For decades, the fields of physics and chemistry have maintained that the atoms and molecules that make up the natural world define the character of solid matter. Salt crystals get their crystalline quality from the ionic bond between sodium and chloride ions, metals like iron or copper get their strength from the metallic bonds between iron or copper atoms, and rubbers get their stretchiness from the flexible bonds within polymers that constitute the rubber. The same principle applies for materials like fungi, bacteria, and wood.
Scientists may have discovered the origin of water in our solar system
After gazing upon a distant star, an international team of scientists may have discovered the “missing link” behind the origins of water in our solar system. Their findings, published in Nature last week, suggest the water we drink, bathe in, originates from the space between solar systems, billions of years before the birth of our sun. “Carl Sagan once said we are all star stuff,” said John Tobin, the study’s principal investigator and a U.S.-based scientist for the National Radio Astronomy Laboratory, to the Star. “ … The water that's part of us is also, in some ways, star stuff as well.”
Tensions high on Port au Port Peninsula over wind-hydrogen megaproject
Depending on who you talk to on the Port au Port Peninsula, the region is either on the brink of an economic transformation or walking an environmental tightrope. Forty-five per cent of residents in the area drew employment insurance in 2019. But a company formed just a few months ago, World Energy GH2, promises a revolutionary wind-hydrogen project it says will bring hundreds of jobs and millions in revenue. The hiccup? That plan depends on building 164 turbines, each 200 metres tall, in an area about the size of the City of St. John's.
Why Justin Trudeau’s ‘blue hydrogen’ dream is not really green
While world leaders convene in Sharm el-Sheikh for the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference, Canadian politicians are hard at work selling dreams of clean green energy to locals and foreigners alike. Though the recent green energy export agreement signed between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was welcome news in Ottawa as much as Berlin, Canadian taxpayers should be mindful of politicians’ proclivity to overpromise and underdeliver. When it comes to promises of an energy transition powered by Canadian hydrogen, no amount of skepticism is too little.
Irving Oil invests in electrolyzer to produce hydrogen from water
Irving Oil is expanding hydrogen capacity at its Saint John, N.B., refinery in a bid to lower carbon emissions and offer clean energy to customers. The family-owned company said Tuesday it has a deal with New York-based Plug Power Inc. to buy a five-megawatt hydrogen electrolyzer that will produce two tonnes of hydrogen a day — equivalent to fuelling 60 buses with hydrogen — using electricity from the local grid.