19 projects will be funded by the DOE. John Litynski, sequestration division director at DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, explains:

These projects represent specific areas in monitoring CO2, both in the subsurface and at the surface, that helps to meet our goals to account for 99 percent of CO2 once it’s injected.  We’ve actually been doing monitoring for quite a while — ever since the program started 10 years ago, but we’ve been doing some field activities with the regional partnerships and now we want to make an effort to start looking at verification and accounting protocols after the field work. We’ve selected the new projects to fill in the gaps.

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Eco-activists often insist that vegetarianism is the only truly earth-friendly diet for humans.  On the other hand, there are many people, honestly trying to live as green as possible, who are not yet ready to take that step completely.  Others of us find that we are just not healthy without some animal protein in our diet, and that there is some logic to the argument than humans are biologically omnivorous.

If you are a meat-eater, whatever your personal reasons may be, the problem still remains — the beef industry is a nightmare.  From enormous factory farms raising animals in horrific conditions, to growth hormones interfering with our bodies, to mad cow disease resulting from herbivores being fed ground-up brains of their kin, to the ecological devastation…  We simply cannot allow ourselves to support this industry by buying its products.

So what is the conscientious carnivore to do?

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Scientists at Columbia University have discovered that a rock found in the Middle East can be used to soak up carbon dioxide at a rate high enough to significantly slow global warming.

The team found that when the rock, known as Peridotite, comes into contact with carbon dioxide it converts the gas into harmless minerals such as calcite. They have also worked out a way to ’supercharge’ the naturally occurring process to a million times its normal speed to grow enough of the mineral to permanently store 2 billion or more tons of carbon dioxide annually. This equates to an astonishing 7 per cent of the total global carbon emissions from human activity each year.

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By Ecotality writer Bill Hobbs. Originally published May 22, 2007.

It’s not going to be the most scintillating beachside reading this summer, but a new guide coming out in June from Duke University Press could help prevent rising seas from obliterating your favorite beach.

It’s called Harnessing Farms and Forests in the Low-Carbon Economy: How to Create and Verify Greenhouse Gas Offsets, and is described as “the first how-to manual for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States through changes in land use and farming practices, and turning those reductions into verifiable credits for trading in carbon markets, is about to hit bookshelves.”

John Grisham it ain’t, but the book may help bring some rationality and credibility to the whole “carbon offsets” business. The book is a technical guide for farmers, foresters, traders and investors. You can see a preview of the guide here. According to the Duke University press release, the book explains how farmers and foresters can convert their land’s carbon dioxide storage capacity, and reduce emissions of potent greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide, into revenue-generating “offsets” that can be bought and sold in future carbon markets.

Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions developed the guide in collaboration with the nonprofit advocacy group Environmental Defense, with input from scientists at Texas A&M, Colorado State, Rice, Princeton, Kansas State and Brown universities.

More from the press release:

Lawmakers at the federal and state levels are paying increased attention to the role of such offsets as legislation to reduce U.S.greenhouse gas emissions is being developed.

“We know land-use practices can give us more options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next 20 to 30 years and flexibility for companies adjusting to a U.S. carbon cap once it is enacted,” said Nicholas Institute Director Tim Profeta. “But farmers and foresters have needed specific guidance, and lawmakers need to know that the reductions can be verified. This book gives us that information and assurance.”

A number of agricultural groups are realizing the potential for new revenue streams through greenhouse gas-sequestering alterations to farming practices, such as “no till” farming where soils are not turned up after every season and manure-management practices that capture methane and use it as an energy source. “This is a comprehensive road map that paves the way for agriculture as a verifiable, measurable carbon sink,” said Dick Wittman, a member of the Agricultural Carbon Market Working Group and former president of the Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Association.

“Recent studies by Kansas State University and others have indicated that carbon could be an $8 billion market for agriculture,” Wittman said. “This document proves that specific agricultural conservation tillage practices are a legitimate method to store carbon. Should policy-makers embark on a cap-and-trade policy to curtail carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions, agriculture has the potential to be a cost-effective solution.”