Canadian chemists are investigating ways that carbon dioxide can be removed and stored from power plants and factories without using the large amounts of energy and water now required in prototype carbon capture systems. (more…)

Putting the word green and carbon together may sound like an oxymoron to most people. But researchers at Rice University in Houston, Texas, working at the new Green Carbon Center, think that instead of being a “villain in the global warming debate”, carbon could be a (more…)

In September, the UK’s University of Bath completed construction on a small building whose walls are insulated with the shredded woody inner core, or shiv, of the hemp plant (not to be confused with bast, the fibrous outer part under the bark).

The hemp plant, which can’t be grown in the United States because one variety, (more…)

The Obama administration is frustrating environmentalists by urging the US Supreme Court to vacate a decision by Federal Court of Appeals that Climate Change is a public nuisance. In a brief filed on Tuesday, by Solicitor General Neal Katyal on behalf of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the administration asked the court to vacate the decision that allows groups (more…)

Each year energy-related carbon dioxide emissions account for more than 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. According to the Energy Information Association, that adds up to over 5,814 million metric tons (MMT) of carbon in 2008 alone. The Obama administration recognizes that this is not sustainable and that’s why we’ve actively sought to not only (more…)

Biochar is charcoal type created by the pyrolysis of biomass, and differs from ordinary charcoal only in the sense that its primary use is not for fuel, but for biosequestration or atmospheric carbon capture and storage. As much as 12 percent of the world’s human caused greenhouse gas emissions could be sustainably offset by producing biochar. (more…)

The best way to slow the rapid decline in Arctic sea ice is to reduce soot emissions from burning fossil fuels, wood, and dung. This is the conclusion of a Stanford University study published today in the Journal of Geophysical Research (Atmospheres).

The paper, authored by Mark Z. Jacobson, (more…)

Burning fuel releases a lot of carbon dioxide. For more is emitted than any other air emission. What can we do with it all? A basic reuse of carbon dioxide or CO2 is to have plants and trees use it to make new plants and trees. Recently, the U.S. government has been funding more than $100 million to six research projects that will turn carbon dioxide into fuel, plastics, (more…)

(Reuters) – U.S. Senate Democrats said on Thursday they will wait until September at the earliest to take up broad climate-change legislation, a potentially fatal blow to the White House push to curb greenhouse gases.

The delay means Democrats have little time to advance the complex (more…)

Yesterday, more than 120 leaders in the commercial building community came together with Federal officials at a White House Clean Energy Economy Forum to discuss the role of Federal leadership in sustainable building. White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, General Services Administration (more…)