DailyDirt: Fixing A Hole Where The Rain Gets In...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Pollution from energy generation is an enormous problem that will probably require an expensive solution -- which, thankfully, billionaires like Bill Gates are willing to fund. However, we're already spending billions on energy R&D, but progress seems slow when the doomsday clock appears to be "catastrophically" close to midnight. The option of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere might give us some additional time, though, even if global-scale geoengineering sounds like it might have its own unintended side effects.

• Carbon dioxide sequestration at an industrial scale -- removing a ton of CO2 from the air per day -- is a step towards a carbon-neutral industry that might be economical. Carbon Engineering has a pilot plant that hasn't quite produced a carbon-neutral fuel for $1/liter, but it might someday (before we figure out how to generate power from fusion reactors?). [url]
• Carbon dioxide can be turned into carbon and molecular oxygen by zapping it with a UV laser. This probably isn't the most effective way to break down CO2, but it could also explain how non-biological oxygen appears on other planets. [url]
• Capturing greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and fluorocarbons can be accomplished using certain porous materials that trap these gases. The problem remains: how can we reliably store vast amounts of greenhouse gases -- and do so economically? [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: bill gates, biofuel, carbon dioxide, carbon fixation, carbon sequestration, climate change, energy, fluorocarbons, geoengineering, ghg, pollution
Companies: carbon engineering

DailyDirt: Getting Unwanted Carbon Dioxide Out Of The Atmosphere

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

People can debate whether or not governments need to do something to curb carbon dioxide emissions, but while the debate continues, technology could help give us more attractive options for dealing with unwanted carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Several methods of carbon sequestration have been proposed over the years, but none have really turned out to be financially viable so far. Sure, we could plant a trillion trees, but even that might have its own detrimental impact on the environment.

• Carbon dioxide from the air can be sequestered into carbon nanofibers with electricity (preferably from renewable sources or some kind of nuclear). This development could help spur carbon nano-materials AND reduce carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere. Win-win! (But it'll take a LOT of energy to make a dent in the existing amount of CO2 in the air.) [url]
• Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere might not be sufficient to reverse some of the damage already done to oceans and the ecosystem. Carbon dioxide levels have surpassed 400 ppm in the atmosphere, and some scientists have estimated that levels beyond 420 ppm would be detrimental to global ecosystems, as well as changing the climate around the world. [url]
• The Center for Carbon Removal wants to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to clean up our environment. Carbon dioxide levels were at about 280 ppm before the Industrial Revolution, and they could continue to rise if no one changes our current energy infrastructure. [url]
• Turning carbon dioxide into useful materials isn't a new idea, but doing so in an economical way that actually produces materials that people can use has been tricky. Chemists are looking into catalysts that might fit the bill, but it's a pretty hefty bill. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: carbon dioxide, carbon fixation, carbon nanotubes, carbon sequestration, center for carbon removal, climate change, nanotechnology

Chilling Effects: Climate Change Deniers Have Scientific Paper Disappeared

from the now-you-see-it dept

Let me let you in on a little fantasy of mine: every once in a while, I like to imagine finding myself meeting the person who came up with the term "global warming." Why? So I can punish that person. Severely. See, what a term like "global warming" does is allow the guy in the cubicle next to me to point out of the window in Chicago and say, "If global warming is true, why is it snowing out again?" And that, friends, is something nobody should have to deal with.

Climate change is the better term, of course, and the majority of the scientific community firmly believes that there is such a thing as man-made climate change. From there, we could have a discussion about how profound the effects of climate change are, whether they're actually better or worse, what other contributing factors might be in play in impacting climate, and all the rest, and those would be worthy conversations to have. What we shouldn't do is try to use the law to silence dissenting opinions, particularly if those opinions come in the form of scientific research. Yet, that is exactly what one scientific journal has allowed to happen after publishing an article on the link between those who deny climate change and those who believe in a more wide-ranging array of conspiracy theories. Frontiers originally published the piece last year, but took it down once the legal threats started rolling in. After an internal investigation found the peer-reviewed study to be sound, you'd have thought they'd re-publish it. You'd be wrong. Here's the statement about the retraction from the journal itself.

In the light of a small number of complaints received following publication of the original research article cited above, Frontiers carried out a detailed investigation of the academic, ethical and legal aspects of the work. This investigation did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study. It did, however, determine that the legal context is insufficiently clear and therefore Frontiers wishes to retract the published article. The authors understand this decision, while they stand by their article and regret the limitations on academic freedom which can be caused by legal factors.

In other words, a study that was judged by peers to be scientifically sound, has been disappeared over the murky threats of possible legal action. Let that sink in for a moment: science is undone because some people didn't like it. The author of the study resided at the time in the UK, where libel laws used to be of a construction specifically designed to fill the courthouses with all manner of craziness. Just recently, the UK has improved its libel laws to lessen the chilling effect of lawsuits from harming the progression of science. On top of that, the internal review at the journal found no issues with the study after making some minor alterations to appease the angry. Frontiers didn't see fit to re-publish, however.

It is hard to imagine a set of outcomes that would have better remedied each issue flagged by Frontiers as a matter of concern. So it came as quite a shock to hear that the journal had decided to retract the paper ostensibly because “the legal context is insufficiently clear”.

Look, if you're a climate change denier, that's cool. I don't agree with you, but feel free to write up your own research, publish any compelling information you can come up with, and all the rest. Consensus is never something I've been much interested in; I'd rather have multiple ideas to choose from and study. And, hey, if you think we never landed on the moon, Hitler was actually fighting the lizard-people now running world government, and 9/11 was all a holographic light-show designed to allow George Bush to fulfill his childhood dream of landing on an aircraft carrier in a flightsuit, have at it. I want you to let me know you believe in that stuff, because that's how I'll know to keep my future children away from you.

But the other side of the coin is that we shouldn't be allowing your side to silence science, either. Fair is fair, after all.

Filed Under: chilling effects, climate change, legal threats, scientific research, uk

DailyDirt: Fuels From Thin Air

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Carbon dioxide has been the focus of a lot of discussions on global climate change and energy policy. Certainly, there are other greenhouse gases, but CO2 is the major by-product of our fossil-fueled economy that people have been massively pumping into the air at an extraordinary rate. Over millennia, biology has already come up with an answer to this problem -- in nature, carbon dioxide is part of a carbon cycle that is recycled and/or sequestered into wood or sugars or other forms of chemical storage. Perhaps some clever chemists/scientists can come up with another kind of photosynthesis to save us from dangerously high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? Check out some of these research projects that could turn CO2 into fuels.

• A new catalytic system using ionic liquids and carbon nanofibers has been shown to turn carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide, which is could be used to create syngas and other fuels. The real breakthrough here is the discovery of a relatively new class of metal-free catalysis using doped carbon nanofibers. [url]
• The combustion of methanol to CO2 and water is a well-known reaction, but finding catalysts that promote the reverse reaction (CO2 to methanol) is what would be really useful. A novel, very efficient, single-step catalytic system to convert CO2 to methanol has been devised, but the problem is that it uses a borane compound that is actually more expensive to make than methanol (so the process isn't very economical). [url]
• Carbon Recycling International is a company that has a commercially viable process to turn waste CO2 into methanol. The trick is that the company has access to the waste CO2 from a geothermal power plant next to a volcano in Iceland -- giving it access to a relatively cheap source of CO2 and energy. The company brands its methanol as Vulcanol -- to remind buyers that its product comes from a natural volcano source. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: borane, carbon dioxide, catalysts, chemistry, climate change, energy, fuel, geothermal power, ghg, iceland, ionic liquids, methanol, nanofibers, vulcanol
Companies: carbon recycling international

DailyDirt: Will Renewable Energy Be Enough To Curb Global Warming?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

According to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, scientists are 95% certain that human activities have been responsible for most of the climate change observed on the planet since the 1950s. Apparently, we've already burned 54% of the 1 trillion tons of carbon that would need to be emitted into the atmosphere to increase the average global temperature by 2°C (3.6°F) -- a threshold set by climate negotiators in Copenhagen in 2009 to avoid catastrophic climate change. Unfortunately, even as we try to reduce carbon emissions now, some predict that we'll still surpass the 2°C limit by the end of the century. Will renewable energy be able to curb global warming while also satisfying our energy-hungry ways? Here are some energy-related links.

• Scientists are saying that nuclear power will be necessary to make a significant impact in reducing global warming. While those who oppose nuclear power argue that wind and solar energy can be scaled up to address our energy needs, top climate scientists believe that we need to work on developing safer nuclear power as well. [url]
• If you need another reason to ditch coal in favor of nuclear power, here's one: the coal ash emitted by a power plant is actually more radioactive than nuclear waste. The uranium and thorium naturally present in coal is concentrated in coal ash, such that it puts out 100 times more radiation into the surrounding environment than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy. [url]
• Kyocera is launching a 70-megawatt solar power plant in Japan that will be able to power 22,000 homes. The plant's 290,000 solar panels are set offshore on Kagoshima Bay, occupying an area of about 314 acres.[url]
• A 2-megawatt wind turbine has been set up about 12 miles off the coast of Fukushima, Japan, as part of an effort to turn the quake-ravaged area into a clean energy hub. Two more 7-megawatt wind turbines will be added to the floating offshore installation, with the eventual plan to increase the wind energy capacity to 1,000 megawatts. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: climate change, coal, coal ash, energy, ipcc, nuclear, renewable energy, solar, wind

DailyDirt: Better Tasting Fruits And Vegetables

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

If fruits and vegetables tasted even better, maybe people would include more in their diet. Part of what researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are trying to do is to improve the taste and nutritional profile of specialty crops like fruits and vegetables, in the hope that Americans will adopt a healthier diet. For generations, humans have been inadvertently breeding the nutrients out of fruits and vegetables, by selecting varieties that are more palatable (i.e., higher in sugar and starch). Then, somewhere along the way, appearance became important, and farmers began breeding aesthetically pleasing varieties, often at the expense of taste. So, now we're stuck with some pretty bland products. Here are some more tasty links.

• For the past 70 years or so, people have been breeding tomatoes for a uniform red color, but in the process, a gene that increases sugar content in tomatoes was inactivated. The gene, SlGLK2, increases the formation of chloroplasts, which are responsible for producing sugars through photosynthesis. Researchers have shown that by re-inserting an intact copy of the gene into tomatoes, they could increase the amount of glucose and fructose by up to 40%, while still retaining the uniform color ripening trait. Too bad they weren't actually able to taste them (federal regulations prohibit sampling experimental crops). [url]
• Researchers have found that today's Fuji apples are mealier, less flavorful, and more susceptible to disease than they were in the 1970s. The culprit: climate change. Studies in controlled temperature environments have shown that higher temperatures have been linked to a decrease in taste and texture in apples. Who knows what other crops might also have been changed due to global warming? [url]
• University of Florida researchers have discovered that they can improve the taste of fruits by exposing them to far-red light. They were able to use specific wavelengths of light to manipulate the production of volatile compounds that control aroma and taste in fruits like tomatoes, strawberries, and blueberries. Imagine your produce tasting even better after being stored in your far-red-light-equipped refrigerator! [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: apples, breeding, climate change, crops, diet, farming, food, fruits, gmo, taste, tomato, vegetables
Companies: usda

DailyDirt: Carbon Capture And Sequestration Schemes

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) efforts are an important part in the mitigation of global warming, but unfortunately, progress has been rather slow, and at its current pace, the world won't be able to meet climate change targets by 2020. There are only eight active CCS projects worldwide right now, and most of them involve pumping waste carbon dioxide down into oil wells to flush out hard-to-reach crude oil, while also storing 23 million tons of carbon dioxide underground each year. Here are a few other CCS ideas.

• Researchers have discovered that ocean plankton actually take up almost twice as much carbon dioxide than previously calculated. They also found that plankton living in warmer, nutrient-starved areas tend to take up higher levels of carbon dioxide. [url]
• Direct extraction of carbon dioxide from seawater to make zero-emissions synfuel may be cheaper than extracting carbon dioxide from the air. This is because the concentration of carbon dioxide, which is very soluble in water, is about 140 times higher in the ocean than it is in the atmosphere. [url]
• A "rogue" American businessman reportedly dumped 100 tons of iron sulfate into the ocean off the west coast of Canada to promote the growth of carbon-dioxide-absorbing plankton. His ocean fertilization experiment, which may have violated two UN conventions, has resulted in an artificial plankton bloom as large as 10,000 square kilometers. However, scientists are still debating whether this is a viable long-term solution for carbon sequestration, and they're concerned that it could end up irreparably harming ocean ecosystems and eventually worsening global warming. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: carbon dioxide, ccs, climate change, greenhouse gas, iron, plankton

Which Would You Rather Have: The Planet, Or A Patent?

from the decisions,-decisions dept

One of the more controversial approaches to the already controversial field of climate change is geoengineering, which Wikipedia defines as "deliberate large-scale engineering and manipulation of the planetary environment to combat or counteract anthropogenic changes in atmospheric chemistry."

Some people are concerned that such large-scale interventions might produce large-scale disasters. That makes small-scale experiments exploring the underlying technologies an important first step before taking this route. Unfortunately, it seems that one geoengineering experiment has been called off because of patents:

A field trial for a novel UK geoengineering experiment has been cancelled amid questions about a pre-existing patent application for some of the technology involved.

The Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE) project is a collaboration among several UK universities and Cambridge-based Marshall Aerospace to investigate the possibility of spraying particles into the stratosphere to mitigate global warming. Such particles could mimic the cooling produced by large volcanic eruptions, by reflecting sunlight before it reaches Earth’s surface.

As the article quoted above goes on to explain, the main issue here is a potential conflict of interests:

a patent application that was submitted by Peter Davidson, who runs the UK consulting firm Davidson Technology on the Isle of Man and was an adviser at the workshop that gave rise to the SPICE project, and Hugh Hunt, an engineer at the University of Cambridge, UK, who is one of the SPICE project investigators. The patent is for an "apparatus for transporting and dispersing solid particles into the Earth’s stratosphere" by "balloon, dirigible or airship" technology related to the SPICE field trial.

UK funding bodies require possible conflicts of interest to be declared when applying for grants, whereas here the patent application apparently only came to light a year into the experiment. Part of the project is continuing -- things like climate modelling and analysis -- but the most innovative element, the field trial, has been cancelled.

This episode shows one of the problems with trying to marry "pure" science with commerce, and the tensions that can arise between sharing knowledge freely and trying to make money by restricting access through licensing. It would be regrettable, to say the least, if the exploration of ideas that might play a role in addressing climate change were blocked because of patents.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: cambridge, climate change, geoengineering, hugh hunt, peter davidson, spice, uk
Companies: davidson technology, marshall aerospace

Pro Tip: Even If Someone Has Faked A Damaging Memo About Your Organization, Don't Threaten To Sue Anyone Who 'Comments' On It

from the this-first-amendment-thing... dept

You may have heard that the Heartland Institute had some internal documents leaked recently, and noted the irony of the situation. If you don't know, Heartland is well-known in certain circles for its efforts to disprove that smoking causes any harm, as well as its efforts to deny climate change. The "think tank" also has done some telco policy issues, more or less supporting anything that involves not regulating telcos. The irony bit comes from the fact that a couple of years back, when there were some leaks of emails between scientists involved in climate change research, Heartland was one of the leading cheerleaders to push for misreading what was said in those emails to condemn climate change science.

Heartland is insisting that at least one document -- the one that's received the most attention and supposedly outlines the organization's dastardly plans -- is faked. Some observers have made compelling arguments that the document in question is, in fact, faked (and that's from someone who disagrees with Heartland Institute on the key issue of climate change).

I'm not going to comment on the leak or what's in the documents (either real or fake) because that's really not the kind of thing I care about that much. But, I will comment about one key thing Heartland said in its press release about the whole situation... where it effectively threatens to take legal action against anyone who comments on what's in the documents:

The individuals who have commented so far on these documents did not wait for Heartland to confirm or deny the authenticity of the documents. We believe their actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages, including damages to our reputation. We ask them in particular to immediately remove these documents and all statements about them from the blogs, Web sites, and publications, and to publish retractions.

Now, I don't care what you think of Heartland, climate change or anything along those lines. Whether you think it's a wonderful organization or an evil organization... one thing I would hope we could agree on is that threatening people for "commenting" on documents with legal action, even if the documents later turn out to be fake, is not a good idea. I can certainly understand the temptation to try to get people not to comment, but the threat is pretty clearly bogus. The documents -- and the leak of the documents -- even if faked or altered, are still a public interest issue, and it's hard to see how there's any law broken in commenting about what's in the documents. There may be legal issues for whoever leaked the documents, but those who are commenting on them? Sorry, that's just silly.

Filed Under: climate change, defamation, leaks, threats
Companies: heartland institute

DailyDirt: Don't Just Talk About The Weather...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

As the saying goes, nobody seems to do anything about changing the weather. Well, there actually are some people trying to control the weather. (And global climate change could be an inadvertent way that people are changing the weather, too.) So there are a lot of big problems that look unsolvable, but maybe if enough people work on them, we'll find solutions. Here are just some quick examples.

• NASA could make it rain when it tested space shuttle rocket engines in the wetlands of Mississippi. Hydrogen fuel burned with oxygen produces water, but just adding water to the atmosphere doesn't necessarily produce a rainstorm. [url]
• China tried to control the weather around Beijing before the Summer Olympics of 2008. "Tried" is perhaps the key word, since weather modification isn't quite an exact science just yet. But then again, it didn't rain during the opening and closing ceremonies in 2008.... [url]
• Geoengineering climate change is even more ambitious -- and potentially dangerous. But given that the world hasn't stopped its CO2 emissions, it doesn't really hurt to put together some plans for correcting our atmospheric mistakes (whether or not they'll be needed). [url]
• To find some more bizarre/odd stuff, check out some things that other StumbleUpon users have found. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: atmospheric phenomenon, climate change, geoengineering, rain, weather
Companies: nasa