
• General
• General
I was reading an article this week that highlighted research done to study the effect the 2019-2020 Australian wildfires had on the world’s environment. The focus of the research was to study how ash particles fertilized phytoplankton feeding algal blooms thousands of miles downwind in the Southern Ocean.
That is an interesting topic, but what struck me was a comment made by one of the researchers: “The algal blooms triggered by Australian wildfires were so intense and extensive that the subsequent increase in photosynthesis may have temporarily offset a substantial fraction of the fires’ CO2 emissions.” Though much study remains, it simplifies down to a mass balance problem — an engineer’s dream! Fire releases carbon during combustion, and iron in the ash fertilizes phytoplankton, causing exponential growth. This is photosynthesis and carbon uptake in a tidy little circle.
As industries commit to ever-greater environmental stewardship, reduced emissions, and even net-zero operations, this mass balance problem becomes increasingly important. Whether it’s a water company, a utility, an agricultural operation, the petroleum industry, the aviation sector, and even the government, there are two sides to the energy coin. On one side is the carbon addition to the atmosphere through consumption of energy and production of goods and services. To offset those emissions there needs to be carbon uptake of some kind.
The balance between carbon emissions and carbon uptake.
Satelytics offers measurements to understand the mass balance and drive your ESG program.
One set of data, multiple solutions, addressing both sides of the ESG equation — with Satelytics. Talk about tidy little circles!
Satelytics' role in automating the initiation of work orders based on alerts.