Oil-sands vote ends in deadlockan attempt to assign a carbon footprint to oil obtained from oil sands,
whether to accept a proposed emissions value that would have banned effectively the fuel from being used in the EU. The lack of agreement means that the issue will now be passed to environment ministers,
In 2009, Europe introduced a Fuel Quality Directive that requires fuel suppliers to cut greenhouse-gas emissions from road fuels by 6%between 2010 and 2020.
However, policy-makers are stuggling to achieve this for oil-sands oil. Canada is the main obstacle:
if it discriminates against oil sands by making the value separate from, and significantly higher than, that for oil from other sources.
The value being voted on was 107 grams of carbon dioxide equivalents per megajoule 23%higher than that for oil from conventional sources.
Canada holds the world s third-largest store of oil after Saudi arabia and Venezuela if the oil sands are included,
and it is keen to export the fuel, via US refineries, to Europe. Canada is also in the midst of negotiating a free-trade agreement with the EU. Spain
Italy, Poland and Estonia voted against the proposal, and the Scandinavian nations for it. However, the United kingdom, The netherlands and France home to oil giants BP, Shell and Total,
respectively and Germany all abstained, so the vote ended in deadlock.""The whole issue is blowing completely out of proportion,
says one oil-company representative. Compromise proposals were tabled by, among others, The netherlands and Italy, and may still be taken up by the ministers.
They generally recognize the higher carbon footprint of oil extracted from oil sands, but do not single them out with a separate value.
For example, Italy proposes incorporating the country of origin, import volume and feedstock type when calculating the overall carbon footprint for all of Europe's petrol from 2014 onwards.
Environmentalists agree that oil obtained from different sources should have different carbon footprints but few data are available on the actual emissions generated by other sources,
and that because oil-sand oil is known to generate more emissions, disincentives should be placed on its use.
They also say that companies have the option of reporting actual emissions, rather than having to use the default,
which can be used to meet their fuel-quality target. Oil companies say that biofuels are the best way to meet the 6%emission-reduction goal.
However EU policy-makers have been unable to agree on whether to introduce crop-specific indirect land-use change (ILUC) factors that recognize the extra emissions that plant feedstocks cause by displacing food crops,
According to most scientific studies including one by the International Food Policy Research Institute in WASHINGTON DC used by the European commission to prepare an impact assessment and legislation biodiesel from palm oil,
soya bean and rapeseed causes a similar level of pollution to oil obtained from oil sands
The oil sands debate has no legal implications on the biofuel issue, and a decision on one has no direct bearing on the other.
and Environment in Brussels."All fuels need correct carbon accounting to count their contribution, to reach the 6%greenhouse-gas reduction target,
The team s findings"provide a view into the guts of a coal-forming swamp in its prime,
Nuclear cleanup The Japanese government has threatened to withhold about ¥1 trillion (US$12. 8 billion) in rescue funds for the private company that runs the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant,
On 13 february, Japan's energy and trade minister, Yukio Edano, did approve ¥690 billion for the Tokyo electric power Company (TEPCO),
the larger separate bailout would depend on TEPCO ceding partial control to the government. US nuclear approval The United states has given the green light to its first new nuclear reactors since 1978.
On 9 february the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved an application by utility giant Southern company,
based in Atlanta, Georgia, to build two pressurized-water nuclear reactors at its Vogtle station near Waynesboro.
The company said the reactors could be operating by 2017. However, a US nuclear renaissance seems unlikely,
because few other reactor proposals are in the pipeline. See go. nature. com/tws1oz for more.
also said that it would not use its own microbe vats to produce synthetic fuels,
leaving high-volume efforts to oil company Total, based in Paris, and biofuel firm Cosan in S £o Paulo, Brazil, with whom it has signed joint ventures.
to smash protons together at an energy of 8 teraelectronvolts (Tev), an increase of 1 Tev over the previous year,
but still well short of the 14-Tev collision energy that the collider was designed originally to reach.
PEOPLE China science prize Chinese physicist Xie Jialin, who pioneered the building of China's first high-energy linear particle accelerator in 1964,
that formed in the nuclear cores of stars and were scattered later into space as those stars expired.
That included around 650,000 hectares granted to two palm-oil giants; the move will affect the land and lives of more than one million Liberians.
Large-scale acquisitions have increased since global food and oil crises in 2007. Many economists thought that the pressure would ease eventually
The growing middle class, especially in Asia, is hungry for food, oil and minerals. Africa is most at risk
agricultural biotech giant Monsanto and retailer Walmart together with producers and environmentalists to negotiate environmental certification standards for products such as soya beans, palm oil,
soya and palm oil could have the greatest impact on carbon (see'Food versus forests').'With more than US$4 million in seed money from Norway, the consortium plans to announce an initial round of projects in the run-up to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de janeiro (Rio+20) in Brazil in June.
which has been working with Swiss food company Nestlã and the world's second-largest palm-oil producer, Golden Agri-Resources in Indonesia,
Focusing on DNA from chloroplasts and mitochondria energy-producing structures in cells that have their own genomes the researchers produced 49,000 genetic sequences.
so the first humans to adopt it could get more energy from the same amount of food
Unlike stone tools, evidence of burning, such as ash and charcoal, is destroyed easily by wind and rain.
and stripping a palm-oil firm of a permit to develop carbon-rich peatland.""No other country has done anything like this,
But what remains is being cleared rapidly for palm-oil or wood-pulp plantations or is being logged re,
Sizer welcomed the government s move to retract a permit awarded to Kallista Alam, an Indonesian palm-oil company,
Giovanni Giuliano, from the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development in Rome,
Canadian company Iogen Energy in Ottawa announced on 30 april that it has shelved plans to build a large-scale facility in Manitoba to produce fuel ethanol from cellulose, the long molecular chain of sugars that forms
its joint owners Royal dutch shell and Iogen Corporation said in a statement. Iogen Corporation would not comment further on the story
growing concerns about climate change, rising energy consumption and dependence on foreign oil  have prompted countries
Most fuel ethanol is made by fermenting the sugars in grains or sugar cane, but cellulosic ethanol can be made from municipal waste, wood chips, grass,
says Scott Thurlow, president of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association.""There is still lots of opportunity in Canada.
Canadian law requires the annual petrol production to contain an average of 5%ethanol, but it has no targets for cellulosic biofuels.
By contrast, the US Renewable Fuel Standard, part of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, mandates the United states to produce increasing volumes of cellulosic biofuels each year, until it reaches a target of 60.5
KL Energy Corp in Rapid city, South dakota; and Zeachem in Lakewood, Colorado are expected to produce around 40 million litres of cellulosic biofuel in 2012.
Fluctuations in the price of oil also pose a challenge for the industry, says Wallace Tyner, an energy economist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
For cellulosic biofuels to be competitive with fossil fuels, the price of oil must surpass US$120 per barrel,
he says, which the US Energy Information Administration s Annual Energy Outlook 2012 suggests may not happen until 2035 if at all.
Add in fickle government policies and erratic feedstock supplies and the industry is unwilling to make big bets on large production facilities,
he says. The biochemical conversion process used by many companies presents its own problems.""The ethanol it produces doesn t fit well with our current fuel system.
Quebec, produces a mixture of gasoline, diesel, naphtha and aviation fuels from old electricity poles.
Kior expects to begin producing gasoline and diesel from southern yellow pine trees at its Columbus, Mississippi facility at the end of the year.
The spike probably came from a burst of high-energy radiation striking the upper atmosphere, increasing the rate at
which will examine high-energy X-rays produced at the thresholds of black holes (see Nature 483,255;
Ocean acidity The International atomic energy agency (IAEA), based in Vienna, is to create a centre to facilitate
The centre, to be launched this summer at the IAEA s Environmental Laboratories in Monaco, is part of the agency s remit to support peaceful uses of nuclear technology.
Tracing of the radioisotope calcium-45, for example allows sensitive measurements of calcium carbonate uptake in the skeletons of marine organisms,
The uncertainties have been as large as 20%3. Guan s study is the first close, systematic look that is based on official energy figures.
The researchers arrived at their estimates by converting energy consumption data into emissions. For national figures
Most of the gap comes from differences in reported energy loss during coal washing and in reported consumption by manufacturing.
so use high estimates of energy use that inflate gross domestic product figures, and central government officials who want lower figures that look more environmentally friendly on the international stage."
and other energy-intensive products. Small firms that lack any kind of bookkeeping experience or statistical expertise are popping up to meet that demand."
He and his colleagues are now trying to refine estimates of coal-based emissions, which account for 70%of the gap.
For example, they are recalculating energy-to-emission conversion factors to take into account the quality of coal used in different regions.
such as the China Coal Information Institute & National Institute for Occupational Safety in Beijing, and the Carbon dioxide Information and Analysis Center at the Oak ridge National Laboratory in Oak ridge, Tennessee.
But wheat, rice and oil prices have not matched their 2008 highs so that will help to stave off a similar crisis,
20 26 july 2012fukushima work Workers on 18 Â July removed two unused fuel rods from the spent fuel pool of Fukushima Daiichi s unit 4 reactor.
but the stability of its fuel pool holding fresh as well as spent fuel rods has caused concern.
and food security, adapting to climate change, energy, water, nutrition, and food safety. Â Â Â Luckily for us, in the past couple of years NIFA has received actually a little bit more funding, especially in the competitive-grants arena.
Nuclear restart Japan restarted its first nuclear reactor at the Ohi plant in Fukui prefecture, on 1 july despite last-ditch protests against its reopening (see go. nature. com/tjylu4.
All of Japan s 48 other working reactors remain shuttered after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011.
what could be the largest surge in global oil production since the 1980s, says a report from Harvard university s Belfer Center for Science and International affairs in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Contrary to fears of a peak in oil production, the report suggests that global oil-production capacity could expand from 93 million barrels per day in 2011 to 110.6 million barrels per day in 2020.
The increase is driven by advances in the production of unconventional oil, such as that trapped in tight/shale formations. 6-10 july In Ottawa,
Palm-oil boom raises conservation concernspalm oil was touted once as a social and environmental panacea a sustainable food crop,
presenting evidence that palm-oil farming can cause damaging deforestation and reduce biodiversity, and that the oil s use as a biofuel offers only marginal benefits for mitigating climate change.
But even as the environmental case against it grows stronger, the palm-oil business is booming as never before."
"Oil palm is such a lucrative crop that there is almost no way to stop it, says William Laurance, a forest-conservation scientist at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia.
And on 28 Â June, the Malaysian palm-oil company Felda Global Ventures (FGV) earned US$3. 2 billion in the second-largest initial public offering (IPO) this year after Facebook,
Although Malaysia is now the world s second-largest producer of palm oil, it is running out of viable land for new oil-palm plantations, according to the US Department of agriculture.
Such expansion is driven by the steadily rising demand for palm oil, mainly from the food sector,
But the emerging biodiesel market is also thirsty for the oil. In principle, biodiesel made from palm oil could be environmentally friendly,
because the carbon dioxide released when it is burned is roughly the same as that absorbed as the plant grows.
In January, after the US Environmental protection agency (EPA) found that palm-oil fuels emitted only 11-17%less greenhouse gas than diesel over their entire life cycle,
it suggested that the oil should not be classified as a renewable fuel. Although a public consultation on the matter concluded in April, the EPA has not set a date to issue its final ruling.
But the European union (EU) continues to encourage the use of fuels based on palm oil. The EU has a binding target to raise the share of biofuels used in road transport to 10%by 2020
and most of that is expected to be met by blending biofuels such as palm oil with conventional fuels.
By 2020, around 40%of Ketapang will be given over to palm oil, up from 6%in 2007-08.
Palm oil would be much more sustainable if it were managed responsibly, says Nigel Sizer, director of the Global Forest Initiative at the World Resources Institute,
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm oil (RSPO), an international nonprofit association based in Zurich, Switzerland, that brings together conservation groups
and palm-oil firms including FGV, says that it will not certify oil grown on land that was deforested to farm the crop.
But many are sceptical that the RSPO, which was established in 2004, can effectively police the industry s rapid growth."
But in the face of what Laurance calls"a green tidal wave of oil-palm expansion,
Material gains Oil and gas giant BP will invest US$100 Â million over ten years in a university-based research centre for advanced materials,
It will look at research issues important to BP, such as developing metal alloys that can work in deep-water drilling and membranes for purifying oil, gas, water and biofuels.
See go. nature. com/lyzvfe for more. Drug-discovery split Irish pharmaceutical company Elan is to split into two,
say researchers who question the European commission's own studies into the fuel source. Europe s Renewable Energy Directive (RED),
which was introduced in 2009, requires that, until 2017, greenhouse-gas emissions from the production and use of biofuels for transport be at least 35%lower than those from fossil fuels;
thereafter, 50%lower. According to the commission's studies, rapeseed oil also known as canola oil meets the RED requirement,
delivering greenhouse-gas cuts of at least 38%compared with conventional fuels, making it eligible for blending in biodiesels.
The oil currently makes up over 80%of all vegetable oils used in European biofuels. However, a study published last month one of the most detailed so far attempted to replicate the commission's calculations
and found that in most cases the emissions savings were much lower. Gernot Pehnelt and Christoph Vietze, economists at Globecon, an independent research institute in Jena
and different efficiencies in fuel production. They also compared the biofuel emissions with values for fossil fuels used in the commission's calculations and others in the scientific literature.
In the scenario that most closely resembled the calculations run for the European commission, the team found greenhouse-gas savings of 29.7%for rapeseed, well below the commission's 38%estimate.
when compared to both the higher and lower fossil fuel GHG emissions values.""Saying that rapeseed is sustainable in every case,
and a shift in focus to experiments involving neutrinos and high-intensity (rather than high-energy) collisions.
Dark Energy Survey Collaboration/FERMILABFIRST light for dark-energy lens A camera designed to hunt for signs of dark energy
The images from the Dark Energy Survey camera (Nature 489,190-191; 2012), which is mounted on the 4-metre Blanco telescope in Chile,
Arctic drilling stops Plans to drill for oil and gas resources off the coast of Alaska have been abandoned following damage to oil containers on the spill-cleanup barge Arctic Challenger,
oil company Shell announced on 17 Â September. The setback means that the mission no longer meets the safety requirements for a permit to drill specific wells. Shell will continue to bore exploratory top holes in the Chukchi sea in preparation for further drilling,
which has now been delayed until 2013. See go. nature. com/zynxtq for more. Stem-cell funds The European parliament s legal committee has recommended that research involving human embryonic stem cells should not be funded in the European union s upcoming Horizon 2020 research programme.
and proceeded through his EPA to impose rules that will bankrupt the coal industry. Nowhere along the way has indicated the President
And I believe the federal government must significantly streamline the regulatory framework for the deployment of new energy technologies
Through the Recovery Act, my Administration committed over $100 billion to support groundbreaking innovation with investments in energy, basic research, education and training, advanced vehicle technology, health IT and health research
Of these funds, we made a $90 billion investment in clean energy that will produce as much as $150 billion in clean energy projects.
the Recovery Act made the largest single investment in clean energy in American history. And our investments in energy not only focus on research,
but on the deployment of these new technologies. We have invested highly in important research being done to improve the health
and scientists say energy security and sustainability are major problems facing the United states this century.
What policies would you support to meet the demand for energy while ensuring an economically and environmentally sustainable future?
renewable energy will lead the global economy in the 21st century. That s why I have made the largest investment in clean energy
and energy efficiency in American history and proposed an ambitious Clean Energy Standard to generate 80 percent of our electricity from clean energy sources like wind, solar, clean coal,
and natural gas by 2035. Since taking office, electricity production from wind and solar sources has doubled already more than in the United states. We are boosting our use of cleaner fuels,
including increasing the level of ethanol that can be blended into gasoline and implementing a new Renewable Fuel Standard that will save nearly 14 billion gallons of petroleum-based gasoline in 2022.
America has regained its position as the world s leading producer of natural gas. My administration is promoting the safe,
responsible development of America s near 100-year supply of natural gas that will help support more than 600,000 jobs.
Because of these actions, we are positioning ourselves to have cleaner and cheaper sources of fuel that make us more energy secure
and position the U s as a world leader in the clean energy economy. The goal of energy independence has long proved elusive,
but analysts across the spectrum energy experts, investment firms, even academics at Harvard university now recognize that surging U s. energy production,
combined with the resources of America s neighbors, can meet all of the continent s energy needs within a decade.
The key is to embrace these resources and open access to them. A successful national energy strategy will have a fundamental influence on the well-being of the nation.
An expansion in the affordable, reliable supply of domestically produced energy can bolster the competitiveness of virtually every industry within the country,
creating millions of new jobs from coast to coast. With fewer energy imports and more exports of manufactured goods
America s trade deficit will decline and the dollar will strengthen. The benefits even extend beyond immediate economic growth.
The lease payments, royalties, and taxes paid to the American people in return for the development of the nation s resources can yield literally trillions of dollars in new government revenue.
Lower energy prices can ease the burdens on household budgets. And all Americans can rest assured that the nation s security is no longer beholden to unstable but oil-rich regions half way around the world.
I have put forward a six-part plan for achieving these goals. First I will empower states to control onshore energy development,
including on federal lands within their borders. Second, I will open offshore areas to development.
Third, I will pursue a North american Energy Partnership so that America can benefit from the resources of its neighbors.
Fourth, I will ensure accurate assessment of the nation s energy resources by updating decades-old surveys that do not reflect modern technological capabilities.
I will facilitate private-sector-led development of new energy technologies. Throughout this agenda, I remain committed to implementing
and enforcing strong environmental protections that ensure all energy development activity is conducted in a safe and responsible manner.
I will pursue a course that designs regulation not to stifle energy production but instead to facilitate responsible use of all energy sources from oil and coal and natural gas, to nuclear and hydropower and biofuels, to wind and Solar energy development, economic growth,
and environmental protection can go hand-in-hand if the government focuses on transparency and fairness instead of seeking to pick winners
A full white paper describing my plan for energy independence is available at Mittromney. com. Thanks to science and technology
Making the rule so expensive that it will bankrupt the coal industry, and then claiming that the elimination of that industry
and that illegal coal mining in the area was taking place in full knowledge of the rangers.
and concerns that biofuels may produce greater greenhouse-gas emissions than fossil fuels (see Nature http://doi. org/bmssn7;
) The proposals retain a target that 10%of transport fuels should come from renewable sources by 2020 but set a 5%cap on food-based biofuels.
Massachusetts, had been backed by a US$249-million grant from the US Department of energy. Founded in 2001, it was a spin-off from work at the Massachusetts institute of technology in Cambridge.
Nuclear safety Hundreds of safety upgrades are needed at European nuclear reactors, according to an analysis of the continent's power plants.
Following the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan, the European commission ran safety tests that included all 145 reactors at nuclear power plants in the European union.
'published on 4 october, found that"practically all nuclear plants need safety improvements. Problems ranged from the lack of backup control rooms to substandard risk assessments.
Mexican scientists pin hopes on incoming presidentplummeting oil exports; a failing education system; and a six-year drug war.
Growth of ethanol fuel stalls in Brazil"A new moment for mankind. That was how Brazil s former president, Luiz In ¡
Back then, Brazil was the poster child of ethanol fuel, its output second only to that of the United states. Fermenting the sugars in the country s abundant sugar cane produced a motor fuel that lowered carbon dioxide emissions,
and many saw Brazil as a model for how the world could shed its addiction to oil,
The price of pure ethanol at the pump is so high that in most states it is cheaper to fill up flexible-fuel cars with petrol blends that contain about 20%ethanol.
The shift back to fossil fuels, combined with rapid growth in the number of cars on the roads (see Fuelling Brazil s transport boom),
we are buying more oil and spending more on pollution-related health care, jokes Ildo Sauer,
who studies energy policy at the University of S £o Paulo and is a former director of the state oil giant Petrobras.
when climate and energy planning clash with economic decision-making. It began with the 2008 economic crisis,
when the government decided to freeze the price of petrol and diesel to keep inflation under control,
of which promised to phase out fossil-fuel subsidies the government said it would be reducing a federal fuel tax to zero."
%says Andrã Ferreira, head of the Institute for Energy and the Environment, a think-tank in S £o Paulo.
It has promised the industry that petrol prices will go up next year, and that the blend of ethanol will rise from 20%to 25,
(which provide energy and signals), according to the BMC Ecology research. Perhaps counterintuitively, when the infected ant bites onto the leaf vein in it's so-called death grip this atrophy causes it to have lockjaw,
including the production of energy and food, that will guide public spending on research during 2013-16.
Turning to the atmosphere to verify emissions estimates which are typically based on industry reports of energy consumption is far from trivial.
Gurney s model incorporates real data about energy use: industrial activities at the level of individual buildings together with traffic patterns.
Vehicles are classified by the type of fuel used and emissions produced, and are simulated moving throughout the city
or projects to make existing buildings more energy efficient.""I ve had mayors calling me, and they all pretty much say the same thing:
from cracking down on shipping emissions and ramping up renewable energy to installing more-efficient streetlights and synchronizing traffic lights."
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