On Friday a group of government officials, environmentalists, and local bigwigs gathered in the coastal town of Squamish, British Columbia, about an hour north of Vancouver, to mark the onset of what could one day be a new industry: creating carbon-neutral transportation fuel made from carbon dioxide captured from air.
Although progress has been made in limiting carbon emissions in some countries, particularly in Europe and North America, it’s clear that finding ways to capture carbon dioxide from smokestacks—or from the atmosphere—is becoming increasingly imperative. Available systems dramatically increase the cost of electricity from plants equipped with the technology. And what to do with all that carbon dioxide after it’s separated remains problematic.
ArcelorMittal — the world’s largest steel company — produced 93.1 million tons of steel in 2014, generating a problematic amount of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. But now, the company is launching a pilot scheme at their Ghent plant in partnership with bioengineering organization LanzaTech, which will convert this waste product into useful ethanol, using a microbe originally found in rabbits’ guts.
A new method for taking carbon dioxide directly from the air and converting it to oxygen and nanoscale fibers made of carbon could lead to an inexpensive way to make a valuable building material—and may even serve as a weapon against climate change.
Le développement de l'écoute en streaming des films/musiques et du téléchargement a considérablement réduit l'utilisation des CD et DVD. La part grandissante de ces supports destinée à être recyclée ou stockée dans des décharges a donc augmenté en proportion. Ces déchets pourraient bientôt contribuer à réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre grâce aux travaux de chercheurs polonais publiés récemment [1].
Denmark is looking into how the country can stop using coal as an energy supply by 2025, the Climate and Energy Minister Rasmus Helveg Petersen said on Wednesday (29 October). The Scandinavian country's centre-left government had previously aimed at being coal-independent by 2030.
Petersen said he has asked government officials to look into what Denmark can do in order to phase out the use of coal already in ten years time.
¿Cómo calculan, reducen y compensan las instituciones y los órganos de la UE sus emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero? El nexo adjunto permite acceder al informe:
A team of scholars at Paris Dauphine University has proposed an international carbon trading system, whereby countries with the highest average CO2 emissions pay the most. A simple, yet ambitious scheme that hinges upon cooperation from the world's largest emitter, China. EurActiv France reports.
A Norwegian cement factory has shown that it’s able to capture much of its own carbon dioxide. If the approach were to become widespread, it could have a significant impact, since cement production is responsible for more than 5 percent of all man-made carbon dioxide emissions.
The Norcem Brevik cement works, tucked into a scenic harbor south of Oslo, has used waste heat to drive a process called amine scrubbing that, at test scales, removed between 30 and 40 percent of the total emissions from the plant’s flue gases.
To impede climate change, scientific studies suggest, billions of tons of carbon dioxide need to be captured from hundreds of fossil-fuel power plants in the next few decades—and as soon as possible. Without large-scale carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), other measures—including rollouts of renewable and nuclear power—will not avert catastrophic climate effects in the coming century and beyond (see “The Carbon Capture Conundrum”).
