The last two years have seen an amazing growth in the popularity of electric vehicles, with the launch of Nissan’s LEAF and the Chevy Volt. One of the moot points related to EVs is how sustainable they are. To be sure, if EVs are fed with renewable energy, they
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Carbon Dioxide
The European Environment Agency published a report on the cost and toll of air pollution due to industrial facilities to the European Union last November.
The costs are staggering as the 10,000 facilities induced up to 102 and 169 billion euros in 2009 alone.
However, only a small number of these plants are responsible for the vast majority of this pollution. The EEA notes:
Fifty per cent of the total damage cost occurs as a result of emissions from just 191 or 2 % of the approximately 10 000 facilities that reported data for releases to air.
Three quarters of the total damage costs are caused by the emissions of 622 facilities — 6 % of the total number.
This proves that solving the problem of industrial air pollution could be relatively easy.
The energy sector is the most polluting one as it is responsible for 66 to 112 billion euros of damages. Excluding carbon dioxide, the pollution still costs the 27 country members up to 26 to 71 billion euros.
Other sectors like production processes and manufacturing combustion are responsible for much less pollution, and thus much less induced: 23 to 28 billion euros and 8 to 21 billion euros respectively.
Meanwhile, the report notes that carbon dioxide contributes the most to the overall damage costs with approximately 63 billion euros in 2009. But this is not enough:
Air pollutants, which contribute to acid rain and can cause respiratory problems – sulphur dioxide (SO2), ammonia (NH3), particulate matter (PM10) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) – were found to cause €38-105 billion of damage a year.
The bottom line: the European Union needs to change the way it is producing electricity and to improve its few remaining plants to get much cleaner air.
The increased use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in the production of refrigerators, air conditioners, and other products could play a significant role in accelerating global warming, a new UN report warns.
Without stricter regulations, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report says, the
Peat, the accumulated turf made up of decayed vegetation, forms in many parts of the world in places like bogs, moors, and swamp forests. Due to its high carbon content, it can be harvested and burned as fuel. There are estimates that the global inventory of peat, covering 2 percent of all land area, contains 8
A regional cap-and-trade program launched in the northeastern U.S. three years ago has saved customers nearly $1.1 billion on electricity bills, helped create 16,000 jobs, and has retained more than $765 million in local economies by reducing the demand for fossil fuels, according to a new analysis.
In many parts of the world, including areas of India, central Asia and the Sahara desert where the climate is arid and the landscape barren, these standing crops can soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it into oxygen. The new research is soon to be published in the European Journal of Plant Science and Biotechnology.
Carbon sequestration is the capture of carbon dioxide (CO2). This is the process of carbon capture and storage, where carbon dioxide is removed from flue gases, such as on power stations, before being stored in underground reservoirs. There are also natural sequestration processes such as the ocean.
Although the burning of natural gas emits far less carbon dioxide than coal, a new study concludes that a greater reliance on natural gas would fail to significantly slow down climate change. The study by Tom Wigley, who is a senior research associate at the National Center
Measuring the emission of greenhouse gases from croplands should take into account the crops themselves. That’s the conclusion of a study in the Sept.-Oct. issue of the Journal of Environmental Quality, which examined the impact of farm practices such as tillage on the greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide. Expressing
The U.S. Department of Energy has selected four projects for continued research into developing carbon capture technologies, with the goal of achieving 90 percent carbon dioxide removal.
While existing carbon capture technologies require enormous amounts of energy — adding as much as
Breeding crops with deeper roots could significantly reduce atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and make crops more drought resistant, according to a study by a researcher at the University of Manchester.
Reporting in the journal, Annals of Botany, professor
By now, we’re all familiar with the idea that our lives, from the food we eat to the cars we drive, have carbon footprints. Flying comes under special scrutiny both because jets pump carbon directly into the upper atmosphere and because it is often volitional — we fly for business instead of teleconferencing and jet to
If natural gas is a “bridge fuel,” what’s on the other side?
This question kept popping up in recent weeks as a series of reports predicted gas would become a growing part of the global energy mix in the coming decades. Gas, while cleaner burning than coal, still falls short of the low-emissions scenarios envisioned by world leaders,
Fast action on certain pollutants such as black carbon, ground-level ozone and methane may help limit near term global temperature rise and significantly increase the chances of keeping temperature rise below 3.6 degrees F. Protecting the near-term climate is central to significantly cutting the risk