Carbon Capture

Figure of the day: In a country where half of the surface is covered by forests (such as Spain), trees capture 20 percent of that country's CO2 emissions. This nice information masks two facts: we still have 80 percent of those emissions still to reduce and that the group that is currently spreading this information, the FBYCC (Forum of Forests and Climate Change) is asking for forest owners to be compensated. Seventy percent of Spanish forestsare h

French company Tyca, which usually works on aquarium and aquiculture projects, has announced the development of lamps that could capture CO2. The lamps are actually a sort of aquarium made of transparent walls that hold microscopic algae that eat CO2 and use solar light to produce O2, like plants. These algae are bioluminescent, which means they produce light. According to the company, one kilogram of these microalgae capture two kilograms of CO2, whic

What if we found a system to transform one of our big "enemies" into a fuel again, and then, when produced, re-transformed again? This is the aim of a project made at University of Nottingham's Centre for Innovation in Carbon Capture and Storage (CICCS), in the UK, directed by Mercedes Maroto-Valer. They have successfully completed a cycle of transforming CO2 into natural gas (CH4). This could lead to making most c

Greenpeace is quite unhappy with recent proposals to use carbon capture technology (CCT) at power plants that burn coal. According to the environmental group, CCT is like burying money. Their reasons? First and foremost, the technology is not yet 100 percent ready, and won't be until 2030. Meanwhile, the need to reduce carbon emissions is quite immediate. Secondly, Greenpeace claims that CCT wastes energy: about 10 to 40 percent of the energy produced by the power plant where carbon is captured

The X-Prize foundation was established help spur developments in a variety of areas including space travel, medicine and genomics. We've had plenty of coverage here of the Automotive X-Prize where the target is to develop a production viable car that can achieve the equivalent of 100mpg. The foundation is now establishing what it calls the Energy and En

Two companies, Holcim and Aurantia are starting a new project to reuse CO2. They take the CO2 produced by a cement plant in Jerez de la Frontera in Spain and "feed" it to microalgae which then turn around and produce biodiesel. The results of this project will be tested to assess if the carbon dioxide supplied by the cement plant is suitable for the algae. The two companies will also select the best type of algae for the project as well as assessing the viability of the pro

Despite the drubbing some of us are taking this winter there are still the same CO2-induced global warming predictions being made and so reducing the amount of carbon that's emitted to our skies appears to remain necessary. One of the ways that has been touted as the most promising has been carbon c

Repsol, one of Europe's biggest oil companies, has decided to store half a million tons of CO2 under the Mediterranean Sea. The plan is to capture CO2 at its refinery in Tarragona, Spain, and move it 43 km through the pipeline that connects it to an old "Casablanca" oil platform.

Do you hate the idea of your car spewing exhaust? There might be a way to stop it without using any expensive batteries or hydrogen fuel cells. According to the New York Times, a pair of scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) are working on a way to trap exhaust fumes (by blowing them over a liquid solution that contains potassium carbonate) and recycle the trapped carbon into either methanol, gasoline or jet fuel. F. Jeffrey Martin and William L. Kubic Jr. have named their process

EESTech Inc., a company based in Brisbane, Australia, owns the Asia-Pacific rights to a system called the Purenergy CO2 Capture System (CCS). This is supposed to be the world's first pre-engineered, modular CO2 capture system that can be retrofitted onto existing power plants or any large industrial greenhouse gas emitter.

The Government of Castilla-La Mancha in Spain has just announced that they aren't going to accept the installation of any CO2 storage facility in its territory until further notice.

A group of American scientists have unveiled a new type of foam-like substance which they claim captures CO2 up to 83 times its volume. The best part is that this foam is able to work at high temperature and pressure conditions, which makes it suitable for use in vehicles and power plants.

What, motoring without polluting? That sounds like a good thing to me. But before we take our champagne bottles out to celebrate, let's see what this means.

Val Kilmer. You know him as Ice Man or Batman (shudder) or, perhaps, as Moses. Soon, though, we'll think of him at KITT. Thanks (or no thanks if you're Will Arnett, aka a star of Arrested Development and the guy who already recorded the KITT voiceovers) to some fighting between GMC and Ford, Kilmer was asked to step in at the last minute and work on the made-for-TV movie that airs February 17. Sebastian Blanco

In 2008, if your factories aren't the cleanest in the world, you can always compensate with some kind of carbon-balancing intervention to fix things. Such is the case of tiremaker Yokohama Rubber Company (YRC), which just announced that it's going to plant half a million trees, which equal 25 acres of forest. YRC will plant these trees at seven facilities in Japan and 11 overseas. For Yokohama USA headquarters in Salem, VA, the estimated planted surface will be one acre.

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When people think of South Dakota, assuming they think of the state at all, they probably remember the Black Hills, or Mount Rushmore. That may soon change. The largest supplier of crude oil to the United States is Canada and the majority of that oil comes from the oil sands of Alberta. Hyperion Resources has just begun the process of getting approval to build a new oil refinery in Elk Point, South Dakota specifically to process that oil. The first phase of the Hyperion Energy Center is planned

Shell Oil formed a joint venture with HR Biopetroleum called Cellana and they plan to produce biofuels from marine algae. Shell, which owns a majority stake in the venture, will start production of a demonstration facility on the Kona coast of Hawai'i Island immediately. The production volume for the facility, which is on a site leased from the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA), will be small but the main goal is to research which natural microalgae species produce the highes