Friday, April 8, 2022

Waterloo professor makes major contributions to climate change report

This article originally appeared on the Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change website.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released a new report, Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. The IPCC’s Working Group III (WGIII) assessed methods for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and removing GHGs from the atmosphere. The report is important as it informs international negotiations at the UNFCCC to address climate change and tells us where we are in terms of our global greenhouse gas emissions, what steps we can (and already are) taking to reduce them, and how we can speed up this process while also taking justice and competing priorities into account. 

Sarah Burch, Executive Director at the Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change and professor of Geography and Environmental Management, is a lead author for Chapter 17: Accelerating the transition in the context of sustainable development, and a contributing author for Chapter 13: National and subnational policies and institutions. She has worked with top scientists from around the world for the past several years to identify climate mitigation options and how they can be applied across all sectors and activities. These include energy, transport, buildings, industry, waste management, agriculture, forestry, and other forms of land management.

"The work of over 278 experts from 65 countries powerfully communicates the scale of the climate change challenge," says Professor Burch. "Unprecedented levels of cooperation and creativity are required to put the world on a low carbon, resilient development pathway."

To at least halve emissions by 2030, the report outlines what these options would look like. Including: 

• Limiting global warming will require major transitions in the energy sector. This will involve a substantial reduction in fossil fuel use, widespread electrification, improved energy efficiency, and use of alternative fuels (such as hydrogen). 

• Cities and other urban areas also offer significant opportunities for emissions reductions. These can be achieved through lower energy consumption (such as by creating compact, walkable cities), electrification of transport in combination with low -emission energy sources, and enhanced carbon uptake and storage using nature. There are options for established rapidly growing and new cities. 

• Reducing emissions in industry will involve using materials more efficiently, reusing and recycling products and minimizing waste. For basic materials, including steel, building materials and chemicals, low - to zero -greenhouse gas production processes are at their pilot to near -commercial stage. This sector accounts for about a quarter of global emissions. Achieving net zero will be challenging and will require new production processes, low and zero emissions electricity, hydrogen, and, where necessary, carbon capture and storage.  

• Agriculture, forestry, and other land uses can provide large-scale emissions reductions and also remove and store carbon dioxide at scale. However, land cannot compensate for delayed emissions reductions in other sectors. Response options can benefit biodiversity, help us adapt to climate change, and secure livelihoods, food and water, and wood supplies. 

To help us further understand the report, Burch has been using Twitter to share the report’s findings. Follow her @SarahLynnBurch to learn more. 

Read individual Tweet on Twitter

The Working Group III report, along with two earlier reports on the physical science and impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability of climate change, are part of the IPCC’s sixth assessment of the state of the knowledge of the climate crisis. Together they show that the next few years are critical. We must limit warming to around 1.5°C (2.7°F). This requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025 at the latest and be reduced by 43% by 2030; at the same time, methane would also need to be reduced by about a third. Even if we do this, it is almost inevitable that we will temporarily exceed this temperature threshold but could return to below it by the end of the century. Therefore, the time for action is now.  

A final synthesis report is scheduled to be released in fall 2022. University of Waterloo researchers have contributed to each of the IPCC assessments since it was initially formed in 1988.

Successfully pitching inventive projects

By Carol Truemner. This article was originally published on the Faculty of Engineering website.

Impressing judges with projects ranging from a unique alternative to traditional cancer treatment to a high-performance e-bike that folds into the size of a backpack netted six senior-year engineering teams $10,000 each.

The winning teams, narrowed down from 10 in the pitching competition, took three minutes each to explain their innovations to a panel of judges in the annual Norman Esch Entrepreneurship Awards for Capstone Design event held online March 31.

For the past eight months, students have been working on their Capstone Design projects both remotely and on campus when pandemic-related restrictions were eased. 

One of those projects, Petalos, earned $10,000 in the pitch competition along with $3,000 as the winner of the Sedra People’s Choice Award.

Team Petalos - biomedical engineering students Ethan Chung, Jeffrey Feng, Evandros Kaklamanos, Joey Kuang and Timothy Seto - is developing a new gastrointestinal endoscope after a couple of team members who worked in surgical units discovered it can be one of the most contaminated medical devices.

The students' design includes a removable and disposable insertion tube and channels and an autoclavable body to improve the device's cleaning process and reduce contamination for better clinical outcomes.

“While maintaining full functionality, Petalos removes the most tedious, time-consuming and error-prone reprocessing steps and achieves the gold standard of sterilization through autoclaving,” the team said.

Hydro House (Lucas Godkin, Peter Cornelisse - mechanical engineering)

More than 200,000 Canadians live in remote areas that rely solely on expensive diesel generators for power. To survive in a decarbonized future, these communities require a system that can generate renewable energy. 

Team members have developed a plan for the first standalone residential power station that would store surplus solar energy produced during the summer in high-pressure tanks and then convert it back into electricity using a fuel cell during the dark winter months.

"Hydro Houses's mission is to deliver a secure energy future to off-grid residents and capitalize on this market's green energy transition," said Cornelisse.

CortiSolve  (Jessie Christie, Lisa Devlin, Sarah Odinotski, Simon Frew – nanotechnology engineering)

While mental illness affects one in five Canadians, diagnostic methods remain underdeveloped, Team CortiSolve told the judges.

To support accurate diagnosis of a growing issue, members have designed a cortisol biosensor that is wearable, non-invasive and provides dynamic data. 

“This is exactly what researchers need to better understand cortisol’s connection to mental illness and what clinics may need to make more informed diagnoses,” said Odinotski.  

SafeSound Surgery (Yu Chun Fu, Stefan Adamski, Dylon Lemus, Aaron Leger, Marko Popovic and Gianpaolo Pittis – mechanical engineering)

Cancer is the leading cause of death in Canada with a 36.9 9 per cent mortality rate. While traditional surgery remains the most popular treatment plan, it can result in long recovery times and high cancer recurrence rates.

As an alternative, SafeSound Surgery members are developing a robotic-assisted system that identifies, coordinates, and attacks tumours noninvasively using focused ultrasound techniques.

Initially focusing on breast cancer, the team's technology is designed to mitigate human error and minimize surgery time.

“The team has developed a full-scale functioning prototype,” said Pittis. "Testing and validation have begun and we’ve successfully achieved tissue ablation on animal tissue.”

Origam-e (Tyson Norris, Peter Hudlicka, Mahin Masrur, Gurleen Kaloty, Chris Iacobucci – mechanical engineering)

On a mission to revolutionize the electric bike, Origam-e is designing a portable, high-performance and compact model that folds into the size of a backpack and rolls with the ease of a carry-on suitcase.

The team said Origam-e will perform like a full-sized electric bike with a top speed of 40 kilometres per hour.

“We’ve developed a custom drive train featuring dual drive electric motors that can propel Origam-e up steep hills,” said Hudlicka. “Powering all this is a custom Lithium-ion battery pack and a state-of-the-art controller.”  

Its novel folding design allows the collapsed bike to be stored under a desk or in a closet, decreasing the risk of theft.

Moonlight Haptics (Yahia Nassab, Alex Wei, Reese Martens, William Losin - nanotechnology engineering)

Recognizing that vision impairment is not only a problem of losing vision but also one of losing choice and independence, team members designed a device that allows users to “see” by mimicking vision through the sense of touch.

The students’ solution includes a slim-fitting pack with a camera hung on the user’s front that live-streams the individual’s surroundings into a haptic image displayed directly onto the user’s skin allowing the person to “feel” any nearby obstacles.

Wei said the team’s current target market is young adults with severe visual impairment who need to travel outdoors for work or hobbies.

Watch all of this year's pitches for the Norman Esch Entrepreneurship Awards:

And check out all of the 2022 Capstone Design projects by senior-year students: 

• Biomedical Engineering;
• Chemical Engineering;
• Civil, Environmental & Geological Engineering;
• Electrical & Computer Engineering;
• Interdisciplinary Engineering;
• Management Engineering;
• Mechanical Engineering;
• Mechatronics Engineering;
• Nanotechnology Engineering;
• Software Engineering; and
• Systems Design Engineering.