"The Ethics of Dust was, for me, about human presence made present – about the building rewritten as not only limestone and glass and a wood-beamed roof, or as big abstract nouns like history and tradition and power, but the material traces of millions of bodies, their labours and their livelihoods." https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/aug/31/empire-of-dust-what-the-tiniest-specks-reveal-about-the-world re: #blackcarbon #Hygiene #microplastics et al.

9/

#Smoke by #wildfires may also be connected with #"Earth’s radiation budget through absorption of incoming shortwave radiation" with potentially underestimated effects [3]. "Wildfires emit large amounts of #BlackCarbon and light-absorbing organic carbon, known as #BrownCarbon, into the #atmosphere" and [3] suggests that "a type of dark brown carbon contributes three-quarters of the short visible light absorption and half of the long visible light absorption"

#ClimateChange

"Citing a recent study, the researchers said #CarbonEmissions from high-intensity fires — those that occur when weather conditions are hot, dry, and windy — have more than doubled since 2000.

Likewise, the study estimates that Siberian #WildFires alone are now responsible for around 5–20% of #Russia’s total #GreenhouseGas emissions." #BlackCarbon #GlobalWarming #ClimateCrisis

Siberian #CarbonSink May Soon Become Net Source of Emissions – Study - The Moscow Times
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/08/16/siberian-carbon-sink-may-soon-become-net-source-of-emissions-study-a82156

Energy-storing supercapacitor from #cement, water, black carbon

Date: July 31, 2023
Source: MIT

Summary:
Engineers have created a 'supercapacitor' made of ancient, abundant materials, that can store large amounts of energy. Made of just cement, water, and carbon black (which resembles powdered charcoal), the device could form the basis for inexpensive systems that store intermittently #renewable energy, such as #solar or #wind energy.

"'The material is fascinating,' Masic says, 'because you have the most-used human-made material in the world, cement, that is combined with carbon black, that is a well-known historical material -- the Dead Sea Scrolls were written with it. You have these at least two-millennia-old materials that when you combine them in a specific manner you come up with a conductive nanocomposite, and that's when things get really interesting.'

"As the mixture sets and cures, he says, 'The water is systematically consumed through cement hydration reactions, and this hydration fundamentally affects nanoparticles of carbon because they are hydrophobic (water repelling).' As the mixture evolves, 'the carbon black is self-assembling into a connected conductive wire,' he says. The process is easily reproducible, with materials that are inexpensive and readily available anywhere in the world. And the amount of carbon needed is very small -- as little as 3 percent by volume of the mix -- to achieve a percolated carbon network, Masic says.

"Supercapacitors made of this material have great potential to aid in the world's transition to renewable energy, Ulm says. The principal sources of emissions-free energy, wind, solar, and #tidal power, all produce their output at variable times that often do not correspond to the peaks in electricity usage, so ways of storing that power are essential. 'There is a huge need for big energy storage,' he says, and existing batteries are too expensive and mostly rely on materials such as #lithium, whose supply is limited, so cheaper alternatives are badly needed. 'That's where our technology is extremely promising, because cement is ubiquitous,' Ulm says.

"The team calculated that a block of nanocarbon-black-doped concrete that is 45 cubic meters (or yards) in size -- equivalent to a cube about 3.5 meters across -- would have enough capacity to store about 10 kilowatt-hours of energy, which is considered the average daily electricity usage for a household. Since the concrete would retain its strength, a house with a foundation made of this material could store a day's worth of energy produced by solar panels or windmills and allow it to be used whenever it's needed. And, supercapacitors can be charged and discharged much more rapidly than batteries.

"There is a tradeoff between the storage capacity of the material and its structural strength, they found. By adding more carbon black, the resulting supercapacitor can store more energy, but the concrete is slightly weaker, and this could be useful for applications where the concrete is not playing a structural role or where the full strength-potential of concrete is not required. For applications such as a foundation, or structural elements of the base of a wind turbine, the 'sweet spot' is around 10 percent carbon black in the mix, they found.

"Another potential application for carbon-cement supercapacitors is for building concrete roadways that could store energy produced by solar panels alongside the road and then deliver that energy to electric vehicles traveling along the road using the same kind of technology used for wirelessly rechargeable phones. A related type of car-recharging system is already being developed by companies in Germany and the Netherlands, but using standard batteries for storage.

"Initial uses of the technology might be for isolated homes or buildings or shelters far from grid power, which could be powered by solar panels attached to the cement supercapacitors, the researchers say."

Full article:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230731151603.htm

#BlackCarbon #Renewables #Batteries #Energy #EnergyStorage

Atmospheric concentrations of #blackcarbon are substantially higher in #spring than summer in the #Arctic

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-00749-x

RT @CruiseNetwork
All cruise ships everywhere that are burning heavy fuel oil should immediately switch to distillate fuels. Cruising is non-essential. The cost of cleaning up should be paid by the cruise passengers/cruise lines, not the planet and health of communities ships pollute. #blackcarbon https://twitter.com/CleanArctic/status/1638460869473443840

RT @CleanArctic
"Measures to reduce #blackcarbon emissions, one-fifth of shippings’ climate impact, can be introduced immediately – a switch to distillate fuels for ships operating north of 60 deg North would lead to a rapid reduction in BC emissions" @Sian_Prior9 https://twitter.com/CleanArctic/status/1638460672475373570

RT @CruiseNetwork
All cruise ships everywhere that are burning heavy fuel oil should immediately switch to distillate fuels. Cruising is non-essential. The cost of cleaning up should be paid by the cruise passengers/cruise lines, not the planet and health of communities ships pollute. #blackcarbon https://twitter.com/CleanArctic/status/1638460869473443840

RT @DamienMeadows1: Among the many improvements, large and small, the #EUETS’s #InnovationFund can also now contribute to funding the reduction of #blackcarbon climate impacts from shipping https://t.co/xAW8fuCu1s

🐦🔗: https://n.respublicae.eu/peterliese/status/1623391031507951621

🔥 Interested in long-term #fire reconstructions & #paleoecology? 🔥

Follow this group and mention it in your toots to quickly share content with like-minded folks:
@paleofire

#wildfire #disturbance #ecology #geography #pyrogeography #archaeology #palynology #lake #marine #ice #soil #core #sediment #peat #dendrochronology #firescars #reconstruction #forest #fuel #proxy #geoscience #charcoal #biomarker #bpca #levoglucosan #pahs #pollen #carbon #blackcarbon #fireregime #holocene

#reintroduction for #ScienceMastodon : I am a researcher working on environmental pollution, #PMT contaminant behaviour as well as effects of vegetation fires in the fields of #EnvironmentalScience - and #chemistry #contaminated #water, #wildfire and #BlackCarbon

Hallo ich bin auch #NeuHier in meiner Freizeit bin ich gerne am Fels, Berg und Gletscher. Gelegentlich bin ich auch antifaschistisch und gegen die Klimakrise aktiv.

In my professional life I am a researcher working on environmental pollution and effects of vegetation fires in the fields of #EnvironmentalScience - and #chemistry #contaminated #water, #wildfire and #BlackCarbon

I hope that is enough #introduction to find some nice peers over here...

"The team [University of Cambridge and Massachusetts Institute of Technology] found that black carbon (soot) particles emitted by rockets are almost 500 times more efficient at holding heat in the atmosphere than all other sources of soot combined (surface and aircraft)—resulting in an enhanced climate effect."

#Carbon #BlackCarbon #Soot #Emissions #Rockets #Spacescience #Space

https://phys.org/news/2022-06-climate-space-tourism-urgent-mitigation.html

Wie #Antarktis-#Tourismus die #Eisschmelze beschleunigt

Mit #Kreuzfahrtschiffen und auf Forschungsstationen – jeder Besuch der Antarktis trägt zum Abschmelzen des Eises bei. Das Problem ist einer neuen Studie zufolge ultrafeiner #Kohlenstoff, der sich auf den #Schnee legt.
#BlackCarbon #Klimawandel
https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/antarktis-wie-tourismus-die-eisschmelze-beschleunigt-a-1b331a8d-da29-4760-a9a6-4d3f1df1050e

« in Russia, already an area of 5 times of Switzerland burnt this year, relasing #blackcarbon towards the #Arctic . This is #ClimateEmergency! We NEED #ClimateActionNow ! https://twitter.com/greenpeaceru/status/1285136969736101890 »

— Retweet https://twitter.com/droensovka/status/1285330106496569345

Study confirms that many #ClimateChangeMitigation measures only take effect after decades. Thus, immediate and heavy #mitigation and #ClimateChangeAdaptation efforts are required.

According to the study, the most rapid, significant impacts would come from heavy mitigation of #CO2, #CH4 or #BlackCarbon. These efforts could be visible by mid-century, but likely not before.

Samset et al. (2020): Delayed emergence of a global temperature response. Nature Communications, 11
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17001-1