Overall, global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels increased 29% between 2000 and 2008 and 41% from 1990-2008, and the current concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is now at its highest in at least 2 million years, according to a new study in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The new report published this week by an international team of researchers who are part of the “Global Carbon Project” shows emissions trends through 2008 (including changes in emissions causes and in the amount of emissions remaining in the atmosphere) and brings up some major questions for the future as well.

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Oceans regulate our climate. They play a key role in keeping the world’s “homeostasis” in tact. However, their ability to absorb carbon & keep the climate in balance is dwindling, a new report shows.

In a year-by-year study from 1765 to 2008, researchers found that the oceans are struggling to meet increasing emissions demands. They cannot take in as much carbon as they used to.

The study, published in the November 19 issue of the journal Nature, found that the percentage of fossil fuel emissions the ocean has been taking in since 2000 has decreased by as much as 10%.

This is the first study of its kind or breadth. One previous study had attempted to measure the oceans’ industrial carbon absorption for one year — 1994. This does so for a period of 200+ years.

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Looking to create products for the real world as soon as possible, a new research center in the UK is aiming to speed up the development and installment of a variety of low carbon technologies to ensure a greener future for us all.

This new £50 million ($80 million) center hopes to do this through more coordinated and focused efforts from four universities and a regional development agency. The four universities that have teamed up are Hull, Leeds, Sheffield and Yorkshire, and they are working with the regional development agency Yorkshire Forward. The name of the new center is Centre for Low Carbon Futures (CLCF).

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The House Waxman-Markey bill has drawn criticism for being too friendly to utility companies, who would be handed a large percentage of the carbon credit allowances created. That criticism has come not only from environmental advocates who are concerned that free allowances will undermine the value of a cap, but also from other business interests who see the credits creating a potential windfall for utilities - especially those who already generate much of their power from cleaner fuels.

The Chamber’s opposition to Waxman-Markey is understandable when you consider that they represent a broad cross-section of business sectors, including many that did not fare as well in the negotiations as Waxman-Markey took shape. For their part, the Chamber has responded to the recent defections by noting that it only opposes the House bill itself, and is not opposed to the idea of climate-change legislation. According to their COO David Chavern, “Congress should do everything it can to promote and incentivize technology development and other policies that allow us to control carbon in ways that don’t trash the economy.” The fact that the Chamber’s site was unavailable on the morning of Exelon’s announcement indicates that the public may not be ready for so nuanced a position.

Might the departures be a harbinger of movement away from the Chamber across the entire utility sector? Or, should they be viewed as evidence of a fracture within the industry? Utilities that rely more heavily on coal and other dirty fuels share the Chamber’s concerns about cap-and-trade’s impact on the cost of their power. By contrast, PG&E, PNM, Exelon and others that are already invested heavily in cleaner fuels can afford to appear green. It may even be profitable.

The Chamber is in the news right now, but the place to watch as the Senate picks up debate of its own bill will be the utility trade group, Edison Electric Institute, which represents the investor-owned companies on both signs of the fuel type divide. EEI has already been engaging Senate leaders in a way that tries to split the difference for its membership: they are not running from Waxman-Markey, but they have some suggestions for improvement on the Senate side.

This dust-up may be all the more costly for utilities, their trade group and the Chamber if long-term discord is fomented for naught. The Senate will need 60 votes to get a bill. It will be tough to get there as Democrats hailing from industrial and agricultural states have the 1993 BTU Tax debacle in their memories and a 2010 election year in their sights. And, with political fallout that could be even more dramatic than the squabbles that are now unfolding in the business community, there may not be a Senate climate bill in 2009. Either way, the utility industry will be left to mend fences. The questions now are whose fences, and how many?

The White House still lists climate change legislation as one of its priorities, but with Senate action on a bill getting pushed deeper into September - and closer to oblivion for 2009 - greens cannot help but worry that their cause will not only be eclipsed by health care, but also by the economy generally, unemployment specifically, and even foreign policy issues like the escalation in Afghanistan.

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Yokohama is introducing the dB Super E-spec tire, with an improved liner and a compound that uses orange oil and natural rubber to cut petroleum significantly in the manufacturing process.

On the inside, an advanced inner liner is thinner, lighter, and provides better air retention.

On the outside, the new Super Nano-Power Rubber compound blends natural rubber with oil squeezed from waste material from the Japanese orange juice industry to create a tire with a split personality. In straight, steady driving, the compound generates less heat, for a lower rolling resistance, while in active driving—cornering and braking—the material softens for better adhesion to the road surface.

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One universal difficulty is the continuing cost gap between renewable and fossil fuels. Creating an incentive program that works within the prevailing market - even a heavily regulated one - without interfering with normal market operation is very difficult when the price points are so far apart. Internalizing some of the costs of burning fossil fuels would help close that gap, and that is what cap-and-trade is all about: promote and subsidize clean energy and put downward pressure (both economically and through command and control) on dirtier fuels.

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Before I get into this topic, please read my article on cancer dedicated to someone special to me, each view constitutes a larger donation to cancer research. http://planetsave.com/blog/2009/07/27/help-me-fight-cancer/

The “green movement” is gaining some steam in the general public, and hey I am all for it.  As long as it doesn’t become a fad that fades away into a footnote like slap bracelets and Crocks. The Apple iPhone is the hottest smart phone going today, and with over 65,000 applications in the iTunes App Store and counting, the usefulness of this pocket device goes up all the time. This can only mean that there will be green apps on the iPhone, and of course there will be some clunkers. With all these apps floating around there must be some gems as well. I’ll give some apps a try and tell you what I think, so you, my loyal reader, doesn’t have to.

(Part 2: Paid Apps, will be coming soon, so check back at PlanetSave.com)

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Oceans cover close to 70 percent of the earth’s surface. They divide continents and peoples. They are dangerous, swallowing unwary explorers in their great depths. But the danger of the unknown ocean hasn’t stopped sailors in all ages from exploring the treasures that await across the vast blue expanse. With compass in hand and constellation above as guides, brave seamen would embark, never knowing if they would return alive.

In the modern world, oceans, seas, lakes and other bodies of water are generally mapped. There is less adventure on the high seas than there was during Columbus’ time. Now there are new oceans to be explored, understood, and charted. These oceans are not expanses of water; rather, they are expanses of knowledge, technology, and science. In order to explore the great unknown of these oceans, we sail toward the uncharted and the unknown.

The UN has embarked on such an adventure. The treasure buried at the edge of the known world is not gold, silver or precious stones but climate neutrality. And aboard the UN ship are six universities from around the world.

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You’ve heard of the canary in the coal mine as an indicator of a toxic environment.

The U.S. Department of Energy is using bees and helium balloons to make sure carbon dioxide is staying put in sequestration sites.

How? Researchers at the National Energy Technology Lab are using chemical tracers to fingerprint CO2, then comparing it to pollen collected by the bees.

“Researchers will determine if pollen collected by bees contains measurable quantities of tracer or if bees bring back tracer from direct contact with foliage. They will use balloons to determine atmospheric variations in tracer content to assess the effectiveness of CO₂ storage sites,” the DOE reports.

The agency is working with researchers from Michigan State University, which by the way, makes its own honey.

Michigan is home to a carbon sequestration test site in Gaylord, part of a larger project called the Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership.

(Image Credit: Doug Stremel, via Flickr).

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has the potential to cut global Co2 emissions dramatically. We’re talking huge cuts. It has been estimated that a plant implementing CCS can cut emissions by 80-90 percent compared with a plant that doesn’t use CCS. Sounds great, right? Well, there are some some problems.

Cost is the number one challenge that CCS faces. “Applying it would significantly increase the cost of electricity beyond what society is likely willing to pay,” said Sarah Forbes,  a World Resources Institute Senior Associate. Another challenge is that no fully integrated demonstrations have taken place. The pieces have been tested individually, but the entire puzzle is yet to be seen.

Forbes describes CCS and its current challenges in more detail:

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One quarter billion dollars is a lot. An awful lot. Most people will never even come near that amount of money, but that’s what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Americans saved this past year by switching over to energy efficient homes.

In the EPA’s announcement on July 3, it was reported that 17 percent of all single family homes built across the nation in the year 2008 received the EPA’s Energy Star approval rating, which means that a homes are at least 15 percent more energy efficient than homes built to the 2004 International Residential Code (IRC), and include additional energy-saving features that typically make them 20–30 percent more efficient than standard homes. The percentage of Energy Star homes was up from 12 percent in 2007.

The increase in Energy Star rated homes shows that home builders and home buyers are investing in homes that save money and the environment. “Every year more Americans decide to cut their energy bills and help keep the air clean in their communities by buying a new home that has earned EPA’s Energy Star,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson.

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Every several years the power of Big Agriculture is evident when the Farm Bill is renegotiated, promising untold billions to the agriculture sector in the form of subsidies, incentives, research grants, and other programs.

Big Ag wielded its mighty stick again in the weeks leading up to the passage of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill. A number of representatives led by House Agriculture Committee chair Collin Peterson (D-Minn) withheld support of the bill until control of future agricultural offsets for the upcoming cap and trade markets was wrested away from the EPA (the preferred choice of environmentalists) and given to the more farmer-friendly USDA. Also heavily involved in the lobbying for more agriculture-specific provisions in Waxman-Markey were some of Big Ag’s most powerful players, including heavyweights like Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, and Dupont.

One of the key areas that the USDA has taken control of in Waxman-Markey is the design and delivery of agriculture-based offset projects. Authorities in both the US and Canada have long recognized the importance of the agriculture sector in meeting national greenhouse gas emission reductions. Understandably, farmers have been eagerly anticipating the additional revenues coming their way from offset projects in cap and trade markets.

There are a number of agricultural project types that are being touted for generating offset credits, including:

• reduced tillage / no-tillage
• afforestation of marginal farmlands
• nitrogen fertilizer management
• improved manure management
• livestock feed management (dairy, swine)
• anaerobic digesters
• biomass energy
• energy efficiency upgrades of facilities

A number of the potential agriculture offset project types are robust, defensible, and easily measured, particularly those involving energy generation (digesters, biomass energy) and energy conservation. But in a classic example of ‘not all offsets are created equal’, there is the potential for a huge quality gap between the robust credits and those that are harder to measure, monitor, and verify.

Conservation tillage practices (reduced till or no-till) are used by farmers to introduce a number of benefits to the soil, including improved fertility and reduced erosion. A number of studies have also shown that conservation tillage increases the sequestration of carbon in the soil. One study conducted at The Ohio State University estimated that U.S. farmers could store 288 million tons of carbon in their soil every year, which represents 17% of American GHG emissions.

The recent actions of Big Ag suggest that it will make every effort necessary to get conservation tillage approved as an allowable offset project – the number of farmers and acres that stand to benefit are simply too great to pass by. Yet a number of contradictory studies have been published in recent years that question the scientific validity of using tillage practices for offset credits.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh state that increased soil carbon storage introduced by conservation tillage could be counterbalanced by increases in nitrous oxide emissions from the soil, a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. They state that “the promotion of carbon credits for the no-till system before we have better quantification of its net greenhouse gas balance is naïve.” Meanwhile, a study by the USDA and University of Minnesota concludes that: “though there are other good reasons to use conservation tillage, evidence that it promotes C sequestration is not compelling.”

When you consider that tillage-based offset projects are difficult to accurately measure and routinely monitor (in addition to the contradictory science), it will be very interesting to see how much appeal these credits will have in the emerging cap-and-trade markets.

I am in the business of recommending offset credits to businesses that need to buy them either to meet future regulatory requirements or voluntary programs. In all likelihood I would never recommend a client invest in tillage-based offset credits – there are just too many questions surrounding them. And given the amount of potential acreage that could be signed up to no-till contracts if they are approved as an allowable offset for use in cap and trade, what impact will this risky carbon credit method have on the overall GHG inventory of the nation?

Image: jimmedia at flickr under a CC License

Stephen Boles is co-founder of Kuzuka, a marketplace website that brings a new level of convenience and confidence to carbon offset customers and provide consulting services to organizations that want to assess and reduce their carbon footprint.

If we’re working with multinational companies to help them reduce their impacts on the environment, we have to make them see what’s in it for them. At heart, two things - a risk of greater costs, and an opportunity to generate new revenue streams. With the proliferation of local, inter-regional programs as well as federal programs designed to combat climate change, the most immediate implication for the multinational industry will be the cost of doing business.

One can see how regional cap and trade programs on carbon emitters, as well as carbon taxes in certain jurisdictions are without a doubt going to have an impact on the bottom line. The key challenge (and, more importantly from a business perspective, opportunity) is for multinational firms to plan for these changes, therefore giving them the opportunity to turn climate change related challenges into long-term competitive advantages.

Why is this of interest to the environmental community? The quickest way to move a business organization is by helping them determine that the path you are suggesting is one that will provide them with a business advantage, greater profits, and increased shareholder value. By speaking their language, “opportunity, risk, and fiduciary duty” environmentalists will have a much easier time working with the business community, instead of against.

Image credit: iStockPhoto

They are everywhere. We can’t see them, but little by little they are destroying our way of life. But for the first time ever, they are being caught red-handed. They are greenhouse gases. And today Deutsche Bank unveiled the world’s first real-time carbon counter to measure these microscopic murderers.

Deutsche Bank’s 70-foot-tall digital billboard was unveiled today at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue in the heart of New York City. It stands right outside Madison Square Garden and Penn Station, displaying the running total of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Kevin Parker, Global Head of Deutsche Bank’s Asset Management division (DeAM) and a member of Deutsche Bank’s Group Executive Committee, switched on the counter at a ceremony this morning.

The belief that information acts as a catalyst for action plays the muse for the Carbon Counter’s creation. The number displayed on the scientifically-valid Counter is based on measurements that come from scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The measurements track all long-lived greenhouse gases covered under the Kyoto and Montreal Protocols (24 gases excluding ozone and aerosols).

“It will be a huge task to bring global emissions under control and my hope is that putting this data in the public view will spur both governments and markets to move us more quickly to a low-carbon economy,” said Parker.

“The Carbon Counter is a bold new experiment in communicating climate science to the public,” said Ronald Prinn, Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT. “With climate change in the news around the world, it is useful to have an up-to-date estimate of a single integrating number expressing the trends in the long-lived greenhouse gases contributing to that change. This number can help convey how fast these greenhouse gases are increasing, and the progress, or lack thereof, in slowing the rate of increase. The number on the Counter is based on global measurements. It shows the total estimated tonnage of these gases expressed as their equivalent amounts of carbon dioxide, with seasonal and other natural cyclical variations removed to more clearly reveal the underlying long term trends driven by human and other activity. It is indeed a number to watch.”

With carbon in the atmosphere reaching an 800,000 year high, it is indeed a number to watch. The number on the counter shows that the current quantity of long-lived greenhouse gases is 3.64 trillion metric tons. And that number is increasing by approximately 2 billion metric tons per month, a frightening amount.

“The science shows that unless this trend is addressed now there is a growing likelihood of increased warming and more severe disruptions for economies and societies,” said Parker. Scientists tend to agree with Parker. Scientists predict that if this trend continues there is an increasing probability of macro-climatic shifts that will create a self-sustaining cycle of rapid climate change.

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The process of tracking current carbon levels relies on regular measurement of long-lived greenhouse gas concentration data from equipment operated in dozens of locations around the world by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA’s Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment. The total is re-calibrated every month as new data is brought in.

Because the goal of the Counter is to raise awareness and decrease carbon emissions, the Counter is carbon neutral. It uses low-risk carbon credits (CERs) to offset its energy use while the digital numbers are generated by 40,960 low-energy light emitting diodes (LEDs). It is possible track the number 24/7 at know-the-number.com and to receive Carbon Counter updates via twitter. A widget is also available for download.

In 2008 Deutsche Bank set a target to reduce its global carbon emissions by 20 percent annually and is committed to being carbon-neutral from 2013 onward.

Photo by Brandon Barrett, courtesy of Deutsche Bank

In their ongoing efforts to achieve a more environmentally friendly image, the Coca-Cola Co. announced earlier this month that they will be launching new biobased plastic bottles for their Dasani water line later this year and vitaminwater next year. They’re calling their new packaging the “PlantBottle^TM.”

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This column highlights the top economic stories of the week.

Last weekend, the biggest players in the health care industry announced that they would put together a cost-cutting plan to present to the Obama Administration.  The expectation is that the measures will save a family of four $500 a year in the first year, and  $2,500 a year by the fifth year.

Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke said that the response to the governments bank stress tests, (carried out to see how the nation’s major banks could handle worsening economy), have been encouraging. The tests have apparently helped banks to access private capital. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced that smaller banks — that hold less than $500 million in assets — can apply for the same TARP funds that have been made available for the largest ones in the nation.

After repeated outbreaks of food based sicknesses such as salmonella and e-coli, food companies have now put the onus of food safety on consumers.

China might be championed as the empire of carbon, but when it comes to  developing renewable energy businesses, it seems to be surging way ahead.

The latest industry to get a federal bailout is life insurance.  The sector has been struggling for sometime but many have questioned where the line should be drawn when it comes to industries and companies being bailed out.

“The Carbon Counter is a bold new experiment in communicating climate science to the public,” said Ronald Prinn, Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT. “With climate change in the news around the world, it is useful to have an up-to-date estimate of a single integrating number expressing the trends in the long-lived greenhouse gases contributing to that change. This number can help convey how fast these greenhouse gases are increasing, and the progress, or lack thereof, in slowing the rate of increase. The number on the Counter is based on global measurements. It shows the total estimated tonnage of these gases expressed as their equivalent amounts of carbon dioxide, with seasonal and other natural cyclical variations removed to more clearly reveal the underlying long term trends driven by human and other activity. It is indeed a number to watch.”

With carbon in the atmosphere reaching an 800,000 year high, it is indeed a number to watch. The number on the counter shows that the current quantity of long-lived greenhouse gases is 3.64 trillion metric tons. And that number is increasing by approximately 2 billion metric tons per month, a frightening amount.

“The science shows that unless this trend is addressed now there is a growing likelihood of increased warming and more severe disruptions for economies and societies,” said Parker. Scientists tend to agree with Parker. Scientists predict that if this trend continues there is an increasing probability of macro-climatic shifts that will create a self-sustaining cycle of rapid climate change.

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

The process of tracking current carbon levels relies on regular measurement of long-lived greenhouse gas concentration data from equipment operated in dozens of locations around the world by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA’s Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment. The total is re-calibrated every month as new data is brought in.

Because the goal of the Counter is to raise awareness and decrease carbon emissions, the Counter is carbon neutral. It uses low-risk carbon credits (CERs) to offset its energy use while the digital numbers are generated by 40,960 low-energy light emitting diodes (LEDs). It is possible track the number 24/7 at know-the-number.com and to receive Carbon Counter updates via twitter. A widget is also available for download.

In 2008 Deutsche Bank set a target to reduce its global carbon emissions by 20 percent annually and is committed to being carbon-neutral from 2013 onward.

Photo by Brandon Barrett, courtesy of Deutsche Bank

Scientists from China and the United States believe they have discovered a new carbon material that is tough enough to crack diamond.

Yanming Ma of Jilin University in Changchun, China, and his colleagues believe that the new carbon material they theoretically model in the current volume of Physical Review Letters may already have been created in a 2003 laboratory experiment.

Working with a team of scientists in 2003, a co-author on the current work, Ho-kwang Mao of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C., found that when he squeezed graphite in a diamond-toothed press, it formed a new material hard enough to crack the teeth of the press. But the original study, published in the journal Science (Mao, et al. 2003), did not theoretically explore the molecular make-up of the new carbon, which Ma and his team have named M-carbon.

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A team at Michigan Tech University based their research on Camelina grown in Montana and then processed into bio-jet fuel using “UOP hydroprocessing technology”. Next generation biofuels are true hydrocarbons and in the molecular aspect are indistinguishable from fossil fuels, which makes Camelina oil a good candidate to quickly reduce carbon emissions produced by aviation.

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