The one and only 2023 post 🙂

First, a quick catch up. The “In progress” section of this website has seen the only updates over the last year, with the main excitement being finishing my PhD. For those of you thinking about doing a part-time PhD while working full time, it is possible, but oh it is wonderful to have my weekends off again! It’s been a long process and I am thankful to everyone who helped keep me going along the way, including the lovely folks on Blipfoto which is the only social media tool I’m actively using. Once I get the PhD minor corrections done, I’ll be moving on to other writing and publications. I have a draft post about having a remote viva, but that one will wait for the new year. I also finally caught Covid in October this year, about two weeks after I submitted my PhD and a few days before my booster was due. Friends have told me that getting poorly seems to follow hard on the heels of submitting. Like catching a cold in the first week of the holidays when you finally decide to rest – and one of the reasons why having weekends to recharge again is so wonderful.

Another joy of post-submission has been getting my public library card renewed, now that I can read absolutely anything I fancy. That brings me to my second theme for this post, as reading random everythings has been great fun already and given me plenty of food for thought (and future blog posts). I’m seeing this year out thinking about not wasting waste. Specifically, how great it would be if our human waste products were collected to fuel “green” shipping (ammonia) and flying (sewage solids) rather than polluting our waterways. If jet fuel can be generated from faeces, then a poop-solution for those of us still with petrol cars might be possible, particularly given the planetary pressures related to the production of batteries for electric vehicles and the associated charging issues. Our primary aims need to be improving public transport and reducing unnecessary journeys, with good alternatives for fueling the necessary journeys. Using human waste to fuel those journeys rather than wasting water to “process” it seems like a solution to a range of problems. I’m interested to see how this develops.

Trust me to finish a year out talking about poo 🙂

References

Harvey, D. (2023). Firm develops jet fuel made entirely from human poo. BBC News, 27 December 2023, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-67771640

Madslien, J. (2023). Green shipping corridors gaining momentum. BBC News, 18 December 2023, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67690392

Powell, S., Cezar, G. V., Min, L., Azevedo, I. M., & Rajagopal, R. (2022). Charging infrastructure access and operation to reduce the grid impacts of deep electric vehicle adoption. Nature Energy, 7(10), 932-945. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-022-01105-7

Stallard, E. (2023). Sewage spills: Water bills set to rise to pay for £10bn upgrade. BBC News, 18 May 2023, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65626241

Yang, Z., Huang, H., & Lin, F. (2022). Sustainable electric vehicle batteries for a sustainable world: Perspectives on battery cathodes, environment, supply chain, manufacturing, life cycle, and policy. Advanced Energy Materials, 12(26), 2200383. https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.202200383