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Measuring the “Other” Greenhouse Gases: Higher Than Expected Levels of Methane in California

By Guest PostJune 16, 2012Environmentanthropogenic, atmospheric lifetime, berkeley lab, black carbon, california, carb, carbon dioxide, central valley, ch4 emissions, climate pollutant, CO2, coal mines, decomposition, environment policy, fossil fuel, fraction, global warming, greenhouse gas, halocarbon gases, landfills, livestock ranches, man made source, map, marc l fischer, methane, methane emissions, methane signals, natural sources, nitrous oxide, noaa, organic matter, refrigerants, sacramento, seongeun jeong, soot, sound energy, spatial, temporal resolution, united states, walnut grove

Berkeley Lab scientists develop new method for evaluating short-lived pollutants.

New research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has found that levels of methane—a potent greenhouse gas emitted from many man-made sources, such as coal mines, landfills and livestock ranches—are at least one-and-a-half times higher in California than previously estimated.

Working with scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Berkeley Lab scientists Marc L. Fischer and Seongeun Jeong combined highly accurate methane measurements from a tower with model predictions of expected methane signals to revise estimated methane emissions from central California. They found that annually averaged methane emissions in California were 1.5 to 1.8 times greater than previous estimates, depending on the spatial distribution of the methane emissions. (more…)

New Study by WHOI Scientists Provides Baseline Measurements of Carbon in Arctic Ocean

By Guest PostMay 21, 2012Environmentalaska, arctic ocean, biogeosciences, canada basin, canadian coast guard, carbon, carbon 13, carbon atoms, carbon cycle, carbon dioxide, CO2, david griffith, fiona mclaughlin, global climate, icebreaker, li xu, marine ecosystem, organic carbon, pacific, pathway, robie macdonald, sea ice melt, Siberia, temperatures, whoi

Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have conducted a new study to measure levels of carbon at various depths in the Arctic Ocean. The study, recently published in the journal Biogeosciences, provides data that will help researchers better understand the Arctic Ocean’s carbon cycle—the pathway through which carbon enters and is used by the marine ecosystem. It will also offer an important point of reference for determining how those levels of carbon change over time, and how the ecosystem responds to rising global temperatures.

“Carbon is the currency of life. Where carbon is coming from, which organisms are using it, how they’re giving off carbon themselves—these things say a lot about how an ocean ecosystem works,” says David Griffith, the lead author on the study. “If warming temperatures perturb the Arctic Ocean, the way that carbon cycles through that system may change.” (more…)

From Soil Microbe to Super-Efficient Biofuel Factory?

By Guest PostMay 5, 2012Environment, Scienceadvanced biofuel, arpa e program, berkeley lab, bioelectrochemical reactor, biofuel, bioplastic, chris chang, CO2, diesel fuel, electrode, electrofuel, energy source, harry beller, hydrocarbon, hydrogen, ketones, microbe, nathan hillson, organic compound, ralstonia eutropha, soil bacterium, steve singer, swapnil chhabra, team electrofuel, Technology

Berkeley Lab-led team explores a way to create biofuels, minus the photosynthesis

Is there a new path to biofuels hiding in a handful of dirt? Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) biologist Steve Singer leads a group that wants to find out. They’re exploring whether a common soil bacterium can be engineered to produce liquid transportation fuels much more efficiently than the ways in which advanced biofuels are made today.

The scientists are working with a bacterium called Ralstonia eutropha. It naturally uses hydrogen as an energy source to convert CO₂ into various organic compounds. (more…)

IBM and ZSE Create Virtual Green Highway for Electric Vehicles

By Guest PostApril 9, 2012Technologyaustria, bratislava, central europe, CO2, ecogrid eu, edison, ekz, electric vehicles, electricity, emission, energy grid, evs, green highway, guido bartels, ibm, slovakia, switzerland, transportation system, vibrate, vienna, zapadoslovenska energetika, zse, zse green highway

*E-Mobility Project Identifies EV Charging Station Options between Two Cities*

Armonk, NY and Slovakia – 09 Apr 2012: IBM today announced it has teamed with Západoslovenská energetika, a.s. (ZSE), the largest distributor and supplier of electricity in Slovakia, on a smart energy “feasibility” study that will help prepare the capital city Bratislava for electric vehicles (EVs).

Using e-mobility technology, the study will help identify the possibilities of connecting two neighboring metropolitan areas – Bratislava, Slovakia and Vienna, Austria with a “green” highway. This highway will interconnect the two cities with a network of public charging stations for electric vehicles. (more…)

Thawing Permafrost 50 Million Years Ago Led To Warm Global Events, Says New Study

By Guest PostApril 7, 2012EnvironmentAntarctica, arctic permafrost, carbon, climate, climatic threshold, CO2, earth, eccentric orbits, ecosystem, Environment, floor sediment, fossil fuel, frozen-soil, greenhouse gas levels, italy, kevin schaefer, methane gas, ocean, orbit, organic matter, paleocene eocene, permafrost, permafrost thaw, petm, rob deconto, soil, source, thermal maximum, university of urbino

A new study led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst and involving the University of Colorado Boulder proposes a simple new mechanism to explain the source of carbon that fed a series of extreme warming events on Earth about 50 million years ago called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, as well as a sequence of similar, smaller warming events afterward.

“The standard hypothesis has been that the source of carbon was in the ocean in the form of frozen methane gas in ocean-floor sediments,” said lead study author Rob DeConto of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “We are instead ascribing the carbon source to the continents in polar latitudes where permafrost can store massive amounts of carbon that can be released as CO2 when the permafrost thaws.” (more…)

UCLA Engineering Researchers Use Electricity to Generate Alternative Fuel

By Guest PostApril 3, 2012Sciencecar, carbon dioxide, carbon source, chemical batteries, chemical energy, CO2, co2 fixation, dark reaction, electric vehicle, electrical energy, electricity, electro bioreactor, hydraulic pumping, hydrogen, isobutanol, james liao, liquid fuel, lithoautotrophic microorganism, photosynthesis, ralstonia eutropha h16, solar panels

Imagine being able to use electricity to power your car — even if it’s not an electric vehicle. Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have for the first time demonstrated a method for converting carbon dioxide into liquid fuel isobutanol using electricity.

Today, electrical energy generated by various methods is still difficult to store efficiently. Chemical batteries, hydraulic pumping and water splitting suffer from low energy-density storage or incompatibility with current transportation infrastructure. (more…)

From Cancer Research to Energy Storage, Berkeley Lab Scientist Takes on Big Challenges

By Guest PostFebruary 3, 2012Scienceclean energy, CO2, energy, Environment, fossil fuel, hydrogen storage system, India, intel corporation, liquefied hydrogen, magnesium metal, metal hydride, molecular foundry, nanoparticle, optical spectroscopy, phase transition, plasmonic structures, rising star, rizia bardhan, Science, volumetric density

*Rizia Bardhan, a postdoc at the Molecular Foundry, selected to Forbes’ ’30 under 30′ list*

On a typical day, Rizia Bardhan walks through the doors of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Molecular Foundry and immerses herself in the tricky business of tweaking optical spectroscopy equipment to study phase transitions in metal hydrides.

It’s fair to say that what she does is difficult to grasp. Why she does it is easy: “I want to help solve big problems. That’s why I’m here,” she says. (more…)

Study Assesses Nations’ Vulnerabilities to Reduced Mollusk Harvests from Ocean Acidification

By Guest PostAugust 7, 2011Environmentatmosphere, carbon dioxide emissions, carbonate shells or skeletons, changes in ocean chemistry, CO2, co2 levels, corrosive environment, fossil fuel, gambia, haiti, hauke kite powell, industrial revolution, Madagascar, marine ecosystems, marine environments, marine fisheries, mollusk aquaculture, mollusk harvests, mollusks, mozambique, noelle lucey, ocean acidification, ph, sarah cooley, scott doney, senegal, shellfish, transition decade, whoi, woods hole oceanographic institution, world oceans

Changes in ocean chemistry due to increased carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are expected to damage shellfish populations around the world, but some nations will feel the impacts much sooner and more intensely than others, according to a study by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

As CO2 levels driven by fossil fuel use have increased in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, so has the amount of CO2 absorbed by the world’s oceans, leading to changes in the chemical make-up of seawater. Known as ocean acidification, this decrease in pH creates a corrosive environment for some marine organisms such as corals, marine plankton, and shellfish that build carbonate shells or skeletons. (more…)

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