the results lead to one of the darkest chapters in u.s. history. a flurry of minutes on d w. we've got some hot tips for your bucket list. no mention corners show. support for food. and some great cultural memorials to boot. w. trouble all we go. greenhouse gases trash and heavy metals we humans are really hard on the. but many industries have been roofing to know how they work and science is lending that hand. today we take a look at a few funded projects that are hoping to reduce c o 2 emissions for eliminate them entirely.

welcome to this edition of tomorrow today the science show on t.w. . in our 1st report we accompany a german research it the united arab emirates. the arab country in the arabian gulf was long known for its high energy consumption. but now it's not his attractions and glitzy mega projects may be a thing of the past the country's oil wealth is drawing up and the climate crisis is growing ever more. could super plants come to the rescue. greenhouses near abu dhabi in the united arab emirates the plants here can only survive in this arid environment. because they're watered by an expensive

irrigation system and protected from the sun. climate change is already having a major impact here. could genetically modified plants that are better adapted to the heat be part of the solution and even help slow down climate change. in his experiments thomas down to car from for sport university has found a way to get tobacco plants to absorb more c o 2 which could help pull the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere. he's collaborating with mohamed now seem a biologist who works in votes and abu dhabi so exciting to meet. they have weekly meetings from one greenhouse to the next thousands of kilometers apart. they're hoping to modify plants to bind more c

o 2 and boost their yields that would be especially helpful in desert countries like the united arab emirates. you've used to snow but the desert is a real threat and just a few kilometers away from the university the government wants all professors to make a contribution to the fight against global warming. and on lies stood it's abundantly clear that the amount of fertile land is shrinking as a god it is seeing carbon fixation is very important so that we can feed just as many people with less land and. scientists are hoping to supercharge plants to make them better at absorbing c o 2 during photosynthesis leaves consume carbon dioxide and release oxygen using the enzyme rubrics co but it's not a faster. efficient process so up to 50 percent of their conversion efficiency is

lost. to a standard car and just college elena been sort of our modulating the plants metabolism to make it easier for their leaves to bind c o 2. they're working with bacteria and synthetic enzymes which are introduced into the plant cells the goal is to slow down foetal respiration process in which c o 2 is released instead of stored synthetic metabolic cycle will also give the process a boost. in building 2 things into the plants the synthetic cycle enables them to fix too much better. it's quicker and a larger quantity is stored. the other has to do with photo respiration c o 2 is lost in this process. and i can block this undesirable cycle by changing the

mix of enzymes so that c o 2 is either not released or is immediately recycled recycling so far these climate friendly plants only exist in the laboratory but thomas dunder car and his doctoral student. have developed a computer model that shows what their super charged plants might one day be able to do. by passing photo respiration and modulating the metabolic network will keep carbon dioxide inside the plants instead of releasing it into the atmosphere plant's modified this way could bind 5 times as much c o 2. as a matter much in mathematical terms the model works that's a really important result that has come up with in her calculations. and that means that i can perfectly augmented blocking of c o 2 transporter with this. and that excites. them and.

these computer simulations are being put to the test in abu dhabi the university greenhouses growing tomatoes and kinna what will their super charge plants have a higher yield and by the more c o 2. genetically modified plants are permitted in the united arab emirates under highly controlled conditions one day supercharged plants might be grown in secure greenhouses and the technology might also be used in other applications. trees for example could be enhanced to store more c o 2. algae that grows in flooded sand pits near cement factories could be modified to bind more smokestack emissions. and golden rice which already boosts vitamin

a might also become more climate friendly. visit this is an important moment in time where the c o 2 imbalance is still unstable years where new conditions have not yet been established ice free polar caps like the thawing of permafrost is that is why we need to research fully reversible and mild climate mitigation strategies so that we know which way to go when things get critical in say 10 years' time. the scientists hope that green genetic engineering could help. and at the same time we do c o 2 emissions. if their research pays off supercharged crops put 2 of our biggest problems. global hunger and global warming.

pulling greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere is one solution. but eliminating emissions would be even better. the steel industry is one of the dirtiest industries in the world the blast furnace is that he said with coal are a big part of the problem. might hydrogen be a green a solution a german still produce it is betting that it could. to some corpus germany's biggest steel producer and also its biggest c o 2 producer its factories pump out around $20000000.00 tons of carbon dioxide a year amounting to almost 3 percent of total c o 2 emissions in germany and the furnace is they use to play a big role in that. the theory is this is a blast from years one with a conventional design that normally uses iron ore and coke as an additive for would

be. the 100 meter tall furnace is filled much like a pepper grinder a fan blows in hot air and coal dust at the bottom ion occurs naturally in oxidized form so the oxygen has to be extracted to obtain the pure metal that's where the cocoa carbon comes in. the byproduct is carbon dioxide. as the gas rises the crudo pig iron melts and flows to the bottom. to do sport based company wants to reduce those c o 2 emissions and eventually eliminate them. they're carrying out tests to see hydrogen could be used in the furnace instead of carbon. caps but currently completing the initial phase 1st we have to figure out a good way to get the hydrogen deep into the for. it's awful. but.

it's a tricky process because hydrogen is a highly reactive element when it's combined with oxygen it forms a highly combustible gas oxy hydrogen every 2 hours the steel workers tap off the fresh pay die on samples are sent to the laboratory on site where the quality of the iron and other raw materials is checked for the hydrogen technique is also new territory for the engineers here. and of course to have us for being part of this transformation is a huge challenge it's not as easy as people might think that if we're now injecting hydrogen into the furnace that means our tests also have to be changed the composition of the gas is different and we might have to change other parameters to . see. in the labs trial fantasies the engineers carry out test runs with a variety of additives and gases. they need

a huge amount of hydrogen which is also a major challenge. these blue cylinder supply just one of the furnace is 28 injection assholes. limits well at the moment we have 2 trucks delivering the hydrogen to us in rotation multiply that by 28 and you can see we have a crazy number of deliveries here it's not feasible over the long term which is why we're laying a pipeline. 130 kilometers south of deuce book is a company that knows all about pipelines and that's also investing in hydrogen production the shell rhineland refinery is the largest refinery in germany. shell is now building the world's largest electrolysis plant here on site the facility will use electricity from renewable sources to produce green hydrogen.

the coronavirus pandemic has slowed down construction work somewhat. but the water pipes are already in place. might just be water but it has to travel $700.00 metres we had to use some pipe rack with stainless steel it has to be heated to prevent freezing it's not just an ordinary pipe. struction life. now it's on to the next stage the refinery director is coming to the site to see how things are going. he's already making plans for the future. where. one thing mayor about it is project has a capacity of 10 megawatts it's a start and we can learn from it we want to get the technology up and running to see if it's scalable to $100.00 megawatts or more what we learn will help us move

the technology forward and that's what makes it so fascinating it all falls on the spotlight thought it will force you. shell hopes that one day it might be able to export its green hydrogen. the steelworks into sport also a promising customer they also have big plans in store. by 2050 at the latest to some coke wants to use no coke at all in its furnace is. for that they'll need an all new blast furnace one that will be fed with iron ore pellets and hot hydrogen. instead of dirty c o 2 a byproduct would be h 2 o. water in the form of steam. and they want the furnace to be powered with thermal energy source from green electricity. they've already seen some promising results. awful story of. this is

what you've already managed is to ship the conversion of the hydrogen deep inside the furnace interior then the hydrogen doesn't just combust but extracts nuance engine from the iron ore leaving us with workable pig iron in the end. wasn't. pig iron produced with this method is higher in quality too when coke is used the pig iron contains unwanted by products like sulphur and phosphorus which have to be removed but that's not the case with hydrogen it's a truly clean fuel. germany did it in 2020. back to tested it almost 20 years ago. but the ban on plastic bags hasn't made much of a difference that yes. altena tips made from natural jute haven't caught on. now a scientist in bangladesh may have found

a solution for max. this is a market at the edge of the bangladeshi capital dhaka. the fish section is very busy as all those. many species are on sale at the stalls. and everywhere single use plastic bags everybody uses the. reverse of. django has been selling fish here for 10 years. he knows that plastic bags are bad for the environment but he says his customers. there's should

take responsibility. but on the back i'm not i does. these bags are everywhere and that's why we use them if we could get different ones we would use them people who shop at the market should bring their own bags or baskets but nobody does whether they're. right beside the market is a lake it's very polluted and plastic trash is everywhere. disposable plastic bags have been banned in bangladesh since 2002 but the authorities don't enforce the ban. one reason is the lack of alternatives that are slight and cheap and easy to use as regular bags made of polyethylene. eco friendly bags are available for sale but they are rarely used bangladesh is the 3rd biggest producer

of jute in the world. the abundance of this resource inspired scientist mubarak ahmed khan to develop a biodegradable polymer derived from jude fibers and then bags made out of it. in bangladesh called the golden 5 i think that's why the prime minister gave our product the name calling back. it's recyclable if you dissolve it in water you can dry it and make something new and with it. the sauna back went through a long period of development and testing before to change its present form.

if a bag is burnt it doesn't release dangerous chemicals the way polyethylene. waste you are the source materials for the batch they look as if they're made of regular plastic but they're not. least put 1st if we breach brought you to tell it's white you know should i pick in . cinemas if to put it in then we extract cellulose from it but it may soon. be processed the cellulose to make it will to soluble him again and again it will but are not money due. to me then we out of binding agent what it is of them like the bindings of an addict and that yields the solution if you don't mr good at the solution to. a solution then it's from that solution we produce the box when you say various methods to make them. concepts the manufacturing process is

entirely natural unlike that for bags made from other plants such as manya or the peel of sugarcane. imports our bags are completely biodegradable compostable and water soluble water but they're also dependable dependable we can produce bags that last as long as customers need them to. the pollution of the sea the land and the air is a big topic right now i don't want to lend. our bags are a good environmentally friendly alternative to put our money finally back. the government back to pilot project to manufacture them proved a success. the challenge now is to develop large capacity machines and scale of production so that so now the bags can be made available across the country.

and now it's time for your questions this time we've got one from south america. the louisiana hello my name is. and i'm from columbia and i have a question for tomorrow today why is plankton important for our planet back down. the dealer mire good question let's take a look at seawater one teaspoonful contains up to a 1000000 organisms viruses fundi bacteria tiny algae and other creatures. all organisms carried along by the current account just as plants and even large farms like jellyfish but most are so small you need a microscope to see them. it's quite beautiful and when they multiply a lot you can even see that from space. plankton are extremely important for the

global ecosystem here are 3 reasons why number one breathing without plankton we couldn't breathe phytoplankton that is plant like plankton a photosynthetic there fueled by light energy from the sun and give off oxygen in the process the way trees to to but all in a fight a plankton release a lot more oxygen than trees do photosynthesis also involves the consumption of carbon dioxide so phytoplankton help combat climate change by pulling c o 2 from the environment number 2 eating plankton a key to the global food chain phytoplankton are eaten by 0 plankton that is tiny animals eat tiny plants fish and other larger aquatic creatures eat plants and even some of the biggest animals eat it like some species of whale. and a lot of. what we was really at on plankton without them the entire food chain

would collapse. which brings us to number 3 building plankton are also the source of rule materials what do these buildings have in common like instead. it's formed from the shells of dead microorganisms that gather on the sea floor. over a 1000000 years or so deborah cemented together into rock one cubic centimeter of chalk a kind of limestone is made up of hundreds of millions of tiny shells. just think how many there must be here. plankton maybe very small but sometimes it's the little things that play a very big role. by the way the amount of plankton changes seasonally and in response to other factors

. but in some regions there's been a massive decline in. the us and explain that what can we do to protect plankton from. the biggest basher is reducing atmospheric carbon emissions. in the senate and is related to fish or ice the larger creatures plankton and fish are important for the mineral nutrients cycle. the cries life or for the outside says if you take those creatures out of the system by overfishing for example then you also change the mineral nutrient cycles. then ended. that also has a direct impact on phytoplankton because they need mineral nutrients to grow to vioxx and. in town has plankton research chain. over time.

to our hearts more investment from land we used to base our approach to the oceans and what we know about land ecosystems. not at 1st scientists focus primarily on how mineral nutrients are distributed in the ocean and how phytoplankton respond to these nutrients. gets in but we are now discovering that the many interactions among the plankton might be more important. then that's the direction research is now going in. looking at the interactions which species are her together how they are distributed and that kind of thing. when do you got to know i didn't just use interacts with the data shows that these interactions are very important that one of the most important involves predation.

grazing pressure from playing. if we look at these types of interactions in detail then of course rediscover completely new facets of playing to an ecology. and. facet of plantain a quarter of a typical example diatonic. and this month with the fifty's car surges have examined the robustness of their salissa find cell walls and which animals eat such creatures and how the structure of these shells offers protection from various predators. if outlet is read why are they. do you have a science question you'd like us to answer. sending as a video text man if we featured on the show. a little surprise from us as

a thank you come on just elves. for more science stories check out our website d.w. dot com slash science or look for us on twitter. that's all for now thanks for joining us on tamara today. will be back next week with another edition. by. a. little.

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