#Black locust tree shows promise for biomass potentialresearchers from the Energy Biosciences Institute at the University of Illinois evaluating the biomass potential of woody crops are taking a closer look at the black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) which showed a higher yield
and convert it into a drop in fuel. Kling said he and his team's role in the EBI's feedstock production/agronomy program is to improve the production aspects of bioenergy crops.
Robinia pseudoacacia is showing great potential as a biomass crop for Midwestern energy production out-yielding the next closest species by nearly threefold Kling said.
This would be well-suited to smaller producers who want to generate some of their own fuel he said.
In comparison about 350 petagrams of carbon have been emitted from all fossil-fuel combustion and human activities since 1850.
The study was funded by grants from the Department of energy (DE-FG03-00er15113 DE-FG02-04er15517) National Science Foundation (MCB-0924871) Canadian Institutes of Health Research (MOP-111007
Logging may have greater impact on carbon emissions than previously thoughtusing wood for energy is considered cleaner than fossil fuels
and other renewable energy sources to address concerns about climate change and energy security. Woody biomass which includes trees grown on plantations managed natural forests
He also is examining issues related to personal choices energy use and environmental impact. The results appear in the journal Global Change Biology-Bioenergy.
Yakobson a theoretical physicist and his team specialize in analyzing the interplay of energy at the atomic scale.
With ORNL's images in hand they were not only able to calculate the energies of a much more complex set of defects than are found in graphene
The Welch Foundation the National Science Foundation (NSF) the U s army Research Office the U s. Office of Naval Research the Nanoelectronics Research Corporation and the Department of energy supported the work.
Department of energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California Berkeley.
But making it releases carbon from burning fuel needed to heat a mix of limestone and clays to 1450 degrees Celsius (2642 degrees Fahrenheit)--and from the heated limestone (calcium carbonate) itself.
or lower requiring far less fuel than Portland cement. Cutting greenhouse gas emissions is one powerful incentive for finding a better way to provide the concrete the world needs;
Lessons for the futureenvironmentally friendly modern concretes already include volcanic ash or fly ash from coal-burning power plants as partial substitutes for Portland cement with good results.
Stronger longer-lasting modern concrete made with less fuel and less release of carbon into the atmosphere may be the legacy of a deeper understanding of how the Romans made their incomparable concrete.
This work was supported by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology the Loeb Classical Library Foundation at Harvard university and DOE's Office of Science
The above story is provided based on materials by DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
One of the reasons for this is that--seen from a global perspective--bioenergy has increasingly been replaced by fossil energy.
In order to increase yields and output we use large amounts of fossil fuels and water we turned to large-scale industrial animal production systems and put high environmental pressure on land soils and biodiversity Krausmann points out.
or CAM photosynthesis to convert sunlight to energy. Animals eating C4 and CAM plants have enriched amounts of carbon-13.
That could sharply hinder a mandate set by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) that by 2022 the nation derive 15 billion gallons per year of ethanol from corn to blend with conventional motor fuels according to principal investigator Pedro Alvarez the George R
. Brown Professor and chair of Rice's Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. Alvarez is a member of the Science Advisory board of the U s. Environmental protection agency and chair of Rice's Energy and Environment Initiative.
The policy is based on the idea that blending ethanol into gasoline cuts harmful emissions from vehicles
and lowers the nation's dependence on foreign oil he said. But the cost in water may outweigh those concerns.
Whereas biofuels offer a means to use more renewable energy while decreasing reliance on imported oil it is important to recognize the tradeoffs Alvarez said.
One important unintended consequence may be the aggravation of water scarcity by increased irrigation in some regions.
The authors of the new paper have questioned long the United states'support of biofuels as a means to cut vehicle emissions.
The production of one liter of gasoline requires three liters of water according to the researchers.
The projected increases in water intensity due to climate change highlight the need to reevaluate the corn ethanol elements of the Renewable Fuel Standard Dominguez-Faus said.
and Amy Myers Jaffe executive director of energy and sustainability at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies.
The study carried out by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) describes how forests converted to palm oil plantations are causing threatened forest dwelling frogs to vanish resulting in an overall loss of habitat that is important for the conservation of threatened frog
and if palm oil plantations continue to take over the peat swamp frog along with its forest home could be a thing of the past.
ZSL together with collaborators from Queen Mary University of London Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and University of Malaya continues to work closely with Malaysian palm oil producers in determining
and capture it as an energy source should be a high priority for larger farm operations Thoma said.
Implementing standard energy-efficiency practices focused on refrigeration and compressed-air systems motors and lighting will also lead to reduction.
Likewise processor plant fuel reductions can be achieved through improved steam systems and continued energy-efficiency improvements in other operating practices.
and soft wood) with ultrasound consistently enhances the chemical reactions necessary to convert the biomass into high-value fuels and chemicals.
Grewell and his colleagues report a third application for ultrasound in biofuel production showing that they can accelerate transesterification the main chemical reaction for converting oil to biodiesel.
In one case the researchers found that subjecting soybean oil to ultrasound transformed it into biodiesel in less than a minute rather than the 45 minutes it normally takes.
and starved with glycerin a co-product of biodiesel production could prodfuce high yields of oil that could be extracted
but does not offset fossil fuel emissionsleading world climate change experts have thrown cold water on the idea that planting trees can offset carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels.
While protecting and restoring natural forests is part of the solution the reality is that for all practical purposes fossil fuel CO2 emissions are irreversible Professor Mackey said.
and internationally assume that fossil fuel emissions can be offset through sequestering carbon by planting trees and other land management practices.
because this legitimises the ongoing use of fossil fuels Professor Mackey said. The study found that protecting natural forests avoids emissions that would otherwise result from logging
However no amount of reafforestation or growing of new trees will ultimately offset continuing CO2 emissions due to environmental constraints on plant growth and the large amounts of remaining fossil fuel reserves.
but to cut fossil fuel emissions deeply as about a third of the CO2 stays in the atmosphere for 2 to 20 millennia.
Groundwork laid for block copolymer solar cellsa new version of solar cells created by laboratories at Rice
and Pennsylvania State universities could open the door to research on a new class of solar energy devices.
While commercial silicon-based solar cells turn about 20 percent of sunlight into electricity and experimental units top 25 percent there's been an undercurrent of research into polymer-based cells that could greatly reduce the cost
of solar energy Verduzco said. The Rice/Penn State cells reach about 3 percent efficiency but that's surprisingly better than other labs have achieved using polymer compounds.
You need two components in a solar cell: one to carry (negative) electrons the other to carry positive charges Verduzco said.
The imbalance between the two prompted by the input of energy--sunlight--creates useful current.
On paper block copolymers are excellent candidates for organic solar cells but no one has been able to get very good photovoltaic performance using block copolymers Verduzco said.
because there's really only been a handful of these types of solar cells previously tested. We thought getting good performance using block copolymers was possible
and fabricated the solar cells under the right conditions. Mysteries remain he said. It's not clear why the copolymer organizes itself perpendicular to the electrodes he said.
and learn to control their structures to increase the solar cell's ability to capture photons and turn them into electricity.
Encapsulating a solar cell to keep air and water from degrading it is said easy he but protecting it from ultraviolet degradation over time is hard.
The National Science Foundation the Department of energy the Welch Foundation the Shell Center for Sustainability and the Louis and Peaches Owen Family Foundation supported the research.
and release of 64 billion tons of greenhouse gases that would have resulted from burning coal and other fossil fuels a new study concludes.
That potential exists they say despite serious questions about safety disposal of radioactive waste and diversion of nuclear material for weapons.
Concerned that the Fukushima accident in Japan could overshadow the benefits of nuclear energy they performed an analysis of nuclear power's benefits in reducing carbon dioxide emissions and air pollution deaths.
If the role of nuclear power declines significantly in the next 20-30 years Kharecha added the International Energy Agency predicts that achieving the major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that are required to mitigate climate change would require heroic achievements in the use
and release of 64 billion tons of greenhouse gases that would have resulted from burning coal and other fossil fuels a new study concludes.
That potential exists they say despite serious questions about safety disposal of radioactive waste and diversion of nuclear material for weapons.
Concerned that the Fukushima accident in Japan could overshadow the benefits of nuclear energy they performed an analysis of nuclear power's benefits in reducing carbon dioxide emissions and air pollution deaths.
If the role of nuclear power declines significantly in the next 20-30 years Kharecha added the International Energy Agency predicts that achieving the major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that are required to mitigate climate change would require heroic achievements in the use
the timber was discovered to go back to between 12846 BP**and 13782 BP. With the support of the building-site management to date the WSL researchers have managed to salvage some 200 pine-tree stumps which they have had transported in truckloads to the WSL.
This dataset contains dated tree rings going back to 12594 BP. The finds that have been made up to now in Zurich are from the period from 12700 BP to 14100 BP.
Through meticulous comparison of tree-ring patterns efforts are now being made to identify the overlaps needed for precise dating.
)**BP=Before Present: a time-scale that is used in archaeology geology and other sciences to date events in the past.
#Simplified solutions to deforestation ineffective in long rundeforestation is the second largest source of CO2 emissions after consumption of fossil fuels.
and the active materials of electrochemical cells a remarkable step toward building high-power energy devices said Rice research scientist
To counteract this problem producers have included saturated fats such as corn germ beef tallow palm kernel oil and glycerol in diets containing DDGS
For this study corn germ beef tallow palm kernel oil and glycerol were added each to a diet containing DDGS.
but only 30 crops account for 95%of human food energy the bulk of which (60%)comes down to rice wheat maize millet and sorghum.
Our results will help develop ways to use this new material in atomically thin electronics that will become integral components of a whole new generation of revolutionary products such as flexible solar cells that conform to the body of a car.
This multidisciplinary collaboration by the Energy Frontier Research center at Columbia University with Cornell University's Kavli Institute for Nanoscale Science focused on molybdenum disulfide because of its potential to create anything from highly efficient flexible solar cells to conformable
This material is the newest in a growing family of two-dimensional crystals says Arend van der Zande a research fellow at the Columbia Energy Frontier Research center and one of the paper's three lead authors.
For example we can now imagine sandwiching two different monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides between layers of graphene to make solar cells that are only eight atoms thick--20 thousand times smaller than a human hair!
Say for example we want to make a solar cell. Now we need to have meters of this material not micrometers
which enables us to integrate it into large-scale flexible electronics and solar cells. The crystal synthesis optical measurements electronic measurements and theory were performed all by research groups at Columbia Engineering.
The study was sponsored by the Columbia Energy Frontier Research center with additional support provided by the National Science Foundation through the Cornell Center for Materials Research.
This breakdown is expected for more complex products such as electronics where the energy that goes into manufacturing fine integrated circuits can outweigh the energy expended in processing raw materials.
Olivetti Kirchain and their colleagues found that for these small light components such processes are energy-intensive
--and therefore carbon-intensive--compared with the energy that goes into making shoe materials such as polyester and polyurethane.
For example running shoes unlike electronics require very little energy to use aside from the energy needed to infrequently wash the shoes.
While part of the manufacturing footprint is attributable to a facility's energy source other emissions came from processes such as foaming
which expend large amounts of energy in the manufacture of small lightweight parts. As Kirchain explains it You have a lot of effort going into the molding of the material
However the energy industry will not act until the price is right. We have seen all it
Norway possesses major unexploited energy resources in the form of these branches and tops--known in their Norwegian acronym as GROT (see Fact-box).
Samples of this logging waste regularly arrive at SINTEF to be transformed into fuel. In the raw form in which the biomass arrives at the laboratory it is regarded as a problematic and therefore low-value fuel.
But when the scientists and technicians have finished processing it they are left with a valuable source of heat--ready for use in industrial heating furnaces that are fuelled currently with wood pellets or chips and for domestic pellet stoves.
Cheap fuel and Norwegian logging sites are full of it. But it is a poor-quality fuel
because it is so variable in composition says Skreiberg. If the GROT is tipped into the furnace the woody component of the mixture may burn in one instant bark
Secondly this powder can be pressed into pellets with a high energy content per unit of weight and volume;
in other words it is also a transport-and storage-friendly fuel. Pellets of torrefied biomass can withstand getting wet just like coal
About 40 percent of the world's population uses solid fuels--especially wood--for cooking
and gene-family expansion in genes associated with energy metabolism and oxygen transmission indicating that gene categories involved in energy metabolism appear to have an important role for Tibetan antelope via efficiently providing energy in conditions of low partial pressure of oxygen (PO2).
Further research revealed that both the Tibetan antelope and the highland American pika have signals of positive selection for genes involved in DNA repair and the production of ATPASE.
energy sources has been achieved. Scientists with the U s. Department of energy (DOE)' s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have reported the first fully integrated nanosystem for artificial photosynthesis
. While artificial leaf is the popular term for such a system the key to this success was an artificial forest.
Solar technologies are the ideal solutions for carbon-neutral renewable energy--there's enough energy in one hour's worth of global sunlight to meet all human needs for a year.
Artificial photosynthesis in which solar energy is converted directly into chemical fuels is regarded as one of the most promising of solar technologies.
A major challenge for artificial photosynthesis is to produce hydrogen cheaply enough to compete with fossil fuels.
In natural photosynthesis the energy of absorbed sunlight produces energized charge-carriers that execute chemical reactions in separate regions of the chloroplast Yang says.
and provide more surface area for fuel producing reactions. Upon illumination photo-excited electron ole pairs are generated in silicon and titanium oxide
and push the energy conversion efficiency up into single digit percentages. This research was supported by the DOE Office of Science.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Note:
Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#Students diet and physical activity improve with parent communicationscollege students eat more fruits and vegetables and exercise more on days when they communicate more with their parents according to researchers at Penn State.
The oils are also for industrial processes such as making soaps cosmetics perfumes paints and biofuels.
Also known as elephant grass miscanthus is one of a new generation of renewable energy crops that can be converted into renewable energy by being burned in biomass power stations.
This study provides the first evidence that early limited formula (ELF) can provide important benefits to some newborns said lead author Valerie Flaherman MD MPH an assistant professor of pediatrics and epidemiology and biostatistics
but ELF is a different way to envision using it said Flaherman. Rather than giving full bottles of formula that make it hard for the baby to return to the breast ELF is a small amount of supplementation with a clear end point that alleviates some of the stress new mothers feel about producing enough milk.
Breastfeeding is known to offer wide-ranging preventive health benefits for babies reducing their risk for infections
The babies were assigned randomly either to receive early limited formula (ELF) which consisted of one-third of an ounce of infant formula by syringe following each breastfeeding
So as not to interfere with breastfeeding 8 to 12 times a day the ELF babies were given only small amounts of formula.
The ELF babies stopped the formula when their mothers began producing mature milk approximately two to five days after birth.
However only 10 percent of the ELF babies had received formula in the last 24 hours compared with 47 percent of the control group.
Beginning around two million years ago early stone toolmaking humans known scientifically as Oldowan hominin started to exhibit a number of physiological and ecological adaptations that required greater daily energy expenditures including an increase in brain
Demonstrating how these early humans acquired the extra energy they needed to sustain these shifts has been the subject of much debate among researchers.
According to researchers hominins at KJS met their new energy requirements through an increased reliance on meat eating.
because positive protons are pushed away from the center of the nucleus by nuclear forces which are fundamentally different from spherically symmetric forces like gravity.
Instead the nuclei were excited to higher energy levels producing gamma rays that flew out in a specific pattern that revealed the pear shape of the nucleus. In the very biggest picture we're trying to understand everything we've observed directly
Our findings contradict some nuclear theories and will help refine others he said. The measurements also will help direct the searches for atomic EDMS (electric dipole moments) currently being carried out in North america
The paper is titled Studies of nuclear pear-shapes using accelerated radioactive beams. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Michigan.
and switchgrass appear to be promising resources for renewable energy but these new crops did not come with a manual on how to measure details on their sustainability impacts.
Jody Endres University of Illinois professor of energy and environmental law and chair of the Council on Sustainable Biomass production (CSBP) says standards are needed
The European Renewable Energy Directive provides a baseline framework for sustainability reporting and requirements. They're primarily concerned with land conversion--high carbon stock land
The challenge is not only how to convert cellulosics into jet fuel but also how to certify that they are grown refined
'In the war of words and in the public media biofuels have had to face more accusations than any other renewable energy source such as solar power
or climate mitigation benefits or that we're having increased energy security people may still be suspicious of biomass fuels
Funding was provided by the Energy Biosciences Institute. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences (ACES.
These mice are able to burn a lot of fuel but they can't run very far.
This research was supported by the U S. Department of energy's Office of Science. Explore the#oeclimate Analog Tracker#an online tool that enables users to see how climates may shift in the decades to come.
The above story is provided based on materials by DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
and fish olive oil and grass-fed animal protein while taking supplements containing the antioxidant polyphenol from fish oil grape seed extract and vitamins.
and fuel demandsnew discoveries of the way plants transport important substances across their biological membranes to resist toxic metals
and energy for our rapidly growing global population. That's the conclusion of 12 leading plant biologists from around the world whose laboratories recently discovered important properties of plant transport proteins that collectively could have a profound impact on global agriculture.
and fuel as the global population grows from seven billion people to an estimated nine billion by 2050.
and the U k. to collaborate on a paper describing how their discoveries collectively could be used to enhance sustainable food and fuel production.
Schroeder who is also co-director of a new research entity at UC San diego called Food and Fuel for the 21st Century
Nitrogen fertilizer production consumes one percent of global energy usage and poses the highest input cost for many crops the scientists write.
and energy demands and the need for sustainable yield gains. In addition to Schroeder and Sanders the co-authors of the paper are Emmanuel Delhaize of CSIRO in Canberra Australia;
Sequoia is dedicated to the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program for stewardship of the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile a joint effort by LLNL Los alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories.
The ASC program provided time on Sequoia to the LLNL-Rensselaer team as the capabilities tested have potential relevance to NNSA/DOE missions.
#Nanostructures improve the efficiency of solar cellsresearchers have been able to improve the efficiency of solar cells by coating the cell surface with extremely small nanoscale structures.
At Aalto University a research team led by Assistant professor Hele Savin is conducting studies on crystalline silicon solar cells
which are the main type of solar cells that are currently on the market. The advantages of silicon include the long-term stability sufficiency low cost and non-toxicity of the element as well as the advanced production technology.
Another benefit of these solar cells is their relatively high efficiency and technological compatibility with the manufacturing technologies currently used by the semiconductor industry Savin explains.
Promising techniques in the test benchthe efficient operation of solar cells may be compromised by impurities in silicon.
In solar cells it is not possible to use as pure a form of silicon as in for example microelectronics
Moreover the solar cell utilises the silicon disk in its entirety whereas transistors for example are located on the surface of the silicon disk
and accordingly impurities cannot be controlled in solar cells by means of the same methods as those used in microelectronics.
One goal of the research led by Savin is to find ways to produce equally efficient solar cells using the less expensive but impure silicon rather than the more expensive purified silica.
Certain promising techniques are currently being tested in production by a leading European solar cell manufacturer. Another new research topic involves the so-called light-induced degradation of silicon solar cells.
Light degradation is a harmful effect that reduces the solar cell efficiency by several percentage units during the first 24 hours of use after
which the situation becomes stabilised. The aim is to gain an understanding about the phenomenon itself and its causes.
--if they don't some fish may not have enough energy to survive. Neill has been working at Tanguro Ranch since 2007 with collaborators from Woods Hole Research center Brown University the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) and the University of SãO Paulo.
#Recipe for low-cost, biomass-derived catalyst for hydrogen productionin a paper to be published in an upcoming issue of Energy
& Environmental science researchers at the U s. Department of energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory describe details of a low-cost stable effective catalyst that could replace costly platinum in the production of hydrogen.
and abundant molybdenum metal produces hydrogen in an environmentally friendly cost-effective manner potentially increasing the use of this clean energy source.
The project branches off from the Brookhaven group's research into using sunlight to develop alternative fuels.
Their ultimate goal is to find ways to use solar energy --either directly or via electricity generated by solar cells--to convert the end products of hydrocarbon combustion water and carbon dioxide back into a carbon-based fuel.
Dubbed artificial photosynthesis this process mimics how plants convert those same ingredients to energy in the form of sugars.
One key step is splitting water or water electrolysis. By splitting liquid water (H2o) into hydrogen and oxygen the hydrogen can be regenerated as a gas (H2)
A very promising route to making a carbon-containing fuel is to hydrogenate carbon dioxide (or carbon monoxide) using solar-produced hydrogen said Fujita who leads the artificial photosynthesis group in the Brookhaven Chemistry department.
The students became excited about using familiar materials from their everyday lives to meet a real-world energy challenge Chen recounted.
thus accelerating the electron transfer rate for the chemical desorption of hydrogen from the catalyst further reducing the energy required for the reaction to take place Sasaki said.
The above story is provided based on materials by DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
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