a warning shot across our bow. Natural systems essential to our survival -- forests, oceans, and rivers -- remain in decline. Wildlife around the world continue to dwindle," said Carter Roberts, President, and CEO of WWF-US. "It reminds us we need to change course. It's time to balance our consumption with the needs of nature, and to protect the only planet that is our home."

Over recent decades, human activity has also severely impacted the habitats and natural resources wildlife and humanity depend on, such as oceans, forests, coral reefs, wetlands, and mangroves. The Earth is estimated to have lost about half of its shallow water corals in the past 30 years and 20 percent of the Amazon has disappeared in just 50 years.

Reducing US coal emissions through biomass and carbon capture would boost employment

Many have expressed concerns about the loss of jobs as current technologies like coal-fired power plants. A new study has run the numbers associated with the impacts of cutting coal plant jobs while at the same time employing techniques for bioenergy coupled with carbon capture and storage. The model indicates that the BECCS approach would not only retain 40,000 jobs currently held as part of the coal industry but would create 22,000 new jobs in the forestry and transportation sectors by the middle of this century.

"In the ambitious attempt to limit global warming below 2°C, BECCS features as the dominant technology, yet it's been under considerable scrutiny for its unknown effects on the environment and society.

BECCS is a proposed technology for reducing the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It combines carbon capture and storage, in which CO2 is collected from large emission sources such as power plants and injected into underground geologic formations, with the increased use of biomass, like plant-based materials, as a source of fuel. Proponents of BECCS predict that more than 99% of carbon dioxide stored through geologic sequestration is likely to stay in place for more than 1,000 years. 

In the new study, the researchers studied in detail the major processes and steps involved in the potential energy supply chains for the U.S. coal fleet. Specifically, they looked at the supply of sustainable forest resources for biomass and the design and cost of infrastructure for transporting and injecting CO2 into appropriate geologic sites. The investigators used a number of different models to analyze existing data, including a biophysical model called the Global Forest Model; a techno-economic model called BeWhere, which optimizes the technology development of U.S. coal, including feedstock logistics; and the Jobs and Economic Development Impact model, which they used to estimate the employment impacts of technology development.

There are some limitations to this type of analysis. One thing, it does not consider the potential substitution of coal with other low-carbon options like renewables; thus, it reflects a limited picture of the future economy. For another, the models don't include any equilibrium in the economy but are a bottom-up supply-chain optimization for specific technologies. Depending on these issues, outcomes of employing BECCS could differ with regard to job creation. Further analysis could, therefore, focus on emphasizing the socioeconomic effects of substituting renewable technologies for existing fossil-based capacity or on detecting larger, macroeconomic effects of low-carbon technology deployment, the researchers say.