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Thursday, July 7, 2016
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Pilot plant at the University of Newcastle near Sydney, Australia, will test the commercial potential of mineral carbonation. This is a process that chemically binds CO2 with calcium- or magnesium-containing minerals to form stable materials. The plant will bind CO2 with crushed serpentinite rocks to create magnesium carbonate, which can be used to produce building and construction materials such as cement, paving stones and plasterboard.
This carbonation process could be a way of “permanently and safely disposing of CO2,
and making useful products in the process”, says Klaus Lackner,
director of the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions at Arizona State
University, Tempe, who pioneered laboratory studies of mineral
carbonation.
The process happens naturally when rocks are exposed to CO2 in the air. This gradual weathering helped cut down CO2 in the ancient atmosphere to levels that were low enough for life to flourish, says Geoff Brent, senior scientist at Orica, an explosives manufacturer that will supply the pilot plant with CO2 – a by-product of its manufacture of ammonium nitrate.
But we don’t have millions of years to wait for geology to rid the atmosphere of excess carbon. “It’s about turning the natural process into a large-scale industrial process on our required time scale — which is extremely urgent,” says Brent.
Another objection is that the carbonisation process still costs too much, whereas simply storing CO2 underground would be cheaper and require less energy.
However, Brent says that suitable underground repositories are hard to find and that carbon dioxide may escape back into the atmosphere even after being stored.
“Carbonation is more secure in the long term, because there is no danger of leakage and no need to maintain long gas pipelines and transportation infrastructure to move the CO2, since we will be obtaining it on-site,” says Brent.
And if the chemical reactions could be sped up and maintained with less heat, carbonation could become commercially competitive with underground injection storage of CO2.
“The whole point of the project is to get the price down low enough,” says Marcus Dawe, CEO of Mineral Carbonation International, the group coordinating the effort. “It is all about how we can make this economical.”
Dawe and his team are optimistic that they will make progress by the end of their initial 18-month project period, but whether their trials yield anything that can be scaled up on a meaningful level remains to be seen.
For mineral carbonation to take off, there will need to be a higher price on carbon, says Dawe, because right now “nothing is more economical than putting CO2 in the air”.
He is looking to China as one place where large-scale mineral carbonation might eventually take off. The country is developing a carbon-trading system that is expected to go into effect next year, and is also scrambling to find ways to cut emissions causing its massive urban air-pollution problem, says Dawe.
More on these topics: Read Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2082112-pilot-plant-to-turn-co2-into-house-parts-and-paving-stones/?hl=1&noRedirect=1
The process happens naturally when rocks are exposed to CO2 in the air. This gradual weathering helped cut down CO2 in the ancient atmosphere to levels that were low enough for life to flourish, says Geoff Brent, senior scientist at Orica, an explosives manufacturer that will supply the pilot plant with CO2 – a by-product of its manufacture of ammonium nitrate.
But we don’t have millions of years to wait for geology to rid the atmosphere of excess carbon. “It’s about turning the natural process into a large-scale industrial process on our required time scale — which is extremely urgent,” says Brent.
Challenges ahead
There are several challenges in achieving this. Mining for serpentinite is itself energy-intensive and damaging to the environment. But Brent says an advantage is that the rock is one of the most common on Earth, and carbonation plants could be built near mining areas.Another objection is that the carbonisation process still costs too much, whereas simply storing CO2 underground would be cheaper and require less energy.
However, Brent says that suitable underground repositories are hard to find and that carbon dioxide may escape back into the atmosphere even after being stored.
“Carbonation is more secure in the long term, because there is no danger of leakage and no need to maintain long gas pipelines and transportation infrastructure to move the CO2, since we will be obtaining it on-site,” says Brent.
And if the chemical reactions could be sped up and maintained with less heat, carbonation could become commercially competitive with underground injection storage of CO2.
“The whole point of the project is to get the price down low enough,” says Marcus Dawe, CEO of Mineral Carbonation International, the group coordinating the effort. “It is all about how we can make this economical.”
Dawe and his team are optimistic that they will make progress by the end of their initial 18-month project period, but whether their trials yield anything that can be scaled up on a meaningful level remains to be seen.
For mineral carbonation to take off, there will need to be a higher price on carbon, says Dawe, because right now “nothing is more economical than putting CO2 in the air”.
He is looking to China as one place where large-scale mineral carbonation might eventually take off. The country is developing a carbon-trading system that is expected to go into effect next year, and is also scrambling to find ways to cut emissions causing its massive urban air-pollution problem, says Dawe.
Sunday, March 6, 2016
Update: More Than 500,000 Deaths Around the World by 2050 due to Food Scarcity
"The immediate cause of the reduction in fruit and vegetable consumption are the climatic shocks: basically, less can be grown, that leads to farmers probably using more land, and also the prices go up, said Dr. Marco Springmann, an expert from the Oxford Martin Program on the Future of Food. "As a combination of less production and higher prices there will be a reduction in the consumption," he added. The study which was conducted by the researchers from University of Oxford included 155 countries. As posted by Health News Line, the result of the study showed "the devastated effects of climate change on agriculture could result in overall decline in food availability across the globe." As to the research, of all the nations which have been included in the study, China and India will most likely have the highest number of deaths, about three-quarters, of the world's total expected death rate. China will have almost 248,000 deaths while India is said to have about 136,000 deaths by 2050, as posted byZee News India.
Click link to read article written by Maureen Bongat
http://www.parentherald.com/articles/25299/20160305/climate-change-update-more-than-500-000-deaths-around-the-world-by-2050-due-to-food-scarcity.htm
Monday, December 7, 2015
COP21: UN joins France and private sector partners for action on electro-mobility
Among the events was the launch of the Paris Declaration on Electro-Mobility and Climate Change & Call to Action. Endorsed by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP),
the International Energy Agency, as well as Tesla Motors and Michelin
Nissan-Renault, it reportedly builds on commitments from companies,
cities, States and associations that have undertaken decisive efforts
towards sustainable transport electrification.
“Of course, I think the sector of transport is one of the most important to succeed in fighting climate,” Ségolène Royal, the French Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy told the UN News Service.“So I announced three concrete initiatives,” she explained. “First, an open bid about less expensive electric cars – less than 7,000 dollars [per car]; second, an initiative for towns to build a plan of mobility inside cities; and third, roads with positive energy which [would see thruways] covered with panel and would solve the problem between agriculture areas and road areas.” With energy-related CO2 emissions expected to jump from one quarter of total energy-related emissions today to one-third by 2050, the actors that are part of the Lima to Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) are underlining that significant changes can be made in transport to keep the global average temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius.The LPAA was launched one year ago at the the previous UN climate change conference in Peru, and aims to strength climate action beyond COP21. The effort comes as demand for public and freight transport is projected to grow rapidly, especially in emerging and developing countries. Yet, projections reveal a 50 per cent reduction of transport CO2 emissions compared to a “transport-as-usual” scenario can be achieved by 2050, without hampering sustainable economic growth.Moreover, according to the International Energy Agency, if global warming is to be limited to 2 degrees or less, at least 20 per cent of all road vehicles (cars, two and three-wheelers, trucks, buses and others) must be electric-powered by 2030, in conjunction with the low-carbon production of electricity and hydrogen.http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=52728#.Vmcu-V7eums
“Of course, I think the sector of transport is one of the most important to succeed in fighting climate,” Ségolène Royal, the French Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy told the UN News Service.“So I announced three concrete initiatives,” she explained. “First, an open bid about less expensive electric cars – less than 7,000 dollars [per car]; second, an initiative for towns to build a plan of mobility inside cities; and third, roads with positive energy which [would see thruways] covered with panel and would solve the problem between agriculture areas and road areas.” With energy-related CO2 emissions expected to jump from one quarter of total energy-related emissions today to one-third by 2050, the actors that are part of the Lima to Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) are underlining that significant changes can be made in transport to keep the global average temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius.The LPAA was launched one year ago at the the previous UN climate change conference in Peru, and aims to strength climate action beyond COP21. The effort comes as demand for public and freight transport is projected to grow rapidly, especially in emerging and developing countries. Yet, projections reveal a 50 per cent reduction of transport CO2 emissions compared to a “transport-as-usual” scenario can be achieved by 2050, without hampering sustainable economic growth.Moreover, according to the International Energy Agency, if global warming is to be limited to 2 degrees or less, at least 20 per cent of all road vehicles (cars, two and three-wheelers, trucks, buses and others) must be electric-powered by 2030, in conjunction with the low-carbon production of electricity and hydrogen.http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=52728#.Vmcu-V7eums
COP21: Ban announces ‘Climate Action 2016’ partnership to maintain momentum after UN climate conference
“I am heartened by the significant and growing coalitions that are
emerging to tackle the challenges of climate change and realize new
opportunities,” Mr. Ban underlined at the global event taking place in
Paris, on a day dubbed “Action Day.”“I am pleased to be joined by so many key partners to scale climate action efforts and make them sustainable,” he added.The Secretary-General, joined by groups such as the World Bank, the
Global Environment Facility and the Compact of Mayors, and individuals
including Michael Bloomberg – the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy
for Cities and Climate Change – will co-sponsor a “Climate Action 2016”
summit of leaders from government, business, cities and localities,
civil society and academia next 5 and 6 May in Washington, D.C.According to a press release issued by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
– the organizer of the conference – this high-level gathering will
complement ongoing implementation efforts and catalyze actionable,
concrete deliverables in specific high-value areas, including: cities;
land use; resilience; energy; transport; tools for decision makers; and
finance."[The summit will] show that the things that were talked here in Paris
are actually happening on the ground,” Bob Orr, a Special Adviser to the
Secretary-General on climate change, told the UN News Centre in an
interview. “The number and the depth of the coalitions that are organized to
deliver action on climate whether through forestry, through industry,
through cities, all the different channels need to move forward as far
and as fast as they can," he added. "So the Secretary-General is not
only ensuring we have this robust universal agreement, but that we have
the coalition in the field to deliver the goods.” Mr. Orr noted that the meeting is taking place in the United States'
capital as all the partners joining the Secretary-General at the 2016
summit agreed that Washington, D.C. is the “best stop” as it is home to
a number of important international institutions and financing
vehicles. Meanwhile, the world's attention is turned towards the Paris-Le Bourget
site north-east of the French capital, where government representatives
have been meeting since Monday to reach a new universal climate
agreement to limit global temperature rise to below two degrees Celsius.http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=52739#.Vmcu5V7eums
COP21: digital map launched by UNICEF helps young people tell their climate change stories
A digital mapping project called ‘Act Now For
Tomorrow,’ which was recently launched by the United Nations Children’s
Fund (UNICEF), is helping young people around the world identify climate issues in their communities and find ways to address them.“The global climate map is engaging 500 young people from 65 countries,”
Zayn Abaakil, a UNICEF child engagement coordinator, told the UN News
Centre in one of the conference halls of the UN climate change
conference (COP21) where dozens of innovative climate projects are being showcased over the next two weeks.The idea behind the project, she said, is for young people to show the
link between climate issues and the impacts they see every day that are
affecting their health and access to education. The UN agency recently reported that more than half a billion children
live in areas with extremely high flood occurrences, while 160 million
are in high drought severity zones.“They see all the contributions from other young people,” explained Ms.
Abaakil, and “they understand that the issue is a global one, that they
are all connected around the same problem, but also learn from each
other, look at the best practices that have been done from different
places, and connect.”
Seven UNICEF youth ambassadors have travelled from all corners of the globe to attend COP21, display their findings, and exchange stories – this time in person. One of them is Andozile Simwinga, a driven18-year old Zambian student who said the impacts of climate change on his country are affecting his self-esteem.
“Things, they don’t actually move the way they’re supposed to move and young people are not happy the way they should be,” he said energetically. Despite talking about an issue that clearly causes him distress, Mr. Simwinga couldn’t hide the enthusiasm he feels being in Paris and contributing to this global event.
“[The effect of climate change] has really made me feel low – I go out of my house every day and I look at the environment. People have cut down trees, there’s deforestation everywhere. I want to do environmental studies but what am I going to address? What am I going to talk about? What am I going to tell […] my children and also the future generations? We had trees here; we had different types of animals. So it really has affected my self-esteem.”Meanwhile, 22-year-old Bellinda Raymond traveled from Malaysia to attend the Conference of Youth prior to heading to COP21. She described herself as an active citizen, someone who engages with members of her indigenous community, especially ahead of major weather events that have the potential to destroy homes and vital surroundings. She said her grandparents weren’t affected by climate change in the ways she is today.“As an indigenous person, we depend on the forest and rivers for our daily life – and we also have our traditional system, also related to the climate. The weather is now unpredictable and we need to adapt to the environment that’s changing,” Ms. Raymond said.Asked what the worse effect of climate change has been on her community, she answered floods.“Because last time, when the rain came, it was still okay for us, but now just two hours of rain [and] it’s already flooding and has caused a lot of damage; people cannot go to work, and it’s difficult to access the outside.”As youth ambassadors celebrated ‘Young and Future Generations Day’ at COP21 on Thursday, government delegations continued to negotiate a new climate agreement which the world’s people hope will be ambitious enough to limit global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius, and prevent further degradation of the planet.http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=52726#.VmctUF7eums
Seven UNICEF youth ambassadors have travelled from all corners of the globe to attend COP21, display their findings, and exchange stories – this time in person. One of them is Andozile Simwinga, a driven18-year old Zambian student who said the impacts of climate change on his country are affecting his self-esteem.
“Things, they don’t actually move the way they’re supposed to move and young people are not happy the way they should be,” he said energetically. Despite talking about an issue that clearly causes him distress, Mr. Simwinga couldn’t hide the enthusiasm he feels being in Paris and contributing to this global event.
“[The effect of climate change] has really made me feel low – I go out of my house every day and I look at the environment. People have cut down trees, there’s deforestation everywhere. I want to do environmental studies but what am I going to address? What am I going to talk about? What am I going to tell […] my children and also the future generations? We had trees here; we had different types of animals. So it really has affected my self-esteem.”Meanwhile, 22-year-old Bellinda Raymond traveled from Malaysia to attend the Conference of Youth prior to heading to COP21. She described herself as an active citizen, someone who engages with members of her indigenous community, especially ahead of major weather events that have the potential to destroy homes and vital surroundings. She said her grandparents weren’t affected by climate change in the ways she is today.“As an indigenous person, we depend on the forest and rivers for our daily life – and we also have our traditional system, also related to the climate. The weather is now unpredictable and we need to adapt to the environment that’s changing,” Ms. Raymond said.Asked what the worse effect of climate change has been on her community, she answered floods.“Because last time, when the rain came, it was still okay for us, but now just two hours of rain [and] it’s already flooding and has caused a lot of damage; people cannot go to work, and it’s difficult to access the outside.”As youth ambassadors celebrated ‘Young and Future Generations Day’ at COP21 on Thursday, government delegations continued to negotiate a new climate agreement which the world’s people hope will be ambitious enough to limit global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius, and prevent further degradation of the planet.http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=52726#.VmctUF7eums
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