Fourteen programs show CO2 trade taking off: World Bank

By Mathew Carr and Catherine Airlie
1 June 2012

New carbon programs in at least 14 emerging nations from China to Costa Rica show emissions trading may take off even as U.S. lawmakers focus on non-market-based regulations for climate protection, a World Bank official said.

Seven countries including Mexico and Indonesia are considering emissions-crediting systems, five mull domestic carbon markets while India and South Africa are studying their own plans, Xueman Wang, team leader for the bank’s Partnership for Market Readiness program, said in an interview.

“Brazil and Chile are leaving all options on the table,” she said May 30 at the Carbon Expo in Cologne, Germany.

Carbon trading rose 11 percent to $176 billion last year, the World Bank said in its annual report on May 30. Besides the European Union program, the world’s biggest by traded volume, developed nations and their states have started or plan at least eight greenhouse-gas markets from California to Japan. EU and United Nations carbon prices last month fell to records on robust supply and muted demand.

Developing and emerging nations including China, whose populations make up more than three-quarters of the world’s 7 billion population, are seeking to protect the climate cost- effectively, Wang said.

Emerging countries are choosing industries such as steel and housing, where emission credits can encourage carbon cuts, lowering the cost of climate protection, said Wang.

“These countries know there is very little demand for the time being,” she said. “Some want to fulfill a domestic climate objective. It’s quite an exciting time.”

Their push is being fueled in part by about $80 million under the bank’s readiness program known as PMR, which began in 2010. Japan this month decided to double its contribution to $15 million, Wang said.

Environmental and public health advocates pressed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants during a May 24 hearing on a proposal to limit carbon dioxide from new fossil fuel-fired units. Cap-and-trade legislation stalled in the U.S. Senate after narrowly passing the House of Representatives in 2009.

“The U.S. intransigence has not stopped emerging economies from valuing carbon in their own way,” James Cameron, chairman of Bunge Ltd. (BG)’s Climate Change Capital unit, said in an interview May 30. Cameron helped negotiate the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on behalf small-island states.

The other nations considering crediting are Costa Rica, Columbia, Morocco, Chile, Vietnam and Jordan, Wang said. Vietnam is considering handing out credits for reductions in industries including steel and solid waste and also to power users that boost energy efficiency, she said. The nations are moving ahead even as demand for the credits is unclear, she said.

South Korea, Ukraine, Brazil, Chile and China are considering domestic carbon trading, Wang said. South Korea is not part of the PMR. […]

Fourteen Programs Show CO2 Trade Taking Off: World Bank

Technorati Tags: carbon reduction,carbon market,global warming,climate change,carbon offset,carbon,carbon dioxide

Reaction uses carbon dioxide to make carbon-based semiconductor

By Marcia Goodrich
21 May 2012

(Phys.org) – A materials scientist at Michigan Technological University has discovered a chemical reaction that not only eats up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, it also creates something useful. And, by the way, it releases energy.

Making carbon-based products from CO2 is nothing new, but carbon dioxide molecules are so stable that those reactions usually take up a lot of energy. If that energy were to come from fossil fuels, over time the chemical reactions would ultimately result in more carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere—defeating the purpose of a process that could otherwise help mitigate climate change.

Professor Yun Hang Hu’s research team developed a heat-releasing reaction between carbon dioxide and Li3N that forms two chemicals: amorphous carbon nitride (C3N4), a semiconductor; and lithium cyanamide (Li2CN2), a precursor to fertilizers.

“The reaction converts CO2 to a solid material,” said Hu. “That would be good even if it weren’t useful, but it is.”

And how much energy does it release? Plenty. Hu’s team added carbon dioxide to less than a gram of Li3N at 330 degrees Celsius, and the surrounding temperature jumped almost immediately to about 1,000 degrees Celsius, or 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit, about the temperature of lava exiting a volcano.

Hu’s work is funded by the National Science Foundation and detailed in the article “Fast and Exothermic Reaction of CO₂ and Li₃N into C–N-Containing Solid Materials,” authored by Hu and graduate student Yan Huo and published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry.

Reaction uses carbon dioxide to make carbon-based semiconductor

Technorati Tags: carbon dioxide,alternative energy

Judge orders Washington state and regional air agencies to regulate climate change pollution from Big Oil

Posted by Elisabeth Keating on December 2, 2011 - 2:58pm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE : December 2, 2011

Challenge to reduce dangerous greenhouse gas emissions from WA oil refineries advances

Seattle, WA —A federal judge today ruled that the Washington Department of Ecology, Northwest Clean Air Agency, and Puget Sound Clean Air Agency have unlawfully failed to regulate climate change pollution from the five oil refineries operating in Washington State. Washington Environmental Council and Sierra Club initiated the lawsuit in March of this year. The lawsuit claimed that state agencies have the duty to regulate climate change pollution from oil refineries because this pollution fits within the definition of “air contaminants” in Washington’s State Implementation Plan, which was approved by the Environmental Protection Agency and is enforceable under the federal Clean Air Act.

All five oil refineries in Washington are owned by big oil companies—BP, ConocoPhillips, Shell Oil, Tesoro and U.S. Oil. Collectively, these oil refineries are responsible for six to eight percent of total state-wide greenhouse gas emissions, primarily in the form of nitrous oxide, methane, and carbon dioxide. The oil refineries were represented in the lawsuit by the Western States Petroleum Association, which intervened in the litigation.

The conservation groups praised the decision by U.S. District Chief Judge Marsha J. Pechman, who ordered the state agencies to begin the regulatory process to begin controlling climate change pollution from the refineries. “We are heartened by this major step to address the serious air pollution and climate challenges our state faces now and in the near future. Oil refineries are the second-largest stationary source of dangerous climate change pollutants, and it is critical that they do everything they can to preserve the health and well-being of Washington communities.” said Becky Kelley of Washington Environmental Council. “We view this decision as a win for both the environment and the economy,” said Aaron Robins of the Sierra Club. “There are numerous options for reducing climate change pollution from oil refineries that can help protect our environment while making refining operations more efficient and creating new jobs.”

The lawsuit claimed that the state agencies had violated their obligation under Washington’s State Implementation Plan to determine and impose “reasonably available control technologies” on refineries to control climate change pollution. The Court agreed, holding that “Washington’s [State Implementation Plan] requires the Agencies to regulate GHGs.” “The Court affirmed that Washington has the authority and the obligation to address impacts from climate change pollution,” said Janette Brimmer, an attorney with Earthjustice. “Our state can no longer afford to have our regulators sit on their hands and wait for the federal government deal with the issue—it is time for our state regulators to follow the law and implement long-overdue measures to protect our climate ."

Earthjustice and the law firm of Ziontz, Chestnut, Varnell, Berley & Slonim represented the Sierra Club and Washington Environmental Council in the lawsuit. The decision from Judge Pechman is available at: http://wecprotects.org/issues-campaigns/climate-change/judges-order-in-oil-refineries-litigation/at_download/file

Contact:

Janette Brimmer, Earthjustice, (206) 343-7340 ext. 1029

Joshua Osborne-Klein, Ziontz, Chestnut, Varnell, Berley & Slonim, (206) 448-1230

Aaron Robins, Sierra Club Washington State Chapter, (425) 442-6726 Becky Kelley, Washington Environmental Council, (206) 631-2602

Judge Orders State and Regional Air Agencies to Regulate Climate Change Pollution From Big Oil

Technorati Tags: global warming,climate change,oil production,carbon reduction,pollution,carbon dioxide

World’s first vertical forest under construction in Milan

This design is close to the full realization of an idea that occurred to me around a decade ago, as I pondered how to house 10 billion humans and still have a biosphere. I built a genetic algorithm framework for modeling these kinds of structures, which was used in Gennaro Senatore: Morphogenesis of Spatial Configurations. It’s amazing to see these kinds of structures actually being built; it’s as though the 21st century has finally arrived.

By Diane Pham
16 October 2011

We've reported extensively on green vertical towers that integrate plant life into their facade, but unlike many of those designs, here's one that goes beyond being a mere concept. Designed by Stefano Boeri - architect, academic and former editor of design and architecture magazine Domus - his Bosco Verticale is a towering 27-story structure, currently under construction in Milan, Italy. Once complete, the tower will be home to the world's first vertical forest.

The Bosco Verticale is a system that optimizes, recuperates, and produces energy. Covered in plant life, the building aids in balancing the microclimate and in filtering the dust particles contained in the urban environment (Milan is one of the most polluted cities in Europe). The diversity of the plants and their characteristics produce humidity, absorb CO2 and dust particles, producing oxygen and protect the building from radiation and acoustic pollution. This not only improves the quality of living spaces, but gives way to dramatic energy savings year round.

Each apartment in the building will have a balcony planted with trees that are able to respond to the city’s weather — shade will be provided within the summer, while also filtering city pollution; and in the winter the bare trees will allow sunlight to permeate through the spaces. Plant irrigation will be supported through the filtering and reuse of the greywater produced by the building. Additionally, Aeolian and photovoltaic energy systems will further promote the tower’s self-sufficiency.

The design of the Bosco Verticale is a response to both urban sprawl and the disappearance of nature from our lives and on the landscape. The architect notes that if the units were to be constructed unstacked as stand-alone units across a single surface, the project would require 50,000 square meters of land, and 10,000 square meters of woodland. Bosco Verticale is the first offer in his proposed BioMilano, which envisions a green belt created around the city to incorporate 60 abandoned farms on the outskirts of the city to be revitalized for community use.

+ Stefano Boeri Architetti

Bosco Verticale in Milan Will Be the World’s First Vertical Forest

Technorati Tags: green architecture,carbon sequestration,solar power,wind power,sewage,carbon dioxide,carbon capture,carbon footprint

Genetically altered trees and plants could help counter global warming

Forests of genetically altered trees and other plants could sequester several billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year and so help ameliorate global warming, according to estimates published in the October issue of BioScience.

The study [pdf], by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, outlines a variety of strategies for augmenting the processes that plants use to sequester carbon dioxide from the air and convert it into long-lived forms of carbon, first in vegetation and ultimately in soil. Besides increasing the efficiency of plants' absorption of light, researchers might be able to genetically alter plants so they send more carbon into their roots—where some may be converted into soil carbon and remain out of circulation for centuries. Other possibilities include altering plants so that they can better withstand the stresses of growing on marginal land, and so that they yield improved bioenergy and food crops. Such innovations might in combination boost substantially the amount of carbon that vegetation naturally extracts from air, according to the authors' estimates. The researchers stress that the use of genetically engineered plants for carbon sequestration is only one of many policy initiatives and technical tools that might boost the carbon sequestration already occurring in natural vegetation and crops.

The article, by Christer Jansson, Stan D. Wullschleger, Udaya C. Kalluri, and Gerald A. Tuskan, is the first in a Special Section in the October BioScience that includes several perspectives on the prospects for enhancing biological carbon sequestration. Other articles in the section analyze the substantial ecological and economic constraints that limit such efforts. One article discusses the prospects for sequestering carbon by culturing algae to produce biofuel feedstocks; one proposes a modification of the current regulatory climate for producing genetically engineered trees in the United States; and one discusses societal perceptions of the issues surrounding the use of genetically altered organisms to ameliorate warming attributed to the buildup of greenhouse gases.

Genetically Altered Trees and Plants Could Help Counter Global Warming

Technorati Tags: biofuel,biotechnology,genetic engineering,carbon sequestration,carbon capture,greenhouse gas,carbon dioxide,bioenergy

Bold rainforest idea makes good: Ecuador secures trust fund to save park from oil developers

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com
August 03, 2010

In what may amount to a historic moment in the quest to save the world's rainforests and mitigate climate change, Ecuador and the United Nations Development Fund (UNDF) have created a trust fund to protect one of the world's most biodiverse rainforests from oil exploration and development. The fund will allow the international community to pay Ecuador to leave an estimated 850 million barrels of oil in Yasuni National Park in the ground instead of extracting it. This first-of-its-kind agreement, known as the Yasuni-ITT Initiative, will allow the rainforest protected area to remain pristine: preserving one of the most species-rich places on Earth, safeguarding the lives of indigenous people, and keeping an estimated 410 million tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere.

"We welcome this long sought after final step to protect an important part of Yasuni National Park," said Kevin Koenig, the Ecuador Coordinator with Amazon Watch. "This is a big win for Ecuador, and the world. Now we need more countries to contribute, and for [Ecuadorian] President Correa to keep his word."

Ecuador is asking for $3.6 US billion from international donors over the next ten years to keep the oil in the ground; the amount is half of what Ecaudor expected to receive if it developed the park. Oil is Ecuador's biggest exporter and the nation's economy remains largely dependent on the fossil fuel. But oil has also brought the nation trouble with pollution, disease, forest destruction, and conflict with indigenous people.

To date, a number of European nations have stepped forward with promises of pledges, although only Germany has put forward a hard number: $838 US million. It has been reported that Spain is likely to put in around a quarter billion, while France, Sweden, and Switzerland are also expected to contribute hefty donations each. In all, approximately half of the $3.6 US billion has already been raised. …

Bold rainforest idea makes good: Ecuador secures trust fund to save park from oil developers

Technorati Tags: Amazon,rainforest,carbon sequestration,carbon dioxide,oil production

Modern cargo ships slow to the speed of the sailing clippers

Container ships are taking longer to cross the oceans than the Cutty Sark did as owners adopt 'super-slow steaming' to cut back on fuel consumption

By John Vidal, The Observer
Sunday 25 July 2010

A combination of the recession and growing awareness in the shipping industry about climate change emissions encouraged many ship owners to adopt "slow steaming" to save fuel two years ago. This lowered speeds from the standard 25 knots to 20 knots, but many major companies have now taken this a stage further by adopting "super-slow steaming" at speeds of 12 knots (about 14mph).

Travel times between the US and China, or between Australia and Europe, are now comparable to those of the great age of sail in the 19th century. American clippers reached 14 to 17 knots in the 1850s, with the fastest recording speeds of 22 knots or more.

Maersk, the world's largest shipping line, with more than 600 ships, has adapted its giant marine diesel engines to travel at super-slow speeds without suffering damage. This reduces fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by 30%. It is believed that the company has saved more than £65m on fuel since it began its go-slow.

Ship engines are traditionally profligate and polluting. Designed to run at high speeds, they burn the cheapest "bunker" oil and are not subject to the same air quality rules as cars. In the boom before 2007, the Emma Maersk, one of the world's largest container ships, would burn around 300 tonnes of fuel a day, emitting as much as 1,000 tonnes of CO₂ a day – roughly as much as the 30 lowest emitting countries in the world.

Maersk spokesman Bo Cerup-Simonsen said: "The cost benefits are clear. When speed is reduced by 20%, fuel consumption is reduced by 40% per nautical mile. Slow steaming is here to stay. Its introduction has been the most important factor in reducing our CO₂ emissions in recent years, and we have not yet realised the full potential. Our goal is to reducing CO₂ emissions by 25%." …

Modern cargo ships slow to the speed of the sailing clippers

Technorati Tags: pollution,carbon dioxide,energy efficiency,carbon reduction

Columbia University joins ‘Synthetic Tree’ venture -- devices would pull carbon from air

posted: 2010-03-15

Columbia University and a research company have entered into a collaboration and licensing agreement for technology that extracts carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, it was announced today. The company, Global Research Technologies, hopes to have units within two years that would capture up to a ton of CO2 a day.

Today, only living plants, atmospheric chemical cycles and other natural systems can pull large volumes of CO2 out of the air. Efforts to snare manmade CO2, released primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels, are not yet viable at a large scale, but some scientists think they hold great promise in tackling climate change. Most financial support so far has gone to projects that capture CO2 at large point-sources such as coal plants--not from the atmosphere at large--and policy makers have focused mainly on reducing emissions by promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.

The technology to be commercialized by GRT has been called a “synthetic tree.” It uses proprietary resins and processes to absorb CO2 from the air, potentially at a rate a thousand times faster than natural trees. The company says that the trees, with a predicted lifespan of 15 years, consume minimal energy during the carbon capture process, and share with other carbon-capture technologies similar energy requirements for storing the resulting carbon. GRT’s founders are Klaus Lackner, director of the Earth Institute’s Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy, and Allen Wright, a senior staff associate also at the Earth Institute.

“With this technology, we can enter today’s CO2 markets and build for tomorrow’s demand for climate management technologies,” says GRT’s CEO, William Gridley. Gridley sees air capture as economically competitive and complementary to other forms of carbon capture now being developed. He estimates that initial units will be able to capture up one ton of CO2 per day at a cost of less than $100 per ton. GRT plans to sell diluted captured gas as a nutrient for greenhouses and algae farms, and to eventually sell compressed gas for drink carbonation, to make dry ice, and for other niche markets that today total $1 billion to $2 billion per year.

In the long run, Lackner predicts carbon regulation could transform carbon capture into a multibillion dollar market. “By driving cost down to $50 a ton or less, carbon capture can become a cost-effective option for companies looking to meet regulations emerging in Europe, North America and elsewhere,” said Lackner. He hopes the trees can be manufactured in dormant auto plants, restoring lost jobs and breathing new life into local economies, for both national and global economic and environmental benefit.

“One of the unique advantages of this technology is that it makes possible the capture of CO2 from the air anywhere in the world. Unlike the few existing carbon capture approaches, it’s not necessary to co-locate these units with sources of CO2 emissions,” said James Aloise, who manages a portfolio of intellectual property relating to green technology for Columbia Technology Ventures, the university’s technology transfer office, which announced the agreement. “This inherent flexibility and mobility improves access to the technology, which has true potential to make a global impact.”

University Joins 'Synthetic Tree' Venture

Technorati Tags: carbon capture,carbon dioxide,carbon sequestration,carbon market

Catalyst discovered that reduces CO2 by using light energy

Mar. 5, 2010

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – A recent discovery in understanding how to chemically break down the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into a useful form opens the doors for scientists to wonder what organism is out there – or could be created – to accomplish the task.

University of Michigan biological chemist Steve Ragsdale, along with research assistant Elizabeth Pierce and scientists led by Fraser Armstrong from the University of Oxford in the U.K., have figured out a way to efficiently turn carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide using visible light, like sunlight.

The results are reported in the recent online edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Not only is it a demonstration that an abundant compound can be converted into a commercially useful compound with considerably less energy input than current methods, it also is a method not so different from what organisms regularly do.

“This is a first step in showing it’s possible, and imagine microbes doing something similar,” Ragsdale said. “I don’t know of any organism that uses light energy to activate carbon dioxide and reduce it to carbon monoxide, but I can imagine either finding an organism that can do it, or genetically engineering one to channel light energy to coax it to do that.”

In this collaboration between Ann Arbor and Oxford, Ragsdale’s laboratory at the U-M Medical School does the biochemistry and microbiology experiments and Armstrong’s lab performs the physical- and photochemical applications. 

Ragsdale and his associates succeeded in using an enzyme-modified titanium oxide to get carbon dioxide’s electrons excited and willing to jump to the enzyme, which then catalyzes the reduction of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide. A photosensitizer that binds to the titanium allows the use of visible light for the process. The enzyme is more robust than other catalysts, willing to facilitate the conversion again and again. The trick: It can’t come near oxygen.

“By using this enzyme, you put it into a solution that contains titanium dioxide in the presence of a photosensitizer,” he said. “We looked for a way that seems like nature’s way of doing it, which is more efficient.” Armstrong notes that “essentially it shows what is possible were we to be able to mass-produce a catalyst with such properties”. …

Asking “what would nature do?” leads to a way to break down a greenhouse gas

Technorati Tags: nanotechnology,carbon dioxide,genetic engineering

Ocean geoengineering scheme no easy fix for global warming

(National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (UK)) Pumping nutrient-rich water up from the deep ocean to boost algal growth in sunlit surface waters and draw carbon dioxide down from the atmosphere has been touted as a way of ameliorating global warming. However, a new study led by Professor Andreas Oschlies of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany, pours cold water on the idea.

"Computer simulations show that climatic benefits of the proposed geo-engineering scheme would be modest, with the potential to exacerbate global warming should it fail," said study co-author Dr Andrew Yool of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS). …

The aim would be to mimic the effects of natural ocean upwelling and increase drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide by phytoplankton through the process of photosynthesis. Some of the sequestered carbon would be exported to the deep ocean when phytoplankton die and sink, effectively removing it from the system for hundreds or thousands of years.

A previous study, of which Yool was lead author, used an ocean general circulation model to conclude that literally hundreds of millions of pipes would be required to make a significant impact on global warming. But even if the technical and logistical difficulties of deploying the vast numbers of pipes could be overcome, exactly how much carbon dioxide could in principle be sequestered, and at what risk?

In the new study, the researchers address such questions using a more integrated model of the whole Earth system. The simulations show that, under most optimistic assumptions, three gigatons of carbon dioxide per year could be captured. This is under a tenth of the annual anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, which currently stand at 36 gigatons per year. A gigaton is a million million kilograms. … when the simulated pumps were turned off, the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and surface temperatures rose rapidly to levels even higher than in the control simulation without artificial pumps. This finding suggests that there would be extra environmental costs to the scheme should it ever need to be turned off for unanticipated reasons. …

Ocean geoengineering scheme no easy fix for global warming

Technorati Tags: global warming,climate change,algae bloom,carbon dioxide,ocean,ocean fertilization,carbon sequestration

Economists hail EU emissions trading success

By James Murray, BusinessGreen, Monday 15 February 2010 at 13:24:00

Study challenges conventional view that the ETS has failed, hailing the scheme's profound impact on the European energy sector

The widespread view that the EU's emissions trading scheme (ETS) has failed to deliver expected reductions in emissions "cannot be sustained on the basis of the evidence", according to a major new study of the first phase of the scheme which hails the cap-and-trade initiative as successful and a "path-breaking" policy experiment.

The study, which has been published in a book titled Pricing Carbon, was undertaken by a group of European and US economists from University College Dublin, the Mission Climate of the Caisse des Dépôts, the International Energy Agency, the University of Paris-Dauphine, the Őko-Institut in Berlin, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

It assesses the first phase of the EU ETS, which ran from 2005 to 2007 and was widely regarded as a failure due to an overallocation of emission allowances that resulted in a slump in the price of carbon.

However, the researchers estimated that despite the price of carbon falling to almost zero, the scheme still led to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of between two and five per cent against business-as-usual scenarios, resulting in carbon savings of 120 million to 300 million tonnes during the three-year period.

Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, MIT's Denny Ellerman said the research showed the ETS has been a genuine success. "That's not to say it has not had problems, but it has put in place a system that has reduced emissions and has proven that a multinational cap-and-trade scheme can work," he explained.

The researchers said the ETS had also resulted in a "change of attitude and practice" among participating firms that has had a "profound impact" on the way they now make operational and investment decisions, adding that the scheme had gone from "a quixotic, and for some, dubious initiative" to being "an accepted fact and the centerpiece of European climate policy". …

Economists hail EU emissions trading success

Technorati Tags: global warming,climate change,carbon dioxide,carbon market,carbon offset,carbon reduction

Chemists create synthetic 'gene-like' crystals for carbon dioxide capture

ScienceDaily (Feb. 12, 2010) — UCLA chemists report creating a synthetic "gene" that could capture heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, which contribute to global warming, rising sea levels and the increased acidity of oceans.

The research appears in the Feb. 12 issue of the journal Science.

"We created three-dimensional, synthetic DNA-like crystals," said UCLA chemistry and biochemistry professor Omar M. Yaghi, who is a member of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA and the UCLA-Department of Energy Institute of Genomics and Proteomics. "We have taken organic and inorganic units and combined them into a synthetic crystal which codes information in a DNA-like manner. It is by no means as sophisticated as DNA, but it is certainly new in chemistry and materials science."

The discovery could lead to cleaner energy, including technology that factories and cars can use to capture carbon dioxide before it reaches the atmosphere.

"What we think this will be important for is potentially getting to a viable carbon dioxide-capture material with ultra-high selectivity," said Yaghi, who holds UCLA's Irving and Jean Stone Chair in Physical Sciences and is director of UCLA's Center for Reticular Chemistry. "I am optimistic that is within our reach. Potentially, we could create a material that can convert carbon dioxide into a fuel, or a material that can separate carbon dioxide with greater efficiency."

The research was federally funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Basic Energy Sciences. The lead author is Hexiang "DJ" Deng, a UCLA graduate student of chemistry and biochemistry who works in Yaghi's laboratory. ...

Chemists Create Synthetic 'Gene-Like' Crystals for Carbon Dioxide Capture

Technorati Tags: nanotechnology,carbon capture,carbon dioxide,global warming,climate change

For eighth day, climate activists block bulldozers at West Virginia’s Coal River Mountain

From Climate Progress:

This is a TP repost by Brad Johnson.

Yesterday in Washington, DC, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) exhorted citizens to “get angry about the fact that they’re being killed and our planet is being injured by what’s happening on a daily basis by the way we provide our power and our fuel.” In West Virginia, climate activists are not just getting angry, they’re taking action — blocking the demolition of Coal River Mountain by coal company Massey Energy. The activists, members of the aptly named organization Climate Ground Zero, have been living in trees for over a week to prevent bulldozers from reaching the summit:

High up in the trees near the summit of Coal River Mountain, two activists dangle in the air near a mountaintop removal mine site. Eric Blevins and Amber Nitchman are still preventing the expansion of mining on the summit of Coal River Mountain, a mountain that has the best wind energy (and therefore economic) potential in the area.

Employees of coal baron Don Blankenship, the “scariest polluter in the United States,” have been blasting the tree-sit activists with air horns and flood lights. Following hundreds of phone calls from supporters of the non-violent civil disobedience action, Gov. Joe Manchin (D-WV) met today with Climate Ground Zero representatives and “asked the activists to scale down their campaign.” …

For eighth day, climate activists block bulldozers at WV’s Coal River Mountain.

Technorati Tags: global warming,climate change,coal,pollution,activism,carbon dioxide,habitat loss,deforestation

China, India, Brazil commit to meet Copenhagen Accord deadline

By Gaurav Singh

Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- China, Brazil, South Africa and India will disclose the voluntary steps the countries will take to help reduce global warming by the Jan. 31 deadline set during negotiations in Copenhagen, India’s environment minister said after talks between the four nations in New Delhi yesterday.

The four will communicate their plans to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by the deadline this weekend, Jairam Ramesh, India’s environment minister, said. He added the countries will work to build support for the global climate accord agreed in December.

Negotiators met in the Danish capital for two weeks of talks through Dec. 19 on curbing global warming. Debate stumbled on aid to developing countries, pollution-reduction goals and how to verify country pledges to cut emissions. Bolivia, Sudan and Venezuela were among countries that opposed the accord, which will serve as a framework for talks this year.

“The value of the Copenhagen Accord lies not as a stand- alone document but as an input into the two-track negotiating process under the UNFCCC, which will culminate in Mexico City in December 2010,” Ramesh said. He spoke at a briefing with Xie Zhenhua, China’s top climate negotiator, Brazil’s Environment Minister Carlos Minc and South Africa’s Buyelwa Sonjica.

Rich nations should ensure the early distribution of $10 billion pledged at Copenhagen for this year to address climate change in the least developed nations and island states, according to a joint statement issued after yesterday’s meeting between the so-called BASIC states.  …

Technorati Tags: global warming,climate change,Copenhagen,carbon reduction,carbon dioxide,carbon footprint

Bacteria engineered to turn carbon dioxide into liquid fuel

 

ScienceDaily (Dec. 11, 2009) — Global climate change has prompted efforts to drastically reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas produced by burning fossil fuels.

In a new approach, researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have genetically modified a cyanobacterium to consume carbon dioxide and produce the liquid fuel isobutanol, which holds great potential as a gasoline alternative. The reaction is powered directly by energy from sunlight, through photosynthesis.

The research appears in the Dec. 9 print edition of the journal Nature Biotechnology and is available online.

This new method has two advantages for the long-term, global-scale goal of achieving a cleaner and greener energy economy, the researchers say. First, it recycles carbon dioxide, reducing greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. Second, it uses solar energy to convert the carbon dioxide into a liquid fuel that can be used in the existing energy infrastructure, including in most automobiles. …

Bacteria engineered to turn carbon dioxide into liquid fuel

Technorati Tags: biotechnology,biofuel,carbon dioxide,global warming,climate change

Scottish experiment increases carbon capture efficiency

By Channel 4 News, Updated on 25 November 2009 

It is an advance that could make cleaner coal more affordable.

The technology, known as carbon capture and storage, has been tested at Scottish Power's Longannet coal-fired plant in Fife, which is the third-largest coal-powered power station in Europe, pumping out 800 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. …

Until now, the process to separate carbon dioxide needed so much energy it would use a third of the power station's output to operate at full scale.

The new process diverts emissions from a chimney into a test unit where they are fed through a chemical solution which includes molecules called amines. …

Scientists say they have now found a chemical mix for the amine that is sticky enough to grab the carbon dioxide but does not need a large amount of energy to extract it.

That makes the whole process more viable commercially.

Scottish experiment cuts coal emissions

Technorati Tags: carbon capture,carbon sequestration,carbon dioxide

Live-blogging Al Gore at Microsoft today

 

If the campus wifi permits, I’ll be live-blogging today’s presentation by Al Gore, starting at noon. Got my copy of An Inconvenient Truth for autographing, just in case.

11:29: Off to Building 33!

11:52: At Building 33, after some wifi fear, we seem to be up and running.

12:04: And we’re off.

12:05: Standing O – “I used to be the next President of the US!”

12:06: I am streaming Gore live at http://qik.com/galasyn

12:08: Mentions ocean acidification right out of the gate. Awesome.

12:12: I’m not in a favorable location for my Qik stream. :(

12:15: The new book is 99% about solutions.

12:17: Solar PV drives a new, distributed energy production system, similar to the internet for information.

12:18: Chapter Two is about wind. US wind production is expanding rapidly.

12:20: Geothermal is widely misunderstood. Now dominated by new drilling tech from the oil and gas industry.

12:21: Gore: The geothermal system for his house completely eliminated his nat. gas bill.

12:22: 35,000-year supply of energy in the US from enhanced geothermal.

12:23: Biofuels are controversial, but corn-based ethanol has been a disappointment. Competition with food prices is more perceived than real.

12:25: Nuclear and CCS have a limited benefit. Cost is prohibitive.

12:27: CCS carries a "burden of implausibility."

12:28: Gore used to represent oak Ridge, TN, where everybody is immune to radiation. "Homer sometimes makes mistakes."

12:29: Nuclear plants come in only one size: Extra large.

12:31: Gore sees nuclear weapons proliferation as a big drawback for nuke power.

12:32: We are burning and cutting and destroying so many of the forests, that 20% of CO2 emissions come from deforestation.

12:34: Industrial agriculture serves to decarbonize the soil.

12:35: Shout out to Bill and Melinda Gates, for funding a new global soil survey.

12:37: How many in this room had grandparents with five or six siblings? All hands go up. How many here have that many children? One. "Congratulations, sir."

12:38: Gore favors both a revenue-neutral carbon tax and cap-and-trade.

12:40: We have the capacity for multi-generational planning -- Medieval cathedrals, for example.

12:41: This is not a political issue. It is fundamentally a moral issue.

12:44: Q & A now: "Developing nations are following our bad development example. What can be done?" Gore answer: Developed nations must assist in "leap-frogging" to clean technologies.

12:45: China plants 2.5 times more trees than all the world together.

12:47: Steady stream of nonsense from one cable network in the US.

12:50: US in the only country where there's still doubt about climate science.

12:55: "What advice have you given Pres. Oama on climate change, and is he following it?" Gore laughs.

12:56: Praises Obama's and EPA's efforts so far. The US record on international negotiations has not been as stellar.

1:00: And now I’m trapped behind the book-signing line.

Technorati Tags: activism,global warming,climate change,carbon market,carbon dioxide,carbon reduction,carbon accounting

Republican senator says open to U.S. climate bill

 

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior Republican in the United States Senate, conservative Senator Lisa Murkowski, said she would consider voting for a "cap and trade" climate change bill Democrats are pushing if it also contains a vigorous expansion of nuclear energy and domestic oil drilling.

In an interview set to air on Sunday on the C-SPAN cable TV network, Murkowski said cap and trade legislation, which aims to mandate reductions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, must protect consumers from energy price increases and contain safeguards against market manipulation of pollution permits that would be traded by companies.

Some of these elements already are included in Democratic legislation in the Senate and House of Representatives.

"Count me as one of those who will keep my mind open as we move forward," said Murkowski, the senior Republican on the Senate energy panel and a member of her party's leadership.

Murkowski's remarks came after her fellow conservative, Senator Lindsey Graham, published a column in The New York Times with liberal Senator John Kerry, in which they vowed to work together to advance legislation tackling global warming. …

Republican senator says open to U.S. climate bill

Technorati Tags: global warming,climate change,activism,carbon market,carbon dioxide,carbon offset

BP signs Aussie deal to offset carbon emissions by planting 10 million eucalyptus trees

My only hope is that they plant these trees where the changed Australian climate can support them.

By Asa Wahlquist | October 15, 2009

EUROPE'S second-largest oil company, BP, has hired Perth-based Carbon Conscious to plant 10 million gum trees in Australia to absorb greenhouse gas emissions as companies prepare for the introduction of climate change laws.

The deal sent Carbon Conscious shares soaring 10 per cent to close at 44c.

The company will begin planting trees on marginal farmland in 2010, at an initial cost of $2.5million.

It is the second major deal for Carbon Conscious, which confirmed an agreement with Origin Energy in July to plant $26m worth of trees over three years.

The trees "sequester" carbon dioxide, pulling it out of the atmosphere and storing it.

Carbon Conscious chief executive Peter Balsarini said the mallee eucalyptus trees would be planted on working farms.

"We go to farmers and we look for their marginal, less productive country," he said.

This included land that had been over-cleared or affected by salinity, Mr Balsarini said.

"We are looking at preventing salinity by getting our tree roots into the water table and lowering it. It has risen because of the over-clearing of the land," he said. Carbon Conscious became an accredited provider under the federal government's Greenhouse program last December. …

BP signs Aussie tree deal to offset carbon emissions

Technorati Tags: carbon sequestration,carbon market,carbon offset,carbon footprint,oil production,reforestation,carbon dioxide

90 percent of Coal Plant CO2 Captured in 12-Month Test

 

Written by Susan Kraemer
Published on October 9th, 2009

One year ago the French company Alstrom began a year-long US test of capturing CO2 from the water+carbon-dioxide mix created using their chilled-ammonia technology, in the smokestack of the Pleasant Prairie Power Plant in Wisconsin.

This week the year’s results were announced. The years average CO2 capture rate was 90%, according to a joint announcement from the EPRI, We Energies and Alstrom to the Society of Environmental Journalists.

The 12-month test was just completed after running 24 hours a day on a small sectioned-off portion of the smokestack; working on just 5% of the plants total emissions.

But the test is scalable, and the Electric Power Research Institute, the R&D arm of the utility industry, is optimistic that chilled-ammonia technology will work on a larger scale. It is one of several carbon-capture technologies under consideration as we move to a carbon constrained world.

Next, Alstom will work with AEP in Columbus, Ohio to test a scaled-up version of the technology at the Mountaineer power plant in West Virginia.  That test takes the next step as well; not just capturing the carbon dioxide but burying it 8,000 feet beneath the plant site.

Alstom’s chilled ammonia process results in a lower energy cost for capturing CO2 than other techniques under consideration so far. Initial studies currently estimate the average energy penalty at around 20-25% of net boiler output. Alstrom is also working on a technique for capturing carbon dioxide emissions from a gas plant. …

90 percent of Coal Plant CO2 Captured in 12-Month Test

Technorati Tags: carbon reduction,carbon dioxide,carbon capture