ApocaDocuments (8) for the "Recovery" scenario from this week
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Sun, Jul 4, 2010
from New York Times:
Could Crystals Sponge Up the Carbon?
As a climate change prevention strategy, carbon capture and storage is nowhere near ready for prime time. On the storage side of the equation, major questions remain on how and where to sequester the billions of tons of gas produced by power plants and industry every year. Another stumbling block, known as the parasitic energy cost, is the amount of energy needed to strip carbon out of power plant emissions. Carbon capture technologies being tested today, like amine scrubbing, exact an energy penalty as high as 30 percent, a vast and perhaps untenable expense to utilities and society.
Yet a breakthrough in chemistry may be able to radically reduce the cost of stripping carbon from power plant emissions, potentially making carbon capture and storage a far more realistic climate change solution. That is the hope, at least, of researchers studying a remarkable class of materials called metal-organic frameworks.... A single gram, unfolded and flattened, could cover a football field. And most promisingly, these crystals can be adjusted to absorb specific molecules like carbon dioxide.... "We think we can modify the surface so it will cause just the carbon dioxide to stick," Dr. Long said in an interview. "It would be a sort of carbon-dioxide selective sponge." ...
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Crystals already balanced my aura, so I'm not surprised.
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Sat, Jul 3, 2010
from SolveClimate:
IEA: $46 Trillion Roadmap for Halving Global Emissions a "Bargain"
Memo to the planet from the International Energy Agency: Buckle down and speed up the nascent low-carbon revolution.
Top thinkers from the energy watchdog presented an ambitious 40-year pathway to halve the world's carbon emissions during a Thursday rollout at the National Press Club.
Indeed, weaning the globe of its fossil fuel dependency will require ingenuity, cooperation and tens of trillions of dollars. But IEA maintains that bumping up investments in renewables, nuclear power and a smart electric grid, and perfecting technologies such as carbon sequestration are the most reasonable and reachable course available to keep Earth's temperature stable and arrest the severe impacts climate scientists agree are imminent--and already occurring.... In addition, the plan counts on the rather rapid maturation of a technology still in the test phases--carbon capture and sequestration.
The catch is that IEA's proposal calls for constructing 30 new nuclear plants and outfitting 35 coal-fired plants with the technology to capture carbon emissions and bury them underground every year through 2050. ...
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Some days these "all it would take to save the world is..." stories are the saddest of all.
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Fri, Jul 2, 2010
from Guardian:
Green tech investment surges
Global venture capital investment in green technology companies reached $4.04 billion in the first half of 2010, exceeding -- slightly -- the record set in the boom year of 2008, according to a preliminary report released Thursday by the Cleantech Group and Deloitte.
Venture investment in the second quarter rose to $2.02 billion, up 43 percent from the year-ago quarter. Investments in the first half of the year spiked 65 percent from the same period in 2009.
"There's been a very clear resurgence in solar activity and that is largely responsible for the strong quarter," Richard Youngman, the Cleantech Group's head of global research, said on a conference call Thursday.... Despite the recession, corporate America poured a record $5.1 billion into green tech companies in the first half of 2010, a 325 percent increase from a year ago. ...
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If it's not green, isn't it, well, rotting?
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Thu, Jul 1, 2010
from SciDev.net:
Algae trials test 'wonder food' status of spirulina
A blue-green algae rich in protein could help curb global malnutrition if a US$1.7 million cultivation project in Chad -- due to end in December -- proves successful.
Dubbed a "miracle food" this cyanobacterium -- known as spirulina -- has been eaten around the world for centuries.
Analyses by industry and university laboratories reveal that almost 70 per cent of its dry weight is protein. It also has a small environmental footprint, needs little water, and can be cultivated in salty conditions harmful to other crops.... "It might seem bitter at first, but you get used to it," said Hereta Taher, a spirulina grower from Chad. Another reason could be the lack of political interest.
In Chad people drive up to six hours to buy spirulina 'cakes' from more than 1,500 women involved in its cultivation. Ousmane Issa Mara, a village chief in the north of Kanem region said the food is a miracle, giving energy and restoring appetites. ...
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Soylent Blue-green is..... ALGAE!
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Wed, Jun 30, 2010
from PhysOrg:
Nutrients, viruses and the biological carbon pump
Adding nutrients to the sea could decrease viral infection rates among phytoplankton and enhance the efficiency of the biological pump, a means by which carbon is transferred from the atmosphere to the deep ocean, according to a new mathematical modelling study. The findings, published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, have implications for ocean geo-engineering schemes proposed for tackling global warming.
Tiny free-floating algae called phytoplankton dominate biological production in the world's oceans and sit at the base of the marine food web. Their population dynamics are controlled by sunlight, nutrient availability, grazing by tiny planktonic animals (zooplankton) and mortality caused by viral infection.
"Viruses are the most abundant organism in the world's oceans, and it is thought that all phytoplankton species are susceptible to infection. Our aim was to model the interaction between viruses, phytoplankton, zooplankton grazing and nutrient levels".... The researchers took an 'eco-epidemic' modelling approach, taking into account the mutual interaction between the effects of ecology and disease epidemiology. This approach has been used previously to model the effects of infection by pathogens on the population dynamics of mammals and invertebrate animals.... Artificial enhancement of the biological carbon pump by fertilizing the oceans with nutrients has been proposed as a possible geo-engineering 'fix' for global warming caused by the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide from anthropogenic sources.
"The decrease in viral infection rates caused by artificially adding nutrients to the sea could in the future benefit humans by increasing the efficiency of the biological carbon pump, making these proposed ocean geo-engineering schemes more viable," said Dr Rhodes. ...
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As far as I know, extra nutrients never caused any problems anywhere else.
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Wed, Jun 30, 2010
from AIP, via EurekAlert:
Study shows stability and utility of floating wind turbines
Wind turbines may be one of the best renewable energy solutions, but as turbines get larger they also get noisier, become more of an eyesore, and require increasingly larger expanses of land. One solution: ocean-based wind turbines. While offshore turbines already have been constructed, they've traditionally been situated in shallow waters, where the tower extends directly into the seabed. That restricts the turbines to near-shore waters with depths no greater than 50 meters -- and precludes their use in deeper waters, where winds generally gust at higher speeds.
An alternative is placing turbines on floating platforms, says naval architect Dominique Roddier of Berkeley, California-based Marine Innovation & Technology. He and his and colleagues have published a feasibility study of one platform design -- dubbed "WindFloat" -- in the latest issue of the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy... By testing a 1:65 scale model in a wave tank, the researchers show that the three-legged floating platform, which is based on existing gas and oil offshore platform designs, is stable enough to support a 5-megawatt wind turbine, the largest turbine that currently exists. These mammoth turbines are 70 meters tall and have rotors the size of a football field. Just one, Roddier says, produces enough energy "to support a small town." ...
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But I heard that small towns were dying.
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Mon, Jun 28, 2010
from ApocaDocs:
PANIQuiz for June 21-27 available
What are Vietnamese seafood companies doing in response to the shrimp shortage? Eminent Australian scientist Frank Fenner predicts humans will go extinct how soon? For May 2010, where were the global temperature anomalies mostly found? How much faster than the rate of recharge is Texas using the Ogallala Aquifer? ...
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I wish you'd stop joking about this stuff. It's serious!
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Mon, Jun 28, 2010
from SciDev.net:
Potato battery could help meet rural energy needs
The holy grail of renewable energy research may lie in the cooking pot, according to scientists.
The search for a cheap source of electricity for remote, off-grid communities, has led to batteries that work on freshly boiled potatoes.
One slice of potato can generate 20 hours of light, and several slices could provide enough energy to power simple medical equipment and even a low-power computer, said a research team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. "The technology is ready to go," co-researcher Haim Rabinowitch told SciDev.Net. "It should take an interested body only a short while, and very little investment, to make this available to communities in need." ... The device had the same basic components as conventional batteries, consisting of two electrodes separated by an electrolyte (the potato). Each battery powered a small light for 20 hours, after which a new slice could be inserted.... Potato batteries are estimated to generate energy at a cost of approximately US$9 per kilowatt hour (kW/h), which compares favourably with the best performing 1.5 volt (AA) alkaline cells -- or D cells -- which generate energy at US$50/kWh. ...
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I'm not seein' the percentage in it.
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