Watching the Planet Breathe: Global CO2 Monitoring from Space

CO₂ can enter the atmosphere from a variety of sources, which can be natural or anthropogenic. For example, some natural sources are rotting plants, forest fires and ordinary breathing. Automobiles, factories and home heating units burn fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas. Burning these fossil fuels releases CO₂ into the atmosphere. These activities add to the emission of CO₂ into the atmosphere.

Processes that absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere are often referred to as sinks. Several natural processes remove CO₂ from the atmosphere. Plants, for example, use sunlight to photosynthesize CO₂ and water into sugar and other carbohydrates. Oceans also absorb atmospheric CO₂, whereafter, sea creatures incorporate the dissolved CO₂ into their shells. After these creatures die, their shells fall to the bottom of the ocean and eventually form carbonate rocks. The complete process of CO₂ exchange (taking into account both sources and sinks) is known as the carbon cycle.

Source: : Mission

Watching the planet breathe

Launched in 2009, the Japanese satellite Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) has the ability to pick up this glow. Using GOSAT data, JPL scientist Christian Frankenberg and colleagues have shown that it is possible to pick up this fluorescent glow from space over the entire planet, and thereby infer details about the health and activity of vegetation on the ground.

(A) Global map of plant chlorophyll fluorescence as measured by the GOSAT satellite from June 2009 to May 2010. The fluorescence is measured at a spectral wavelength of 757 nanometers and superimposed on a 2°x 2° grid. Areas of higher and lower plant activity can be seen in different parts of the world. (B) Time variations in the fluorescence signal given off by vegetation, from June 2009 to August 2010. A pronounced seasonal variation can be seen that reflects the growing season in the northern hemisphere and seasonal vegetation shifts in the tropics.

Together, GOSAT and OCO-2 will provide an unprecedented amount of information on the health of plants and carbon dioxide levels of our planet. The hope is that this will give us a much better grip on the Earth’s carbon cycle -- and therefore climate change.

Source: Watching the planet breathe

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Watching the planet breathe

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Improved Carbon Capture in Crystalline Sponges

Crystal Compounds Used as Super-Efficient Carbon Storage Sponges

Carbon capture stands to reduce the impacts of climate change caused by industrial pollution — but the methods currently available for capturing carbon are expensive, complicated and too burdensome to be widely implemented. It turns out that an answer to this problem could be a family of complex crystals called metal-organic frameworks. Metal-organic frameworks are incredibly porous and have the highest internal surface area of any substance known to man — and it just so happens that they can be formulated for the sole purpose of capturing carbon.

Collected from: Crystal Compounds Used as Super-Efficient Carbon Storage Sponges | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

Carbon Cycle 2.0: Berend Smit: Carbon Capture

Collected from: YouTube - Carbon Cycle 2.0: Berend Smit: Carbon Capture

Could Crystals Sponge Up the Carbon?

Dr. Jeffrey Long, a chemist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is one researcher studying the carbon-capture potential of metal-organic frameworks.

“We think we can modify the surface so it will cause just the carbon dioxide to stick,” Dr. Long said in an interview. “It would be a sort of carbon-dioxide selective sponge.”

Collected from: Could Crystals Sponge Up the Carbon? - Green Blog - NYTimes.com

The search for improved carbon sponges picks up speed

The idea is to engineer this incredibly porous compound into a voracious sponge that gobbles up carbon dioxide.

And they’re going for speed. The scientists hope to discover this dream material in a breakneck three years, maybe sooner. To do this, they’ll create an automated system that simultaneously synthesizes hundreds of metal-organic frameworks, then screens the most promising candidates for further refinement.

“Our discovery process will be up to 100 times faster than current techniques,” says Long. “We need to quickly find next-generation materials that capture and release carbon without requiring a lot of energy.”

Collected from: The search for improved carbon sponges picks up speed « Berkeley Lab News Center

Collected from: YouTube - Hunt for improved carbon capture picks up speed

Sources

Crystal Compounds Used as Super-Efficient Carbon Storage Sponges | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World
http://inhabitat.com/2010/07/05/crystal-compounds-found-to-act-as-carbon-storage-sponges/
YouTube - Carbon Cycle 2.0: Berend Smit: Carbon Capture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D9P92H314s
Could Crystals Sponge Up the Carbon? - Green Blog - NYTimes.com
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/could-crystals-sponge-up-the-carbon/
The search for improved carbon sponges picks up speed « Berkeley Lab News Center
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2010/05/26/carbon-capture-search/
YouTube - Hunt for improved carbon capture picks up speed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k38lza_t6mw

Related

Carbon capture and storage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage
Carbon dioxide removal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_removal
The search for improved carbon sponges picks up speed
http://www.physorg.com/news194193848.html
04.28.2009 - $30 million from DOE for carbon capture, sequestration
http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/04/28_efrc.shtml
News | Berkeley Research
http://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/2010/05/03/LBNLenergy_grant
A Research Center for Understanding How to Store CO2 Underground « Berkeley Lab News Center
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2009/04/28/efrc-co2/

Making Car Fuel from Air

Clipped from: Making Fuel From Air: Three British Universities Team to Develop Nanomaterials to Capture CO2 and Transform It to Fuel and Plastics - Renewable Energy - Zimbio

Making Fuel From Air: Three British Universities Team to Develop Nanomaterials to Capture CO2 and Transform It to Fuel and Plastics

Funding of $2.08 million (£1.4 million) to develop porous nanomaterials that absorb CO2 and convert it into new products such as car fuel and plastics has been awarded to three universities in the South West of Britain.  The research, led by the University of Bath, will also involve scientists and engineers from the Universities of Bristol and the West of England

The researchers will be developing Metal Organic Frameworks (MOF) which can store gases like CO2 and use catalysts to convert them into fuel or plastics. 

Clipped from: Making car fuel from thin air

Making Car Fuel from Thin Air

[...]

The project aims to develop porous materials that can absorb the gas that causes global warming and convert it into chemicals that can be used to make car fuel or plastics in a process powered by renewable solar energy.

The researchers hope that in the future the porous materials could be used to line factory chimneys to take carbon dioxide pollutants from the air, reducing the effects of climate change.

Clipped from: I-SEE

University of Bath

I-SEE: Institute for sustainable energy and the environment

Sustainable energy and the environment

The University of Bath across the range of its academic interests possesses high-level interdisciplinary research expertise in relation to energy, sustainability and the environment. This is reflected in the involvement of Bath researchers in many of the major environment and energy research council programmes resulting in a considerable portfolio of research expertise and current projects spread across the University.

Clipped from: Bristol University | News from the University | Carbon capture

£1.4 million to make car fuel from thin air

 Press release issued 23 March 2010

[...]

Dr. David Fermin, from the University of Bristol, said: "Currently, there are no large-scale technologies available for capturing and processing CO₂ from air. The fact is that CO₂ is rather diluted in the atmosphere and its chemical reactivity is very low. By combining clever material design with heterogeneous catalysis, electrocatalysis and biocatalysis, we aim to develop an effective carbon neutral technology."

The Bath-Bristol collaboration brings together scientists from a range of disciplines, with researchers from Bath’s Institute for Sustainable Energy & the Environment (I-SEE), the School of Chemistry at the University of Bristol, and the School of Life Sciences at the University of the West of England.

Clipped from: School of Life Sciences - UWE Bristol

The School of Life Sciences supports a diversity of teaching, research and knowledge exchange activity with a focus on the applications of science and its impact on real world problems.

Find out more about Life Sciences

Sources:

1. Making Fuel From Air: Three British Universities Team to Develop Nanomaterials to Capture CO2 and Transform It to Fuel and Plastics - Renewable Energy - Zimbio
2. Making car fuel from thin air
3. I-SEE
4. Bristol University | News from the University | Carbon capture
5. School of Life Sciences - UWE Bristol

Related:

1. Research to make car fuel from thin air
2. Homepage | University of Bath
3. I-SEE: Research Themes
4. Bristol University homepage - a place for learning, discovery and enterprise
5. Electrochemistry Group - School of Chemistry - Bristol University

Synthetic Trees

Clipped from: Artificial Trees: Could They be Better Than the Real Thing? : TreeHugger

Artificial Trees: Could They be Better Than the Real Thing?

Living trees are one of nature’s best carbon capturers; planting them can help counteract the carbon emissions of everything from cars to planes (though they're just a small part of a bigger solution). But the artificial version created by Columbia University professor Klaus Lackner has been grabbing carbon 1,000 times more quickly than the rooted versions (and “several hundred times better,” according to Lackner, than windmills) for a total of 90,000 tons of carbon each year--even without sunlight.

Clipped from: Synthetic Tree Soaks Up Carbon 1000x Faster Than the Real Thing | Popular Science

Synthetic Tree Soaks Up Carbon 1000x Faster Than the Real Thing

Each synthetic plant promises to do the work of a thousand old-style wooden trees

Klaus Lackner, a professor at Columbia University who is developing the tree, met with U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu last month to talk about the concept. In an interview with CNN, Lackner said the synthetic tree is "several hundred times better at collecting CO₂" than windmill generators. Lackner says that for every 1,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide collected, the tree emits just 200 kilograms. This ratio is more than enough to warrant the relatively high cost of building the trees (about the same as a new automobile) or retrofitting coal plants.

Clipped from: 'Synthetic tree' claims to catch carbon in the air - CNN.com

/technology

'Synthetic tree' claims to catch carbon in the air

A conceptual design of how the "synthetic tree" might look should they ever reach the stage of production.

As the wind blows though plastic "leaves," the carbon is trapped in a chamber, compressed and stored as liquid carbon dioxide.

The technology is similar to that used to capture carbon from flue stacks at coal-fired power plants, but the difference is that the "synthetic tree" can catch carbon anytime, anywhere

Clipped from: Air Scrubber Can Soak Up One Ton of Carbon Dioxide Daily - GoodCleanTech

Air Scrubber Can Soak Up One Ton of Carbon Dioxide Daily

More than a year ago, Sir Richard Branson launched the Virgin Earth Challenge which promises to grant $25 million to anyone who can come up with the best method to capture significant amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide. While we've seen potential contenders before, a group of scientists from Columbia University in New York headed by Klaus Lackner, seems to be leading the pack.

Clipped from: GRT - Global Research Technologies: Carbon Dioxide Air Capture

Global Research Technologies, LLC

GRT is the global air-capture technology and intellectual property leader and is currently developing its ACCESS^TM air-capture system for commercialization.

Clipped from: BBC NEWS | Programmes | Artificial trees: A green solution?

Artificial trees: A green solution?

Carbon capture, in the form of "artificial trees", is one idea explored in the BBC Two documentary Five Ways To Save The World. But could these extraordinary machines help to mitigate our excessive burning of fossil fuels and its consequence, global warming?


Artificial trees mimic one of the greatest carbon capturers on earth


Professor Lackner estimates that every tree would remove 90,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year


Would people be happy to look at fields of artificial trees?


Carbon dioxide gas would be injected into the sea bed

Sources

1. Artificial Trees: Could They be Better Than the Real Thing? : TreeHugger
2. Synthetic Tree Soaks Up Carbon 1000x Faster Than the Real Thing | Popular Science
3. 'Synthetic tree' claims to catch carbon in the air - CNN.com
4. Air Scrubber Can Soak Up One Ton of Carbon Dioxide Daily - GoodCleanTech
5. GRT - Global Research Technologies: Carbon Dioxide Air Capture
6. BBC NEWS | Programmes | Artificial trees: A green solution?

Related:

1. Carbon capture: Scrubbing the skies | The Economist
2. Columbia Magazine
3. Synthetic Tree Captures Carbon 1,000 Times Faster Than Real Trees | Sustainability | Fast Company
4. Synthetic Tree Promises Huge Carbon Dioxide Absorption Rate - GoodCleanTech

Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) Producing Methane From CO2

Clipped from: Microbes turn electricity directly to methane

Microbes turn electricity directly to methane

Shaoan Cheng and Defeng Xing (l to r) work with cell that produces methane directly from electricity by way of tiny microbes while Bruce E. Logan looks on.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A tiny microbe can take electricity and directly convert carbon dioxide and water to methane, producing a portable energy source with a potentially neutral carbon footprint, according to a team of Penn State engineers.

Clipped from: Bruce E. Logan

Bruce E. Logan

Research in the Logan lab is focused on bioenergy production for the development of an energy-sustainable water infrastructure for both industrialized and developing countries. Using new technologies, it is possible to directly generate electricity using microbial fuel cells, or hydrogen gas using microbial electrolysis cells, from wastewaters and biomass. These systems have the potential not only to power the water infrastructure, but to produce net excess power for communities and industries.

Clipped from: Bruce Logan Research - Microbial Fuel Cells

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs)

How does a microbial fuel cell work? When bacteria are placed in the anode chamber of a specially-designed fuel cell that is free of oxygen, they attach to an electrode. Because they do not have oxygen, they must transfer the electrons that they obtain from consumption (oxidation) of their food somewhere else than to oxygen-- they transfer them to the electrode. In a MFC these electrons therefore go to the anode, while the counter electrode (the cathode) is exposed to oxygen. At the cathode the electrons, oxygen and protons combine to form only water. The two electrodes are at different potentials (about 0.5 V), creating a bio-batter (if the system is not refilled) or a fuel cell (if we constantly put in new food or "fuel" for the bacteria).

Check out the MFC-cam, our on-line demonstration of an MFC!

Clipped from: Penn State Live - Microbes turn carbon dioxide into methane

Microbes turn carbon dioxide into methane

The cells are about 80 percent efficient in converting electricity to methane and because they use carbon dioxide as feed stock, would be carbon neutral if the electricity comes from a non-carbon source such as solar or wind power.

"The process does not sequester carbon, but it does turn carbon dioxide into fuel," said Logan. "If the methane is burned and carbon dioxide captured, then the process can be carbon neutral."

Logan suggests the method for off peak capture of renewable energy in a portable fuel. Methane is preferred over hydrogen because a large portion of the U.S. infrastructure is already set up to easily transport and deliver methane.

The National Science Foundation and Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. supported this project.

---

Sources:

1. Microbes turn electricity directly to methane
2. Bruce E. Logan
3. Bruce Logan Research - Microbial Fuel Cells
4. Penn State Live - Microbes turn carbon dioxide into methane

Related:

1. New Portable Energy Source Utilizes Microbes To Turn Electricity Directly To Methane
2. Bug eats electricity, farts biogas - tech - 05 April 2009 - New Scientist
3. Microbes turn electricity directly to methane without hydrogen generation
4. Boosting Bugs with Electricity to Make Natural Gas From C02 | New Energy and Fuel

Global Cooling

The world has seen some extraordinary winter conditions in both hemispheres over the past year: snow in Johannesburg last June and in Baghdad in January, Arctic sea ice returning with a vengeance after a record retreat last summer, paralyzing blizzards in China, and a sharp drop in the globe’s average temperature.

Skeptics on Human Climate Impact Seize on Cold Spell - New York Times

World Temperatures according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. Note the steep drop over the last year.
DailyTech - Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

A typical sunspot compared to the size of the earth. Sunspots have all but vanished in recent years.
DailyTech - Solar Activity Diminishes; Researchers Predict Another Ice Age

related:
Skeptics on Human Climate Impact Seize on Cold Spell - New York Times
DailyTech - Solar Activity Diminishes; Researchers Predict Another Ice Age
DailyTech - Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling
Ice Age

Fuel from CO2

Geneticist Craig Venter is creating a life form that feeds on climate-ruining carbon dioxide to produce fuel.

clipped from www.dailykos.com Geneticist Craig Venter says fuel from CO2 only 18 months away clipped from afp.google.com clipped from www.dailykos.com At the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in Monterey, California today, pioneer geneticist Craig Venter revealed a "fourth-generation fuel" project he believes is about 18 months away from perfecting a bio-engineered life form that will produce fuel by feeding on carbon dioxide, a common waste product responsible for much of global warming. clipped from afp.google.com Famed geneticist creating life form that turns CO2 to fuel Dr. J. Craig Venter Geneticist Craig Venter disclosed his potentially world-changing "fourth-generation fuel" project at an elite Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in Monterey, California. "We have modest goals of replacing the whole petrochemical industry and becoming a major source of energy," Venter told an audience that included global warming fighter Al Gore and Google co-founder Larry Page. "We think we will have fourth-generation fuels in about 18 months, with CO2 as the fuel stock." clipped from www.kennislink.nl

Related:
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Recycling of Greenhouse Gases

Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists are proposing a concept for removing carbon dioxide from the air and turning it back into gasoline.

clipped from www.nytimes.com Scientists Would Turn Greenhouse Gas Into Gasoline The idea is simple. Air would be blown over a liquid solution of potassium carbonate, which would absorb the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would then be extracted and subjected to chemical reactions that would turn it into fuel: methanol, gasoline or jet fuel. This process could transform carbon dioxide from an unwanted, climate-changing pollutant into a vast resource for renewable fuels. The closed cycle — equal amounts of carbon dioxide emitted and removed — would mean that cars, trucks and airplanes using the synthetic fuels would no longer be contributing to global warming. clipped from www.lanl.gov Synthetic Fuel Concept to Steal CO2 From Air LOS ALAMOS, N.M., February 12, 2008 -- Green Freedom™ for carbon-neutral, sulfur-free fuel and chemical production News Media Home News Releases - Fact Sheets Publications Contacts

Related:
KurzweilAI.net
Scientists Would Turn Greenhouse Gas Into Gasoline - New York Times
CR4 - Blog Entry: Green Freedom: Keeping Gas in Your Tank for Another 50 Years
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL): Synthetic Fuel Concept to Steal CO2 From Air

Turning CO2 into Fuel

clipped from www.technologyreview.com Turning Carbon Dioxide into Fuel Researchers are harnessing solar energy to convert carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide, which can be used to make fuels. Sun power: Putting the finishing touches on a giant solar collector, which researchers at National Laboratories will use to power a novel reactor capable of producing carbon monoxide from carbon dioxide. The carbon monoxide can then be used in the manufacture liquid fuels. Credit: Randy Montoya clipped from www.sandia.gov Sandia researcher Rich Diver assembles a prototype device intended to chemically reenergize carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide, which ultimately could become the building block to synthesize a liquid combustible fuel. (Photo by Randy Montoya) The Sandia research team calls this approach “Sunshine to Petrol” (S2P). “Liquid Solar Fuel” is the end product — the methanol, gasoline, or other liquid fuel made from water and the carbon monoxide produced using solar energy.

It's excellent work and, in principle, scientifically quite possible, says Christian Sattler, of the Institute of Technical Thermodynamics at the German Aerospace Center, in Cologne. "The question is, at what efficiency?" he says. "How much energy does it take to carry out this reduction? It may be more efficient to use the solar energy for direct power production."

Related: ABC News: Scientists Turn CO2 into Gasoline