By John DeFore
Green Right Now
File this under Sounds Too Good To Be True: Researchers using nanomaterials at Penn State are experimenting with a device that changes carbon dioxide into methane that can be used as transportation fuel.
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.
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Antarctica melting faster than expected
By Marice Richter
Green Right Now
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.
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Tags: · Antarctica, Carbon, Climate Change, global warming, International Polar Year, Methane
Alternative fuels may strain water supply
By John DeFore
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.
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Tags: · Alternative fuels, Biofuels, biomass, Electric Cars, Hydrogen, Methane
Melting permafrost will release more carbon
September 26th, 2008 · No Comments
By John DeFore
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.
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Tags: · Arctic, Carbon, Methane, permafrost, University of Florida
Stopping Gas Inflation
By John DeFore
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 [...]
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Tags: · Gas Prices, Gramina, Methane
