Catch up on the latest environmental news from across the county with Abby Hook.
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00:02 - Hello and welcome to Kent on Climate live on KMTV.
00:19 I'm Abbey Hook and in this show we discuss
00:21 all things related to environmental issues in the county.
00:24 How is climate change impacting Kent?
00:26 What's the communities in the county doing to tackle it
00:28 and how can you help at home?
00:30 Each week we take a deep dive into a new environmental issue
00:33 in the county and I'm joined by expert guests.
00:36 But first tonight, wildlife campaigners across Kent
00:39 have been criticizing the government's proposals
00:41 to ease environmental planning permission for new builds.
00:45 Ministers are looking to cut the need
00:47 for nutrient neutrality development.
00:49 If it becomes legislation,
00:50 thousands of new homes across Kent could be built.
00:53 But critics argue this would increase river pollution
00:56 as Gabriel Morris reports.
00:59 - Trying to get into your foot on the property ladder
01:01 can be a challenging thing to do.
01:03 Many say a housing stock shortage doesn't help.
01:07 New government proposals hope to change that.
01:10 Ministers want to scrap nutrient neutrality rules
01:14 which requires developers to offset the pollution
01:16 caused by sewage from new builds.
01:20 It currently sees house builders
01:21 having to prevent the pollution to gain planning permission
01:25 and have been planning restrictions put in place
01:27 across Kent because of concerns over the level of nutrients
01:31 at this nature reserve.
01:32 - And if those environmental constraints are eased,
01:35 environmental campaigners are concerned
01:37 about what will happen here
01:39 at the Stodmarsh Nature Reserve going forward.
01:42 - It's a fairly large area that the Stour catchment covers.
01:47 But of course, we're only talking
01:48 about one catchment within Kent.
01:50 We're not even talking about all catchments in Kent.
01:52 We're not talking about all rivers in Kent.
01:54 So it's just literally the legislation designed
01:56 to protect sites such as this.
01:58 In some of the water bodies on this nature reserve,
02:01 the water quality is already poor.
02:04 So that's only gonna get worse.
02:06 It's not going to improve if we're not mitigating
02:08 for excess nutrients coming into the water.
02:11 - The government say the amount of nutrients
02:13 from house building is very small.
02:16 And Natural England would now offset that.
02:19 Investment would increase to 280 million pounds by 2030.
02:24 But the local council leader to Stodmarsh says
02:27 that doesn't go far enough.
02:29 - But we don't want to start building
02:31 absolutely loads of housing,
02:32 which seems to be the view that they want to do
02:36 until we've started at least start building
02:38 this mitigation in place,
02:39 which can take several years to actually establish.
02:42 If we keep doing that,
02:43 we're just going to destroy our environment even more.
02:46 This mitigation should have been built years ago
02:48 and it's dither and delay for 10 plus years.
02:53 - Discharge from wastewater treatment works
02:55 contains phosphorus and nitrogen.
02:57 And that goes into the river Stour
02:59 and it stopped planning permission
03:01 for many properties across Kent.
03:04 One of those is this new estate in Ashford.
03:07 The former leader welcomes the government decision.
03:09 - This site behind me is a development site
03:12 for new starter homes, one and two bedroom new homes
03:16 for people to get their first step onto the housing ladder.
03:20 And what the Stodmarsh rules have done
03:22 is they've stopped the developer
03:24 from being able to build them.
03:26 And it's really important that people have the opportunity
03:28 to get on the housing ladder.
03:31 And it's just not right that this is having an effect
03:34 on the quality of people's lives.
03:36 - But it has long been concerned
03:38 about the amount of new building across Kent,
03:40 including from the leader
03:41 of Tombridge and Morningborough Council.
03:44 He welcomes this new move.
03:46 - We've got significant pressures
03:47 to deliver affordable housing in particular.
03:50 And we know from our own waiting lists
03:53 that it's really difficult for families in need of housing
03:56 to be able to find places for them to stay.
04:00 That means we do need to get on and build some more houses.
04:03 And that needs to happen across the county.
04:05 We can't just have those authorities who weren't affected
04:08 by the nutrient neutrality issues
04:10 taking the brunt of development.
04:12 It needs to be spread fairly.
04:13 - The proposals will be added to the Leavening Up
04:15 and Regeneration Bill that's currently going through
04:18 for House of Lords.
04:19 So it needs to be passed by them before becoming law.
04:22 Gabriel Morris for CAME TV.
04:24 - Next, motorbikes could be the solution
04:28 according to one action group in Kent.
04:31 London's ultra low emission zone
04:33 has been expanded to the county's border.
04:35 And for many motorists with a non-compliant vehicle,
04:37 it means paying 12 pound 50 every time they cross that line.
04:41 Motorcycle action groups say
04:42 if more people switched to two wheels,
04:44 there would be a lot less pollution.
04:46 Although bikes contribute a small proportion
04:49 of total emissions,
04:50 the government say they can be highly polluting
04:52 on an individual basis.
04:54 EULES has expanded to the border of Kent
04:58 and with it bringing concerns for many motorists.
05:02 The idea, to reduce toxic air pollution,
05:05 something the motorcycle action group
05:08 believe they already have the answer to.
05:11 - Nobody wants to see anybody affected by polluted air,
05:14 but I think bikes move a lot freer through traffic.
05:19 They don't sit there ticking over polluting the air.
05:21 They just, they move.
05:22 In terms of total emissions,
05:23 they will be minuscule compared to the average car,
05:26 but obviously EULES doesn't deal with proportions.
05:29 It only deals with percentage of exhaust.
05:31 So, you know, even though this is a lot smaller
05:34 than the average car,
05:35 and this will get charged exactly the same.
05:38 - The EULES requires the Euro 3 standard for motorcycles,
05:42 which is actually lower
05:43 than the standards for other vehicle types.
05:46 It became mandatory for all new motorcycles in 2007.
05:50 The action group say some bikes banned
05:52 are actually compliant,
05:54 but the riders have to individually pay for proof.
05:58 - They've just blanket banned anything off
06:00 before a certain year.
06:01 But if you get a certificate from a manufacturer
06:05 stating that model is compliant, they accept it,
06:08 but they only accept it for that individual
06:10 when they should be saying,
06:11 "Okay, we now know all models of that year are compliant,
06:15 "so we'll add that to the exempt list," but they won't.
06:18 The vast majority of bikes being tested are compliant.
06:22 - But the motorcycle action group say proving compliance
06:25 isn't the overriding issue.
06:28 They want to see more people swapping their cars for bikes.
06:32 - There was a report done by a Belgian guy called Louvin
06:36 for the EEC, and in that he said that if 10%
06:40 of single occupancy cars shifted to motorcycles,
06:43 there'd be a 40% decrease in pollution and congestion.
06:46 So, you know, they're killer statistics.
06:49 So we feel that motorcycles should have a blanket exemption
06:53 from ULEZ, and people should be encouraged
06:56 to use motorcycles.
06:57 - A Transport for London spokesperson said,
06:59 "To tackle London's air pollution problems,
07:02 "we must reduce emissions from all vehicle types in London.
07:06 "This is why motorcycles are included in the ULEZ."
07:10 Exhaust emissions regulation for motorcycles
07:12 began later than for passenger cars,
07:15 and have since lagged behind the trajectory
07:17 of emissions controls used for other vehicles.
07:21 This means that although motorcycles may contribute
07:24 a relatively small proportion of total emissions,
07:27 they can be highly polluting on an individual basis.
07:31 But for this group of enthusiasts,
07:33 they hope their bikes can be part
07:34 of the air pollution solution, not the problem.
07:38 (air whooshing)
07:41 Abbey Hook for KNTV.
07:43 Next tonight, a conference focusing on food, nutrition,
07:48 and dietary research is coming
07:50 to the University of Kent campus in Canterbury.
07:53 The Eastern Arc Conference covers the stretch
07:55 across the east and southeast of England,
07:57 and we'll look into what and how we eat,
07:59 at all in connection to our climate.
08:01 From the breadbasket of England on one side of the Thames
08:04 to the garden on the other,
08:06 this area accounts for a third of England's total income
08:09 from farming, 1.5 billion pounds in 2021,
08:13 and home to more than 10,000 food and produce enterprises.
08:17 This conference hopes to explore as many as possible.
08:19 Well, Phil Ward, organising the conference,
08:21 joins me on the line now.
08:23 Phil, thank you very much for joining me.
08:25 Firstly, a very brief introduction there from me,
08:28 but what is the conference?
08:30 - Thanks very much, Abbey.
08:32 Yeah, the conference, the whole conference once a year
08:36 is to bring together the universities of Kent, Essex,
08:39 and UEA, the University of East Anglia in Norwich,
08:42 to both discuss issues which we have in common,
08:46 but also to bring in other people,
08:48 whether that be charities, businesses,
08:50 local authorities, and so forth,
08:52 to talk through some of the issues.
08:54 Last year, we were looking at what's described
08:58 as the collaborative coast,
08:59 some of the issues around our coastal communities
09:02 that we have in common,
09:04 from Great Yarmouth down to Dover.
09:07 And this year, as you say, as you set out,
09:11 food is an area issue which we have in common.
09:15 It's a real strength for our area,
09:17 but it's also an area that really,
09:20 you're describing the conference
09:22 as food in a time of crisis,
09:24 and it really speaks volumes about how we're outpost
09:29 with the climate, with sustainability,
09:33 both in terms of how we produce the food
09:36 and the cost of living crisis as an example of that,
09:40 but also societally, you know,
09:42 the fact that we're having to rely
09:44 increasingly on food banks,
09:46 people are finding it increasingly hard
09:49 to eat the right food.
09:52 There's issues around the ethics of food
09:55 and food production.
09:56 And this conference is a chance to explore
09:58 all of these options, to get a diversity of voices together
10:02 to explore a huge range of issues in the area,
10:06 including sustainability,
10:08 which I think will be really relevant to people,
10:10 to your viewers.
10:13 - Definitely, definitely relevant to the people
10:15 tuning into Kent on Climate every week.
10:17 We'll be keeping up to date with you
10:18 and as the conference goes on,
10:19 and at the conference as well,
10:21 we'll get some coverage here on Kent on Climate.
10:23 How can people get involved
10:25 and what can they expect on the day?
10:27 - Great.
10:30 The registration for the event is open at the moment.
10:34 It's open until the 11th of November.
10:37 There are still a few, we've had a great take up of it,
10:41 but there are still a few places available to it.
10:44 It's happening at the university in Canterbury,
10:47 and it's Canterbury campus in the Simpson building.
10:50 So people can come along on the day,
10:53 but we're also going to record
10:57 as many of the sessions as possible
10:59 through KMTV interviews and so forth.
11:03 We've got a photographer there,
11:04 the slides will be available.
11:06 So even if you can't make it on the day,
11:08 there will be resources available
11:10 to access some of the major discussions
11:13 that happen on the day.
11:15 - Very quickly, we don't have long left at all.
11:17 Our connection's just holding out
11:18 and there's a bit of a lag,
11:19 but hopefully we can get this from you.
11:21 Very quickly, what are you looking forward to the most?
11:24 - Oh, excellent question.
11:28 I'm looking forward to the huge range of people
11:33 around a number of initiatives that are going on,
11:38 including for Kent, the Kent Food Partnership,
11:42 which is going to be established very shortly.
11:46 And I wanna hear more about the sustainable way
11:49 that that is developing.
11:50 - Amazing, thank you so much for your time today, Phil.
11:53 The 20th of September for the Eastern Art Conference.
11:55 Time for a very quick break now.
11:57 See you shortly.
11:58 - Thanks very much.
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15:04 - Hello and welcome back to Kent on Climate
15:10 live on KMTV.
15:12 Now it's time for Kent's climate conundrum of the week.
15:15 So when is the best time to see the blue moon
15:19 tonight to the minute?
15:21 When is the best time to see the blue moon
15:24 tonight to the minute?
15:25 Well, stick around because I'll be giving you the answer
15:27 at the end of the programme.
15:30 Now making batteries more eco-friendly.
15:33 That's the goal for one scientist at the University of Kent.
15:37 Aurelia Priya Egberam has been working away
15:40 at creating molecules for an energy storage system
15:44 in a radix flow battery,
15:46 which can store renewable sources of energy
15:48 in a more efficient way.
15:49 Well, I'll leave all the science for her to explain.
15:51 I caught up with Aurelia this week
15:53 to hear more about her revolutionary charged work.
15:57 - Aurelia, thank you so much for joining me
15:59 all the way from South Africa.
16:01 It's amazing to have you.
16:02 Hopefully the connection keeps us going as well.
16:04 And you've recently been handed your PhD
16:07 from the University of Kent in Canterbury.
16:09 Tell us the title of that PhD
16:11 and very briefly what it was all about
16:13 because it sounds pretty impressive.
16:15 - Hi Abby, thank you so much
16:17 for having me on your show today.
16:19 Thank you so much for the congratulatory message.
16:22 So my PhD was titled functional violence
16:24 for electrochemical applications.
16:26 And so the focus of my PhD was from a chemistry background.
16:30 I was looking at making the molecules
16:33 for an energy storage system known as a redox flow battery.
16:36 So redox flow battery is used to be able
16:39 to store renewable sources of energy,
16:42 solar energy, wind energy,
16:44 they're all really great sources,
16:45 but the unfortunate thing is that they're intermittent.
16:48 And so we need a way to be able to store this kind of energy.
16:51 So the energy system that I was working on
16:53 or rather the molecules I was working on
16:55 to go into this energy system
16:57 allow for the storage of renewable sources,
16:59 which mean that you can connect it to your grid
17:02 and discharge at a later stage when you would need it.
17:04 So my job as a scientist or as a chemist
17:07 was to be able to make these molecules be efficient
17:10 so that we could have a sustainable kind of battery.
17:14 This technology currently exists in the market,
17:16 but they use vanadium,
17:17 which is a metal and a finite source is that,
17:20 and they need an acid solution, which is really toxic.
17:23 So my work was looking at making molecules
17:25 that are carbon based.
17:26 And what we mean by this is that you can source it
17:28 from things in the environment.
17:30 So it's sustainable and it's safe.
17:32 And I was using salt water to be able to dissolve my molecules.
17:35 So overall looking at a sustainable
17:38 but also environmentally friendly solution
17:40 for us to be able to store energy
17:42 and discharge it into our grid.
17:43 - Absolutely astonishing.
17:46 Mind blown hearing all of that.
17:47 It's so fascinating when we think of all these new ways
17:50 of creating things.
17:51 Could this way that you're looking at batteries,
17:53 could that fundamentally change
17:55 the way we use energy in batteries?
17:57 Is this the future,
17:59 a use of the beginning of that in a sense?
18:02 - So I think I'm a little bit biased in my opinion.
18:06 I think as a scientist,
18:07 we all often think that our experiments
18:09 or the technology that we're working on
18:10 are the future of things.
18:12 But having attended conferences recently
18:14 and engaged with lots of researchers in this field,
18:16 I do believe that energy storage is part of the future
18:20 of energy and how we look at batteries
18:22 because of the fact that like I said,
18:24 our current renewable sources,
18:25 although great are intermittent,
18:27 things like energy storage are becoming more in demand.
18:29 So there are massive plants in California,
18:32 in Dalian in China,
18:34 and even in Australia that have already incorporated
18:36 this sort of system into their grid.
18:38 And they're seeing major benefits from this.
18:40 So I think in years to come,
18:41 not only will we have slow batteries
18:43 be part of our energy mix,
18:45 but also different kinds of storage technology.
18:47 So yeah, from a biased side,
18:48 but also an honest scientific perspective,
18:50 I do believe it's going to be the future of our batteries.
18:53 - Incredible.
18:54 And it's happening all over the world.
18:55 It's important for all areas, this research.
18:57 But this project started here in Kent.
19:00 Why is that?
19:01 You're home in South Africa now,
19:03 but why here in Kent?
19:05 - So this research was done initially
19:09 in the research group based at the University of Kent
19:11 with a researcher known as Dr. Alex Murray,
19:14 who had come over from MIT.
19:16 And as a researcher, I was motivated to do this
19:19 because of the fact that,
19:20 some of your listeners may not be aware,
19:22 but in South Africa, we have something called load shedding.
19:24 So it's for about four hours in a day
19:27 or different periods of time when you have no electricity.
19:30 And the reason for this is that the demand
19:32 on the grid is a bit too high.
19:33 So the government has to try and limit the demand.
19:36 And so because of the certain parts are without electricity.
19:39 So noticing what the lack of electricity was doing
19:42 to small businesses,
19:43 but also to the everyday civilians,
19:45 I'd seen the need for energy storage in the system.
19:48 And this motivated me to come over to Kent
19:50 and take up this research.
19:51 - Amazing, bringing it to us here in Kent
19:55 for such a crucial thing that you're hoping to do as well.
19:58 So how's the project going or gone?
20:00 How much work I suppose is left to do?
20:03 Where'd you pick up from here?
20:05 - So with research, it's never a linear road.
20:09 You often tend to go in circles
20:11 or even a little bit back and forth.
20:12 So with this research, as I'd mentioned,
20:14 the idea was to come in and to be able
20:16 to make the molecules that would go into the system.
20:19 But as we started the project and things got on,
20:21 what I found was that in order to be able
20:23 to get reproducible and solid results,
20:25 that the ideal rig or the equipment
20:28 that I was testing it on needed to be stable.
20:30 So in fact, a lot of my PhD was focused more so
20:33 on ensuring that the system that I was testing it on
20:36 as a whole, or rather the equipment was solid
20:38 in a sense that everything that I was getting
20:41 in terms of results was going to be reproducible.
20:43 So that the next scientist coming in could be able
20:45 to obtain the next results.
20:47 So from a testing perspective,
20:49 there is still a large element of testing still to be done.
20:52 And unfortunately with research,
20:54 it does take a little bit of time,
20:55 but I think that we're at a point
20:57 where we've identified the molecules
20:59 and the complete setup that would be necessary for this.
21:02 And I believe that in the next three to five years,
21:04 we'd be able to have a solid working system
21:06 that could go out into the market.
21:09 - I really, it's so fascinating hearing you talk
21:13 about it and all that you know
21:14 and all that you've learned from doing this.
21:16 The one question that I think I have to leave on is,
21:19 what made you start looking into this?
21:22 What made you want to do this PhD?
21:24 Because it's so complex, it's so interesting
21:26 and it could be life-changing and could impact
21:29 a lot of people across the entire world.
21:31 What made you want to do something like this?
21:34 - Yeah, so I've always considered myself
21:38 to be someone that likes puzzles.
21:40 Actually just above my head,
21:41 you can see one of the puzzles that I built
21:43 with my mom as a child.
21:45 And so for me coming into science,
21:47 chemistry was the ultimate puzzle
21:49 where every day I could look at different problems
21:51 that I needed to solve and ways in which these problems
21:54 could ultimately change people's lives.
21:56 So as I alluded to before, in South Africa,
21:58 there's this major issue with load shedding
22:00 and I've seen the way that it has been affecting
22:02 people's lives and so as an African,
22:04 I know that Africa as a whole lives in a state
22:07 of energy poverty where in order to develop,
22:09 we need access to clean energy
22:11 as per the Sustainable Development Goal number seven.
22:14 And so for me, this was really something
22:16 that was close to my heart that I wanted to be a scientist
22:18 that was doing science to be able to improve people's lives.
22:21 And so this for me was at the core of it all,
22:24 to be able to do science that I know would have
22:26 a tangible impact in the long run
22:28 and could ultimately help with the development
22:30 of South Africa and Africa as a whole
22:32 should the technology go out.
22:35 - Aurelia, thank you so much for your time today.
22:37 We'll be sure to catch up with you very soon as well
22:39 when you do take over the world
22:40 with your incredible new form of battery
22:43 and the way you're looking at things.
22:44 It's really great to hear from you.
22:45 And thank you so much for joining us from South Africa.
22:48 The connection managed to hold out as well.
22:50 Thank you so much.
22:51 - Yes, thanks so much for your time, Abby,
22:54 and I appreciate your kind words.
22:55 - Next tonight, a scheme monitoring the bug population
22:59 in Kent and the UK has been collecting data
23:01 from your number plates.
23:03 The National Citizen Science Survey by BugLife
23:06 and Kent Wildlife Trust urges people
23:08 to count dead bugs on their car number plates.
23:12 To share some of the details and some of the data,
23:14 I'm joined now by Dr. Lawrence Bull.
23:17 Lawrence, thank you so much for joining me.
23:18 I spoke to you last week when you were taking to the skies
23:21 where planes would be counting bugs now too,
23:24 but you've got some data that you've collected
23:26 and got results on today.
23:27 Can you share that with us?
23:29 - Hi, Abby. Yes, thanks for having us on this evening.
23:33 So we've, well, tomorrow is actually the end
23:36 of the 2023 Bugs Matter Survey season
23:40 that ran from June to the end of August.
23:42 And so this is the third year the survey's been running.
23:47 I can't give you sort of all the stats at the moment.
23:49 There's still, we've still got a day left and everything,
23:52 but so far it looks like we've got sort of
23:55 at least a thousand more, if not more,
23:58 journeys than we did last year, which is really fantastic.
24:02 Every journey sort of counts.
24:05 And yeah, the bigger the data set,
24:07 the better we can understand what's happening to our insects.
24:10 - Why do you think more people have got involved this year?
24:13 - It's hard to know.
24:16 I mean, it could just be a growing awareness
24:19 of insect decline.
24:20 It's been mentioned a lot in the media recently.
24:23 We've tried to sort of improve our comms around it a bit
24:26 and reach out to as many people as possible.
24:31 It's hard to know, but we just hope it continues this way.
24:34 - How do you go about protecting the bug population?
24:37 It's such a widespread population, but they're so tiny.
24:40 How do you protect them?
24:41 - So there's many things we can do.
24:44 One of the biggest threats to insects,
24:47 and not just insects, but all biodiversity,
24:50 is habitat change and fragmentation.
24:53 So it's just the conversion of natural landscapes
24:56 to human modified ones.
24:58 Another big impact or threat, sorry, to insects
25:01 is the use of pesticides.
25:04 Obviously that has improved over the last few decades,
25:06 but there's still a lot of pesticide use
25:08 and that needs to be sort of halted completely.
25:11 As has been discussed recently,
25:14 nutrient neutrality is a key thing.
25:16 A lot of insects have the larval stage of their life
25:20 actually in an aquatic environment.
25:21 So that needs to be healthy in order for those insects
25:24 to grow and become adults.
25:27 But there's a lot that we can do as well.
25:29 You know, digging ponds, having log piles in our gardens.
25:32 You know, there's a lot that we can do just at home
25:35 to try and improve our gardens for insects
25:38 and other biodiversity.
25:39 - Amazing.
25:40 Well, thank you so much, Lawrence, for joining.
25:42 We'll be sure to hit all the data
25:43 when you do reveal that tomorrow
25:44 and we'll speak to you very soon on Kent on Climate again.
25:47 Thank you so much for joining me.
25:49 - Thanks, Abby.
25:49 - Now, eyes to the skies in Kent, not for bugs,
25:53 but for the biggest and brightest moon of the year
25:56 that will be visible both tonight and tomorrow.
25:59 It will be a rare chance to see
26:00 what is known as a blue supermoon.
26:03 The last one was in 2009.
26:06 It happens when the pattern of days in a year
26:08 means there are 13 full moons instead of the usual 12.
26:12 It will appear larger and brighter than usual
26:14 because the moon is near the closest point
26:17 in its orbit around the Earth.
26:19 Well, make sure you head outside to those clear night skies
26:22 and send in your pictures to kmtvdesk@kmtv.co.uk
26:27 or over on social media @kmtvkent.
26:30 Just before we go, earlier I asked you
26:32 Kent's climate conundrum of the week.
26:34 When is the best time to see the blue moon
26:37 tonight to the minute?
26:38 When's the best time to see the blue moon tonight?
26:41 Well, experts say the very best time is 7.52 p.m.,
26:44 so just less than two hours to go.
26:46 Make sure you send in your pictures.
26:47 I'll see you again next week.
26:48 Bye-bye.
26:49 (upbeat music)
26:52 (upbeat music)
26:56 (upbeat music)
26:58 (upbeat music)
27:01 (upbeat music)
27:03 [ Silence ]