emissions Archives – The Green Optimistic

The Untold Impact of Airplanes on Climate

Mila Luleva — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 13:10:50 +0000

The damage that air traffic causes to the environment goes way beyond carbon dioxide emissions. When we talk about airplanes and their influence on climate and the environment, the first thing that comes to our mind is greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide in particular. It probably has something to do with the campaign of airline […]

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Why EU Carmakers are Reporting Increased CO2 Emissions

Guest Contributor — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 19:42:28 +0000

On Wednesday, the European Commission claimed that EU carmakers are exploiting a new testing regime to inflate CO2 emissions data in an attempt to skew greenhouse gas targets. We are currently seeing a shift from the old NEDC testing procedure to a new procedure, WLTP. This new claim arrives in the wake of the ‘dieselgate’ […]

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Japan’s Emissions Slightly Rise, But Not From Nuclear Shutdown

Courtney Lepping — Mon, 26 Sep 2016 08:42:06 +0000

The earthquake that terrorized Japan in 2011 led to the shutdown of nuclear energy. There was an increase in CO2 emissions by 11.8 percent from 2010 to 2014. Could the reported increase be caused by the shutdown after the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant disaster? Sources claim the rise in emissions wasn’t much of a rise at […]

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Conergy Builds World’s First Islanding Solar Power Project

Courtney Lepping — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 18:34:53 +0000

An islanding solar project reliant on battery backup is about to undergo a two-year test. Conergy (a well-known solar company), along with Origin Energy, BHP Billiton, Ergon Energy, and Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARNEA), just established a Knowledge Sharing Project to bypass renewable energy setbacks. These companies will monitor a $42.5 million Lakeland solar project […]

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Blue Whirls: New Kind of Fire Tornado Could Make Cleaning Oil Spills Cleaner

Courtney Lepping — Tue, 16 Aug 2016 19:07:06 +0000

Weather disasters are fascinating and frightening. The fire tornado is no exception. A difficult weather condition to control, a research team at the University of Maryland decided to look into ways of reducing its disaster component. The team discovered a fire tornado that manifests as blue whirls. Michael Gollner, a co-author of the study remarked, […]

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Harvard Clean Power Plan Could Save the US $38bln a Year

Courtney Lepping — Tue, 19 Jul 2016 20:38:37 +0000

Harvard released a report predicting that The Clean Power Plan would save the United States $38 billion a year. How? Lower healthcare costs that, when factored in with the costs of switching to green energy, would save money. The Clean Power Plan, created under the Obama administration, functions much like The Clean Air Act in […]

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Toyota Plant Uses Hydrogen to Reduce Emissions

Courtney Lepping — Thu, 14 Jul 2016 20:37:24 +0000

The Miyata Plant of Toyota Motor Kyushu has exciting plans for the use of hydrogen in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. With the incorporation of solar and wind energy as the initiation of a project by of Fukuoka Prefecture, Toyota Motor Kyushu Inc, Kyuden Technosystems Corp and Toyota Tsusho Corp, it is expected that carbon dioxide […]

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CO2 Reaches Record Levels at South Pole Observatory

Courtney Lepping — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 12:07:03 +0000

There is no excuse for denying the impact carbon dioxide emissions will have on the Earth. The South Pole Observatory just reported startling news: carbon dioxide concentrations soared past 400 parts per million (ppm). This is daunting for the Earth, given the obvious negative effects of pollution and heavy emissions. The South Pole, given its […]

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Hellisheidi Researchers Transform Carbon Dioxide into Mineral

Courtney Lepping — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 20:56:25 +0000

Researchers at the largest geothermal facility in the world, The Hellisheidi power plant beat the time constraints predicted for carbon storage. Storing carbon dioxide underground has been a problematic topic because of suspicions that the natural chemical reactions required would just take too much time. It took less than two years for 95% of the […]

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British Gas Co. Creates Carbon Emissions Calculator

Courtney Lepping — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 07:11:08 +0000

If only there was a way for the average individual to keep track of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, as well as how the emissions are being reduced in nations and continents around the globe. Now there is. “Carbon Emissions Around The World” is a calculator that displays emissions specific to each country. It’s a […]

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Electric Vehicles – Part of the Solution, but No Magic Bullet

Benji Jerew — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 02:00:40 +0000

If the werewolf is climate change, then we’ve been feeding the wolf too much, when what we really need is a silver bullet. The question is, who’s loading the gun and with what? Given that transportation covers about a third of emissions, at least in the US, or about a sixth of global emissions, one […]

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Buying Carbon Credits in Russia or Ukraine Not Eco-Friendly, Says Study

Annika Tostengard — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 04:36:45 +0000

A Stockholm study has discovered that buying carbon credits from Russia and Ukraine may be doing little to nothing for the environment. The countries have been selling carbon credits to the UK as part of a UN deal, and in some cases were even creating problems in order to solve them to create and sell the credits. According […]

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Taxi Sharing Could Cut Down Emissions, Travel Time and Cost in NYC

Mila Luleva — Wed, 03 Sep 2014 10:13:52 +0000

If people are willing to share any type of public transport, why are there so many taxis travelling in the same direction, with only one passenger on board? This question is now even more relevant, after a team of scientists at the MIT estimated that a taxi sharing program could reduce travelling time, prices, and eliminate huge amount […]

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EPA Announces Emissions Regulations for Power Plants

Benji Jerew — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 21:02:58 +0000

The carbon footprint of the United States is particularly heavy, but recent emissions regulations announced by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) should help to reduce it. The EPA has been working, for decades really, on reducing fuel consumption and its associated carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. While this has probably been most notable in the transportation […]

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China’s Power Mix Will Be Dominated by Coal for Decades

Benji Jerew — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 16:24:23 +0000

China’s economic growth is very much at odds with her environmental problems. As the economy grows, so does need for power, two-thirds of which is generated by coal. Looking at the air in China’s great cities, such as Shanghai or Beijing, it’s quite obvious that a dark cloud hangs over the residents. Quite literally, in […]

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Carbon Dioxide Hits 400 PPM for the Second Time in Human History

Benji Jerew — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 15:34:58 +0000

Last year, carbon dioxide crossed what may be an arbitrary threshold, 400 ppm (parts per million), in the middle of May, and stayed there for a few days. Seasonal fluctuations in carbon dioxide concentration are typical, as the growth of plants in Spring, in the Northern Hemisphere, pulls carbon dioxide out of the air. As […]

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The Big Picture – EPA Emissions Regulations Could Save $Billions

Benji Jerew — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 15:07:31 +0000

Over the years, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has been working hard to enact regulations to reduce emissions in the transportation sector. Of course, the easiest way to reduce vehicle emissions is to improve fuel economy. Improving fuel economy is good for the consumer’s wallet, as well, but big oil companies won’t have any part […]

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“Active Air Control” Improves Emissions and Fuel Economy in Larger Engines

Benji Jerew — Fri, 14 Feb 2014 15:40:29 +0000

An internal combustion engine (ICE) is essentially an air pump. The more efficient the air flows through the air pump (ICE), the better power and fuel economy the ICE can deliver. The ICE is a complex high-speed ballet of mechanical parts, designed to extract as much usable power from a spritz of gasoline in each […]

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New Catalytic Converter Increases Fuel Efficiency and Drops Tailpipe Pollution

Danny Harper — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 13:37:20 +0000

One of the most important components in a vehicle for controlling exhaust emission is the catalytic converter. Even though this is common knowledge, there has been little to no progress on improving the design, with the most recent change occurring in the 1940’s. The new catalytic converter prototype, designed by Dr. Benjamin Kingsbury, has been […]

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Will EU Emissions Regulations Buckle Under Pressure from German Automakers?

Benji Jerew — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 14:40:02 +0000

Much like the United States CAFE [Corporate Average Fuel Economy] regulations seek to gradually reduce vehicle emissions, the European Union’s Euro-6 standards limit emissions in new vehicles produced and sold in the EU. The current Euro-6 regulations don’t take effect until 2015, and stronger Euro-7 regulations don’t take effect until 2020, but automakers are already […]

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China’s Plans to Build Environmentally-Damaging Coal-Powered Natural Gas Plants

Adele Hall — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 04:02:33 +0000

China is currently in the process of planning synthetic natural gas plants, which are powered by coal. Though this could be good for China’s energy security, the results could be environmentally devastating. A new study by Researchers from Duke University have determined this process would produce seven times the greenhouse gas emissions, consume 100 times […]

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

Benji Jerew — Wed, 29 May 2013 17:05:36 +0000

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 […]

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China’s Turbocharged Future Will Reduce Vehicle Emissions

Benji Jerew — Mon, 13 May 2013 13:42:48 +0000

The main way to reduce vehicle emissions is to reduce fuel consumption. Typically, reducing fuel consumption requires reducing engine size and power, which isn’t very attractive to buyers. Admittedly, it is difficult to reduce engine size without impacting power too much. China needs to reduce vehicle emissions in a big way however, and automakers are […]

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Clean Air Act Reduced Smog-Forming Emissions Steadily for Over 20 Years

Leigh Hutchens — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 11:16:20 +0000

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has released data proving that the Clean Air Act regulations have had a tremendous impact and are hugely successful at reducing pollutants and greenhouse gases. In 1990, the Clean Air Act was amended to combat ozone depletion, acid rain, and to combat 189 toxic pollutants, sulfur dioxide (SO2) and […]

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Electric Vehicles’ Impact on Environment Depending on Location: Study

Benji Jerew — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 19:52:53 +0000

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 […]

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British Government Postpones Decision on Cutting Down Emissions

Mila Luleva — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 14:45:23 +0000

On Friday, the British government released their legislation to secure investment in low-emission energy. Surprisingly to everyone, this did not include the plan of cutting down emissions by 2030, as everyone expected. The so-called “Energy Bill”” was approved by both the Conservatives’ coalition government of Prime Minister David Cameron and the Liberal Democrats. The decision on cutting […]

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E85 Ethanol Increases Pollution and Risk of Human Diseases

Cristi — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:03:43 +0000

Researches from Stanford University have recently published a study on ethanol fuel and its influence over human health. Compared to pure gasoline usage, ethanol increases health problems because of cancer-chemical formation.

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Trains Polluting More Than Airplanes in the U.S.?

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:28:47 +0000

A recent study reveals shocking figures telling that, basically, traveling by train pollutes the environment more than traveling by airplane. How can that be?

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New Diesel DeNOx Catalyst to Reduce Emissions by 95%

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:00:22 +0000

A new catalyst has been developed by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory. It can reduce the nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions diesel engines from 90%-95%. Integrated Fuel Technologies, Inc. (IFT), a Washington State start-up company with offices in Spokane and Kirkland, has been licensed to produce it.

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What Is The Biodiesel?

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 14:20:18 +0000

What is biodiesel? Biodiesel is a fuel derived from vegetable oil or animal fats that can be an additive to or entirely replace conventional petroleum diesel fuel. In the United States, the majority of biodiesel is made from soybean or canola oils, but is also made from waste stream sources such as used cooking oils […]

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