Posts Tagged carbon dioxide

Copenhagen Accord, Carbon Dioxide Emissions Reduction, in Trouble in US

Posted by Benji Jerew in Green Policy on May 29, 2013

When it comes to carbon dioxide emissions, coal-burning plants are pretty much the dirtiest in existence. Even outfitted with modern emissions-reduction measures, coal plants still emit a heinous amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Many expected the recent boom in US natural gas production [in spite of its own special problems] to eclipse coal [...]

CO2 Capturing System to be Installed at Norwegian Cement Factory

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Experiments, Green News on May 17, 2013

A new and innovative CO2 capturing system is to be installed in Norway, at a Norcem cement producing plant in Brevik. Developed by Aker Solutions, the carbon capturing system is the first in the world to do this at a cement station. While most of today’s efforts only focus on capturing emissions resulted from coal-fired [...]

Record Levels of Carbon Dioxide Emissions Expected by Mid-May

Posted by Mila Luleva in Climate Change on April 30, 2013

Carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere are expected to raise up to 400ppm by mid-May for a first time in human history, according to estimates of NOAA-operated Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. According to climatologists and geochemists, if the rate of increase remains, it is likely that the concentrations reach 450ppm in the Northern [...]

Carbon Dioxide Recycled into Sodium Bicarbonate by French Vineyard

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Recycling on April 15, 2013

To reduce their carbon footprint, a French vineyard has announced plans to capture the CO2 produced during the fermentation of grapes and convert it into sodium bicarbonate (an important ingredient in toothpaste). After collection, pharmaceutical companies will buy the sodium bicarbonate naturally-produced by Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte, from Bordeaux, France. Quoting the Industrial Agricultural Products Center [...]

Opal Deposits Could Explain the Release of Deep Sea Carbon Dioxide

Posted by Benji Jerew in Climate Change on April 11, 2013

Is has long been known that the end of an ice age brings about an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, but the process by which this happens hasn’t been so clear. Scientists theorized that meltwater from the northern ice cap may have capped the northern oceans with freshwater, preventing deep saltwater from rising in the [...]

European Carbon Emissions Dropped in 2012

Posted by Mila Luleva in Pollution on April 2, 2013

The European Union (EU) announced a drop of 1,4 percent in carbon emissions from factories included in the EU carbon market. This is the second year in a row for the EU to report reduction in carbon emissions, leading the way to reaching the EU emission target for 2020. Although earlier predictions indicated that there [...]

Synthetic Fuel from Carbon Dioxide by Tweaking “Pyrococcus Furiosus” Bacteria

Posted by Benji Jerew in Experiments on March 28, 2013

Biofuels, synthetic fuels, are made from plants that use photosynthesis to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but what if we could remove the middlemanplant? Biofuels are essentially carbon-neutral, because they release the same amount of carbon dioxide that was sequestered by the plants that the fuel is synthesized from. Making synthetic fuel by this [...]

Melbourne, Australia Certified as Carbon Neutral

Posted by Mila Luleva in Green News, Pollution on March 25, 2013

The National Carbon Offset Standard of Australia (NCOS) certified the city of Melbourne as the latest carbon-neutral metropolis in the country. Although this is already a remarkable achievement, the city officials are not planning to stop there. They have identified a number of key areas where further emission reductions can take place, as part of [...]

Farmland Turned Back into Salt Marshes Absorbs Carbon

Posted by Mila Luleva in Climate Change on March 19, 2013

Salt marshes that have been previously turned into farmland could be restored and their ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere resumed. This is the conclusion of a new study conducted by Annette Burden, a wetland biogeochemist based at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in Bangor. Looking at the oldest area in the UK, [...]

Ocean Plankton Digests More Carbon Than Thought

Posted by Mila Luleva in Climate Change on March 18, 2013

Existing models of carbon dioxide do not accurately predict the amount of carbon digested by surface ocean plankton, says a study published in the latest issue of Nature Geoscience. Adam Martiny, associate professor of Earth system science and ecology & evolutionary biology at UC Irvine and a lead author of the publication, and his team, showed that [...]

Re-engineering Nature – Hot Topic at ARPA-E Conference

Posted by Leigh Kim in Energy news on February 27, 2013

The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy, or ARPA-E, began its three day conference in Washington, DC on Monday. Attendees included the best and brightest from across the US who proposed lots of innovative ideas. To date, the agency has spent $770 million on 285 cutting edge projects ARPA-E is the Energy Department’s Pentagon-like arm [...]

Higher Carbon Dioxide Emissions Associated With Older People

Posted by Mila Luleva in Pollution on February 18, 2013

Older people have higher carbon dioxide emissions, says a Max Planck institute study. This means that even environmentally-conscious baby-boomers have higher emissions than younger generations. A striking study conducted back in 2011 by Emilio Zagheni , a demographer working at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, showed that as people get older, they become responsible [...]

Electric Vehicles’ Impact on Environment Depending on Location: Study

Posted by Benji Jerew in Climate Change, Electric Vehicles on February 8, 2013

Electric vehicles are touted as “zero-emissions” vehicles in all of their advertising. In the case of the vehicle itself, this is absolutely true, since there is no fuel being burned in the vehicle, and therefore no emissions of any kind. Once you get outside the vehicle, though, and consider the charging station and what part [...]

More Than Carbon Dioxide to Climate Change, Dean Suggests

Posted by Benji Jerew in Climate Change on February 8, 2013

Most climate change scientists will agree that one of the biggest factors effecting the phenomenon is carbon dioxide emissions, which have jumped significantly since the beginning of the Industrial Age about 200 years ago. Our main energy sources remain much the same as they were back then, fossil fuels, including coal and petroleum. While some [...]

Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration To Be Measured According To New Protocols

Posted by Mila Luleva in Climate Change, Pollution on February 3, 2013

Soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration has yet again become a topic of heated debates, as University of Illinois professor of soil science Kenneth Olson, is about to release a detailed study on the influence of tillage practices on atmospheric carbon sequestration in the upcoming issue of the journal Geoderma. The professor gathered data from over [...]