Author: Neville

Reaction Rates of Second Key Atmospheric Component Measured

Apr. 11, 2013 — Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories’ Combustion Research Facility, the University of Manchester, Bristol University, University of Southampton and Hong Kong Polytechnic have successfully measured reaction rates of a second Criegee intermediate, CH3CHOO, and proven that the reactivity of the atmospheric chemical depends strongly on which way the molecule is twisted.

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The measurements will provide further insight into hydrocarbon combustion and atmospheric chemistry. A paper describing the research findings titled “Direct Measurements of Conformer-Dependent Reactivity of the Criegee Intermediate CH3CHOO” is featured in the April 12 edition of Science magazine.

Criegee intermediates — carbonyl oxides — are considered to be pivotal atmospheric reactants, but only indirect knowledge of their reaction kinetics had previously been available. Last year, Sandia and its UK-based partners reported, for the first time, direct measurements of reactions of the smallest gas-phase Criegee intermediate using photoionization mass spectrometry. That research was featured in the January 13, 2012, edition of Science.

New findings include confirmed fast reactions, first-time measurements with water

Sandia combustion chemist Craig Taatjes, the lead author on the Science papers, said there are several significant aspects about the new research findings.

In particular, the measurements show that the reaction rate depends dramatically on whether the CH3CHOO is bent, with the CH3- and -OO ends pointing toward the same side, a conformation called “syn-” or more straightened, with the CH3- and -OO ends pointing away from each other, called “anti-.”

“Observing conformer-dependent reactivity represents the first direct experimental test of theoretical predictions,” said Taatjes. “The work will be of tremendous importance in validating the theoretical methods that are needed to accurately predict the kinetics for reactions of Criegee intermediates that still cannot be measured directly.”

In fact, said Taatjes, the latest results supply one of the most critical targets for such validation. Because of the large concentration of water in Earth’s atmosphere, Criegee concentrations — and, hence, the tropospheric implications of all Criegee intermediate reactions — depend on knowing the rate constant for reaction with water.

Although the reactions for most Criegee intermediates, including the syn- conformer of CH3CHOO, with water may simply be too slow to be measured by the research team’s methods, anti-CH3CHOO has been predicted to have a vastly enhanced reactivity with water. Taatjes and his colleagues confirmed this prediction and made the first experimental determination of the reaction rate of a Criegee intermediate with water. “A Criegee intermediate’s reaction with water determines what the concentration of these intermediates in the atmosphere is going to be. This is a significant benchmark,” he said.

Taatjes said one of the questions remaining after the first direct measurement of Criegee reactions was whether the remarkably fast reaction of CH2OO with SO2 was representative of other Criegee intermediates.

“This measurement of a second intermediate — which we found to react just about as fast with sulfur dioxide as the intermediate we measured last year — supports the notion that the reactions of all Criegee intermediates with SO2 will occur easily,” said Taatjes “It also confirms that Criegee intermediate reactions are likely to make a contribution to sulfate and nitrate chemistry in the troposphere.” This increase in reactivity, he said, provides additional evidence that Criegee intermediates will play a significant role in the oxidation of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere.

Unraveling the mysteries, complexities of Criegee intermediates

Hydrocarbons that are emitted into Earth’s troposphere, either naturally or by humans, are removed by many reactive atmospheric species. For unsaturated hydrocarbons — molecules with at least one C=C double bond — a prominent removal mechanism is reaction with ozone, called ozonolysis. It is accepted that ozonolysis produces other reactive species, including carbonyl oxides, which are known as Criegee intermediates. Rudolf Criegee, a German chemist, first proposed the mechanism of ozonolysis in the 1950s.

Because so much ozonolysis happens in the atmosphere, the reactions of Criegee intermediates are thought to be very important in a wide range of tropospheric processes like secondary organic aerosol formation and nighttime production of highly reactive OH radicals. As a result, the chemistry of these reactive Criegee intermediates has been the subject of intense investigation for decades, but without any direct measurement of their reaction rates until last year’s published work by Sandia and its collaborators.

The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science and conducted using the Advanced Light Source, a scientific user facility also supported by the DOE Office of Science.

Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.

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Warmest Summers in Last Two Decades in Northern Latitudes Were Unprecedented in Six Centuries

Apr. 11, 2013 — Harvard researchers are adding nuance to our understanding of how modern and historical temperatures compare.

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Through their statistical model of Arctic temperatures and how they relate to instrumental and proxy records, Martin Tingley, a research associate in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and Peter Huybers, professor of earth and planetary sciences, have shown that the warmest summers in the last two decades were unprecedented in six centuries. The work is described in paper published in the April 11 issue of Nature.

“We call upon multiple proxies — including those derived from trees, ice cores, and lake sediments — to reconstruct temperature back through time using a Bayesian statistical approach,” Tingley said. “What we are trying to do is put statistical inference of past changes in temperature on a more solid and complete footing.

“Saying this year is warmer than all other years included in the reconstruction is a very different thing than saying this year is warmer than a particular year in the past,” he added. “You have to think about the uncertainty in the temperature estimate for each year, and then be able to say that recent years are warmer than all past years simultaneously.”

To assess such probabilities, Tingley and Huybers use a statistical model that gives a large ensemble of equally likely temperature histories for the last 600 years, as opposed to the single best estimate provided by most other reconstructions of the planet’s temperature.

“By sorting through these many plausible realizations of what Earth’s temperature may have looked like,” Huybers said, “it becomes possible to find the probability associated with a great variety of relevant quantities, such as whether the 2010 Russian heat wave was more anomalous than all other events or whether the trend in average temperature over the last 100 years is uniquely large.”

Perhaps the most basic quantity is average Arctic temperature, and Tingley said that the summers of 2005, 2007, 2010, and 2011 were each warmer than all years prior to 2005 in at least 95 percent of the ensemble members. Furthermore, the rate of temperature increase observed over the last century is, with 99 percent probability, greater in magnitude than centennial trends in the last 600 years. At a regional level, the summer of 2010 featured the warmest year in western Russia, with 99 percent probability, and also featured the warmest year in western Greenland and the Canadian Arctic, with 90 percent probability.

Also notable: Although summer temperatures are clearly on the rise, the researchers found no indication that temperature variability has changed. Events such as the 2010 Russian heat wave and the 2003 western European heat wave are consistent with the increase in mean temperature, after accounting for the fact that they are selected as some of the hottest years and locations.

“Insomuch as the past is prologue for the future,” Tingley said, “these results suggest that the hottest summers will track along with increases in mean temperature.” He explained, “If instead the distribution of temperatures were becoming wider, as well as shifting toward higher values, then the probability of extreme events would go up even more rapidly.”

But Tingley also acknowledged the limitations of the results and the need for further work. “The proxies, unlike thermometers, generally only give information about seasonal average temperatures, and we have not explored changes in variability at the daily and weekly timescales associated with weather patterns,” he said. “It will be interesting to further explore instrumental records and higher resolution proxies for trends at these shorter timescales.”

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Woodside gas plan dump causes mixed reactions

Staff Writers
AAP
April 12, 2013 1:26PM

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PN Woodside genocide

VOICE: Broome Community No Gas Campaign spokeswoman Nik Wevers said the group’s opposition would not cease until they were sure the James Price Point area – including the monsoon vine thickets, the dinosaur footprints and the cultural heritage sites – were all protected. Source: PerthNow

WOODSIDE Petroleum’s decision to shelve a massive gas project in WA is a win for the Kimberley region, environmentalists say.

But the workers union says it is a devastating blow for the local construction and manufacturing industries.

Woodside on Friday said a major review of the proposed $45 billion Browse liquefied natural gas processing plant at James Price Point, near Broome, had found it would not deliver the returns needed.

Australian Conservation Foundation chief executive Don Henry said the industrial project would have done untold damage to the region’s unique coastline.

“Governments now need to support indigenous jobs through land management and economic activities that don’t threaten the long-term protection of the unique Kimberley environment,” he said.

Wilderness Society director Lyndon Schneiders said the decision should serve as a warning to governments and businesses who want to force unwanted and unsustainable developments on communities.

“Australians have woken up to the threats that mining and industrialisation pose to our environment and our communities,” he said.

Broome Community No Gas Campaign spokeswoman Nik Wevers said the group’s opposition would not cease until they were sure the James Price Point area – including the monsoon vine thickets, the dinosaur footprints and the cultural heritage sites – were all protected.

“This means plans to compulsorily acquire the land or to build a port at the site, even if the LNG precinct does not go ahead, must be shelved,” she said.

Ms Wevers said the group preferred a floating facility or piping the gas to the Pilbara.

Environs Kimberley’s Martin Pritchard said the door remained open for the project to resume, and vowed to continue fighting.

“People have been traumatised beyond belief, but we are still ready to stop the project and won’t give up till it’s gone,” he said.

Meanwhile, Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union WA secretary Steve McCartney lamented that the project could have employed thousands of Australian construction workers and filled local manufacturing yards for years.

Mr McCartney criticised speculation of a floating facility to process the gas, describing it as a disastrous option.

“We will lose 8000 construction jobs and have them replaced with a few hundred operational jobs,” he said.

“The biggest winners from this decision will be steel fabricators in South Korea and China, as local fabricators will not get a look in to build the facility.”

Mr McCartney said all levels of government should work to ensure onshore processing was a priority.

We must not allow local jobs to float away,” he said.

Boondoggle or best thing we’ll ever do? What to make of high speed rail

Transport Minister Anthony Albanese today released the second phase report for Australia’s High Speed Rail Study. The AECOM report plots out a preferred route from Brisbane to Melbourne, predicts how many passengers will ride the system, and suggests the system would be marginally beneficial and economically…

Author

Matthew Burke

Research Fellow at Griffith University
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Disclosure Statement

Matthew Burke receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads, Queensland Health, Moreland City Council, Moreland Community Health, Logan City Council, Springfield Land Corporation and Lend Lease Communities. He is a member of the National Heart Foundation’s National Physical Activity Committee.

Griffith University Provides funding as a Member of The Conversation.

M4283w44-1365663254So high speed rail might be a good investment, in future. It just might also be the worst of the possible rail projects to fund at this moment in time. AAP .

Transport Minister Anthony Albanese today released the second phase report for Australia’s High Speed Rail Study. The AECOM report plots out a preferred route from Brisbane to Melbourne, predicts how many passengers will ride the system, and suggests the system would be marginally beneficial and economically feasible.

The costs are staggering. At around $114 billion it would dwarf any national infrastructure program yet undertaken – around three times the size of the National Broadband Network.

Even using a 4% discount rate (which would be considered “unusual” in most economic circles) the economic benefit/cost ratio is worryingly low at around 2.3 to 1 (that is, for every one dollar spent, it generates $2.30). And that’s after factoring strong population and economic growth through to the year 2065.

The patronage projections are also difficult to pull apart. There is a long history of inaccuracy in forecasting patronage in such projects due to two reasons. Bent Flyvberg, Professor of Planning at Oxford, calls “optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation”.

And we are hardly world-beaters in this country in estimating the value and viability of projects. The high speed rail projections are brought to you by the same firm responsible for the calamitous Lane Cove Tunnel, Sydney Cross City Tunnel and Brisbane Clem7 forecasts.

By my estimation if only half the business passengers on the Brisbane-Sydney and Sydney-Melbourne routes switched from air to rail, rather than the two-thirds estimated in the AECOM report, the high speed rail system would require massive subsidies to meet its operating costs.

Most people would baulk from committing at this point. The only review of the international experience with high speed rail, published by researchers at the University of Las Palmas in Spain in 2009, is sober reading. The average subsidy for the German, French, Spanish and Italian systems was calculated at over A$65,000 per seat, per year.

Indeed, it is claimed that only two routes in the world are currently profitable, in Lyon-Paris and Tokyo-Osaka. It is extremely doubtful that even the Sydney-Melbourne route could match that performance.

The reasons are many:
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Australian cities are small by international standards (Greater Osaka’s population being ten times bigger than Brisbane’s)

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our cities are less dense and have employment centres more dispersed than in Europe or Asia

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the distances betweeen our major centres are both huge and sparsely populated (the Tokyo Osaka line passes ‘small’ cities like Nagoya, which is half the size of Sydney

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there are few feeder rail lines from regional cities outside the corridor to support a high speed network.

Only when Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Sydney and Melbourne are of greater size, and the regional centres between them are larger, does high speed rail seem to warrant investment. Unless of course oil suddenly becomes scarce.

All that said, it seems prudent to plan and protect a corridor. It’s not overly expensive to work out a detailed alignment and preserve it from incompatible land development. This does little harm and ensures we can move forward if and when circumstances change and/or the time is right.

But should high speed rail be built right now? Let’s compare some options. The cost of getting from Brisbane and the Gold Coast to Newcastle (and no further) is projected to be around $21 billion. If we take that on face value (without knowing how much it would really cost to tunnel through mountains to the Gold Coast) what could that buy in terms of other rail investments?

The figure of $4 billion could give Brisbane a federal contribution to the much needed Cross River Rail project, which Tony Abbott ruled out funding in favour of freeways last week, consigning most Brisbane residents and Gold Coast commuters to what is already becoming Australia’s worst rail system.

And $1.5 billion could triple the size of the under-construction Gold Coast light rail. Another billion dollars would give the Sunshine Coast its first high-quality public transport infrastructure, which is becoming one of the most pressing needs in all of urban Australia (but there are no marginal seats up there). Half a billion dollars could give Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie embryonic public transport systems. And you would still have $12 billion change to do the next set of necessary improvements in all those cities.

Similarly, a much smaller slice of the total high speed rail funds could give Sydney its metro system, Melbourne its rail tunnel, and give Perth, Canberra, and Adelaide the high quality light rail systems they are all planning for.

Alternatively, a major investment in freight rail to allow double-stacking of containers from Melbourne to Sydney and Brisbane, as works so well on the Melbourne-Adelaide-Perth route, would deliver undeniable long-term economic benefit to the nation and remove thousands of trucks from our roads.

So high speed rail might be a good investment, in future. It just might also be the worst of the possible rail projects to fund at this moment in time. Alternative investment strategies would more likely change people’s lives for the better and make our cities more efficient and productive.

Unions, business alliance backing Badgerys for the site of Sydney’s second airport

EXCLUSIVE by Simon Benson
The Daily Telegraph
April 12, 2013 12:00AM

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Badgerys Creek

An aerial photograph of Badgerys Creek Rd, Badgerys Creek / Pic: Craig Greenhill

THE combined power of the NSW union movement has formed an unprecedented alliance with business groups to back a second Sydney airport at Badgerys Creek.

In a move that will put about 60 NSW Labor-affiliated unions representing 600,000 workers on a collision course with the federal and state governments, union leaders last night voted overwhelmingly to endorse the Badgerys Creek option.

They claim the people of western Sydney are being robbed of opportunity, and passed a motion to actively campaign for the project and end 30 years of political division.

Declaring that a second airport at Badgerys Creek was now critical for the economic and employment needs of western Sydney, the Unions NSW motion called for work to begin as soon as possible so it could be open by 2030 at the latest.

Accusing both federal and state governments of being “shortsighted” in their opposition to Badgerys Creek, Unions NSW boss Mark Lennon said western Sydney had been left devoid of the “most essential piece of infrastructure”.

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The motion was carried last night at a meeting of union leaders in Sussex St, after in-principle agreement was reached to not only back a second airport for Sydney but to endorse the Badgerys Creek option.

It has also endorsed a campaign to begin today in a union/business alliance aimed at pressuring the federal and state governments to end three decades of political “bickering” and finally build it.

Mr Lennon is believed to have been working for six months behind the scenes with the Sydney Business Chamber director for western Sydney David Borger – a former state Labor MP – to bring all the unions and business groups on board.

“Unions NSW notes the growing debate in the community regarding a second Sydney Airport based in western Sydney, and the failure of state and federal governments over the last 30 years to address this issue,” the motion said.

“Unions NSW believes that a second airport for Sydney is a necessity by 2030 to ensure the city has the capacity to meet its growing aviation needs.

“A second airport in western Sydney will meet this need and give an enormous boost to jobs and the economy in the region both in the construction and operation phase.

“To this end Unions NSW supports proposals for a new airport at Badgerys Creek.”

However, it also wanted an update to the 1997 environmental impact statement on Badgerys Creek and an independent social impact study. The unions claim that western Sydney is now the nation’s third-largest economy and more western Sydney families now fly than ever before.

The move will also pit the industrial movement against its former union boss, Opposition Leader John Robertson, who is in lock step with official federal Labor policy of no new airport at Badgerys Creek.

Writing in today’s The Daily Telegraph, Mr Lennon said: “Unfortunately, 30 years of bickering, indecision and short-sighted electoral politics has left western Sydney devoid of the most essential piece of infrastructure needed to guarantee its success in the 21st century: an airport. And with greater western Sydney increasingly the engine room of the NSW economy, we believe it is only logical that it should be the location of this piece of essential infrastructure.”

A recent landmark federal government study into Sydney’s aviation needs called for Badgerys Creek to be built – warning that, if no action was taken, $35 billion could be lost to the national economy by 2060. Badgerys Creek was first mentioned among 11 possible sites for an airport in 1969.

Land acquisitions began in 1986 and the first sod turned on the runway in 1996 before the Howard government dropped the project in 2002.

Federal Labor then backed Wilton is favour of Badgerys Creek before a joint federal-state inquiry in 2009 recommended Badgerys Creek, with Wilton the second option. The federal government then initiated a scoping study into Wilton.

11 April 2013, 3.40pm AEST
Slow to arrive, but will high speed rail be worth the wait?

East coast Australian cities could one day be linked by high speed rail, but with a price tag of $114 billion and a 40 year timeframe, according to a study released by the Transport Minister Anthony Albanese. Under the plan announced today, the 1,748 kilometre network – including 144 kilometres of tunnels…

Author

James Whitmore

Editor, The Conversation
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Interviewed

Matthew Burke

Research Fellow at Griffith University
.

Rico Merkert

Senior Lecturer in Aviation Management
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Peter Newman

Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University
.

The Conversation is funded by CSIRO, Melbourne, Monash, RMIT, UTS, UWA, Canberra, CDU, Deakin, Flinders, Griffith, La Trobe, Massey, Murdoch, Newcastle. QUT, Swinburne, UniSA, USC, USQ, UTAS, UWS and VU.

7n26my5h-1365657251High speed rail travel could begin by 2035: but the plan comes with a price tag of $114 billion. shutterstock .

East coast Australian cities could one day be linked by high speed rail, but with a price tag of $114 billion and a 40 year timeframe, according to a study released by the Transport Minister Anthony Albanese.

Under the plan announced today, the 1,748 kilometre network – including 144 kilometres of tunnels – will be completed in stages, linking Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne.

The Sydney to Canberra section would be completed in 2035. The last stage, linking the Gold Coast and Newcastle, will be finished in 2058.

The analysis is the second phase of a strategic plan announced in 2010.

The government says despite the large price tag, high speed rail is viable, estimating the network will attract 40% of intercity air passengers by 2065, with 83.6 million passengers expected per year.

We put it to the experts: it’s a long time to wait, and it will cost a lot. Is high speed rail worth it?

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Matthew Burke, Senior Research Fellow, Griffith University

The report estimates between 40-60% aviation passengers will transfer to rail. I’m not entirely sure that’s achievable.

If you’re in Coffs Harbour trying to get to Sydney, high speed rail makes sense. A travel time between Sydney and Canberra of an hour down from four makes that a very competitive service.

In a world where oil reserves are constrained, aviation gas may become much more expensive and there may be differences between relative costs. Under those scenarios high speed rail might stack up.

It would make sense to agree and preserve a corridor and plan for a future system but to commence construction only when it’s financially viable.

Should we be doing high speed rail at this point in time with Australian cities the size they are? On a world scale they’re pretty small, the distances between them a very large, and the cost to link them up is enormous.

At the very lowest the cost of high speed rail between Newcastle and Brisbane could be $20 billion, and as high as $40 billion. For $20 billion you could give Brisbane its cross river rail project. You could give the Sunshine Coast its first ever fixed public transport network. You can quadruple the size of the light rail on the Gold coast, and you could still have $10-30 billion left over.

A significant portion of the use that’s projected is for daily commuters who would come from ‘lifestyle’ cities on the outskirts of Sydney and Melbourne travelling to the major centres. These would become the most subsidized commuters in the history of Australian urban settlement. And I’m not sure you could call that travel sustainable even if it’s by rail.

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Rico Merkert, Senior Lecturer in Aviation Management, University of Sydney Business School

This is not a new phenomenon. We have seen huge programs in Western Europe: in Spain, France, Germany, even the UK now has a high speed train program connecting London with the North of England. Japan, China and Taiwan do too. At some point we will see high speed trains in Australia. It’s just a question of how soon and at what cost.

It does require informed debate given the large cost and huge up-front investment.

The money could always be spent elsewhere. It would, however, at least in my view, be money well spent, with benefits of $2.30 per $1 spent. Many people will argue that these estimates are optimistic. Construction costs are likely to go up, but still it will still be sensible to look into this more seriously.

There will be quite a lot of demand, particularly on the east coast with Brisbane, Sydney, and Canberra. Sydney to Melbourne is currently the fifth busiest airline route in the world. Brisbane to Sydney is not far behind. There’s quite a lot of potential here as a high speed train could get you from Sydney CBD to Melbourne CBD in under three hours. That’s quite an interesting proposition for a lot of business travellers.

It will be an alternative to airlines. It won’t replace air traffic, because it’s still a lot faster to travel via air. But some travellers based right in the city centre next to the train station might find the offer attractive. In terms of service levels they’re similar to a flight. If the government is not prepared to subsidise these train operations then the prices for these train trips will be slightly higher than those on a [air] carrier (most certainly if it is a low cost carrier, such as Jetstar).

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Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability, Curtin University

The high speed rail system in Japan was started after the first oil crisis. We’re now up to the fourth or fifth. The European system has developed along those lines as well. You cannot continue to see a future where more and more oil is used. Some countries have made a serious effort to get off it.

I welcome any studies about getting people out of cars and planes and making a more sustainable transport system. If it’s electric it’s potentially much easier to link into the renewable energy system. We’ve got to get off oil especially diesel.

We’ve got to be serious about this, and I wonder how serious it is to propose a project that will cost $114 billion.

I’ve been looking at rail construction costs the past few years and getting more and more angry at how they have ballooned, which is due to unnecessary risk management.

This proposal seems to be beyond any realistic cost to build. Yet we built the southern railway in Perth for $17 million per kilometer. It had tunnels and bridges, overpasses and is essentially high speed rail at 130 kilometre per hour. I understand the high quality track requirements but these numbers seem too high to me.

More reactions to come