Vast amounts of planet-heating carbon dioxide are created during the manufacture of many key materials that support our lives - from paper to plastic. Our environment analyst Roger Harrabin has been exploring new low-carbon technologies which could help cut those emissions. He has enlisted artists to help him tell the story.
Scientists have invented a magical gadget that sucks the ink off printer paper so each sheet can be used 10 times over.
They aim to cut the amount of planet-heating carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the paper and pulp industry by reducing demand for office paper.
The trick to the so-called "de-printer" is specially coated paper, which stops ink (or powdered toner) from soaking into the page. A powerful laser then vaporises the ink.
Lead developer, Barak Yekutiely from Reep Technologies in Israel, describes it as circular printing.
If we care about the planet, we must stop cutting down so many trees," he says.
The invention is featured in an iPlayer documentary on climate tech solutions. It's called The Art of Cutting Carbon, and it's my last film for the BBC after 35 years reporting the environment.
The film forms part of an exhibition at Cornwall's Eden Project, where I have curated sculptures in steel, cement, plastic, aluminium and paper - to help me highlight the huge amounts of planet-heating CO2 produced globally from manufacturing these everyday materials.
The Art of Cutting Carbon
Environment Analyst Roger Harrabin reports on the endeavours of British artists working with concrete, steel, aluminium, plastic and cardboard.
Together, these hidden "embedded" emissions create far more CO2 than all the world's planes, lorries, cars, trains and ships put together.
Experts say one way of tackling those emissions is to invent new technologies that limit the amount of CO2 produced. Another is simply to use less stuff.
The de-printer is part of an avalanche of innovation to produce technologies fit for the low-carbon age.
In northern Sweden, one company is a shining example of how to take CO2 out of steel manufacturing. Globally, the industry emits almost three billion tonnes of the gas a year - that's roughly equal to all the annual CO2-producing activities in the entire Indian economy.
Normally, making steel involves mixing iron-bearing rock with coke - which derives from coal - then super-heating it at 1,500C, using highly-polluting coal or gas.
The heat sets off a chemical reaction that turns the iron into a precursor of steel. But this creates even more CO2 - in fact, the process makes more tonnes of CO2 than it makes steel.
But now, in the town of Lulea - just south of the Arctic Circle - the multinational steel manufacturer SSAB has found a way of stopping the creation of CO2.
The first step is to use renewable power - such as from wind turbines or hydro electricity - instead of coal to produce the necessary heat. Step two is to substitute hydrogen for coke in the reaction stage.
Instead of producing CO2 as a by-product, the reaction with hydrogen and iron produces only H2O… water.
Demand is high for the world's first zero-carbon dioxide steel - the makers are turning down new orders.
The cement industry produces 2.5 billion tonnes of CO2 a year. Cement is the main bonding ingredient for the concrete that forms the structures in our lives.
But making it involves heating limestone and that creates clouds of CO2. Harnessing coal or gas to provide the heat creates a double dose.Now concrete makers are experimenting with other binding materials that don't need to be cooked in the same way, and big players in the industry aim to be carbon neutral by 2050.
But we can't wait that long to tackle climate change, so the rail firm HS2 is building a viaduct in Buckinghamshire in south-east England made from a sandwich of cement and steel.
This smart design allows less material to be used by harnessing the different physical properties of the cement and steel in a way that's catching on fast. The engineers say this innovation cuts materials costs and halves the CO2 emissions that would have been seen in a more traditional construction.
You must be logged in to post a comment.