Science Friday - Will Russia’s War Spur Clean Energy Efforts, What Is “Life,” Scientific Sewer Tour. March 11, 2022, Part 2

Episode Date: March 11, 2022

Will Russia’s War In Ukraine Finally Spur A Clean Energy Revolution? This week President Biden tightened sanctions on Russia, cutting off imports of Russian oil to the United States in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine. The conflict has put a sudden, sharp pressure on an already strained energy system, causing uncertainty—and rising prices. However, in a recent Quinnipiac poll, 71% of Americans said they favored cutting off Russian oil imports, even if it resulted in higher prices at the pump. And the German Economic Ministry announced plans to speed up wind and solar projects as it seeks to lessen its dependence on Russian energy. Ira talks with Dan Esty, Hillhouse Professor at Yale University, director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, and co-director of the Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance, about whether the Ukraine conflict might hasten a worldwide shift to greener energy sources. They discuss the role that pressure from commercial entities and investors might have on long-term climate policy.   Searching For Life On The Red Planet Prompts Deeper Questions As rovers like Perseverance and Curiosity roam the surface of Mars in search of signs of past life, SciFri producer Christie Taylor asks scientists and science-fiction podcasters Mike Wong and Moiya McTie, “How do you define ‘life’ anyway?” Plus, how to find habitable exoplanets, the case for Europa as a source of more interesting organisms than Mars, and why Star Trek’s hive mind alien, the Borg, is a good example of an alternate way of being alive.   Where Does Toilet Water Go? Many of us have morning routines that use a lot of water. After the alarm goes off, folks may stumble to the kitchen for a glass of water, then head to the bathroom to use the toilet, brush teeth, and take a shower. That very normal part of many people’s mornings is water-intensive. And where does that all go? For many Americans, it’s a given that when we do dishes or wash our hands, that water is out of sight, out of mind—we don’t have to think about it again. But wastewater and sewage systems are complex and essential networks to our daily lives. And when they don’t work as we expect, whether that’s due to flooding or aged infrastructure, it’s a major problem. There’s a whole community of engineers and scientists devoted to improving our wastewater and sewage systems to reflect our changing planet. More people living in cities, and increased rain from climate change are two recent examples of major adjustments that our systems weren’t built to handle. But researchers are now leading projects like New York’s Flood Sense, which alerts residents to sewage exposure, while SARS-CoV-2 detection in city wastewater has demonstrated the importance of monitoring these systems. Joining Ira to talk about the importance of sewer science is Andrea Silverman, assistant professor of environmental engineering at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This week, President Biden tightened sanctions on Russia still more, cutting off imports to the U.S. of Russian oil. And it made me wonder, the rise of COVID-19, remember, disrupted the usual way research on vaccines are developed, the crisis speeding research development by up to months, if not years. Could this crisis of record-setting fossil fuel prices disrupt the normal way we do business with fossil fuels, disrupt them enough so that renewable energy development is kicked into high gear also. Joining me now to talk about that and disruption in the energy economy is Dan Esty. He's the Hillhouse Professor at Yale University, director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy,

co-director of the Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance. Welcome to Science Friday. My pleasure. Great to be with you. Nice to have you. As I say, we've seen how COVID disrupted the development of cycles of vaccine accelerating that cycle from five years to what, six months? Can this same thing happen with renewable energy? One of the things that we've really come to recognize in the energy and the world of focus on climate change is that the key to progress is innovation. So I do think

a sustained effort to drive our technology development processes more quickly, to put incentives in place for breakthrough thinking and breakthrough innovation is possible. Whether we could shorten from five years to six months, the innovation cycle, I'm not sure. But we certainly could do much more to really focus on the special opportunity we face right now to shift people off of a fossil fuel energy foundation onto something that is sustainable out over time, a clean energy base for the future economy. I know that you're talking to us from Denmark. you have a good view on Europe. And Europe has been leading the world in switching to green energy.

And the Wall Street Journal reports just now that, I'll quote from it, amid heightened fighting across Ukraine, the German Economic Ministry announced plans to speed up wind and solar projects as it seeks to curb its dependence on Russia for energy. You served in multiple administrations. How fast do you think this could happen? and what role would private industry need to take? Well, I do think that there is a recognition in governments all across the world,

with Germany perhaps most visibly demonstrating a changed spirit over the last few weeks, that we pay a price, a hidden price, for dependence on fossil fuels in multiple regards. The first price that we've known for some time is the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which is imposing ever greater costs on us. But over the last few weeks, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has highlighted a second price, a strategic vulnerability price. And I think the German government, in what represents one of the largest policy pivots of recent decades, has decided they cannot go forward with an energy future that depends on natural gas and oil from Russia.

So it is quite clear that governments can change postures and that, frankly, the pressure to do so, from these multiple burdens that fossil fuels impose on us, a strategic burden, a vulnerability to rogue states like Russia, and, of course, the burden of an atmosphere that's filling up with greenhouse gases threatening to create serious problems of climate change all across the earth. And it seems from polls, most recently the Kinnapal, that cites 71 percent of Americans support a ban on Russian oil, even if it resulted in higher gas prices. the American public may be behind this. Do you read that the same way? I do think this is the moment to really shift gears in a fundamental way and move American society onto a more sustainable

trajectory and to a clean energy future. I think if there ever were a time to have the public back change, including change that's going to have some price, it's now. In the midst of this, the president has pointed to funding new hydrogen projects. I remember in the state of the union, he talked about this, but at this point, that relies on natural gas, right, to make the hydrogen from that. Are we chasing the right clean fuels here? And why did the president focus on hydrogen at this point when so many people are focused on cars powered by batteries? Well, I do think that there is a short-term opportunity to move to hybrid vehicles and ultimately to fully electric vehicles. that exists right now. But the question is, where does the electricity come from for those vehicles?

And in too many parts of America, it remains fossil fuel-based electricity. Connecticut and New England more broadly are quite lucky to the extent that we have significant, not-fossil-based electricity. So our shift would be more effective in terms of the transformation required. In terms of hydrogen, there are various colors of hydrogen. And you're quite right that a good bit of what is produced now is what's known as gray hydrogen coming to us from natural gas. So we're splitting natural gas apart to get at that hydrogen. There are alternative ways using a clean electricity to break water apart through electrolysis.

And if we were able to do that, we would have a much cleaner base of hydrogen. As of today, that's still pretty expensive. but a lot of efforts going into bringing down those costs. You're involved in something at Yale called the Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance. Explain about how that might help influence the future direction of energy. Well, at the Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance, we are looking at ways that we can bring a flow of money, of capital at large scale, into investments that will help us move from where we are today to a clean energy future.

And in particular, in the technologies required for deep decarbonization, which is what the world community now recognizes is essential. In fact, the core conclusion coming out of the climate negotiations in Glasgow in November, the so-called COP 26 summit, was the need for net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. And if we're going to get there, we know we're going to have to bring a lot of money to bear to change out the fundamental infrastructure of our society. So we have a lot of capital that's got to turn over to be part of this transition to a clean energy future and really move us to a sustainable trajectory for our economy going forward. How much do small investors, those without the multimillion or billion dollar portfolios,

influence this? Or is this really targeted at select few companies, corporations, industry, leaders with a lot of sway or power, so to speak? One of the things that's really come to the four in the last couple of years is a growing number of mainstream investors, often pretty small investors, who have said to their investment advisors, to their pension fund managers or to their 401k fund managers, that they want better alignment between their values and the stocks in their portfolios. And in particular, many are saying we want a more sustainable portfolio. We don't want to be invested in fossil fuel companies.

And to the extent that some are saying, we want to actively invest in companies that are seeking solutions to climate change, that are helping us move towards deep decarbonization. And those hundreds of thousands, now millions of relatively small, mainstream investors, meaning they're not willing to forgo returns. they still want to make a profit on those investments, but they're saying, give me a different mix of companies, give me companies that are part of the sustainable future and keep my money away from companies like oil companies that may in fact collapse in value over the next, if not two or three years, certainly five or ten or 15 years as society moves decisively away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy alternatives. But the most promising thing in some regards, from my point of view, is the fact that you've now got the corporate world

absorbing this idea that we need net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and hundreds, now, in fact, thousands of companies having made net zero pledges of their own. Do you see any other disruptions that may emerge from this time period, given the role of Putin's petro state in global instability and recent reports on climate change? Well, I think we know that the climate science is getting ever clearer. Even in the last few weeks, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has produced its latest report, focused on impacts and vulnerabilities and the need for adaptation. So we know there is a requirement that we take seriously the science, and that is going to require transformative change. And I think what is interesting to me is

that this moment with Russia in high profile is added to the sense of momentum for bringing about this big shift towards clean energy and away from fossil fuel dependence. And basically, Putin has given us all a gift who need that added boost in terms of focus on the shift away from fossil fuels. He's added to the argument for freeing them ourselves from dependence on something that has this hidden burden, this hidden set of costs. Now, you're currently in Denmark, one of the world's leading wind power countries in which has made that commitment to go green. Are we here in the states willing to trade the short-term pain, higher prices for the longer

term gain and not only energy independence, but mitigating the effects of climate change? So it is quite interesting in Denmark, where you see a quite different pattern to life. One can't help when flying into Copenhagen, but notice hundreds of windmills, particularly offshore, some onshore, but hundreds offshore that have become a significant part of the energy base for the country of Denmark. And on an everyday basis, you see people walking, commuting by bicycle. So there are quite different choices that are being made in the most sustainable countries in the world. And Denmark certainly is among them. But I think beyond that, it is important for us to recognize that there is an opportunity to shift gears, but it requires some willingness to pay a short-term price. And I think Americans may, in this moment, with the Ukraine issue and the suffering of the Ukrainian people evident, starting to realize that the price we would pay in terms of a higher cost for gasoline and short-term impacts on our pocketbook,

may well be so much less than the Ukrainians are suffering, and a signal of what is to come if we don't take action, that people are starting to step up and say, yes, this is the right time to shift gears. Well, that is a good place to wrap it up. I want to thank you, Dan, for taking time to be with us today. My pleasure, and thank you for bringing these issues to the four. Dan S.D., Director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy

and co-director of the Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance. We need to take a break, and when we come back, we'll take a look at the miracle of modern wastewater systems and how we can make them even better. Stay with us. This is Science Friday. I'm Iroof-Ladu. I want you to think about your morning routine with me. Maybe it goes something like this.

Your alarm goes off. You head to the kitchen, grab a glass of water. Then you head to the bathroom. Use the toilet. Brush your teeth. Maybe take a shower. That very normal part of many people's mornings uses a lot of water. And where does that wastewater go?

Well, for many of us, it's not something we really think about. We see it go down the drain, and poof, it's gone out of sight, out of mind. But wastewater and sewage treatment systems are genuinely incredible, and they deserve our attention. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. Wastewater Treatment here with me to get us excited about the magic of wastewater systems and how we can make them better is my guest. Andrea Silverman, Assistant Professor of Environmental Engineering at New York University Tantan School of Engineering based in Brooklyn.

Welcome to Science Friday. Wonderful. Thanks for having me. I want to give out our numbers so our listeners can call in and ask questions about it. To me, this is a really fascinating subject. Our number, 844-724-8255-844-Sy-Talk. Yeah, I say that because, you know, sewage treatment fascinates me, and I'm going to tell you a secret. I almost opted that to go to graduate school in the field.

But I opted for radio instead. How's that working out? You'll see. But I, you know, I'm still really, really fascinated with it. So let's start with a simple vocabulary lesson, can we? What's the difference between sewage and wastewater? Absolutely. And I should say that, you know, wastewater also excites and fascinates me.

Good. Thanks for having me in this conversation. You're welcome. Wastewater is a more general term. So wastewater can be thought of any water that results after being used by a process. So that could be domestic, agricultural, industrial, et cetera. Sewage is more specific. So sewage is refers to domestic wastewater.

And I often use the two terms interchangeably, and I probably will throughout the course of this conversation. And so they do mingle at some point, don't they? I mean, we've heard of sewage systems that are overflowing and mingling with the wastewater system that flows out to the ocean? Yeah, well, so sewage is the domestic wastewater. And in some municipalities, our sewage system is connected with our stormwater drains. And that's probably what you're referring to, these combined sewer systems. And so that when it rains, you do have stormwater that ends up in our sewage system.

And so what ends up in our wastewater, though, is aren't they the things that we put into on ourselves, our shampoos and lotions and things we put into our system, into our bodies? Absolutely. I like to think of it as a couple of things all relating to what goes down the drain. So the first is anything that goes down the drain from what we put down the toilet to what goes in the sink. So it could be food scraps, oils, chemicals if we're pouring paints or chemicals down the drain. Also things we wash off our bodies. So if you put lotions or gels on your body when you take a shower or bath or going down the drain. A big thing also that we think about with sewage is the things that we excrete. so feces and urine.

And in addition to that fecal matter and urine, it's things that we ingest. So nutrients, we eat a lot of food, there's a lot of salt as well, a lot of that goes through our body, we excrete them. Pharmaceuticals is another big class. When we take either pharmaceuticals or illicit drugs or whatnot, we're excreting often. The apparent compounds are a transformation product and metabolite of that compound. And then another thing that we might be excreting is if somebody is, sick, the pathogen or the organism that's causing that illness often is excreted as well.

And then finally, the big thing that's in wastewater is water. We use a lot of water, and that water goes down the drain as part of that wastewater. That is fairly interesting, all that stuff that we put into the wastewater. Absolutely. Let me move on to one of the big reasons wastewater has been in the news recently, and I'm talking about that all over the world, scientists are monitoring sewage for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the virus that causes COVID-19. Can you explain how this monitoring works for us? Because we've heard about it. How does it happen? For sure. So the premise behind what we're calling either sewage surveillance or wastewater surveillance or some people are calling it wastewater-based epidemiology is that some of the

compounds or organisms that we excrete can say something about our health. So the pharmaceuticals or these pathogens I mentioned that we excrete. Second of all, the whole community in sewer systems, municipalities served by a sewer system, the whole community is contributing to wastewater. And so we have had some issues throughout the course, for example, of the COVID-19 pandemic, where there have been periods of time

where we haven't been able to test, you know, do clinical testing as adequately as we've wanted to. What's nice about wastewater surveillance is that everyone is contributing, you know, contributing to that sewer system, so we're in essence sampling the whole community. So when we do wastewater surveillance, what we do is we collect a sample that we hope is representative of that community, and typically it's a what we call composite sample that's collected over 24 hours. We then quantify, analyze and quantify that sample for SARS-CoV-2, which is the virus that causes COVID-19.

And we've seen, you know, in our sort of community working wastewater-based epi, have seen that the virus concentration and wastewater correlate to the case counts. And so that we're actually able to illustrate trends in COVID-19 prevalence through the virus concentrations that we're able to measure in these wastewater samples. So it's pretty accurate. Yeah. Predicting, right? Absolutely.

Yeah. And we're not able to necessarily say, okay, this many viruses means that this many people are sick, but we are seeing really good opportunity to see the trend. So you see an increase in viruses in wastewater, then you're expecting there's an increase in COVID-19 cases. And a decrease, you know, corresponds to a decrease as well. Let me go to our first phone call, Dan, and Nellie's Ford, Virginia. Hi, Dan. Welcome to Science Friday.

Well, I just wanted to see what the prospects are for moving away from waterborne sewage, which was a very bad idea to begin with because you're wasting all your nutrients coming from the soil and washing them into the ocean and ways to get it returned. But currently, the contamination in sewage sludge is so bad. It's basically hazardous waste and can't go back to the land. Interesting point. What's your reaction to that? Thanks for the question.

One of the exciting sort of research areas in our field is in resource recovery. So how can we take the resources in human. waste and so that might be nutrients as was mentioned there's a lot of energy in human waste and there's a lot of water and I know that we were talking at the the caller asked about water-free sewage systems but you know if you do you know what are still resource in wastewater but what are the ways that we can then take these waste products and not call them waste products anymore treat them as valuable resources and process them to pull out those resources so you know we've we've done a bit of research

looking at non-suered, non-water-based sanitation systems, they actually make it a lot easier to recover nutrients in a lot of cases. One of the challenges is transport. So one of the big benefits of having a water-based wastewater system is that we can get all of the wastewater to our processing facility by gravity because it's flowing. When you have a non-watered system, you actually have to pick up and transport that solid waste or separated urine, which is one of the challenge. Yeah. Let's talk briefly then about how wastewater is traditionally treated. Give me a moment, for example, in New York, where you work. How is the wastewater treated here? Give me the process it goes through because I drive by the West Side Highway and I see these treatment facilities and stuff. I don't know what's going on in there.

Absolutely. So a traditional treatment system has a couple steps. The first is a screening step. So we have a relatively wide mesh screen that removes the big stuff in waste. So you can think about wet wipes and leaves and condoms, unfortunately, and tampons, sometimes money or fish. You know, whatever people flush down the drain that's pretty big or goes down the storm drain. After the screening step, there's a settling step. And one of the goals of wastewater treatment is to remove particles from wastewater. And so in that settling step, we have these big tanks that settle out the particles by gravity. After that step, the wastewater then goes to a process that's called activated sledge. And the goal of activated sludge is to degrade the organic matter in wastewater, which is another goal.

There's a lot of organic matter, and if that organic matter goes into a natural environment, it could suck up all the oxygen in that environment because oxygen is needed to break it down. So in activated sludge, we rely on bacteria to eat up and break down that organic matter. And to do that, we aerate. we provide them the oxygen they need to do that. After activated sludge, there's another settling step to settle out everything that was created in activated sledge. And then the final step is disinfection.

And typically is chlorine that's used. And that disinfection step really is trying to prevent transmissible waterborne pathogens to the environment. So when that's all done, it just gets flushed out into the river if you're living in a city where there are rivers or out into the ocean. Absolutely. So as I mentioned, there's a lot of water, and it doesn't just disappear. So we have to put that effluent, that water effluent, into whatever surrounding water body is nearby. And one thing I do want to note is that sometimes those water bodies become the drinking water sources for other communities. And so that's why wastewater treatment is so important. It's one of those barriers that we use to prevent that transmission of illness or disease to another community. You know, in this whole process, I did not hear a step for taking out all those drugs and pharmaceuticals we put in the water through the toilet.

Absolutely. There's a couple of things that traditional treatment facilities aren't able to remove. And it's not because we don't care about them. It's just that when these systems were designed, they just, we weren't thinking about certain things. One of those things is pharmaceuticals. And so we don't have, you know, some pharmaceuticals are removed, but there's. There's a number that the processes just aren't in place for their removal. And another is nutrients.

Traditional wastewater treatment facilities do not do an great job at nitrogen removal, for example. And so to be able to target these compounds, what you'd have to add on is what we call advanced treatment processes. And there are some facilities that do have these advanced processes in place, but it's not all of them. It's expensive. It's very expensive. Yeah, that's the way. When I was studying this in college, it was called tertiary. treatment. It still is, a tertiary. And it was always had the big money signs around it. That's why we don't

have them in very many places. Let's go to Jeff in Wichita. Hi, Jeff. Welcome to Science Friday. Hey, how are you doing? Hi there. Go ahead. Yeah, so I live in Wichita, Kansas, and I got a kayak once, about six years ago and tried to, like, recreate in the Kansas River. And it was just like a sewage pond. It's just total waste. And then I lived in Europe and you can go to these major rivers and they're clean. How can we clean our rivers in America with all the runoff and the sewage that goes into? How can we do better? Yeah.

Thank you, Jeff. How do we do that? I mean, you know, waste water treatment is really one of the important barriers there. So in the United States, we have the Clean Water Act. And that's the regulation that's meant to protect our water resources. and it's done an incredible job. So a lot of our wastewater treatment facilities were built in response to that act that was put in place in the 70s. I don't know exactly what's going on in Wichita, why the treatment facility is not working.

But I do think that wastewater treatment really does help provide that barrier. Okay. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. Talking with Andrea Silverman, Assistant Professor of Environmental Engineering at NYU, hand on School of Engineering. And let's go to, I think we have time for a really interesting, another call. Let's see if we can get this one in from Nick in Kentucky. Hi, Nick. Hi. I just wanted to say I'm an operator here in Kentucky, and I just wanted to say that give a thanks, because a lot of operators don't get a thank you for what they do.

And I was told in my class to get my operator a license that, you know, we're protecting the environment and protecting the people, I mean, from diseases and stuff. And I just wanted to say, you know, I mean, a lot of our job is dangerous, like, especially when it comes to having to change out chlorine tanks and sulfur tanks, you know, because the sulfur takes chlorine out of the water. And it's just a dangerous job all around. It's kind of wanted to say, you know, thank you to other people. Let's throw some love to Nick.

Thank you, Nick. Yeah. And thanks for calling. I'm so happy that you called in. I really am so appreciative of operators. You guys are incredible. You are protecting public health. And like you said, I don't think enough people know the hard work that you do to allow us to live the way we do.

Let me see if I can get a quick calling from Brendan in Rhode Island. Hi, Brendan. Hi, how are you? Quickly. Good. I'm a graduate student at the University of Rhode Island for the Hydrology Department. So I absolutely love what you guys are doing. I appreciate it.

The question I wanted to bring to the table was, what do you guys kind of expect for future considerations when we have increased populations if there's going to be an increased load on the nutrients and what you guys kind of expect going forward? Good question. I see why he's a student. Yes. Yeah. I mean, that has to definitely be taken into account. So when thinking about population growth, you definitely have to plan your facilities in that way. And I agree. I think nutrients are going to be an ongoing challenge for us. And so there are certain facilities that are upgrading to have what we call biological nitrogen removal to be able to target nitrogen specifically to try to protect our waterways.

If I'm going to give you a blank check question, which, you know, I don't have the money, but I'll make believe I do. If you had a blank check and you could spend it on upgrading all these sewage systems, is there enough money in the world to upgrade all the sewage systems that need to be upgraded, and what would you do on mass for most of them? I think there's enough money, and I think what I would do is shift the focus to resource recovery. So can we create energy products? Can we create fertilizers so that we don't have to be making synthetic fertilizers? And can we reuse the wastewater, especially in places that are water water limited. I think that resource recovery really is such an exciting opportunity for the next generation of wastewater treatment facilities. Do you need to develop new filtration systems? Yeah. So,

you know, as mentioned, there's a lot of things in wastewater we need to manage. So there's a lot of research going into things like advanced oxidative processes that can help break down pharmaceuticals and viruses so they don't become a health risk. M membrane filtration, to try. try to also remove potential contaminants to make sure that we're doing this in a safe way. Because still remembering that, you know, that direct reuse of, let's say, wastewater, there can be some constituents that can cause health impact. So we do need to keep working on research to come up with efficient ways to remove them. And quickly, what can we do at home to help you?

Don't flush things down the toilet that shouldn't be flushed. Anything that you'd imagine, like when you flush big things down the toilet, The first, I mentioned the screen is the first thing in the treatment facility. It gets stuck on a screen, and then the operators have to physically remove it from the screen and throw it in the garbage, and it goes to the landfill. So just imagine, anything that you put down the toilet is eventually going to a waterway, and if you don't want it to go in that waterway, don't flush it down the toilet. All right. Great words. Thank you, Dr. Silverman, for taking time to be with us today. Thanks for having me. Andrea Silverman, Assistant Professor of Environmental Engineering at New York University Tantan School of Engineering.

in Brooklyn. We have to take a break and when we come back. We're heading out to Mars with the book club and asking what it means to be alive. What is life all about anyhow? Stay with us. We'll be right back after this break. This is Science Friday. I'm I reflato. Time now to turn to the Science Friday Book Club, the Sirens of Mars. That's what we're reading. It's all about the centuries-long fascination with the red planet and its potential for life. You can learn more about how to join us in reading and discussing this book. Yeah, it's at our website, science friday.com slash book club. Joining me now is my favorite Martian producer, Christy Taylor, here with War Cool's Mars Science.

Hey, Christy. Hey, there, Ira. Now, last week, we talked about clues in Martian meteorites. What's the update today? Well, we've been asking listeners to weigh in on what they thought about life on Mars. This is all on the Science Friday Voxpop app. And there's Tim from Scottsboro, Alabama. He thinks the planet once definitely had life. But I think in our present day that it's just a bleak, lifeless desert.

And then we had Kevin in Tulsa, who thinks life might actually still be there. I think somehow, way in the distant past, Mars was in the Goldilocks zone and had liquid water. I think microscopic lice from that time is trapped in the polar ice cap. And that Goldilocks zone he's referring to, by the way, is the sweet spot around. a star where a planet can count on having liquid water. Not too hot, not too cold, just like the porridge. Just like the porridge. But what are we talking about when we talk about this word, life?

I mean, couldn't there be other unfamiliar life forms out there? And how would we even know what to look for? That is such a great set of questions, Ira. And there's actually a whole group of astrobiologists who are asking those same things, too. Mars is actually a lot like ancient Earth. But beyond Mars, there are some really wild moons and exoplanets that could host some really weird stuff. So to talk through these questions, I brought in some scientists who are also using their imaginations a lot. And in this case, I'm talking about science fiction.

Dr. Moia McTeer is an astronomer and folklorist, and she hosts the Exolore podcast, which is all about inventing fake life on real planets. And Dr. Mike Wong, a postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Institution for Science. He's got a podcast, too. It's called Strange New Worlds, and he talks about the science of Star Trek. And I started by asking Mike to talk about his day job, which is looking for traces of life in planetary atmospheres. Oh, my goodness. Yes, I do. So we're discovering exoplanets by the bucket load these days. These are planets orbiting other stars. And the only conceivable way to try to assess whether there is life on those worlds as of right now, given the technology that we have at the moment, is to try to identify the molecular fingerprints of,

atmospheric gas molecules that life has sort of breathed out into the atmosphere. And the way we look at this is basically as the planet orbits its star and passes between its star and us, that starlight will filter through the atmosphere and enter our telescopes. And because of the specific ways in which molecules of gas absorb that light, we can actually get a handle of what's in that atmosphere. And if we detect certain combinations of molecules that look really intrigued, because they are tied to our theories for what life should do in that planetary context, then maybe we'll even get a hint that there is a biosphere on that planet. Mike, I know as an astrobiologist, you're probably spending a lot of time thinking about biosignatures, but I, in my past research endeavors, have also spent some time thinking about techno signatures. So I guess I would push back a little bit saying that we can only detect life by looking for these molecules and other compounds that we think would be formed by,

biological processes. There are also some technical signals that we might be able to find. Okay, but what is a techno signature and what would it look like? Yeah, so similar to biosignatures where you're looking for a signal or something that would only or mostly exist in the presence of biological processes, a techno signature is something that we think would happen because of a technological civilization. Then there have been a few papers coming. out over the last decade looking for different types of technosignatures. One that you might be familiar with would be a Dyson sphere. This is a big structure that an alien civilization might build around their star to capture all of its energy. But you can also imagine smaller-scale

things. Like there was a paper that came out a few years ago looking for nightlights on planets It's using something similar to the transmission spectroscopy that Mike was talking about. But instead of looking at the spectra of light, it's really just looking at the amount of light. If a planet has more light on its dark side than we expect to see, then maybe that's a hint that there are bright city lights on that planet. Mike, we just went straight for the jugular technological societies. What's your take on that? Well, I sit here in my closet, absolutely corrected.

You know, technological societies is a really interesting point that maybe we can think of them as a natural emergence in the course of a living planet's history. But it's also something that has arrived here on Earth relatively late in our planet's history. Animal life on Earth has existed only within the last 10th of Earth's history. And then technological civilization has been around for, depends on who you talk to in terms of anthropology and when they date the beginning of civilization as we define it here on Earth. But it's definitely less than one million years. This is a blip in Earth's history. And I think what we might say as astrobiologists is that the idea that we could potentially detect life out there that is simply biological life, maybe even just microbial life, is potentially. a lot greater than finding evidence for technological life because it is easier for that kind of simple life to emerge in multiple places. However, I absolutely agree with Moja that if we get technological civilizations out there, the signals, those flares that we would see from them as a result of all of their technology would be so much more obvious to our telescopes.

I want to take us a step backwards, though, because here we are, we're talking about highly sophisticated technological societies. Meanwhile, on Mars, the rovers are hunting for evidence of basically ancient bacteria. So when we're talking about the definition of what life could be, I remember way back in high school biology, so the basic characteristics we were taught about life involved things like reproduction, metabolism, life responds to its environment, and NASA's definition of life is just a self-sustaining chemical system

capable of Darwinian evolution. Can definitions like that help us in this, search? I think yes, by definition. They will because when you're looking for something, you have to at least have an idea of what you're hoping to find. But I think it's also really important to be open to the idea that what you find might not look anything like what you expect, especially when we're talking about extraterrestrial life, that if it exists, would be adapted to their own local environment. And I, basically, based on the amazing diversity of planets that we have found.

I think you're right, Mike, it is like up to 5,000 by now. These planets are so different, which means the life on these planets would be so different. Moia, I know one of the things that you have spent time researching is whether we can tell how bumpy an exoplanet is. That's the technical term. Why is this important in the search for life? So there's some evidence that mountains and other top of graphical features like Vulcan. volcanoes and trenches are a good proxy for how habitable the planet is. These mountains and other features will form through internal mechanisms that are really useful for life. Having plate

tectonics, the ability to cycle material in and out of the interior of a planet helps with things like regulating the amount of carbon dioxide in an atmosphere or other molecules, whatever that planet has. This plate tectonic process is really good for cycling. Even having volcanoes is a sign that your planet has internal volcanism. So if your planet is outside of the circumstellar habitable zone, if it's farther from its star, it might still be okay if it has this internal source of heat. So this reminds me of a paper that just came out recently from my colleague Stuart Bartlett, who was trying to identify a way to calculate the complexity. of a planet, especially an exoplanet that we are just observing as a single pixel in our telescopes

very far away. If you have mountains, if you have a habitable planet with constant tectonic motion, yeah, the complexity of that planet surface is going to go up. And so what Stewart and his colleagues did was they figured out a way to observe the Earth and also observe Jupiter, another very complex worlds in our solar system. And what Stewart and his colleagues found was that the Earth, Earth is way more complex than Jupiter, although by eye, you know, I look at Jupiter storms, all those beautiful images that the JunoCron is beaming back to us, and I look at those swirls and, you know, pinkish and reddish and orangish cloud features, and I'm like, that's a complex world, but it has nothing on the earth. I'm not surprised by that, actually, but that sounds

like a really cool paper. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit more about the ways in which life, as we don't know it, may or may not manifest. And I want to do that through the lens of science fiction, since that's a place in our culture where we often let our imaginations run quite wild. As far as that question is concerned, you two are both podcast hosts as well as scientists. You think about this a lot. Why is science fiction an important way to conceive of life beyond our understanding? One of my favorite instances of life elsewhere in science fiction is the Borg from Star Trek.

So for those listeners who are not familiar, the Borg are basically the Borg are basically the collective of cybernetically integrated individuals who are all linked to a hive mind. And I just love them because they show an alternative form of learning through assimilating other civilizations, technology, and biology and making it a part of their own. So this is different from what we think of as strictly Darwinian learning, you know, this descent with modification that Darwin described. And it's actually a little bit more akin to horizontal gene transfer. You basically let others innovate and generate novelty, and then you kind of just steal it from them.

I really think that information and information processing and information transfer is at the heart of what it means to be alive. But anyway, I just love the board because they are basically a warning to us about where we might be going as a technological society. And I think it's worth putting into perspective, again, that our technosphere or our data om, as some might call it, is a result of four billion years of biological evolution. It's a part of life on Earth, but it's an emergence on our planet that has never before happened in the history of all of Earth. And so we've got to turn to science fiction to try to predict its outcomes. Yeah, that's a great example, Mike.

I love that you brought up the Borg because I think that one of the purposes of science fiction is to let us humans work through some of our deepest societal issues and things that we have a hard time grappling with here on Earth when we're talking about human experience. But when you separate it from humanity, when you put it on another planet or with another species, it makes it so much easier to deal with. Yeah, the same is true about astrobiology. When we look for life out there, we are also asking. What even are we that we are looking for something out there that resembles us?

When we ask about the origin of life, we're asking about our own story, when we are asking about the habitability of other worlds, we can't help, but also turn around and look at how we are disrupting the climate and the habitability of our own. Astrobiology is like science fiction in this way. It is a mirror for ourselves. By thinking about these hard questions out there, we are also thinking about hard questions in here. Yeah, Mike just mentioned the Borg from Star Trek. I know on your Ex-O-Lore podcast, you ask questions like, what kind of life could live on a planet that was mostly volcanoes? And I think that one involved shiny turtles with precious metals in their shells. Is that how one might go about imagining life, take a real set of physical conditions and try to imagine what might survive there? That's my process. I have talked to other world builders. These are people who build imaginary worlds, usually for the purpose of putting a story in those worlds, but not always. And my personal process starts with imagining the intention that you have for your world and then building out the physical environment and then going to biology and then going to culture. Because that's how our world happened. That's how worlds in nature are built.

and so I feel like it's just nice to follow that same path. So many world builders have their own processes, but I think it makes sense to start with the environment because I use my world building as a vehicle for science communication and getting people to better understand the facts that have underpinned our own world here on Earth. Just a quick reminder that this is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. Talking about how we imagine life,

and I mean alien life that we've never seen, before. Mike Wong, Mojah McTeer, where do you want to go looking for life in our solar system? Okay. Well, you know, with all due respect to Mars, I'm going to go for Team Europa here. So just for context, Europa is a moon of Jupiter. And because of the tidal forces that it experiences, its interior gets heated to the extent that there is a global ocean of liquid water hiding underneath of this kilometers thick ice crust. And the cool thing is that that water is in contact with rock on the bottom of that ocean. And one of the leading theories for the emergence of life here on Earth

situates our emergence at submarine hydrothermal vents. So I really find Europa this great possibility for life on a world that is very differently oriented than the Earth. You know, we have these oceans in contact with a brilliant atmosphere that feeds us carbon dioxide and everything. Europa has no such thing, but it still could be alive, and it would be really groundbreaking if we did find life there. Moya? I agree 100%. I think that there's a long history of people being kind of more obsessed with Mars and its potential for life than we should be. And Mike's totally right that Europa is more interesting from that perspective.

I love the idea of this world where dimensions don't work in the same way. So I often have a lot of fun imagining entire worlds built in an ocean. I did an episode where I imagined life on a planet or on a moon like Europa. And because they have that thick ice sheet at the top, what you end up with actually is like upside down ice mountains that dip down into the water. and you also have features at the bottom with the rock. And so I just love that imagery. We ended up imagining, like, giant matriarchal squid societies.

And, yeah, so Europa is super cool. Wow, awesome. That's excellent. I think the takeaway I'm getting here is that life. It's complicated. Yeah. Moia, Mike, thank you so much for your time today. Thanks for your great questions.

It's been a pleasure. Dr. Mike Wong is a postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Institution for Sciences, Earth and Planet's Laboratory, host of the podcast Strange New Worlds. And Dr. Moia McTeer is an astronomer and folklorist. Her podcast is called ExoLore. Thanks so much for this complex conversation, Christy. Thank you, Ira. And listeners, are you reading the Sirens of Mars with us at the SciFRI book club? You can hear author and planetary scientist Sarah Stewart Johnson talk about her work. Maybe ask her all about it. Just come to our next Zoom call-in event. It's a behind-the-scenes Q&A that you can join before it airs on the show. Check it out at ScienceFriday.com slash Mars events. And that's about

all the time we have for this week. If you missed any part of this program or you would like to hear it again, yes, subscribe to our podcasts or ask your smart speaker to play Science Friday. Have a great weekend. We'll see you next week. I'm Ira Flato.