Chronicling their experiments in the journal Nano Letters, team leader Craig Grimes describes an array of nanotubes that were coated with catalyst layers of platinum and/or copper, then stuck in a stainless steel chamber with some CO2-loaded water vapor and placed in the sun. After a few hours, the catalyst had turned some of the carbon dioxide into methane.

Similar transformations have been accomplished before using ultraviolet light in labs, but had produced much lower methane levels. According to an announcement made by the university, Grimes thinks his process “can readily be improved by several orders of magnitude, which could make the process economically feasible.”

Doing that might involve attaching solar condensers to a source of concentrated CO2 — like power plants that burn fossil fuels to make electricity. Grimes goes further, adding, “Then maybe we could figure out how to capture and reuse the CO2 in our vehicles and none of it would go back into the atmosphere.”

Further research, it goes without saying, is needed — but the team believes drastic improvements on current results are within reach.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Scientists have new evidence of global warming and the perils it poses to millions of people around the world.

A study released this week by International Polar Year 2007-2008 reports that glaciers in Antarctica are melting faster than expected and the thaw is occurring in a much larger area than originally believed.

The melting icecaps are contributing to rising ocean levels that threaten communities in coastal areas worldwide.

The Pine Island Glacier, the biggest in Antarctica, has moved 40 percent faster toward the sea since the 1970s and Smith Glacier is moving 83 percent quicker than 15 years ago, according to International Polar Year scientist David Hik.

“The loss of ice is pretty spectacular,” Dr. Hik, a professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, told Bloomberg News. “The effects of warming are going to be global.

“What happens at the poles will influence all parts of the planet and it’s very evident that we can see rapid changes in sea level associated with changes in the Arctic and Antarctic,” Dr. Hik said.

A major study on global warming released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change two years ago predicted a rise in sea levels of 7 to 23 inches by the end of the century. But the IPY study suggests that sea levels could actually rise about 4 to 8 inches above that.

The IPY study also found pools of carbon stored as methane in the melting polar permafrost;  the release of methane into the atmosphere contributes to global warming.

The IPY study was an effort by thousands of scientists from more than 60 countries to study Arctic and Antarctic conditions over the past two years.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

In the quest to ween cars and trucks off oil, alternative-fuel schemes may be heading for a roadblock they haven’t fully considered: water.

Public discussions of alternative fuels have rarely if ever touched on how much water might be needed to

produce such fuel on a large scale. But researchers in Texas warn that it may be much more than you’d expect.

Their study, published in the latest issue of Environmental Science & Technology analyzed two kinds of water usage: water that is withdrawn (”water that is taken from a surface water or groundwater source, used in a process, and given back from whence it came”) and that which is consumed (”taken from surface water or groundwater source and not directly returned”).

They compared fossil-fuel use to hydrogen, electricity, and two biofuels to find how much water was used per gallon traveled, and came to a discouraging conclusion: “Fuels more directly derived from fossil fuels are less water intensive than those derived either indirectly from fossil fuels (e.g., through electricity generation) or directly from biomass.” In fact, hydrogen and electric cars in their study that relied on the U.S. grid “withdraw five to 20 times and consume nearly two to five times more water” than cars running on gasoline.

Some alternative fuels did perform comparably to conventional ones, though: biofuels that were produced without irrigation, hydrogen derived from methane, and electricity produced by certain renewable means that don’t involve steam.

The study’s authors Carey W. King and Michael E. Webber are with the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin.

Copyright © 2008 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

We’re already used to worrying about at least one set of issues when it comes to melting caused by global warming: that water entering oceans from disintegrating arctic ice may cause sea levels to rise worldwide.

Now scientists suggest that another sort of melting could not only be caused by climate change, but could in itself accelerate it. At issue is not polar icecaps but permafrost, the frozen ground found in the far north.

There, organic matter is normally held in a state of very slow decay, with carbon kept out of the atmosphere for much longer periods than it would be otherwise. But as this ground thaws, as this University of Florida article puts it, “bacteria and fungi break down carbon contained in this organic matter much more quickly, releasing it to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide or methane, both greenhouse gases.”

The article summarizes a paper in the journal BioScience in which scientists led by Florida ecologist Ted Schurr show that factoring in carbon held deep within permafrost “more than doubles previous high-latitude [carbon] inventory estimates.”

While all of this carbon doesn’t simply enter the atmosphere at once when the ground melts, Schurr has estimated that the tonnage of carbon dioxide being released each year could eventually grow to around an eighth of the amount currently produced by burning fossil fuels. (Of course, thawing ground means more space for trees to grow, pulling CO2 from the air, but Schurr notes that a new forest on previously frozen ground couldn’t hold anywhere near the amount of carbon currently being stored by the permafrost.)

Another report this week amplifies the Florida team’s concerns, focusing on vast reserves of methane that may now be escaping after being held under ice and permafrost since the last Ice Age.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Nearly 20 years ago, a magical substance called Beano was introduced that negated an age-old dietary reality: If you took it with a meal, you could eat all the beans (or other troublesome foods) you wanted without worrying about having gas when you left the dinner table.

Beano might mostly be used to avoid social embarrassment, but now a team of scientists is applying a similar concept toward a much higher goal: combating global warming. Biotech scientists from Australia and New Zealand are working at Gramina to produce a special grass that will reduce the amount of methane cows burp up after eating it. (They believe the new variety also will be better at growing in hot climates.)

Methane, a greenhouse gas, is said to account for around 14% of contributions to global warming, and a single dairy cow can produce 550-700 liters of the stuff each day. (Whew!) By suppressing the development of an enzyme in grass, the team is making it more easily digestible to cows, reducing the methane that results as a byproduct of breaking down cellulose.

As with many mad-scientist notions, though, this new effort may not work out exactly as advertised. Some scientists not involved with the team have suggested that, due to chemical reactions in the cow’s gut, total methane emissions could actually increase instead — though they acknowledge that the same factors could make cows more productive, meaning that the milk/methane ratio for cows might still improve.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media