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----- Original Message -----
From: greenleap@yahoogroups.com
To: greenleap@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 11:37 PM
Subject: [greenleap] Digest Number 1528


A list, hosted in Australia, for people interested in leapfrogging to an
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Messages In This Digest (5 Messages)
1. New technology allows CO2 stripping from the air From: Philip Sutton
2. Sustainability emergency: The situation in Italy as it dries out From:
Philip Sutton
3a. The Australian Treasurer's budget speech on climate change From: Philip
Sutton
3b. The Australian Treasurer's budget speech on climate change From: Philip
Sutton
4. Industry caught in carbon offset scams From: Philip Sutton
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1. New technology allows CO2 stripping from the air
Posted by: "Philip Sutton" Philip.Sutton@...
philipsuttonoz
Thu Apr 26, 2007 4:02 pm (PST)
Dear Greenleapers,

The new technology described below is interesting.

Before people get to excited we need to know the economic and energy
costs of the technology.

The technology is presented as the solution to mobile uses of CO2 (cars)
and as a way to continue using fossil fuels for a long time.

However it is probably better seen as a way to strip the current dangerous
excess of CO2 out of the air, powered by renewable energy.

Cheers, Philip

------- Forwarded message follows -------
From: Matthew Wright
<matthew@...>
Date sent: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 07:10:15 +1000
Subject: [Team] First Successful Demonstration of Carbon
Dioxide Air Capture Technology Achieved

From:
http://www.physorg.com/news96732819.html

Global Research Technologies, LLC (GRT), a technology research and
development company, and Klaus Lackner from Columbia University have
achieved the successful demonstration of a bold new technology to capture
carbon from the air. The "air extraction" prototype has successfully
demonstrated that indeed carbon dioxide (CO2) can be captured from the
atmosphere. This is GRT's first step toward a commercially viable air
capture device. This technology debuts at a critical juncture where recent
findings of an esteemed array of global experts - including former Vice
President Al Gore, Sir Nicholas Stern, and the eminent scientists and
practitioners serving on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -
have concluded that man-made climate change is indeed upon us. One of
the most critical challenges we face is the dramatically increasing and
completely unprecedented level of carbon dioxide in the earth´s atmosphere.
The air extraction device is one critical solution to help the world reduce
dangerous amounts of CO2 in the air.

The carbon capture technology was developed by GRT and Klaus S.
Lackner,
a professor at Columbia University's Earth Institute and the School of
Engineering and Applied Sciences. The Tucson-based technology company
began development of the device in 2004 and has recently successfully
demonstrated its efficacy. The air extraction device, in which sorbents
capture carbon dioxide molecules from free-flowing air and release those
molecules as a pure stream of carbon dioxide for sequestration, has met
a wide range of performance standards in the GRT research facility.

"This is an exciting step toward making carbon capture and sequestration a
viable technology," said Lackner. "I have long believed science and industry
have the technological capability to design systems that will capture
greenhouse gases and allow us to transition to energies of the future over
the long term."

The GRT's demonstration could have far-reaching consequences for the
battle to reduce greenhouse gas levels. Unlike other techniques, such as
carbon capture and storage from power plants, air extraction would allow
reductions to take place irrespective of where carbon emissions occur,
enabling active management of global atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
The technology shows, for the first time, that carbon dioxide emissions from
vehicles on the streets of Bangkok could be removed from the atmosphere
by devices located in Iceland. This could present a solution to three
problems that until now have posed intractable obstacles for advocates of
greenhouse gas reduction: how to deal with the millions of vehicles that
together represent over 20 percent of global CO2 emissions, how to
manage the emissions from existing infrastructure, and how to connect the
sources of carbon to the sites of carbon disposal.

"This significant achievement holds incredible promise in the fight against
climate change," said Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of The Earth Institute, "and
thanks to the ingenuity of GRT and Klaus Lackner, the world may, sooner
rather than later, have an important tool in this fight."

A device with an opening of one square meter can extract about 10 tons of
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year. If a single device were to
measure 10 meters by 10 meters it could extract 1,000 tons each year. On
this scale, one million devices would be required to remove one billion tons
of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. According to the U.K. Treasury´s
Stern Review on climate change, the world will need to reduce carbon
emissions by 11 billion tons by 2025 in order to maintain a concentration of
carbon dioxide at twice pre-industrial levels.

Experts have long highlighted the potential of air extraction, arguing that it
could have a vastly greater impact than the renewable energy sources that
currently operate on a small scale. To date, however, the transport sector
has resisted many carbon-reducing technologies. Although carbon capture
is possible at power plants through flue-gas scrubbing, designing millions of
cars, trucks, and trains to capture CO2 from their exhaust streams is simply
not practical. Hauling a "trailer" behind every passenger car to collect
exhaust emissions would exacerbate traffic congestion, reduce gasoline
mileage and increase fuel consumption. Simply put, CO2 emissions from
the transportation sector are going to end up in the atmosphere and can only
be removed from the atmosphere with a device like the one GRT has
developed.

Air capture devices are small and require much less land area than the wind
mills that would be needed to offset an equal amount of CO2 emission.
Indeed, if the CO2 carried by the air streams used to drive wind mills were to
be captured, then on an energy equivalent basis, the CO2 capture would
reduce emissions hundred times more than a wind mill of equal sweep area.
Like wind turbines, the GRT devices would be deployed in coordinated
formations, but would extract the air´s carbon dioxide, not its kinetic
energy.

A major challenge facing scientists working to extract and sequester carbon
from the atmosphere has been the fact that it is too expensive to re-outfit
many of the world´s existing power plants to make them more eco-friendly.
In general, building new technologies is easier and cheaper than adding
retrofits to existing infrastructure. Another exciting benefit of the GRT
device
is that it faces down this challenge by capturing the emissions from existing
power plants without imposing retrofit costs.

Air capture offers a third important benefit. The CO2 capture device can be
located at the point of CO2 end-use or sequestration, eliminating the current
need to match CO2 sources with sinks. For example, the CO2 originating
from all those vehicles in Bangkok can be captured in an oil field in Alberta,
Canada, where it could be used on-site for enhanced oil recovery (EOR)
operations or it could be captured in South Africa to feed a growing demand
in that country for feed stocks for petrochemical production. If the goal is
to
sequester a given quantity of CO2 in a specific geological formation, the air
capture system could be located at that physical location. Within the United
States, formations in Ohio, Oklahoma and Michigan, among other sites,
appear to hold promise for long-term CO2 storage underground. Air
extraction could also offer a new window in negotiations between developed
and developing countries over how to deploy carbon reducing technologies.

Going forward, GRT plans to begin demonstrating its air capture system on
a larger scale. Extensive deployment of the GRT air capture system makes
it possible to envision an actual reduction of CO2 levels in the atmosphere,
perhaps even to pre-industrial levels. That is the exciting promise of air
capture and precisely what has just been demonstrated by GRT.

------- End of forwarded message -------

------------
This message has been posted to the Greenleap List by:
Philip Sutton
Greenleap List Manager


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Messages in this topic (1)
2. Sustainability emergency: The situation in Italy as it dries out
Posted by: "Philip Sutton" Philip.Sutton@...
philipsuttonoz
Thu Apr 26, 2007 4:02 pm (PST)
From:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6595949.stm

Italy heat wave risks power cuts
By Mark Duff
BBC News, Milan

Italy's government is facing calls to introduce a state of emergency to fight
the threat of power cuts following the mildest winter since records began.

With summer still weeks away, rivers and lakes in the worst-affected North
of the country have never been drier.

It is being taken as the latest sign that Italy could find itself on the
frontline of
the global warming war.

Now even the Vatican is taking the problem seriously, organising a
conference to address the issue.

Drive across Italy's biggest river - the Po - at this time of year and you
would
expect to see a fast-flowing current fed by melt-waters from the Alps.

This year, however, you are more likely to see sandbanks.

Vatican concern

Italy's emergency planning department says water levels in the Po and in
Lake Garda, the country's largest lake, have never been lower.

They are warning of power cuts if things do not change because there will
not be enough water to cool the power stations that line the river's banks.

Italy's environment minister has acknowledged that a state of emergency
may have to be called to combat the looming crisis.

The country's civil defence organisation is warning that June will see an
exceptional, in their words "homicidal", heat wave.

Farmers' groups are warning they face devastation if the drought continues.

Scientists have repeatedly argued that Italy is particularly vulnerable to
global climate change, with potentially disastrous consequences for its
farming and tourism industries.

As if to underline the seriousness of the threat, the Vatican is holding a
two-
day seminar on climate change beginning on Thursday.

The meeting will focus in particular on the challenge to the developing world
and how the Church should respond.

One of the key speakers will be British Environment Secretary David
Milliband.


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Messages in this topic (1)
3a. The Australian Treasurer's budget speech on climate change
Posted by: "Philip Sutton" Philip.Sutton@...
philipsuttonoz
Thu Apr 26, 2007 5:15 pm (PST)
Dear Greenleapers,

I'm not sure what advanced technology was used to bring you Peter
Costello's budget speech live before the delivery debate, but it's available
for
viewing online at:

http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/resources/videos/climate-change/budget-2007-\
speech

The speech focuses quite strongly on climate change, which is nice.

Cheers, Philip

Philip Sutton
Director, Strategy, Green Innovations Inc.
Convener, Greenleap Strategic Institute

PO Box 27
Fairfield (Melbourne) VIC 3078
AUSTRALIA

Also:
President, Sustainable Living Foundation
www.slf.org.au
Manager of the Greenleap info list

Tel: +61 3 9486-4799
Skype: philip_sutton
Email: <Philip.Sutton@...>
http://www.green-innovations.asn.au/

Victorian Registered Association Number: A0026828M


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Messages in this topic (2)
3b. The Australian Treasurer's budget speech on climate change
Posted by: "Philip Sutton" Philip.Sutton@...
philipsuttonoz
Fri Apr 27, 2007 5:08 am (PST)
Dear Greenleapers,

I'm not sure what advanced technology was used to bring you Peter
Costello's budget speech live before the delivery debate, but it's available
for
viwing online at:

http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/resources/videos/climate-
change/budget-2007-speech
or click here

The speech focuses quite strongly on climate change, which is nice.

Cheers, Philip

Philip Sutton
Director, Strategy, Green Innovations Inc.
Convener, Greenleap Strategic Institute

PO Box 27
Fairfield (Melbourne) VIC 3078
AUSTRALIA

Also:
President, Sustainable Living Foundation
www.slf.org.au
Manager of the Greenleap info list

Tel: +61 3 9486-4799
Skype: philip_sutton
Email: <Philip.Sutton@...>
http://www.green-innovations.asn.au/

Victorian Registered Association Number: A0026828M


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Messages in this topic (2)
4. Industry caught in carbon offset scams
Posted by: "Philip Sutton" Philip.Sutton@...
philipsuttonoz
Fri Apr 27, 2007 5:11 am (PST)
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 14:02:22 +1000
From: "Adam Lucas" <Adam.Lucas@...>
Subject: Industry caught in carbon `smokescreen´

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/48e334ce-f355-11db-9845-000b5df10621.html
Financial Times FT.com

Industry caught in carbon smokescreen

By Fiona Harvey and Stephen Fidler in London
Published: April 25 2007 22:07 | Last updated: April 25 2007 22:07

Companies and individuals rushing to go green have been spending millions
on carbon credit projects that yield few if any environmental benefits.

A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the
new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are
paying for emissions reductions that do not take place.

Others are meanwhile making big profits from carbon trading for very small
expenditure and in some cases for clean-ups that they would have made
anyway.

The growing political salience of environmental politics has sparked a green
gold rush, which has seen a dramatic expansion in the number of
businesses offering both companies and individuals the chance to go carbon
neutral, offsetting their own energy use by buying carbon credits that cancel
out their contribution to global warming.

The burgeoning regulated market for carbon credits is expected to more
than double in size to about $68.2bn by 2010, with the unregulated voluntary
sector rising to $4bn in the same period.

The FT investigation found:
* Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless
credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.
* Industrial companies profiting from doing very little or from gaining
carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have
already benefited substantially.
* Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.
* A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the
true value of carbon credits.
* Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private
purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in
value because they do not result in emissions cuts.

Francis Sullivan, environment adviser at HSBC, the UKs biggest bank that
went carbon-neutral in 2005, said he found serious credibility concerns in the
offsetting market after evaluating it for several months.

The police, the fraud squad and trading standards need to be looking into
this. Otherwise people will lose faith in it, he said.

These concerns led the bank to ignore the market and fund its own carbon
reduction projects directly.

Some companies are benefiting by asking green consumers to pay them for
cleaning up their own pollution. For instance, DuPont, the chemicals
company, invites consumers to pay $4 to eliminate a tonne of carbon dioxide
from its plant in Kentucky that produces a potent greenhouse gas called
HFC-23. But the equipment required to reduce such gases is relatively
cheap. DuPont refused to comment and declined to specify its earnings from
the project, saying it was at too early a stage to discuss.

The FT has also found examples of companies setting up as carbon
offsetters without appearing to have a clear idea of how the markets
operate. In response to FT inquiries about its sourcing of carbon credits, one
company, carbonvoucher.com, said it had not taken payments for offsets.

Blue Source, a US offsetting company, invites consumers to offset carbon
emissions by investing in enhanced oil recovery, which pumps carbon
dioxide into depleted oil wells to bring up the remaining oil. However, Blue
Source said that because of the high price of oil, this process was often
profitable in itself, meaning operators were making extra revenues from
selling carbon credits for burying the carbon.

There is nothing illegal in these practices. However, some companies that
are offsetting their emissions have avoided such projects because
customers may find them controversial.

BP said it would not buy credits resulting from improvements in industrial
efficiency or from most renewable energy projects in developed countries.

Additional reporting by Rebecca Bream

------- End of forwarded message -------
------------
This message has been posted to the Greenleap List by:
Philip Sutton
Greenleap List Manager


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