Saturday, May 2, 2020
Global fossil fuel demand’s ‘staggering’ fall
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/global-fossil-fuel-demands-staggering-fall/
The world’s energy markets are in upheaval, as experts report an historic fall in global fossil fuel demand.
LONDON, 1 May, 2020 − One of the pillars of industrial society is tottering: global fossil fuel demand is buckling, with only renewable energy expected to show any growth this year.
Oil prices are going through the floor. The market for coal and gas is shrinking fast. And global emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases are set to fall in 2020 by 8%, the largest annual decrease in emissions ever recorded.
The latest report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the global energy watchdog, will make sobering reading for those involved in the fossil fuel industry – and hearten those fighting against a warming world.
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought death, pain and suffering around the world and is causing widespread economic and financial hardship.
But it’s become clear that the Covid crisis has done something that years of climate change negotiations have failed to do – it has not only forced us to change the way we live our lives, but also dramatically altered the way we use the planet’s resources, in particular its energy supplies.
‘Unheard-of slump’
“This is a historic shock to the entire energy world”, says Dr Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director.
“Amid today’s unparalleled health and economic crises, the plunge in demand for nearly all major fuels is staggering, especially for coal, oil and gas.
“Only renewables are holding up during the previously unheard-of slump in electricity use”, says Dr Birol.
The IEA report, its Global Energy Review 2020, looks at likely energy trends over the coming months and analyses data accumulated over the first Covid-influenced 100 days of this year.
Overall world energy demand in 2020 is set to fall by 6% − a drop seven times greater than the decline recorded in the wake of the 2008/2009 global financial crash.
“The plunge in demand for nearly all major fuels is staggering, especially for coal, oil and gas. Only renewables are holding up”
That fall is equivalent to losing the entire annual energy demand of India − or the combined yearly demand of the UK, France, Germany and Italy.
Oil demand, says the report, is expected to decline by 9% over the present year, its biggest annual drop in a quarter of a century. Demand for gas – which has consistently expanded over recent times − is expected to fall by 5%.
The economic disruption caused by the Covid pandemic is likely to hit the coal industry – already in decline − particularly hard. The IEA forecasts coal demand to drop this year by 8% compared with 2019, its biggest year-on-year decline since the end of WWII.
“It is still too early to determine the longer-term impacts, but the energy industry that emerges from this crisis will be significantly different from the one that came before”, says the report.
The study says renewable energy is the one segment of the sector that will see growth over the present year.
Decline already begun
The dominant role of fossil fuels in the energy market was already in decline before the Covid crisis. This trend is likely to continue as low operating costs and flexible access to electricity grids make renewables ever more competitive.
Moves in many countries towards cleaner energy and more climate change-related regulations will see an overall growth of 5% in renewable electricity generation in 2020.
The IEA is generally seen as a conservative body, careful not to offend powerful interests in the global energy industry.
It says the resilience of renewable energy in the midst of a global crisis could encourage fossil fuel companies to switch to generating more clean energy.
There is the possibility that countries will revert to the old ways, with fossil fuel use climbing again as economies recover.
‘Inescapable’ challenge ahead
The IEA urges governments to put clean energy at the centre of their economic recovery plans and prioritise clean energy technologies including batteries, hydrogen and carbon capture.
In an article last month Dr Birol talked of the impact the Covid crisis was having on people’s health and economic activity.
“Although they may be severe, the effects are likely to be temporary”, he wrote.
“Meanwhile the threat posed by climate change, which requires us to reduce global emissions significantly this decade, will remain.
“We should not allow today’s crisis to compromise our efforts to tackle the world’s inescapable challenge.” − Climate News Network
Astronomers capture rare images of planet-forming disks around stars
April 30, 2020
KU Leuven
Astronomers have captured images of the inner rims of planet-forming disks located hundreds of light years away. These disks of dust and gas, similar in shape to a music record, form around young stars. The images shed new light on how planetary systems are formed.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200430091253.htm
An international team of astronomers has captured fifteen images of the inner rims of planet-forming disks located hundreds of light years away. These disks of dust and gas, similar in shape to a music record, form around young stars. The images shed new light on how planetary systems are formed. They were published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
To understand how planetary systems, including our own, take shape, you have to study their origins. Planet-forming or protoplanetary disks are formed in unison with the star they surround. The dust grains in the disks can grow into larger bodies, which eventually leads to the formation of planets. Rocky planets like the Earth are believed to form in the inner regions of protoplanetary disks, less than five astronomical units (five times the Earth-Sun distance) from the star around which the disk has formed.
Before this new study, several pictures of these disks had been taken with the largest single-mirror telescopes, but these cannot capture their finest details. "In these pictures, the regions close to the star, where rocky planets form, are covered by only few pixels," says lead author Jacques Kluska from KU Leuven in Belgium. "We needed to visualize these details to be able to identify patterns that might betray planet formation and to characterize the properties of the disks." This required a completely different observation technique. "I'm thrilled that we now for the first time have fifteen of these images," Kluska continued.
Image reconstruction
Kluska and his colleagues created the images at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile by using a technique called infrared interferometry. Using ESO's PIONIER instrument, they combined the light collected by four telescopes at the Very Large Telescope observatory to capture the disks in detail. However, this technique does not deliver an image of the observed source. The details of the disks needed to be recovered with a mathematical reconstruction technique. This technique is similar to how the first image of a black hole was captured. "We had to remove the light of the star, as it hindered the level of detail we could see in the disks," Kluska explains.
"Distinguishing details at the scale of the orbits of rocky planets like Earth or Jupiter (as you can see in the images) -- a fraction of the Earth-Sun distance -- is equivalent to being able to see a human on the Moon, or to distinguish a hair at a 10 km distance," notes Jean-Philippe Berger of the Université Grenoble-Alpes, who as principal investigator was in charge of the work with the PIONIER instrument. "Infrared interferometry is becoming routinely used to uncover the tiniest details of astronomical objects. Combining this technique with advanced mathematics finally allows us to turn the results of these observations into images."
Irregularities
Some findings immediately stand out from the images. "You can see that some spots are brighter or less bright, like in the images above: this hints at processes that can lead to planet formation. For example: there could be instabilities in the disk that can lead to vortices where the disk accumulates grains of space dust that can grow and evolve into a planet."
The team will do additional research to identify what might lie behind these irregularities. Kluska will also do new observations to get even more detail and to directly witness planet formation in the regions within the disks that lie close to the star. Additionally, Kluska is heading a team that has started to study 11 disks around other, older types of stars also surrounded by disks of dust, since it is thought these might also sprout planets.
Story Source:
Materials provided by KU Leuven. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Related Multimedia:
Images of protoplanetary disks around the R CrA and HD45677 stars, captured with ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer
Journal Reference:
J. Kluska, J.-P. Berger, F. Malbet, B. Lazareff, M. Benisty, J.-B. Le Bouquin, O. Absil, F. Baron, A. Delboulbé, G. Duvert, A. Isella, L. Jocou, A. Juhasz, S. Kraus, R. Lachaume, F. Ménard, R. Millan-Gabet, J. D. Monnier, T. Moulin, K. Perraut, S. Rochat, C. Pinte, F. Soulez, M. Tallon, W.-F. Thi, E. Thiébaut, W. Traub, G. Zins. A family portrait of disk inner rims around Herbig Ae/Be stars. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2020; 636: A116 DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201833774
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200430091253.htm
An international team of astronomers has captured fifteen images of the inner rims of planet-forming disks located hundreds of light years away. These disks of dust and gas, similar in shape to a music record, form around young stars. The images shed new light on how planetary systems are formed. They were published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
To understand how planetary systems, including our own, take shape, you have to study their origins. Planet-forming or protoplanetary disks are formed in unison with the star they surround. The dust grains in the disks can grow into larger bodies, which eventually leads to the formation of planets. Rocky planets like the Earth are believed to form in the inner regions of protoplanetary disks, less than five astronomical units (five times the Earth-Sun distance) from the star around which the disk has formed.
Before this new study, several pictures of these disks had been taken with the largest single-mirror telescopes, but these cannot capture their finest details. "In these pictures, the regions close to the star, where rocky planets form, are covered by only few pixels," says lead author Jacques Kluska from KU Leuven in Belgium. "We needed to visualize these details to be able to identify patterns that might betray planet formation and to characterize the properties of the disks." This required a completely different observation technique. "I'm thrilled that we now for the first time have fifteen of these images," Kluska continued.
Image reconstruction
Kluska and his colleagues created the images at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile by using a technique called infrared interferometry. Using ESO's PIONIER instrument, they combined the light collected by four telescopes at the Very Large Telescope observatory to capture the disks in detail. However, this technique does not deliver an image of the observed source. The details of the disks needed to be recovered with a mathematical reconstruction technique. This technique is similar to how the first image of a black hole was captured. "We had to remove the light of the star, as it hindered the level of detail we could see in the disks," Kluska explains.
"Distinguishing details at the scale of the orbits of rocky planets like Earth or Jupiter (as you can see in the images) -- a fraction of the Earth-Sun distance -- is equivalent to being able to see a human on the Moon, or to distinguish a hair at a 10 km distance," notes Jean-Philippe Berger of the Université Grenoble-Alpes, who as principal investigator was in charge of the work with the PIONIER instrument. "Infrared interferometry is becoming routinely used to uncover the tiniest details of astronomical objects. Combining this technique with advanced mathematics finally allows us to turn the results of these observations into images."
Irregularities
Some findings immediately stand out from the images. "You can see that some spots are brighter or less bright, like in the images above: this hints at processes that can lead to planet formation. For example: there could be instabilities in the disk that can lead to vortices where the disk accumulates grains of space dust that can grow and evolve into a planet."
The team will do additional research to identify what might lie behind these irregularities. Kluska will also do new observations to get even more detail and to directly witness planet formation in the regions within the disks that lie close to the star. Additionally, Kluska is heading a team that has started to study 11 disks around other, older types of stars also surrounded by disks of dust, since it is thought these might also sprout planets.
Story Source:
Materials provided by KU Leuven. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Related Multimedia:
Images of protoplanetary disks around the R CrA and HD45677 stars, captured with ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer
Journal Reference:
J. Kluska, J.-P. Berger, F. Malbet, B. Lazareff, M. Benisty, J.-B. Le Bouquin, O. Absil, F. Baron, A. Delboulbé, G. Duvert, A. Isella, L. Jocou, A. Juhasz, S. Kraus, R. Lachaume, F. Ménard, R. Millan-Gabet, J. D. Monnier, T. Moulin, K. Perraut, S. Rochat, C. Pinte, F. Soulez, M. Tallon, W.-F. Thi, E. Thiébaut, W. Traub, G. Zins. A family portrait of disk inner rims around Herbig Ae/Be stars. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2020; 636: A116 DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201833774
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