The battle against greenhouse gas emissions doesn’t just involve preventing these emissions in the first place – it also involves getting rid of the carbon dioxide that’s already in the atmosphere.

That’s why the US Department of Energy has selected 15 projects with the aim of safely and economically storing CO2 in geological formations.

It will pour $21.3million over three years into these initiatives in the hope of developing the technology and infrastructure for large-scale CO2 storage in different geological formations across the US. They will complement existing activities that include injectivity of CO2 into the reservoir, plume migration and containment by caprock and other trapping mechanisms.

At the moment, geological storage takes five forms – depleted oil and gas reservoirs; deep saline formations; oil- and gas-rich organic shales; basalts; and unmineable coal seams. The projects selected are:

- Advanced Resources International – Based in Arlington, VA, it will assess factors influencing CO2 storage capacity and injectivity in Eastern gas shales. It receives $1,345,541 over 24 months.

- Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University (Stanford, CA) – Picks up $1,147,612 over 36 months to investigate the feasibility of geological CO2 sequestration in depleted shale gas reservoirs.

- Clemson University – From South Carolina, the university researchers will aim to improve the characterisation of reservoir and caprock compressibility and pressure-dependent permeability with $449,209 over 36 months.

- Colorado School of Mines – Based in Golden, Colorado, it aims to improve the understanding of CO2 trapping mechanisms affected by formation heterogeneity with $510,752 over 36 months.

- Fusion Petroleum Technologies – From Woodlands, Texas, this project picks up $780,185 over 18 months to evaluate experimental design/response surface methods and optimise methods and the operation of a saline formation site.

- Montana State University – A total of $1,599,385 has been awarded to the Bozemon, Montana, project that will develop a biomineralisation based technology for sealing preferential flow pathways.

- New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology – Based in Socorro, New Mexico, researchers will assess caprock/reservoir interfaces with $399,479 over 36 months.

- Paulsson, Inc – From Brea, California, this study’s objective is to develop a reservoir assessment tool based on robust borehole seismic technology with $1,995,682 over 24 months.

- Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York – With $1,015,180 they will test and evaluate carbon-14 as a reactive tracer to assess the transportation of CO2 in a basaltic storage reservoir.

- Trustees of Indiana University: Based in Bloomington, Indiana, researchers will receive $401,042 over 36 months to develop a reservoir-scale multi-phase reactive flow model for CO2 plume migration as well as for the dynamic evolution of trapping mechanisms within the Sleipner Project in the North Sea.

- University of Kansas Centre for Research, Inc: A total of $1,598,536 over 36 months will go towards the evaluation of the effectiveness of the volume seismic tool that assesses reservoirs.

- University of Texas at Austin: Will benefit from two projects – the first sees $1,002,633 awarded to develop a prototype of a new computational approach to assess plume migration over 36 months; and the second sees $425,345 go towards complete simulations and experiments for assessing capillary trapping in reservoirs over 24 months.

- University of Wyoming: Benefits from $1,508,198 over 36 months to study the storage of super-critical CO2 and co-contaminants in deep saline formations in Wyoming.

- Yale University: Based in New Haven, Connecticut, it will look at basic questions about the chemical and mechanical processes that must occur in basalt reservoirs with $1,597,187 over 36 months.

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It seems almost unthinkable that travelling by car could be deemed more harmful to the environment than travelling by plane – but a new study suggests that might just be the case.

According to a study published in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology, driving a car increases global temperatures in the long run more than making the same long distance journey by air. However, in the short run, travelling by air has a larger adverse climate impact as planes strongly affect short-lived warming processes at high altitudes.

Researchers took into account a number of climate chemistry models to consider the effects of all long- and short-lived gases. They performed calculations for the integrated radiative forcing and mean temperature change and concluded that while air travel has the highest specific impact on short-term warming, for long-term warming car travel has an equal or higher impact per passenger kilometre.

It was determined that in the long run, the global temperature increase from a car trip is higher than that on a plane journey of the same distance although in the first years after the journey, air travel increases global temperatures by four times more than car travel.

Dr Jens Borken-Kleefeld commented that as planes fly at high altitudes, their impact on both ozone and clouds is disproportionately high but ultimately short-lived. By contrast, car travel emits more carbon dioxide than air travel per passenger mile and as this remains in the atmosphere longer than other gases, cars therefore have a more harmful effect on climate change in the long term.

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Just how much will emissions need to fall if climate warming is to be kept below the critical threshold of 28C?

According to researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology, admissible carbon dioxide emissions will increase from around seven billion tonnes of carbon in the year 2000 to around ten billion tonnes in 2015. However, to achieve the long-term stabilisation of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, then emissions will need to fall by a further 56 per cent by the year 2050 and approach zero towards the end of the century.

The calculations are based on a coupled climate-carbon cycle model that specifies the maximum volumes of carbon dioxide that humans may emit.

Even though these calculations suggest that global warming would remain under the threshold until 2100, researchers warn that further warming may be expected in the long term and that it could take centuries for the global climate system to stabilise.

In order to reach these conclusions, the scientists adopted a new method which saw them reconstruct historical emission pathways using already-calculated carbon dioxide concentrations. The model used is based on a low resolution spatial grid with a grid spacing of around 400km.

The aim was to simulate future changes in climate and carbon dioxide emissions in a single scenario in which carbon dioxide equivalent concentrations are stabilised in the long term at 450 parts per million to keep global warming at the two degree threshold.

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The US state of California may be leading the battle against harmful emissions, but it is still feeling the effects of past lead contamination.

According to a study by a team from UC Santa Cruz, California, concentrations of environmental lead contamination are continuing to persist in the state. Their paper, printed in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology, analysed lead concentration and isotopic composition of both recent and archived samples of the lace lichen. It found that the contamination stretches back to 1892 when lead levels from the northern reach of the San Francisco Bay corresponded to those of high lead emissions from the Selby smelter that were killing horses in adjacent fields at the time.

The authors commented that lead concentrations peaked in 1976 corresponding with the maximum of leaded gasoline emissions in the state. After that, lead concentrations have steadily declined – but isotopic compositions of contemporary samples still correspond with those of previous leaded gasoline emissions in the state.

According to the team, the atmospheric lead now being deposited within the area is from historic emissions of the leaded gasoline that was terminated in the state nearly two decades ago.

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With the Deepwater Horizon incident continuing to send shockwaves around the world, UK Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has moved quickly to state that the Government will increase its inspection of drilling rigs and monitoring of offshore compliance.

Commenting on the Deepwater Horizon, Huhne stated that “what we are seeing will transform deep water drilling worldwide” and went on to say that it is his responsibility to make sure the oil and gas industry maintains the highest practices in the UK.

He has already had an urgent review carried out and found that the safety and environmental regulatory regime is fit for purpose and is “among the most robust in the world”. However, he believes that the Deepwater Horizon incident still gives pause for thought and there is every reason to increase vigilance.

His plans include doubling the number of environmental inspections by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to drilling rigs and launching a new industry group to look at the UK’s ability to both prevent and respond to oil spills. He will also review existing procedures as soon as the details of what caused the incident in the Gulf of Mexico are available.

The four actions under way include: the DECC increasing its oversight of drilling operations by recruiting additional inspectors; reviewing the indemnity and insurance requirements for operating in the UK continental shelf; having the industry trade association Oil and Gas UK establish a new group of regulators; and the EU asking companies operating in its waters to provide assurances they are working as hard as possible to ensure safe practice.

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It seems the US is still a long way from gaining a stranglehold on its increasing greenhouse gas emission output with new predictions suggesting total emissions will expand by four per cent from 2005 to 2020.

According to the fifth National Communication on US climate change actions submitted by the US Department of State to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, greenhouse gas emissions will expand from 7,109Tg CO2 Eq to 7,416Tg CO2 Eq without a cap and trade programme and other complementary policies. However, CO2 emissions are expected to fall over the same period by 1.5 per cent based on updates of the US Energy Information Administration’s AEO 2009 report.

The projections are based on a “business as usual” scenario and incorporate major policies that were in place as of March 31, 2009, including the Energy Independence Security Act of 2007.

A large part of the emissions growth will be driven by HFCs with demand for refrigeration and air conditioning expected to increase with HFCs used as alternatives to ozone-depleting substances.

This has prompted calls for rapid action on HFCs with Micronesia suggesting the Montreal Protocol treaty be used to phase out HFCs as the most important fact-action strategy to save the island. If they are not aggressively phased out then they could contribute to up to one third or more of total global warming.

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It’s not just road transport that is having a significant effect on global warming – air traffic is also seen as a major contributor.

According to a new study by a team at the Dalton Research Institute in the UK, carbon dioxide and other gases from air traffic are expected to double or triple by 2050.

The study, published in the ACS Journal Environmental Science & Technology, outlines that aviation is not currently one of the main drivers of global warming – it currently contributes between two and three per cent of carbon dioxide emissions.

However, it is predicted that by 2100 carbon dioxide emissions from aviation could reach seven times their existing levels. To reach this conclusion they used a global model of aircraft movements and emissions to calculate fuel use and emissions to 2050 and beyond. The scenarios saw the authors examine technology trends in detail and develop plausible projections for fuel efficiency and emissions for each scenario.

It is expected that future emissions will grow between 2000 and 2050 by a factor in the range of 2.0 and 3.6 depending on the scenario with emissions of oxides of nitrogen over the same period projected to grow by between a factor of 1.2 and 2.7.

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Earlier this week we told you about President Obama’s push for a national policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (see article) – and now his plans have received backing from the California Air Resources Board.

Chairman Mary Nichols issued a statement applauding the announcement stating that California will work with Federal agencies on the next phase of light duty vehicle greenhouse gas and fuel economy standards for model years 2017-2025. 

Originally, California had agreed to defer to the proposed national standard through model year 2016 instead of implementing the Pavley greenhouse gas standards for light duty vehicles. The national programme reaches the target at a slower rate than the California programme envisioned but does have the same fleet average endpoint.

According to the statement for Chairman Nichols, California “supports the emission regulations and fuel economy standards jointly adopted by United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the United States Department of Transportation’s National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA)”. It states however, that the new standards must be followed by additional action to continue the impressive reductions already in place up to 2016.

California has committed to working in partnership with the EPA and NHTSA to develop a technical assessment to inform future rulemaking that will include an evaluation of emerging technologies; engaging with manufacturers of passenger vehicles; evaluating possible approaches to establish an increase in the use of advanced technologies; and to identify potential greenhouse gas emission standards that could be implemented nationally for the 2017-2025 model years.

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Following a bitterly harsh winter it appears that Brits are losing faith in the concept and potential consequences of global warming.

According to a survey commissioned by EDF Energy, the number of people concerned about where Britain’s electricity comes from has also declined while resistance to nuclear power stations also appears to be decreasing.

The YouGov poll took a sample of 4,300 adults and found that interest in climate change had fallen from around 80 per cent of respondents four years ago to 71 per cent last year and now a mere 62 per cent. Only 80 per cent of respondents expressed an interest in where electrical power is made compared to 82 per cent in 2009. The number of climate change agnostics meanwhile has risen from 25 per cent to 33 per cent.

Among the reasons touted for the change is the failure to reach an agreement on fresh emission targets at the Copenhagen climate change summit; and the recent batch of cold weather.

EDF Energy meanwhile is planning to build a new generation of nuclear power plants and has seen the favourability rating rise from +4 to +16 in the last three years. Chief executive of the company Vincent de Rivaz believes that urgent action is needed if the UK is to meet carbon emission targets and nuclear power is the lowest cost low-carbon solution that can be built in the UK without subsidy.

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The National Research Council has suggested the US needs a measurable domestic greenhouse gas emissions budget target in the range of 170-220gigatons of CO2 for the period 2012-2050.

Its report, entitled Limiting the Magnitude of Future Climate Change, outlines the target while also warning that the longer the wait to reduce emissions, the harder it will be to reach any goal.

As part of its analysis, it focused on a range of global atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations of between 450 and 550ppm and found the resulting budget range corresponds to a reduction of emissions from 1990 levels by 80-50 per cent respectively.  

In order to meet an emissions budget however, there will need to be a major departure from existing trends and prompt action is required. In 2008 alone, the US emitted around seven gigatons of CO2.

Among the possible solutions to the problem is a carbon-pricing system such as cap and trade, or a system of taxing emissions. However, the report suggests that carbon pricing alone will not be enough to sufficiently reduce domestic emissions and that emphasis must be placed on increasing energy efficiency; accelerating the use of renewable energy sources; addressing and resolving the key barriers to full-scale testing and commercial scale demonstration of new generation nuclear power; developing power plants with carbon capture and storage technology; and advanced low greenhouse gas emitting transport options. 

These are the near-term approaches, but ultimately to tackle climate change several overarching strategies will also be needed. For example, this may include adopting an economy-wide carbon pricing system; complementing the carbon pricing system; creating new technology choices; and more.

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