A little light reading!

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Point of information re Dr John Abraham

Professor and Program Director, M.S. in Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

• EDUCATION
• PhD, 2002, Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota
  MS, 1999, Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota
  BS, 1997, Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota

• EXPERTISE
• Medical devices, thermal sciences, burn injuries, biological heating and fluid flow, climate change, energy generation in the developing world, fundamental heat transfer and fluid flow processes.

• CURRICULUM VITAE

Introduction
Dr. Abraham is a professor of thermal sciences with special expertise in the following areas:

• medical devices,
• thermal sciences,
• burn injuries,
• biological heating and fluid flow,
• climate change,
• energy generation in the developing world, and
• fundamental heat transfer and fluid flow processes.

He has produced approximately 350 publications, including peer-reviewed journal papers, books, book chapters, patents, and conference presentations. He has served as an expert witness in multiple intellectual property, personal injury, and product liability litigations.
Courses

• Heat Transfer (ENGR 382)
• Fluid Mechanics (ENGR 383)
• Advanced Thermal Design (ETLS 591)
• Finite Element Analysis (ETLS 777)

So according to our very own faux Earth Scientist, yet just another "ignorant" purveyor of "junk science" .

[CivilDiscourse]

Point of information re Dr John Abraham

Professor and Program Director, M.S. in Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

• EDUCATION
• PhD, 2002, Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota
  MS, 1999, Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota
  BS, 1997, Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota

• EXPERTISE
• Medical devices, thermal sciences, burn injuries, biological heating and fluid flow, climate change, energy generation in the developing world, fundamental heat transfer and fluid flow processes.

• CURRICULUM VITAE

Introduction
Dr. Abraham is a professor of thermal sciences with special expertise in the following areas:

• medical devices,
• thermal sciences,
• burn injuries,
• biological heating and fluid flow,
• climate change,
• energy generation in the developing world, and
• fundamental heat transfer and fluid flow processes.

He has produced approximately 350 publications, including peer-reviewed journal papers, books, book chapters, patents, and conference presentations. He has served as an expert witness in multiple intellectual property, personal injury, and product liability litigations.
Courses

• Heat Transfer (ENGR 382)
• Fluid Mechanics (ENGR 383)
• Advanced Thermal Design (ETLS 591)
• Finite Element Analysis (ETLS 777)

So according to our very own faux Earth Scientist, yet just another "ignorant" purveyor of "junk science" .

Appeal to status

[Sparko]

Point of information re Dr John Abraham

Professor and Program Director, M.S. in Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

• EDUCATION
• PhD, 2002, Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota
  MS, 1999, Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota
  BS, 1997, Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota

• EXPERTISE
• Medical devices, thermal sciences, burn injuries, biological heating and fluid flow, climate change, energy generation in the developing world, fundamental heat transfer and fluid flow processes.

• CURRICULUM VITAE

Introduction
Dr. Abraham is a professor of thermal sciences with special expertise in the following areas:

• medical devices,
• thermal sciences,
• burn injuries,
• biological heating and fluid flow,
• climate change,
• energy generation in the developing world, and
• fundamental heat transfer and fluid flow processes.

He has produced approximately 350 publications, including peer-reviewed journal papers, books, book chapters, patents, and conference presentations. He has served as an expert witness in multiple intellectual property, personal injury, and product liability litigations.
Courses

• Heat Transfer (ENGR 382)
• Fluid Mechanics (ENGR 383)
• Advanced Thermal Design (ETLS 591)
• Finite Element Analysis (ETLS 777)

So according to our very own faux Earth Scientist, yet just another "ignorant" purveyor of "junk science" .

How does being a mechanical engineer qualify him as a Climatologist?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

How does being a mechanical engineer qualify him as a Climatologist?

Mechanical engineering is one of the disciplines [among many] that deal with climate change and environmental issues.

This might be "a very good place to start"

http://meche.mit.edu/news-media/tack...eenhouse-gases


The images are ubiquitous: a coastal town decimated by another powerful hurricane, satellite images showing shrinking polar ice caps, a school of dead fish floating on the surface of warming waters, swaths of land burnt by an out-of-control wildfire. These dire portrayals share a common thread – they offer tangible evidence that climate change is affecting every corner of the globe.

According to NASA, Earth’s surface temperature has risen 0.9° C since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Researchers agree that the rise in temperatures has one primary culprit: increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane all trap heat in our atmosphere – making them directly responsible for climate change. The occurrence of these gases in our atmosphere has increased exponentially since the late 1800s due to growth in fossil fuels use across the energy, manufacturing, and transportation industries.

A report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released on October 8, 2019 warned that if the Earth’s temperature rises greater than 1.5° C, the effects would be catastrophic. Entire ecosystems could be lost, sea levels would be higher, and extreme weather events would become even more common. According to the IPCC, avoiding this scenario “would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society,” including a 45% decrease in carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels by 2030.

Researchers across MIT are working on a myriad of technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions across every industry. Many faculty are looking at sustainable energy. Associate Professor Tonio Buonassisi and his team in the Photovoltaic Research Lab hope to harness the power of the sun while Professor Alexander Slocum has conducted research in making offshore wind turbines more efficient and economically viable.

In addition to exploring sustainable forms of energy that do not require fossil fuels, a number of faculty members in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering are turning to technologies that store, capture, convert, and minimize greenhouse gas emissions using very different approaches.

Improving energy storage with ceramics

For renewable energy technologies like concentrated solar power (CSP) to make sense economically, storage is crucial. Since the sun isn’t always shining, solar energy needs to be somehow stored for later use. But CSP plants are currently limited by their steel based infrastructure.

“Improving energy storage is a critical issue that presents one of the biggest technological hurdles toward minimizing greenhouse gas emissions,” explains Asegun Henry, Noyce Career Development Professor and associate professor of mechanical engineering.

An expert in heat transfer, Henry has turned to an unlikely class of materials to help increase the efficiency of thermal storage: ceramics.

Currently, CSP plants are limited by the temperature at which they can store heat. Thermal energy from the solar power is currently stored in liquid salt. This liquid salt can’t exceed a temperature of 565° C since the steel pipes they flow through will get corroded.

“There has been a ubiquitous assumption that if you’re going to build anything with flowing liquid, the pipes and pumps have to be out of metal,” says Henry. “We essentially questioned that assumption.”

Henry and his team, which recently moved from Georgia Tech, have developed a ceramic pump that allows liquid to flow at much higher temperatures. In January 2017, he was entered into the Guinness Book of World Record for the “Highest operating temperature liquid pump.” The pump was able to circulate molten tin between 1,200° C and 1,400° C.

“The pump now gives us the ability to make an all ceramic infrastructure for CSP plants, allowing us to flow and control liquid metal,” adds Henry.

Rather than use liquid salt, CSP plants can now store energy in metals, like molten tin, which have a higher temperature range and won’t corrode the carefully chosen ceramics. This opens up new avenues for energy storage and generation. “We are trying to turn up the temperature so hot that our ability to turn heat back into electricity gives us options,” explains Henry.

One such option, would be to store electricity as glowing white hot heat like that of a lightbulb filament. This heat can then be turned into electricity by converting the white glow using photovoltaics – creating a completely greenhouse gas free energy storage system.

“This system can’t work if the pipes are temperature limited and have a short lifetime,” adds Henry. “That’s where we come in, we now have the materials that can make things work at crazy high temperatures.”

Henry’s record-breaking pump’s ability to minimize greenhouse gas emissions goes beyond altering the infrastructure of solar plants. He also hopes to use the pump to change the way hydrogen is produced.

Hydrogen, which is used to make fertilizer, is created by reacting methane with water, producing CO₂. Henry is researching an entirely new hydrogen production method which would involve heating tin hot enough to split methane directly and create hydrogen, without introducing other chemicals or making CO₂. Rather than emit CO₂, solid carbon particles would form and float on the surface of the liquid. This solid carbon is something that could then be sold for a number or purposes.

Converting pollutants into valuable materials

Capturing greenhouse gases and turning them into something useful is a goal shared by Betar Gallant, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.

The Paris Agreement, which seeks to minimize greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale, stated that participating countries need to consider every greenhouse gas, even those emitted in small quantities. These include fluorinated gases like sulfur hexafluoride and nitrogen trifluoride. Many of these gases are used in semiconductor manufacturing and metallurgical processes like magnesium production.

Fluorinated gases have up to 23,000 times the global warming potential of CO₂ and have lifetimes in the thousands of years. “Once we emit these fluorinated gases, they are virtually indestructible,” says Gallant.

With no current regulations on these gases, their release could have lasting impact on our ability to curtail global warming. After the ratification of the Paris Agreement, Gallant saw a window of opportunity to use her background in electrochemistry to capture and convert these harmful pollutants.

“I’m looking at mechanisms and reactions to activate and convert harmful pollutants into either benign storable materials or something that can be recycled and used in a less harmful way,” she explains.

Her first target: fluorinated gases. Using voltage and currents along with chemistry, she and her team looked into accessing a new reaction space. Gallant created two systems based on the reaction between these fluorinated gases and lithium. The result was a solid cathode that can be used in batteries.

“We identified one reaction for each of those two fluorinated gases, but we will keep working on that to figure out how these reactions can be modified to handle industrial-scale capture and large volumes of materials,” she adds.

Gallant recently used a similar approach for capturing and converting CO₂ emissions into carbon cathodes.

“Our central question was: can we find a way to get more value out of CO₂ by incorporating it into an energy storage device?” she says.

In a recent study, Gallant first treated CO₂ in a liquid amine solution. This prompted a reaction that created a new ion-containing liquid phase, which fortuitously could also be used as an electrolyte. The electrolyte was then used to assemble a battery along with lithium metal and carbon. By discharging the electrolyte, the CO₂ could be converted into a solid carbonate while delivering a power output at about three volts.

As the battery continuously discharges, it “eats up” all the CO₂ and constantly converts it into a solid carbonate that can be stored, removed, or even charged back to the liquid electrolyte for operation as a rechargeable battery. This process has the potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adding economic value by creating a new usable product.



he next step for Gallant is taking the understandings of these reactions and actually designing a system that can be used in industry to capture and convert greenhouse gases.

“Engineers in this field have the know how to design more efficient devices that either capture or convert greenhouse gas emissions before they get released into the environment,” she adds. “We started by building the chemical and electrochemical technology first, but we’re really looking forward to pivoting next to the larger scale and seeing how to engineer these reactions into a practical device.”

Closing the carbon cycle

Designing systems that capture CO₂ and convert it back to something useful has been a driving force in Ahmed Ghoniem’s research over the past fifteen years. “I have spent my entire career on the environmental impact of energy and power production,” says Ghoniem, Ronald C. Crane Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

n the 1980s and 1990s, the most pressing issue for researchers working in this sphere was creating technologies that minimized the emission of criteria pollutants like nitric oxides. These pollutants produced ozone, particular matter, and smog. Ghoniem worked on new combustion systems that significantly reduced the emission of these pollutants.
Since the turn of the 21^st century, his focus shifted from criteria pollutants, which were successfully curbed, to CO₂ emissions. The quickest solution would be to stop using fossil fuels. But Ghoniem acknowledges with 80% of energy production worldwide coming from fossil fuels, that’s not an option: “The big problem really is, how do we continue using fossil fuels without releasing so much CO₂ in the environment?”

In recent years, he has worked on methods for capturing CO₂ from power plants for underground storage, and more recently for recycling some of the captured CO₂ into useful products, like fuels and chemicals. The end goal is to develop systems that efficiently and economically remove CO₂ from fossil fuel combustion while producing power.

“My idea is to close the carbon cycle so you can convert CO₂ emitted during power production back into fuel and chemicals,” he explains. Solar and other carbon-free energy sources would power the reuse process, making it a closed loop system with no net emissions.

In the first step, Ghoniem’s system separates oxygen from air, so fuel can burn in pure oxygen – a process known as oxy-combustion. When this is done, the plant emits pure CO₂ that can be captured for storage or reuse. To do this, Ghoniem says, “We’ve developed ceramic membranes, chemical looping reactors, and catalysts technology, that allow us to do this efficiently.”

Using alternative sources of heat, such as solar energy, the reactor temperature is raised to just shy of 1,000° C to drive the separation of oxygen. The membranes Ghoniem’s group are developing allow pure oxygen to pass through. The source of this oxygen is air in oxy-combustion applications. When recycled CO₂ is used instead of air, the process reduces CO₂ to CO that can be used as fuel or to create new hydrocarbon fuels or chemicals, like ethanol which is mixed gasoline to fuel cars. Ghoniem’s team also found that if water (H₂O) is used instead of air, it is reduced to hydrogen, another clean fuel.

The next step for Ghoniem’s team is scaling up the membrane reactors they’ve developed from something that is successful in the lab, to something that could be used in industry.

Manufacturing, human behavior, and the “re-bound” effect

While Asegun Henry, Betar Gallant, Ahmed Ghoniem, and a number of other MIT researchers are developing capture and reuse technologies to minimize greenhouse gas emissions, Professor Timothy Gutowski is approaching climate change from a completely different angle: the economics of manufacturing.

Timothy Gutowski understands manufacturing. He has worked on both the industry and academic side of manufacturing, was the director of MIT’s Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity for a decade, and currently leads the Environmentally Benign Manufacturing research group at MIT. His primary research focus is assessing the environmental impact of manufacturing.


If you analyze the global manufacturing sector, you see that the making of materials is globally bigger than making products in terms of energy usage and total carbon emitted, ” says Gutowski.

As economies grow, the need for material increases, further contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. To assess the carbon footprint of a product from material production through to disposal, engineers have turned to life-cycle assessments (LCA). These LCAs suggest ways to boost efficiency and decrease environmental impact. But, according to Gutowski, the approach many engineers take in assessing a product’s life-cycle is flawed.

“Many LCAs ignore real human behavior and the economics associated with increased efficiency,” claims Gutowski.

For example, LED light bulbs save a tremendous amount of energy and money compared to incandescent light bulbs. Rather than use these savings to conserve energy, many use these savings as a rationale to increase the number of light bulbs they use. Sports stadiums in particular capitalize on the cost savings offered by LED light bulbs to wrap entire fields in LED screens. In economics, this phenomenon is known as the ‘rebound effect.’

“When you improve efficiency, the engineer may imagine that the device will be used in the exact same way as before and resources will be conserved,” explains Gutowski. But this increase in efficiency often results in an increase in production.

Another example of the rebound effect can be found in airplanes. Using composite materials to build aircrafts instead of using heavier aluminum can make airplanes lighter, thereby saving fuel. Rather than utilize this potential savings in fuel economy to minimize the impact on the environment, however, companies have many other options. They can use this potential weight savings to add other features to the airplane. These could include, increasing the number of seats, adding entertainment equipment, or carrying more fuel to increase the length of the journey. In the end, there are cases were the composites airplane actually weighs more than the original aluminum airplane.

“Companies often don’t think ‘I’m going to save fuel,’ they think about ways they can economically take advantage of increased efficiency,” adds Gutowski.

Gutowski is working across disciplines and fields to develop a better understanding of how engineers can improve life cycle assessment by taking economics and human behavior into account.

“The goal is to implement policies so engineers can continue to make improvements in efficiency, but these improvements actually result in a benefit to society and reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” he explains.

‘A global problem’

The diversity of approaches to tackling climate change is reflective of the size of the problem. No one technology is going to act as a panacea for minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and staying below the crucial 1.5° C global temperature increase threshold outlined by the UN.

“Remember, global warming is a global problem,” says Ghoniem. “No one country can solve it by itself, we must do it together.”

In September 2019, the UN Climate Summit will convene and challenge nations across the world to throw their political and economic weight behind solving climate change. On a smaller scale, MIT is doing its part to minimize its environmental impact.

Last spring, Tim Gutowski and Julie Newman, Director of Sustainability at MIT, co-taught a new class entitled 2.S999, Solving for Carbon Neutrality at MIT. Teams of students proposed realistic scenarios for how MIT can achieve carbon neutrality. “The students were doing real work on finding ways MIT can keep our carbon down,” recalls Gutowski.

Whether it’s a team of students in class 2.S999 or the upcoming UN Climate Summit, finding ways to minimize greenhouse gas emissions and curtail climate change is a global responsibility. “Unless we all agree to work on it, invest resources to develop and scale solutions, and collectively implement these solutions, we will have to live with the negative consequences,” adds Ghoniem.

And from Abraham's own University site.

https://cse.umn.edu/me/impact#:~:tex...eener%20future.

Environment & Sustainability

From the atmosphere to ground water and everything in between, mechanical engineering is essential in the advancement of environment and sustainability studies. Mechanical engineers work on air and water pollution, sea water desalination, engine efficiency, alternative fuels, biodegradables, and more to combat climate change and work toward a greener future.

One might have thought that an Earth Scientist [and one who intimated he had been involved in climate modelling] would know all that!

[Gondwanaland]

Are you? How very interesting

Yawn, how puerile.

[Gondwanaland]

Mechanical engineering is one of the disciplines [among many] that deal with climate change and environmental issues.

This might be "a very good place to start"

http://meche.mit.edu/news-media/tack...eenhouse-gases


The images are ubiquitous: a coastal town decimated by another powerful hurricane, satellite images showing shrinking polar ice caps, a school of dead fish floating on the surface of warming waters, swaths of land burnt by an out-of-control wildfire. These dire portrayals share a common thread – they offer tangible evidence that climate change is affecting every corner of the globe.

According to NASA, Earth’s surface temperature has risen 0.9° C since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Researchers agree that the rise in temperatures has one primary culprit: increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane all trap heat in our atmosphere – making them directly responsible for climate change. The occurrence of these gases in our atmosphere has increased exponentially since the late 1800s due to growth in fossil fuels use across the energy, manufacturing, and transportation industries.

A report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released on October 8, 2019 warned that if the Earth’s temperature rises greater than 1.5° C, the effects would be catastrophic. Entire ecosystems could be lost, sea levels would be higher, and extreme weather events would become even more common. According to the IPCC, avoiding this scenario “would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society,” including a 45% decrease in carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels by 2030.

Researchers across MIT are working on a myriad of technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions across every industry. Many faculty are looking at sustainable energy. Associate Professor Tonio Buonassisi and his team in the Photovoltaic Research Lab hope to harness the power of the sun while Professor Alexander Slocum has conducted research in making offshore wind turbines more efficient and economically viable.

In addition to exploring sustainable forms of energy that do not require fossil fuels, a number of faculty members in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering are turning to technologies that store, capture, convert, and minimize greenhouse gas emissions using very different approaches.

Improving energy storage with ceramics

For renewable energy technologies like concentrated solar power (CSP) to make sense economically, storage is crucial. Since the sun isn’t always shining, solar energy needs to be somehow stored for later use. But CSP plants are currently limited by their steel based infrastructure.

“Improving energy storage is a critical issue that presents one of the biggest technological hurdles toward minimizing greenhouse gas emissions,” explains Asegun Henry, Noyce Career Development Professor and associate professor of mechanical engineering.

An expert in heat transfer, Henry has turned to an unlikely class of materials to help increase the efficiency of thermal storage: ceramics.

Currently, CSP plants are limited by the temperature at which they can store heat. Thermal energy from the solar power is currently stored in liquid salt. This liquid salt can’t exceed a temperature of 565° C since the steel pipes they flow through will get corroded.

“There has been a ubiquitous assumption that if you’re going to build anything with flowing liquid, the pipes and pumps have to be out of metal,” says Henry. “We essentially questioned that assumption.”

Henry and his team, which recently moved from Georgia Tech, have developed a ceramic pump that allows liquid to flow at much higher temperatures. In January 2017, he was entered into the Guinness Book of World Record for the “Highest operating temperature liquid pump.” The pump was able to circulate molten tin between 1,200° C and 1,400° C.

“The pump now gives us the ability to make an all ceramic infrastructure for CSP plants, allowing us to flow and control liquid metal,” adds Henry.

Rather than use liquid salt, CSP plants can now store energy in metals, like molten tin, which have a higher temperature range and won’t corrode the carefully chosen ceramics. This opens up new avenues for energy storage and generation. “We are trying to turn up the temperature so hot that our ability to turn heat back into electricity gives us options,” explains Henry.

One such option, would be to store electricity as glowing white hot heat like that of a lightbulb filament. This heat can then be turned into electricity by converting the white glow using photovoltaics – creating a completely greenhouse gas free energy storage system.

“This system can’t work if the pipes are temperature limited and have a short lifetime,” adds Henry. “That’s where we come in, we now have the materials that can make things work at crazy high temperatures.”

Henry’s record-breaking pump’s ability to minimize greenhouse gas emissions goes beyond altering the infrastructure of solar plants. He also hopes to use the pump to change the way hydrogen is produced.

Hydrogen, which is used to make fertilizer, is created by reacting methane with water, producing CO₂. Henry is researching an entirely new hydrogen production method which would involve heating tin hot enough to split methane directly and create hydrogen, without introducing other chemicals or making CO₂. Rather than emit CO₂, solid carbon particles would form and float on the surface of the liquid. This solid carbon is something that could then be sold for a number or purposes.

Converting pollutants into valuable materials

Capturing greenhouse gases and turning them into something useful is a goal shared by Betar Gallant, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.

The Paris Agreement, which seeks to minimize greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale, stated that participating countries need to consider every greenhouse gas, even those emitted in small quantities. These include fluorinated gases like sulfur hexafluoride and nitrogen trifluoride. Many of these gases are used in semiconductor manufacturing and metallurgical processes like magnesium production.

Fluorinated gases have up to 23,000 times the global warming potential of CO₂ and have lifetimes in the thousands of years. “Once we emit these fluorinated gases, they are virtually indestructible,” says Gallant.

With no current regulations on these gases, their release could have lasting impact on our ability to curtail global warming. After the ratification of the Paris Agreement, Gallant saw a window of opportunity to use her background in electrochemistry to capture and convert these harmful pollutants.

“I’m looking at mechanisms and reactions to activate and convert harmful pollutants into either benign storable materials or something that can be recycled and used in a less harmful way,” she explains.

Her first target: fluorinated gases. Using voltage and currents along with chemistry, she and her team looked into accessing a new reaction space. Gallant created two systems based on the reaction between these fluorinated gases and lithium. The result was a solid cathode that can be used in batteries.

“We identified one reaction for each of those two fluorinated gases, but we will keep working on that to figure out how these reactions can be modified to handle industrial-scale capture and large volumes of materials,” she adds.

Gallant recently used a similar approach for capturing and converting CO₂ emissions into carbon cathodes.

“Our central question was: can we find a way to get more value out of CO₂ by incorporating it into an energy storage device?” she says.

In a recent study, Gallant first treated CO₂ in a liquid amine solution. This prompted a reaction that created a new ion-containing liquid phase, which fortuitously could also be used as an electrolyte. The electrolyte was then used to assemble a battery along with lithium metal and carbon. By discharging the electrolyte, the CO₂ could be converted into a solid carbonate while delivering a power output at about three volts.

As the battery continuously discharges, it “eats up” all the CO₂ and constantly converts it into a solid carbonate that can be stored, removed, or even charged back to the liquid electrolyte for operation as a rechargeable battery. This process has the potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adding economic value by creating a new usable product.



he next step for Gallant is taking the understandings of these reactions and actually designing a system that can be used in industry to capture and convert greenhouse gases.

“Engineers in this field have the know how to design more efficient devices that either capture or convert greenhouse gas emissions before they get released into the environment,” she adds. “We started by building the chemical and electrochemical technology first, but we’re really looking forward to pivoting next to the larger scale and seeing how to engineer these reactions into a practical device.”

Closing the carbon cycle

Designing systems that capture CO₂ and convert it back to something useful has been a driving force in Ahmed Ghoniem’s research over the past fifteen years. “I have spent my entire career on the environmental impact of energy and power production,” says Ghoniem, Ronald C. Crane Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

n the 1980s and 1990s, the most pressing issue for researchers working in this sphere was creating technologies that minimized the emission of criteria pollutants like nitric oxides. These pollutants produced ozone, particular matter, and smog. Ghoniem worked on new combustion systems that significantly reduced the emission of these pollutants.
Since the turn of the 21^st century, his focus shifted from criteria pollutants, which were successfully curbed, to CO₂ emissions. The quickest solution would be to stop using fossil fuels. But Ghoniem acknowledges with 80% of energy production worldwide coming from fossil fuels, that’s not an option: “The big problem really is, how do we continue using fossil fuels without releasing so much CO₂ in the environment?”

In recent years, he has worked on methods for capturing CO₂ from power plants for underground storage, and more recently for recycling some of the captured CO₂ into useful products, like fuels and chemicals. The end goal is to develop systems that efficiently and economically remove CO₂ from fossil fuel combustion while producing power.

“My idea is to close the carbon cycle so you can convert CO₂ emitted during power production back into fuel and chemicals,” he explains. Solar and other carbon-free energy sources would power the reuse process, making it a closed loop system with no net emissions.

In the first step, Ghoniem’s system separates oxygen from air, so fuel can burn in pure oxygen – a process known as oxy-combustion. When this is done, the plant emits pure CO₂ that can be captured for storage or reuse. To do this, Ghoniem says, “We’ve developed ceramic membranes, chemical looping reactors, and catalysts technology, that allow us to do this efficiently.”

Using alternative sources of heat, such as solar energy, the reactor temperature is raised to just shy of 1,000° C to drive the separation of oxygen. The membranes Ghoniem’s group are developing allow pure oxygen to pass through. The source of this oxygen is air in oxy-combustion applications. When recycled CO₂ is used instead of air, the process reduces CO₂ to CO that can be used as fuel or to create new hydrocarbon fuels or chemicals, like ethanol which is mixed gasoline to fuel cars. Ghoniem’s team also found that if water (H₂O) is used instead of air, it is reduced to hydrogen, another clean fuel.

The next step for Ghoniem’s team is scaling up the membrane reactors they’ve developed from something that is successful in the lab, to something that could be used in industry.

Manufacturing, human behavior, and the “re-bound” effect

While Asegun Henry, Betar Gallant, Ahmed Ghoniem, and a number of other MIT researchers are developing capture and reuse technologies to minimize greenhouse gas emissions, Professor Timothy Gutowski is approaching climate change from a completely different angle: the economics of manufacturing.

Timothy Gutowski understands manufacturing. He has worked on both the industry and academic side of manufacturing, was the director of MIT’s Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity for a decade, and currently leads the Environmentally Benign Manufacturing research group at MIT. His primary research focus is assessing the environmental impact of manufacturing.


If you analyze the global manufacturing sector, you see that the making of materials is globally bigger than making products in terms of energy usage and total carbon emitted, ” says Gutowski.

As economies grow, the need for material increases, further contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. To assess the carbon footprint of a product from material production through to disposal, engineers have turned to life-cycle assessments (LCA). These LCAs suggest ways to boost efficiency and decrease environmental impact. But, according to Gutowski, the approach many engineers take in assessing a product’s life-cycle is flawed.

“Many LCAs ignore real human behavior and the economics associated with increased efficiency,” claims Gutowski.

For example, LED light bulbs save a tremendous amount of energy and money compared to incandescent light bulbs. Rather than use these savings to conserve energy, many use these savings as a rationale to increase the number of light bulbs they use. Sports stadiums in particular capitalize on the cost savings offered by LED light bulbs to wrap entire fields in LED screens. In economics, this phenomenon is known as the ‘rebound effect.’

“When you improve efficiency, the engineer may imagine that the device will be used in the exact same way as before and resources will be conserved,” explains Gutowski. But this increase in efficiency often results in an increase in production.

Another example of the rebound effect can be found in airplanes. Using composite materials to build aircrafts instead of using heavier aluminum can make airplanes lighter, thereby saving fuel. Rather than utilize this potential savings in fuel economy to minimize the impact on the environment, however, companies have many other options. They can use this potential weight savings to add other features to the airplane. These could include, increasing the number of seats, adding entertainment equipment, or carrying more fuel to increase the length of the journey. In the end, there are cases were the composites airplane actually weighs more than the original aluminum airplane.

“Companies often don’t think ‘I’m going to save fuel,’ they think about ways they can economically take advantage of increased efficiency,” adds Gutowski.

Gutowski is working across disciplines and fields to develop a better understanding of how engineers can improve life cycle assessment by taking economics and human behavior into account.

“The goal is to implement policies so engineers can continue to make improvements in efficiency, but these improvements actually result in a benefit to society and reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” he explains.

‘A global problem’

The diversity of approaches to tackling climate change is reflective of the size of the problem. No one technology is going to act as a panacea for minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and staying below the crucial 1.5° C global temperature increase threshold outlined by the UN.

“Remember, global warming is a global problem,” says Ghoniem. “No one country can solve it by itself, we must do it together.”

In September 2019, the UN Climate Summit will convene and challenge nations across the world to throw their political and economic weight behind solving climate change. On a smaller scale, MIT is doing its part to minimize its environmental impact.

Last spring, Tim Gutowski and Julie Newman, Director of Sustainability at MIT, co-taught a new class entitled 2.S999, Solving for Carbon Neutrality at MIT. Teams of students proposed realistic scenarios for how MIT can achieve carbon neutrality. “The students were doing real work on finding ways MIT can keep our carbon down,” recalls Gutowski.

Whether it’s a team of students in class 2.S999 or the upcoming UN Climate Summit, finding ways to minimize greenhouse gas emissions and curtail climate change is a global responsibility. “Unless we all agree to work on it, invest resources to develop and scale solutions, and collectively implement these solutions, we will have to live with the negative consequences,” adds Ghoniem.

And from Abraham's own University site.

https://cse.umn.edu/me/impact#:~:tex...eener%20future.

Environment & Sustainability

From the atmosphere to ground water and everything in between, mechanical engineering is essential in the advancement of environment and sustainability studies. Mechanical engineers work on air and water pollution, sea water desalination, engine efficiency, alternative fuels, biodegradables, and more to combat climate change and work toward a greener future.

One might have thought that an Earth Scientist [and one who intimated he had been involved in climate modelling] would know all that!

Snookums, it doesn't have any practical application to actual climate science.. you just cited a bunch of stuff about designing things in response to climate change (ceramics, devices to deal with carbon emissions, etc.etc.). Nothing relevant to climate science itself.

[CivilDiscourse]

Gondwanaland made the error. I am enjoying it.

Simple question. It's yes/no.

Do you have any intention to address the points in the paper provided?

[Gondwanaland]

Point of information re Dr John Abraham

Professor and Program Director, M.S. in Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

• EDUCATION
• PhD, 2002, Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota
  MS, 1999, Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota
  BS, 1997, Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota

• EXPERTISE
• Medical devices, thermal sciences, burn injuries, biological heating and fluid flow, climate change, energy generation in the developing world, fundamental heat transfer and fluid flow processes.

• CURRICULUM VITAE

Introduction
Dr. Abraham is a professor of thermal sciences with special expertise in the following areas:

• medical devices,
• thermal sciences,
• burn injuries,
• biological heating and fluid flow,
• climate change,
• energy generation in the developing world, and
• fundamental heat transfer and fluid flow processes.

He has produced approximately 350 publications, including peer-reviewed journal papers, books, book chapters, patents, and conference presentations. He has served as an expert witness in multiple intellectual property, personal injury, and product liability litigations.
Courses

• Heat Transfer (ENGR 382)
• Fluid Mechanics (ENGR 383)
• Advanced Thermal Design (ETLS 591)
• Finite Element Analysis (ETLS 777)

So according to our very own faux Earth Scientist, yet just another "ignorant" purveyor of "junk science" .

Cool, let's see the quote then where I said exactly that.

[Gondwanaland]

How does being a mechanical engineer qualify him as a Climatologist?

It doesn't, she's making a fallacious appeal to authority. It's like saying that a tire manufacturer can speak on civil engineering because his tires are used on roads.

[Gondwanaland]

What paper? Gondwanaland the newspaper?

More puerile comments.

[Gondwanaland]

I'm noting your entire avoidance of the paper which you have been asked many times to actually address. So far, you've demonstrated you are incapable of actually addressing the contents.

Is it cowardice, mental instability, autistic stubbornness, trolling, or something else?

All of the above.

[rogue06]

Its conclusions would certainly help to reinforce confirmation bias.

According to John Abraham in his 2017 article in The Guardian Christy and Spencer [his co-author of an earlier paper] are:

y Perhaps the darlings of the denialist community are two researchers out of Alabama (John Christy and Roy Spencer). They rose to public attention in the mid-1990s when they reportedly showed that the atmosphere was not warming and was actually cooling. It turns out they had made some pretty significant errors and when other researchers identified those errors, the new results showed a warming.

In the same article Abraham refers to

a few scientists who don’t think the warming will be very much or that we should worry about it. These contrarians have been shown to be wrong over and over again, like in the movie Groundhog Day. And, a new study just out shows they may have another error.

The link in that extract takes the reader to that paper by R. Eric Swanson.

An earlier article in The Guardian from 2015 by Dana Nuccitelli, an environmental scientist and risk assessor, states the following:

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ate-scientists

In 1990, University of Alabama at Huntsville scientists Roy Spencer and John Christy created a data set that estimates the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere by using instruments on satellites (microwave sounding units) that measure microwave radiation in the atmosphere. According to their latest estimates, the Earth’s lower atmosphere has warmed significantly since satellite measurements began in 1979, but not quite as fast as thermometer measurements of temperatures at the Earth’s surface.

Spencer and Christy have also long disputed the degree to which humans are contributing to that warming, and have thus often been called to testify before Congress by policymakers seeking justification to oppose climate legislation. On the 25th anniversary of their satellite data set, Alabama.com interviewed the pair to discuss their science and climate contrarianism. The resulting discussion was quite revealing.

Consensus Denial


For example, when asked about the 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warming, Christy offered an inaccurate response,

The American Meteorological Society did their survey and they specifically asked the question, Is man the dominate controller of climate over the last 50 years? Only 52 percent said yes. That is not a consensus at all in science ... Roy and I have both made the statement that we are in the 97 percent because we believe in some (man-made) effect.

Ever since my colleagues and I published our global warming consensus paper two years ago in which we found a 97% consensus in the peer-reviewed literature on human-caused global warming, Roy Spencer has been claiming to be part of the 97%. As I showed two years ago, he’s not. Spencer and Christy each authored five papers captured in our climate science literature survey. Among those papers, we classified one of Spencer’s and two of Christy’s as minimizing or rejecting the human influence on global warming, and the others as not taking a position on the issue.


That makes both of them authors of the less than 3% of peer-reviewed climate science papers rejecting the consensus on human-caused global warming. This is an indisputable fact – the 97% consensus figure is based on our team’s categorization of the scientific literature, and we put their research outside the 97% consensus. Spencer and Christy reject this fact because they don’t understand our study – specifically that papers minimizing the human influence on global warming fall outside the 97% consensus. Their research is nevertheless among the 3% of outliers.


As for the American Meteorological Society (AMS) survey, only 13% of participants described climate science as their field of expertise. The Heartland Institute – the source of the story linked in the above quote by Christy – misrepresented the associated study so badly that the AMS executive director took the unusual step of issuing a public reprimand against their behavior. Studies of climate science experts have again and again found a 97% consensus on human-caused global warming.
Data and Research Quality


Spencer and Christy’s data set has undergone many major corrections to address various errors and biases. This is how science always progresses, but those who believe that adjustments to surface temperature measurements are part of a conspiracy (including Roy Spencer) always seem to neglect the major adjustments to the satellite data. In fact, in its early days, Spencer and Christy’s data set seemed to indicate the atmosphere was cooling, before a series of big adjustments were made.


Evolution of UAH lower tropospheric temperature trends from satellite observations. Source: Cosmopolis; Abraham et al. (2014).


As discussed in my book and as a paper that John Abraham and I published with several colleagues last year showed, much of Spencer and Christy’s contrarian research has not withstood subsequent scientific scrutiny.

we conclude then that the quality of work of contrarian-view scientists, as showcased here by representative case studies, is notably lower than that of scientists who hold the consensus view ... We find that the scientific literature includes a series of strong responses from the mainstream scientific community including criticisms, corrections, and in some cases, resignation of editors. The contrarian views were often found to be unsubstantiated by the data and are no longer seriously considered by many climate scientists.

In fact, the accuracy of Spencer and Christy’s atmospheric temperature estimates remains a question of rigorous scientific dispute today. While the Alabama.com interview says,

Still, they carry on - comfortable in their research and data that has remained true to their findings

That comfort may very well be misplaced.

Conspiracies and Biases


When asked about data from government agencies contradicting their contrarian beliefs about the dangers associated with climate change, Christy said,

NASA, NOAA, EPA, DOE, those are agencies. Agency leaders are appointed by the government, by the current administration. They do not represent objective independent scientific organizations. They can’t. They are appointed by the head. They try. People who come out with different views in their organizations are found to be squashed. There is an agenda in those agencies ... There are skeptics in NASA and NOAA, a good number. But they are quiet. They know in this administration, they don’t speak out.

This is an ironic answer given the recent revelations that scientists in Florida have been barred from using phrases like “climate change” and “global warming.” Similarly, the George W. Bush administration was accused of censoring government reports about climate change. It’s contrarians who have tried to squash inconvenient scientific research, not those who accept the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming.

Fossil Fuel Interests

The interview also included an extensive discussion about fossil fuels, with Roy Spencer saying,

When I talk to scientists who should be objective over a beer at the end of the day, I will argue with them and their final position will always be, ‘Yeah, but we need to get away from fossil fuels anyway.’ Where did that come from? Are you an expert in alternative energy sources and what they cost? How many poor people are you going to hurt? How many more people are you going to make poor through energy poverty because they are paying five to 10 times as much for their energy?

Roy Spencer is of course not an energy or economics expert either. Experts in these fields who have published research on the subject have found that fossil fuels are incredibly expensive, when we account for all of their costs. For example, one recent study conservatively estimated that including pollution costs, coal is about 4 times more expensive than wind and 3 times more expensive than solar energy in the USA today. Additionally, poorer countries are generally the most vulnerable to climate change impacts. John Christy made similarly backwards arguments,

Carbon dioxide makes things grow. The world used to have five times as much carbon dioxide as it does now. Plants love this stuff. It creates more food. CO2 is not the problem ... There is absolutely no question that carbon energy provides with longer and better lives. There is no question about that.

The ‘CO2 is plant food’ argument is a gross oversimplification. For example, rising carbon dioxide levels increase the greenhouse effect, causing global warming, which in turn intensifies droughts. As we’re seeing in California right now (the Golden State turning brown), that’s not good for plants.

Christy also made a key mistake in those comments. Energy gives people longer and better lives, but there’s absolutely no reason that energy must come from carbon-intensive fossil fuel sources. In fact, my colleague John Abraham is helping developing countries in Africa deploy clean energy sources instead.

Christy and Spencer have also been affiliated with various conservative fossil fuel-funded think tanks. And Spencer is on the Board of Advisors of the Cornwall Alliance – a religious group that essentially believes God wouldn’t let damaging climate change happen. Spencer has also made some controversial comments, calling those who disagree with him “global warming Nazis” as well as declaring “I love FoxNews” and saying,

I view my job a little like a legislator, supported by the taxpayer, to protect the interests of the taxpayer and to minimize the role of government.

Spencer and Christy made a valuable scientific contribution by creating their atmospheric temperature data set. However, given how few climate scientists dispute the expert consensus on human-caused global warming, it’s useful to examine their research and comments with a critical eye. When we do, it becomes clear that they have less in common with Galileo than with the scientists who disputed the links between smoking and cancer.

ETA You never know Gondwanaland may make a post showing where R Eric Swanson is writing "junk science" or is "ignorant"

Supporting the rejection of it based on the grounds that some on the "wrong side" might or already have, found something in it to support their views is atrocious. No different than supporting those who censored Galileo and put warning labels of Copernicus, because what they found can be used by the wrong side.

Btw, have you read it? I see lots of published critiques being posted but not much indication you have bothered to read what you are criticizing. Isn't that something like a pet peeve of yours?

[rogue06]

Gondwanaland made the error. I am enjoying it.

Incapable of walking and chewing gum simultaneously?

That is just a lame excuse for continuing to fail at addressing the paper itself (no, Googling and copy pasta-ing any critical article does not count).

[CivilDiscourse]

Incapable of walking and chewing gum simultaneously?

That is just a lame excuse for continuing to fail at addressing the paper itself (no, Googling and copy pasta-ing any critical article does not count).

More importantly, addressing the CONTENTS of the paper instead of simply talking about "the paper".

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Supporting the rejection of it based on the grounds that some on the "wrong side" might or already have, found something in it to support their views is atrocious. No different than supporting those who censored Galileo and put warning labels of Copernicus, because what they found can be used by the wrong side.

Btw, have you read it? I see lots of published critiques being posted but not much indication you have bothered to read what you are criticizing. Isn't that something like a pet peeve of yours?

I have not made any comment on the paper itself nor the accuracy of its conclusions.

I have noted that it has proven very popular as a downnload and its conclusions [whether correct or not] will be popular with those who downplay or deny climate change because it reinforces their confirmation bias.

I would only note that as Christy and another co-author apparently had errors in a previous paper I would not be surprised if those with expertise in these disciplines later find some inaccuracies in this. Christy appears to be a contrarian as to the extent of anthropogenic influences on climate change and also appears to underestimate the impact climate change will have on the planet and human life.