Making Biofuels From Carbon Dioxide Gas

Remember the old nursery rhyme about the girl who was forced to spin straw into gold? It was called Rumpelstiltskin.

Well, the same sort of thing may soon happen in the real world. Scientists are getting closer to making biofuels from carbon dioxide gas. When you think about it, this would be a fantastic scientific breakthrough, turning the very thing that threatens the air we breathe into something that helps us breathe better.

Scientists at two US universities (Georgia and North Carolina State) report that they have created a microorganism that will absorb carbon dioxide and turn it into something useful.

According to one of the scientists, “What this discovery means is that we can remove plants as the middleman. We can take carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere and turn it into useful products like fuels and chemicals.”

Not to sound cynical, but one has to wonder whether this new discovery will be commercially applied anytime soon. A lot of energy companies have a lot of money tied up in finding oil and refining it into gasoline. They could see this new discovery as a threat to their businesses.

What do you think?

Do You Want to be Taught that Global Warming Caused by Humans?

After years of nasty political debate over whether global warming is caused by human actions, America’s leading scientists and science teachers have developed a curriculum for teaching about global warming that is expected to be adopted by a majority of US states.

The Next Generation Science Standards will teach that, as nearly all scientists now believe, global warming is indeed caused by human activities. The standards were developed with the help of some 26 states, and another 15 or so have said they may use the new lessons in their schools.

At the moment, then, kids in 10 or so states won’t be taught the new curriculum.

Since you follow Earth Preservers, this is probably an easy question to answer, but we’ll ask it just the same:

Do you want want to be taught the new scientific curriculum that says global warming has human-related causes?

View poll on GoPollGo

How a Pot of Boiling Water Explains Sandy’s Connection to Climate Change

Hurricane Sandy, October 30, 2012

The connection between climate change and Superstorm Sandy can be explained by thinking about a pot of boiling water.

 First, the water in the pot heats up, just like it has been in the Atlantic Ocean off the Mid Atlantic coast of the United States. This causes the sea level to rise so that, when bad weather strikes, the storm surge is greater.

Second, just as boiling water in a pot evaporates into the air, warmer ocean water increases the moisture in the atmosphere. The more moisture there is in the atmosphere, the more rain that will fall when a bad storm hits, raising the risk of flooding.

But while numerous scientists quoted in the media in the aftermath of Sandy said it’s very likely that climate change made Superstorm Sandy worse than it would have been, they did not think the storm was caused by climate change.

That was Mother Nature’s fault, scientists said. The track that Sandy took also was Mother Nature’s doing. Normally, a big storm like Sandy would have been driven away from, not into, the New York area by prevailing wind currents.

The website Think Progress has an excellent article about climate change’s connection to Superstorm Sandy that we recommend you tell your teacher about.  

There’s also this recent Earth Preservers article about a report on climate change from a big international banking firm called Deutsche Bank Group. Read the report and you’ll be on the road to becoming an expert on the subject. You’ll find it here.

Deutsche Bank’s Report = Clearest Explanation for Why Climate Change Real

This week’s top news story has been hiding in plain sight on the Internet for two years.

Even so, a September, 2010 report from Deutsche Bank Group entitled “Climate Change: Addressing the Major Skeptic Arguments,” is big news. In Earth Preservers’ opinion, the report has the potential to be a game-changer because it has the clearest, simplest explanation for why man-made climate change is real.

“(This report’s) clear conclusion is that the primary claims of the skeptics do not undermine the assertion that human-made climate change is already happening and is a serious long term threat.

“To us,” report continues, “the most persuasive argument in support of climate change is that the basic laws of physics dictate that increasing carbon dioxide levels in the earth’s atmosphere produce warming. (This will be the cause irrespective of other climate events.) The only way that warming can be mitigated by natural resources is if there are countervailing ‘feedback mechanisms’, such as cooling from increased cloud cover caused by the changing climate.

“A key finding of the current research is that there has far been no evidence of such countervailing factors. In fact, most observed and anticipated feedback mechanisms are actually working to amplify the warming process, not cool it.”

The report goes on to answer each argument skeptics make in the often rancorous public debate in the US over whether climate change is real, among them:

* Global average temperatures have not risen since 1998

* Climate models are defective and therefore cannot provide reliable projections of future climate trends.

What makes the Deutsche Bank report compelling reading isn’t so much that the information is new. Rather, it’s the way Mark Fulton, Global Head of Climate Change Investment Research, and his team at DB Climate Change Advisors, have presented the information, the source of which is the Columbia Climate Center at the Earth Institute, Columbia University. Each of the skeptics’ arguments is answered simply and directly.

Download the report here.

How a Sponge may Save the World (We’re Not Kidding)

Let’s start with the basics: the Earth’s atmosphere is heating up and most scientists think this is due to an increase in greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2).

 Burning fossil fuels, especially coal, releases CO2. Countries and companies are working to “capture” the CO2 they generate before it gets into the atmosphere and burying it underground. But if and when so-called “carbon capture and sequestration” technology is perfected, it will cost a lot to put into practice. All of us will have to pay more for our electricity and for all kinds of stuff made in factories.

 Now for the good news – make that the really good news: Scientists in Great Britain have developed a material that absorbs and retains CO2 like a sponge absorbs and retains water.

This “sponge” is made out of a kind of metal which, like an actual sponge, is full of holes on the inside. The material itself isn’t new. What is new is that the scientists appear to have figured out how to direct the material to absorb only CO2.

According to the website Forum for the Future, carbon-capture scientist Hongcai Zhou at Texas A&M University believes that, “The potential scope of (this) research is enormous.” A chemist at the University of California at Berkeley reportedly believes the sponge could become a “low-cost, low-energy” way to capture CO2.

While it would be nice if this sponge were ready to go right now, the success the scientists have had in their laboratory still must be demonstrated in the real world. Often the most promising scientific discoveries fail to achieve lift-off when to put the test.

Here’s hoping the world will soon have a new superhero – the “Carbon-Capturing Sponge.”

To learn more, read this Forum for the Future article.