Monthly Archives: May 2022

Study area

Harbin is located in the centre of Northeast Asia, between 4404'46 40 N and 125 42130 10 E24,26. The site has a mid-temperate continental monsoon climate, with an average annual temperature of 3.6 C and an average annual precipitation is 569.1mm. The main precipitation months being from June to September, accounting for about 60% of the annual precipitation, the main snow months are from November to January24,25. The overall topography is high in the east and low in the west, with mountains and hills predominating in the east and plains predominating in the west27. In this study, we identified the central district of Harbin, where urban construction activities are frequent and the population is dense, as the study area. According to the Harbin City Urban Master Plan (20112020) (revised draft in 2017), the specific scope includes Daoli District, Daowai District, Nangang District, Xiangfang District, Pingfang District, Songbei District's administrative district, Hulan District, and Acheng District part of the area, with a total area of 4187km2 (Fig.2). The bluegreen space in this study included woodland, grassland, cultivated land, wetland and water that permeate inside and outside the construction sites. They all have integrated functions such as ecology, supply, beautification, culture, and disaster prevention and avoidance, and have a decisive influence on the urban ecological environment.

Schematic of study area. The Figure is created using ArcGIS ver.10.2 (https://www.esri.com/).

The data used in this research included the following: land-cover date (30m30m) of two periods (2011, 2020) spported by the China Geographic National Conditions Data Cloud Platform (http://www.dsac.cn/), Meteorological datasets (1 km1 km) were obtained from the Resource and Environmental Science Data Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (http:www.resdc.cn/), including air temperature, precipitation, and surface runoff. ASTER GDFM elevation data (30 m30 m) came from the Geospatial Data Cloud (http:www.gscloud.cn), from which the slope was extracted. Soil data (1km1km) were from the World Soil Database (HWSD) China Soil Data Set (v1.1). The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and modified normalized difference water index (MNDWI) data (30m30m) came from the National Comprehensive Earth Observation Data Sharing Platform (http://www.chinageoss.org/), ET datasets (30m30m) were drawn from the NASA-USGS (https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/). Social and economic data were mainly obtained through the Harbin statistical yearbook and the Harbin social and economic bulletin.

Urban bluegreen space is a politically defined man-land coupling region composed of ecological, economic, and social systems, which is greatly disturbed by human activities11. The essence of urban bluegreen space LEH is that the landscape ecological function sustainably meets human needs28,29. The landscape ecological function reflects the value orientation of human beings to bluegreen space, and to a large extent affects the bluegreen landscape ecological pattern and process. The interaction between the bluegreen landscape ecological pattern and process drives the overall dynamics of bluegreen space. Meanwhile, presenting certain landscape ecological function characteristics, which provide ecological support for various human activities30,31,32. While the pattern and process of bluegreen space both profoundly influence and are influenced by human activities33,34. This influence is long-term, the standard of LEH should not be fixed in real-time health, but should fully consider the sustainability of the health state.

In summary, the landscape ecological pattern, process, function, and sustainability are not separate, but a complex of mutual integration, and organic unity. In this study, we constructed an integrated assessment framework of bluegreen space LEH that included four units: pattern, process, service, and sustainability (Fig.3). In the assessment framework, the LEH of urban bluegreen space involves two dimensions: the first is the health status of the urban bluegreen space itself, emphasizing the maintenance of the ecological conditions, thereby potentially satisfying a series of diversity goals. The other is that urban bluegreen space, as a part of social and economic development, could sustainably provide the ability to meet (subject) needs and goals.

Key units, interactions of urban bluegreen space LEH.

The landscape ecological pattern of urban bluegreen space is a spatial mosaic combination of landscape elements at different levels or the same level. Affected by human activities interference31, the landscape ecological pattern shows the changing trend of landscape structure complexity, landscape type diversification, and landscape fragmentation. The assessment of urban landscape ecological pattern should be a comprehensive reflection of this changing trend1. Landscape pattern indexes are the most frequently applied which could reflect the structural composition and spatial configuration characteristics of the landscape4,35. This study took landscape ecology as the entry point and selected the landscape pattern indexes that can quantitatively reflect the change characteristics of landscape structural composition and spatial configuration under the disturbance. In this way, the landscape disturbance index (U), landscape connectivity index (CON), and landscape adaptability index (LAI) were used as the indexes for the assessment of landscape ecological pattern health.

Landscape disturbance index (U)

There are two kinds of relationships between the landscape ecological pattern and the external disturbance: compatibility and conflict. As the landscape ecological pattern has accommodating characteristics, the disturbance beyond the accommodating capacity will degrade the landscape ecological pattern36,37. The landscape disturbance index (U) could characterize the degree of fragmentation, dispersion, and morphological changes in landscape pattern38. The index is a comprehensive index that can reflect the health of the landscape pattern by quantifying the ability of ecosystems to accommodate external disturbances. It consists of the landscape fragmentation index, the inverse of the fractional dimension, and the dominance index. They measure the response of the landscape pattern to external disturbance from the perspective of different landscape types, the same landscape type, and landscape diversity, respectively36,38, and their weights were determined by the entropy weight method. The formula is as follows:

$$ U = alpha N_{{{Fi}}} + bD_{{{Fi}}} + cD_{{{Oi}}} $$

(1)

where NFi is the landscape fragmentation index, DFi is the inverse of the fractional dimension, DOi is the dominance index, and a, b, and c are the corresponding weights, which were 0.20, 0.5, and 0.3 in this study, respectively.

Landscape connectivity index (CON)

The most direct result of landscape ecological pattern degradation caused by external disturbance is that the flow of energy, material, and information among ecological patches is reduced or even blocked, ultimately the stability of the landscape pattern is decreased. The connectivity could characterize the ability of landscape ecological pattern to mitigate risk transmission, which is significant for the dynamic stability of landscape ecological pattern39,40. The landscape connectivity index (CON) could measure the connectivity between ecosystem components through the aggregation or dispersion trend of patches41. The better the connectivity, the stronger the stability of landscape ecological pattern. The formula is as follows:

$$ CON = frac{{100sumlimits_{s = 1}^{q} {sumlimits_{h ne l}^{p} {C_{{{shl}}} } } }}{{sumlimits_{s = 1}^{s} {left[ {q_{{s}} (q_{{s}} - 1)/2} right]} }} $$

(2)

where qs is the number of plaques of patch type s, Cshl is the link between patch h and patch l in s within the delimited distance.

Landscape Restorability Index (LRI)

The ability to recover to its original structure when subjected to disturbances is an important criterion for the landscape ecological pattern42. Research confirmed that the restorability of the landscape ecological pattern is closely related to the structure, function, diversity, and uniformity of distribution. The landscape restorability index (LRI) combines the above landscape information and could indicate the restorability of the landscape ecological pattern in response to disturbance43. The index consists of the patch density, Shannon diversity index, and the landscape evenness, the patch density is the number of patches per square kilometer. The Shannon diversity index reflects the change in the proportion of landscape types. The landscape evenness index shows the distribution evenness of patches in terms of area. The larger the LRI index, the more complex and evenly distributed the structure is, and the more recovery ability of the landscape pattern against disturbance is. The formula is as follows:

$$ LRI = PD times SHDI times SHEI $$

(3)

where PD is the patch density, SHDI is the Shannon diversity index, and SHEI is the landscape evenness index.

The landscape ecological process of urban bluegreen space is extremely complex for it involves multiple factors such as natural ecology, economy, and culture. Landscape ecological process assessment is the measure of the self-organized capacity and the efficiency of ecological processes within and among patches44. A bluegreen space with a healthy landscape ecological process should have the ability to adapt to conventional land use under human management and maintain physiological integrity while maintaining the balance of ecological components. Specifically, the landscape ecological process could quickly restore its balance after severe disturbances, with strong organization, suitability, recoverability, and low sensitivity45,46. A single model hardly to gets good research on landscape ecological process under the urban scale. The comprehensive application of multidisciplinary methods is effective means to solve the problem. Regarding this, we selected ecological indexes and models from four aspects: organization, suitability, restoration, and sensitivity to assess the landscape ecological process of urban bluegreen space.

Organization index (O)

The organization of the landscape ecological process is the maintenance ability of stable and orderly material cycling and energy flow within and between landscapes47. The normalized vegetation index (NDVI) and the modified normalized difference water index (MNDWI) could reflect the efficiency and order of ecological processes. Such as accumulation of organic matter, fixation of solar energy, nutrient cycling, regeneration, and metabolism13. The indexes are the external performance of the internal dynamics and organizational capabilities of the ecological process. In recent years, it has been widely used in the assessment of related to landscape ecological process. The formulas are as follows:

$$ NDVI = frac{NIR - R}{{NIR + R}} $$

$$ MNDWI = frac{p(green) - p(MIR)}{{p(green) + p(MIR)}} $$

(4)

where (NDVI) is the normalized vegetation index, (MNDWI) is the modified water body index, (NIR) is the reflectance value in the near-infrared band, (R) is the reflectance value in the visible channel, (p(green)) and (p(MIR)) are the normalized values in the green and mid-infrared bands.

Suitability index (Q)

The suitability of the landscape ecological process is a measurement of the self-regulating ability of the landscape ecosystem. That is, to effectively maintain the ecological process in a state of being protected from disturbance during the occasional changes caused by the external environment2. The water conservation amount index (Q) can measure the operating capacity of ecosystems to maintain ecological balance, water conservation, climate regulation, and other ecological processes by integrating the water balance of rainfall, surface runoff, and evaporation41. It could reflect the suitability of landscape ecological process to regional environment and developmental conditions. The formula is as follows:

where Q is the water conservation amount, R is the annual rainfall, J is the surface runoff, ET is the evapotranspiration.

Recoverability index (ECO)

The recoverability of the landscape ecological process refers to the ability of an ecosystem to return to its original operating state after being subjected to external impacts. Land-use types play an essential role in landscape ecological recoverability48. The ecological recoverability index (ECO) uses the resilience coefficients of land-use types to reflect the level of ecosystem resilience38. Based on previous studies, the resilience coefficient of land-use types was assigned (Table 1).

Sensitivity index(A)

The sensitivity index (A) could be used to indicate landscape ecological process formation, change, and vulnerability to disturbance31. We started from the physical effects of bluegreen space on sand production, water confluence, and sediment transport, introduced the Soil Erosion Modulus to characterize the sensitivity of landscape ecological processes to disturbance. The index effectively combines landscape ecology, erosion mechanics, soil science, and sediment dynamics49. The formula is as follows:

$$ begin{gathered} A = R_{{i}} cdot K cdot LS cdot C cdot P hfill \ L = (l/22.1)^{m} hfill \ S = left{ begin{gathered} 10.8sin theta + 0.03,theta < 5^{ circ } hfill \ 16.8sin theta - 0.50,5^{ circ } le theta < 10^{ circ } hfill \ 21.9sin theta - 0.96,theta ge 10^{ circ } hfill \ end{gathered} right. hfill \ C = left{ begin{gathered} 1,c = 0 hfill \ 0.6508 - 0.3436lg c,0 < c le 78.3% hfill \ 0,c > 78.3% hfill \ end{gathered} right. hfill \ end{gathered} $$

(6)

where A is the soil erosion modulus. Ri is the rainfall erosion factor, K is the soil erosion factor, L and S are slope the length factor and the slope factor respectively, C is the vegetation coverage and management factor, P is the soil and water conservation factor, l is the slope length value, m is the slope length index, and the is slope value.

The landscape ecological function determines the ability of ecological service50,51,52, the ecological service of urban bluegreen space depends on the human value orientation48. It includes four categories: supply, support, regulation, and culture. Based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Alderfers ERG theory, scholars have summarized the three major needs of human beings for urban bluegreen space. Namely, securing the living environment to meet the survival needs, improving social relationships to meet the interaction needs, and cultivating cultural cultivation to meet the development needs53. Specifically corresponding to the landscape ecological function of urban bluegreen space, supply is not the main function, only plays a subsidiary role, support is the basic guarantee, regulation is the basic need for urban environmental construction, and culture is an important element of high-quality social life. Ecosystem service value (ESV) can realize the measurement of ecological service function by calculating the specific value of life support products and services produced by the ecosystem54,55,56. Considering the human value orientation of the urban bluegreen space landscape ecological function, the weights were given by consulting 16 experts, with supply, regulation, support, and culture weights of 0.2, 0.3, 0.3, 0.2, respectively. The formula is as follows:

$$ ESV = sumlimits_{k = 1}^{n} {S_{k} times V_{k}^{{}} } $$

(7)

where Sk is the area of landscape type k, Vk is the value coefficient of the ecosystem service function of landscape type k .

Wu (2013) proposed a research framework for landscape sustainability based on a summary of related studies, stating that landscape ecological sustainability is the ability to provide ecosystem services in a long-term and stable manner34. The framework emphasized that landscape sustainability should focus on the analysis of ecosystem service trade-offs effect34,57. In the process of dynamic change of urban bluegreen space ecosystem, there are complex trade-offs among various ecosystem services. This is important for promoting the optimal overall benefits of various ecosystem services and achieving sustainable development of urban ecology58. In addition, as a special type of human-centered ecosystem developed by humans based on nature, human well-being is also very important for the landscape ecological sustainability of urban bluegreen space. For this reason, we introduced ecosystem service trade-offs (EST) and ecological construction input (IEC) as assessment indexes of landscape ecological sustainability.

Ecosystem service trade-offs (EST)

This study applied the root mean square deviation of ecological services to quantify ecosystem service trade-offs (EST). The index could effectively measure the average difference in standard deviation between individual ecosystem services and the average ecosystem services. It is a simple and effective way to evaluate the trade-offs among ecosystem services. The formula is as follows:

$$ EST = sqrt {frac{1}{n - 1}sumnolimits_{i = 1}^{n} {(ES_{std} - overline{ES}_{std} } } )^{2} $$

(8)

where ESstd is the normalized ecosystem services, n is the number of ecosystem services , and (overline{ES}_{std}) is the mean value of normalized ecosystem services.

Ecological construction input (ECI)

Human well-being is a premise for the landscape ecological sustainability of urban bluegreen spaces, it is closely related to government investment in ecological construction planning34. From the perspective of economics, this study assessed the human well-being obtained by urban bluegreen space with the ratio of urban ecological construction investment to GDP, that is, the ecological construction input (ECI). The formula is as follows:

where EI is the amount of ecological construction investment, and G is the gross regional product.

The index weight determines its relative importance in the index system, and the selection of the weight calculation method in the decision-making of multi-attribute problems has an important impact on the assessment results21. Traditional weighting methods can be divided into two categories, subjective weighting method and objective weighting method21,38. The subjective weighting method is represented by the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), Delphi method, and so on. It has the advantage of simplicity, but the disadvantage is too subjective and randomness because it was completely dependent on the knowledge and experience of decision makers. The objective weighting method is represented by the entropy weighting method (EWM), principal component analysis, variation coefficient method, and so on. And it has been widely recognized for reflecting the variability of assessment results18, but the values of indexes have significant influence and the calculation results are not stable. Considering the limitations of the single weighting method, the weights of each assessment index in this study were determined by the combination of subjective weight and objective weight. Among them, the subjective weighting selected the AHP, and the objective weighting selected the EWM (Table 2). The formula is as follows:

$$ w_{{j}} = alpha w_{{j}}^{{{AHP}}} + (1 - alpha )w_{{j}}^{{{EWM}}} $$

(10)

$$ w_{{j}}^{{{EWM}}} = d_{{j}} /sumlimits_{i = 1}^{m} {d_{{j}} } $$

(11)

$$ d_{{j}} = 1 - e_{{j}} $$

(12)

$$ e_{{j}} = - ksumlimits_{i = 1}^{n} {f_{{{ij}}} ln (f_{{{ij}}} )} ,;k = 1/ln (n) $$

(13)

$$ f_{{{ij}}} = X^{prime}_{{{ij}}} /sumlimits_{i = 1}^{n} {X^{prime}_{{{ij}}} } $$

(14)

where (W_{{j}}^{{}}) is the combined weight. (W_{{j}}^{{_{AHP} }}) is the weight of the j-th index of the AHP, (W_{{j}}^{{{EWM}}}) is the weight of the j-th index of the EWM, dj is the information entropy of the j-th index, ej is the entropy value of the j-th index, (f_{{{ij}}}) is the proportion of the index value of the j-th sample under the i-th indexm, (X^{prime}_{{{ij}}}) is the standardized value of the i-th sample of the j-th index, m is the number of index, n is the number of samples, and (alpha) was taken as 0.5.

Since the dimensions of indexes are different, it is necessary to unify the dimensions of the index to avoid the errors caused by direct calculation to make the evaluation results inaccurate. The range standardization was used to normalize the index data and bound its value in the interval [0, 1], the range standardization can be expressed as follows15,23:

$$ {text{Positive indicator}}left( + right):A_{{{ij}}} = (X_{{{ij}}} - X_{{{jmin}}} )/(X_{{{jmax}}} - X_{{{jmin}}} ) $$

(15)

$$ {text{Negative indicator}}left( - right):A_{{{ij}}} = (X_{{{jmax}}} - X_{ij} )/(X_{{{jmax}}} - X_{{{jmin}}} ) $$

(16)

Additionally, we divided the LEH index into five levels from high to low using an equal-interval approach as follows40: [10.8) healthy, [0.80.6) sub-healthy, [0.60.4) moderately healthy, [0.40.2) unhealthy, [0.20] pathological, corresponding level IV. And the level transfer of LEH in different periods was divided into three types: improvement type, degradation type, and stabilization type. For example, III-II means that the transfer from level III to level II is the improvement type.

Spatial autocorrelation analysis is one of the basic methods in theoretical geography. It could deeply investigate the spatial correlation characteristics of data, including global spatial autocorrelation and local spatial autocorrelation23. The global spatial autocorrelation uses global Morans I to evaluate the degree of their spatial agglomeration or differentiation of an attribute value in the study area. The local spatial autocorrelation is a decomposed form of the global spatial autocorrelation18,21, including four types: HH(High-High), LL(Low-Low), HL(High-Low), LH(LowHigh). In this study, spatial autocorrelation analysis was applied to study the spatial correlation characteristics of bluegreen space LEH. The calculation formulas are as follows:

$$ I = frac{{Nsumlimits_{i} {sumlimits_{v} {W_{iv} (Y_{i} - overline{Y} )(Y_{v} - overline{Y} )} } }}{{(sumlimits_{i} {sumlimits_{v} {W_{iv} } } )sumlimits_{i} {(Y_{i} - overline{Y} )} }} $$

(17)

$$ I_{i} = frac{{Y_{i} - overline{Y} }}{{S_{x}^{2} }}sumlimits_{v} {left[ {W_{iv} (Y_{i} - overline{Y} )} right]} $$

(18)

where N is the number of space units, (W_{iv}) is the spatial weight, (Y_{i} ,Y_{v}) are the variable attribute values of the area (i,v), (overline{Y}) is the variable mean, (S_{x}^{2}) is the variance, (I) is the global Morans I index, and (I_{i}) is the local Morans I index.

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Urban bluegreen space landscape ecological health assessment based on the integration of pattern, process, function and sustainability | Scientific...

Introduction

The number of copper initial resource announcements jumped to 18 in 2021, a seven-year high, from 13 in 2020, although the contained copper fell 2% to 9 million tonnes. The all-time high was 57 announcements in 2012. The higher number of announcements coincided with a 31% increase in initial resource exploration budgets as companies accelerated exploration to take advantage of elevated metals prices and a bullish capital-raising environment.

The recovery in demand for commodities amid the reopening of the global economy as the pandemic recedes pushed copper prices to new highs after they bottomed in early 2020. Lingering supply concerns and a chronic underinvestment in the copper pipeline supported elevated prices and attracted companies, mostly juniors, to explore for copper. With the higher exploration budgets, the number of initial resource announcements for copper increased 38% year over year, although the amount of new copper fell slightly due to a lack of large deposits.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the copper price fell to a low of $4,600 per tonne, or $2.10 per pound, on March 23, 2020, under the impact of public health lockdowns and restrictions. The price recovered quickly due to several factors, however, including the reopening of economies, pandemic-induced supply concerns and underinvestment in the copper-production pipeline. In October 2021, the price was at its highest since 2011, peaking at $11,300/t, or $5.13/lb, as energy issues and supply disruptions affected the market. The Russia-Ukraine conflict added further strain to the market in late February 2022, maintaining the elevated prices.

Initial resource-related exploration almost back to pre-pandemic levels

Grassroots is the exploration stage most likely to result in the announcement of an initial resource, although exploration at mine sites and at projects with existing resources can also result in the discovery of new deposits. Therefore, S&P Global Commodity Insights assumes that companies devote 100% of their grassroots and 25% each of their late-stage and minesite exploration budgets to the discovery of initial resources. Using this methodology, we examined the exploration budgets that led to the announcement of new copper resources over the period, although not all initial resources by majors are collected due to a lack of reporting.

Copper initial resource exploration budgets increased to $1.17 billion year over year in 2021 just 3% lower than the pre-pandemic budget of 2019. The rebound would likely have been higher if not for the modest increase in copper budgets for Latin America due to ongoing pandemic restrictions in many of the region's countries. Latin America accounts for the largest share of copper exploration budgets over the last 10 years at about 40%.

The 31% increase in the copper initial resource budget year over year was also the largest increase in 10 years. The largest-ever copper initial resource budget was $2.36 billion in 2012, which coincided with 57 copper initial resource announcements containing 22.9 Mt of new copper.

Among the company types, juniors had the largest boost in copper budgets in 2021, with a 77% increase compared with a 19% increase by majors. The majors, nevertheless, still had the largest share of copper early-stage budgets at 66%, although it was down almost 7 percentage points from 2020. Junior companies accounted for 26%, up from 20% in 2020. Intermediates posted a 60% jump in grassroots budgets, although their share remained small at 3%.

More announcements, but no breakthrough in 2021

Unlike previous years, there were no very large copper initial resource announcements in 2021. In 2018,Nevsun Resources Ltd.'s LowerTimokdeposit in Serbia accounted for almost 69% of the year's new copper. In 2016,Ivanhoe Mines Ltd.'sKamoa-Kakulain the Democratic Republic of Congo accounted for 86% of the total.

The largest 2021 announcement was from Australia-based, U.K.-listedSolGold PLC'sPorvenirproject in Ecuador, with 1.7 Mt of copper and 2.2 million ounces of gold at the Cacharposa deposit. The resource accounted for 19% of the new copper announced in 2021. SolGold began a 25,000-meter drill program at Porvenir in the first quarter of 2021 and announced the initial resource the following December. In 2018, SolGold announced 5.2 Mt of contained copper for the Alpala deposit at itsCascabelproject, also in Ecuador, the second largest for that year. The company announced another initial resource containing 1.1 Mt of copper in Porvenir's Tandayama deposit in October 2021.

The second-largest copper announcement came fromAnleck Ltd., a U.K.-based private company, for itsMaalinao-Caigutan-Biyog, or MCB, project located in the northern Philippines. A month later, Australian Securities Exchange-listedCelsius Resources Ltd.announced the completion of its acquisition of Anleck, including MCB and other exploration permits, by issuing 100 million shares of its common stock. Anleck announced 1.5 Mt of contained copper and 1.5 Moz of gold in MCB. After the acquisition, Celsius continued exploration and began drill programs and scoping studies.

The Copper World zone ofHudbay Minerals Inc.'sRosemontproject in Arizona was the second largest, with 1.5 Mt of contained copper, announced in December 2021. In September 2021, Hudbay identified seven deposits at Copper World and conducted a 28,000-meter drill program. The company is expected to release a preliminary economic assessment in the first half based on the drill results.

Australia has most announcements, Ecuador has largest new resources

Australia had the most copper initial resources in 2021 with four. The resources were small, however, containing only 360,000 tonnes of new copper. Three of the four were extensions or new zones at existing projects. The U.S. was second with three announcements containing 2.0 Mt of new copper, with Rosemont accounting for almost three-quarters of the total. Ecuador reported the largest country total for 2021, with 2.7 Mt at SolGold's Porvenir and Cascabel projects.

Australia has been the top country in the past 10 years with 44 announcements, although it ranks sixth in contained copper at 6.9 Mt. Canada is a distant second with 18 announcements, although the new copper totals 7.4 Mt.

Serbia, the exploration budgets of which total $110 million over the past 10 years, announced the largest amount of contained copper at 16.8 Mt in three announcements primarily 14.3 Mt in the Lower Zone of the Timok project. Chile ranks second with 12.8 Mt in 10 announcements, boosted by 8.5 Mt of copper at theLos Heladosproject, which was announced in 2012.

This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.

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Copper in initial resources hits 7-year high - S&P Global

Abundant energy resources in many parts of Africa position the continent as a potential location for the production and export of climate-friendly hydrogen, based either on renewable electricity (green hydrogen) or natural gas in combination with carbon capture and storage technologies (blue hydrogen). Green hydrogen is produced via electrolysis by splitting water molecules into their component parts using renewable electricity, while blue hydrogen is produced by splitting natural gas into hydrogen and CO2after which the CO2 needs to be captured and stored.

Several African countries, especially around the Northern and Southern Tropics, have excellent solar and wind resources. Africa also has large untapped hydropower potential, mainly located along the Congo and Nile Rivers. Countries like Nigeria, Algeria, and Angola have some of the largest gas reserves in the world. Blue hydrogen has been suggested as a low-carbon option for these countries as they seek to diversify their fossil fuel-dependent economies.

This large resource potential has spurred political engagement by a number of European countries, most notably Germany. The German government has partnered with several African countries to develop a Hydrogen Potential Atlas and has committed $45.7 million to the National Green Hydrogen Development Strategy of Namibia. Germany and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have taken up discussions that could see the country relaunch the controversial Inga Dam III project. Germany has also set up so-called Hydrogen Offices in Angola and Nigeria to facilitate dialogue with these fossil fuel-exporting economies.

But how realistic are these ambitions, given a number of factors complicating the regions pursuit of this energy carrier?

First, hydrogen development cannot be separated from Africas broader energy landscape. More than half of the African population lacks access to electricity. Per capita consumption of energy in sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa) stands at 180 kWh, compared to 13,000 kWh per capita in the U.S. and 6,500 kWh in Europe. Renewables also remain at an early stage of development: In 2018, the continent generated approximately 180 TWh of renewable powerapproximately 20 percent of electricity generation and less than 0.02 percent of its estimated potential.

Source: IRENA (2014) Estimating the Renewable Energy Potential in Africa; FAO (2011) Water for agriculture and energy: The challenges of climate change; IEA (2019) Africa Energy Outlook.

Despite the large potential, capacity additions for the production of green hydrogen raise the question of whether they are coming at the expense of expanding local access to renewable energy to meet socioeconomic needs, to enable clean industrial development, and to meet domestic climate targets within the context of the Paris Agreement. Furthermore, the production of green hydrogen comes with a significant demand for water at a time of increasing levels of water scarcity across Africaespecially in the northern and the Sahel regions. Similarly, the prospect of blue hydrogen as a climate-friendly energy carrier remains highly uncertain, due to residual greenhouse gas emissions, the need for safe CO2 storage sites, and controversy related to the viability of carbon capture and storage technologies.

Moreover, policymakers must consider the economic feasibility of hydrogen exports. Notably, the production of clean hydrogen in some of the most promising locations in Africa could be very cost-competitive, particularly due to abundant availability of solar resources. West Africa alone could produce approximately 120,000 TWh of green hydrogen per year at a price of less than $2.63/kg, assuming no water constraints. However, the cost of transporting hydrogen hampers this competitiveness. Maritime shipping, considered the most cost-effective for distances over 3,000 km, would add an estimated $1 to $2.75/kg. For shorter distances, the cost of pipeline transport could be considerably lower, estimated at $0.18/kg per 1,000 km for new hydrogen pipelines and $0.08 for retrofitted gas pipelines.

Though such infrastructure investments carry high costs and are frequently hampered by delays, current pipelines, when repurposed, could offer a starting point for Africas hydrogen trade. Current international pipeline infrastructure in Africa mainly consists of pipelines transporting natural gas from Northern African countries to Europe as well as connections between Egypt and the Middle East. In addition, the West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP) network, which currently transports gas from Nigeria to neighboring countries Benin, Togo, and Ghana, also offers potential for transporting hydrogen. It is the starting point for the recently launched Nigeria-Morocco Pipeline project, which could potentially be further extended to Europe. If constructed as hydrogen-ready, the WAGP could be repurposed for the export of hydrogen from West African countries. However, its success will depend on the interests of the Nigerian and Moroccan governments.

In addition to export-oriented ambitions, African countries are pursuing different, local applications of green hydrogen and related industrial development opportunities. For example, Morocco, a major exporter of fertilizers, plans to replace imports of conventional ammonia with domestic green ammonia, with its first project to start construction in 2022. Similarly, Egypt is investing in a facility for the production of 1 million tons of green ammonia annually.

South Africa has launched a strategy aimed not only at the production of hydrogen but at the domestic manufacturing of hydrogen-related technologies and products. Building on its endowment in platinum-group metalsa key metal for the production of hydrogen technologies, the South African government is promoting an industrial corridor stretching from the Limpopo mining region through Johannesburgs industrial district to Durban. The countrys chemicals and energy giant, Sasol, has launched an initiative for landmark green hydrogen projects, aimed at greening existing materials and chemical value chains.

Whether ambitions to export large quantities of hydrogen from Africa to Europe will be feasible remains an open question, given the constraints around transport infrastructure, water access, as well as crucial climate-related considerations. Moreover, any strategy to develop hydrogen exports will have to take into account the industrial policy ambitions of important players on the continent or risk losing the goodwill of these key allies.

Note: The authors developed this blog post as part of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies project Geopolitics of the Energy Transformation: Implications of an International Hydrogen Economy (GET Hydrogen), which has been supported with funding from Germanys Federal Foreign Office. This blog reflects the views of the authors only and does not reflect the views of the Africa Growth Initiative nor the Brookings Institution more broadly.

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The promise of African clean hydrogen exports: Potentials and pitfalls - Brookings Institution

WATERVILLE Bill and Joan Alfond announced a grant from their foundation today to the Central Maine Community Betterment Collaborative for the Dirigo Labs business accelerator program. This grant will bolster Dirigo Labs physical infrastructure and ecosystem building in the greater Waterville area while highlighting the regions technology and innovation sectors.

Joan and I are pleased to support entrepreneurial innovation and the development of quality jobs in the greater Waterville area, said Bill Alfond.

This generous gift will help distinguish Dirigo Labs as a resource for founders from diverse backgrounds and industries looking to scale their businesses in an impactful manner, said Managing Director Susan Ruhlin. This funding will allow us to build upon our existing groundwork as we launch our inaugural cohort and build greater Watervilles entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Housed in Bricks Coworking and Innovation Space, located in the historic Hathaway Creative Center at 10 Water Street in Waterville, Dirigo Labs serves as a conduit for startups seeking access to mentorship, deal flow, venture capital, and strategic partnerships.

Combining the momentum of building-out a greater Waterville area based innovation hub with the continued growth and revitalization of downtown Waterville, this grant will support entrepreneurs and startups that aim to launch and expand their respective businesses through innovative programming, access to diverse sources of capital, mentorship structures, and dedicated workspace in the downtown district, states Central Maine Growth Council Director of Planning, Innovation, and Economic Development Garvan Donegan.

Launched on March 23, Dirigo Labs is currently hosting 12 Maine-based startups from various industries, ranging from the manufacturing of floating picnic tables, the development of food products, and software services. The 12-week program pairs companies with a curated temporary board of advisors. Participants have access to a robust network of local, regional, and national mentors and pro bono services. The program engages startups and founders through workshops covering a range of relevant subject matters, including product development strategies, marketing and branding, revenue modeling, and customer relationship management. After completing the curriculum, companies will participate in a public pitch event.

For startups and potential mentors interested in learning more about Dirigo Labs, please visithttp://www.dirigolabs.org.

Dirigo Labs is a regional startup accelerator based in Waterville, Maine. With a mission to grow the greater Waterville areas digital economy by supporting entrepreneurs building innovation-based companies, the Dirigo Labs ecosystem brings together people, resources, and organizations to ensure the successful launch of new startups. Dirigo Labs operates under Central Maine Growth Council and is supported by several organizations, academic institutions, and investment firms. To learn more about Dirigo Labs, please visithttp://www.dirigolabs.org.

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Bill and Joan Alfond Foundation awards funding to Dirigo Labs to support business accelerator, innovation ecosystem - Bangor Daily News

Lewis Pinault is a partner at Airbus Ventures, where he invests and serves as board director for space technology related startups across the globe. A NASA-trained meteoriticist, he is also a researcher at University College London/Birkbeck's Centre for Planetary Sciences, presently collaborating with JAXA's Institute of Space and Astronautical Sciences. Pinault contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Humanity's fossil fuel war a war waged with insane relentlessness on both ourselves and on our planet has never raged more brightly, or with such power of irreversible destruction.

Whatever the purported causes, we are presently witnessing a savagery that seems designed to serve only one dark rationale: incurring such pain that a concession of Ukraine's eastern Dnieper-Donetsk region, holding upwards of 90% of the country's vast oil, gas and coal reserves, becomes as seemingly acceptable as the loss of Crimea and its significant offshore gas reserves five years earlier.

Live updates: Ukraine invasion's impacts on space exploration

This time, the fossil fuel war has rapidly cascading global dimensions. As the flow of hydrocarbons is stymied in some quarters, it is unleashed in unprecedented quantities in others; the price of oil escalates, allowing still-saleable Russian oil to pay and fuel yet more armor and destruction. Presumed allies amongst the fossil fuel kingdoms are revealed for the cynical oil-worshippers they are, and the world's autocrats, who can never rally more than uncomplicated base emotions, are grateful for the cruel simplicities of avoiding complex change and sacrifice at any cost.

Even as the final Working Group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concludes that the elimination of fossil fuels is the only practical and timely path to avoiding irreversible climate damage and all its concomitant crises of disease, starvation and forced migration orders of magnitude larger than present-day Ukraine's humanity continues to inject fossil fuels into the system.

In the meantime, unchecked consumerism drives mining more places for more metals for more phones and more cars; large-scale agriculture and forestry operations with little relation to sustainable nutrition or housing needs encroach on wild habitats essential to our biosphere, further driving disease and more deadly mass migrations of thousands of species; fresh water supplies are imperilled, and we are amidst one of the biosphere's greatest extinctions an event that's likely to consume us before we can even fully catalogue it.

Piecing together these shards of a seemingly broken civilization, this generation's complicated investment in the exploration and exploitation of outer space is rightly called into question, especially when our overheating home planet Earth is pleading for corrective behavior and needs our immediate attention most. While the invasion of Ukraine has opened a new front in the fossil fuel war in Earth orbit, and encrypted communications and satellite observation seem to be working in favor of the country's defense, these "Dark Skies" technologies are arguably as dangerous to our planet and civilization as they are to protecting corners of it.

It's likely we've already triggered Earth's irreversible greenhouse effect. And the forces summoning us to the apocalypse now not only include an ever more dangerous nuclear capability with increasingly imaginative rationales for using the arsenal, thanks to the fossil fuel war but also fast multiplying vectors to disease, contamination and starvation, as global heating demonstrates exponential powers to de-ice the planet, raise seas over every coastal habitat and create further spirals of apocalyptic havoc. Ignoring opportunities to mobilize against asteroid strikes, ungoverned artificial intelligence (AI) development, the prospect of nano and genetic technologies run amok and new classes of chemical and biological weapons and our tragically demonstrated willingness to use any and all weapons only adds to our escalating planetary crisis.

This disturbing reality has fuelled the notion of the need for a "Planet B" or the creation of other large-scale human colonies in space, with aims to outdistance humanity from man-made disaster. But these aims are not achievable on time scales that can likely outrun the forces now aligning against the biosphere. And as we're only just learning, this biosphere is also not very readily transported. Without a biome rich in diversity at every scale from the soil's many inhabitants to the germs, molds and bacteria living amongst all our macrofauna most space habitats are likely to suffer crises of infection and disease that threaten to be all-consuming. Investing in space development so that we can escape this planet's dooms is thus more than morally questionable it's simply not likely to work, not in time.

Space tourism as an investment path also seems tragicomic. Taking sizeable fractions of the planet's inequitably distributed resources to sightsee down on the masterpieces of disaster we've created, perhaps on the chance we'll improve someone's perspective or set their minds toward some new course of planetary justice seems hubristic at best, and at worst may already be creating new enemies for any kind of space development, just, I argue, when we need it most.

Ultimately, for Earth's sake, we need to begin untapping the resources of outer space now, with urgency and with a priority focus on the gifts of the moon. This is not with the aim of a "sustainable lunar economy" that makes the moon more habitable for astronauts or space tourists, but with the aim of drawing resources from the moon to make Earth newly habitable.

Photos: The first space tourists

New technologies and approaches, many pioneered by startup companies, now make decades-old speculations feasible not by heaving solar power stations up to Earth orbit, not by mining asteroids, not by stripping the moon to fuel nuclear fusion but by using new robotics, AI, autonomous systems, 3D printing and materials technologies to rapidly create and operate the infrastructure to bring abundant clean energy and mineral resources from the moon to Earth; and with these capabilities we can begin basing biosphere-maiming manufacturing elsewhere in the Earth-moon system.

The moon is a complex rock, but still a rock, rich in silicates. Whether cheaply bringing autonomously constructed solar arrays from the moon's low gravity well to Earth orbit, or by beaming solar energy directly from the lunar nearside toward Earth, we have the means to supply clean energy from the moon, without resorting to complex, large-scale mining of helium isotopes for still-developing fusion technologies.

Importantly, the moon is truly our geological twin. In the earliest ages of the solar system, a sizable planetoid smashed into the still-aborning Earth, forever mixing its materials into Earth's own makeup, gestating the resulting orbiting debris of a similar mix that agglomerated and became our moon. Thus, our moon has abundances similar to Earth's of the metals that can supply catalysts for hydrogen fuel cells, as well as of the metals that are driving critically damaging mining operations on Earth's surface and now even its oceans. If we feel we must have hydrogen fuel cells for vehicles and they are the only clear path to clean transportation on Earth and if we need our rare-metal smart chips to power our cars, phones and navigation systems, then we should be using autonomous systems to mine them from the moon, where their harm to Earth in extraction will be far more negligible.

Given the urgency of Earth's biosystem crises, the moon offers opportunity for deployable infrastructure and extraction long before asteroid harvesting becomes practicable. With largely automated solar panel and mining operations underway, progress toward establishing Earth-toxic manufacturing facilities on the moon and in cislunar space can begin accelerating.

Here there is a risk we must accept, of multiplying the immoralities of what we've done to damage Earth on the moon. Will we damage the moon's own wisp of an atmosphere, firing rocket engines upon it and mining its surface? Almost certainly yes, and that atmosphere contains important traces of the solar system's earliest history and origins. Will we visibly alter the surface of the lunar nearside that has faced humans since time immemorial, even shifting the albedo of the light of the moon, home and totem of gods and rituals since our own very beginnings? Very possibly. Will our lunar operations require communication technologies that disrupt the pristine quiet of the lunar far side, a natural isolated platform for deep radio astronomy probes of the universe? Very likely.

In the course of my own research, I seek out the dust particles that may be traces of long-gone alien civilizations' waste or pre-programmed materials, carried by stellar winds across the eons to finally settle on the moon what a tragedy to lose the opportunity to prioritize their discovery but I am happy to settle for extractions of mining operations, if this is the course to our very planetary survival. For the fact is that the moon is not home to any lifeform we might responsibly recognize in important contradistinction to Mars and our opportunity to multiply the future of life is clearly with the Earth-moon system, and not the moon alone.

The first step toward realizing the moon as a critical energy and resource base for Earth is to survey the surface at high resolution. This is practically achieved by interlinked rovers, robots and orbiting platforms, including with state-of-the-art quantum sensors. It would take thousands of astronauts to complete these tasks, a luxury we cannot afford at this time. Small crews of astronauts working with highly automated systems can get the work done for Earth. This suggests a prioritization away from water, particularly the major space agencies' current hyperfocus on ice trapped at the lunar poles. This ice would be important for astronauts living at the poles and for fuelling future solar system exploration but is not easily extracted and should not be the priority for Earth. Solar-implanted volatiles across the moon's surface are likely to meet the near-term needs for water for lunar energy and resource operations.

Instead, I suggest we must be focused on the elements, which can be shipped from the moon to Earth. Ice water from the moon may fill future trillionaires' whiskey glasses, but what we all need are the abundant solar energies enabled by the moon, the rare Earth elements, platinum group and precious metals that can meet our needs however selfish and short-sighted to spare our planet and ensure our civilization's future, with the opportunity to shift toxic manufacturing off-Earth.

Critically, together with asteroid detection and deflection systems, these planetary system developments are important opportunities for international collaboration it is by working together across national space agencies and through small and large enterprises alike that needed innovations can deliver on time a habitable future for our biosphere and hope for human civilization. Accelerating these endeavors will require hard creative thinking finding equitable means to explore and exploit the resources of the moon might best be facilitated, for example, by an International Space Authority, based on the United Nations' current and quietly successful International Seabed Authority operations. Or, as recently proposed in conjunction with the Democracy Without Borders project, a democratically accountable UN space agency. This may seem a lofty and unreachable ask for a world embroiled in its first open fossil fuel war but the alternative is that this may be our last planetary War, because we'll never again be able to fight another.

Are we alone in the galaxy, even our universe? Not likely, no. I'm happy enough to jump the gun, for all my colleagues' scientific discipline and rigor. With the magnificent James Webb Space Telescope's successful deployment, it is increasingly likely we'll find life around us, and if not, we should rigorously question our existence as likely simulants. Sentience and its pervasiveness are questions I explore through my interstellar dust research. What I hypothesize is that anything like the brilliance of the exploratory instincts we've developed should not be universally uncommon and if unfound in exploratory probes, visitations, and waste elements abandoned in our own neighborhood, should raise the all-important question: What happened? Are we alone, because this is the great filter through which none can pass? Does the aggression inherent in launching rockets to orbit and their implicit power to destroy all that lies beneath doom a civilization to its own non-communicating end?

The evidence can be found within the dust right at our feet. The key challenge is, are we ready to act on it? We do not need outer space to be our final frontier but we do need it to be the final front in the fossil fuel war. We can choose to end the war, by providing abundant resources and clean energy from the moon to Earth, and by moving our toxic industries away from our unique and precious biosphere.

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Mining the moon to help save life on Earth (op-ed) - Space.com