New EU Ocean Pact Criticized by Environmental Groups
Scientists, government officials, companies, and environmentalists are gathering at the third United Nations Ocean Conference beginning June 9 in Nice, France, following World Oceans Day, which was marked on June 8. According to the UN, the theme of the conference is to accelerate action and mobilize all actors to conserve and use the ocean sustainably.
The conference comes as the world’s oceans are warming fast, coral reefs are bleaching, overfishing is decreasing fish stocks, and pollution is collapsing marine ecosystems. Members of the International Scientific Committee of the One Ocean Science Congress released a list of recommendations for those attending, including a pause on harmful activities in the deep ocean, measures to end marine plastic pollution, and effective approaches toward achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement on limiting global warming.
Last week, the European Union unveiled an Ocean Pact, which it says is a roadmap to restore ocean health, support coastal and island communities, and advance research. However, the EU pact was criticized in a joint statement from six major environmental organizations including, Oceana, Surfrider Foundation, and the World Wildlife Federation. The organizations say the plan doesn't implement immediate action on existing obligations or legally binding targets. For instance, they note that the pact does not contain concrete steps to phase out destructive fishing practices, such as bottom trawling in Marine Protected Areas. In addition, they say the plan does not contain meaningful measures to reduce pollution like plastics, fertilizers, and chemicals at their sources.
Still, the six NGOs welcomed the commitment of the EU to a cautionary approach to deep sea mining and other destructive activities and the push for an agreement among nations to discourage overfishing.
Hurricanes Churn Up Nutrients That Feed Marine Life
It turns out that hurricanes can churn up the ocean so powerfully and deeply that nutrient-rich cold water full of elements like nitrogen and phosphate can be brought to the surface. That’s good, in part because it results in blooms of phytoplankton that are feasted upon by baleen whales, shellfish, zooplankton, and even bacteria.
Researchers from the University of California, Merced, along with UC, San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, were on an expedition from Mazatlán, Mexico, to San Diego, studying low-oxygen zones. A hurricane, named Bud, rapidly intensified in the region where they had planned to sample. After the storm passed, they sampled water exactly where the hurricane had been at its maximum power. Samples like those are rarely taken just after a hurricane. The data showed that oxygen concentrations had dramatically changed.
UC, Merced, professor Michael Beman said in a release that when they got to the area where the eye had been, they could smell and see the difference in the ocean. He said it was green from all the chlorophyll being produced, and there were totally different organisms going nuts in the wake of the storm. They also saw many turtles, which was unusual because they were so far from shore. The downside of the storm is that it brings low-oxygen zones closer to the surface, threatening some organisms while others thrived.
The study was published in the journal Science Advances.
A Recipe for Clean Energy? Soda Cans, Seawater, and Coffee
What do you get when you mix seawater with recycled soda cans and coffee? According to researchers at MIT, you get green hydrogen—a clean source of energy that many are hoping can replace fossil fuels.
Current methods to create green hydrogen are expensive. They use electricity from renewable energy sources like solar or wind to split the hydrogen from the oxygen in water through electrolysis. It differs from the cheaper “blue hydrogen” that uses fossil fuels to extract the element through steam methane reforming (SMR).
Last year, the MIT team looked for less costly ways to “break water” that didn’t contribute to climate change. They knew that aluminum generates hydrogen and heat when it comes in contact with water—but don’t think you can just drop a soda can in a bucket and expect a chemical reaction, because once aluminum has been exposed to the air, it forms a protective oxide layer, and the process stops before it can get started.
So, as lead researcher Aly Kombargi, who graduated last week from MIT with a PhD in mechanical engineering, explained to H2O Radio, they experimented with ways to penetrate that oxide layer to harvest the aluminum and found that an alloy called gallium-indium did the trick. Unfortunately, that alloy is rare and expensive, and although a great way to get pure aluminum into water and create hydrogen, it isn’t sustainable. So, they went to the beach. Instead of fresh water, Kombargi says he scooped up some seawater near Boston, which, it turns out, captures the alloy so it can be used over and over.
Great, right? Not yet. The seawater converted the aluminum to hydrogen really slowly, so Kombargi had to be resourceful again. He and his team tinkered in the kitchen, looking for ways to speed things up—and we all know there is a substance in our houses that amps us up—and it worked here too: caffeine. When they added coffee grounds to seawater and aluminum, the reaction was fast—producing hydrogen in five minutes, compared to two hours without caffeine.
Next, they tested their aluminum-based hydrogen to power an electric vehicle and an EV bicycle. For the bike, they took out the battery and replaced it with a reactor containing the aluminum pellets they developed and a container of seawater to create a hydrogen fuel cell to power the motor. Kombargi says the bike lasted two hours before needing another feeding of the pellets and says the solution has potential for ocean-going vessels because you wouldn’t have to carry around seawater—it’s right there. The hydrogen gas can be used in a combustion engine because it's a fuel that you can burn. It can also go in a fuel cell, which uses hydrogen to produce electricity to run an EV.
Although the research published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science was met with much enthusiasm, most people wanted to know about its carbon footprint and cost. In a paper out last week and published in the journal Cell Reports Sustainability they found that their method has a similar carbon footprint to other green hydrogen methods.
Seawater is abundant, and aluminum is Earth’s third most common element and the most abundant metal in the planet’s crust. Furthermore, the solution doesn’t use fresh water, which is constrained around the globe. More good news is the method creates byproducts called boehmite and pyrite, which are in high demand to fabricate semiconductors, electronic elements, and several industrial products, meaning their hydrogen solution would both be sustainably green and economically in the black.