NewNergy

NewNergy discusses the latest inventions, innovations and breakthroughs in the energy & environmental sciences.

Microbes Could Act as Carbon Dioxide Catchers?

Posted on Thursday, July 16, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 11:29 PM

The accidental discovery of a bowl-shaped molecule that pulls carbon dioxide out of the air suggests exciting new possibilities for dealing with global warming, including genetically engineering microbes to manufacture those CO2 "catchers".

A scientist discovered these molecules while doing research unrelated to global climate change.J. A. Tossell, a scientist from Maryland, recognized that these qualities might make it useful as an industrial absorbent for removing carbon dioxide. Tossell's new computer modeling studies found that the molecule might be well-suited for removing carbon dioxide directly from ambient air, in addition to its previously described potential use as an absorbent for CO2 from electric power plant and other smokestacks.

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'Green' Rice Could Help With Climate Change Fight ?

Posted on Sunday, May 3, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 11:30 PM

Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives' Rice Department's recent research has been aimed at developing rice varieties that emit less methane and carbon dioxide, the key gases contributing to global warming.The photosynthesis of the newly developed plants would emit fewer greenhouse gases. A study to develop other strains to reduce carbon dioxide during harvesting is also under way.

Mr Prasert, director general of the department said, if the research was successful, new rice strains would be offered to Thai farmers. They would produce plants with smaller phloems - the plants' food-conducting tissues.DNA data which is now used for improving new rice strains has shortened the process from 10 years to five or six years. However, a senior researcher at the Rice Department's Bureau of Rice Research and Development said, there was a shortage of new-generation researchers and his office now had only about 20 people working in the area.

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GM Rice Yields 50% More Harvest Even with Less Fertilizer & Water

Posted on Friday, April 10, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 9:21 PM

A genetically modified (GM) rice that can give 50 percent more harvest while requiring less fertilizer and water is seen as a long term solution to low yield in resource-scarce, poverty-stricken farms threatened by climate change.

The GM rice will have more efficient carbon dioxide capture with its enhanced capacity for photosynthesis, the process of using solar energy to capture carbon dioxide and converting it into growth-inducing carbohydrate in plants.Dr. John Sheehy, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) project leader for the GM rice, said that using C4 photosynthesis, rice plant’s capacity to convert solar energy in producing a richer grain can be enhanced particularly in tropical climates.

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Biochar: The New Fuel For Your Fire

Posted on Friday, April 3, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 9:38 PM

Over the railroad tracks, near Agriculture Drive on the University of Georgia campus, sits a unique machine that may hold one of the solutions to big environmental problems like energy, food production and even global climate change.

The scientists feed the waste, or “biomass,” into an octagon-shaped metal barrel. The waste is then cooked through a thermochemical process called “pyrolysis” under intense heat that reaches above 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.The organic trash is then converted into a charcoal-like material suitable for fertilizer for farmers. Scientists say the gasses emitted can be utilized to fuel vehicles and power electric generators.

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Fish Oil Diet Could Reduce Greenhouse Gases From Cow Farts

Posted on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 9:21 PM

Irish scientists have discovered that adding just a small amount of fish oil to the diet of cattle can vastly reduce the amount of methane produced by, ahem…cow farts. Climate scientists have long known that, pound for pound, methane is 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping the suns rays, making it a highly potent greenhouse gas.Now the team, from University College Dublin (UCD), have figured out that including just 2 percent fish oil in the bovine diet can drastically reduce flatulence, largely due to the omega 3 fatty acids in the oil. In fact, in an experiment with three cows, methane output was cut by a remarkable 21 percent.

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100,000 sq mile Sunshade to Stop Global Warming?

Posted on Sunday, March 1, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 8:09 PM

A giant 'sunshade' consisting of trillions of mirrors fired into space to reflect the sun's rays could be the answer to global warming. That's according to astronomer Dr Roger Angel from the University of Arizona, who claims the method is "guaranteed to work".A cannon with a barrel measuring a massive 0.6 miles across would be needed to shoot the mirrors one million miles above Earth – not to mention some £244trillion to fund the project.And, being 100 times more powerful than conventional weapons, the gun would require an exclusion zone of "several miles", reports the Telegraph.

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Genetically Engineered Reflective Crops to Reduce Global Warming

Posted on Friday, January 23, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 8:24 PM

Researchers at the University of Bristol in England think that one easy way to counteract global warming is to plant crops that reflect more sunlight. Plants reflect different amount of sunlight depending on their waxiness and growth patterns.

The researchers’ bio-geoengineering technique could potentially lead to a 2°F drop in temperature across central North America and pieces of Europe and Asia. Existing crops could be used and more reflective crops could also be bred or genetically engineered.While bio-geoengineering won’t put a complete stop to global warming, it is a relatively cheap, simple tool that could at least buy us some time.

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Sun-reflecting Crops Could Reduce Global Warming

Posted on Sunday, January 18, 2009 posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 4:12 AM

Jan 2009

Farmers could help produce cooler temperatures and limit global warming if they grow crop varieties that reflect more sunlight into space, British researchers said recently.

Using a global climate model, they found this strategy could cool much of Europe, North America and parts of North Asia by up to one degree Celsius during the summer growing season, enough to make a difference in easing heat waves and drought.

It would also translate into a 20 percent reduction in a predicted five degree Celsius temperature rise for the region by the end of the century, Andy Ridgwell and colleagues said in the journal Current Biology.

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Tree Carbon Calculator-software to quantify CO2 capture of trees

Posted on Friday, January 2, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 7:51 PM

U.S. Forest Service Scientists are providing online software that can show users how much carbon dioxide (CO2) an urban tree in California, US, has sequestered in its lifetime and the past year.

Known as ‘The Tree Carbon Calculator’, the software is free and programmed in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that provides carbon-related information for a single tree in one of six California climate zones.

It is the only tool approved by the California Climate Action Registry’s Urban Forest Project Reporting Protocol for quantifying carbon dioxide sequestration from tree planting projects.Users enter information such as a tree’s climate zone, species name, size or age. The program then estimates how much carbon dioxide the tree has sequestered in the past year and its lifetime. It also calculates the dry weight of the biomass that would be obtained if it were removed.

The Tree Carbon Calculator automatically calculates power plant reductions using emission factors for local utilities. Using the software, McPherson and his colleagues measured the size and growth of 5,000 trees in the six climate zones to determine how much carbon dioxide the trees sequestered and stored.

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Brief Analysis of Climate Change Report

Posted on Monday, May 14, 2007 posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 4:34 AM

Brief Analysis of Climate Change Report

May 07, 2007

Here’s a brief analysis of and comments on the recent IPCC working group report on Mitigation of Climate Change released from Bangkok, Thailand as it relates to alternative energy. The summary is provided on the following sections:

1. Energy Efficient & Net Zero Energy Buildings
2. Alternative Energy = Energy Security
3. Transport Policy & Fossil Fuels Subsidies
4. Research and Development + Technology Transfer

Read the full summary from here @ Alternative Energy Blog

Original working group report here (PDF)

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Turning Black Coal Green - Zero Emissions Coal Plants

Posted on posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 4:31 AM

Turning Black Coal Green - Zero Emissions Coal Plants

February 02, 2007

Sooty coal hardly seem like the future of energy, but that’s exactly what the U.S. Department of Energy predicts. Coal’s growing dominance need not spell doom for the environment, according to an executive at American Electric Power (AEP), a large American utility company which is building the first near-zero-emission coal plant by 2012. The 275-megawatt facility will serve as the model for a new generation of high-tech coal facilities, it is hoped

Source of article: AltEng post

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Fertilising the Oceans - Thin Soup and a Thin Story

Posted on Saturday, May 12, 2007 posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 9:58 PM

Fertilising the Oceans - Thin Soup and a Thin Story

2 May 2007 @ Real Climate

A firm called planktos.com is getting a lot of attention for their bid to create a carbon offset product based on fertilizing the ocean.

In certain parts of the ocean, surface waters already contain most of the ingredients for a plankton bloom; all they lack is trace amounts of iron. For each 1 atom of iron added in such a place, phytoplankton take up 50,000 atoms of carbon. What could be better?

Phytoplankton biomass does not last forever, any more than tree biomass does. The trick therefore is to get the carbon to sink out of the surface ocean into the depths, generally in the forms of snot and poop. Once it reaches a depth of a kilometer or so, it can decompose to CO2 again but the water will be isolated from the atmosphere for decades, maybe centuries.

Sounds like a great idea? May be yes, may be not...read the detailed post here @ Real Climate to know more

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James Lovelock, the Gaia Hypothesis Theorist Foresees Crises

Posted on posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 9:55 PM

James Lovelock, the Gaia Hypothesis Theorist Foresees Crises

We are on the edge of the greatest die-off, and will lucky if 20% of us survive what is coming. We should be scared stiff, feels James Lovelock.

Lovelock, famous for the Gaia Hypotheses which maintains that life on Earth regulates its environment keeping it in a remarkable state of balance, not unlike the way a body regulates its own metabolism, now believes that human activities have set off reactions that will knock the biosphere out of it's present balance into one with substantially higher temperatures. The melting of permafrost above the arctic circle will release huge quantities of methane and carbon dioxide, while melting ice reduces the surface albedo and causes less sunlight to be reflected back into space, he feels.

Read more about this and the author's analysis of Lovelock's hypothesis from this post @ Green Future

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Agrichar for better CO2 Sequestration & to reduce global warming?

Posted on Friday, May 11, 2007 posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 8:01 AM

Agrichar for Better CO2 Sequestration & to Reduce Global Warming?

May 07, 2007

The first meeting of the International Agrichar Initiative convened about 100 scientists, policymakers, farmers and investors with the goal of birthing an entire new industry to produce a biofuel that goes beyond carbon neutral and is actually carbon negative.

Agrichar is the term not for the biomass fuel, but for what is left over after the energy is removed: a charcoal-based soil amendment. In simple terms, the agrichar process takes dry biomass of any kind and bakes it in a kiln to produce charcoal. The process is called pyrolysis. Various gases and bio-oils are driven off the material and collected to use in heat or power generation. The charcoal is buried in the ground, sequestering the carbon that the growing plants had pulled out of the atmosphere. The end result is increased soil fertility and an energy source with negative carbon emissions.

Interesting, read the full story from here @ Truthout

Via: Madison Peak Oil Group post

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UK push for biofuels may harm environment, campaigners say

Posted on Thursday, March 29, 2007 posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 10:50 AM

UK push for biofuels may harm environment, campaigners say

19 Mar 2007 bbj.hu

A UK plan to help tackle global warming by increasing the use of biofuels such as palm oil and rapeseed may do more harm to the environment than good,
environmental campaign groups said.

Fuel suppliers will have to ensure that from April 2008 a certain percentage of their sales come from biofuels, under a UK Department for Transport program. The proposal could see businesses producing biofuels by destroying rainforests and wetlands, threatening endangered habitats and species and releasing more carbon into the atmosphere, according to Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The groups said the government should tighten rules to ensure biofuel producers meet minimum standards on greenhouse gas emissions, and establish "environmental audits” of the entire life-cycle of the fuel, from cultivation through transportation to combustion.

Read the full report from here @ BBJ, Hungary

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Europe Tightens CO2 Standards with Two Directives

Posted on posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 10:37 AM

Europe Tightens CO2 Standards with Two Directives

The European Commission has proposed two directives to combat CO2 emissions from cars.

The first proposal will force carmakers to cut CO2 emissions from new cars by 18% by 2012. Carmakers would be responsible for getting emissions down to 130 grams of CO2 per kilometer (g/km) through technology improvements.

The second proposal, which updates a fuel-quality directive from 1998, outlines new fuel-quality standards that aim to achieve, by 2020, a 10% reduction in CO2 emissions throughout the whole product life cycle.

Read the full report from here @ The American Chemical Society web page

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Cutting the Carbon Impacts of Waste

Posted on Tuesday, March 27, 2007 posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 10:40 AM

Cutting the Carbon Impacts of Waste

A clearer picture of how waste can be managed to reduce its impacts on climate change emerges in new research published today.

The reports anticipate the greenhouse gas effects of the UK’s main waste streams between 2005 and 20311, and assess the different ways of dealing with household garden and food waste2,3.

The ERM report shows that recycling has significant benefits over landfill, particularly in terms of reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

Read the full news report from here @ The A to Z of Building

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Going green to save the white stuff

Posted on Monday, March 26, 2007 posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 1:30 AM

Going green to save the white stuff

By Tom Gardner, Associated Press, March 26, 2007

The ski industry in the USA is going green to help offset the pollution that feeds global warming -- a phenomenon that challenges the resorts' very existence with the threat of later snowfalls and earlier snow melts.

Fifty-five resorts in 14 states are buying renewable energy to offset part or all of their power needs, according to the National Ski Areas Association. Of these, 26 are operating 100 percent on green energy.

Read more from this report @ Casper Star Tribune

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How Green is Nuclear Power?

Posted on posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 12:55 AM

How Green is Nuclear Power?

By Mark Clayton, The Christian Science Monitor

Nuclear Power is an idea that may be catching on. At least 11 new nuclear plants are in the design stage in nine states, including Virginia, Texas, and Florida, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute website.

But that carbon-free pitch has researchers asking anew: How carbon-free is nuclear power? And how cost-effective is it in the fight to slow global warming? asks this article from CSM, read the full article here @ KVOA, Tucson

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Total Launches First Integrated CO2 Capture and Geological Sequestration Project in France

Posted on Saturday, March 10, 2007 posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 8:45 PM

Total Launches the First Integrated CO2 Capture and Geological Sequestration Project in a Depleted Natural Gas Field in SW France

Press release

February 12, 2007

Total announces the launch of a pilot CO2 capture and sequestration project in the Lacq basin in southwestern France. The project, which leverages a technique considered among the most promising in the fight against climate change, calls for up to 150,000 metric tons of CO2 to be injected into a depleted natural gas field in Rousse (Pyrenees) over a period of two years as from end-2008.

Read the full press release here @ OilVoice

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  In the beginning, there were algae,
but there was no oil Then, from algae came oil.
Now, the algae are still there, but oil is fast depleting
In future, there will be no oil, but there will still be algae  
So, doesn't it make sense to explore if we can again get oil from algae?
This is what we try to do at Oilgae.com - explore the potential of getting oil from algae