Ireland and the Race to Mars

Posted on November 25, 2016 by seanduke

First broadcast on Today with Sean O’Rourke (23-11-2016)

The Martian landscape as depicted in The Martian, a film by 20th Century Fox (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

Both NASA and China have announced plans to land rovers on Mars in 2020, while a number of ambitious non governmental organisations also joining the dash to the Red Planet. It is anticipated that a manned mission from Earth to Mars and back will take five years, and Irish researchers and companies are part of global efforts to make sure that a manned Mars mission is a success.

The ‘Race to Mars’ has well and truly started, and, it’s about time some might argue, as it is now 47 years since Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon, and those of us around back then might have expected to see more progress by now.

Unlike the 1960s, when the technology was really being stretched to the limit to get to the Moon, there are far less technical obstacles in the way of us reaching Mars, and the reason we haven’t done so is due to US politics and money.

That said the scientific challenges of getting humans to Mars, establishing a permanent presence there, and returning them safely to Earth are enormous. In October, President Obama set a goal of sending humans to Mars by the 2030s, and commented that he expects to be still around to see it happen.

But, what drove NASA on in the 1960s, of course, was fear of the Soviet Union and the militarisation of space. There is no Soviet Union threatening US existence anymore, but China is showing signs of emerging as viable new rival. The emergence of China as a space rival can only help efforts to get to Mars.

Challenges

Mars is 34 million miles away, and that is more than 140 times further than the Moon. The entire duration of the mission to the Moon in 1969 was just over 8 days, but getting to Mars safely, spending time there and returning safely to Earth will take in the region of 5 years.

On the journey to Mars, the craft must be designed so that it protects the astronauts from cosmic radiation, while providing them with healthy food to eat, and a means to exercise and stay physically and mentally healthy, and prevent the muscle and bone tissue wastage that will impact astronauts living in microgravity.

NASA are planning to have a habitat module where astronauts will eat a healthy diet from crops grown on ‘green walls’ inside the craft. The air and water will be constantly recycled, and the people chosen will be individuals with a high level of psychological resilience who can endure boredom and are not prone to conflict.

The NASA timeline is that Mars astronauts will spend one year preparing for the launch, one year travelling to Mars, 18 months orbiting and then landing on Mars, and 18 further months on the surface of Mars. They will come home when the Earth and Mars are again favourably aligned to make the return trip home.

This will be a space mission like none in human history requiring a lot of material, some experimental, some to sustain life, some of which would be sent ahead of the crew, such a descent vehicle which would await the astronauts while in Mars orbit, and a shelter on the surface of Mars, assembled by robots.

Cost

There are some who doubt that NASA will be able to get humans to Mars by the 2030s, or even 2040s because of some financial realities. It is estimated that the Apollo moon landings cost $140 billion in today’s dollars, while the realistic price tag to get humans on Mars is somewhere around $450 billion.

NASA’s annual budget for human spaceflight is currently around $9 billion, which is a long, long way short. There needs to be another JFK figure to set out the vision, and secure the budget, but the US has little competition, and there is no ‘clear and present danger’ such as the old Soviet Union to give it a push. That said, ‘Red’ China is creeping up again as a threat to the US psyche.

Will it happen? It is probably unlikely that the US taxpayer will be prepared to pay the entire $450 billion bill to do something for the vague good of mankind.

Commercial

The answer might come from NASA taking on Mars as a kind of joint venture with commercial companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX. This can help secure private investment and access to potential useful new technologies. For example,

SpaceX are working on cheaper rockets, costing about $1 million to launch.

Some other companies involved are Inspiration Mars, which is a non profit company founded by Dennis Tito the first space tourist. He is planning a trip for a select crew of Americans, who will travel to Mars, orbit, but not land. The plan here is to leave Earth in 2018, or failing that to try again in 2021. The estimated cost of this flyby mission is between $1 and $2 billion.

Then there is the Mars One mission, the one way trip, proposed by Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp. This is regarded by some as a ‘suicide mission’ as once people are there, there is no way home. Despite that, there were 2,782 applications to be astronauts on the trip, some of which came from Ireland, including Trinity College astrophysicist, Dr Joseph Roche. The plan is that these applicants will be whittled down six groups of four astronauts, and the first crew of four will leave Earth in 2024. Mars One plan to document the trip on a reality TV show, which they hope will provide much of the finance for the trip.

But, Space X is a serious, space exploration company founded by Elon Musk, a billionaire, playboy who has also made a success out of Tesla electric cars. He is working on developing a fleet of reusable rockets, launch vehicles and space capsules to transport humans to Mars and back again. He wants to build a self sustaining Martian city of 80,000 people, which could be a bolt hole for humanity in the event of some natural or manmade catastrophe here. The plan is to have a human step on Mars by 2026 (10 years!) and for it to be a round trip.

Musk may charge people as little as $0.5 million for a round trip to Mars.

Ireland

There are a surprising number of researchers and companies based in Ireland doing work that can help make the mission to Mars a success.

For example, the work of Brian Caulfield, Professor of Physiotherapy at UCD, has led to the design and development of a device that can enable astronauts exercise properly so that their physical and mental health can be maintained on the long voyage to Mars. The work has been funded by the European Space Agency (ESA).

The device stimulates the large muscles of the legs to produce aerobic exercise training and muscle strengthening effects in space. This ‘Neuromuscular Electrical Muscle Stimulation Technology’ has been successfully tested by the ESA and was developed as a collaboration between UCD and researchers at the Galway based Biomedical Research Limited.

Research by Trinity College’s Mary Bourke, and Ulster University’s Derek Jackson has investigated Martian wind patterns and how they shape the giant sand dunes that can be seen on the surface of Mars – like a red Saudi Arabia.

Scientists know that Martian weather can be volatile and potentially very dangerous for a Martian landing as well as for human colonists, with huge sandstorms from time to time, for example.

The research is of potential value to NASA and others planning to go to Mars as it shows how the enormous sand dunes on mars influence the local wind speeds on the planet, and how these wind speeds, then in turn shape the sand dunes.

It is like developing a Martian wind and weather forecasting ability on Earth.

In Athlone Institute of Technology Dr Diana Cooper is working on the effects of microgravity on human physiology. The insights gained from this work could be crucial to developing methods to ensure that humans can survive long periods in space, travelling between Earth and Mars, without their bone tissue being reabsorbed back into the blood, or losing significant muscle mass.

Mathematics

Something less obvious and immediate, but of enormous importance to the success of any space mission to Mars concerns something invented by an Irish mathematical genius in 1843. These are quaternions, which are mathematical equations, which are used to represent the relative movement of 3D objects in space, and the man that invented then was called William Rowan Hamilton.

A few years back, after the NASA curiosity rover landed on Mars, I spoke to one of the mission controllers, a man called Miguel San Martin. He told me that the incredibly precise landing of the car sized curiosity, near an area which NASA believed may show former evidence for life on Mars, was only possible because the precise navigation of curiosity was underpinned by quaternions.

So, incredibly, something invented by a Dubliner, while walking along the banks of the Royal Canal in 1843 with his wife, will be vital to ensure that any future Mars mission lands close to a pre-planned safe, and viable landing site.

Industry

There are a number of companies in Ireland who are doing work which feeds to the development of the technology required to get to Mars.

For example, A specific type of engine, called a Mars Apogee Engine is under development at Moog, Dublin, in work supported by Enterprise Ireland.

This engine is a liquid propellant engine capable of providing more thrust, with less fuel, than is possible with existing propulsion systems. The idea is that these new engines will be efficient enough to save 150kg of propellant on a Mars mission, which will make space available for other things, such as scientific instruments, which will give any Mars mission more ‘bang for its buck’.

The Curtiss-Wright Aviation and Electronic company, which has its origins all the way back to the Wright brothers, has a branch in Dublin. The people here are working on launch vehicles that can take payloads into orbit and build the Martian ‘in orbit’ infrastructure that will be required to supply and sustain human missions to Mars. This will build a supply chain if you like.

Curtiss-Wright are also developing technologies to enable the safe re-entry of spacecraft through planetary atmospheres including Mars, as well as technology that will be central to sustaining life & generating fuel for human explorers on the surface of Mars

Danny Gleeson, Chairman of the Irish Space Industry Group, said that development of human missions to Mars will take decades and that it was unlikely that the human mission to Mars will be a single shot but rather a choreographed series of missions that build the necessary infrastructure in Earth orbit and Mars orbit & surface to sustain human missions.

“The good news is that there is a plan to get to Mars and back again and the technologies required are almost all available now,” said Danny.

Can the next JFK please step up.

Why are electric vehicles not selling in Ireland?

Posted on September 21, 2016 by seanduke

Broadcast on Today with Sean O’Rourke, RTE Radio 1, 21-09-2016

The Tesla Model S electric cars which are making inroads into the luxury class car market in the USA will be available for sale in Ireland in 2017 [Picture source: http://www.mashable.com]

In 2008, the then Coalition government of FF, PDs and the Green Party, announced a target of having 200,000 electric vehicles (EVs) on Irish roads.

It was an ambitious target, yet eight years later, despite the building of infrastructure to support electric cars, and financial incentives, there are only 2,000 EVs on our roads – that’s a mere one percent of the Government’s original target.

So why is it that sales of electric cars have not taken off in Ireland, compared to some other countries and is this likely to change any time soon?

Infrastructure

The infrastructure supporting electric cars is good, and one of the most advanced in the world, so that’s not an issue.

There are 1,400 charge points between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. These have been set up by the ESB e cars unit on an all Ireland basis. The idea is that with one electric car access card you can use any of the charger access points throughout the country – north or south.

This is a better system than in the the UK where different councils and different regions would have developed their own infrastructure, and there is no inter operability between them. The charger plugs are the same, but the driver of an electric car in Britain would need five or six different access cards to use the EV charge points around the UK.

Each charge point in Ireland has intelligence built in so that information is sent back to the ESB e car charge point management system. This system monitors the availability of chargers, whether they are currently in use or not.

If there is an issue such as a cable gets blocked the system can unblock the cable. The ESB from the start decided to install a standard electric charge point in every town with 1,500 people or more.

The ESB have realised since that a lot more people are looking for fast chargers than had been anticipated at the start of the infrastructural roll out. There are 22kw chargers with two points in each one – and the Renault Zoe can charge in an hour off that. Then there are the 50kw fast chargers that can charge a car up to 80% in 25 minutes. There are about 75 of these, and one every 50 km of motorway on the main roads.

The idea is that if you leave your house in Dublin heading for Galway and you drive with a full tank, you can stop, get a fast charge and keep going. Most of the in car Sat Navs on cars are linked into the latest information on the nationwide network of charge points which is constantly updated by ESB e cars.

The ESB has a 24-hour call centre in Cork, and there are maintenance teams, response units if anyone breaks down. The charge points can all be operated remotely now – one card for all of Ireland – and in the near future the plan is to have an app that lets you know not just where the nearest charge points on, but whether it is currently in use.

Turnoffs

The three main turnoffs people cite when it comes to their reluctance to buy EVs come under three headings: performance, range and cost.

There is an idea out there that EVs are slow and cumbersome, like the old milk floats we saw around Dublin in the 1980s, but, I know, from driving a Nissan Leaf, that this is not the case. The performance of the car is excellent, and there is more than enough zip and acceleration to make electric cars ideal around the city.

You could put somebody into the smallest electric vehicle up beside a Ferrari at a traffic lights and the electric car will get away quicker. The high powered Ferrari will catch him after couple of seconds but there is great zip in an electric car, and overtaking is no problem.

The latest Model S Tesla electric cars can go from 0-100 in 2.6 seconds if you put a Tesla car onto its so called ‘ludicrous’ mode; better than the most powerful Ferrari with an IC engine.

People are concerned about range, and, while surveys of electric car users show that range issues are manageable, it is still an issue for potential buyers.

The industry experts believe that maximum range, which is around 150 or 160km for many electric cars needs to reach 300 or 400 km before ‘range anxiety’ is no longer an issue. That could happen as early as 2018, the experts tell me.

The range of the current Nissan Leaf, which I drove myself a few weeks ago, is between 160 and 165 km after a full charge at home. The home charge points, which are installed for free by the ESB currently for anyone purchasing an electric vehicle, are 16amp, single phase chargers.

A full charge is, however, not enough to get the car from Dublin to Galway (208 km) so anyone planning that trip, must plan to stop at a motorway charge point for about 20 minutes to get a ‘top up’ charge.

For range to improve the existing battery technology must be improved. There has been huge investment in this area, in laboratories around the world, particularly in Japan, Korea and the US, but even a little here in Ireland.

The flamboyant US-based science entrepreneur, Elon Musk, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Tesla Motors, a hugely innovative and dynamic electric car company, is building what he calls a battery ‘gigafactory’ in Arizona. This is due to go into full production in 2020 when it will produce enough lithium-ion batteries, like the ones in our smartphones, to power 500,000 new electric cars per year. All the raw materials required will be brought to Arizona, and when this factor opens it will double the world’s output of lithium ion batteries.

This will provide some of the economies of scale that have been lacking in the electric car industry up to now, and it should be a ‘game changer’. The electric car is more expensive to build than a ‘normal’ car, even without the battery taken into account, because of this issue of economies of scale.

The average car has about 2,000 moving parts, while the average electric has something like 200. The electric car should be cheaper to manufacture!

The prediction is that somewhere between 2020 and 2025, after Musk’s gigafactory opens, the costs of batteries will go down, and the economies of scale for electric will improve so that there will be cost parity.

That is, for the first time, an electric car will cost the same as a car based on the internal combustion engine. This will be a historic moment for e cars.

In summary then, performance is not an issue, and anyone that gets into a modern electric car will quickly realise that. Range is still an issue for some people, but from 2018, it is expected that electric cars with a range of 400 km will be here, so that issue will disappear.

Cost will remain an issue, until cost parity is reached somewhere between 2020 and 2025. In terms of running costs, the electric car is already far ahead of cars powered by the internal combustion engine.

Many people charge their electric car overnight and, at nighttime rates, the cost works out to be between 10 and 15% of the cost of petrol. Even when people charge at the daytime rate for electricity, it works out to be about 25% of the cost of petrol.

It costs less than €5 to run an electric car for 100 miles. The cost to run the car for 17,000 miles per annum (average mileage for residential car use in Ireland) will thus, be less than €850.

Authorities

There have been difficulties with some local authorities in terms of having the road marked as an e car space reserved for electric vehicle charging. At the moment someone could find a petrol car parked at the e charging location and there is little that can be done about it, unless the local authority has agreed to mark the space as a space set out for electric car charging only – making it an offence for any other car to park there. Some local authorities have done this, others haven’t. Dun Laoghaire has gone further and offered electric cars free parking for up to four hours.

The ESB is trying to sort out all the questions around people booking charging spaces in advance. These are free, so, if electric sales pick up they are likely to become very busy. There are outstanding questions such as how long in advance should people be permitted to book a space? What should the ESB charge for a booking? What happens if someone books and doesn’t show up? What if someone hooks their car up to a charge point, and goes off to dinner, only returning several hours later, or the next morning, blocking up the space for others?

Comparisons

London is one of the leading cities in the world, when it comes to supporting electric vehicles, and certainly Dublin and other Irish cities and towns could learn a lot about what is going on there, and the picture is changing fast.

London is looking to introduce an ultra low emission zone in central London from 2020. This will be in addition to the congestion charge. There is a £10 charge to drive into central London as things stand, and if you are driving a pre-2015 diesel or a pre-2006 petrol car there is another £10 added on top of that. This is to try and reduce congestion and to improve air quality, primarily.

The London taxi company has been bought out by Geely, a Chinese electric vehicle company, who have built a new factory in Coventry. Geely have invested £300 million on that factory, and this will churn out new London taxis, which will all be plug in ‘hybrids’ – or mixtures of conventional internal combustion engine and electric.

In the UK as a whole there are now 70,000 electric vehicles on the road which is far ahead of where we are, at 2,000 in Ireland, even accounting for the population difference.

The new Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is talking about extending the low emission zone beyond central London, while the central government at Westminster has allocated £600 million to incentivise the purchase of EVs, build infrastructure and support pilot projects, such as electric bus schemes. There are grants available for the manufacturers and purchasers of EVs and an Office of Low Emission Vehicles, or OLEV, has been set up under the control of the UK’s Department of Transport.

Meanwhile, in Norway 25% of all new car sales are now electric. The Norwegians are proposing to ban conventional vehicle sales in 2025. The proposal is that from 2025 on, cars powered by an internal combustion engine using petrol or diesel will no longer be permitted to be sold. This is extraordinary for a nation that has built its wealth on oil reserves in the North Sea, and shows that the days of the internal combustion engine are numbered at least here in Europe.

There have been 25,000 electric vehicles sold in Norway so far this year. It is the transport department that has proposed to the Government that the new policy to be announced in the Spring. The report to the Government, which is being discussed in the Norwegian parliament at the moment has recommended that there be a ban on IC vehicle sales from 2025. It hasn’t been decided yet, however.

Supports

There is a grant which takes €5,000 off the initial purchase price of the electric car, and VRT relief up to €5,000. The ESB provides free home charge point with the purchase of an EV as well, as well as free public charging (public) and a 24 hour backup call centre should problems arise.

But, clearly these measures have not enough to encourage a higher level of electric vehicle purchases in Ireland and more needs to be done if EVs are to move out of the niche market situation here.

The car market has recovered and we are on target for 155,000 cars to be sold this year, which is still down on the 2008 figure of 187,000.

The market, which survived a near death experience, is probably secure enough to look at new technology like electric again, so that’s positive.

A revised target for EVs in Ireland of 50,000 has been mentioned in the National Energy Efficiency programme, but that, experts believe, will not be reached with the current level of incentives for EVs. More is needed.

Ireland could perhaps look at the US where there are 400,000 EVs on the road. The US gives a Federal tax credit of $7,500 per electric car purchased. On top of that certain states add their own incentives. For example, California gives an additional $2,500 grant, while Colorado gives a tax credit of $6,000.

The US moves seem to be working, in some places at least. For example, 6% of new car sales in San Francisco are now EVs.

Some believe that giving executives incentives to buy electric cars here by reducing their Benefit in Kind is something that might kick start things.

Executives in the US are buying the latest Tesla Model S, which is outselling BMW and Mercedes in that luxury class in California.

These executives buy a new car every three years, and are helping to generate a second hand market for electric cars there too.

Future

The Tesla Model S is outselling BMW, and Mercedes in that luxury class in California. This has grabbed the attention of the German car companies. Berlin has been resisting the tightening of regulations in Brussels on the car industry, particularly on non greenhouse gas causing CO2 emissions.

However, they won’t be able to hold the line forever, as more cities and countries move to improve air quality for its urban citizens. The situation where diesel cars are pumping carcinogenic substances into the air, and risking the health of children in particularly, can’t continue. The car companies have woken up to this, and they are all working on hybrids if not full electric vehicles in anticipation of what is to come.

The big picture, however, is even more threatening for the existing car companies, as driverless technology begins to become reality. The Mercedes E class in its latest ads in Ireland talks of a move towards the autonomous, or driverless car.

The Tesla Model S already has all the technology it requires to be driverless and in a test on the Stillorgan dual carriageway it changed lanes without a hitch. The vision of the future is that the transport needs of society is built around a fleet of driverless electric cars, which can be called on demand by phone apps.

This will reduce the need for car ownership, and provide disabled, elderly or children with the means to safely call for a car to get from A to B. The huge amount of space in our cities given over to parking can be used for something else, noise will be eliminated, and air quality vastly improved.

Why diesel cars are bad for our health

Posted on August 24, 2016 by seanduke

Broadcast on Today with Sean O’Rourke [24-08-2016]

Tiny particles of soot pollution from diesel cars and vehicles have been linked with cancer and life-threatening lung diseases (source: http://www.dpfcleaningservices.co.uk)

Tax incentives for those buying diesel cars over the last decade has fueled a move to diesel on Irish roads, with diesel cars now outnumbering petrol cars.

This has been widely regarded as a welcome move, as diesel cars are considered ‘better for the environment’ because they produce less carbon dioxide gases than petrol cars – the gases that have been linked with causing global warming.

However, scientific evidence is emerging which shows that the level of diesel particulates, which are damaging to human health, has increased in line with the growing popularity of diesel and that Irish people are dying as a result of this. The European Environment Agency has, for example, estimated that 1,200 people in Ireland per year are dying as a result of diseases caused by particulate pollution.

Research

Until relatively recently, there has not been a significant amount of research into the impact of diesel pollution on public health, particularly in Europe, but the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal certainly gave it an added push.

The evidence that is emerging from the US primarily – where research has been going on for longer – suggests that there is real reason for concern when it comes to health effects, and environmental effects, or air pollution from diesel engines. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the World Health Organisation and the UK Department of Transport have all produced reports in the last year or two which point to a real problem here.

As well as pointing to increased emissions of particulate matter (PM) and Nitrogen Dioxide gas, which are known to damage human health, the authorities in Europe and the US have started to make a direct link between an increase in numbers of people dying from respiratory diseases and cancers, and this increase in pollution.

The US EPA, who support a lot of work in this area, has led the way with publication of figures of increased numbers of premature deaths, cancers and respiratory diseases due to air pollution from diesel vehicles. There is a tangible link, a ‘smoking gun’ if you link that is linking cause and effect.

Ireland

There has been little research into subject in Ireland until this year. In January 2016, a research project began at Trinity College Dublin, with funding from the Irish EPA, which is looking to precisely determine the amount of a certain type of damaging particulate, called PM 2.5 which is produced by diesel vehicles here.

It is a multi-disciplinary research effort, involving experts in air pollution, chemistry and transportation and will take place over 24 months. At the end of it, they say they will be able to determine precisely, using computer software modeling, how many deaths and illnesses here are caused by diesel vehicles.

One of the researchers involved, Dr Bidisha Ghosh, is a transportation expert, and said that the plan is to look at diesel particulates first, and to then to a follow up study where the impact of NO2 is measured and assessed.

Measuring

The Irish EPA has a number of monitoring sites around Ireland that will be used as measuring points. One of the key challenges – and this is the first time anyone in the world has done this – will be to distinguish the percentage of PM 2.5 (particulate matter 2.5, a size of particulate) that is from diesel cars as opposed to other potential sources, such as sand, or the burning of coal.

The measuring sites will be near to roads as that is where diesel fumes are strongest, and another part of the study will determine how quickly dangerous diesel pollution dissipates as you move away from a busy road.

The researchers will be looking closely at what comes out of the diesel particulate filters that are attached to diesel cars. This is in order to get the chemical composition, or signature of PMs to better identify those PMs that are from diesel cars or other diesel vehicles. This is a difficult task and will involve using specialised machines to look at tiny quantities of polluting chemicals.

Dr Ghosh said that by the end of their project, in the latter part of 2017 they will be in a position to give precise numbers on the health effects of the growing use of diesel cars in Ireland. At that stage, she said they will have precise numbers on how many extra deaths, or premature deaths are being caused or what kind of extra number of lung cancers and other respiratory diseases are happening in Ireland due to us driving more diesel cars.

The calculations are based on knowledge of the car fleet, the type and age of cars on Irish roads, and knowledge of what the standard pollution emission from a certain vehicle of a certain age will be. This makes it possible to do comparison such as comparing the 2000 level of emissions versus the 2015 levels and matching the increase in pollution with the increase in deaths and diseases.

The project will also make it possible to predict, based on a number of scenarios – such as increasing use of diesel cars at the current rate – what Ireland can expect in 2020 or 2030 in terms of death rates from air pollution. This, it is hoped, will produce a solid basis for policy makers to address this problem.

Diesel cars

The new new diesel cars on the market have very good particle filters and if you are sitting inside one of these cars you wouldn’t get a whole lot of this PM pollution, and the newer models may not pollute the atmosphere that much. The old diesels is where the big problem lies, and there are still a lot of old diesel cars being driven on Irish roads today, as they have vastly inferior emissions control technology to more modern cars.

It is also true that the bigger diesel car engines are far more polluting. The researchers at TCD, who have access to pollution figures in Ireland between 2010 and 2015 said there was a very significant increase in diesel PMs in those years, and this finding was what prompted a more detailed air pollution study.

The researchers also strongly suspect that the VW scandal wasn’t just a VW issue, and that many other diesel car makers have been cooking the books, in the sense that the emissions reported in the car manual does not bear much resemblance to the real on road emissions. The real figures, I was told, are likely to be far, far higher than what we see in the new diesel car manuals.

Supports

The Irish government started to actively support diesel from 20o8, with various tax incentives, in order to help Ireland meet its carbon dioxide ‘greenhouse gas’ targets. In fairness to the Irish government back then, the extent of the public health risk from diesel cars was not widely known.

It was initially thought that certain types of PMs were not harmful, but that thinking has changed, and now scientists are looking at the damage caused by diesel particulates that can remain wedged in the lungs. For example, the particulate, PM 1, is very hard to remove from the lung once in.

The evidence that is now emerging, however, is that not only is diesel bad for public health, it is also, by producing NO2, bad for the environment.

The science around this is all still quite new, and emerging. It is only in 2015 that a report was published by the UK authorities which stated that NO2 can also be very harmful to children, their respiratory development, their lung development and that it can cause irreversible changes.

The initial findings about the problem with diesel took time to emerge, as they didn’t perhaps fit with the green image of diesel, especially in Europe. However, the more research on this that is being done, the clearly the scientific picture becomes, and eventually, governments will have to act on the results.

NO2

Nitrous oxide, and nitrous dioxide gases from diesel cars and vehicles are also linked with health problems, and the data can be collected again by using standard emissions and examining the national car fleet. This is likely to be supported by specific EPA funded research in future, which will, like the TCD project looking at PMs, look into NO2 levels at certain EPA monitoring sites, near busy roads around the country.

Aside from being linked with respiratory disease and death, NO2 is known to have a negative impact on vegetation and acts to break down the ozone layer.

Alternatives?

There are emerging fuels out there, such as hydrogen gas, which is being made available at existing petrol stations in the UK this summer.

However, experts believe that because the infrastructure and global distribution network is built for diesel and petrol cars, and that huge investment has been made in this system, that it will be impossible to envisage a change to any other fuel or transport type in the near, or even distant future.

Electric cars are still rare in Ireland despite significant government support, as people don’t like some of the unanswered questions that remain on it, such as how long does an electric car last, and what to do should a battery die out?

There is also the fact that a very high amount of energy can be liberated from diesel or petrol, and there is nothing that can rival petroleum on that score.

The solution, some suggest, is to truly move towards a sustainable transport system, where people walk if they can, and only use a car when they have to. Those countries that do this, and that promote public transport have far less emissions from petroleum car engines. It is also very important to think about where we locate our busy roads, as studies have shown that irreversible damage can be done to schoolchildren from air pollution in schools near such roads.

For those that need a car, the advice is to look at getting rid of the old diesel and replacing it with a new one, with better a particulate filter. Also, to avoid buying one of the high performance diesel cars and go for a more modest option.

There is also the issue in Ireland of people removing diesel particulate filters when they start to affect car performance. They can be expensive to replace, and some garages in Ireland are openly offering services on the internet to remove and not replace the filters.

A diesel car can run without a filter, and not replacing a malfunctioning filter can save hundreds if not a few thousand euros. However, from a public health and environmental perspective removing a filter is “disastrous, really, really bad” according to Dr Ghosh.

Actively preventing the removal of diesel particulate filters from diesel cars, and insisting on a high standard of operation of diesel filters as part of the NCT test, might be how the Irish government might start trying to tackle this important public health issue.

An ‘under the hood’ look at Dublin’s First ‘waste-to-energy’ plant

Posted on August 9, 2016 by seanduke

The Dublin ‘waste-to-energy’/incinerator plant – as it will look when completed – that will be taking household waste from waste operators in the Dublin region from September 2017LISTEN

LISTEN

This discussion about the science and technology underpinning the plant was broadcast on Today with Sean O’Rourke on (08/08/16)

Dubliners and visitors to the city in recent months may have noticed a huge addition being made to the skyline with a large structure under construction next to the two iconic chimney stacks at the Poolbeg ESB Station at Ringsend.

This is Dublin’s first ‘waste to energy’ plant, which its opponents, and there are many, would prefer to call an incinerator. According to its operators, Covanta, it will be capable of handling 600,000 tonnes of black bin waste, the vast majority of which will come from the city and the three Dublin county council areas

The plant will begin operating here in September 2017. Covanta state that it will convert waste from the city’s black bins – most of which would otherwise end up in landfill – into electricity for the grid and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.

I went along to the plant last week (4/08/16) to see how the construction phase is progressing, and to have a look at some of the engineering and science that will underpin the plant’s operation.

Controversial

The Dublin waste to energy plant, or incinerator, is a highly contentious project. The story dates back to the late 1990s when the plan for an ‘incinerator’ or ‘waste to energy plant – the name depends on your view on it – was first mooted.

At that stage it had become obvious that Ireland needed to be able to tackle its own waste, rather than simply putting it into landfill, or exporting it.

In 2005 Dublin City Council awarded the contract for the plant to a Danish company called Elsam. Elsam was subsequently bought out by DONG energy generation, another Danish company. In 2007 the City Council sent a letter agreeing to engage DONG and Covanta Energy, a US company, to design build operate a Dublin waste to energy plant as a joint venture.

The EPA gave the plant a licence in 2008 and after the Commission for Energy Regulation gave authorizations to allow the plant to generate and supply energy (via electricity) in September 2009 there was a green light to start building.

It didn’t happen, and construction was suspended because the companies were unable to obtain a foreshore license to allow a development to take place on the coastline. The Minister for the Environment at the time, John Gormley, was opposed to granting the license and represented the local Dublin 4 area.

Finally, the license was granted, and Covanta re-commenced construction in 2014. There is significant progress now at the site, with the main structures in place, and it will began to accept waste from the local area in September 2017.

Operator

Covanta, is US based, but has built many ‘waste to energy’ plants on this side of the Atlantic and is looking to expand further into Europe. The firm has about 30 years of experience operating 45 ‘waste to energy’ facilities around the world.

Covanta like to think of themselves as being in the recycling business because they recycle about 500,000 of metals from the residual bottom ash left behind after municipal waste is incinerated or burned.

The majority of Covanta plants are based in the US and the company claim that there facilities there operator up to 90% better than government standards require.

In Dublin, they have an almost exclusively Irish management team, and have been able to easily hire people with the required expertise based here, or to lure back Irish people that have worked on waste to energy plants overseas.

Construction

The Poolbeg site for the plant is currently a hive of activity, with construction workers in yellow safety jackets, and helmets everywhere to be seen, swarming over the site. There is a sense of purpose, organisation and urgency as the company are working to a tight deadline and they are determined to began accepting waste in September of next year from local waste operators as they are required to do.

There are all manner of specialist construction workers at the site, as the piece of this gigantic puzzle are put into place. It is like watching a large football stadium, or a huge cruise liner being built, and it’s fascinating to watch.

Need

Most informed observers agree that Dublin, and Ireland, has a major problem with its waste, most of which is being exported.

There is very little capacity to deal with the large amount of waste being produced in the Dublin region, and Ireland as a whole, as there are just 5 landfills operational here that accept waste, and there is little or no likelihood of new landfills being set up as they are a health risk and no-one wants them.

This has been the situation for many years now, and what Ireland has been doing is exporting its waste, both its hazardous wastes, and the ‘ordinary’ black bin household waste overseas by ship, where plants in other countries burn the waste and recover energy, and dispose of the unusable or dangerous remnants.

The EU wants member states, and regions to deal with their waste in their own area, and this is also a key part of our national and regional waste policies here. That means that Dublin must deal with its own waste in Dublin, rather than the situation where hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste are sent to towns like Drogheda and Arklow where they are ‘bailed’ and exported by ship. This is wrong in principle and storing waste like this represent a fire and health risk too.

We currently export about 560,000 tonnes of waste from Ireland each year, and the new Covanta plant has a capacity for about 600,000 tonnes.

Recycling does not appear to be solution to our waste problems, as even if we hit the predicted recycling rate here of 45-50% by 2020 there will still be a substantial amount of waste that has to be dealt with one way or another.

The waste that we produced can, with this plant, be put to good use to produce electricity and to reduce the need to important fossil fuels, such as gas from Russia and oil from the middle east, which are burned to produce electricity.

We need it. If we don’t, then in the absence of new landfill sites, the EU could decide that Ireland is no longer permitted to export its waste on a massive scale in contradiction of EU policies, and our own national policies. The EU have been very patient with us on this issue, going back almost two decades now.

Scale

The plant is huge. Is located at the end of South Bank Road, which is off the roundabout at Ringsend as you head south onto the coast road past Sandymount for those that know Dublin. It is next to the Poolbeg Power Plant, and beside the Irish sea, the river liffey, a sewage treatment plant, and a nature reserve.

The shape of it is very distinctive, it is very sleek and modern, and reminded me of a streamlined version, without the lifeboats and all the extras, of the kind of large cruise liner that we have grown used to seeing in Dublin Port these days.

The footprint of the plant covers about 3 football pitches, and at 52 metres at its highest point, it almost identical in height to the nearby Aviva Stadium, which is 4 metres shorter.

There will be two chimney stacks, which are not yet in place. These will be 100 metres tall, and from which will emerge, the company state, mostly water vapour at the end of the waste-to-energy process. That can be compared to the existing Poolbeg stacks, which stand at 207 metres, more than twice as tall.

The design is a kind of shell-like wrap around design, and the Covanta manager said that about 100 million euro was spent on design, to make the plant better fit in with its surroundings. In my opinion they have done a pretty good job in that, as it doesn’t look like a typical dirty power plant or industrial factory site.

In terms of the materials, there will be an extraordinary amount put into the construction such as 6,000 tons of reinforcing steel, enough concrete to fill about 6,500 concrete trucks and enough vertical supporting piles to run – if all the piles were laid out on the ground – the 64km from Poolbeg to Kildare town.

Waste to energy

When the plant is up and running, it will operate 24-7, although it is not permitted to take waste on a 24 hours basis.

The waste trucks will arrive from around Dublin – the busy time is often the mornings at these plants I’m’ told – they will be weighed and checked in before they go to a tipping hall when they unload their waste in a designated ‘bay’.

The waste will be unloaded out onto the floor and then put into a huge storage pit and thoroughly mixed before being lifted with a big mechanical grabber and put into what are called ‘hoppers’, and from the hoppers the waste travels to the combustion area where it is burned.

In the combustion chamber the waste will be burned at about 2,000F and the combustion a single load of waste from a hopper takes one or two hours. As waste is burned the heat will convert water in the steel tube lined walls that rise through ‘boiler tubes’ where it is superheated.

The steam will turns a turbine driven generator to produce electricity. The electricity produced by the turbine generator is will be exported to the grid for use by homes and business in the immediate Dublin 4, south city area.

Steam from this electricity generating process will be condensed back into water and returned to the boiler tubes, giving a efficient ‘closed loop’ system.

After this process, the volume of waste, Covanta tells me, will be reduced by 90%, with mainly ash and metal remaining. The ash can be landfilled or re-used. The metal such as iron and steel are recovered for re-use.A separate process recovers other metals like aluminium and copper.

The plant has pollution control equipment to ensure, the company states, that emissions are below limits to protect human health.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can come onto the site whenever they wish, and they can access Covanta’s emission monitoring computers.

The goal, Covanta say is to have real time information on emissions available to whomever is interested on the company website when the plant is running.

In terms of air pollution, acid gases will be neutralised using lime and a scrubbing, or cleaning, process, and carbon will be injected into the gaseous mixture for better control of heavy metal emissions.

Small particulates – which can cause human health problems, particularly breathing difficulties – are removed as emissions pass through a ‘bag house’. This uses thousands of fabric filter bags to catch and hold particulates.

All gases pass through the bags before leaving the stack. The control room monitors emissions through a real time emissions monitoring system and controls steam flow and other automated processes in the plant.

In Dublin, Covanta are using the nearby Liffey water to act as a coolant in the plant, and they are capturing rainwater and surface water for the same purpose.

Potential benefits

The plant will produce 60 megawatts of electricity per year, enough to heat 80,000 homes, and to provide district (local) heating for 50,000 homes.

It makes use of ‘grey water’ from the nearby sewage treatment plant – which would otherwise require energy to be further treated – to cool the process, which is important, as temperature regulation is central to the safe and efficient operation of the plant.

Most importantly, it has the capacity to take up to 1,800 tonnes of black bin waste per day, and up to 600,000 tonnes per year.

This will greatly benefit our environment, as some of this waste may have been going to landfill, which has health and safety risks attached. It will help us to comply with the EU requirement that we deal with our own waste, and it will mean that waste is dealt with close to where it is produced in Dublin and not stored around the city, or in port towns where it can be a fire or health risk. This was caused by waste storage and it was a dangerous fire.

It should also be remembered that in many places in Europe plants like this are welcomed by ‘green’ political parties as they help move us away from landfill, and promote the idea that waste should be treated as a recoverable resource.

Caution

A note of caution was sounded when it was reported last month by The Irish Times that a Covanta run plant in Canada did not meet emissions targets on dioxins and furans as set out by the Canadian Ministry of Environment.

I asked Covanta, based on that story, how could they reassure people in Dublin that the plant there was safe and would meet emissions targets.

Covanta responded that they had measures in place in the Canadian plant to shut it down as soon as a problem arose on one of two emissions stacks. This ensured that there was no risk to the environment or health of local residents, and that this was, Covanta told me, confirmed and supported by the Canadian authorities.

Furthermore, Covanta said all emissions from the Dublin plant will be independently monitored and verified by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Statement in full (for those that are interested) below from Covanta in response to my question about the issue that arose at Canadian plant.

A stack test in May 2016 at the Canadian plant indicated that the limit for dioxins and furans were exceeded on one line. The emissions exceedance for this unit was not representative of normal operations and previous stack tests and engineering runs have demonstrated compliance. Unit 2 continues to operate without issue with dioxin emissions at only 20% of the permitted levels.

While the emissions for unit 1 exceeded the limit at the stack, ambient air monitoring results of dioxins and furans upwind and downwind of the Canadian plant were well below the air quality standards set by the local environmental regulations. Soil sampling was also done and the testing found no elevated levels of dioxin/furans. The testing regime that Covanta had in place in Canada enabled the shut-down of Unit 1 as soon as the problem arose and thus ensured there was no risk at all to either the environment or the health of local residents which was confirmed by the relevant authorities.

The Dublin plant is technically different from the Canadian plant in many ways and the Poolbeg waste-to-energy process provider has successfully delivered 29 new plants across Europe since 2000 – 10 of these in the last 5 years and without any environmental incident. In addition Dublin Waste to Energy has invested heavily in experienced management and staff for the Poolbeg plant which will ensure smooth commissioning, start-up and operations.

The emissions limit values permitted for the Dublin plant have been set out by the EPA in accordance with best practice and EU legislation. In addition, the frequency and testing regime has been set out by the EPA and all emissions (in addition to be monitored by DWtE) will be independently monitored and verified by the EPA. As an indicator of Covanta’s diligence and commitment to the monitoring of stack emissions to ensure continuous compliance to the EU requirements, the plant has a full CEMS (Continuous Emission Monitoring System) as a stand-by to the two CEMS systems which monitor the emissions from the two lines.

Swap carbs for healthy oils, obese people told

Posted on April 26, 2016 by seanduke

This article was first published in The Sunday Times, Irish edition, on 24.04.16

Towards the Zero Carbon House

Posted on April 19, 2016 by seanduke

Listen to discussion above with Keelin Shanley broadcast on Today with Sean O’Rourke on RTE Radio 1 (19.04.16)

The ‘zero carbon’ house is a realistic aspiration Irish homeowners (Credit: http://www.treehuggers.com)

There are many reasons to make a house more energy efficient; from reducing the amount of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere to reducing energy costs and increasing home comforts.

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland has a range of grant supports that can improve the insulation, and heating systems in your home.

This is all part of a long-term drive to move towards Zero Carbon Housing, where homes not longer use fossil fuels, such as gas or oil.

Ultimately we are moving in Europe towards the ‘Near Zero Energy Home’ (NZEB) where homes are self-sufficient in energy, and no longer need to be connected to the grid.

How Regenerative Medicine will change the World

Posted on April 2, 2016 by seanduke

Listen to discussion on the Today with Sean O’Rourke show on 30/3/16

shutterstock_102215590 - Regenerative Medicine

Scientists in Ireland’s Royal College of Surgeons will this year begin to use regenerative medicine in patients to repair damaged bone and cartilage.

Imagine a world where organs are not replaced, but repaired in situ?

Where stem cells are used to repair bone in knees or hips, preventing the need for their replacement?

Or where an entire heart, liver or kidney an be printed to order in advance of transplant into a patient?

It might sound fanciful but this is the world of regenerative medicine, it’s already happening, and Irish scientists and research teams are among the leading lights driving the field.

Is Plastic Poisoning Our Oceans

Posted on March 8, 2016 by seanduke

Listen to discussion on the plastic problem in our seas on Today with Sean O’Rourke RTE Radio 1 (broadcast, 8th March ’16)

Plastics rubbish in our oceans is becoming a huge environment and health issue (Credit: The Daily Telegraph)

Plastic is all around us, in our clothes, glasses, computers, phones, toys and the packaging for food and drink products. Behind most election posters we looked at recently, there were strong plastic cables, holding those posters in place.

Plastic is lightweight, flexible, clear, opaque, almost unbreakable, and cheap to manufacture. It is a wondrous modern product, but it also has a dark side.

Waste

In Ireland we are producing in the region of 210,000 tonnes of plastic per year. Yet, we only recycle 36 per cent this plastic waste. That means that more than 100,000 tonnes of plastic here each year ends up buried in landfill sites, where experts say it could take 1,000 years to breakdown, or it finds it way to the sea.

Scientists in Ireland, and elsewhere, have grown concerned about a ‘steady stream’ of plastics entering our oceans and how that is affecting marine life. The evidence now emerging suggests that plastics are disrupting the balance of marine life to such an extent that it presents a real threat to all life on Earth.

About 45% of plastic waste is sent for burning, or waste-to-energy, as some would call it, while 15% or 30,000 tons is sent to landfill each year. The new Dublin ‘Waste-to-Energy’ plant due to open at Poolbeg in 2017, operated by Covanta, may help if it takes plastic waste that currently ends up put into domestic black bins – about 20% of all plastic waste.

Currently municipal solid waste, including plastic waste is sent for burning to European incinerators. Dealing with the plastic here, is in line with the proximity principle – that waste be dealt with as close to source as possible. It will also create jobs.

However, Repak are keen to say to people that they want more plastics put in the recycling, green bin, and not in the black bin, as some still do.

The amount of plastic waste is growing year on year by about 4% so this is not a problem that will be going away. The dumping of plastic waste is a big problem, according to a spokesperson for Repak (Ireland’s only industry-funded packaging recycling firm) with 80% of marine litter being plastic.

Repak that they are seeing less newspapers these days, and more cardboard (as a result of Internet shopping) and more plastic.

It is relatively easy to sort plastic bottles, he said, as they use optical sorters, which spot a bottle on a conveyor line and an air nozzle shoots the bottle off.

Interestingly, he said that some of the worst plastic packaging they have to deal with are rasher packs as they are made from a number of different plastic laminates and are very hard to break down.

This difficult mixed plastic is, however, useful as a ‘solid recovered fuel’ which is used as a replacement for coal in cement kilns.

All of the cement kilns in Ireland use this SRF and this is helping to reduce the amount of coal which we have to import – so plastic is not all bad,

Products

Plastic products are everywhere in our modern societies, as manufacturers are attracted to its durable, inexpensive properties (Credit: http://www.aboutuganda.com)

Plastics products have been ubiquitous since around 1939, as during WW11 plastics production increased to replace scarce natural materials such as rubber.

But, it wasn’t until 1972, when scientists, by accident, that plastic waste was becoming a huge problem in our oceans.

A group of marine researchers were on a vessel in the Sargasso Sea, in the North Atlantic Ocean, trawling the surface of the ocean to collect a brown algae seaweed called Sargussum why they were interested in studying.

When they hauled in their first catch, they fund lots of tiny plastic particles. Further tows brought in further ‘catches’ of plastic. The finding of plastics in such numbers in the centre of the Ocean was a surprise and a concern.

Now, scientists estimate that there is more than 268,000 tons of plastic in the world’s oceans, some collecting, due to currents, in huge agglomerations of rubbish, and plastic with nicknames like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP).

In parts of the GPGP there are 2 million pieces of plastic per square mile of ocean. But, as well as what are called macro-plastics, which can end up inside fish and marine creatures, blocking intestines, there are micro-plastics, which are much smaller, sometimes tiny piece of plastic, which are problematic too.

There are other garbage patches too, one off California, one close to Japan.

Ocean

Plastic waste can enter the sea from cities and towns on the coastline, but it can also travel along inland waterways from places far from the coastline.

A recent study in the United States, published in the top journal Science, showed how far plastic can travel to end up in the ocean The ocean is always downstream of illegal dumping sites, where rubbish, including plastics, first ends up in rivers, streams and lakes. That’s true in the US, and in Ireland too.

There is clearly a plastic problem in Irish rivers. For example, the River Liffey at the Strawberry Beds outside Dublin. When the river Liffey is low, plastic bags can be seen hanging like vegetation out of trees normally submerged in the water. This plastic will end up, like the Liffey’s waters, entering the Irish Sea.

The extent of the problem of plastic in rivers in developed countries can be judged from the few cities, like Los Angeles and Baltimore, where there are engineering measures in place to prevent waste, including plastic waste, from entering the sea.

In 2015, Baltimore caught 118,670 plastic bottles alone which were prevented from entering the sea, as they would otherwise have done. Baltimore, by the way, has about twice the population of Dublin. If we assume that Baltimore and Dublin are pretty similar economically, then there are more than 50,000 plastic bottles – conservative estimate – entering the sea at Dublin each year.

Microplastics smaller than 5 mm are entering the marine food chain (Credit: Archipelagos Institute)

Micro-plastics

Particularly damaging are micro-plastics; tiny pieces of plastic, which form when plastics are exposed to sunlight. micro-plastics are consumed by marine river life and then, when they make their way to the sea, by ocean creatures too.

Other research has shown that rivers and lakes in the US are full of tiny fibres of polyester and nylon, which are shed from clothes when they are laundered. The fibres are so small, they wash down drains into sewers and pass through the filtration system of wastewater plants, and end up out in the oceans too.

The fibres are swallowed by fish, and become lodged in their bodies, along with any bacteria or chemicals which may have been attached to the fibres in transit.

Mobile

Ocean currents can transport plastic huge distances and computer models have shown that some plastics can travel more than 1,000 km in 60 days. So a piece of plastic could enter the sea in Dublin at the start of April, and end up floating off the coast of Lisbon by the end of May. It’s an international problem.

Marine life can mistake the larger plastic pieces for food, and plastics can thus get caught in their intestines. The fish or birds can’t get the plastic out of their bodies, and this hampers their ability to consume nutritional foods they need. They can ultimately end up starving to death. This has been reported in seabirds, turtles, fish and marine mammals.

When plastic pieces are smaller than 5 mm they are called micro-plastics. Micro-plastics act as an attractive solid surface for marine microbes, because nutrients, which the microbes need tend to accumulate on flat surfaces.

Marine creatures consume the micro-plastics, and the level of plastics then enters the marine food chain from the bottom up. There is on definite view on where this might end up, but certainly there are some very bad scenarios.

Marine life

Amy Lusher, formerly a researcher at NUI Galway, and Simon Berrow, Chief Scientific Officer of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group have carried out pioneering research in the problem of plastics at sea.

In May 2013, the two researchers were alerted when three beaked whales were found stranded on the north and west coast of Ireland. These creatures feed on squid in deep waters and little is known about them. They are rare, and it is highly unusual for three to be stranded within a few days and weeks of each other as happened here

An adult female was stranded at Five Fingers Strand in Donegal and two days later a whale calf was found washed ashore about 2km away. Then two weeks later, a second adult female beaked whale was found stranded at Ballyconneely in Co Galway. The immediate questions were why?

Post mortem results found that the two adult females had macro-plastics in their stomachs, while micro-plastics were identified throughout the digestive tract of the single whale that was examined for micro-plastics.

Simon Berrow told me in an email that it was “very disturbing” that micro-plastics were found throughout the digestive tract of the one beaked whale which was examined for micro-plastics, as these whales are offshore, deep-diving species which are very rarely even sighted by humans.

This was the first study, he said, that had directly identified micro-plastics, using a new technology, in the body of a cetacean species. Cetaceans are a group of 88 different species of whale, dolphin and porpoise. It suggests that even marine animals at the top of the food chain, feeding in deep waters, are ingesting significant amounts of micro-plastics into their bodies.

Simon is preparing a new research paper on the levels of micro and macro plastics in a range of dolphin species sampled in Irish waters over the last few years, and it will be interested to see if a similar result is confirmed again.

Strandings

There can be many reasons why a marine creature gets stranded, or washed up on a beach. For example, there has been an increase in the number of dead dolphins washing up on the west coast of Ireland since the start of 2016, with 28 animals stranded, the second highest number every recorded for the first two months of the year.

Most of the strandings, scientists say, were in Mayo, Sligo and Donegal and the evidence showed that the dolphins died when they were caught up in the large fishing nets of foreign registered super-trawlers fishing in Irish waters.

Dolphins and other cetaceans (whales and porpoises) are under pressure in Irish waters from the nest of super-trawlers, as well as depletion of their natural prey – fish – due to over-fishing by the same trawlers. Add to that, the issue of micro-plastics and it’s no surprise to note that dolphin numbers are declining.

Response

It will require a systematic, international response, from governments around the world, but, getting that, is always difficult.

It has been left to individuals to try and do something. For example, Boyan Slat, a Dutch guy in his early twenties, got a lot of publicity in 2013 for coming up with a plan to clean up the ocean using a V-shaped array of floating barriers.

The array was designed in such a way that the plastic pieces concentrated in the centre of the V, where they were then scooped up by a conveyor belt driven by solar panels and dropped in a collecting station for recycling. A modification of this approach will be used off the coast of Japan later this year.

Boyan’s efforts largely went unnoticed until he gave a TEDx talk, called How the Oceans can Clean Themselves’ and this went viral.

Individuals can also help by signing up to an app called Marine Debris Tracker. This involves people on the beach logging litter finds, which is fed into a database which can better help scientists study ocean rubbish patterns.

Barrack Obama signed legislation in December last to ban the use of plastic micro-beads in cosmetics. Micro-beads are used as exfoliating agents, and in toothpaste. They are made from petrochemical plastics like polyethylene, and they are so small that they pass through waste water treatment plants.

The micro-beads remain in the environment for 50 years, and are causing a build up of micro-plastic pollution in places such as Lake Erie in the USA.

Plastisphere

The Plastisphere is the term that scientists use to describe how organisms have adapted in the oceans and elsewhere to live in harmony with human-made plastics.

Microbes are naturally attracted to plastics, which provide a solid surface to cling to in open ocean, and an all day buffet, as nutrients collect there too.

Some of the microbes ingest plastic too, and these plastic-loaded microbes are in turn eaten by plankton, which are tiny floating living organisms, which are in turn eaten by larger creatures such as fish and whales.

The reasons that scientists are concerned is that they have no idea how the presence of plastics in the marine food chain will play out into the future.

There is a concern, for example, that this could make global warming worse. Normally, in pre-plastisphere days, the oceans were a ‘carbon sink’ which absorbed excess carbon which could otherwise causing global warming.

This happened because tiny marine plants absorbed carbon dioxide, they were eaten by fish and other creatures, who pooped, and this poop, with carbon in it, fell safely to the bottom of the ocean.

The evidence now shows that plastic in poop causes it to break up easier, and this liberates carbon before it falls to the bottom of the ocean. So there is more carbon available to contribute to global warming.

There is also concern that plastics may be carrying harmful organisms, such as the carol pathogen reported in Hawaii and the Caribbean in 2014.

The worry is that plastics could transport some kind of microbe superbug across the world by travelling via ocean currents. The plastisphere offers microbes the chance to eat well and travel the world, even if they are dangerous pathogens.

The suspicion has to be that while micro-plastics have not been proven by scientists to have detrimental effects on marine life, that is what’s happening.

By the time the definitive proof is available, we may have already done irreparable damage to our oceans, as once something enters the food chain, as micro-plastics have done, it is going to be very difficult to remove it.

Seafood?

Scientists are loath to say seafood is not safe, and it is an important source of protein, as well as Omega 3. It’s know that plastics also attract chemicals, some very nasty ones like mercury, which can end up in the food chain.

The consensus is that the risk from plastics, and the chemicals they attract is still low in fish generally and not enough to outweigh the benefits from eating fish But, if we continue the way we are going, that consensus could change.

What would life be really like in space?

Posted on February 1, 2016 by seanduke

Click below to listen to discussion on ‘Living in Space’ on Today with Sean O’Rourke (broadcast on 1st February 2016)

Mars colonies will use the resources of the planet to grow plants, produce drinking water and generate energy (Credit: Bryan Versteeg)

Have you ever imagined what it would be like to live in space for an extended period of time, or whether humans will one day be living in thriving communities dotted across Mars, and some other planets?

President Obama – now 54 – plans to be still around when NASA lands astronauts on Mars sometime during the 2030s. And for children born today, there is a real chance they could travel to Mars in their lifetimes.

But, what is it like to live in space for an extended period of time? And what role is Ireland playing in mankind’s quest to explore other planets?

History

We have been in space now, of course, for almost 50 years, which will come as a shock to people who still vividly recall Neil Armstrong landing on The Moon in 1969.

The famous Apollo missions took place between 1969 and 1972, and since Apollo finished, more than 44 years ago now, humans have – remarkable – not left lower Earth orbit.

This means we have ventured no further than about 400km above the ground, which is the altitude of the International Space Station, as well as many of our communication satellites.

Yet, although technically this is not space, as space starts somewhere out around 800km above the Earth, the I.S.S. living environment tells us most of what we need to know about living in space for a long time.

Much of what we know about life in space comes from the information passed on to us by scientists and astronauts that have spent time there.

Space Station life

The I.S.S. was launched in 1998, and astronauts and scientists, such as Chris Hadfield and Tim Peake have enlightened us. Others have too.

In 2014, as part of the RTE Radio 1 science series What’s it all about? I got the opportunity to talk to an Italian astronaut called Paolo Nespoli, who spent six months onboard the I.S.S. about his life there.

Paolo, a married man with kids, employed by the Italian army, was onboard the I.S.S. for six months in 2006. He said it was a struggle at first for his body to adjust to the microgravity onboard the I.S.S.

Micro-gravity is defined as very small amounts of gravity; a negligible amount compared to what our bodies are used to here on Earth.

He suffered from nausea, and all the while he had to share a space of about 100 square metres – a modest apartment – with five colleagues.

He noticed that while they were all working on different surfaces in a relatively small space, the people rarely touched off each other.

They fly around like superman and the utilisation of all the 3D space meant that people could work on different surfaces and still have space.

There was a definite sense of constantly falling, he said, and that’s not a surprise because the I.S.S. IS constantly falling to Earth.

It doesn’t hit the Earth because the Earth is round, and it has booster rockets which keep it in a stable orbit 400 km above the Earth.

For the I.S.S. to stay in that relative position it needs to have an orbital speed of 28,000km per hour – or about 8km per second.

At that kind of speed, the I.S.S. does a full orbit of the Earth in about 1.5 hours or the same time as it takes to drive from Dublin to Belfast.

Paolo said that when he was living on the I.S.S. he had to get used to a sunrise or sunset every 40 or 50 minutes with 16 sunrises every day – defined as a 24 hour period.

There is a viewing area, and from there he said he could make out Italy and other parts of the world coming into view below.

Staying in touch

NASA, and the other space agencies, make a big effort to ensure that people living on the I.S.S. do not feel isolated so there are telephones and people can call who they want.

Paolo called his family every night, and once a week he had a video conference with his family from the I.S.S. There is internet, and Paolo, like fellow I.S.S. astronauts Chris Hadfield, and the UK’s Tim Peake used social media to connect with a huge audience.

There are strange little things to get used, said Paolo, like the fact that there is no more ‘up and down’ and fluids don’t automatically go into your stomach. That means it can feel like choking when you take a drink of something.

Paolo said that despite the painfully slow internet connection he could check his bank account, transfer money and pay his taxes from space!

During this time on the I.S.S. his mother died, and he couldn’t attend her funeral, but his colleagues on board gave him a one-minute silence.

Ireland’s involvement in space

Ireland is involved in a surprising amount of space projects, and the past decade or so saw the growth of a vibrant space industry here.

There are in the region of 50 Irish companies working directly with the European Space Agency with contracts to the value of 31 million euro.

Taking some examples:

For example, NASA and others are worried about the deterioration of bone and muscle tissue in people living in space for an extended time.

The trip to Mars may take up to three years to complete, and during this time people will experience muscle wasting from living in low gravity.

Dr Brian Caulfield and his team at UCD have designed a muscle stimulating device, which can help astronauts exercise while asleep.

This work has been funded and supported by the European Space Agency and could be relevant to all future manned space missions.

This 32 metre satellite dish based in Midleton Co Cork, will be used to track and monitor dangerous 'space junk' [Source: National Space Centre]

This 32 metre satellite dish based in Midleton Co Cork, is used to track and monitor dangerous ‘space junk’ [Source: National Space Centre]

One big danger to astronauts in space, is the growing problem of ‘space junk’ but an Irish company, the National Space Centre in Midleton Co Cork is using a 32 metre satellite dish to track and monitor space debris.

The dish was originally built in 1984 to transfer telephone calls between Ireland and the USA, but now it’s being used to track space junk.

Meanwhile, an Irish firm called Cortona 3D is helping train astronauts.

Cortona has been contracted by the ESA to develop training videos for astronauts so they are less likely to make mistakes in space.

Up to recently astronauts were faced with long lists of ‘to do’ tasks and reading manuals, but these videos take them visually through the jobs.

The Irish made videos will be helping astronauts to dock the Automatic Transfer Vehicle that carries food and other supplies to the I.S.S.

In January, meanwhile, the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, announced it was to be a partner in Japan’s ASTRO-H space mission.

This is a mission that wishes to find out more about about things like black holes, and the dynamics of hot gas in galaxy clusters.

The mission is set for launch by the Japanese Space Agency, JAXA on the 12^th February equipped with powerful equipment to observe x rays.

Observations in X-rays are a key part of modern astronomy and can only be made from space as X-rays are absorbed by the Earth’s atmosphere.

Could humans live on Mars

The answer to that is a resounding yes, although there are many technical problems to be overcome to setting up a Mars colony.

Mars is incredible hostile for humans. It is very cold and as there is little atmosphere, there is no protection from harmful space radiation.

The average temperature on Mars is -60C and temperatures range from -126C in winter near the poles to 20C during summer near the equator.

Temperatures can fluctuate widely, and quickly and this can result in powerful dust storms which could clog up electronics and equipment.

Like an army invading a foreign country, supply lines will be crucial, as shipping materials from Earth will not be viable for the most part.

Gravity is just 40 per cent as strong as Earth, and there is little known about the long term effects of this on our bodies.

To survive the cold and lack of air pressure humans will need to live in pressurised and heated habitats, and NASA is offering a prize of $ 2.25 million to anyone who can design a 3D printed habitat for Mars.

It will be important to use the resources of the planet, as carrying water to Mars will use a lot of resources – water is heavy to carry across space.

It will be important to extract water from the Martian soil, which is feasible now that scientists know Mars once had flowing rivers.

This water can be used to generate drinking water, breathable air, and rocket fuel, but there is still the issue of food and other vital supplies.

Martians will have to grow their own plants and that means removing toxins from the Martian soil and using what we have learned on Earth about hydroponics – which is the growing of plants without soil.

The new science of genetic engineering might make it possible for Martians to engineer offspring adapted to conditions on mars.

There is also the strategy of changing Mars to better suit humans, rather than the other way around, through the process of terraforming.

This will require lots of greenhouse gases to warm up the planet, and it could also unleash frozen reserves of water buried under the soil.

The vision of some is to create a Mars where humans, or genetically engineered humans, could live on it without need for a spacesuit.

Certainly, the exploration of Mars up to now, which has been a fascinating story, has shown that it has the resources to support life.

The key life-supporting compounds of oxygen, nitrogen and water are available on Mars, though harnessing these will be a big challenge.

The Martian soil contains compounds with high chemical energy and this would help to manufacture rocket fuels on mars.

There is potential to harness solar and wind power, which are available on Mars too.

The new technology of 3D printing would also help Martians to print spare parts when things break rather than wait for Earth supplies.

Why go?

It’s in our nature to explore, and like ants, if some intrepid individuals don’t explore the health of the colony is at risk.

This is the second coming of space exploration. It is not driven by fear, as it was before, but by curiosity and our need to keep developing.

What is Ireland’s energy future?

Posted on December 30, 2015 by seanduke

Now, the dust has settled on the Paris climate summit, it’s a good time to assess where Ireland’s – and the world’s – power generation future lies.

Click above to hear discussion on Today with Sean O’Rourke (broadcast 30/12/2015)

Ireland has a huge wind energy resource, offshore and on land. If tapped the country could become a net energy exporter (Credit: Irish Wind Energy Association)

Big picture

Despite the agreements announced in Paris, China is set to continue building a new coal fired power plant every 7 to 10 days, while India and Japan are increasing, not reducing, their reliance on cheap coal.

Meanwhile, oil prices are falling, driven by a global oil glut driven by increased oil supplies. Despite claims that oil supplies are running out, geology suggests the world has substantial untapped oil supplies.

In this context, the big question is how will Ireland, and the world, wean itself off coal and petrol, and how will energy be generated in 2050?

The top five energy consumers in the world today are China, the USA, India, Russia, and Japan. This is significant because none of the big five would be renowned for their record on supporting clean energy options.

China is key to this story, as it has now surpassed the US as the main energy consumer in the world. China is increasing its dependence on coal, and building new coal fired plants at an alarming rate.

Coal is cheap, readily available, and China believes that coal is what will improve living standards to match those of the west. In the same way, that Britain used ‘King Coal’ to become a 19th century superpower.

Meanwhile, India, another Asian giant, is also increasing its reliance on coal, for the same reasons that China is taking this route. Coal is cheap, and provides a shortcut to industrial development and prosperity.

Let’s not forget that developing reliable, economically viable energy alternatives requires high technology, patience and lots of funding.

Keep in mind too that 250 million Indian people live in homes without electricity. That’s more people than the combined populations of Germany, France and the UK, all living without electricity.

Globally, some 1.2 billion people live without electricity. Is that ethical?

Russia as we know is a significant exporter of oil and gas, and much of the gas we use here in Ireland comes from Russia.

Japan is an interesting case, because it is a highly industrialised country, but it lacks a cheap, home based energy source. This is why it went down the nuclear route, but that, as we saw with Fukushima in March 2011, led to disaster. They too are now turning to cheap sources of coal.

The US, meanwhile, is heavily dependent on its home based reserves of natural gas to provide its electricity needs, and Middle Eastern oil to keep its love affair with motor car going.

Clean energy

Approximately 11 per cent of the world’s energy consumption comes from so-called ‘renewable energy’ sources. That’s according to the US Energy Information Administration.

When we say ‘renewable’ we mean energy generated from non-polluting sources, which can be used over and over again without negative effects. The main renewable sources of energy come from biofuels, biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar and wind.

The same US body, which is a reputable source, predicts that by 2040, 15 per cent of the world’s energy will be from renewables by 2040.

The message then is that our energy needs are overwhelming provided by fossil fuel, greenhouse gas generating sources, and that the changeover to renewables is happening slowly – perhaps too slowly.

China continues to build a new coal fired power plant, on average – every 7 to 10 days. Like this one in the city of Baotou, in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (Photo : REUTERS/David Gray)

Whither Paris?

This is where the Paris agreement comes in, because without a major push, there is no reason why – economically speaking – countries or companies or individuals should shift to using renewable energy.

The main point was that governments agreed to limit global warming to 1.5 Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Above 1.5 Celsius and scientists believe we are into uncharted territory where climate and weather might cross a variety of ‘tipping points’.

Lurking in our future is the ominous, and very real threat of rapid, and severe climate cooling, provoked initially by warming.

Recent data shows that we have already reached 1C above pre-industrial levels and there is no sign of emissions of ‘greenhouse gas’ falling.

The emissions figures are interesting. China is responsible for 28% or more than a quarter of the world’s emissions.

The US is next at 16%, then the EU at 10 per cent. Together, China, the US, India, Russia, Japan and the EU make up 70% of global emissions. The rest, about 150 countries or so, make up just 30% of emissions.

A binding agreement between the US, China, India, Russia, Japan on the EU on emissions would go a long way to addressing this problem.

That won’t be easy as they all have very different energy agendas.

Before Paris, 180 countries submitted pledges to cut or curb emissions, but, when all these plans were put together, experts believe they will, even if they are rigorously implemented, lead to a 2.7C rise – at least!

Also, there is no legal imperative to implement the plans.

Paris set out a long term global goal for zero emissions. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that ‘net zero emissions’ must happen by 2070, in order to avoid ‘dangerous warming’. But, it’s only a goal!

There is also a pledge to ‘take stock’ every 5 years to make sure that the plan to keep to 1.5C is still no track. But, only a pledge to ‘take stock’. The plan also included a clause which say that countries mainly responsible for warming – the US – will not be liable to pay financial claims from countries damaged by extreme weather.

There is a pledge to provide $100 billion a year from 2020 to finance developing countries so that they can adapt to climate change and transition to ‘clean energy’ – but this to is not legally binding.

All in all, Paris looks like a weak agreement, which holds no-one to account, and is largely aspirational in tone.

Fossil future

Coal, gas, petrol and diesel are fossil fuels. They contain high amounts of carbon and were formed from previously living organisms. They are cheap, readily available, and are very efficient at releasing usable energy when burned in combustion engines, or power plants.

Most experts believe that fossil fuels will still dominate, in terms of supplying our global needs by mid century and beyond. The Paris deal was heralded by some as the ‘end of coal’ but this is highly unlikely, and coal will continue to be burned, perhaps more than before.

Yet, if we continue to burn fossil fuels at the current rate, or increasing rates – to meet increasing energy demands – we are on a road to nowhere. If fossil fuels are here to stay, how can we reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide greenhouse gases which are released when they burn?

Is there a solution?

Well, one thing that can be done is to improve the fuel efficiency of our cars, and power plants which use fossil fuels, and this is happening.

Another more radical solution, but one which is now under serious consideration is referred to as carbon capture and storage technology.

The idea here is to continue to burn fossil fuels, but that the carbon dioxide from this burning will be buried in a secure place underground. For example, there is talk of using gas fields, which have been exhausted, such as Kinsale, which is nearing its end, to store carbon dioxide gas.

2050?

The demand for electricity is set to soar in coming decades, as more than one billion people look to get plugged in. The energy mix will still be mainly fossil fuel based, so measures to improve energy efficiency will be crucial and technology will be developed to do that – in our homes, offices and in industry.

These energy efficiencies will only happen if governments fund the development of technology in the short term, because it will take time for their to be a pay off in any investment. So, industry won’t do it.

Coal is going to remain very important, as China and India develop.

Nuclear energy is expensive, and it is far more costly to build a nuclear power plant compared to a new coal or gas fired power plant. There are also costs of disposal of waste, and safety concerns, and there can be serious political opposition to new plants too.

Ireland has a real opportunity to develop its wind and wave resources, where we could – with the right investment – be a world leader. But, our grid is outdated, and other countries such as Denmark, have been investing in wind technology for far longer with greater success.

The most promising of the renewable technologies, generally speaking, is Solar and this will take off if supported initially by governments.They can be particularly useful to bring electricity to places now ‘off grid’.

The world, and individual countries, will have to realise that more expensive energy, and reduced growth might be required.

Ireland’s windy future

In 1935, the Ardnacrusha hydroelectric power plant built near Limerick in the 1920s was supplying 80% of the country’s electricity. Our electricity needs were far less at that time, of course, but we were still far more self sufficient in energy than we are today, as 60% of our energy is provided by natural gas, and 90% of our natural gas is imported.

Back in the 1930s, the vast majority of Ireland’s electricity was generated by harnessing the gravitational force of falling or flowing water. Ardnacrusha served us well for decades, but over time, the plant was unable to generate enough electricity to meet the growing demands of industry here, and modern homes, now mostly supplied with electricity.

These days our electricity needs have vastly increased, and the range of sources we get our electricity from has hugely diversified.

One of the good news stories for Ireland, is terms of its energy future, is the ready availability of lots of wind, particularly along the coastlines. As of 2015, 17.7% of Irish electricity was generated by wind power, making us second only to Denmark which has reached 30%.

The government has a target in its white paper to increase the energy consumption from ‘renewables’ to 16% from 7% currently. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland believes that electricity generated from wind will exceed domestic needs by 2030.

Ireland will then be in the happy position of becoming an electricity exporter, possible with a new electricity connector to the UK. It’s possible, if targets are reached, that Ireland could be providing 2.5% of the EU’s energy needs by 2050 through wind power generation.

Renewable mix

Ireland is also blessed with a valuable wave energy resource. One study found that the average wave power in Europe is highest near the west of Ireland. The potential for utilising wave is huge. There is some 525 TWh of wave and tidal power in Irish waters. The total electricity requirement for the Republic of Ireland in 2006 was just 27.8 TWh!

Solar photovoltaic technology will be far more important, even in Ireland, where, as we know the sun doesn’t shine enough.

County councils around the country are building solar panels using PV technology on farmland. These ‘solar farms’ will provide electricity to the grid, and help to power new homes that will be built in coming years.

Bioenergy too will be far more developed here in coming decades. Plants are already being built in Dublin and Cork which will take food waste and harvest bio-gases to generate significant amounts of electricity.

Each bio waste plant can provide electricity for thousands of homes, and divert food waste which is going into landfill at the present time. Ireland will not move into nuclear. There are cheaper, better options and the political opposition and cost would seem to rule nuclear out here.

There are also, geologists believe, significant ‘hydrocarbon’ resources in the Irish offshore that lie underdiscovered due to the depths they are at. There is gas, we know this from Corrib, but many believe there is also oil, plenty of it, and as technology improves it will become easier and cheaper to prospect for this liquid gold.

So, all in all, Ireland’s energy future looks promising if we fully exploit our huge wind, wave and untapped hydrocarbon resources in our offshore.

That’s leaving aside the thorny question of potentially exploiting two large oil reserves trapped in rocks underneath Leitrim and the counties of southwest Ireland through ‘fracking’ technology.

Science Spinning

An Irish spin on science by the award-winning journalist, Seán Duke

Category Archives: Today with Sean O’Rourke on RTE Radio 1

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Towards the Zero Carbon House

How Regenerative Medicine will change the World

Is Plastic Poisoning Our Oceans

What would life be really like in space?

What is Ireland’s energy future?

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