‘Extraordinary rainstorm’ floods Nebraska city triggers water rescues трипскан сайт An entire June’s worth of rain fell in just a few hours over Grand Island Nebraska Wednesday night triggering life-threatening flash flooding that inundated neighborhoods stranded motorists and forced water rescues. Crews have responded to dozens of calls to assist motorists stuck in flooded roads since torrential rain began Wednesday night according to Spencer Schubert the city’s communications manager. The flooding has also displaced an unspecified number of residents from their homes. https://tripscan.biz трипскан сайт “At this time we have no injuries to report” Schubert said early Thursday morning noting some rescues were ongoing. Torrential rain caused sewers to back up into several homes and sent floodwater running into basements according to a Thursday news release from the city. Some affected residents took shelter at local hotels or with friends and family. “This was an extraordinary rainstorm and is very similar to the historic rains seen in the 2005 floods” Jon Rosenlund the city’s emergency director said. “We will be actively monitoring rivers creeks and other drainage areas over the next few days for future flooding issues.” Flooding in 2005 turned streets into rivers in Grand Island. At one point the city tore up a major road to open up a channel to drain flooding away from homes CNN affiliate KHGI reported. The central Nebraskan city is home to around 53000 people and is about 130 miles southwest of Omaha. The rain came to an end around sunrise Thursday but the danger remains with a flood warning in effect until 7 p.m. CDT.
“AI expends a lot of energy being polite especially if the user is polite saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’” tripscan top Dauner explained. “But this just makes their responses even longer expending more energy to generate each word.” For this reason Dauner suggests users be more straightforward when communicating with AI models. Specify the length of the answer you want and limit it to one or two sentences or say you don’t need an explanation at all. Most important Dauner’s study highlights that not all AI models are created equally said Sasha Luccioni the climate lead at AI company Hugging Face in an email. Users looking to reduce their carbon footprint can be more intentional about which model they chose for which task. “Task-specific models are often much smaller and more efficient and just as good at any context-specific task” Luccioni explained. https://tripscan.biz tripskan If you are a software engineer who solves complex coding problems every day an AI model suited for coding may be necessary. But for the average high school student who wants help with homework relying on powerful AI tools is like using a nuclear-powered digital calculator. Even within the same AI company different model offerings can vary in their reasoning power so research what capabilities best suit your needs Dauner said. When possible Luccioni recommends going back to basic sources — online encyclopedias and phone calculators — to accomplish simple tasks. Why it’s hard to measure AI’s environmental impact Putting a number on the environmental impact of AI has proved challenging. The study noted that energy consumption can vary based on the user’s proximity to local energy grids and the hardware used to run AI models. That’s partly why the researchers chose to represent carbon emissions within a range Dauner said. Furthermore many AI companies don’t share information about their energy consumption — or details like server size or optimization techniques that could help researchers estimate energy consumption said Shaolei Ren an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California Riverside who studies AI’s water consumption. “You can’t really say AI consumes this much energy or water on average — that’s just not meaningful. We need to look at each individual model and then examine what it uses for each task” Ren said. One way AI companies could be more transparent is by disclosing the amount of carbon emissions associated with each prompt Dauner suggested.
“Generally if people were more informed about the average трипскан вход environmental cost of generating a response people would maybe start thinking ‘Is it really necessary to turn myself into an action figure just because I’m bored?’ Or ‘do I have to tell ChatGPT jokes because I have nothing to do?’” Dauner said. Additionally as more companies push to add generative AI tools to their systems people may not have much choice how or when they use the technology Luccioni said. “We don’t need generative AI in web search. Nobody asked for AI chatbots in messaging apps or on social media” Luccioni said. “This race to stuff them into every single existing technology is truly infuriating since it comes with real consequences to our planet.” https://tripscan.biz трипскан сайт With less available information about AI’s resource usage consumers have less choice Ren said adding that regulatory pressures for more transparency are unlikely to the United States anytime soon. Instead the best hope for more energy-efficient AI may lie in the cost efficacy of using less energy. “Overall I’m still positive about the future. There are many software engineers working hard to improve resource efficiency” Ren said. “Other industries consume a lot of energy too but it’s not a reason to suggest AI’s environmental impact is not a problem. We should definitely pay attention.” Sign up for CNN’s Life But Greener newsletter. Our limited newsletter series guides you on how to minimize your personal role in the climate crisis — and reduce your eco-anxiety.
“It’s true that both plants are not yet operating at the capacity we originally targeted” said the Climeworks spokesperson. tripscan войти “Like all transformative innovations progress is iterative and some steps may take longer than anticipated” they said. The company’s prospective third plant in Louisiana aims to remove 1 million tons of carbon a year by 2030 but it’s uncertain whether construction will proceed under the Trump administration. A Department of Energy spokesperson said a department-wide review was underway “to ensure all activities follow the law comply with applicable court orders and align with the Trump administration’s priorities.” The government has a mandate “to unleash ‘American Energy Dominance’” they added. Direct air capture’s success will also depend on companies’ willingness to buy carbon credits. https://tripscan.biz трипскан вход Currently companies are pretty free to “use the atmosphere as a waste dump” said Holly Buck assistant professor of environment and sustainability at the University at Buffalo. “This lack of regulation means there is not yet a strong business case for cleaning this waste up” she told CNN. Another criticism leveled at Climeworks is its failure to offset its own climate pollution. The carbon produced by its corporate activities such as office space and travel outweighs the carbon removed by its plants. The company says its plants already remove more carbon than they produce and corporate emissions “will become irrelevant as the size of our plants scales up.” Some however believe the challenges Climeworks face tell a broader story about direct air capture. This should be a “wake-up call” said Lili Fuhr director of the fossil economy program at the Center for International Environmental Law. Climeworks’ problems are not “outliers” she told CNN “but reflect persistent technical and economic hurdles faced by the direct air capture industry worldwide.” “The climate crisis demands real action not speculative tech that overpromises and underdelivers.” she added. Some of the Climeworks’ problems are “related to normal first-of-a-kind scaling challenges with emerging complex engineering projects” Buck said. But the technology has a steep path to becoming cheaper and more efficient especially with US slashing funding for climate policies she added. “This kind of policy instability and backtracking on contracts will be terrible for a range of technologies and innovations not just direct air capture.” Direct air capture is definitely feasible but its hard said MIT’s Buck. Whether it succeeds will depend on a slew of factors including technological improvements and creating markets for carbon removals he said. “At this point in time no one really knows how large a role direct air capture will play in the future.”
Many left-wing preppers also have guns. трипскан вход Killjoy is open about the fact she owns firearms but calls it one of the least important aspects of her prepping. She lives in rural Appalachia and as a transgender woman says the way she’s treated has changed dramatically since Trump’s first election. For those on the left guns are “for community and self-defense” she said. Left-wing preppers consistently say the biggest difference between them and their right-wing peers is the rejection of “bunker mentality” — the idea of filling a bunker with beans rice guns and ammo and expecting to be able to survive the apocalypse alone. Shonkwiler gives an example of a right-wing guy with a rifle on his back who falls down the stairs and breaks a leg. If he doesn’t have medical training and a community to help “he’s going to die before he gets to enjoy all his freeze-dried food.” “People are our greatest asset” Killjoy said. When Hurricane Helene carved a path of destruction through Asheville North Carolina in 2024 Killjoy who used to live in the city loaded her truck with food and generators and drove there to help. https://tripscan.biz трипскан Inshirah Overton also subscribes to the idea of community. The attorney who came to prepping after enduring Hurricane Irene in 2011 owns a half-acre plot of land in New Jersey where she grows food and has beehives. She stores fruit vegetables and honey but also gives them to friends and neighbors. “My plan is to create a community of people who have a vested interest in this garden” she said. At one point Overton toyed with the idea of buying a “bug-out” property in Vermont somewhere to escape to but desire for community for her and her two daughters stopped her. In Vermont “no one knows me and I’m just a random Black lady and they’ll be like: ‘Oh OK right sure. You live here? Sure. Here’s the barrel of my shotgun. Turn around.’” This focus on community may stem in part from left-wing preppers’ growing fears around the climate crisis predicted to usher in far-reaching ecological social and economic breakdown. It cannot be escaped by retreating to a bunker for a few weeks. As Trump guts weather agencies pledges to unwind the Federal Emergency Management Administration and slashes climate funding — all while promising to unleash the fossil fuel industry — climate concerns are only coming into sharper focus. They’re top of mind for Brekke Wagoner the creator and host of the Sustainable Prepping YouTube channel who lives in North Carolina with her four children. She fears increasingly deadly summer heat and the “once-in-a-lifetime” storms that keep coming. Climate change “is just undeniable” she said. Her prepping journey started during Trump’s first term. She was living in California and filled with fear that in the event of a big natural disaster the federal government would simply not be there. Her house now contains a week’s worth of water long-term food supplies flashlights backup batteries and a solar generator. “My goal is for our family to have all of our needs cared for” she said so in an emergency whatever help is available can go to others. “You can have a preparedness plan that doesn’t involve a bunker and giving up on civilization” she said.
Despite prepping’s reputation as a form of doomerism many left-wing preppers say they are not devoid of hope. трип скан Shonkwiler believes there will be an opportunity to create something new in the aftermath of a crisis. “It begins with preparedness and it ends with a better world” he said. Some also say there’s less tension between left- and right-wing preppers than people might expect. Bounds the sociology professor said very conservative preppers she met during her research contacted her during the Covid-19 pandemic to offer help. https://tripscan.biz tripskan There is a natural human solidarity that emerges amid disaster Killjoy said. She recalls a cashier giving her a deep discount on supplies she was buying to take to Asheville post-Helene. “I have every reason to believe that that man is right-wing and I do think that there is a transcending of political differences that happens in times of crisis” she said. As terrifying events pile up from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to deadly extreme weather it’s hard to escape the sense we live in a time of rolling existential crises — often a hair’s breadth from global disaster. People are increasingly beginning to wonder whether their views on preppers have been misconceived Mills said. “There is a bigger question floating in the air which is: Are preppers crazy or is everyone else?” Killjoy has seen a huge change over the last five years in people’s openness to prepping. Those who used to make fun of her for her “go bag” are now asking for advice. It’s not necessarily the start of a prepping boom she said. “I think it is about more and more people adopting preparedness and prepper things into a normal life.” Evidence already points this way. Americans stockpiled goods in advance of Trump’s tariffs and online sales of contraceptives skyrocketed in the wake of his election amid concerns he would reduce access. Shows like “The Walking Dead” meanwhile have thrust the idea of prepping into popular culture and big box stores now sell prepping equipment and meal kits. People are hungry to learn about preparedness said Shonkwiler. “They have the understanding that the world as we knew it and counted on it is beginning to cease to be. … What we need to be doing now is figuring out how we can survive in the world that we’ve created.”
This company says its technology can help save the world. It’s now cutting 20 of its staff as Trump slashes climate funding трипскан Two huge plants in Iceland operate like giant vacuum cleaners sucking in air and stripping out planet-heating carbon pollution. This much-hyped climate technology is called direct air capture and the company behind these plants Switzerland-based Climeworks is perhaps its most high-profile proponent. But a year after opening a huge new facility Climeworks is straining against strong headwinds. The company announced this month it would lay off around 20 of its workforce blaming economic uncertainties and shifting climate policy priorities. https://trip-scan.top трип скан “We’ve always known this journey would be demanding. Today we find ourselves navigating a challenging time” Climeworks’ CEOs Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher said in a statement. This is particularly true of its US ambitions. A new direct air capture plant planned for Louisiana which received 50 million in funding from the Biden administration hangs in the balance as President Donald Trump slashes climate funding. Climeworks also faces mounting criticism for operating at only a fraction of its maximum capacity and for failing to remove more climate pollution than it emits. The company says these are teething pains inherent in setting up a new industry from scratch and that it has entered a new phase of global scale up. “The overall trajectory will be positive as we continue to define the technology” said a Climeworks spokesperson. For critics however these headwinds are evidence direct air capture is an expensive shiny distraction from effective climate action.
These preppers have ‘go bags’ guns and a fear of global disaster. They’re also left-wing трипскан вход The day after President Donald Trump was elected in 2016 Eric Shonkwiler looked at his hiking bag to figure out what supplies he had. “I began to look at that as a resource for escape should that need to happen” he said. He didn’t have the terminology for it at the time but this backpack was his “bug-out bag” — essential supplies for short-term survival. It marked the start of his journey into prepping. In his Ohio home which he shares with his wife and a Pomeranian dog Rosemary he now has a six-month supply of food and water a couple of firearms and a brood of chickens. “Resources to bridge the gap across a disaster” he said. https://tripscan.biz tripskan Margaret Killjoy’s entry point was a bleak warning in 2016 from a scientist friend who told her climate change was pushing the global food system closer than ever to collapse. Killjoy started collecting food water and generators. She bought a gun and learned how to use it. She started a prepping podcast Live Like the World is Dying and grew a community. Prepping has long been dominated by those on the political right. The classic stereotype albeit not always accurate is of the lone wolf with a basement full of Spam a wall full of guns and a mind full of conspiracy theories. Shonkwiler and Killjoy belong to a much smaller part of the subculture: They are left-wing preppers. This group is also preparing for a doom-filled future and many also have guns but they say their prepping emphasizes community and mutual aid over bunkers and isolationism. In an era of barreling crises — from wars to climate change — some say prepping is becoming increasingly appealing to those on the left. The roots of modern-day prepping in the United States go back to the 1950s when fears of nuclear war reached a fever pitch. The 1970s saw the emergence of the survivalist movement which dwindled in the 1990s as it became increasingly associated with an extreme-right subculture steeped in racist ideology. A third wave followed in the early 2000s when the term “prepper” began to be adopted more widely said Michael Mills a social scientist at Anglia Ruskin University who specializes in survivalism and doomsday prepping cultures. Numbers swelled following big disasters such as 9/11 Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the 2008 financial crisis. A watershed moment for right-wing preppers was the election of Barack Obama in 2008 Mills said. For those on the left it was Trump’s 2016 election. Preppers of all political stripes are usually motivated by a “foggy cloud of fear” rather than a belief in one specific doomsday scenario playing out Mills said. Broad anxieties tend to swirl around the possibility of economic crises pandemics natural disasters war and terrorism. “We’ve hit every one of those” since the start of this century said Anna Maria Bounds a sociology professor at Queens College who has written a book about New York’s prepper subculture. These events have solidified many preppers’ fears that in times of crisis the government would be “overwhelmed under-prepared and unwilling to help” she said.
UK project trials carbon capture at sea to help tackle climate change трипскан вход The world is betting heavily on carbon capture — a term that refers to various techniques to stop carbon pollution from being released during industrial processes or removing existing carbon from the atmosphere to then lock it up permanently. The practice is not free of controversy with some arguing that carbon capture is expensive unproven and can serve as a distraction from actually reducing carbon emissions. But it is a fast-growing reality: there are at least 628 carbon capture and storage projects in the pipeline around the world with a 60 year-on-year increase according to the latest report from the Global CCS Carbon Capture and Storage Institute. The market size was just over 3.5 billion in 2024 but is projected to grow to 14.5 billion by 2032 according to Fortune Business Insights. https://tripscan.biz трипскан вход Perhaps the most ambitious — and the most expensive — type of carbon capture involves removing carbon dioxide CO2 directly from the air although there are just a few such facilities currently in operation worldwide. Some scientists believe that a better option would be to capture carbon from seawater rather than air because the ocean is the planet’s largest carbon sink absorbing 25 of all carbon dioxide emissions. In the UK where the government in 2023 announced up to ?20 billion 26.7 billion in funding to support carbon capture one such project has taken shape near the English Channel. Called SeaCURE it aims to find out if sea carbon capture actually works and if it can be competitive with its air counterpart. “The reason why sea water holds so much carbon is that when you put CO2 into the water 99 of it becomes other forms of dissolved carbon that don’t exchange with the atmosphere” says Paul Halloran a professor of Ocean and Climate Science at the University of Exeter who leads the SeaCURE team. “But it also means it’s very straightforward to take that carbon out of the water.” Pilot plant SeaCURE started building a pilot plant about a year ago at the Weymouth Sea Life Centre on the southern coast of England. Operational for the past few months it is designed to process 3000 liters of seawater per minute and remove an estimated 100 tons of CO2 per year. “We wanted to test the technology in the real environment with real sea water to identify what problems you hit” says Halloran adding that working at a large public aquarium helps because it already has infrastructure to extract seawater and then discharge it back into the ocean. The carbon that is naturally dissolved in the seawater can be easily converted to CO2 by slightly increasing the acidity of the water. To make it come out the water is trickled over a large surface area with air blowing over it. “In that process we can constrict over 90 of the carbon out of that water” Halloran says.
The CO2 that is extracted from the water is run through a purification process that uses activated carbon in the form of charred coconut husks, and is then ready to be stored.
[url=https://tripscan.biz]трипскан вход[/url]
In a scaled up system, it would be fed into geological CO2 storage. Before the water is released, its acidity is restored to normal levels, making it ready to absorb more carbon dioxide from the air.
“This discharged water that now has very low carbon concentrations needs to refill it, so it’s just trying to suck CO2 from anywhere, and it sucks it from the atmosphere,” says Halloran. “A simple analogy is that we’re squeezing out a sponge and putting it back.”
While more tests are needed to understand the full potential of the technology, Halloran admits that it doesn’t “blow direct air capture out the water in terms of the energy costs,” and there are other challenges such as having to remove impurities from the water before releasing it, as well as the potential impact on ecosystems. But, he adds, all carbon capture technologies incur high costs in building plants and infrastructure, and using seawater has one clear advantage: It has a much higher concentration of carbon than air does, “so you should be able to really reduce the capital costs involved in building the plants.” https://tripscan.biz
трипскан
Mitigating impacts
One major concern with any system that captures carbon from seawater is the impact of the discharged water on marine ecosystems. Guy Hooper, a PhD researcher at the University of Exeter, who’s working on this issue at the SeaCURE site, says that low-carbon seawater is released in such small quantities that it is unlikely to have any effect on the marine environment, because it dilutes extremely quickly.
However, that doesn’t mean that SeaCURE is automatically safe. “To understand how a scaled-up version of SeaCURE might affect the marine environment, we have been conducting experiments to measure how marine organisms respond to low-carbon seawater,” he adds. “Initial results suggest that some marine organisms, such as plankton and mussels, may be affected when exposed to low-carbon seawater.”
To mitigate potential impacts, the seawater can be “pre-diluted” before releasing it into the marine environment, but Hooper warns that a SeaCURE system should not be deployed near any sensitive marine habitats.
There is rising interest in carbon capture from seawater — also known as Direct Ocean Capture or DOC — and several startups are operating in the field. Among them is Captura, a spin off from the California Institute of Technology that is working on a pilot project in Hawaii, and Amsterdam-based Brineworks, which says that its method is more cost-effective than air carbon capture.
According to Stuart Haszeldine, a professor of Carbon Capture and Storage at the University of Edinburgh, who’s not involved with SeaCURE, although the initiative appears to be more energy efficient than current air capture pilot tests, a full-scale system will require a supply of renewable energy and permanent storage of CO2 by compressing it to become a liquid and then injecting it into porous rocks deep underground.
He says the next challenge is for SeaCURE to scale up and “to operate for longer to prove it can capture millions of tons of CO2 each year.”
But he believes there is huge potential in recapturing carbon from ocean water. “Total carbon in seawater is about 50 times that in the atmosphere, and carbon can be resident in seawater for tens of thousands of years, causing acidification which damages the plankton and coral reef ecosystems. Removing carbon from the ocean is a giant task, but essential if the consequences of climate change are to be controlled,” he says.
‘Extraordinary rainstorm’ floods Nebraska city triggers water rescues трипскан сайт An entire June’s worth of rain fell in just a few hours over Grand Island Nebraska Wednesday night triggering life-threatening flash flooding that inundated neighborhoods stranded motorists and forced water rescues. Crews have responded to dozens of calls to assist motorists stuck in flooded roads since torrential rain began Wednesday night according to Spencer Schubert the city’s communications manager. The flooding has also displaced an unspecified number of residents from their homes. https://tripscan.biz трипскан сайт “At this time we have no injuries to report” Schubert said early Thursday morning noting some rescues were ongoing. Torrential rain caused sewers to back up into several homes and sent floodwater running into basements according to a Thursday news release from the city. Some affected residents took shelter at local hotels or with friends and family. “This was an extraordinary rainstorm and is very similar to the historic rains seen in the 2005 floods” Jon Rosenlund the city’s emergency director said. “We will be actively monitoring rivers creeks and other drainage areas over the next few days for future flooding issues.” Flooding in 2005 turned streets into rivers in Grand Island. At one point the city tore up a major road to open up a channel to drain flooding away from homes CNN affiliate KHGI reported. The central Nebraskan city is home to around 53000 people and is about 130 miles southwest of Omaha. The rain came to an end around sunrise Thursday but the danger remains with a flood warning in effect until 7 p.m. CDT.
“AI expends a lot of energy being polite especially if the user is polite saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’” tripscan top Dauner explained. “But this just makes their responses even longer expending more energy to generate each word.” For this reason Dauner suggests users be more straightforward when communicating with AI models. Specify the length of the answer you want and limit it to one or two sentences or say you don’t need an explanation at all. Most important Dauner’s study highlights that not all AI models are created equally said Sasha Luccioni the climate lead at AI company Hugging Face in an email. Users looking to reduce their carbon footprint can be more intentional about which model they chose for which task. “Task-specific models are often much smaller and more efficient and just as good at any context-specific task” Luccioni explained. https://tripscan.biz tripskan If you are a software engineer who solves complex coding problems every day an AI model suited for coding may be necessary. But for the average high school student who wants help with homework relying on powerful AI tools is like using a nuclear-powered digital calculator. Even within the same AI company different model offerings can vary in their reasoning power so research what capabilities best suit your needs Dauner said. When possible Luccioni recommends going back to basic sources — online encyclopedias and phone calculators — to accomplish simple tasks. Why it’s hard to measure AI’s environmental impact Putting a number on the environmental impact of AI has proved challenging. The study noted that energy consumption can vary based on the user’s proximity to local energy grids and the hardware used to run AI models. That’s partly why the researchers chose to represent carbon emissions within a range Dauner said. Furthermore many AI companies don’t share information about their energy consumption — or details like server size or optimization techniques that could help researchers estimate energy consumption said Shaolei Ren an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California Riverside who studies AI’s water consumption. “You can’t really say AI consumes this much energy or water on average — that’s just not meaningful. We need to look at each individual model and then examine what it uses for each task” Ren said. One way AI companies could be more transparent is by disclosing the amount of carbon emissions associated with each prompt Dauner suggested.
“Generally if people were more informed about the average трипскан вход environmental cost of generating a response people would maybe start thinking ‘Is it really necessary to turn myself into an action figure just because I’m bored?’ Or ‘do I have to tell ChatGPT jokes because I have nothing to do?’” Dauner said. Additionally as more companies push to add generative AI tools to their systems people may not have much choice how or when they use the technology Luccioni said. “We don’t need generative AI in web search. Nobody asked for AI chatbots in messaging apps or on social media” Luccioni said. “This race to stuff them into every single existing technology is truly infuriating since it comes with real consequences to our planet.” https://tripscan.biz трипскан сайт With less available information about AI’s resource usage consumers have less choice Ren said adding that regulatory pressures for more transparency are unlikely to the United States anytime soon. Instead the best hope for more energy-efficient AI may lie in the cost efficacy of using less energy. “Overall I’m still positive about the future. There are many software engineers working hard to improve resource efficiency” Ren said. “Other industries consume a lot of energy too but it’s not a reason to suggest AI’s environmental impact is not a problem. We should definitely pay attention.” Sign up for CNN’s Life But Greener newsletter. Our limited newsletter series guides you on how to minimize your personal role in the climate crisis — and reduce your eco-anxiety.
“It’s true that both plants are not yet operating at the capacity we originally targeted” said the Climeworks spokesperson. tripscan войти “Like all transformative innovations progress is iterative and some steps may take longer than anticipated” they said. The company’s prospective third plant in Louisiana aims to remove 1 million tons of carbon a year by 2030 but it’s uncertain whether construction will proceed under the Trump administration. A Department of Energy spokesperson said a department-wide review was underway “to ensure all activities follow the law comply with applicable court orders and align with the Trump administration’s priorities.” The government has a mandate “to unleash ‘American Energy Dominance’” they added. Direct air capture’s success will also depend on companies’ willingness to buy carbon credits. https://tripscan.biz трипскан вход Currently companies are pretty free to “use the atmosphere as a waste dump” said Holly Buck assistant professor of environment and sustainability at the University at Buffalo. “This lack of regulation means there is not yet a strong business case for cleaning this waste up” she told CNN. Another criticism leveled at Climeworks is its failure to offset its own climate pollution. The carbon produced by its corporate activities such as office space and travel outweighs the carbon removed by its plants. The company says its plants already remove more carbon than they produce and corporate emissions “will become irrelevant as the size of our plants scales up.” Some however believe the challenges Climeworks face tell a broader story about direct air capture. This should be a “wake-up call” said Lili Fuhr director of the fossil economy program at the Center for International Environmental Law. Climeworks’ problems are not “outliers” she told CNN “but reflect persistent technical and economic hurdles faced by the direct air capture industry worldwide.” “The climate crisis demands real action not speculative tech that overpromises and underdelivers.” she added. Some of the Climeworks’ problems are “related to normal first-of-a-kind scaling challenges with emerging complex engineering projects” Buck said. But the technology has a steep path to becoming cheaper and more efficient especially with US slashing funding for climate policies she added. “This kind of policy instability and backtracking on contracts will be terrible for a range of technologies and innovations not just direct air capture.” Direct air capture is definitely feasible but its hard said MIT’s Buck. Whether it succeeds will depend on a slew of factors including technological improvements and creating markets for carbon removals he said. “At this point in time no one really knows how large a role direct air capture will play in the future.”
Many left-wing preppers also have guns. трипскан вход Killjoy is open about the fact she owns firearms but calls it one of the least important aspects of her prepping. She lives in rural Appalachia and as a transgender woman says the way she’s treated has changed dramatically since Trump’s first election. For those on the left guns are “for community and self-defense” she said. Left-wing preppers consistently say the biggest difference between them and their right-wing peers is the rejection of “bunker mentality” — the idea of filling a bunker with beans rice guns and ammo and expecting to be able to survive the apocalypse alone. Shonkwiler gives an example of a right-wing guy with a rifle on his back who falls down the stairs and breaks a leg. If he doesn’t have medical training and a community to help “he’s going to die before he gets to enjoy all his freeze-dried food.” “People are our greatest asset” Killjoy said. When Hurricane Helene carved a path of destruction through Asheville North Carolina in 2024 Killjoy who used to live in the city loaded her truck with food and generators and drove there to help. https://tripscan.biz трипскан Inshirah Overton also subscribes to the idea of community. The attorney who came to prepping after enduring Hurricane Irene in 2011 owns a half-acre plot of land in New Jersey where she grows food and has beehives. She stores fruit vegetables and honey but also gives them to friends and neighbors. “My plan is to create a community of people who have a vested interest in this garden” she said. At one point Overton toyed with the idea of buying a “bug-out” property in Vermont somewhere to escape to but desire for community for her and her two daughters stopped her. In Vermont “no one knows me and I’m just a random Black lady and they’ll be like: ‘Oh OK right sure. You live here? Sure. Here’s the barrel of my shotgun. Turn around.’” This focus on community may stem in part from left-wing preppers’ growing fears around the climate crisis predicted to usher in far-reaching ecological social and economic breakdown. It cannot be escaped by retreating to a bunker for a few weeks. As Trump guts weather agencies pledges to unwind the Federal Emergency Management Administration and slashes climate funding — all while promising to unleash the fossil fuel industry — climate concerns are only coming into sharper focus. They’re top of mind for Brekke Wagoner the creator and host of the Sustainable Prepping YouTube channel who lives in North Carolina with her four children. She fears increasingly deadly summer heat and the “once-in-a-lifetime” storms that keep coming. Climate change “is just undeniable” she said. Her prepping journey started during Trump’s first term. She was living in California and filled with fear that in the event of a big natural disaster the federal government would simply not be there. Her house now contains a week’s worth of water long-term food supplies flashlights backup batteries and a solar generator. “My goal is for our family to have all of our needs cared for” she said so in an emergency whatever help is available can go to others. “You can have a preparedness plan that doesn’t involve a bunker and giving up on civilization” she said.
Despite prepping’s reputation as a form of doomerism many left-wing preppers say they are not devoid of hope. трип скан Shonkwiler believes there will be an opportunity to create something new in the aftermath of a crisis. “It begins with preparedness and it ends with a better world” he said. Some also say there’s less tension between left- and right-wing preppers than people might expect. Bounds the sociology professor said very conservative preppers she met during her research contacted her during the Covid-19 pandemic to offer help. https://tripscan.biz tripskan There is a natural human solidarity that emerges amid disaster Killjoy said. She recalls a cashier giving her a deep discount on supplies she was buying to take to Asheville post-Helene. “I have every reason to believe that that man is right-wing and I do think that there is a transcending of political differences that happens in times of crisis” she said. As terrifying events pile up from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to deadly extreme weather it’s hard to escape the sense we live in a time of rolling existential crises — often a hair’s breadth from global disaster. People are increasingly beginning to wonder whether their views on preppers have been misconceived Mills said. “There is a bigger question floating in the air which is: Are preppers crazy or is everyone else?” Killjoy has seen a huge change over the last five years in people’s openness to prepping. Those who used to make fun of her for her “go bag” are now asking for advice. It’s not necessarily the start of a prepping boom she said. “I think it is about more and more people adopting preparedness and prepper things into a normal life.” Evidence already points this way. Americans stockpiled goods in advance of Trump’s tariffs and online sales of contraceptives skyrocketed in the wake of his election amid concerns he would reduce access. Shows like “The Walking Dead” meanwhile have thrust the idea of prepping into popular culture and big box stores now sell prepping equipment and meal kits. People are hungry to learn about preparedness said Shonkwiler. “They have the understanding that the world as we knew it and counted on it is beginning to cease to be. … What we need to be doing now is figuring out how we can survive in the world that we’ve created.”
This company says its technology can help save the world. It’s now cutting 20 of its staff as Trump slashes climate funding трипскан Two huge plants in Iceland operate like giant vacuum cleaners sucking in air and stripping out planet-heating carbon pollution. This much-hyped climate technology is called direct air capture and the company behind these plants Switzerland-based Climeworks is perhaps its most high-profile proponent. But a year after opening a huge new facility Climeworks is straining against strong headwinds. The company announced this month it would lay off around 20 of its workforce blaming economic uncertainties and shifting climate policy priorities. https://trip-scan.top трип скан “We’ve always known this journey would be demanding. Today we find ourselves navigating a challenging time” Climeworks’ CEOs Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher said in a statement. This is particularly true of its US ambitions. A new direct air capture plant planned for Louisiana which received 50 million in funding from the Biden administration hangs in the balance as President Donald Trump slashes climate funding. Climeworks also faces mounting criticism for operating at only a fraction of its maximum capacity and for failing to remove more climate pollution than it emits. The company says these are teething pains inherent in setting up a new industry from scratch and that it has entered a new phase of global scale up. “The overall trajectory will be positive as we continue to define the technology” said a Climeworks spokesperson. For critics however these headwinds are evidence direct air capture is an expensive shiny distraction from effective climate action.
These preppers have ‘go bags’ guns and a fear of global disaster. They’re also left-wing трипскан вход The day after President Donald Trump was elected in 2016 Eric Shonkwiler looked at his hiking bag to figure out what supplies he had. “I began to look at that as a resource for escape should that need to happen” he said. He didn’t have the terminology for it at the time but this backpack was his “bug-out bag” — essential supplies for short-term survival. It marked the start of his journey into prepping. In his Ohio home which he shares with his wife and a Pomeranian dog Rosemary he now has a six-month supply of food and water a couple of firearms and a brood of chickens. “Resources to bridge the gap across a disaster” he said. https://tripscan.biz tripskan Margaret Killjoy’s entry point was a bleak warning in 2016 from a scientist friend who told her climate change was pushing the global food system closer than ever to collapse. Killjoy started collecting food water and generators. She bought a gun and learned how to use it. She started a prepping podcast Live Like the World is Dying and grew a community. Prepping has long been dominated by those on the political right. The classic stereotype albeit not always accurate is of the lone wolf with a basement full of Spam a wall full of guns and a mind full of conspiracy theories. Shonkwiler and Killjoy belong to a much smaller part of the subculture: They are left-wing preppers. This group is also preparing for a doom-filled future and many also have guns but they say their prepping emphasizes community and mutual aid over bunkers and isolationism. In an era of barreling crises — from wars to climate change — some say prepping is becoming increasingly appealing to those on the left. The roots of modern-day prepping in the United States go back to the 1950s when fears of nuclear war reached a fever pitch. The 1970s saw the emergence of the survivalist movement which dwindled in the 1990s as it became increasingly associated with an extreme-right subculture steeped in racist ideology. A third wave followed in the early 2000s when the term “prepper” began to be adopted more widely said Michael Mills a social scientist at Anglia Ruskin University who specializes in survivalism and doomsday prepping cultures. Numbers swelled following big disasters such as 9/11 Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the 2008 financial crisis. A watershed moment for right-wing preppers was the election of Barack Obama in 2008 Mills said. For those on the left it was Trump’s 2016 election. Preppers of all political stripes are usually motivated by a “foggy cloud of fear” rather than a belief in one specific doomsday scenario playing out Mills said. Broad anxieties tend to swirl around the possibility of economic crises pandemics natural disasters war and terrorism. “We’ve hit every one of those” since the start of this century said Anna Maria Bounds a sociology professor at Queens College who has written a book about New York’s prepper subculture. These events have solidified many preppers’ fears that in times of crisis the government would be “overwhelmed under-prepared and unwilling to help” she said.
UK project trials carbon capture at sea to help tackle climate change трипскан вход The world is betting heavily on carbon capture — a term that refers to various techniques to stop carbon pollution from being released during industrial processes or removing existing carbon from the atmosphere to then lock it up permanently. The practice is not free of controversy with some arguing that carbon capture is expensive unproven and can serve as a distraction from actually reducing carbon emissions. But it is a fast-growing reality: there are at least 628 carbon capture and storage projects in the pipeline around the world with a 60 year-on-year increase according to the latest report from the Global CCS Carbon Capture and Storage Institute. The market size was just over 3.5 billion in 2024 but is projected to grow to 14.5 billion by 2032 according to Fortune Business Insights. https://tripscan.biz трипскан вход Perhaps the most ambitious — and the most expensive — type of carbon capture involves removing carbon dioxide CO2 directly from the air although there are just a few such facilities currently in operation worldwide. Some scientists believe that a better option would be to capture carbon from seawater rather than air because the ocean is the planet’s largest carbon sink absorbing 25 of all carbon dioxide emissions. In the UK where the government in 2023 announced up to ?20 billion 26.7 billion in funding to support carbon capture one such project has taken shape near the English Channel. Called SeaCURE it aims to find out if sea carbon capture actually works and if it can be competitive with its air counterpart. “The reason why sea water holds so much carbon is that when you put CO2 into the water 99 of it becomes other forms of dissolved carbon that don’t exchange with the atmosphere” says Paul Halloran a professor of Ocean and Climate Science at the University of Exeter who leads the SeaCURE team. “But it also means it’s very straightforward to take that carbon out of the water.” Pilot plant SeaCURE started building a pilot plant about a year ago at the Weymouth Sea Life Centre on the southern coast of England. Operational for the past few months it is designed to process 3000 liters of seawater per minute and remove an estimated 100 tons of CO2 per year. “We wanted to test the technology in the real environment with real sea water to identify what problems you hit” says Halloran adding that working at a large public aquarium helps because it already has infrastructure to extract seawater and then discharge it back into the ocean. The carbon that is naturally dissolved in the seawater can be easily converted to CO2 by slightly increasing the acidity of the water. To make it come out the water is trickled over a large surface area with air blowing over it. “In that process we can constrict over 90 of the carbon out of that water” Halloran says.
The CO2 that is extracted from the water is run through a purification process that uses activated carbon in the form of charred coconut husks, and is then ready to be stored.
[url=https://tripscan.biz]трипскан вход[/url]
In a scaled up system, it would be fed into geological CO2 storage. Before the water is released, its acidity is restored to normal levels, making it ready to absorb more carbon dioxide from the air.
“This discharged water that now has very low carbon concentrations needs to refill it, so it’s just trying to suck CO2 from anywhere, and it sucks it from the atmosphere,” says Halloran. “A simple analogy is that we’re squeezing out a sponge and putting it back.”
While more tests are needed to understand the full potential of the technology, Halloran admits that it doesn’t “blow direct air capture out the water in terms of the energy costs,” and there are other challenges such as having to remove impurities from the water before releasing it, as well as the potential impact on ecosystems. But, he adds, all carbon capture technologies incur high costs in building plants and infrastructure, and using seawater has one clear advantage: It has a much higher concentration of carbon than air does, “so you should be able to really reduce the capital costs involved in building the plants.”
https://tripscan.biz
трипскан
Mitigating impacts
One major concern with any system that captures carbon from seawater is the impact of the discharged water on marine ecosystems. Guy Hooper, a PhD researcher at the University of Exeter, who’s working on this issue at the SeaCURE site, says that low-carbon seawater is released in such small quantities that it is unlikely to have any effect on the marine environment, because it dilutes extremely quickly.
However, that doesn’t mean that SeaCURE is automatically safe. “To understand how a scaled-up version of SeaCURE might affect the marine environment, we have been conducting experiments to measure how marine organisms respond to low-carbon seawater,” he adds. “Initial results suggest that some marine organisms, such as plankton and mussels, may be affected when exposed to low-carbon seawater.”
To mitigate potential impacts, the seawater can be “pre-diluted” before releasing it into the marine environment, but Hooper warns that a SeaCURE system should not be deployed near any sensitive marine habitats.
There is rising interest in carbon capture from seawater — also known as Direct Ocean Capture or DOC — and several startups are operating in the field. Among them is Captura, a spin off from the California Institute of Technology that is working on a pilot project in Hawaii, and Amsterdam-based Brineworks, which says that its method is more cost-effective than air carbon capture.
According to Stuart Haszeldine, a professor of Carbon Capture and Storage at the University of Edinburgh, who’s not involved with SeaCURE, although the initiative appears to be more energy efficient than current air capture pilot tests, a full-scale system will require a supply of renewable energy and permanent storage of CO2 by compressing it to become a liquid and then injecting it into porous rocks deep underground.
He says the next challenge is for SeaCURE to scale up and “to operate for longer to prove it can capture millions of tons of CO2 each year.”
But he believes there is huge potential in recapturing carbon from ocean water. “Total carbon in seawater is about 50 times that in the atmosphere, and carbon can be resident in seawater for tens of thousands of years, causing acidification which damages the plankton and coral reef ecosystems. Removing carbon from the ocean is a giant task, but essential if the consequences of climate change are to be controlled,” he says.