Mythbusters
Data collected from Antarctic and Greenland ice cores seems to show CO2 levels rising centuries after temperature increases. However, new research suggests that this may be a misinterpretation of the evidence. Scientists have been using bubbles of air trapped in the ice when it was formed to detemine the CO2 level in the air at the time, the isotopes of elements like hydrogen, carbon and oxygen in the ice to calculate the temperature at which it formed and the depth of the ice sample in the core to estimate its age. This work led to the conclusion that CO2 levels … Continue Reading
Daniel Harrison, a postgraduate research engineer at the University of Sydney, has published results of research demonstrating that fertilisation of the ocean with iron does not store carbon long enough to be an attractive contributor to climate management. Ocean iron fertilisation is a process that attempts to encourage phytoplankton growth in regions with unused nutrients with the aim of storing carbon away from the atmosphere. Dr Harrison found that, while iron fertilisation of high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll regions of the ocean captures and stores carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, it does not store carbon long enough to be an attractive contributor to … Continue Reading
The conventional wisdom is that it takes as much as 10 units of grain to produce one unit of meat with the equivalent nutritional value. George Monbiot has recently pointed out that we should be comparing the amount of land and water required to grow meat with the land and required to grow plant products of the same nutritional value. And that when you do that you come up with radically different results. Many of the world’s animals are fed on products which humans don’t eat and could not eat. These include residues and waste and straw and grass which … Continue Reading
The Post-Carbon Institute has published a report which claims to shatter the "myth" that natural gas can be a bridge fuel between oil and coal and a renewable energy future for the United States. Without gas from shale, the US Energy Information Administration estimates that gas production will fall by 20% by 2035. However, replacing coal would require a 64% increase in gas production and replacing oil another 100%. Extraction of shale gas requires high energy and water inputs – and the wells rapidly become depleted.. It involves controversial hydraulic fracturing and the need to dispose of toxic drilling fluids … Continue Reading
Until now, it had been thought that melting ice could form a slippy layer at the bottonm of the Greenland ice sheet causing it to slide rapidly into the sea. Now, a study by Professor Andrew Shepherd of the University of Leeds, has shown that this is not happening. Professor Shepherd’s team used satellite imagery to track the progress of the west Greenland ice sheet each summer, over five years. They found that, above a certain threshold, the slipping begins to slow. On-the-ground studies and work done on alpine glaciers suggests that higher volumes of meltwater actually forms channels under … Continue Reading
Northern Europe and northern parts of the United States and Asia are currently experiencing extreme cold and, particularly, heavy snow falls. We have long been told that this sort of thing is just a weather variation that can happen even if the climate as a whole is getting warmer. But new research from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Science suggests that the cold is not just an anomaly but is actually the result of warming. The warming from climate change is greatest at Poles. This is causing Arctic ice to melt, so that the air above the Arctic is warmer … Continue Reading
The media is fond of quoting claims that the internet will soon be using more power than the airline industry, that it will consume half of all the electricity produced or that two Google searches release as much CO2 as boiling a kettle of water. The Google search myth arose from a Times article in January 2009 which said that "a typical search generates about 7g of CO2. Boiling a kettle generates about 15g". Urs Hölzle, Google’s Senior Vice President Operations, posted a response saying the typical search actually releases only 0.2 grams of CO2 – that’s 75 searches per … Continue Reading
For years, we have been warned that low-lying coral island states will be drowned by rising sea levels. Now the first analysis of the data broadly suggests the opposite – most have remained stable, while some have even grown, despite rising sea levels, over the last 60 years. Nanumea Atoll, Tuvalu (NASA image) Paul Kench at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and Arthur Webb at the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission in Fiji used historical aerial photos and high-resolution satellite images to study changes in the land surface of 27 Pacific islands over the last 60 years. Local … Continue Reading
Despite continuing difficulties getting funding for large projects, Europe’s offshore wind power generating capacity grew by 54% in 2009. A total of 199 wind turbines, with a combined capacity of 577 megawatts, were installed at eight new offshore wind farms connected to the European grid in 2009. The European Wind Energy Association expects ten more European offshore wind farms to be completed in 2010, adding another 1,000 megawatts – equivalent to market growth of a further 75% compared with 2009. The turnover of the offshore wind industry was approximately €1.5 billion ($au2,3 billion) in 2009 – this is expected to … Continue Reading
In its 2007 report, the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said: "Glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate." If this is true, three quarters of a billion people in Asia who depend on glacier melt for water supplies would suffer severe water shortages witin a generation. In fact, the average thickness of the Himalayan glaciers is about 300 metres. The average … Continue Reading
Videos
Renewables News- New Aussie Technology to Clean Polluted WaterScientists from Deakin University, together with French colleagues, say that they have manufactured a lightweight and reusable material that can absorb up to 33 times its weight in a wide range of spilt oils, chemical solvents and dyes, while repelling … Continue Reading → […]
- Aussie Researchers Make Efficient Solar Cells from Low-grade SiliconResearchers at the University of New South Wales have found a way to make very high efficiency solar cells out of cheap, low-grade silicon. It has been known for several decades that hydrogen atoms can be introduced into the atomic … Continue Reading → […]
- First Aussie “Hot Rocks” Power Plant Begins ProducingThe first power plant in Australia to produce electricity using an enhanced geothermal ("hot rocks") system has begun producing electricity in the far north-east of South Australia. The one-megawatt Habanero pilot plant near outback Innamincka is operated by Geodynamics. Geodynamics … Continue Reading → […]
- New Aussie Technology to Clean Polluted Water
