Green leanings
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| Disposal options ... Dr Massarotto (left) and PhD student, John Gralton, in the laboratory |
• Several UQ academics have made valuable contributions to the latest report card on Australia’s environmental health. The State of the Environment (SoE) report, compiled every five years, provides a snapshot of the health of Australia’s atmosphere, biodiversity, coasts and oceans, human settlements, inland waters, land and natural and cultural heritage.
UQ Associate Professor Robert Beeton, from the School of Natural and Rural Systems Management, chaired the SoE Committee which prepared the report. In his introductory speech, Dr Beeton said Australia still lacked accurate and consistent environmental data and should be building its capability to live with a variable climate. He said there should be more recycling of water, energy, building materials and organic waste.
Dr Beeton is an expert in environmental management and rural communities and has worked on the SoE in management, advisory and scientific roles since 1999. He said the SoE2006 was the most comprehensive yet with complete commentaries, explanations and data presented online. A number of the report’s findings have formed one of the bases for recently announced Federal Government initiatives.
UQ’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), Professor Michael Keniger, was one of eight report reviewers who checked for accurate data, fair conclusions and any overlooked issues. As one of Queensland’s leading architects and the State’s former Chief Architect, he said he focused on the findings of human settlements, urban form and the effect of urban growth on the natural environment.
The SoE Committee also commissioned commentaries on seven SoE themes analysing trends, pressures and the effectiveness of responses to problems.
The Director of UQ’s Ecology Centre, Professor Hugh Possingham, reviewed the biodiversity commentary while UQ’s Rangelands Australia Director, Professor John Taylor, reviewed the land commentary.
• Dr Patrick Moss, a lecturer in physical geography with the School of Geography, Planning and Architecture, is working on a research project unearthing what the world’s climate was like 50 million years ago.
“We have been looking at how plants respond to warmer temperatures to give us an insight into what might happen if the Earth’s temperatures continue to increase,” Dr Moss said. His research has focused on a particular area of western Canada, where fossilised leaves, insects and pollen are revealing a vastly different landscape to that of today.
“Fifty million years ago, western Canada was a sub-tropical rainforest,” he said. “We are finding evidence of palms as well as a mix of oak and redwood forests. “And, we have found a particular species of redwood that is now only found in a certain part of China.”
He said the site in Canada was chosen because of such well-preserved fossil plants and insects as well as being at a similar latitude now as it was 50 million years ago, making it perfect for comparison with today’s environment. “Compared to 50 million years ago, our present climate is generally characterised as being much cooler and drier,” he said.
“But now, we are observing very rapid environmental change towards a warmer climate, with greater extremes in precipitation. “Our research is suggesting that because of these increases in temperatures, we will see some extinction events of plants over time.” Dr Moss returned to Canada in June this year to collect further samples.
• UQ researchers are discovering commercial opportunities of burying environmentally harmful carbon dioxide (CO2) gas underground. Using the process of geosequestration – where CO2 gas produced from industry is captured and stored in coal seams rather than released into the atmosphere – Energy & Environment Engineering group researchers have almost halved the cost of capture and storage.
Group leader, Professor Victor Rudolph, from UQ’s School of Engineering, said the reductions in cost were due to the commercial value of the methane extracted from the coal seam, which the CO2 replaced. “Geosequestration of CO2 into coal seams can reduce the net cost of capture and storage in Queensland by almost 50 percent,” Professor Rudolph said.
“The process reduces the costs down to $25/ tonne of CO2 avoided, when applied to a largescale, 1400 MW coal-fired power plant.” Principal Research Fellow, Dr Paul Massarotto, said the cost-reduction technology was part of a research project nearing completion and supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant and six Australian and international organisations.
He said the group was now proposing a joint project for CO2 storage in coal involving leading research groups in Germany (the RWTH Aachen University of North Rhine-Westfalia) and China (Chinese University of Mining Technology, Xuzhou). “Queensland’s sequestration capacity is equivalent to more than 56 years of CO2 emissions from the State’s current and future planned coal-fired plants to 2020,” he said.
• Australian scientists who contributed to the latest global greenhouse study say the Great Barrier Reef is one of the nation’s great assets most at risk from climate change. The two main threats facing the reef are rising sea temperatures, which cause mass coral die-offs due to bleaching, and the gradual acidification of the world’s oceans from CO2 in the atmosphere, which prevents corals from forming their carbonate skeletons. Other impacts such as increased cyclone intensity, drought and flood run-off from the land and coral disease outbreaks will play a lesser but nonetheless important role, they said.
Professor Terry Hughes and UQ’s Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, of the Australian Research Council Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS), provided expert advice to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which released its latest report earlier this year. They contributed to sections dealing with observed changes to the Earth’s natural systems due to climate change and a detailed analysis of the likely outlook for Australia and New Zealand.
• UQ scientists, engineers and social scientists will contribute multidisciplinary expertise to a $50 million Urban Water Security Research Alliance, launched by Queensland Premier Peter Beattie. The five-year initiative will develop Australia’s largest urban water research program, and underpin the third-largest water-recycling scheme in the world.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor David Siddle, who signed a Memorandum of Understanding on UQ’s behalf, said expertise would be provided from the Advanced Wastewater Management Centre, Institute for Social Science Research, and National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology.
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| Natural wonder ... warnings on reef’s future | Ancient climates ... Dr Moss with a specimen |
