Some Good News For the Planet: Germany's Cycle Highways and Floating Solar Farms
Science, Society and Economy Blog, Kodoom.com Editorial:
It seems like some governments and scientists are finally finding smart ways to curb carbon emissions.
Recently it was announced that Germany's bicycle-only highway (Radschnellweg Ruhr) which will connect 10 cities, four universities and cover 62 miles of roadway, will open in 2020, making it the first car-free highway in Germany, according to reports.
Also https://ecf.com/system/files/FrankJoneit... known as RS1, it was first devised in 2010 and will encourage bicycle transportation with a highway designed exclusively for bicycles. Duisburg, Bochum and Hamm are among the destinations on RS1. The first three-mile stretch of RS1 opened in 2015. The bike paths average 13 ft wide, with some segments built on disused railroad tracks. Cyclists travel as fast as they desire, as there will be no speed limits or red lights on the bikeway. RS1 will be equipped with streetlights, passing lanes and overpasses and underpasses for crossing intersections. It will be available for use year-round with snow and ice removal during the winter.
Intended less for recreation and more for commuting, estimates state RS1 could potentially save cyclists 50% of their commute times. To goal is to displace 50,000 cars daily from German roadways, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 16,600 tons per year.
As efforts to reduce traffic and pollution grow, so does European interest in electric bikes and services, prompting other German cities, such as Nuremberg, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin and Munich, to consider methods for making those cities more bicycle-friendly.
The RS1 is not the first car-free highway in Europe. It joins a network of 20 different bike highways that have been operational in the Netherlands for almost two decades. Likewise, similar bikeways have built up around Copenhagen, and another network connects nine different cities in Norway.
Separately, in a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers propose "floating solar farms" as a novel way of recycling atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) into synthetic fuels using renewable energy — which they suggest may be "an energy concept with no net CO2 emissions."
The team of researchers from Switzerland and Norway suggest photovoltaic cells could be used to convert solar energy into electricity, which could then be used to power hydrogen production and CO2 extraction from seawater. The resulting gasses would then be reacted to form methanol, which could be reused as a fuel — and “conveniently shipped to the end user”. This will help limit global warming to well below 1.5 to 2 degrees Celcius to prevent dangerous climate change.
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