♻️ Electrolysis to manufacture green steel, reducing 80% nuclear waste, and Iron for sustainable batteries

Welcome back to the fourth edition of Sustainability, a weekly newsletter by Interesting Engineering.

This week, MIT scientists are back with another innovation to tackle the climate crisis with green tech. Boston Metal, founded by MIT professionals, developed a new approach to molten oxide electrolysis (MOE), eradicating several steps in steelmaking and releasing oxygen as its sole byproduct.'

In other significant updates, a former CERN scientist working at a private nuclear fission company, Transmutex, has developed a new method promising to radically reduce the radioactivity of nuclear waste by as much as 80 percent. Using a particle accelerator, the scientists proposed using a slightly radioactive element such as thorium and transmuting it into an isotope of uranium. 

Following the recent turbulence on a Singapore Airlines flight that left a 73-year-old man dead and injured more than 70 people, a report in Nature scrutinizes the science of air turbulence and how climate change will influence it. A scientist noted that climate change is making turbulence more frequent and severe. Recently, scientists developed a new type of cathode material using iron to make lithium-ion batteries for electric cars aiming to replace more expensive and scarce metals such as cobalt and nickel and pave the way for cheaper, safer, and more sustainable batteries with higher energy densities.

You'll find an interesting mix of TV shows and films centered around climate change and sustainable living, ranging from Extrapolations on Apple TV to the documentary series Down to Earth with Zac Efron.

With that, I, Shubhangi Dua, your author for Sustainability, welcome you to the fourth edition.

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NEWS

• ☢️ Breakthrough Swiss tech cuts 80% of radioactive waste in nuclear plants Radioactivity of nuclear waste could be reduced from thousands of years to less than 500 years.

• ✈️ Singapore Airlines turbulence: why climate change is making flights rougher Warming temperatures are likely to mean that more of your plane ride will have rocky conditions, creating potentially dangerous situations.

• 🔋 Iron cathodes make lithium batteries cheaper, safer, more sustainable Iron-based cathodes can offer a higher energy density than state-of-the-art cathode materials used in electric vehicles.

• 🔥 Is North America set for another bad wildfire smoke season? Smoke from wildfires burning in Canada and Mexico is already worsening air quality in the US, but some signs suggest clearer skies than last year

MUST READ

♻️ MIT scientists devise electrochemical process to make steelmaking more sustainable 

Aiming to considerably reduce greenhouse gas emissions typically linked to steel production, scientists from MIT—Professor Emeritus Donald Sadoway, Professor Antoine Allanore, and James Yurko, PhD ’01—founded a steel company, Boston Metal. The firm developed a new approach to the steelmaking process that eradicated many steps in steel production by releasing oxygen as its sole byproduct.

Boston Metal has already built a prototype reactor that is operational in Brazil and runs on 100 percent renewable energy. It demonstrated the feasibility of employing the new molten oxide electrolysis (MOE) approach to manufacture green steel. The reactor successfully transitioned from lab-scale experiments to producing hundreds of kilograms. The firm soon hopes to see tons of metal in production for commercial-scale manufacturing to make an overall impact in the steel industry.

MOE is an electrochemical process that eliminates many traditional steps in conventional steelmaking. The process occurs in modular cells where iron ore is given to a cell comprising a cathode and an anode submerged in a liquid electrolyte. When electricity runs between the anode and cathode at around 1,600 degrees Celsius, the iron oxide bonds in the ore are split, producing pure liquid metal at the bottom.

The byproduct of this reaction is oxygen, and the method eliminates the need for water, hazardous chemicals, or precious metal catalysts. Each MOE cell can produce up to 10 tons of metal per day depending on the current size. This development comes in light of steel production being one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, contributing roughly seven to nine percent of humanity’s emissions. The traditional process of making steel is highly polluting, involving the use of coal and resulting in significant carbon emissions.

“If you look around the world, a lot of the feedstocks for metal are oxides, and if it’s an oxide, then there’s a chance we can work with that feedstock,” Boston Metal Chief Scientist and former MIT postdoc Guillaume Lambotte noted. “There’s a lot of excitement because everyone needs a solution capable of decarbonizing the metal industry, so a lot of people are interested in understanding where MOE fits in their own processes.”

OTHER IMPORTANT UPDATES

• 🔋 Renewable grid in sight? Energy recovery from heat batteries reaches 44%

• 🗑️ Ditch brightly colored plastic, anti-waste researchers tell firms

• ⛽️ EU approves law to hit gas imports with methane emissions limit

• ⚡️ UK’s bold plan to generate electricity from drones gets funding boost

• 🌍 Dozens of Alaskan rivers and streams turn orange, visible from space

🍿 Films and TV shows inspired by real-world climate change

From the thought-provoking series Extrapolations envisioning potential future scenarios to the satirical critique of societal apathy in Don't Look Up, these productions offer insights into the challenges and complexities of addressing environmental issues.

🌧️ Extrapolations (2023)

One of the most exciting yet unsettling series that instills fear for the future of our planet, Extrapolations, was one of the best shows I watched recently. Featuring a prominent cast including Kit Harrington, Gemma Chan, Meryl Streep, Sienna Miller, Daveed Diggs, and Tahar Rahim, this show is a must-watch. It offers a realistic portrayal of what could happen to our planet in the future through intertwined stories, making it a compelling and thought-provoking experience. With attempts at geoengineering the sky, survival techniques in tropical countries, and efforts to politically mitigate climate situations, the series presents different perspectives of people trying to make a positive impact or other hindering positive change for financial benefit.

☄️ Don't Look Up (2021)

A satirical movie in which an astronomy student, played by Jennifer Lawrence, and her professor, Leonardo DiCaprio, discover a comet that could collide with Earth. The film follows their attempts to warn humanity, including the US president, played by Meryl Streep, in a superficial media landscape. The film humorously highlights the absurdity of alerting a disinterested and distracted public about a catastrophic event. Today's relevance to the climate crisis lies in its critique of how society often ignores or downplays existential threats.

🚝 Snowpiercer (2020 - continuing)

A TV show set seven years post a climate crisis that has frozen the world, turning it into a desolate wasteland. The remaining humanity survives on a gigantic, perpetually moving train that circles the globe. The train's passengers are divided by class, with the wealthy living in luxury at the front and the poor enduring harsh conditions at the back. The show explores themes of social inequality, survival, and rebellion as tensions rise among the different classes. With cast members like Daveed Diggs as the main lead and Jennifer Connelly as an engineer and hospitality leader in the show, Snowpiercer makes for an interesting watch.

🌪️ Geostorm (2017)

A film that follows the aftermath of a series of natural disasters that led global leaders to devise a network of satellites designed to control the global climate and ensure safety. A malfunction in the system, however, leads them to attack Earth causing catastrophic weather events. It becomes a race against time to uncover the true threat and prevent a global storm that could annihilate all life on the planet, with the leading cast as Gerar Butler, who has been among the selected few granted permission as an architect to reach a safe spot. Geostorm illustrates the potential dangers and ethical dilemmas associated with geoengineering solutions to climate change.

🥑 Down to Earth with Zac Efron (2020-2022)

Actor Zac Efron along with superfoods expert Darin Olien travel the world to discover secrets to good health, longevity, and eco-consciousness in a documentary. They start with New York, then head to Iceland to explore the sustainable living of the land. The show combines adventure, humor, and practical activities like goat-milking and even a visit to a blue zone in Italy characterized by a huge population of centurions. You can see Efron placed out of his comfort zone to experience various cultures and sustainable living practices in different parts of the world.

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