Latest news with #GeologicalSurvey
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Watch: Eruption at Yellowstone National Park pool caught on camera
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. – A small eruption in Yellowstone National Park that happened over the weekend was caught on video by a newly installed webcam. According to the U.s. Geological Survey, the eruption happened Saturday evening at Black Diamond Pool in Biscuit Basin. "On May 14, a new webcam was installed at Biscuit Basin to track activity at Black Diamond Pool, where a hydrothermal explosion occurred last summer," the agency wrote in its volcano observatory update on the park. 10 Things To Know Before Visiting Yellowstone National Park This Summer A hydrothermal explosion occurs when water suddenly turns to steam underground. In July 2024, a much larger blast at the pool sent debris flying hundreds of feet into the air and damaged a boardwalk used by visitors to the national park. Biscuit Basin was closed for the remainder of the summer. New Volcanic Vent Bursts Open In Yellowstone National Park According to the USGS, there is monitoring data and eyewitness accounts that suggest there have been sporadic eruptions at Black Diamond Pool several times since last year's explosion. Officials said hydrothermal explosions typically occur in the park one to a few times per year, but often in the backcountry, where they may not be immediately detected. Similar, but smaller, explosions occurred at Porkchop Geyser in article source: Watch: Eruption at Yellowstone National Park pool caught on camera
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The wild hunt for clean energy minerals
The world is hungry for more stuff: televisions, phones, motors, container ships, solar panels, satellites. That means the stuff required to make stuff is in high demand, and none more so than what are known as 'critical minerals.' These are a handful of elements and minerals that are particularly important for making the modern devices that run the global economy. But 'critical' here doesn't mean rare so much as it means essential — and alarmingly vulnerable to supply chain shocks. In the US, the Geological Survey has flagged 50 minerals as critical to our economy and security. And including some among that larger group, the US Department of Energy is focused on 18 materials that are especially important for energy — copper for transmission lines, cobalt for cathodes in batteries, gallium for LEDs, neodymium for magnets in motors, and so on. For governments, these minerals are more than just industrial components — they're potential bottlenecks. If producers of these substances decide to restrict access to their customers as a political lever, if prices shoot up, or if more industries develop an appetite for them and eat into the supply, companies could go bankrupt and efforts to limit climate change could slow down. That's because these minerals are especially vital for so many clean energy technologies. They're essential for the tools used to produce, store, transmit, and use electricity without emitting greenhouse gases. They're vital to building solar panels, batteries, and electric motors. As the worldwide race for cleaner energy speeds up, the demand for these products is surging. According to the International Energy Agency, mineral demands from clean energy deployment will see anywhere from a doubling to a quadrupling from current levels by 2040. But these minerals aren't spread evenly across the world, which could leave some countries bearing most of the environmental burdens from mining critical minerals while wealthier nations reap the economic benefits and other countries get left out of the supply chain entirely. 'A world powered by renewables is a world hungry for critical minerals,' said UN Secretary-General António Guterres at a panel last year. 'For developing countries, critical minerals are a critical opportunity — to create jobs, diversify economies, and dramatically boost revenues. But only if they are managed properly.' Right now, the US is a major consumer of critical minerals, but not much of a producer — a fact that's become an obsession for the Trump administration. The president has signed several executive orders aimed at increasing critical mineral production within the US by relaxing regulations and speeding up approvals for new critical mineral extraction projects. In Congress, lawmakers are mulling spending billions of dollars to build up a critical mineral stockpile similar to the strategic petroleum reserve. Even as the US government takes those steps, the international trade war that the Trump administration itself launched has begun to disrupt the global supply of critical minerals. China is one of the largest producers of critical minerals, particularly rare earth metals like dysprosium and terbium, but it has imposed limits on some of its critical mineral exports in response to President Donald Trump's tariffs, sending prices skyward. The dawning awareness that the critical minerals everyone needs may not be readily available has led countries to redouble their efforts to find more of these materials wherever they can — in the ocean, across deserts, and even in space. In the near term, that means the world will need more mines to expand supplies of critical minerals. And with the market for clean energy poised to expand even further, scientists are trying to find new alternative materials that can power our world without making it hotter. But it will take more time and investment before the plentiful can replace the precious. Since the list of critical minerals is long and diverse, it's helpful to narrow it down. And one mineral stands out: lithium. The IEA estimates that half of the mineral demand growth for clean energy will come from electric vehicles and batteries, mainly from their needs for this soft, light metal. Depending on how aggressively the world works to decarbonize, lithium use is projected to increase by as much as 51 times its current levels by 2040, more than 10 million metric tons per year. That's because lithium is still the best material to store and release energy in batteries across a variety of applications, from the tiny cells in wireless earbuds to arrays of thousands of cells packed into giant batteries on the power grid. As more cars trade gasoline engines for electric motors, and as more intermittent wind and solar power connect to the grid, we need more ways to store energy. While lithium is not particularly rare, getting it out of the earth isn't easy. There are only a handful of places in the world that currently have the infrastructure to extract it at scale and at a low enough price to make doing so worthwhile, even with ever rising demand. The US produces less than 2 percent of the world's lithium, with almost all of it coming from just one mine in Nevada. The US has about 20 major sites where lithium could be extracted, according to the US Geological Survey, but building new mines can take more than a decade, and the timelines have only been getting longer. Because of their costs and the long-lasting environmental damage they can cause, mining projects have to undergo reviews before they can be approved. They often generate local opposition as well, stretching out project timelines with litigation. But the US is motivated to build this out and there are already new lithium projects underway in places like the Salton Sea in California and the Smackover formation across the southern US. These sites would extract lithium from brine. Could the US replace lithium and other critical minerals with cheaper, more abundant substances? Not easily. 'Substitution is not impossible, but depends on which material,' Sophia Kalantzakos, who studies environmental science and public policy at NYU Abu Dhabi, said in an email. Some materials are truly one of a kind, while others have alternatives that need a lot more research and development before they can step in. For example, there are companies investing in lithium alternatives in batteries, but they also have to build up a whole supply chain to get enough of the replacement material, which can take years. And it's not enough to mine critical minerals; they need to be refined and processed into usable forms. Here again, China leads, operating 80 percent of the world's refining capacity. The bottom line is that there's no immediate, easy answer to the critical mineral supply crunch right now. But there might be solutions that emerge in the years to come. These challenges have spurred a wave of research and development. Engineers are already finding ways to do more with less. Automakers like Ford, Tesla, and the Chinese company BYD are increasingly turning toward lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries as an alternative to conventional lithium-ion cells. Not only does the LFP chemistry use less lithium for a given energy storage capacity, it also uses less of other critical minerals like nickel and cobalt, lowering its cost. The batteries also tend to be more durable and stable, making them less prone to catastrophic failure. The US Department of Energy has invested in ways to make lithium-based batteries more efficient and easier to manufacture by redesigning the structure of battery components to store more energy. Researchers are also investigating battery designs that avoid lithium altogether. Chemistries like aluminum ion and sodium ion, as their names suggest, use different and far more abundant elements to carry charges inside the battery. But they still have to catch up to lithium in terms of durability, safety, performance, and production scale. 'I think this lithium-ion technology will still drive much of the energy transition,' said Rachid Amui, a resource economist who coauthored a United Nations Trade & Development report on critical minerals for batteries. It will likely be decades before alternatives can dethrone lithium. Eventually, as components wear out, recycling could help meet some critical mineral needs. But demand for technologies like batteries is poised to see a huge jump, which means the world will have no choice but to grow its fresh lithium supplies. There is some good news, though. Mining is getting more efficient and safer. 'There's so much autonomous technology now being developed in the mining industry that is making mining safer than we could have ever imagined 15, 20 years ago,' said Adam Simon, a professor of earth and environmental science at the University of Michigan. That's helping drive down costs and increase the efficiency of mineral extraction. The number of known sources of lithium is also rising. KoBold Metals, a mining firm backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, is using AI to locate more critical mineral deposits all over the world. The Energy Department is also throwing its weight behind domestic innovation. The department's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, which invests in long-shot energy ideas, is funding 18 projects to increase domestic production of critical minerals. The program, dubbed MINER, is aiming to develop minerals that can capture carbon dioxide. 'Through programs like MINER and targeted investments in domestic innovation, we're working to reduce reliance on foreign sources and lay the groundwork for an American energy future that is reliable, cost-effective, and secure,' said Doug Wicks, a program director for ARPA-E, in a statement to Vox. There's also a global race to secure more mineral supplies from far-flung places, all the way down to the bottom of the ocean. On parts of the seafloor, there are vast fields of nodules made of nickel, cobalt, lithium, and manganese. For mining companies, the argument is that mining the seafloor could be less damaging to the environment than drilling or brine extraction on land. But the ocean floor is anything but a desolate place; there's a lot of life down there taking many forms, including species that have yet to be discovered. One of the most lucrative areas for sea mining, the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean, happens to have a rich ecosystem of sponges, anemones, and sea cucumbers. Another factor to consider is that pulling up rocks from the bottom of the sea is inevitably expensive. The Clarion-Clipperton Zone can reach 18,000 feet deep. Hauling those minerals up, shipping them to shore, and refining them adds to their sticker price. 'I think it's interesting and needed because of the [research and development] that it stimulates,' Simon said. 'But economically, there's no company right now who could actually mine the lithium in those clays from the bottom of the ocean.' There are even companies that have proposed mining critical minerals from asteroids. One company, AstroForge, has already launched a test spacecraft into deep space. That's an even dicier business proposition since working in space is even more expensive than trying to mine the bottom of the ocean. But space mining technology is a moonshot — still gestational and decades away from even returning a sample. The companies behind these proposals say that humanity's hunger for these minerals is only growing and it's prudent to start taking steps now toward building up supplies of raw materials in space. But for the time being, there's no easy way around it: powering a greener world means we will still need to extract far more critical minerals to turn away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy. Otherwise humanity will continue extracting and burning coal, oil, and natural gas, further heating up the planet.
Dublin Live
13 hours ago
- Dublin Live
Popular tourist site left damaged as people 'want to leave a token of their visit'
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info A popular tourist site is under threat from well-meaning visitors who "leave a token" of their visit. The Giant's Causeway, located in County Antrim, was Ireland's first UNESCO World Heritage Site - a spectacle which dates back nearly 60 million years and comprises roughly 40,000 hexagonal basalt columns. According to the National Trust, the Causeway is situated at the base of cliffs on the outer limits of the Antrim plateau by the Atlantic Ocean. It is steeped in legend, has been the source of scientific debate, and has even inspired artists. It's also a highly popular tourist destination, and holidaymakers have long found their own way of honouring the site - cramming coins into the cracks of the rock for luck or love. However, the National Trust has now warned people not to do this. (Image: Getty Images) Dr Cliff Henry, the National Trust's nature engagement officer for the site, told the Telegraph: "We know that visitors really love and cherish the Giant's Causeway, and many form deep personal connections to this special landscape. "Some may want to leave a token of their visit, but the coins are causing damage and we are urging people to stop the practice and to leave no trace so this natural wonder remains special for future generations." The issue with the tradition is that the inserted coins rust and expand, meaning they increase the pressure on the rock and contribute to its crumbling. Meanwhile, the NT and partners have hired specialists to remove as many coins as possible, with the costs expected to reach more than £30,000. Although it's only a minority of the hundreds of thousands of visitors who insert the coins, the NT thinks the practice has escalated over the last ten years or so, reports the BBC. Dr Kirstin Lemon explained that the advice of the Geological Survey to the NT was to remove as many as they could in an effort to halt any further effects on the area, in addition to tackling any potential effects arising from chemicals. (Image: Getty Images) Dr Henry told the broadcaster that once a coin has been inserted into the rock, it rusts at an "accelerated level" due to the area's atmosphere. He added that he's seen parts of the feature where the corners have "popped off." He said: "And the rusting metal in there is starting to leach. The iron and nickel and copper is leaching out over the rocks and it looks unsightly." According to the official UNESCO website, the Giant's Causeway and Causeway Coast is an area of worldwide geological importance and has inspired tales of giants stepping over the ocean to Scotland. It's also been a tourist attraction for around 300 years and is considered a Northern Irish symbol.
Vox
13 hours ago
- Business
- Vox
The wild hunt for clean energy minerals
is a correspondent at Vox writing about climate change, energy policy, and science. He is also a regular contributor to the radio program Science Friday. Prior to Vox, he was a reporter for ClimateWire at E&E News. The world is hungry for more stuff: televisions, phones, motors, container ships, solar panels, satellites. That means the stuff required to make stuff is in high demand, and none more so than what are known as 'critical minerals.' These are a handful of elements and minerals that are particularly important for making the modern devices that run the global economy. But 'critical' here doesn't mean rare so much as it means essential — and alarmingly vulnerable to supply chain shocks. In the US, the Geological Survey has flagged 50 minerals as critical to our economy and security. And including some among that larger group, the US Department of Energy is focused on 18 materials that are especially important for energy — copper for transmission lines, cobalt for cathodes in batteries, gallium for LEDs, neodymium for magnets in motors, and so on. For governments, these minerals are more than just industrial components — they're potential bottlenecks. If producers of these substances decide to restrict access to their customers as a political lever, if prices shoot up, or if more industries develop an appetite for them and eat into the supply, companies could go bankrupt and efforts to limit climate change could slow down. That's because these minerals are especially vital for so many clean energy technologies. They're essential for the tools used to produce, store, transmit, and use electricity without emitting greenhouse gases. They're vital to building solar panels, batteries, and electric motors. As the worldwide race for cleaner energy speeds up, the demand for these products is surging. According to the International Energy Agency, mineral demands from clean energy deployment will see anywhere from a doubling to a quadrupling from current levels by 2040. But these minerals aren't spread evenly across the world, which could leave some countries bearing most of the environmental burdens from mining critical minerals while wealthier nations reap the economic benefits and other countries get left out of the supply chain entirely. 'A world powered by renewables is a world hungry for critical minerals,' said UN Secretary-General António Guterres at a panel last year. 'For developing countries, critical minerals are a critical opportunity — to create jobs, diversify economies, and dramatically boost revenues. But only if they are managed properly.' Right now, the US is a major consumer of critical minerals, but not much of a producer — a fact that's become an obsession for the Trump administration. The president has signed several executive orders aimed at increasing critical mineral production within the US by relaxing regulations and speeding up approvals for new critical mineral extraction projects. In Congress, lawmakers are mulling spending billions of dollars to build up a critical mineral stockpile similar to the strategic petroleum reserve. Even as the US government takes those steps, the international trade war that the Trump administration itself launched has begun to disrupt the global supply of critical minerals. China is one of the largest producers of critical minerals, particularly rare earth metals like dysprosium and terbium, but it has imposed limits on some of its critical mineral exports in response to President Donald Trump's tariffs, sending prices skyward. The dawning awareness that the critical minerals everyone needs may not be readily available has led countries to redouble their efforts to find more of these materials wherever they can — in the ocean, across deserts, and even in space. In the near term, that means the world will need more mines to expand supplies of critical minerals. And with the market for clean energy poised to expand even further, scientists are trying to find new alternative materials that can power our world without making it hotter. But it will take more time and investment before the plentiful can replace the precious. Why we're hooked on critical minerals Since the list of critical minerals is long and diverse, it's helpful to narrow it down. And one mineral stands out: lithium. The IEA estimates that half of the mineral demand growth for clean energy will come from electric vehicles and batteries, mainly from their needs for this soft, light metal. Depending on how aggressively the world works to decarbonize, lithium use is projected to increase by as much as 51 times its current levels by 2040, more than 10 million metric tons per year. That's because lithium is still the best material to store and release energy in batteries across a variety of applications, from the tiny cells in wireless earbuds to arrays of thousands of cells packed into giant batteries on the power grid. As more cars trade gasoline engines for electric motors, and as more intermittent wind and solar power connect to the grid, we need more ways to store energy. While lithium is not particularly rare, getting it out of the earth isn't easy. There are only a handful of places in the world that currently have the infrastructure to extract it at scale and at a low enough price to make doing so worthwhile, even with ever rising demand. The US produces less than 2 percent of the world's lithium, with almost all of it coming from just one mine in Nevada. The US has about 20 major sites where lithium could be extracted, according to the US Geological Survey, but building new mines can take more than a decade, and the timelines have only been getting longer. Because of their costs and the long-lasting environmental damage they can cause, mining projects have to undergo reviews before they can be approved. They often generate local opposition as well, stretching out project timelines with litigation. But the US is motivated to build this out and there are already new lithium projects underway in places like the Salton Sea in California and the Smackover formation across the southern US. These sites would extract lithium from brine. Could the US replace lithium and other critical minerals with cheaper, more abundant substances? Not easily. 'Substitution is not impossible, but depends on which material,' Sophia Kalantzakos, who studies environmental science and public policy at NYU Abu Dhabi, said in an email. Some materials are truly one of a kind, while others have alternatives that need a lot more research and development before they can step in. For example, there are companies investing in lithium alternatives in batteries, but they also have to build up a whole supply chain to get enough of the replacement material, which can take years. And it's not enough to mine critical minerals; they need to be refined and processed into usable forms. Here again, China leads, operating 80 percent of the world's refining capacity. The bottom line is that there's no immediate, easy answer to the critical mineral supply crunch right now. But there might be solutions that emerge in the years to come. How can we get around critical mineral constraints? These challenges have spurred a wave of research and development. Engineers are already finding ways to do more with less. Automakers like Ford, Tesla, and the Chinese company BYD are increasingly turning toward lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries as an alternative to conventional lithium-ion cells. Not only does the LFP chemistry use less lithium for a given energy storage capacity, it also uses less of other critical minerals like nickel and cobalt, lowering its cost. The batteries also tend to be more durable and stable, making them less prone to catastrophic failure. The US Department of Energy has invested in ways to make lithium-based batteries more efficient and easier to manufacture by redesigning the structure of battery components to store more energy. Researchers are also investigating battery designs that avoid lithium altogether. Chemistries like aluminum ion and sodium ion, as their names suggest, use different and far more abundant elements to carry charges inside the battery. But they still have to catch up to lithium in terms of durability, safety, performance, and production scale. 'I think this lithium-ion technology will still drive much of the energy transition,' said Rachid Amui, a resource economist who coauthored a United Nations Trade & Development report on critical minerals for batteries. It will likely be decades before alternatives can dethrone lithium. Eventually, as components wear out, recycling could help meet some critical mineral needs. But demand for technologies like batteries is poised to see a huge jump, which means the world will have no choice but to grow its fresh lithium supplies. There is some good news, though. Mining is getting more efficient and safer. 'There's so much autonomous technology now being developed in the mining industry that is making mining safer than we could have ever imagined 15, 20 years ago,' said Adam Simon, a professor of earth and environmental science at the University of Michigan. That's helping drive down costs and increase the efficiency of mineral extraction. The number of known sources of lithium is also rising. KoBold Metals, a mining firm backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, is using AI to locate more critical mineral deposits all over the world. The Energy Department is also throwing its weight behind domestic innovation. The department's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, which invests in long-shot energy ideas, is funding 18 projects to increase domestic production of critical minerals. The program, dubbed MINER, is aiming to develop minerals that can capture carbon dioxide. 'Through programs like MINER and targeted investments in domestic innovation, we're working to reduce reliance on foreign sources and lay the groundwork for an American energy future that is reliable, cost-effective, and secure,' said Doug Wicks, a program director for ARPA-E, in a statement to Vox. There's also a global race to secure more mineral supplies from far-flung places, all the way down to the bottom of the ocean. On parts of the seafloor, there are vast fields of nodules made of nickel, cobalt, lithium, and manganese. For mining companies, the argument is that mining the seafloor could be less damaging to the environment than drilling or brine extraction on land. But the ocean floor is anything but a desolate place; there's a lot of life down there taking many forms, including species that have yet to be discovered. One of the most lucrative areas for sea mining, the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean, happens to have a rich ecosystem of sponges, anemones, and sea cucumbers. Another factor to consider is that pulling up rocks from the bottom of the sea is inevitably expensive. The Clarion-Clipperton Zone can reach 18,000 feet deep. Hauling those minerals up, shipping them to shore, and refining them adds to their sticker price. 'I think it's interesting and needed because of the [research and development] that it stimulates,' Simon said. 'But economically, there's no company right now who could actually mine the lithium in those clays from the bottom of the ocean.' There are even companies that have proposed mining critical minerals from asteroids. One company, AstroForge, has already launched a test spacecraft into deep space. That's an even dicier business proposition since working in space is even more expensive than trying to mine the bottom of the ocean. But space mining technology is a moonshot — still gestational and decades away from even returning a sample. The companies behind these proposals say that humanity's hunger for these minerals is only growing and it's prudent to start taking steps now toward building up supplies of raw materials in space.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Giant's Causeway visitors urged not to jam coins into iconic rocks
The Giant's Causeway has faced many threats to its survival, from mythical fights between giants to coastal erosion and rising sea levels. Now there's a new problem. At first, you don't notice them but as soon as you see one, you start to see them everywhere - hundreds of them, in every fissure and crevice. They are coins, inserted into the tiny gaps between one of Northern Ireland's most famous and photographed natural resources, the basalt columns of the Giant's Causeway. Like the padlocks left on the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris, people often leave the coins behind for love or luck. But, like that tradition, the coins are causing problems, and now visitors are being asked to keep their spare change in their pockets. In Paris, it has been made illegal to attach a padlock after part of the bridge collapsed in 2014. At the Giant's Causeway, the practice started years ago – but the caretakers for the site, the National Trust, believe it has increased significantly in scale in the last decade or so. Hundreds of thousands of tourists and locals visit each year and only a fraction leave behind this unwanted memento. But the coins are having a direct impact on the rocks themselves. The worst affected are the basalt columns that make up The Loom – 10 ft high leaning towers of rock. They are a slightly lighter colour than the iconic hexagonal black basalt at the point of the causeway. It is easy to see at first glance the discolouration caused by the coins - a reddish-brown wash over the surface. Dr Cliff Henry, nature engagement officer with the National Trust, said the rocks are affected on a number of levels. "People see others put coins in, so they copycat, they take a coin out of their pocket and they might take a stone off the ground to hammer the coin in, but they might miss and chip the stone itself so that's doing damage." He added: "Once the coin is in there it starts to rust and due to the atmosphere here it rusts at an accelerated level. "The coin then expands and that's putting pressure on the joint near the edge so we have seen on a number of places here that the corners have popped off. "And the rusting metal in there is starting to leach. The iron and nickel and copper is leaching out over the rocks and it looks unsightly." He said they're appealing to people to stop inserting the coins before more damage is done to these 60-million-year-old rocks. "On a geological timescale, this is very rapid erosion." A report from the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland shed some light on the problem. Dr Kirstin Lemon said: "The advice of the Geological Survey to the National Trust is to see if we can remove as many of those coins as we can. "By removing them, it means we're stopping any further physical impact on the site itself. We're also stopping that chemical impact as well." She said she hoped that by removing coins, it would stop others adding more. A specialist stonemason has started the work and has removed about 10% of them so far. "He's done some test sites already so we know we can take these coins out without doing damage to the stones themselves," said Dr Henry. "We want him to do it - we don't want the general public to do that, we don't want to cause any further damage." Signs will also be put up and visitors are already warned not to insert the coins by tour guides at the Giant's Causeway, like Mark Adams. "I think it's a simple thing of wanting to leave something of themselves behind," he said. "But if you want to leave something behind, take a photo, put it online, it'll be there forever." Last year, the Giant's Causeway received about 684,000 visits. The numbers are steadily climbing back to their pre-pandemic levels. There were nearly a million visits in 2019. The National Trust said not only is it Northern Ireland's most valuable natural phenomenon, it is important for the economy too. "It's an icon for Northern Ireland - if we can't look after this, what's the hope for the rest of the country?," said Dr Henry. "We really need to be looking after the causeway as best we can." In Pictures: Celebrating the Giant's Causeway Cash deal for cross border tourism routes welcomed Walking in the footsteps of giants for free or a fee Giant's Causeway's 1m visitors in year
