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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
View By Scenario:
Species Collapse:(6)
Plague/Virus:(2)
Climate Chaos:(17)
Resource Depletion: (6)
Biology Breach:(8)
Recovery:(8)
This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
climate impacts  ~ global warming  ~ carbon emissions  ~ holyshit  ~ ocean acidification  ~ smart policy  ~ faster than expected  ~ massive die-off  ~ technical cleverness  ~ contamination  ~ ocean warming  



ApocaDocuments (8) for the "Recovery" scenario from this week
[see full week] ~ [see full Recovery scenario and stories]
Sat, Mar 14, 2009
from London Guardian:
'Biochar' goes industrial with giant microwaves to lock carbon in charcoal
Giant microwave ovens that can "cook" wood into charcoal could become our best tool in the fight against global warming, according to a leading British climate scientist. Chris Turney, a professor of geography at the University of Exeter, said that by burying the charcoal produced from microwaved wood, the carbon dioxide absorbed by a tree as it grows can remain safely locked away for thousands of years. The technique could take out billions of tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere every year. Fast-growing trees such as pine could be "farmed" to act specifically as carbon traps — microwaved, buried and replaced with a fresh crop to do the same thing again. Turney has built a 5m-long prototype of his microwave, which produces a tonne of CO2 for $65. He plans to launch his company, Carbonscape, in the UK this month to build the next generation of the machine, which he hopes will process more wood and cut costs further. ...


If the pines are okay with this... I'm all for it!

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Sat, Mar 14, 2009
from Living on Earth:
CO2-Eating Rocks
GELLERMAN: Carbon dioxide has the planet between a rock and a hard place - we get needed energy from fossil fuels, yet burning them produces a greenhouse gas that's causing climate change. But perhaps the answer lies in the problem: put the gas between a rock and a hard place. Not just any rock - but a type called ultramafic. Juerg Matter has investigated this ultra-interesting rock. He's an Associate Research Scientist at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory.... MATTER: Yeah, ultramafic rocks are mantle rocks which are usually 25 to 30 miles below surface, and they are rich in magnesium silicate minerals. And actually these magnesium silicate minerals can be used for carbon sequestration. The magnesium is used to carbonate the CO2 into magnesium carbonate minerals.... It changes, you know, the carbon dioxide, which is a gas, into a mineral, which is stable and environmentally benign. ...


Rocks like this ROCK!!!

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Fri, Mar 13, 2009
from BusinessGreen:
US commits to renewable development
The US Department of the Interior (DOI) has announced plans to make the development of renewable energy a central priority of the organisation. In a statement issued this week, secretary of the interior Ken Salazar said he had issued a secretarial order to promote the creation of solar, geothermal and wind energy projects on the one fifth of the country's landmass managed by the department.... According to the DOI, it... has identified about 21 million acres of public land with wind energy potential in western states, and about 29 million acres with solar energy potential in southwestern states. The organisation added that there are also about 140 million acres of public land in western states and Alaska that could be used for geothermal energy. ...


Sing it: that land is your land, that land is my land...

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Thu, Mar 12, 2009
from New Scientist:
'Nanoball' batteries could recharge car in minutes
Byoungwoo Kang and Gerbrand Ceder at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have revealed an experimental battery that charges about 100 times as fast as normal lithium ion batteries. Their battery contains a cathode made up of tiny balls of lithium iron phosphate, each just 50 nanometres across. The balls quickly release lithium ions as the battery charges, which travel across an electrolyte towards the anode. As the battery discharges, the lithium ions move back across the cell to be re-absorbed by the nanoballs.... Bigger batteries for plug-in hybrid electric cars could charge in just 5 minutes -- compared with about 8 hours for existing batteries -- though this would require a very high-powered charger. ...


Big cojones from some nanoballs!

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Wed, Mar 11, 2009
from Science:
Proposal: Make Every Earthling Pay Their Personal Carbon Debt (Sort of)
Today, an international team of scientists proposed a new way of deciding who needs to cut what: Set up a scheme in which every person on Earth has the same climate pollution limit— "a global personal emissions cap." The system would work by first setting a global limit for each year—ideally to be determined by the science, said Heleen de Coninck of the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands. If, for example, negotiators set the global emissions limit for 2030 at 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted, each nation would determine what its citizens' individual responsibilities to cut emissions were to achieve that cut and then add them up. The approach, said de Coninick, could really shake up negotiations. Individual Americans in 2005, for example, were responsible for roughly 19 tons of CO2 each per year on average. China's average was about 4 tons. Under the scientists' proposal, the world limit in 2030 would be 11 tons per person. So negotiators would calculate the per capita emissions cuts that each country would be responsible for. It would be up to individual goverments to decide how to divvy up the cuts, but the end result would be that the average U.S. emitter would have to cut more than the average Chinese. ...


There goes my gas-powered toasterfridge!

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Tue, Mar 10, 2009
from Christian Science Monitor:
Colleges wean off fossil fuels
More and more, colleges and universities are not only teaching about environmental issues, they’re “walking the walk” by changing they way they operate. In December 2006, 12 college and university presidents joined together to form the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment. They pledged to set target dates for becoming carbon neutral – reducing the carbon emissions from their heating, cooling, electrical, and transportation needs as much as possible and then buying carbon offsets to complete the task. A little more than two years later, 614 colleges and universities in all 50 states have made the commitment. They represent about one-third of the student body at colleges and universities in the United States. ...


At my frat we pump our own kegs!

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Tue, Mar 10, 2009
from WCSH6 (ME):
Shapleigh Passes Ordinance To Protect Groundwater
The town of Shapleigh voted Saturday to pass an ordinance that gives the people the right to control the water resources in town. Under the ordinance, groundwater is put in a common trust to be used for the benefit of its residents. The vote was 114 in favor and 66 against. Shapleigh is the first town in Maine to pass such an ordinance. It's a reaction to Poland Spring's interest in extracting town groundwater. ...


I'll drink from my recycled bottle to the rights of nature!

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Mon, Mar 9, 2009
from Forbes:
Small-scale, cheap solar
BURLINGAME, CALIF.--Imagine a solar panel as affordable as a fancy new bicycle. A panel designed so simply that you can install one (or more) yourself, just outside your windows, in the course of an afternoon. That's the concept behind Oakland, Calif.-based Veranda Solar, a start-up founded last year by Capra J'neva and Emilie Fetscher, recent graduates of the product design program at Stanford University. J'neva and Fetscher dreamed up attractive, flower-shaped solar panels as part of their master's project at the design school. "We created a starter solar system that expands as your budget does," J'neva says. Their plan is to sell Veranda panels at roughly $600 each later this year, provided it raises more funding. The panels snap together, so people will be able to buy just one to start and add more later on if they like. The solar inverter, which converts the direct current (DC) electricity from the panels to alternating current (AC) electricity that can be used in the electric grid, plugs right into a wall socket. ...


Every house a generator -- every human a king.

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