Category Archives: Carbon

Coal Is Really Dirty

Burn Coal – release arsenic, mercury, radioactive particles, and carbon – lots of carbon.  Here’s how the National Resources Defense Council, NRDC, describes it:  Coal is Dirty and Dangerous

Coal is America’s dirtiest energy source — and the country’s leading source of global warming pollution.

Coal mining destroys land, pollutes thousands of miles of streams and brings massive environmental damage to mountain communities.

… produces dirty air, acid rain and contaminated land and water … childhood asthma, birth defects and respiratory diseases that take nearly 25,000 lives each year.

“Coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet.” – James Hansen, NASA’s top climate scientistThere are far cleaner and cheaper ways to meet America’s energy needs. Yet industry apologists are spending millions of dollars to block clean energy solutions and persuade Americans that they can keep using coal without the consequences.

…

Green technologies and renewable fuels will create millions of good-paying jobs, … reduce dangerous pollution and help fight global warming.

Breakthrough In Methane Research

Dr Graeme Attwood is leading a team of scientists in New Zealand’s Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium are looking at ways of reducing the amount of methane farm animals produce – which in New Zealand accounts for 32 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions.

The scientists are looking at Methanobrevibacter Ruminantium, a member of a major group of rumen methanogens, which use hydrogen and carbon dioxide to form methane. The existence of these methanogens, bacteria which synthesize methane from carbon dioxide, CO2, and hydrogen, H2, means that these bacteria “eat” carbon dioxide, and hydrogen, turning them into methane, CH4 , and oxygen, O2.

CO2 + 2 H2, -> CH4 + O2

Continue reading →