Monthly Archives: May 2022

The coronavirus pandemic has shown how critical the internet can be during a disaster especially to those who dont have access to it.

Early on, when it became clear that the virus is spread through in-person contact, many institutions were able to keep operating by shifting their activity online. But not all Americans could join that digital migration.

This story is part of our series "Climate Driven: A deep dive into Maine's response, one county at a time."

In Maine alone, some 15% of households still dont have access to high-speed broadband. So while doctors increasingly saw their patients over video, that was less possible for patients without a computer or smartphone with a reliable connection. Or when schools shifted to remote classes, some families had to drive to the nearest public Wi-Fi hotspots.

It creates huge challenges, says Deb Rountree, who leads the Katahdin Higher Education Center, a remote learning facility in East Millinocket. We literally during the pandemic had people come and sit outside in the parking lot, to use our Wi-Fi to connect to school, or to have their kids connect to the school.

Now, those lessons are shaping how Maine officials are responding to another, even larger threat: global warming.

Just as the pandemic showed that many people could work from home on the internet, it also had an effect on the planet. Vehicle travel, which normally produces 54% of Maines greenhouse gas emissions, fell by a third during the early part of the public health crisis, according to state transportation data.

Based in part on that experience, the comprehensive Maine Won't Wait climate action plan developed by the Mills administration includes a goal of extending high-speed broadband to 99% of Maine homes by 2030, up from the roughly 85% that now have it.

Administration officials say that Mainers would be less likely to use their gas guzzlers if they have an internet setup allowing them to work, study, receive health care or do other tasks from home.

But the evidence is mixed on whether expanding broadband would, by itself, lead to less driving or lower emissions.

While driving dropped sharply at the outset of the pandemic, Maine and national data show that it mostly rebounded by the second half of 2020, as health restrictions were lifted and the economy reopened. Theyve hovered around pre-pandemic levels since then, despite the fact that many Americans continue to do some work from home.

And while research on remote work has suggested that it could reduce the amount of driving that workers do, it could also increase vehicle use for workers who move further from their office to more car-dependent rural areas, and increase other forms of energy usage such as the heating required in home offices.

Even so, a variety of groups and institutions believe that broadband has a role in reducing Maines vehicle emissions, especially when paired with other transportation initiatives.

Intuitively, if youre working from home three or four days a week and planning trips so youre not really going outside your town, I would think there would be some sort of drop in vehicle miles traveled, says Joyce Taylor, chief engineer at the Maine Department of Transportation, who helps lead the transportation portion of the states climate initiatives.

While vehicle travel has rebounded over the last two years, Taylor says its hard to draw broad conclusions from that data because of the unusual circumstances of the pandemic. People may have driven more because public transit and ridesharing no longer seemed safe, or they sought outdoor recreational opportunities further from their homes or they had no other option because their towns dont have reliable broadband.

There are plenty of Mainers who could fall into that last category: the Mills administration estimates 78,000 locations around Maine dont have access to high-speed broadband, according to the Bangor Daily News. High-speed is classified as download speeds of 50 megabits per second and uploads of 10 megabits per second.

Many of those gaps are in sparsely populated communities throughout Maine's wooded interior or along the Down East coast communities that are now hoping to tap a pool of up to $500 million in state and federal dollars that have been reserved for broadband expansion projects in Maine.

One example of those efforts is happening in Dover-Foxcroft. Chris Maas, a retired technology consultant who sits on the town's climate action advisory committee, is trying to rally a coalition of towns in Piscataquis, Somerset and Penobscot counties to seek funding to extend high-speed broadband service.

Maas hopes that expansion would help reduce miles driven, provide more access to online learning and health care and enhance the regions appeal to potential new residents and employers.

Maas, who is active with a number of organizations, estimates his own driving fell from 15,000 miles a year before the pandemic to 12,000 miles today. He says that videoconferences have replaced many of the meetings in Bangor for which he previously might have driven 500 miles a week at a cost he estimates at about $60 in gasoline today.

Thats $60 dollars worth of gasoline that Im not spewing the CO2 in the atmosphere, he says. And its less traffic on the roads.

There are plenty of similar anecdotes about online services replacing the need to drive during the pandemic.

At the Katahdin Higher Education Center, Rountree says that the internet, however limited in the region, has been a crucial resource for non-traditional students who can take courses at the University of Maine at Augusta and Eastern Maine Community College without commuting to Bangor. She thinks there will continue to be strong demand for studying from home now that its been proven to work during the pandemic especially as gas prices soar.

Health care providers have also greatly expanded their online presence during the pandemic, deploying videoconferencing to see their patients from afar. The number of monthly telehealth visits by Northern Light Health, a Brewer-based network of 10 hospitals, exploded from 1,538 in January 2020 to 22,010 the following January.

Everyone knows about telehealth visits now, says Luke Knowlton, a primary care provider at Northern Light CA Dean Hospital in Greenville, who uses Zoom to see patients at their homes or workplaces, or after theyve traveled to clinics in Sangerville or Monson.

One patient got a checkup last summer from the inside of an excavator he was operating at a distant construction site. The most important thing was that he got good care, Knowlton says. But an ancillary benefit was he didnt need to use any gas and spend his money and take time off from work.

Ultimately, its hard to predict whether the online shift that started during the pandemic will make a dent in the states fossil fuel consumption, or whether Mainers will simply find new ways to burn the energy.

Jonathan Rubin, an economist who researches transportation at the University of Maine, says remote work could eventually help keep driving down, but only if its supported by other policies that help people leave their cars at home. He also thinks that the high gas prices of late could make Mainers more reluctant to drive.

Telecommuting can reduce emissions if done well, Rubin says. If a teleworker who used to drive to a central location stays at home, walks to the grocery store, walks to the neighborhood for some exercise, that all saves energy. But if they move further from their central location, or they start driving further to go to a grocery store because its no longer convenient on the way home for work, then its more.

In addition to expanding broadband, Maines climate action plan also seeks to improve the ability of residents to get around by foot, bike or public transit, and encourage more densely developed communities in which homes are near shopping and other amenities. The Mills administration is also trying to reduce emissions by promoting electric vehicles and renewable energy sources.

Nick Battista, who chairs the ConnectMaine Authority, a state office that works to spread broadband, sees some other ways in which that expansion could help the state fight climate change. He said that high-speed internet could help Mainers use web-enabled programs to more efficiently heat their homes, for example, or to seek out rebates for buying electric vehicles or weatherizing their homes.

Additionally, Battista, who also serves as policy director of the Rockland-based Island Institute, says that expanding broadband could help rebuild trust in government programs among rural communities left behind by the digital revolution" of the early 2000s. With slow or nonexistent internet connections, those communities particularly struggled when kids had to switch to online learning during the pandemic.

They have experienced firsthand the failure of our government to meet our needs, Battista says. We can't solve climate change without taking care of some of those basic services.

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Taking a lesson from the pandemic, Maine hopes more broadband will reduce vehicle travel - Maine Public

Like Earth, planetary bodies such as the Moon, Mars, asteroids, and comets contain substantial deposits of valuable resources. This has caught the attention of both researchers and industry, with hopes of one day mining them to support a space economy.

But setting up any kind of off-Earth mining industry will be no small feat. Lets look at what were up against.

When you think of off-Earth mining, you might imagine extracting materials from various bodies in space and bringing them back to Earth. But this is unlikely to be the first commercially viable example.

If we wanted to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon, as NASA has proposed, we would need to resupply astronauts living there. Resources such as water can only be recycled to an extent.

At the same time, resources are extremely expensive to launch from Earth. As of 2018, it cost about A$3,645 to launch one kilogram of material into low Earth orbit, and more to launch it higher, or onto the Moon. Its likely materials mined in space will be used in space, to help save on these costs.

Harvesting materials required on-site is called in-situ resource utilization. It can involve anything from mining ice to collecting soil to build structures. NASA is currently exploring the possibility of constructing buildings on the Moon with 3D printing.

Mining in space could also transform satellite management. Current practice is to de-orbit satellites after 1020 years when they run out of fuel. One lofty goal of space companies such as Orbit Fab is to design a type of satellite that can be refueled using propellant collected in space.

Even for low-Earth orbit satellites, the energy required to reach them from the Moon is less than that needed to reach them from Earth.

When it comes to off-Earth mining opportunities, there are a few resources that are both abundant and valuable. Some asteroids contain vast amounts of iron, nickel, gold, and platinum group metals, which can be used for construction and electronics.

Lunar regolith (rock and soil) contains helium-3, which may become a valuable resource in the future if nuclear fusion becomes viable and widespread. British company Metalysis has developed a process that could extract oxygen from lunar regolith.

Ice is expected to exist on the Moons surface, at permanently shadowed craters near its poles. We also think theres ice beneath the surface of Mars, asteroids, and comets. This could be used to support life, or be broken down into oxygen and hydrogen and used as propellant.

My (Michaels) Ph.D. thesis involved testing how exploration techniques would operate on the Moon and Mars. Our other work has included economic modeling for ice mining on Marsand computer modeling on the stability of tunnels on the Moon.

Some proposals for off-Earth mining are similar to mining on Earth. For instance, we could mine lunar regolith with a bucket-wheel excavator, or mine an asteroid using a tunnel boring machine.

Other proposals are more unfamiliar such as using a vacuum-like machine to pull regolith up a tube (which has seen limited use in excavation on Earth).

Researchers from the University of New South Wales Sydney and the Australian National University propose using biomining. In this, bacteria introduced to an asteroid would consume certain minerals and produces a gas, which could then be harvested and collected by a probe.

Our work at UNSWs Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research involves finding ways to reduce risks in a space resources industry. Needless to say, there are many technical and economical challenges.

The same launch costs that have so many eager to begin off-Earth mining also mean getting mining equipment to space is expensive. Mining operations will have to be as light as possible to be cost-effective (or even feasible).

Moreover, the further something is from Earth, the longer it takes to reach. There is delay of up to 40 minutes when sending a command to a Mars rover and finding out whether it was successful.

The Moon only has a 2.7 second delay for communications and may be easier to mine remotely. Near-Earth objects also have orbits similar to Earth, and occasionally pass by Earth at distances comparable to the Moon. Theyre an ideal candidate to mine as they require little energy to reach and return from.

Off-Earth mining would need to be mostly automated, or remotely controlled, given the additional challenges of sending humans to space such as needing life support, avoiding radiation, and extra launch costs.

However, even mining systems on Earth arent fully automated yet. Robotics will need to improve before asteroids can be mined.

While spacecraft have landed on asteroids several times and even retrieved samples which were returned to Woomera in South Australia, during the Hayabusa 1 and 2 missions our overall success rate for landing on asteroids and comets is low.

In 2014, the Philae lander sent to comet 67P/Churyumov/Gerasimenko famously tumbled into a ditch during a failed landing attempt.

There are also environmental considerations. Mining in space may help reduce the amount of mining needed on Earth. But thats if off-Earth mining results in fewer, and not more, rocket launches, or if the resources are returned to and used on Earth.

Although collecting resources in space might mean not having to launch them from Earth, more launches may inevitably take place as the space economy grows.

Then theres the question of whether proposed mining techniques will even work in space environments. Different planetary bodies have different atmospheres (or none), gravity, geology, and electrostatic environments (for example, they may have electrically charged soil due to particles from the Sun).

How these conditions will affect off-Earth operations is still largely unknown.

While its still early days, a number of companies are currently developing technologies for off-Earth mining, space resource exploration, and for other uses in space.

The Canadian Space Mining Corporation is developing the infrastructure required to support life in space, including oxygen generators and other machinery.

US-based company OffWorld is developing industrial robots for operations on Earth, the Moon, asteroids, and Mars. And the Asteroid Mining Corporation is also working to establish a market for space resources.

Article by Michael Dello-Iacovo, Casual academic, UNSW Sydney and Serkan Saydam, Off Earth Mining, Future Mining, Mining Systems, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Originally posted here:

Humans have big plans for space mining, but its not gonna be easy - The Next Web

The World Packaging Organisation (WPO) has launched Waste Stream Mapping Guides for 21 countries as part of its Global Packaging Design for Recycling Guide programme.

Each Waste Stream Mapping Guide includes a simple table with entries for different materials: composite beverage cartons, paper, aluminium, tin plate, glass, and plastic. The plastic category is further divided into specific polymers, accounting for rigid and flexible PS, PVC, PE, PP, and PET.

Each Guide includes a colour-coded system for understanding the collection flows of these different packaging types. For example, when a collection flow is available, the table will include a green box with a tick to indicate there is area-wide collection with over 50% of the material retrieved.

In the case that there is limited collection flow available, this will be shown by a yellow box and wave symbol, suggesting that the material is collected in some regions or municipalities, but the total amount is around 10% to 50%. For packaging types where there is no collection stream available or the collected waste amount for the material is less than 10%, the box will be red with a cross inside.

The WPO developed the Guides in partnership with FH Campus Wein University of Applied Sciences, Austria, Circular Analytics, and ECR Community. The countries that now have dedicated guides, available on the WPO website, are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the US.

Nerida Kelton, vice president for sustainability & save food at the WPO, comments: In order to be able to apply recyclable packaging design, a certain fundamental knowledge of sorting and recycling processes is necessary. Packaging must, therefore, be suitable for state-of-the-art sorting and recycling processes in addition to its basic functions (e.g., storage, transport, product protection, product presentation and convenience).

The Waste Stream Mapping Guides are essential global decision-making tools that will enable anyone to access current information on technically recyclable packaging across the world. They will help those involved in the development of packaging to not only plan in accordance with regional technical recyclability, but to also improve the design at the start to meet the regional requirements, or limitations, for collection, sorting, recovery and recyclability.

Using these tools at the start of an NPD process will also bring significant opportunities to eliminate non-recyclable packaging before it is placed on the market.

The Waste Stream Mapping Guides also come with a How to Use Guide for the Global Packaging Design for Recycling Guide so that they can be used hand-in-hand when packaging is being designed.

These guides will also be extremely useful to assist companies who are exporting their products and are unsure as to what is technically recyclable, conditionally recyclable or non-recyclable in the country in which the product will be sold. This information will help them to meet the packaging design parameters for that country to ensure recyclability.

Launched at Ipack IMA 2022 earlier this month, the WPOs Waste Stream Mapping Guides are the second stage of the Global Packaging Design for Recycling Guide programme. The Packaging Design for Recycling Guide aims to provide sustainable design recommendations that facilitate a circular economy and reduce the ecological impact of packaging.

The general recommendations of the WPOs design Guide are prioritising packaging that can be reused but that is also designed for recycling, with a reduction in the use of packaging materials preferable where possible without impacting product protection. Within the definition of designing for recycling, the WPO says that packaging should be designed for optimal residual emptying and in such a way that, in the event of necessary separation of individual packaging components, the participation of the final consumer is not necessary for the disposal.

The WPO also highlights the importance of using recycled content and mono-materials, as well as EuPIA-compliant inks and coatings, adhesives that do not interfere with the recycling process, and closures that remain attached to the packaging to avoid the creation of small parts. Additionally, the organisation recommends laser engraving best-before dates and batch numbers, as well as avoiding carbon black as it can interfere with near-infrared (NIR) sorting processes.

For plastics, in particular, the WPO emphasises the use of widely available materials like PP, PE, and PET, preferably transparent with adhesives that are recyclable or washable and as few additives (especially those that change density) as possible. The group recommends that the surface area of the base material should be covered only to a maximum of 50% by sleeves, labels, or banderols.

For paper and carton, the WPO says that fibres from coniferous and deciduous trees should be prioritised when designing packaging. The 4evergreen Alliances recently-released Circularity by Design guide proposes that the paper content of packaging should be at least 50% for it to qualify as fibre-based.

If a plastic laminate or coating is required on paper or carton packaging, the WPO adds that this should only be included on one side, and that wax coatings should be avoided completely. The organisation also does not recommend integrated windows that cannot easily be separated for recycling, such as plastic windows used for letters, which research from DS Smithfound is one of the major contributors to recycling stream disruptions.

Meanwhile, the WPO recommends using standard colouring (green, brown, or white/transparent shades) and regular three-component glass for glass packaging. The organisation notes that it does not recommend ceramic parts, full-surface sleeves, or large-area plastic labels; instead, decoration should preferably be achieved with engraving or wet-strength paper labels.

Ernst Krottendorfer, co-managing partner of Circular Analytics, who was one of the key developers of the Global Packaging Design for Recycling Guide and the Waste Stream Mapping Tools, explains: Design for recycling is part of a circular product design and represents an important basis for holistic sustainability assessment.

Accordingly, circularity means that the packaging is designed in such a way that the highest possible recycling of the materials in use can be achieved. The goals here are resource conservation, the longest possible service life, material-identical recycling (closed-loop recycling) or the use of renewable materials.

Circular Design is only effective when the relevant collection, sorting and recycling streams exist. From the mapping of the Waste Streams we can better determine technically recyclable packaging types in countries across the world.

The WPO project team is currently working on the next round of country-specific Waste Stream Mapping Guides, which will be made available later this year.

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Individual waste stream maps for 21 countries unveiled by the World Packaging Organisation - Packaging Europe