Natural gas will play an increasingly important role in powering the U.S., doubling its share of the energy market from 20 percent to 40 percent within several decades, according to a report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A key reason behind the rise of natural gas is the increasing extraction of gas from underground shale deposits, a controversial practice that poses significant environmental risks. (more…)

Global Warming is caused by several factors such as the release of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. One solution to the problem is to capture the carbon dioxide before it enters the atmosphere, and instead, deposit the CO2 into the ground. However, up to this point, scientists have been unable to effectively track how it might move underground. The desire is to get the CO2 in place and not have it move elsewhere and potentially cause problems. Now, with the advent of Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT), developed at the (more…)

In the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, 71 percent of Americans say President Obama and Congress should make developing clean sources of energy a high priority, an 11 percent increase since January, according to a new poll. The poll, conducted by Yale University and George Mason University, also revealed that 77 percent of Americans support regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate will vote on a resolution by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that would block (more…)

As global warming intensifies, demands for human manipulation of the climate system are likely to grow. But carrying out geoengineering plans could prove daunting, as conflicts erupt over the unintended regional consequences of climate intervention and over who is entitled to deploy climate-altering technologies.

Last month, J. Craig Venter announced that his team had successfully developed the first self-replicating cell to be controlled entirely by synthetic DNA. Not artificial life exactly, but certainly something different: a synthetic cell in which humans had intervened deliberately with the express purpose of changing the genetic structure and characteristics of a natural organism. (more…)

There are many earth cycles. One is a cycling between warmer and colder periods which are commonly called ice ages. The causes of these cycles are complex and are related to how much sun radiation we get as well as some slight variation in the sun itself. Scientists have recently found a possible source of a huge carbon dioxide burp that happened some 18,000 years ago and which helped to end the last ice age. (more…)

Process improvements can reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) air emissions. When that is done there can be left over, permitted CO2 air emissions that can be sold to other users. In doing so, a certain percentage of the original CO2 emissions are eliminated and cannot be sold. Hence a reduction in permitted CO2 air emissions overall.

Hungary last week carried out the first sale of certified emissions reductions (CERs) which Hungarian companies had already used to offset against their emissions in the European Union’s emissions trading scheme. These emission offsets are sold internationally to other companies.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, countries were granted a certain number of permits to release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, called Assigned Amount Units (AAUs), which are equivalent to one ton of CO2 and are roughly equivalent to a CER.

The Protocol was originally signed in 1997 and went into full effect in 2005. The Protocol is intended to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as CO2, and stabilize any potential climate change effects. Currently there are 187 countries that have ratified the Protocol.

Certain countries have a surplus of these AAU’s, partially due to much older or obsolete technology that was retired. (more…)

The Middle East’s first carbon dioxide recovery plant has been opened at the Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company. This is also one of the first in the world to successfully recycle carbon dioxide air emissions. The $55 million facility at the company’s Sitra facility was formally inaugurated by Gulf chairman and adviser to the Prime Minister for oil and industrial affairs Shaikh Isa bin Ali Al Khalifa, in the presence of board members, company officials and guests.

Carbon dioxide is useful for many industrial operations. It can be used as a feedstock if compressed and transported and it can be used in carbonation of beverages. These are useful and productive recycling efforts but the industry using the carbon dioxide must be close by. (more…)

Carbon dioxide air emissions is one of the big issues in global warming debate. However, before you start controlling by putting the carbon in the ground, you first have to put lawyers in a room to argue. After a year that saw billions of dollars spent around a variety of carbon capture and storage pilot projects, the focus in 2010 will shift from press conferences and engineering discussion to court cases and conference tables.

Everyone has an opinion on what is the right thing to do in global warming. Far from just an engineering decision the task of making technology an effective weapon in the fight against climate change will take a lot more than working out funding details and letting the engineers work.

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Research conducted by the University of Bristol, and the University of Leeds in the UK have demonstrated that our climate models may be underestimating the effects of CO2 on global temperatures.

In the long term, the Earth’s temperature may be 30-50 per cent more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide

than has previously been estimated, reports a new study published in Nature Geoscience this week.

The results show that components of the Earth’s climate system that vary over long timescales — such as land-ice and vegetation — have an important effect on this temperature sensitivity, but these factors are often neglected in current climate models.

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europeans could help cut climate warming emissions to much safer levels for just 2 euros ($3) each per day, but they would also have to cut back on driving and meat eating, a report said Tuesday.

Other long-term changes would include using the train instead of flying for journeys of under 1,000 km, said the report by the Stockholm Environment Institute, commissioned by Friends of the Earth Europe (FOEE).

The study targets a European cut in climate-warming emissions such as carbon dioxide to 40 percent below 1990 levels over the next decade.

“It’s not just about investment, it’s also about lifestyle changes,” said FOEE campaigner Sonja Meister. “This report shows one pathway that would see air travel in the EU cut by 10 percent by 2020 and travel in private cars by 4 percent.”
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