Global CCS Institute

Capturing carbon from the air? Economics make it a non-starter, says blunt U.S. physics report | Global CCS Institute

There has been tantalizing, if very early, progress in the technology of capturing CO2directly from the atmosphere. If such “air capture” could be done economically, developers of the technology imagine it could radically lower the costs and complexity of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).

But a recent study has cast serious doubts that such an approach could ever be economically viable.

First, a reminder of how air capture could simplify the development of carbon capture infrastructure. As now envisioned, most CCS regimes would require power plants to capture emissions at or before the smokestack, then pipe the CO2 some distance to regions with the right geology to entomb the greenhouse gas.

Building the pipeline system to transport these gases within North America, an industry insider once explained to me, could be comparable in scale and cost to the construction of the grid of natural gas pipelines that criss-cross the continent, and that have taken most of a century to build.

Air capture could do away with much of that costly network. Whether CO2 is captured at the source, a mile away, or on the other side of the planet, it doesn’t matter to the atmosphere where the CO2 is extracted, so long as the same amount, or more, is removed.

This would make it possible to site CO2 injection operations directly on top of the best geological sites. It could also simplify the CCS challenge in more populated regions, where zoning complexities, property costs, and public anxieties might make local sequestration operations a headache.

A handful of companies are developing early-stage business models headed toward the goal of air capture. Here in New York City, Global Research Technologies (GRT) is working to commercialize “carbon trees” based on a proprietary material being developed at Columbia University that mops up CO2 from ambient air. (For more on the technology, I profiled GRT’s plans over at NRDC’s OnEarth, here.)

Promising as it sounds, there’s a twist. Surveying the carbon balances behind air capture, a panel at the American Physical Society (APS) in May issued an unusually blunt rejection of the viability of such systems in a report entitled Direct Air Capture of CO2 with Chemicals.

The report’s criticism focuses not on the technical viability of direct air capture (DAC) of CO2, but on the peculiar catch-22 carbon balance that powering any such systems would put in motion.

In short, DAC systems would have to be powered by low-carbon energy sources such as renewables. But in any scenario where there are still higher-carbon power plants on the grid, there’s a bigger benefit to simply using the low-carbon energy sources to replace the higher-carbon power plants and hold off on the DAC systems. In other words, DAC doesn’t make sense until big CO2 emitters are virtually eliminated from the globe’s power plant mix.

Here’s how the authors put it…

…[ DAC] is not currently an economically viable approach to mitigating climate change. Any commercially interesting DAC system would require significantly lower avoided CO2costs…. In a world that still has centralized sources of carbon emissions, any future deployment that relies on low-carbon energy sources for powering DAC would usually be less cost-effective than simply using the low-carbon energy to displace those centralized carbon sources. Thus, coherent CO2 mitigation postpones deployment of DAC until large, centralized CO2 sources have been nearly eliminated on a global scale…

As I read it, the report shouldn’t derail research into DAC technologies per se. Given the alarming momentum of CO2 growth in the atmosphere, such tools are potentially powerful aides for the long-term carbon reduction. But the findings should remove the idea that DAC offers a short cut—along with geo-engineering—that could allow humans to continue emitting, business-as-usual, in the hopes that a future, far-off technology will solve the problem of atmospheric CO2 buildup.

“This report provides no support for arguments in favor of delay in dealing with climate change that are based on the availability of DAC as a compensating strategy,” concludes its authors, among whom is Princeton University’s Robert Socolow. Along with Stephen Pacala, Socolow co-authored the hugely influential “carbon wedges” analysis of the climate change challenge.

As Bill Sweet succinctly puts it over at IEEE Spectrum’s EnergyWise blog, the APS report “will take atmospheric capture of carbon off the policy agenda. This means, together with the collapse of an anticipated nuclear renaissance, that coming to terms with climate change will be more challenging than ever.”

Download a copy of the American Physical Society paper evaluation here, as a PDF.

Read the original here:  http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/community/blogs/authors/adamaston/2011/06/07/capturing-carbon-air-economics-make-it-non-starter-says

 

Global CCS Institute

New Jersey pulls out of multi-state greenhouse gas trading regime – signs of 2012 election? | Global CCS Institute

In what could prove to be an early signal of carbon policy dynamics in the 2012 presidential race, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the sole multi-state, cap-and-trade program operating in the U.S., was dealt a setback when the governor of New Jersey announced plans to exit the program late last month.

Against a backdrop of record fiscal deficits, New Jersey’s Republican Gov. Chris Christie announced plans to end the state’s participation in the two-year old program, calling it a gimmicky and costly failure.  The move culminated months of political pressure from Republican state legislators as well as campaigns sponsored by conservative national groups to exit the program.

This is not a deathblow to the program but the withdrawal of the second largest state economy in RGGI—pronounced like Reggie—hurts momentum to build low-carbon energy technologies, from renewables to carbon capture and storage (CCS) pilots.  If the governor’s decision survives anticipated legal challenges, it could set a precedent for others. Earlier in May, legislators in three other states rejected bills to pull those states out of the 10-state program too.

RGGI’s ten members, prior to New Jersey’s exit, are shown in dark green. Observer states and provinces are in lime.

As a policy experiment, RGGI was heralded as a potential template for the development a nation-wide carbon cap and trade program, and as such has emerged as a key target for opponents of climate change policy. If the program derails, green energy funding would suffer, too. To date, RGGI has conducted 11 quarterly auctions that have raised nearly $861 million from sales of carbon allowances. According to RGGI data, almost two thirds of the proceeds have been steered to fund energy efficiency and alternative energy technologies.

In the national context, Gov. Christie’s move provides a snapshot of the paradoxical politics of climate change in the U.S. at the moment. While announcing plans to exit the carbon-trading program, the governor simultaneously reversed an earlier position doubting the science behind global warming.
At the RGGI news conference, Christie also pledged to maintain the state’s commitment to renewables, to support the build out of more solar and offshore wind energy, while also pledging to prevent the construction of any new coal-fired power plans in his state. In early June, however, Christie slashed the state’s goal to develop renewable sources of electric power. From a minimum of 30% of all supply by 2021 — one of the most ambitious in the nation — the governor wants to aim for 22.5%, calling the new target more “achievable”.

The governor also released a report saying the state’s emissions had already fallen below goals for 2020, but discounted RGGI’s role in the shift. Quoted by Christa Marshall of ClimateWireNews, Christie said:

“We remain completely committed to the idea that we have a responsibility to make the environment of our state and world better,” Christie said. “We’re not going to do it by participating in gimmicky programs that don’t work.” He said New Jersey would depart RGGI by the end of the year.

“Reduced emissions have been due to increased use of natural gas, and the decreased use of coal. We’re seeing that the market, and not RGGI, has created incentives to reduce the use of carbon-based fuels,” Christie added.

Christie’s decision highlights the dramatic shift in the politics of climate in the Republican Party over the past decade. Keep in mind that RGGI was first championed by George Pataki, top Republican governor of New York in the early 2000s. That was a time, barely a decade ago, when Senator and eventual Republican presidential nominee John McCain also backed climate policy.

A decade later Christie, who has repeatedly denied any intention to run for president, is a darling of the Republican punditry.  And of the few Republican candidates who have officially declared a bid to seek the presidency, Mitt Romney also withdrew from RGGI while he was governor of Massachusetts—although it was before trading had begun and the state later re-joined.

Gov. Christie’s move was not a surprise. An early sign that New Jersey may pull our of RGGI came last year when, like a handful of other governors of deficit-strapped RGGI member states, Gov. Christie redirected $65 million raised from auctions of carbon credits for use in the general ledger.

All that said, RGGI continues to operate, with its next quarterly auction dated June 8. Nine states remain active in the trading pool. These are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. Pennsylvania acts as an “observer”, along with three Canadian provinces along the U.S. north-eastern border: Québec, New Brunswick, and Ontario.

It’s worth noting there are two other multi-state climate initiatives in North America. Both are less evolved than RGGI and both face similarly rocky political prospects. They are:

  1. Western Climate Initiative, which includes 11 U.S. and Canadian regions, is larger than RGGI and is slated to come on line in 2015. Its goal: to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 15% by 2020, from a 2005 base.
  2. Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Accord includes six more heavily industrialized U.S. states and one Canadian province, but is the least evolved of the three.

Check out the original post here: http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/community/blogs/authors/adamaston/2011/06/06/new-jersey-pulls-out-multi-state-greenhouse-gas-trading

GreenBiz

UPS Boosts Mileage 40% with Prototype Plastic Delivery Vans | GreenBiz

UPS Boosts Mileage 40% with Prototype Plastic Delivery Vans

United Parcel Service is rolling out a prototype delivery van that gets 40 percent better mileage than its familiar big, brown boxy predecessor.

The twist here is less high tech than you might guess: It’s not a new recipe for electric batteries or some new exotic fuel. Rather, to deliver big fuel savings, UPS put one of its standard package vans on a strict weight loss program.

By replacing aluminum sheet body panels with rugged, lightweight ABS plastic, UPS engineers have lowered fuel consumption by about 40 percent. Using less sheet metal cut the truck’s weight so much that UPS could then opt for a smaller, lighter engine, saving still more weight. All together, the changes have carved off 1,000 pounds, or about 10 percent, from the weight from the original 5-ton truck design, says Dale Spencer, UPS’ director of automotive engineering.

Five of the slim-line trucks are going through a trial-by-fire at a mix of urban, suburban and rural facilities across the country. The design, known as CV-23 among UPS’ engineers, was created in collaboration with diesel engine-provider Isuzu and Wakarusa, Ind.-based Utilimaster, which executed the composite body makeover.

The design team approached the makeover holistically, examining how one change affected others. For example, switching all of the vehicle’s lights — except headlamps — to efficient LEDs further cut demands on the engine. In the final design a 150-horsepower, four-cylinder diesel with a six-speed transmission was able to replace the 200-horsepower power plant used in the older design.

The plastic body panels also offer maintenance savings. Rather than coating them with a layer of brown paint, the composite material is colored all the way through. This saves the weight of paint — which can be 100 pounds or more — but also hides minor scratches and dings. In today’s trucks, if a ding exposes underlying metal, the truck requires a costly trip to the touch-up shop.

And if damage is worse than a ding, the panels are easy to swap out. In the case of a serious dent, current metal-body trucks would need a shop visit, to either patch or replace the damaged body panel. The CV-23 can avoid many of these service calls. Its panels are designed to snap on easily and are light enough to be stored in the garage for a quick makeover…

Continue reading at greenbiz.com

 

environment:YALE

Challenging a Landmark Theory of Biodiversity | environment:YALE

By Adam Aston

What does a court full of towering collegiate basketball players have in common with a forest full of vertiginous trees?

For legions of basketball fans, the answer may not go beyond height. But for ecologists who study species dynamics, the answer promises to alter our understanding of the success of species. It could also help better guide how conservation is practiced in an era of fast-multiplying extinctions.

In a study published on March 9 in PLoS ONE, a team of four ecologists at F&ES outlined a connection between basketball and ecology that is, at first glance, deceptively simple. They concluded that the pattern of wins and losses by basketball teams is essentially identical to how species flourish or fail in nature.

Straightforward as these similar distribution patterns may seem, the findings bring into question a landmark theory of species dynamics known as the unified neutral theory of biodiversity.

Developed in recent decades, neutral theory offers ecologists a tantalizingly powerful tool. As a statistical approach, it suggests that for any species—from trees to fish to microbes—patterns of diversity can be modeled solely on the basis of random fluctuations in births, deaths and new arrivals of species rather than on particular traits.

For many ecologists, the implications are jarring. By this reasoning, competitive aspects—whether drought tolerance in trees or poisonous glands in frogs—have little to do with a species’ long-term success relative to its competitors.

As a test of neutral theory, however, the basketball study proves otherwise, says Robert Warren, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at F&ES. “Some scientists say that the theory of survival of the fittest predicts which species are abundant; some say it is just random,” says Warren.

Scientists cannot assume that because “a mathematical model is simple, the underlying processes are simple,” says Warren. “This assumption is where unified neutral theory becomes problematic.”

To understand the allure of the neutral theory of biodiversity, it’s helpful to take a step back. Compared with physics or math, ecology has relatively few grand unified theories—as yet, there’s no E = MC2 to describe species dynamics.

Unlike more theoretical, mathematical sciences or experiment-based laboratory studies, field biology is messy. Collecting observational data on flora and fauna in their habitats is painstaking. And the data sets from studying trees for decades, for example, are relatively small.

The upshot is that sweeping laws are notoriously difficult to make foolproof in ecology and, so, are rare.

The best-known example of such an insight is, of course, Charles Darwin’s quest to develop and refine his theories of natural selection to explain the process and history of the evolution of species that he observed in a mix of living animals and related fossil records.

In 1859, following decades of observation, he noted that “… rarity is the attribute of vast numbers of species in all classes …” in his landmark On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

That’s why, in 2001, when ecologist Stephen Hubbell published a statistical explanation of the diversity and relative abundance of species in ecological communities, it caused such a stir.

Using statistical methods to assess tree populations in a tropical forest, Hubbell suggested that biodiversity derives from randomness more than from species-by-species attributes.

Put another way, variables such as species dominance, food supply, climate or competition can be treated as neutral, or ignored, in predicting a species’ success. For its methodological elegance, Hubbell’s 2001 book, The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography, changed the paradigm for the way ecologists modeled ecosystems.

“It had long been assumed that competition and the theory of survival of the fittest created the diversity patterns observed in nature as species evolved unique niches to coexist,” says Warren. “Then unified neutral theory came along; it could explain species abundance as well, or better, than competition models.”

The theory set up a troubling dilemma, however, fueling a debate that has simmered ever since. As correct as the math of Hubbell’s unified neutral theory may be, it suggests that factors ecologists had long toiled to map and understand didn’t matter in the success or failure of a given species.

Ecology is a field where careers can be spent—as Darwin did sailing the seas—in remote study, meticulously assessing the effects of geography, environment or competitors on species. Against this backdrop, the implication of unified neutral theory suggests that, on average, none of these factors matter much more than any other—i.e., they are all neutral.

And while Hubbell didn’t necessarily intend for his study to guide conservation thinking, it nevertheless has big implications there, too.

On one hand, it offered a new tool: since unified theory mathematically combines the study of species abundance and biogeography—or how the distribution of organisms relates to the Earth’s physical features—it offers conservationists a tool to guide the sizing of reserves to harbor the greatest diversity of species.

But on the other hand, if competitive factors are truly neutral, then decisions made by conservation biologists about how best to protect a struggling species could easily be off target or even, at worst, a waste of time and money.

“Neutral theory would say just roll your dice,” says Oswald Schmitz, a co-author and Oastler Professor of Population and Community Ecology at F&ES. “But if there are rules about how species associate themselves on the landscape and there are mechanisms behind the rules, then that has very different management implications than a neutral-theory approach.”

At the middle of this scientific tug of war is the question of randomness.

To model species abundance and distribution, unified neutral theory assumes that the mechanisms that guide success or failure have no pattern.

Yet for Warren and other ecologists who disagree, it’s a vexing challenge to disprove, because identifying the mechanisms that affect a species’ success is so devilishly difficult.

A population of frog species, for example, could grow one year because of good rains but ebb in similar conditions another year because of a blight or the shift to a new region as a result of land use changes. Simply identifying the vast number of mechanisms affecting the frogs’ numbers is a challenge.

Connecting these interrelated factors with effects is even trickier.

What if, Warren wondered, one could identify a population whose mechanisms of competition are well-understood and which also generated population dynamics consistent with neutral-theory methods?

This would prove, a priori, that mechanisms are not neutral. If mechanisms do matter, unified neutral theory would still be useful in describing population dynamics at a high level, but it would be inappropriate to use the theory to devalue the close study of ecological mechanisms in the field.

Enter the basketball test. A native of Indiana, home of Larry Bird and arguably the most basketball-crazed state, Warren considers himself a die-hard basketball fan. The idea for the study came to him one day in North Carolina’s Appalachian mountains, while he was counting seed-carrying ants as part of his research on herbaceous forest plants. Warren realized that the pattern of basketball wins is similar to the distribution curves that underpin unified neutral theory.

Warren isn’t the first ecologist to look to examples beyond biology to test aspects of neutral theory. Other researchers have identified even more eclectic sample groups where much is understood about the underlying dynamics. Stock prices, the occurrence of scientific citations and even set lists for the Cowboy Junkies have all been used to generate species abundance distributions, a core piece of evidence for neutral theory.

Basketball seemed like a particularly ripe prospect to Warren. What you’d need, he figured, is lots of species, and there are hundreds of basketball teams. In his approach, each team is analogous to a species, with each of their wins counting as an individual being born. Losses, therefore, are akin to an individual dying. And because basketball teams play many games each year, over many years, the resulting data set is big enough for solid statistical analysis.

Most of all, though, basketball makes an apt case, because the underlying mechanisms of success and failure are so well-understood by so many. As even casual fans can attest, winning in a season or over many years comes from a combination of strategies. Among dominant teams—such as Duke, North Carolina, UCLA, or this season’s winner, Connecticut—some combination of great coaching and strong recruiting, among other factors, has led to long runs of dominance.

For the statistical trial, Warren crunched won-lost records from 327 NCAA Division I men’s basketball teams, a pool of data covering some 20,000 games spanning 2004 through 2008. It may come as no surprise that, across so many games, the most competitive teams generated many more individuals, or wins.

As he suspected, Warren found that his data pool of winning basketball species produced abundance distributions pretty much identical to those observed in countless ecological communities. For most teams, wins are rare, but for a few they are very common.

In short, if basketball wins are not random, then neither is species success. Conversely, if the logic of unified neutral theory were applied to basketball, “then our findings would suggest that the top seed in the tournament is no more likely to win than the last seed in each bracket,” says Mark Bradford, a co-author and assistant professor of terrestrial ecosystem ecology at F&ES. “We know that’s not true.”

For ecology writ large, the implication of the basketball study isn’t to disprove neutral theory. The study does knock out a cornerstone piece of

evidence, though, says Warren: “We show that a community, in this case college basketball—which is undoubtedly structured by competition—appears random when current methods for assessing biodiversity are used.”

Understanding what drives these dynamics is critical to both explaining species distribution today and guiding species conservation policy.

Reflecting on decades spent studying amphibian ecosystems—searching for causes of an ongoing population decline in frog, toad and related species— Dave Skelly, a co-author and professor of ecology at F&ES, acknowledged that the drive to infer process from pattern is one of science’s greatest animating forces.

Yet that search shouldn’t take away from on-the-ground study of mechanisms affecting species diversity. The hunt for a culprit in amphibian decline, for example, has led researchers to multiple causes. In the tropics, the chief culprit is a fungus. But in North America, most amphibians are immune to the fungus. Here, habitat loss is the greater threat.

“The upshot is that if you tried to ascribe a single cause to all this, you’d get it right in one environment, but dreadfully wrong in others,” says Skelly.

For conservation practices, the stakes for finding the balance are getting higher. In addition to fitting mathematical models to broad biodiversity patterns, “we need to put on our boots and head back to the woods to figure out why some species are common and so many are uncommon,” says Warren.

“Otherwise, we may find ourselves unable to manage species in the face of global environmental change.”

View as a PDF: Environment:YALE magazine – Spring 2011 – Adam Aston

https://resources.environment.yale.edu/magazine/spring2011/college-basketball-study-tests-a-landmark-theory-of-biodiversity/

 

 
Global CCS Institute

Exploring alternative ways to capture carbon using enzymes | Global CCS Institute

CO2 Solution, in Quebec City, Canada is continuing its work to develop biology-based carbon capture technologies with Codexis, based in Redwood City, Calif.

The renewed partnership between CO2 Solution and Codexis, helped pave the way for the duo to establish a collaboration agreement with an unnamed global leader in energy and infrastructure projects. The collaboration agreement covers the development and testing of a pilot scale system for coal-fired power plants.

The process being developed by CO2 Solution and Codexis is adapted from a naturally occurring enzyme, carbonic anhydrase, which occurs in humans and other mammals and plays a crucial role in the transfer of carbon dioxide from out blood streams into the lungs to be released during process.

By adapting the enzyme to work within a heavy-duty reactor that can soak up carbon dioxide from industrial and power plant exhaust, the company has created a sort of “industrial lung”. Once the carbon dioxide is captured, the enzyme also assists in concentrating the gas into a pure stream, so it can be stored underground or used in oil recovery.

According to Codexis, its enzymes are functional and stable in relatively inexpensive and energy-efficient solvents for 24 hours at temperatures up to 75 degrees Celsius. In its natural state, the enzyme doesn’t function at these sorts of temperatures; it must do so to be able to process hot exhaust gases from power plants or factories.

The company anticipates that once its enzymes are fully developed, the solvents can cut the energy needed to capture CO2 within a plant by 30%. This improvement, says Codexis, can help lower the cost burden posed by carbon capture to 35% more than conventional power, a significant improvement over than the 80% premium current processes add.

The newly-extended joint development agreement between CO2 Solution and Codexis now lasts until June 30, 2012, or six months after the expiry of any third-party collaborations, whichever is later.

via globalccsinstitute.com

Global CCS Institute

Could natural gas emissions exceed coal? The case for gas with CCS | Global CCS Institute

Though natural gas extracted from shale is the fastest growing energy source for power plants in the U.S., shale gas is now facing fresh challenges, with the release of a new study suggesting the fuel’s carbon intensity is as high as or higher than coal’s.

Given the rapid growth of natural gas, the findings could upend a consensus view that it’s a greener alternative to coal. The natural gas industry maintains that the fuel emits only about half the CO2 of coal, and therefore has promise as a “bridge” from today’s carbon-intensive fuel mix to future low-carbon options. The new findings suggest that, if natural gas emissions are undercounted, there’s greater urgency to develop CCS for natural gas plants, alongside coal.

Already, the low cost of natural gas—along with its low emissions of conventional air pollutants—has led many utilities to shutter older, dirtier coal plants and replace them with gas turbines.  Earlier this week, for instance, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) agreed to a landmark deal with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to shutter 11 of its most polluting coal plants, replacing some with natural gas.

Yet if shale gas is as carbon intensive as coal, the results of swapouts like these could cause greenhouse gas emissions to actually rise.

“Compared to coal, the footprint of shale gas is at least 20 percent greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon and is comparable when compared over 100 years,” Robert Howarth, a Cornell ecologist writes in a pre-publication version of the paper, originally obtained by The Hill newspaper, and which can be viewed here.

The gist of Howarth’s findings has been made public in the past and are already being fiercely debated. The issue has been re-energized since the study is being published in a peer reviewed scientific journal, Climate Science, boosting their credibility.

It’s important to emphasize Howarth’s findings are based on natural gas extracted from shale reserves, rather than natural gas from conventional reserves.

That said, prior analysis, including one by the EPA, have put to the test claims that natural gas emits 50% less green house gases than coal, as is often claimed. Earlier this year, as detailed by ProPublica, the EPA issued analysis (see the report here) that methane leakage during transmission and processing may cut in half the advantage that is frequently attributed to natural gas.

Howarth and his colleagues—Anthony Ingraffea and Renee Santoro, also at Cornell—contend the process of hydraulic fracturing releases far more methane than conventional drilling.  When fluids, which are pumped into the well to crack open shale and release the gas, resurface to be reused, they release large volumes of methane, according to the study. Howarth is quoted by the New York Times, saying:

“…we came up with two things that surprised me. First, I expected the indirect CO2 emissions from trucks moving frac water, the compressors, the drills, etc., to be greater than we found. They are actually pretty small, when you add up all the numbers. And second, the influence of methane is greater than I expected…”

Howarth’s finding could fuel critics of shale gas, especially in Northeast US states, where public anxiety is rising that fracking threatens underground sources of fresh water.

via globalccsinstitute.com

NRDC OnEarth

Plastic: A Toxic Love Story (in Pictures) | OnEarth

 Writer Susan Freinkel began wondering how much plastic passed through her life. So she conducted a one-day experiment, recording each plastic-containing item she came in contact with. The tally: 196.
 
They ranged from the obvious to the unnoticed, from the dashboard in her car to the dime-sized stickers she had to peel off her apples. The next day, she reversed the experiment, tracking everything she touched that wasn’t made of plastic. Total: 102.
 
Freinkel’s world, she realized, was more plastic than not. Yours probably is, too.The experiment started Freinkel on a plastic odyssey, learning all she could about its imprint on our economy, lives and health.
 
The resulting book, Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, appears at a time of rising anxiety over plastic’s impact. In mid-April, Congress renewed efforts to modernize a 35-year old law addressing chemical safety that’s widely regarded as toothless and ineffective.
 
Freinkel traces the reversal of plastic’s reputation from “better than nature” to a chronic health concern. She reminds us of plastic’s very real achievements while exploring our options to reduce the health and environmental toll of living in a plasticized world. These images help tell that story…
 
Originally published as a slideshow at onearth.org.
 
GreenBiz

PepsiCo’s Water-Saving Mission Flows Beyond Its Factories | GreenBiz

When it comes to water issues, PepsiCo‘s fizzy drinks tend to get all the attention. But the company is also a huge manufacturer of snack foods. Its food operations, PepsiCo is finding, offer huge potential to save water — including going “off the water grid.”

At a UK factory that makes Walkers potato chips — or “crisps,” as the locals prefer — PepsiCo is exploring the possibility that the potatoes themselves could yield enough water to operate the factory.

Potatoes offer a unique opportunity to turn off the taps, PepsiCo’s plant managers have recognized. When raw spuds arrive at the loading dock, they’re about 80 percent water by volume.

Indeed, the biggest challenge in making chips crispy is extracting all that water. As the thinly sliced spuds pass through the deep fryer, a thick fog of steam rises from the oil’s surface, as the water steams off.

Instead of letting it escape through a chimney, PepsiCo is exploring the possibility of capturing the vapor, condensing it to reuse and maybe recapturing the heat energy at the same time. It’s a move the company estimates could save the plant in Leicester, England, $1 million per year.

PepsiCo’s UK and Ireland arm has become a leader in setting ambitious environmental and operating goals. These also include being fossil fuel free by 2023 and achieving zero landfill across its supply chain by 2018 (click here to see more on the UK and Ireland goals).

Thinking like this is helping PepsiCo push ahead with ambitious goals globally, to cut water use across the beverage-and-snack conglomerate’s worldwide operations, says Dan Bena, PepsiCo’s director of sustainable development.

I caught up with Dan last week to hear how things were going since Pepsi published its inaugural water reportlast September (click here to download a PDF).

The report followed PepsiCo’s move in 2009 to publicly endorse water as a human right, just in advance of a similar declaration by the UN general assembly.

PepsiCo’s approach combines internal efforts at its plants with collaborative programs to conserve supplies of and improve access to clean water globally.

As part of a broader set of corporate sustainability goals, PepsiCo is specifically aiming to:

  • Improve water use efficiency by 20 percent per unit of production by 2015 compared with 2006;
  • Strive for positive water balance in operations in water-distressed areas; and
  • Provide access to safe water to 3 million people in developing countries by the end of 2015.

Efforts to cut water are ahead of schedule to beat the 20-by-2015 goal, says Bena. To drive this process within its factories, the company is turning to ReCon — short for “resource conservation” — a homemade analytic tool that maps out the use of energy and water in manufacturing plants. Deployed at hundreds of sites, and used in collaboration with supply-chain partners, the tool has saved many millions of dollars in water and energy costs.

“There’s a myth that water is cheap in many areas,” says Bena. “Even in places where it is inexpensive to buy, once you start measuring, you see the costs of treating water, using it, filtering it, and discharging it piling up.

“In some cases, we’re seeing a tenfold increase in the fully measured cost of water from when it enters a facility to when the process is complete. When business people see water costs real money, there’s no better way to get their attention.”

Bena explained that the second of PepsiCo’s three water goals, above, amounts to a kind of “one-for-one” rule. For every liter of water the company uses, PepsiCo hopes to restore, replenish or prevent the waste of as much or more water.

By this measure, Bena says that PepsiCo has already exceeded this goal in India thanks to its role developing a direct-seeding technology for rice. The method drastically reduces the period during which the rice stalks must be submerged in 6 to 12 inches of water.

“We patented a piece of equipment that saves about 30 percent of the water compared with traditional methods,” says Bena.

PepsiCo’s R&D team developed the specialized tractor over about four years, and has given Indian farmers free access to the equipment, along with technical guidance to learn new growing methods.

According to a World Business Council case study of the effort, PepsiCo’s initiative also cut farmers’ costs by 3,500 rupees (about $80) per hectare compared with traditional methods. Extended to 2,630 hectares (approx. 6,500 acres) in 2009, the system conserved an estimated 5.5 billion liters of water.

In addition, the Indian Government estimates that reduced water use lowers the paddy’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 70 percent, cutting down the volume of rotting vegetative mass, which gives off methane, in the standing water.

To push towards its third goal, providing safe water to 3 million people by 2015, PepsiCo has been focusing on developing public water kiosks in Ghana, India and Kenya. “There’s a misconception that people can’t or shouldn’t pay for water,” says Bena. “The reality is that in many poor countries, they already do, and they pay a high price for low quality water.”

Working with Water.org — which is the culmination of the July 2009 merger between Water Partners International and Matt Damon’s H20 Africa Foundation — PepsiCo is trying to supplant high-priced, private water distributors to build community taps.

There’s another benefit, too. “By brining water into a community, you eliminate the time children — often hours, and usually girls — typically spend fetching fresh water,” says Bena.

Back in the factories where it makes fizzy drinks, PepsiCo continues to drive down the volume of water use. “On average, it takes about 2.5 liters of water to produce one liter of beverage.”

“It’s really variable though,” Bena says. “Some newer, advanced plants are running at half that ratio. Some older ones are probably double that. That’s the opportunity that we face.”

Image courtesy of PepsiCo.

Check out the original story here: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2011/04/19/pepsicos-water-saving-mission-flows-beyond-its-factories?page=full

Global CCS Institute

US Senator Bingaman aims to jump-start CCS with a bill addressing liability | Global CCS Institute

All but lost in the din in the effort to pass a federal budget, a bi-partisan senate bill has re-surfaced that breathes fresh hope for U.S. federal support for carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS.

Introduced on March 31, and authored by Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the bill addresses the central question of liability facing new CCS projects.

While carbon dioxide has been used for decades for enhanced recovery in oil bearing rock formations, less is known about how the gas will behave in salt and other geological formations being considered for CCS.

“The liability question is one of the main impediments for the technology to penetrate more widely,” said Salo Zalemyer, an attorney at Bracewell & Giuliani Environmental Strategies Group in Washington who I spoke with about the bill’s prospects.

“And ultimately that technology hasn’t been adequately tested out yet.” Without some liability shield in place, at least for early movers, progress will be slowed, he said.

Senate bill S.699 authorizes the Energy Dept to set up agreements, providing technical and financial support, for up to ten large-scale CCS projects. Qualified projects would inject at least 1 million tons of carbon dioxide from industrial sources.

David Wagner, a lawyer at Environmental Law Review points out, that besides laying out liability terms, the bill also outlines procedures for long-term management of CCS sites:

To pave the way, proposed bill offers liability protection and federal indemnification for the CCS demonstration projects. Under the bill, DOE is authorized to indemnify projects up to $10 billion for personal, property and environmental damages that might be above what is covered by insurance or other financial assurance measures. Upon receiving the closure certificate for the injection site, the site may be turned over to the federal government for long-term site management and ownership. The proposed bill also outlines criteria for site closure certification and includes provisions for siting the demonstration projects on public land. In addition, it would establish and fund a CCS training program for state regulators.

The bill enjoys bi-partisan support from other Senators from big energy states. In addition to Bingaman, DemocratJay Rockefeller (West Virginia) signed on. The Republican co-sponsors are John Barasso (Wyoming) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska).

Prospects for passage are typically murky at this early stage.

This is Bingaman’s second try with CCS: The proposed law is similar to a bill he sponsored in 2009. With bipartisan co-sponsors S. 1013 made it out of committee to the Senate floor, but didn’t make the cut with a broader energy legislative package later that year.

Bingaman’s 2011 do-over version has been referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and if it proceeds would next face a public hearing at an uncertain date in the future.

Officially, S.699 is titled: “A bill to authorize the Secretary of Energy to carry out a program to demonstrate the commercial application of integrated systems for long-term geological storage of carbon dioxide, and for other purposes.”

Check out the full text here, S.699.IS.

via globalccsinstitute.com

Global CCS Institute

Capturing carbon with sawdust | Global CCS Institute

Dead plants may work as well as living plants in mopping up carbon dioxide from admissions, a duo of Spanish scientists has found.

Reporting for the Royal Society of Chemistry on Mar 18, Yaundi Li writes that sawdust is showing promise as a porous solid, able to absorb carbon dioxide in its pores. Other solids, such as zeolites, are already used in this way, but most are hard to fabricate and can absorb only about 3 mmol of carbon dioxide per gram (3mmol CO2/g).

A research group at Spain’s National Institute of Carbon in Oviedo have been able to convert sawdust into a lower cost material that absorbs up to 50% more of the greenhouse gas per volume—potentially the largest ever carbon uptake at room temperature, in fact.

I’ll leave it to Yi to describes the process:

The two step synthesis involves hydrothermal carbonisation of the sawdust, creating a hydrochar, which is then activated using potassium hydroxide. The KOH treatment creates pores in the sawdust structure by oxidation of carbon and carbon gasification from K2CO3 decomposition. These pores are responsible for the material’s uptake capabilities, bestowing it with a capacity as high as 4.8mmol CO2/g. In addition, [the] material has good selectivity for CO2 over N2, fast adsorption rates and can be easily regenerated.

More work must be done in advance of commercialization. But the find is promising given that raw material is plentiful and the fabrication process is “not complex” according to Antonio Fuertes, the lead researcher, as quoted in the article.

Caption: Magnified image of sawdust before (left) and after
(right) being heated and activated showing the pores, via RSC.org.

For the serious carbon scientists I know we have here in the GCCSI community, I waited until the end for the serious technical stuff, so as not to scare off too many layfolk. Here’s the abstract for Sevilla and Fuertes’ study. For more, click here to go to the full journal citation at Energy & Environmental Science.

Sustainable porous carbons have been prepared by chemical activation of hydrothermally carbonized polysaccharides (starch and cellulose) and biomass (sawdust). These materials were investigated as sorbents for CO2 capture. The activation process was carried out under severe (KOH/precursor = 4) or mild (KOH/precursor = 2) activation conditions at different temperatures in the 600–800 °C range. Textural characterization of the porous carbons showed that the samples obtained under mild activating conditions exhibit smaller surface areas and pore sizes than those prepared by employing a greater amount of KOH. However, the mildly activated carbons exhibit a good capacity to store CO2, which is mainly due to the presence of a large number of narrow micropores (<1 nm). A very high CO2 uptake of 4.8 mmol·g-1 (212 mg CO2·g-1) was registered at room temperature (25 °C) for a carbon activated at 600 °C using KOH/precursor = 2. To the best of our knowledge, this result constitutes the largest-ever recorded CO2 uptake at room temperature for any activated carbon. Furthermore, we observedthat these porous carbons have fast CO2 adsorption rates, a good selectivity for CO2–N2 separation and they can be easily regenerated.

via globalccsinstitute.com

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