Tag Archives: atmosphere
China Would Gain From Carbon Caps
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d904a41a-c794-11e2-be27-00144feab7de.html#ixzz2Uge8CQYF May 28, 2013 Since the failure to agree binding international carbon emissions targets in Copenhagen three and a half years ago, the best to be said for global climate negotiations is that they have at least kept alive – just – the aspiration to strike a deal. Any prospect of actual success, however, remains shackled by Beijing’s unwillingness to commit to legally binding emissions caps, and the refusal of important rich country polluters, above all the US, to accept limits that are not also binding on China. Pointing the finger at China is in part self-serving – Washington has more than its fair share of isolationists and climate sceptics who do not want the US to curb its emissions in any circumstances. But blaming Beijing is justified, whatever the motives. China now pumps more CO2 into the atmosphere than any other country. A deal without Beijing will fail not only diplomatically, but also in terms of the world’s ability to bring emissions under control. The possibility that China might drop its opposition to binding carbon caps is therefore momentous – if it materialises. That is a big “if”. The country’s economic planning policy is reportedly considering a carbon cap for its 2016-20 five-year plan. But such a policy remains at the drawing board for now. Even if it gains champions within the government, it will encounter strong resistance, in particular from interests in heavy industry. And deciding on self-imposed domestic caps is not the same as signing up to legally binding international commitments. Should Beijing go down the route of capping its carbon emissions, it would benefit the world at large, bringing it a little closer to necessary but elusive collective action on climate change (only a little, as the US will remain a stumbling block). But China will also find that this is in its own interest, for three reasons. First, it dovetails with Beijing’s other policy priorities. One such priority is to tilt the economy away from infrastructure, heavy industry and imported resource dependence. Another is to remedy China’s shocking pollution problem whose negative effects range from people’s health to politicians’ popularity. This has already led to limits on how much coal power stations can burn, to which any new carbon caps could be linked. Second, China’s pivotal role in any global climate deal means that “conceding” emissions caps could make it a powerful voice in negotiations for the next climate summit, in Paris in 2015. Beijing would be in a strong position to shape the new deal regarding, for example, how targets are allocated between countries and how the developing world is compensated. Third, playing a constructive role would alter at a stroke the world’s perception of a prickly rising power unwilling to contribute to a global system of rules. China’s dominance would be accepted less grudgingly if it exercised power with commensurate responsibility. It would gain influence in global standard-setting, whether in carbon reduction or other areas. Therein lies Beijing’s true prize. Continue reading
New Advance in Biofuel Production
May 9, 2013 — Advanced biofuels — liquid fuels synthesized from the sugars in cellulosic biomass — offer a clean, green and renewable alternative to gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. Bringing the costs of producing these advanced biofuels down to competitive levels with petrofuels, however, is a major challenge. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), a bioenergy research center led by Berkeley Lab, have taken another step towards meeting this challenge with the development of a new technique for pre-treating cellulosic biomass with ionic liquids — salts that are liquids rather than crystals at room temperature. This new technique requires none of the expensive enzymes used in previous ionic liquid pretreatments, and makes it easier to recover fuel sugars and recycle the ionic liquid. “Most of our ionic liquid efforts at JBEI have focused on using enzymes to liberate fermentable sugars from lignocellulosic biomass after pretreatment, but with this new enzyme-free approach we use an acid as the catalyst for hydrolyzing biomass polysaccharides into a solution containing fermentable sugars,” says Blake Simmons, a chemical engineer who heads JBEI’s Deconstruction Division and was the leader of this research. “We’re then able to separate the pretreatment solution into two phases, a sugar-rich water phase for recovery and a lignin-rich ionic liquid phase for recycling. As an added bonus, our new pretreatment technique uses a lot less water than previous pretreatments.” Simmons is the corresponding author of a paper describing this research that has been published in the journal Biotechnology for Biofuels. With the burning of fossil fuels continuing to add 9 billion metric tons of excess carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year, the need for carbon neutral, cost-competitive renewable alternative fuels has never been greater. Advanced biofuels, produced from the microbial fermentation of sugars in lignocellulosic biomass, could displace gasoline, diesel and jet fuel on a gallon-for-gallon basis and be directly dropped into today’s engines and infrastructures without impacting performance. If done correctly, the use of advanced biofuels would not add excess carbon to the atmosphere. Environmentally benign ionic liquids are used as green chemistry substitutes for volatile organic solvents. While showing great potential as a biomass pretreatment for dissolving lignocellulose and helping to hydrolyze the resulting aqueous solution into fuel sugars, the best of these ionic liquids so far have required the use of expensive enzymes. Recent studies have shown that acid catalysts, such as hydrochloric or Brønsted, can effectively replace enzyme-based hydrolysis, but the subsequent separation of sugars and ionic liquids becomes a difficult and expensive problem can require the use of significant amounts of water. Guided by molecular dynamics simulations carried out at DOE’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), Simmons and his colleagues at JBEI solved this problem by deploying the ionic liquid imidazolium chloride in tandem with an acid catalyst. “Imidazolium is the most effective known ionic liquid for breaking down lignocellulose and the chloride anion is amenable with the acid catalyst,” Simmons says. “The combination makes it easy to extract fermentable sugars that have been liberated from biomass and also easy to recover the ionic liquid for recycling. By eliminating the need for enzymes and decreasing the water consumption requirements of more traditional ionic liquid pretreatments we should be able to reduce the costs of sugar production from lignocellulose.” Complete separation of the pretreatment solution into sugar-rich water and lignin-rich ionic liquid phases was attained with the addition to the solution of sodium hydroxide. The optimized sodium hydroxide concentration for both phase separation and sugar extraction was 15-percent, resulting in the recovery of maximum yields of 54-percent glucose and 88-percent xylose. The JBEI researchers believe these sugar yields can be increased by optimizing the process conditions and using more advanced methods of phase separation and sugar recovery. “After optimizing the process conditions, our next step will be to scale the process up to 100 liters,” Simmons says. “For that work we will use the facilities at the Advanced Biofuels Process Demonstration Unit.” This research was supported by the DOE Office of Science, which also supports NERSC. Continue reading
Esa Approves Biomass Satellite To Monitor Earth’s Forests
By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News Biomass will have a 12m reflector antenna to catch the returning radar signal A satellite that can “weigh” the Earth’s forests has just been given the go ahead by the European Space Agency. Biomass, as it will be known, is expected to launch in 2020. The spacecraft will carry a novel radar system that is able to sense the trunks and big branches of trees from orbit. Scientists will use Biomass to calculate the amount of carbon stored in the world’s forests, and to monitor for any changes over the course of the five-year mission. The satellite’s data should help researchers understand better the role trees play in the cycling of carbon on Earth and, by extension, the influence this has on the planet’s climate. “Biomass will give us unprecedented knowledge on the state of the world’s forests and how they are changing,” said Prof Shaun Quegan, who was one of the key proposers of the mission. “This will give us a firm basis for treaties that aim to help developing countries preserve their forests, such as the UN Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) initiative. “In addition, Biomass will return information on national forestry resources, and that’s important for things like energy and biodiversity,” the Sheffield University researcher told BBC News. Esa’s Earth Observation Programme Board approved the 400m-euro (£340m) Biomass mission on Tuesday. Europe’s Earth Explorers Goce was launched in 2009 to map the subtle variations in Earth’s gravity field Smos (above) has been studying ocean salinity and soil moisture for three years Cryosat-2 was launched in 2010 to measure the shape and thickness of polar ice Swarm is a trio of satellites that will map the Earth’s magnetism from this year Aeolus is an innovative laser mission that will measure winds across the globe Earthcare will also use a laser to examine the role of clouds and aerosols in climate change Biomass will launch in 2020, using a radar to map the planet’s forests The satellite will be the seventh of the agency’s so-called Earth Explorers – a series of spacecraft that are designed to do innovative science in obtaining data on issues of pressing environmental concern. Three missions have so far gone into orbit, returning remarkable new information on gravity, polar ice cover, soil moisture and ocean salinity. A fourth, to study the Earth’s magnetic field, launches this year; with satellites to study the wind and fine particles in the atmosphere further back in the development schedule. Biomass will be a 1.2-tonne satellite at launch, meaning it will probably go up on Esa’s new Vega rocket, which successfully conducted only its second flight overnight. Its sole instrument will send down a 70cm radar pulse that will penetrate the leafy canopies of forests but scatter back off the large woody parts of trees. It will sense the volume of material at a resolution of about 200m. In essence, it will be able to weigh the amount of carbon tied up in the world’s forests. A 12m reflector antenna will be needed to capture the return signal from the radar pulse. An antenna of this size has to be folded for launch to fit inside the Vega vehicle, and then unfurled once the satellite has reached its 650km-high orbit. Currently, Biomass will not be permitted to operate over North America, Europe and the Arctic. The US Department of Defense (DoD) says the spacecraft’s radar would interfere with its missile early-warning and space-tracking systems. Prof Quegan said a dialogue with the DoD to get some operational data over these regions would undoubtedly continue as the mission moved towards its launch date, but even if the Americans stood firm on the issue the loss of coverage would not severely impact the project’s science. The radar’s 70cm wavelength penetrates the leafy canopy to see the big branches and trunks “First of all, it hardly affects the tropics where the really big unknowns are,” he explained. “It doesn’t affect the whole of Eurasia where the big boreal forests are found; and it doesn’t affect the temperate forests of China where the biggest re-growth on the planet is occurring. And in terms of REDD countries, we lose just a handful.” The UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (Nerc) has funded much of the basic science underpinning the Biomass concept. “We’re delighted to see that Esa has selected the mission and regards it as scientifically important,” said chief executive Prof Duncan Wingham. “Nerc is really looking forward to the marvellous science that this mission will provide and in particular the greater understanding it will give us of the carbon cycle, which is its primary goal,” he told BBC News. Britain is a senior partner in Esa’s Earth observation programme and will be expecting a significant industrial role in the Biomass mission. Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos Continue reading
