Tag Archives: atmosphere
Breath Of Life For Europe’s Emissions Scheme
Whether Europe can truly fix its broken emissions trading system remains to be seen, but for now, at least, it isn’t prepared to see the thing die. Instituted in 2005, the Emissions Trading System was intended as a key mechanism for driving down the amount of CO2 that EU countries were spewing into the atmosphere. The idea was that over time, the ceiling would gradually be lowered, in the process allowing market forces to find the best emissions-reducing mechanisms as companies traded permits to release greenhouse gases. But then the Great Recession happened. Slow economic growth (and even retraction) since 2008 has left Europe awash in carbon allowances, with prices too low to incentivize investment in low-carbon technologies. Still, by passing the fix the EU parliament avoided virtually abandoning the system. “Across all continents, Europe’s experience of a market-based system for reducing CO2 emissions is being considered, and seen as a credible option, as most recently in China. We shall not let the ETS be the victim of short-term concerns. Structural reform of our Emissions Trading System will follow to ensure it remains the cornerstone of EU’s climate policy.” Continue reading
Taking Biofuels to the Next Level – Carbon-Neutral Fuel in the Works?
Kristopher Settle | Jun 13, 2013 Oh, so there’s a problem with releasing excess carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels? OK, no big deal, we’ll just use that CO2 to make some carbon-neutral biofuel, sound good? That’s the claim being presented by researchers at the University of Georgia (UGA) in an article posted by Bio Fuel Daily. Michael Adams, UGA Bioenergy Systems Research Institute member, Georgia Power professor of biotechnology and Distinguished Research Professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, co-authored the study. “Basically, what we have done is create a microorganism that does with carbon dioxide exactly what plants do – absorb it and generate something useful,” Adams stated. He elaborates on the potential of the study, “What this discovery means is that we can remove plants as the middleman…[w]e can take carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere and turn it into useful products like fuels and chemicals without having to go through the inefficient process of growing plants and extracting sugars from biomass.” The conversion process begins by isolating a microorganism known as Pyrococcus furiosus. P. furiosus normally feeds on carbohydrates in warm ocean waters near geothermal vents. Instead, Adams’ team of researchers discovered a method of feeding the microorganism some carbon dioxide at a much lower temperature than usual. The research team went one step further by incorporating additional hydrogen gas to the equation as well. This results in altering the carbon dioxide within the microorganism into 3-hydroxypropionic acid, which is a commonly-used chemical for acrylics and other useful materials. The team claims that by additionally testing genetic manipulations of P. furiosus, the potential of creating a biofuel literally from thin air is quite possible. The best part is since the biofuel was created with what is essentially recycled carbon particles from the air, the emissions that result from burning the biofuel would release the same amount of CO2 into the air as it took to produce. This carbon neutrality is far more efficient and healthier for the environment in comparison to burning fossil fuels the way we do today. As Adams alluded to, one of the greatest hindrances from generating biofuel on a large scale stems from the inefficiency to grow, transport and decompose various grasses or plants to create cellulosic ethanol. Considering that the University of Georgia can spend zero dollars to generate carbon dioxide from the air , all money spent on developing and transporting raw materials for biofuel would be more expensive by default. With that said, Adams also indicated that the public is a long way away from seeing carbon neutral biofuel. For the time being, the US government still touts cellulosic ethanol as the best alternative that’s currently available. This is clearly evident, based on how the US has been the world’s largest producer of ethanol since 2005 and how it has also mandated E10 fuel in 2007 for the next 15 years. Despite the limited potential for now, Adams remains upbeat for the future of their discovery, “This is an important first step that has great promise as an efficient and cost-effective method of producing fuels…in the future we will refine the process and begin testing it on larger scales.” Continue reading
Biomass Of Northern Hemisphere Forests Mapped
ANI inShare Washington, June 27 (ANI): Thanks to satellites, the biomass of the northern hemisphere’s forests has been mapped with greater precision to help improve our understanding of the carbon cycle and our prediction of Earth’s future climate. Accurately measuring forest biomass and how it varies are key elements for taking stock of forests and vegetation. Since forests assist in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, mapping forest biomass is also important for understanding the global carbon cycle. In particular, northern forests – including forest soil – store a third more carbon stocks per hectare as tropical forests, making them one of the most significant carbon stores in the world. The boreal forest ecosystem – exclusive to the northern hemisphere – spans Russia, northern Europe, Canada and Alaska, with interrelated habitats of forests, lakes, wetlands, rivers and tundra. With processing software drawing in stacks of radar images from ESA’s Envisat satellite, scientists have created a map of the whole northern hemisphere’s forest biomass in higher resolution than ever before – each pixel represents 1 km on the ground. “Single Envisat radar images taken at a wavelength of approximately 5 cm cannot provide the sensitivity needed to map the composition of forests with high density,” Maurizio Santoro from Gamma Remote Sensing said. “Combining a large number of radar datasets, however, yields a greater sensitivity and gives a more accurate information on what’s below the forest canopy,” Santoro said. About 70 000 Envisat radar images from October 2009 to February 2011 were fed into this new, ‘hyper-temporal’ approach to create the pan-boreal map for 2010. This is the first radar-derived output on biomass for the whole northern zone using a single approach – and it is just one of the products from the Biomasar-II project. (ANI) Continue reading
