A Little Dose of Bad Science

I feel I must start by saying that I am not a fan of the Toyota Prius. It is, in my eyes, a half baked attempt to solve a far greater problem. I have issue with it being advertised as an ‘environmentally friendly’ vehicle. Sure it is better than some, but it is not in any way, shape or form environmentally friendly. The prius is in essence a high MPg vehicle for those that want to save fuel and, until recently, it wasn’t even very good at that, with other small engine petrol cars beating it in real world fuel economy. The Prius then, is a car for those wishing to dodge the congestion charge, or beat rising fuel tax, or help reduce inner city air pollution. But don’t let my pessimism distract from the main point of this post - I may not like the Prius but I dislike bad science even more. In 2007 CNW Market Research published a report titled Dust to Dust: The Energy Cost ofNew Vehicles From Concept to Disposal in which they compared the Toyota Prius to the Hummer H3 and concluded with joyful abandon that the latter is a ‘more energy efficient’ vehicle. If CNW’s goal was to mislead then they did a sterling job! However, my main issue with the report is the notion that it is scientific. It was sent out to the media and the public as a Scientific Report with conclusions based on scientific research when, on closer inspection (and by closer inspection I really mean just inspection), it is based on nothing but assumptions, false truths and completely lacks academic peer review - a pedestal on which all scientific papers have had to stand upon since 1665. I am a scientist, albeit one at the start of his career, and it this type sudo-scientific waffle that makes me strive to be a better scientist.

For anyone interested in reading the report for themselves the like is both in text and below the image. 

Source: http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy/DUST%20PDF%20VERSION.pdf

Can Plants Power Your Phone?

Well not quite yet...but science and engineering is one set closer to making it a reality. Announced this week in Nature, the University of Huston has successfully replaced the cobalt used at the cathode with purpurin, an organically derived dying agent from the Madder family of plants.

Below is a series of schematic diagrams and images taken from the paper showing the molecular structure of purpurin and the way that it can be chemically altered to become a store of lithium ions in a process known as lithiation. (a) Schematics 1, 2 and 3 show the sequence of lithiation. (b) Image 1, unaltered purpurin and image 2, chemically lithiated purpurin. Test have shown that chemically lithiated purpurin has very good reversible lithium ion storage properties.

But the implications resulting from the use of organically derived chemicals at the cathode of L-ion batteries goes far beyond replacing a toxic chemical. Traditionally, cobalt ions and lithium are combined under high temperatures to form the cathode. Purpurin, on the other hand, can be lithiated at room temperatures using a bath of lithium salts. The other major benefit of using a more organic battery is the reduction in the energy required to safely recycle the product. Currently, combined manufacturing and recycling costs approximately 70kg of carbon dioxide per KWH of battery power (1). In the future this value could be dramatically reduced.

Link to the paper in Nature.  

Image from: http://evergreenknits.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/growing-madder.html

Source: (1) Rice University

UnFair Trade – Breaking the Cycle – Part 3

The main problem facing the technology sector in Africa the lack capacity to manufacture products and therefore, rely heavily on imported goods. Many of which, when new, carry a premium far beyond the wallets of potential buyers. It is down to second hand equipment to fulfil the needs of the consumer. Africa is locked in a cycle of receiving, fixing up and selling old electronics. It is this cycle that drives the continued trade into developing nations. It also drives importers to invest in containers of “junk” with the hope that their gamble will pay off. But what can be done to break the cycle? Regulation and transparency must be part of the solution. Containers must be purchased at contents value and not net weight, as well as removing the element of gambling. If change is not brought about sooner rather than later then generations will experience first hand the toxic effects of dumping e-waste into the environment. 

Sources: Out of Control, e-waste trade flows out of the EU into developing nations, Swedwatch, 2009

Unfair Trade, e-waste in Africa, Environmental Health Perspectives, 2006 

UnFair Trade – Unregulated markets – Part 2

Trade in e-waste is a largely unregulated sector. It is down to the exporter to say what is contained within the shipment. Labels such as; “Products for reuse” or “Donations” can be used to cover up the true contents of a container. There is no legal president to state qualitatively the contents of a shipment. This allows exporters to pack out containers labelled as “Donations” with e-waste ready to be shipped to developing nations. What is the motivation of doing this? To put it simply, cost. To use an example, to recycle or correctly dispose of a single CRT monitor costs upwards of $15, a price both the consumer and manufacturer are not willing to pay. With mandatory recycling schemes being introduced across the USA and Europe the flow of e-waste to developing nations is only going to increase.

In the case of trade to Africa, exporters have become brokers of e-waste. Importers will purchase a container on it's net weight of contents (on average it costs up to $5000 to ship a container from the USA to Nigeria). This purchase can take two forms. The first is an unopened unseen container where the buyer cannot see the contents but the exporter may reveal some of information on good faith. These are known as blind purchases and pose a significant gamble to the buyer. The second is known as the trade off purchase. This relies on communication between the buyer and the seller. Working computers, for example, hold a significant value within the African market. A 10 year old desktop PC can sell for upwards of $150. The foreign exporter, armed with this information, will contact potential buys and reveal roughly how many working PC's are within the container. The importer will then work out the numbers and attempt to negotiate more working computers into the shipment until a deal is made. The exporter is then free to pack the remainder of the space within the shipment with e-waste, which the importer has unwittingly agreed to take on. Jim Puckett, working for the Basal Action Network (BAN), documents his observations in a report called “The Digital Dump: Exporting Re-use and Abuse to Africa”. Contained within is a description of e-waste being dumped straight from containers at the port in Lagos into coastal lowland swamps.

Image: climatechangemedia.com, e-waste dump in swampland outside Lagos, Nigeria

By these two methods, e-waste brokers can mix illegal irreparable waste with genuinely reusable and donated products and sell both for a profit with no regard to the environmental impacts doing so will cause. 

UnFair Trade – Where might your 'recycled' electronics end up? - Part 1

Africa has one of the fastest growing information sections in the world with an ever increasing demand for reasonably priced electronic equipment. Ikeja Computer Village, just outside Lagos in Nigeria is one of three major hubs for the resale of used electronics into Africa. Everything from computers to televisions to mobile phones can be found there for sale. On the surface it would seem like a perfect set up, with used goods coming in from Europe, USA and Japan in containers which are then bought by resellers. However, this sadly is not the case because up to and including 75% of shipments contain nothing more than irreparable junk (Computer and Allied Product Dealers Association of Nigeria). Although villages like Ikeja have a flourishing and accomplished repair market, it does not have the capacity to deal with electronic waste in a safe and environmentally friendly way. Western importers are aware of this but continue to dump vast amounts of waste, legally, through the guise of recycling. In this three part series I am going to explore the problems facing the largely unregulated global trade of e-waste using Ikeja as a focus for example.

Source: Environews: Spheres of Influence, 2006

Bolivia's Golden Ticket

Bolivia, one of the poorest countries in South America, is sitting on an untapped reserve of Lithium Carbonate. This aqueous metal solution is the primary component in the lithium ion batteries we all use in our phones, tablets and laptops. However, with the popularity of electric vehicles on the rise demand for lithium carbonate is ever increasing, along with the price. Bolivia has the worlds largest known resource of lithium carbonate beneath the Salar de Uyuni salt flats located to the southwest. The salt flats, bordered by the Andes mountain range, are 3,656 meters above sea level in one of the most arid and inhospitable environments on Earth (Image below). However, beneath the 10,500 km squared of dried salt crust is an estimated 5.5 million tonnes of lithium.

I came across two video reports, one from 2009 and another from 2012 assessing the rather individual way that the Bolivian government is planning on exploiting the precious resource that they hold (links below). The master plan being that foreign companies would be allowed to utilise the lithium resource as long as all battery manufacture would take place within Bolivia and all profits made would be reinvested into the country. With this proposal the government hopes to bring an end to foreign exploitation of resources. However, it would seem that in the intervening 3 years between the reports Bolivia has made little progress in completing its goal to create a fully intergraded battery manufacturing facility without non-domestic investment. The mining process is relatively simple and environmentally friendly. The top layer of salt evaporite is removed and a pit is dug into which lithium in solution gathers. Evaporation of water leaves a concentrated solution of lithium carbonate behind in the pit which can then be syphoned off and transported. The problem is that there is no infrastructure at the Salar de Uyuni. Infrastructure that could have been funded by foreign investment. In these times of economic hardship Bolivia hardly has the excess to spend on developing industrial scale manufacturing and mining at 3,500m above sea level. However, if the government does not invest or allow investment in its own future now then in 10 to 20 years when battery technology has moved on, the proverbial gold rush will be over. 

Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannia, USGS, Image curtsy of Landsat

  

Soil Contamination and the Problems Facing Wenling Province

So continuing on from last weeks media review on the Wenling Province of China I found a paper in the Journal of Hazardous Materials on a similar subject. The focus of the paper is on soil contamination within the province and relating this data to density of both household workshops and large scale recycling facilities.

The study investigated the levels of heavy metals and polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) compounds found within paddy soil compared to a reference site. The paper shows that levels of Hg and Zn as well as PCB's exceeded the Grade 2 “safe” level as set out by the State Environmental Protection Administration of China by up to 300%. Probably the most disturbing aspect of this discovery is that the contamination is greatest within the water logged soil of paddy farms. The products of which are being eaten by individuals throughout the province. The effects are only likely to be seen within the next decade.

Another interesting observation of the report is that comparatively, small household recycling facilities produce far more toxic and harmful waste than larger more regulated factories. This is, in part, due to the lack environmental regulations and laws of Wenling which encouraged people to start e-waste businesses in the first place.

From what I have read and watched, the problem facing Wenling as a centre for electronic waste disposal is one of regulation. The province must first work to educate those in homespun industries in order to reduce the amount of pollution before regulating the sector. To initiate this change in policy it is down to the consumer, namely the USA, Japan and Australia, to take responsibility for where it chooses to off load its e-waste. There is, after all, money to be made from the responsible recycling of electronics and this could be Wenling's golden ticket for the future. But lets hope it is not at the expense of the people of the environment.