NatureMill, Inc. today unveiled its new XE Series of automatic home composters. The new models offer the simplicity and durability required for every day composting, with the convenience of indoor or outdoor use, while reducing overall energy consumption. Now ordinary home users, including apartment dwellers, can nearly eliminate landfill waste and related greenhouse gasses by composting their food waste.

Starting at $299, the all-new XE Series can compost over 100 lbs (45 kg) of food waste per month. New features include a stronger motor to grind and compost the toughest food scraps without jamming, a more powerful filter to eliminate trash odors, and a new heavy duty mode for occasional heavy use. Energy consumption is just 5 kwh per month, costing roughly $0.50 per month depending on local utility rates. A diesel trash truck consumes more energy hauling the same trash to a landfill. A new "Energy Save" mode further reduces energy consumption by 75%. The machine's small size allows it to be used inside a standard kitchen cabinet, which is ideal for people living in apartments with small kitchens.

Industrial Research Ltd (IRL) has made a breakthrough that enables the world’s most efficient carbon dioxide capture technology to become commercially viable. IRL Research Scientist Robert Holt is leading the multi-disciplinary team that is investigating the development of a cost-effective enhancement to an existing technique that uses limestone for the capture of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel power combustors. IRL has been awarded $350,000 over three years by the Foundation for Research Science and Technology to further develop its technology.

The process is designed to capture carbon dioxide from coal fired power stations and other industries that emit significant amounts of the greenhouse gas.

The lime cycling process uses limestone, a relatively abundant and inexpensive material. It is heated to around 900 degrees centigrade to become lime, which is a very effective material for absorbing carbon dioxide.

When post-combustion flue gas is passed through the lime in a fluidised bed, the CO2 is captured. The process is then reversed to transform the lime back into limestone, which is then used again to capture more CO2.

The 95 per cent pure CO2 that is produced can be compressed to about 3% of its original volume and can then be stored efficiently or used in another industrial process. This process has been known for many years but until now it has not been efficient enough to be considered commercially applicable.The IRL team confirmed that exposing the lime to steam reopens its pore structure and enables it to absorb CO2 efficiently again.

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A revolutionary invention, which could slash greenhouse gas emissions from computer centres, has won £750,000-worth of backing for its creator, Sheffield Technology Parks-based Iceotope. The company, founded by green PC pioneer Peter Hopton, is targeting data centres – giant warehouses packed with racks of computer servers which form the backbone of the internet as well as providing secure data storage for major companies.

Details of the invention are being kept under wraps until an official launch later this year.However, Dan Chester, a former semiconductor industry entrepreneur who was brought in to spearhead Iceotope's development, did reveal that it involves using liquid to cool the server racks.The data centre servers are currently cooled by using large scale air conditioning plants to chill the hot air they generate – further increasing the data centre's carbon footprint.Liquid cooling would not only be more energy efficient, it would also keep the servers cooler, extending their life span.

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Professor Klaus Lackner at Columbia University and also co-founder of Global Research Technologies (GRT) in Tucson, Arizona, USA, has put forward a device called "artificial tree" that captures CO2 a thousand times faster than a real one. Artificial tree is a device that traps CO2 directly from the atmosphere using a process similar to sequestration at coal-fired power plants. The CO2 passes over a chemical absorber (the ‘leaves’ of the artificial tree) to which the CO2 molecule attaches.Professor Lackner estimates that each ‘tree’ with a capture area of 10m by 10m (32.8ft by 32.8ft) can absorb 1,000 tons each year.

Once you’ve captured the CO2 on the absorber you then have to provide energy to remove the CO2 molecule, compress it and liquefy it.The liquefied CO2 can then be stored underground or used for several different purposes.If the initial energy source is renewable then the process becomes almost CO2 neutral at the front end and a total success at sequestrating CO2 from the atmosphere.It seems that Lackner and GRT have found a sorbent material that requires low energy to remove the CO2 molecule and the end-to-end process is purported to be up to 80% efficient when considered in terms of how much CO2 is removed from the atmosphere versus how much is released by the energy production to operate the machine.

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Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and NAFA Fleet Management Association (NAFA) released a new online calculator for fleet managers to measure their greenhouse gas emissions as a first step in creating "greener" vehicle fleets.This tool that enables fleets to track their progress in reducing emissions over time.Recognizing that it is difficult to capture the complete data required by more advanced calculation methods, the Fleet Emissions Tool is designed to minimize data entry needs for fleets while retaining accuracy.

The Fleet Emissions Tool estimates total fleet greenhouse gas emissions from fuel consumption data. This data is directly used to calculate emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), which accounts for about 95% of greenhouse gas from vehicles. Emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are estimated based on their prominence among greenhouse gas from transportation source.

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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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Scientists at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) have succeeded in unlocking the potential of carbon dioxide – a common greenhouse gas – by converting it into a more useful product. Using organocatalysts, the IBN researchers activated carbon dioxide in a mild and non-toxic process to produce methanol, a widely used industrial feedstock and clean-burning biofuel.

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Cyclone Power Technologies announced results of emission testing performed on its Mark II 18HP engine running on diesel fuel. The tests demonstrated that the company's award-winning, external combustion technology is dramatically cleaner than current internal combustion diesel engines.

Cyclone Engines, by comparison, do not require any costly, efficiency-draining exhaust after-treatment. One reason for this is the Cyclone Engine burns its fuel at approximately 2,000degF, whereas NOX forms at temperatures above 2,300degF - ranges typical for both diesel and gas-powered internal combustion engines. It is also important to note that the Cyclone Engine does not idle. When no power is required from the engine it shuts off, thus NOX readings at this time - as well as carbon particulate matter and carbon dioxide (CO2) readings - are zero.

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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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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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Patriot Energy Corporation intends to market the H2O Oxygenator System to replace the catalytic converter which is currently the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) standard, but is now believed to be a major producer of extreme green house gas emissions. The H2O Oxygenator System is more effective, cost efficient and proven through EPA and SAE (Environmental Protection Agency/Society of Automotive Engineers) to drastically reduce CO2 emissions.

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A person hailing from Bihar, India has invented a generator silencer which would not only be helpful in keeping the environment clean but would also help to deal with the problem of global warming.

Virendra Kumar Sinha, has inveneted the silencer cum exhaust filter for the generator set after a hard work of six years. Sinha said his product was put under test in three stages in the laboratory of Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Ranchi, where the lab technicians reached on the conclusion that the product was capable of reducing the harmful carbon-dioxide and carbon-monoxide gases to the extent of 60 to 70 per cent emitted by the genset.

After the lab test at BIT, the product also got patent for the innvotion on September 17, 2008 by Indian Patent Office, Kolkata. The invention would help in checking the global warming also, Sinha said adding that the exhaust silencer was capable of sucking the carbon gases inside its drum reducing the level of carbon emission into the environment to the level of 70 per cent.

A cement made of magnesium silicates in place of limestone can absorb, over its lifecycle, around 0.6 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of cement and cut out greenhouse gas emissions.

Making traditional cement results in greenhouse gas emissions from two sources: it requires intense heat, and so a lot of energy to heat up the ovens that cook the raw material, such as limestone.That then releases further carbon dioxide as it burns. But, until now, no one has found a large-scale way to tackle this fundamental problem.

The new cement, based on magnesium silicates, not only requires much less heating, it also absorbs large amounts of carbon dioxide as it hardens, making it carbon negative. The new environmentally friendly formulation means the cement industry could change from being a “significant emitter to a significant absorber of CO2,” says Nikolaos Vlasopoulos, chief scientist at London-based Novacem, whose invention has garnered support and funding from industry and environmentalists.