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The Corona Crucible – Tues 14th April

World 1.9 million      USA 590K+    New York 200K+      China 82K+?  Indonesia 4K+?

World fatalities 120K+         World recoveries 400K+

OPEC and other oil producers recently met via teleconference and decided to cut back oil production by ten per cent.  With the sharp downturn in global mobility, this hardly seems like enough. More cut backs are likely to follow. As global demand has dropped, the price of oil has fallen dramatically.

China, the US and Europe are the world’s three largest emitters of CO2 and all are likely to have long term economic impacts that will continue see a reduction in emissions. Over the past month, global CO2 emissions have fallen sharply, so why not use this time as an opportunity to start phasing out at least one fossil fuel and develop hydrogen vehicles. A host of car manufacturers have already developed the technology and are ready to go into production, but there are no refuelling facilities available here. Other countries are far ahead of Australia in developing hydrogen technology. Hydrogen emits only water vapour.

This pandemic could be a lifeline to rescue life on Earth. New clean energy systems could also employ many of those who are now out of work.

Aircraft are a major source of carbon emissions but even though hydrogen systems have been in development for decades, it can’t be used in existing long-haul aircraft. However, hydrogen technology has already been used in smaller aircraft. With planes grounded around the world for the foreseeable future, perhaps some clever aircraft engineer can find a way to convert jets to hydrogen, but the way things are now, existing aircraft would have to be completely redesigned from the ground up. International borders are likely to remain closed for quite some time and a number of existing airlines will probably go out of business. This crisis may provide a window of opportunity to develop new clean methods of flight, or maybe we will all just travel less often and let the earth breathe.