Charcoal and grains of sand from a timber structure at the Maya Devi Temple in Lumbini Nepal date to the sixth century B c. according to the a study published in the December issue of the journal Antiquity.
The team then dated the structure using levels of radioactivity in minerals and the ratio of carbon isotopes or molecules of carbon with different numbers of neutrons from charcoal and grains of sand.
It s like OPEC Simon Trã panier acting general manager of the Federation of Quebec Maple syrup Producers told the Times.
The records obtained from charcoal in the Yukon Flats of Alaska have revealed the history of wildfire activity in the region known as the subarctic the area just south of the Arctic circle from North america to Scandinavia
By analyzing the charcoal the researchers could tell when individual wildfire events occurred and how severe they were.
and are deadlier and costlier than other fires thanks to all that extra fuel. They also spew huge amounts of carbon
Fixing the problem How to reverse a century's accumulation of thirsty deadly ecologically polluting fuel?
while reducing fuel loads slashing carbon emissions increasing water runoff to streams and rivers raising revenues and boosting meaningful job growth in rural areas.
Put in terms of a global carbon price a tax implemented today could be just $20 per ton (18 cents per gallon of gasoline)
while a delay to 2020 would increase the cost to $100 per ton (89 cents per gallon of gasoline).
The city emissions numbers take into account the direct combustion of fuels including from small mobile sources (like cars)
It also fuels demand maintaining the perception that ivory is a status symbol rather than an emblem of greed and callous indifference to life.
The technologies used during the Industrial revolution were also inefficient and largely based on coal and fossil fuels
Combined these nations contributed more than 70 percent of the global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes.
As part of his work at the Worldwatch Institute Engelman also promotes the idea of carbon taxes which would introduce fees based on the carbon content of fuels.
and to make biofuels like biodiesel a fuel with growing demand as a source of cleaner energy.
But several scientists have pointed out that the cost of this fuel destruction of vital rainforests in South america Southeast Asia
or when countries designate a portion of food crops to be turned into fuel like the United states does with 40 percent of its non-exported corn crop can push up food prices
More than 30 million people in seven states depend on the mighty Colorado for water to grow crops fuel power plants and keep cities such as Las vegas alive.
which tree species filled the forests before they were cleared for fields and fuel. Swamp-loving plants like sedges and tussocks are the fossil survivors not delicate leaves from hardwood trees.
and aerosol propellants until they were phased out by international agreement are also greenhouse gases. Three factors affect the degree to
Others like CO2 largely result from natural processes like respiration and from the burning of fossil fuels like coal oil and gas.
In the United states like most other industrialized nations burning fossil fuels is the single greatest manmade source of greenhouse gases.
Over 70 percent of U s. electricity comes from plants that burn fossil fuels usually coal and natural gas.
Almost all cars trucks ships trains and airplanes run on gasoline or diesel fuels. Manufacturing and other industries contribute about 20 percent of U s. greenhouse gas emissions followed by residential and commercial sources (11 percent) and agriculture (8 percent.
because human activity primarily the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has released unprecedented amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere
which fossil fuels are burned is critical to that effort. Development of clean energy including solar wind and geothermal energy has immense potential to reduce the amount of coal
Since the dawn of the Industrial revolution in the early 1800s the burning of fossil fuels like coal oil and gasoline have increased greatly the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere especially CO2 according to NASA.
These prolonged warm and dry conditions lead to dry fuels which is a key ingredient for severe fires Lane told Livescience.
which can also create winds that fuel the fire further. A changing climate Australia is no stranger to major fires.
California Wildfires Fuels are drier when temperatures go up said Peter Fulã a fire ecologist at Northern Arizona University.
so fuels dry out more. You also have longer fire seasons. Over time though the effect of climate change on forest fires becomes more complex Fulã told Livescience.
In some regions the climate will become more arid resulting in less vegetation in forests with the end result being less fuel.
Less photosynthesis means less sugar to fuel anthocyanin production. Invasives and other effects Warming has brought already the hemlock wooly adelgid northward devastating hemlock trees Iverson said.
As power plants look for alternatives to fossil fuels some are turning to burning wood or other plant materials known as biomass to generate electricity.
like poaching setting animal snares or harvesting of firewood. The project which began earlier this year will help rangers know where to go to best prevent these illicit activities he said during his presentation.'
it is extremely likely that human behaviors (burning fossil fuels) are driving climate change. That's as close to a consensus as you will ever get in the scientific community
and manmade fossil fuel-based energy consumption which accelerates greenhouse gas emissions and drives climate change still need further clarification.
Living and dead vegetation make up the fuel that burns in a wildland fire. Warmer and drier conditions make present-day fuels such as forests more likely to burn
but changing climate will also affect future fuels. In much of the West drier conditions equal less growth
so the total amount of fuel should decline. In some places where cold temperatures currently preclude trees though the opposite can occur:
warming may help form more fuel. Also the total amount of vegetation isn't the only important factor
because many species will shift ranges. Forests that used to be characterized by mixes of species like pines
For example some species like trembling aspen have moist decomposable leaves that tend to reduce fuel load
while others such as ponderosa pine create a flammable fuel bed thanks to their long resinous needles
The San francisco giants won this year's Green Glove Award from Major league Baseball keeping an impressive 86 percent of their waste out of landfills. 4. U s. fuel-efficiency standards are paying off In the traditional gasoline engines
Newer engines whether hybrid or conventional are a lot more fuel efficient. Last year's landmark federal fuel-efficiency standards are already showing results.
The EPA reported that model-year 2012 is the most fuel-efficient ever for the U s. fleet with an average of 23.6 miles per gallon.
More than half-a million conventional hybrid vehicles were sold in model-year 2013 and plug-in electric vehicle sales more than doubled from model year 2012 to model year 2013.
More than a quarter of 2013 models are already ahead of schedule in meeting fuel-efficiency and carbon-pollution requirements.
By the time the full standards are in effect in 2025 they'll reduce U s. oil consumption by more than two million barrels about half U s. daily imports from OPEC every day. 5. U s. cities
and how often the state's fossil fuel-fired power plants operate while factoring in how much the state's renewable power resources
My own feeling about all this is that the policy of trying to reduce the use of fossil fuels by regulating greenhouse gases is not going to work
. but China and India he said adding that the solution exists in developing renewable energy technologies that drive fossil fuels from the marketplace.
Fossilized plants found on top of the layers of ancient charcoal show that forests bounced back from wildfires during the last days of the dinosaurs much like they do today the new study found.
or to arrest poachers saving thousands of dollars in fuel that is normally spent cruising the ocean in search of poachers.
Unlike moving from our current dependence on fossil fuels there is no alternative to phosphorus and if it runs out our global food production system would grind to a halt.
Digging up and burning stored solar energy (in the form of fossil fuels) allows us to extract phosphorus
These sediment cores hold ancient pollen grains and charcoal from long-ago fires and can hint at the climate
The drought is like putting gasoline on the fire for water politics Wesselman said. Water solutions The drought however is not the reason American Rivers chose to highlight the San Joaquin this year Cain said.
Back Burning and Fuel Reduction This article was published originally at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices:
The idea is to reduce the intensity of subsequent fires at the same place by removing fine surface fuels such as leaf litter.
In dense eucalypt forests (such as wet sclerophyll forests) fuel-reduction burning is impractical because of the risk of uncontrollable fires sustained by heavy fuel loads that only become flammable in dry conditions.
For example with extreme heat and winds eucalypt crowns can catch on fire regardless of the amount of leaf litter and surface fuel.
Fuel reduction has to be applied frequently. Fuel loads build up quickly often returning to a carrying capacity
(when litter fall is balanced by decomposition) between 10 and 20 years. This underpins fuel-reduction targets.
In Victoria for instance the 5%fuel-reduction target means a given area of bush will be burnt every 20 years.
But ecologists are concerned that such high frequencies can have damaging effects on plant and animal species that require longer fire-free intervals to complete their life cycles.
There is also much debate about the effectiveness of fuel-reduction burning given that a huge area of landscape needs to be treated
There is growing evidence that the best benefits of fuel-reduction burning are close to the bushland suburbs (also known as the wildland-urban interface.
Because of these constraints attention is increasingly being focused on managing fuel without burning. This can involve using herbivores
The difference between fuel-reduction burning and back burning is effectively the same as the difference between elective and emergency surgery.
Long unburnt areas can accumulate very heavy fuel loads resulting in ecologically destructive fires. But it is also important to acknowledge that wildfires achieve fuel reduction too.
Fuel-reduction burning will remain a key tool that must be incorporated cleverly in landscape fire planning.
This will need to involve targeted fuel treatments around areas vulnerable to bushfires as well as the development of buffer zones that can be used to contain wildfires using techniques like back burning and direct attack using water and fire retardants.
The Mongol invasion took enough carbon dioxide out of the air as is emitted annually by worldwide gasoline use today researchers reported in the journal The Holocene.
A hookah is a water pipe that uses charcoal to heat up a wet tobacco product called shisha.
but the clues come from charcoal not from marks on fossilized trees. Charcoal remains of Earth's oldest fires date back more than 400 million years.
After long focusing on fuel economy and energy production environmentalists and scientists are now promoting a diet of more plants and less meat to slow climate change but why?
These nutrients fuel phytoplankton growth in the sunlit surface waters. Since 1950 California has experienced more winters with weak coastal upwelling than in the last five centuries.
Although there are four oil refineries in the state only 761 Montanans worked in the industry last year.
or anthropogenic sources of methane rice production landfills and burning fossil fuels for example domesticated ruminants are the largest source worldwide.
#Straw Could Power Jets Straw is thought often of as a fuel for horses but if a French research project pans out passenger jets could soon fuel up with biofuels derived from this agricultural byproduct.
The effort aims to use straw to create a biofuel that can be mixed with kerosene in a 50/50 blend.
The new fuel would put agricultural waste to work instead of diverting food crops to make biofuels.
But critics have said biofuel production causes food shortages by replacing edible crops with plants intended for use in fuels.
The process of creating these new fuels wouldn't be very different from that used for typical biofuels.
In order to make agricultural waste into a suitable fuel for jet engines manufacturers would first need to break it down into sugars mixed with yeast
which are similar to traditional jet fuels. When mixed with kerosene theses hydrocarbons can be burned in jet engines.
The hard part will be finding the most suitable microorganisms and perfecting the fermentation process. Relying on this type of fuel could also save money.
No extra crops would need to be grown to make the biofuel and the dependability of the fuel source could insulate airlines from spikes in fuel prices c
#Tasty Life: Leopard Teeth, Calf bones Found in Ruins Near Pyramids TORONTO The remains of a mansion that likely held high-ranking officials some 4500 years ago have been discovered near Egypt's Giza Pyramids.
which normally only lasts through early spring by robbing the flames of the dry fuel they need to flare up.
and there is plenty of fuel in the forests left to burn. But two fires had the conditions
and the amount of fuel on the ground both were poised to be record-breaking. However fire crews
What largely helped to prevent that from happening was the foresight of the U s. Forest Service managers of Coconino National Forest which in years prior to the fire implemented restoration-based hazardous-fuel reduction treatments.
and provide ample fuel for high-severity crown fires that kill old-growth trees. These catastrophic fires can be difficult and costly to contain
in addition to excess fuels climate change is influencing the frequency and size of fires. One of the ways this is playing out is in the boom and bust of wet and dry seasons.
During wetter years fuels build up. As drought conditions set in during drier years the abundant fuels become tinder dry
and when they ignite the fires take off. Forest restoration vital to ecosystems and to Arizona While the San juan and Slide fires provide good examples of successful treatments they are also clear indications that Arizona leaders cannot be complacent.
and hazardous fuel reduction treatments outside of the WUI landscape-scale fires will continue to occur.
when gasoline and coal are burned Bryan Duncan an atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center told Earth Observatory.
It adds to the fuel as well as makes it more likely that catastrophically sized forest fires might start.
Waves in the Atmosphere Fueling Extreme Weather One Great View of Earth for the Summer solstice Atmosphere May be Getting In gear for El Niã o Follow the author on Twitter@Andreatweather
and plant trees with the combined goals of preventing erosion storing rainwater and providing food and firewood to local people.
And yet a large black market for ivory still thrives fueling elephant poaching in Africa. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has estimated that some 96 elephants are killed each day on average mostly for their ivory.
China and India saw their per capita carbon emission from fossil fuel and cement production go from about two tons and one ton respectively in 1990 to almost eight tons and two tons respectively in 2012.
are doomed we to rely on fossil fuels for eternity? The infinite potential to harness the inexhaustible energy of the sun is limited only by human imagination printable solar cells
Fossil fuels need only tide us over until our ingenuity will allow us to wean ourselves from them.
Used in refrigerants, propellants and solvents, CFCS were replaced initially with hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCS); now, chemical manufacturers have moved on to a third-generation replacement, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCS;
perhaps including fuel crops, and how they might be altered. They are also thinking of trying much higher resolution climate modelling to see
This means that the accumulating ground layer of flammable dry wood never gets thick enough to provide a major source of fuel for an enormous fire.
This is a substantial amount, equivalent to almost 20%of carbon emissions from fossil-fuel burning. Tropical forest thus accounts for around 40%of the global terrestrial carbon sink.
California in clean-fuel drive: Nature Newsthe state of California has adopted regulations to curb greenhouse-gas emissions from transportation fuels,
codifying evidence that biofuels are significantly dirtier than they were thought once to be. The California Air Resources Board approved its'low-carbon fuel standard'on 23 april,
requiring fuel providers to cut the greenhouse-gas emissions from fuels by 10%by 2020,
We really think this is the future of fuels policy globally says Anthony Eggert, a science adviser to the board.
He says the policy should send a signal to the private sector and drive clean transportation fuels and infrastructure into the market.
The regulation includes greenhouse-gas-emissions calculations for the life cycle of all fuels. To meet the requirement,
refiners and importers would have to improve their production methods or mix and match the fuels that they sell.
%or more, meaning that ethanol often results in higher greenhouse-gas emissions than gasoline. Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association in WASHINGTON DC, questions the science behind indirect emissions and says California has overstated vastly the problem.
Many researchers, however, think there is enough evidence to move forwards now and reevaluate as the science improves.
but the low-carbon fuel standard is exactly the right approach. The US Environmental protection agency is reviewing its own ruling that will establish greenhouse-gas criteria under the national biofuels mandate.
His work suggests that corn ethanol could double emissions compared with gasoline over 30 years.
The California regulation also covers fuels produced from the Canadian tar sands, which produce more emissions than conventional oil because of the energy-intensive extraction process.
The low-carbon fuel standard could also prove a barrier to coal-based fuels, while providing a boost to vehicles powered by natural gas and electricity.
'adopted last month, sets a greenhouse-gas standard for fuels and then allows companies to pick their technologies,
By contrast, US fuel policy is focused on biofuels. The federal mandate ramps up from 9 billion gallons of biofuels in 2008 (compared with almost 138 billion gallons of gasoline) to 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022.
On 5 may, the US Environmental protection agency proposed greenhouse-gas standards for various biofuels, but made no provision for electric transport.
which gets most of its energy from fossil fuels, plans to funnel some US$40 billion into clean energy over the next several years.
The researchers behind the study say that biomass production for fuel or electricity generation will have the biggest impact on landscape and habitats.
Those other laws include the US renewable fuel standard, which requires that the volume of renewable fuel blended into gasoline is increased from 34 billion litres in 2008 to 136 billion litres by 2022.
That increase will require an area of between 19 and 31 million hectares the largest component of Mcdonald's projected energy sprawl
When completed, it will burn uranium fuel, producing electricity and a range of nuclear isotopes,
'which says that petrol for conventional automobiles can contain no more than 10%ethanol by volume.
and petrol consumption at 523 billion litres per year, cellulosic ethanol doesn't have much room to enter the market,
has not set a specific goal for cellulosic fuel. China has restricted maize-ethanol production and aims to produce 2. 5 billion additional litres of ethanol annually from non-food-grain sources by 2010.
Range Fuels based in Broomfield, Colorado, originally planned to complete the final phase of construction on a Georgia commercial plant in 2011
and General motors estimated that cellulosic ethanol could compete with petrol in 2030 only if oil was $90 a barrel or higher.
A Perspective published in Science in August noted that biomass-derived hydrocarbon fuels, such as petrol and diesel replacements, could be more attractive
because they offer higher mileage and do not require new distribution infrastructure (J. R. Regalbuto Science 325,822-824;
people might move on to other fuels such as biobutanol or biomass-derived petrol, says Alexander. And the plant delays are giving alternative technologies a chance to catch up.
But the slowdown could also benefit those who produce cellulosic ethanol, says David Berry, a partner at venture-capital firm Flagship Ventures in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Nature Newsthe Obama administration released new automobile standards on Tuesday, proposing regulations that would curb greenhouse-gas emissions and ratchet up fuel-efficiency standards beginning in 2012.
the regulations would effectively increase fuel efficiency standards by nearly 40 percent, to more than 35.5 miles per gallon (about 15 kilometres per litre) in 2016.
The fuel efficiency standards, issued under the Department of transportation, are slightly less stringent and retain loopholes in the current regulatory system.
and to take extra credit for reduced gasoline consumption by'flex-fuel'vehicles, even though those vehicles seldom run on high-ethanol blends.
In addition to increasing overall fuel efficiency, automakers could improve their air-conditioning systems and opt for new chemical refrigerants that contribute less to global warming.
and gasoline-producing bacterial reactors to new methods for making light-emitting diodes and synthetic enzymes for capturing carbon dioxide from industrial emissions.
The genetic secrets of maize, one of the world's most widely grown grains, should accelerate efforts to develop improved crop varieties to meet the world's growing hunger for food, animal feed and fuel.
It also advocated cutting subsidies for environmentally harmful fossil fuels. See also page 277. Security screen: Five gene-synthesis companies in a new International Gene Synthesis Consortium have adopted practices that are intended to address the biosecurity risks of the technology.
which is harder to transport than petrol and is made from crop plants such as maize (corn)
including molecules that mimic standard petrol, and could be expanded to work on tougher cellulosic materials, the researchers say.
or crop waste directly into fuel, filling gas tanks without raising global food prices or increasing hunger and deforestation in far-flung locales.
enabling them to convert precursor molecules directly into fuels and other chemicals. The team then inserted genes from other bacteria to produce enzymes able to break down hemicellulose.
is like cutting down trees for firewood. You're taking whales out of the population
The agency says that the Russian launch rocket that will carry Cryosat-2 into its required orbit did not have enough spare fuel in its second-stage engine.
Lei says as happened with the recent introduction of a fuel tax, which bypassed the NPC by being tagged onto the existing consumption-tax legislation.
%formally qualifying it as a'renewable fuel'for a federal mandate that requires the use of 136 billion litres of biofuels in 2022.
The mandate requires refiners to produce nearly 57 billion litres of renewable fuels by 2015.
Nature Newsthe burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil releases carbon dioxide that alters the balance of carbon isotopes naturally found in the environment an effect that is now being found in food,
the firm has engineered strains of yeast to produce hydrocarbon fuels and other chemicals from sugarcane feedstocks.
Nature Newspolicy Business Research Events People Business watch The week ahead Sound bites News maker Policy Fossil-fuel drilling:
Much of the current focus is on emissions from fossil fuels, which account for more than half of the global greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere annually,
Essentially all of the carbon in fossil fuels winds up in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide after combustion,
and so carbon dioxide emissions can be calculated directly from a country's fuel consumption. Emission inventories from industrialized northern countries with reliable energy statistics have relatively small uncertainties
so to gain an accurate picture of the contribution of fossil-fuel burning, researchers are developing new tools to differentiate between'natural'and fossil-fuel carbon in the atmosphere.
One technique relies on the radioactive isotope carbon-14, which occurs in trace amounts in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
but fossil fuels have no carbon-14 because it has a relatively short half-life and they have been buried for millions of years.
researchers can work out how much of the carbon dioxide comes from the biosphere and how much from fossil-fuel emissions.
but to an episode three decades earlier and about 1, 000 kilometres south, at an exploratory oil well known as Ixtoc I, operated by Mexico's national petroleum company Petr  leos Mexicanos (PEMEX.
and fuel wood and in some cases to earn money from selling carbon credits under the Clean Development Mechanism established in 2001 as part of the Kyoto Protocol.
For instance, wheat grains and pieces of charcoal are used often to date pottery shards found in the same spot.
whose well-meaning efforts have poured only fuel on the fire. By this account engaging with the skeptics is pointless
Among them was a one-year extension of a tax credit giving refiners nearly 12 cents of federal cash for every litre of corn ethanol they blend into gasoline.
says Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association in WASHINGTON DC. Salo Zelermyer, who represents ethanol producers for the legal firm Bracewell
The mandated levels of biofuel production in the United states will increase to 53 billion litres in 2011 about 8%of the country's total fuel consumption
Cellulosic ethanol producers are trying to generate fuel from biomass such as leaves and branches. These feedstocks have the advantage that they are plentiful
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