But an increasing amount of that crude is staying in the country where it's used run to desalination and power plants.
The majority of Saudi arabia's fresh water comes from desalination, the process that turns saltwater into a drinkable supply.
when the tsunami knocked out backup diesel generators and reactors overheated.""As the CPR-1000 increases market share, China is assuring that rather than building a fleet of state-of-the-art reactors,
is piloting an environmental monitoring system that helps agribusiness concerns be smarter about how much water they use.
which were damaged heavily by the 2011 tsunami, Memeburn reported yesterday. That includes the#town of#Namie-machi,
and#HEART Tokushima have been working in partnership with#Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support to save over 700 animals the Great East Japan Earthquake.
#Google unveils deforestation monitor to combat climate change The philanthropic arm of Google, Google. org, introduced on Thursday a deforestation monitor that could be a useful tool to combat climate change.
Using a new platform, its"high-performance satellite imagery-processing engine, "the company can crunch the massive amounts of data stored on Google's servers to instantly produce,
The platform, unveiled at the International Climate change Conference in Copenhagen, could be used as a tool for nations to comply with the United nations-proposed REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest degradation in Developing Countries) program
Based largely on data from the UK's Stern Review on the Economics of Climate change report,
the REDD program plans to offer money in exchange for the prevention of the destruction of forests deemed significant to curbing global climate change.
According to the Stern report, keeping forests intact is one of the most cost-effective ways to cut carbon emissions."
"Emissions from tropical deforestation are comparable to the emissions of all of the European union, and are greater than those of all cars, trucks, planes, ships, and trains worldwide."
or environmental monitoring agencies s
#Huge spike in bus riders because of Wi-fi? Everyone is taking the curbside bus . Or at least 30%more of us are.
And with ILUC added to the mix, it looks like some top biofuel crops are worse for the environment, in terms of carbon emissions, than crude oil.
#Cheap Earthquake Warning Systems While predicting earthquakes remains a dream, scientists have developed early warning-systems systems that give people precious seconds to run out of buildings
That kind of warning might have saved hundreds of lives when a 7. 8-magnitude earthquake devastated Nepal on 25 april.
Earthquake-warning systems come at a high price, though, too high for countries like Nepal and others in quake-prone zones in South Asia,
along with GPS sensors to detect permanent ground movement due to the motion of the geological fault that triggers the earthquake.
If the latter, the system will calculate a hypothetical epicenter for the earthquake, the original time of the event,
For earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 4. 0, it will issue an alert. Benjamin Brooks, a geophysicist with the USGS, has a different crowdsourcing approach in mind.
with high earthquake hazards and minimal resources, is where a crowdsourcing approach would be most effective,
In research presented in the journal Science Advances two weeks before the Nepal quake hit, Brooks and his colleagues tested the ability of consumer-grade GPS devices to detect earthquakes.
Next, the researchers performed simulations using data from a hypothetical magnitude-7 earthquake in northern California and from the real 2011 magnitude-9 earthquake that hit Tohoku-oki
They simulated smartphone responses based on census data around the earthquake epicenters and recorded a phone as triggered
the system declared an earthquake. It took fewer than 5, 000 smartphones to detect the simulated California earthquake within 5 seconds,
giving enough time to warn San francisco and San jose. For the Japan quake, which had an offshore epicenter,
on the Wednesday before the Nepal earthquake I had a discussion with a Nepalese colleague about proposing precisely such an approach,
this does not affect its biodegradability.""If we put it in a fungus environment, the fungus can still eat it,
which would make chips conform to the pollution standards for arsenic set by the U s. Environmental protection agency.
and distribute hydrogen is still the biggest hurdle to the wide deployment of green, CO2 EMISSION-free cars.
In addition to lowering CO2 EMISSION, the units produce little noise, making them suitable as mobile electricity generators in places, like field hospitals,
help address climate change, increase energy security and improve the competitiveness of U k. businesses. The scheme, which came into force in July 2014,
according to the Department of energy and Climate change, could lead to on average a savings of £56, 400/$90, 240 per year, per business.
This could reduce congestion and pollution around the port. Moving To Smart Everything Sensors are not just the domain of industry though.
#Hardware Battlefield 2015 The majority of home climate control systems in the world just won work with Nest,
Sensibo is a startup that wants to make the approximately 1 billion climate control devices that aren smart to smart with a little more Nest-like.
but also automate your home climate control with intelligent features, including location-based activation, timer settings and a learning algorithm that the company claims can save you up to 40 percent on your home heating and cooling bills over time,
which counteracts the increasingly crowded roads, traffic and pollution. In other words, this is a classic (and, dare
which is designed for houses that have multiple rooms in need of climate control. Remote sensors help it monitor temperature in multiple rooms at the same time,
#Google Straps Aclima Sensors To Street view Cars To Map Air pollution If a city knows what intersections are full of smog,
so they and their local governments can see pollution on their own streets. Independent scientific analysis confirmed that the mobile sensor system worked for collecting street-by-street data
Herzl explains that e know that trees absorb pollution NO2 specifically. If we can know where pollution hotspots are,
we can know where to put green spaces. The Google partnership will allow it to rapidly scale the deployment of its sensors.
or pedestrians away from high-pollution areas to avoid exacerbating condensed pollution or breathing it in.
The ability to direct self-driving cars away from intersections where they might contribute to high-pollution zones could help convince cities theye a positive change.
which together account for some 45 percent of the globe total carbon dioxide emissions, pledged to make significant efforts in the next 10 to 15 years to limit their CO2 EMISSIONS.
It the first time China has committed publicly to halting the decades-long rise of its CO2 EMISSIONS.
However, due to economic factors and policy shifts, China may be poised to achieve this goal even earlier than promised.
China meanwhile promised that its annual CO2 EMISSIONS which have increased by 257 percent since 1990, would stop rising by 2030 or earlier.
Also, this year China government has announced already a plan to reduce air pollution by taxing and limiting coal use.
and carbon emissions could level off sometime between 2025 and 2030. But, says Karplus, there is still uncertainty over
The pact is ugely importantfor global climate change policy efforts because China has agreed finally to a target related to urning its emissions down in absolute value,
since the world top two emitters have circumvented effectively the reigning geopolitical gridlock over international climate policy l
#Blame the Weather for Last Year s Rise in U s. Carbon dioxide emissions A colder winter was one of the main reasons carbon dioxide emissions from energy use rose in the United states by 2. 5 percent in 2013
and relatively small changes in fuel prices are enough to counteract the emissions reductions that have resulted from greater solar
and dealing with suddenly changing environments, will remain difficult or expensive to automate for decades to come.
since cement production is responsible for more than 5 percent of all man-made carbon dioxide emissions. The Norcem Brevik cement works tucked into a scenic harbor south of Oslo has used waste heat to drive a process called amine scrubbing that at test scales removed between 30 and 40 percent of the total emissions
Some more far-out ideas for capturing carbon from cement making include using concentrated sunlight to drive the production process (see New Cement-Making Method Could Slash Carbon emissions.
A new device could reduce that waste cutting fuel consumption and carbon emissions by as much as 3 percent and saving companies millions of dollars.
Three percent might not seem like much but for context air travel accounts for 2 percent of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions.
which account for far more carbon emissions. Even so it has long been considered a relatively lousy way to store energy because of its low efficiency about 65 percent of the energy in the original electricity is lost.
calling into question its lofty goals to use natural gas to help clean up its air and control the growth of greenhouse gas emissions.
#How to Clean the Gas and Oil industries Most Contaminated water In a nondescript site in Midland, Texas, an inexpensive new process is cleaning up some of the most contaminated water aroundhe extremely salty stuff that comes up with oil at wells. By the end
The technology may provide a way to deal with the increasing amounts of contaminated water the fossil fuel industry is generating as it pursues more and more difficult-to-reach deposits.
Many oil formations can produce as much as five barrels of contaminated water for every one barrel of oil.
It doesn address pollution from mining and separating rare earth oxides from other materials in the ore (other new processes are being developed to address those issuesee he Rare-Earth Crisis. But for metals such as aluminum and magnesium,
and storing it underground could help address climate change, but some experts worry that the gas will leak back out.
Last week, a major U n. climate report called attention to the importance of carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) for dealing with climate change
whose research suggests that earthquakes could cause carbon dioxide gas to leak out of underground storage sites,
#Indian scientists develop e-Nose to sniff out hazardous gases Indian scientists have developed a sensor-based'Electronic Nose'for sniffing out variety of gases at pulp and paper mill industries and environmental monitoring at other
Each of the 94 modules were 3d printed using a 6-axis robot arm in the Robotic Fabrication Lab at the nearby College of Architecture and Environmental design at Kent State university in Ohio, USA.
Among others who want to highlight the disruptive new approach to auto manufacturing that incorporates 3d printing to dramatically reduce the pollution,
and pollution generated by manufacturing. It also holds the promise of making large-scale car manufacturing affordable for small teams of innovators.
while saving energy and generating less pollution.""While the Node presents Divergent Microfactoriesnew technology, the Blade presents the new technology in context as the world first 3d printed supercar.
while also reducing the health and environmental impacts of traditional manufacturing. Needless to say between the developments in self-driving cars as well as disruptions to car manufacturing itself,
storing energy and capturing carbon dioxide emissions from factories and power plants, "Bao said. Supercapacitorsto see how the new material performed in real-world conditions,
as the atoms jointly move to the next trough. t like an earthquake, Vuletic says. here force building up,
#Carbon nanotube-Based Water Desalination and Purification Technology Awarded Patent Mitra's new carbon nanotube immobilized membrane (CNIM) is an energy-efficient device designed to filter higher concentrations of salt than is currently feasible through reverse osmosis, one of the standard
It is used also to remove pollutants such as volatile organic compounds (VOCS)- chemicals routinely used in solvents-from water."
At the same time, droughts caused by climate change are reducing supply in many regions of the world, including parts of the U s,
Membrane distillation is a water desalination process in which heated salt water passes through a tubelike membrane,
and nitrogen dioxide is a major contributor to smog, she said. he ability to monitor such gases in production facilities
while the ability to sense nitrogen dioxide allows for a constant monitoring of pollution levels in crowded cities.
and sanitation and desalination improved. Water filtration systems require a lot of energy due to friction at the nano-level.
The results have important implications for desalination processes and energy conservation, e g. improving the energy efficiency for desalination using reverse osmosis membranes with pores at the nanoscale level,
or energy conservation, e g. membranes with boron nitride nanotubes. Crowdsourcing the solutionthe project, initiated by IBM's World Community Grid,
Large-scale graphene can be used for applications such as water desalination membranes and flexible electronics. raphene is more conductive than any metal we know of,
said UC San diego Nanoengineering Ph d. candidate Aliaksandr (Alex) Zaretski. t has been known for years that graphene is useful as a water desalination membrane.
but there are lingering concerns about their environmental impact due to the long-term effects of the used metal nanoparticles released in the environment.
have minimal environmental impact, and are priced affordably. We expect this method to have a broad impact.
which find application in cancer treatment, pollution reduction, renewable energy collection. Scientists from Harvard, Boston, and Princeton universities have played also a role in the development of this innovative technique, called D Structure Identification of Nanoparticles by Graphene Liquid Cell EM (SINGLE),
Brandl says. hen we came up with the idea to use our particles to remove toxic chemicals, pollutants,
in a solution hydrophobic pollutant molecules move toward the hydrophobic nanoparticles, and adsorb onto their surface,
and now nrichedby the pollutants they form larger aggregates that can then be removed through filtration, sedimentation,
and molecules. he interactions we exploit to remove the pollutants are nonspecific, Brandl says. e can remove hormones, BPA,
and we can do this in one step. nd the nanoparticleshigh surface-area-to-volume ratio means that only a small amount is needed to remove a relatively large quantity of pollutants.
thus offer potential for the cost-effective cleanup of contaminated water and soil on a wider scale. rom the applied perspective,
as another example of a persistent pollutant that could potentially be remediated using these nanomaterials. nd for analytical applications where you don need as much volume to purify or concentrate,
The researchers, from Anhui Jianzhu University in China, say their new material could provide inspiration for other approaches to removing pollutants.
even at low concentrations, small amounts of heavy metal pollution can kill corals. This heightened toxicity is due to coral being very efficient at collecting,
Aluminium oxide has previously been used to remove pollutants, but the structure of the material has not been optimal,
"Adsorption is an easy way to remove pollutants from water, so developing new products that can do this is a big challenge in environmental remediation,
Environmental groups and marine biologists have expressed concerns about the use of air guns for contributing to noise pollution in the ocean that can disturb
It exploits naturally occurring seismic waves generated by Earth's oceans that are several orders of magnitude weaker than those produced by earthquakes.
Overwatering puts pressure on an already scarce and expensive resource increases pollution from nutrient-rich runoff affects the quality of the fruit
which directly impact three-to seven-day weather forecasts in the United states. Cris enables weather forecasters to more accurately predict days in advance the path and severity of weather like tornadoes and snowstorms.
giving obvious benefits in the cost and environmental impact of running the network. Leo Laughlin who is in the first cohort of students in the CDT in Communications,
and is particularly effective at improving predictions of high-impact weather such as hurricanes, severe weather outbreaks and winter storms.
environmental monitoring, and chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosives (CBRNE) detection. For more information, go to FLIR web site at www. FLIR. com o
but it has the uncanny ability to sense certain environmental cues in the body and adapt.
#The choking problem of Asia#s air pollution A haze periodically drifts over parts of Asia.
The record-setting air pollution, which had begun in 1997 and lasted for months, caused a 30%spike in hospital visits.
catalytic converters or other pollution-mitigating applications. The composition of the smoke also varies widely according to the type of material that is burning.
Peat smoke now contributes around 40%of Indonesia overall greenhouse gas emissions. Palm oil is an ingredient in a range of consumer products
Yet it has helped also to give its source country the dubious distinction of being the world third-largest greenhouse gas emitter after China and the US as well as a leading source of hazardous smoke haze.
Finer-grained particles are also harder to block with the simple surgical masks that many people in Asian cities have worn traditionally as protection against air pollution.
Some scientists suggest that peat smoke long-term effects on humans may be broadly similar to those of urban air pollution,
rather than to study the problem itself The task of mitigating pollution is clouded also by politics.
and research groups that fight air pollution elsewhere in Asia. For the moment, Tan said, PM Haze is simply trying to learn about the problem, in all its complexity,
rescuing earthquake victims or doing housework. Details are in the journal Nature. We marvel at the robots we see in films:
#Sweet source for aviation biofuel Researchers have identified a new way to produce aviation fuel from sugarcane biomass that could deliver substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
and help mitigate climate change. The findings appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In 2012,2%of all human carbon emissions were result of plane emissions. If air travel continues to grow at the predicted rate,
These can be correlated with other health or fitness data and even environmental conditions, such as smog levels, based on the phone's GPS locater.
#Hawaii's Papaya Growers Struggle in Hurricane Aftermath Hurricane Iselle assault on Hawaii garnered national coverage as the storm approached,
reduce pollution and energy use, and minimize impact on water quality, according to the participants. Jenny Cross, Global Sustainability Director for Mohawk Industries maker of Smartstrand carpets that use renewable nylons explains:
But now, a French design duo has come up with a way to turn the humble table into a means of climate control that doesn't use any electricity.
It a feat of engineering that makes the most sense in homes that don't have climate control.
and is making every effort to limit its environmental impact, "the company said in a statement.
and is making every effort to limit its environmental impact, "the company said in a statement.
These can be correlated with other health or fitness data and even environmental conditions, such as smog levels, based on the phone's GPS locater.
the environmental benefits via reduced emissions and air pollution are certainly worth noting taxis are, after all, responsible for a great deal of air pollution in many large cities l
and in turn, all that agricultural activity has contributed to a region that has one of the worst air pollution records in the country.
The recent launch of the Calgren Ethanol Plant in the Tulare County town of Pixley is a step in helping California meet its clean energy goals while addressing the San joaquin valley terrible air pollution.
The idea was floated first by Prime minister Modi himself at the first meeting of the council of ministers on climate change last month.
All countries are required to submit their plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of the run-up to the climate change summit at Paris at the end of the year.
the government plans to quantify the emission reduction achieved through renewable energy projects and present it as a just contribution towards fighting climate change.
The real motive of this association could be to lobby for a wider acceptance of such an exercise as part of the new climate change treaty.
Image Credit: via#@Reinvest201 v
#Evercharge Delivers EV Charging Solutions For Apartment Dwellers It no secret that in America and across the world,
and Mexico have mirrored just the European union in seeking a continent-wide approach to North american energy and related climate change.
and integrate more climate change-related policies into energy discussions between the countries. he North american energy working group met in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico.
All three countries have announced 2030 greenhouse gas emissions targets in anticipation of the Paris international climate negotiations (the UN COP21 meeting) this December.
and the United nations Framework Convention on Climate change work on creating lear, stable, ambitious policy frameworks that could eventually connect national systems.
and cost-effective ways to reduce carbon emissions. an Beat m? Join m The oil companiesjoint statement effectively reverses previous claims from industry that petroleum causes the environmentnd the crucial atmospheric greenhouseo harm.
academic, and popular work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in anticipation of potentially increased climate change. Some of these disparate industrial alliances are We Mean Business, The Climate Group, the B Team, the Corporate Leadership Group,
They have raised for the first time climate change to a level equal to the importance of energy in sustaining life On earth as we know it.
They have acknowledged also the current trend of greenhouse gas emissions is over the threshold the Intergovernmental panel on climate change says will keep global temperature rise below the current 2 degrees Centigrade figure.
In it, they also expressed a strong role for natural gas in reducing carbon emissions. The subject of natural gas raises many eyebrows because although that fuel is currently available and inexpensive,
it too contributes to carbon pollution, emitting half the carbon dioxide of coal and producing additional methane, a more potent greenhouse gas over the short term (20 years).
However, the call is still a major step forward to decarbonization because, for the first time, major polluters at the source have shown eagerness to support potent climate change efforts.
Says Michael R. Bloomberg, the UN Secretary-general Special Envoy for Cities and Climate change and former mayor of New york:
t is not every day that industry leaders urge governments to raise their taxes, but today, six of the oil and gas industry biggest players did just that.
Their joint letter sends an unequivocal message to the international community As we look ahead to the U n. climate change conference in Paris at the end of the year,
while also helping to fight pollution and climate change. Introduced by Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-5),
offsetting 45 million metric tons of damaging carbon emissions the equivalent of removing 10 million cars off our roads
%Helping to fight pollution and climate change, 32%of all new electric generating capacity came from solar energy in 2014.
referring to the end of denial that climate change requires urgent, transformational economic change. While related, this is different.
It is now becoming clear wee reached a tipping point where fossil fuels will enter terminal decline, independently of climate policy action.
Given climate policy action is also now accelerating fossil fuels are double dead. To paraphrase Douglas Adams,
Thus action on climate change has stalled for decades. Both of these benefits are gone when you combine nergy as a technologywith most growth in energy demand being in developing economies.
Add in the need to be clean not just for climate change reasons but for local air quality and the choice developing countries will face will be between large, old, dirty,
what most see as their greatest threat future climate change policy. It that competing energy products of renewables and batteries, in a system with electric vehicles, will behave as a disruptive technology always does,
versus previous technology-driven change, is that it has added the dimension of climate change, making the resulting transformation a very high priority for policy makers and an unbeatable source of public support for the disruptors.
#Google street view Now Monitors Urban Air pollution Wee come to rely on Google street view for everything from roads to hiking paths to coral reefs,
but we may soon rely on it for something even more important mapping urban air pollution. Tech startup Aclima just announced a partnership with Google earth Outreach to equip Google street view cars with its mobile sensor platform.
Google street view Maps Urban Air pollution Like Never Before Aclima equipped three Google street view vehicles for the Denver pilot program for a month-long system test during the DISCOVER-AQ study conducted by NASA and EPA.
So far, EPA has relied on an extensive network of these stationary devices in urban areas to measure harmful airborne pollutants
and more energy-efficient process for removing greenhouse gas from power plant emissions has been developed by a multi-institution team of researchers.
Power generating plants are the single largest source of carbon dioxide (CO2) a greenhouse gas that traps heat
According to the U s. Environmental protection agency coal-and natural gas-fired plants were responsible for one-third of U s. greenhouse gas emissions in 2012.
That's why the agency has proposed rules mandating dramatically reduced carbon emissions at all new fossil fuel-fired power plants.
MECS provide a new way to capture carbon with fewer environmental issues says Roger D. Aines leader of the fuel cycle innovations program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and a co
Capturing the world's carbon emissions is a huge job; we need technology that can be applied to many kinds of carbon dioxide sources with the public's full confidence in the safety and sustainability.
Aines says that the MECS-based approach can also be tailored to industrial processes like steel and cement production significant greenhouse gas sources.
and clean up nuclear disasters such as the Fukushima event. We have demonstrated that it is possible for humanoid robots to do our human jobs."
and artefacts covered in engravings are among the ancient treasures that have recently been destroyed by ISIS militants, and earthquakes.
which makes NASA's ocean and climate data accessible and meaningful. Memex would make PDF documents more easily searchable
Palaeontologists now hope the discovery of the red blood cells could allow them to finally answer questions about the metabolic rate of the extinct animals
Elsewhere, using a type of bacteria typically found near active volcanoes, researchers from Delft University mixed the bio material into the concrete along with calcium lactate.
For example, a real-time view of Earth will give scientists a powerful tool to monitor climate change.
Professor Jill Banfield, an environmental scientist at the University of California in Berkeley who led the work
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