Burning Bio News

Study shows that increases in crop production technology from 1961 to 2005 have lowered GHG emissions. While emissions from factors such as fertilizer production and application have increased, the net effect of higher yields has avoided emissions of up to 161 gigatons of carbon (GtC) (590 GtCO2e) since 1961. Each dollar invested in agricultural yields is estimated to have resulted in 68 fewer kgC (249 kgCO2e) emissions relative to 1961 technology ($14.74/tC, or ∼$4/tCO2e), avoiding 3.6 GtC (13.1 GtCO2e) per year. This analysis indicates that investment in yield improvements compares favorably with other commonly proposed mitigation strategies.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced that three projects have been selected to receive up to $612 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – matched by $368 million in private funding – to demonstrate large-scale carbon capture and storage from industrial sources. The projects – located in Texas, Illinois, and Louisiana – were initially selected in October 2009 for phase one research and development grants. The selections announced today are expected to capture and store 6.5 million tons of CO2 per year- the equivalent of removing nearly one million cars off the road- and increase domestic production of oil by more than 10 million barrels per year by the end of the demonstration period in September 2015.

An alliance of industry, academic and government organizations, formed to commercialize technologies that will utilize concentrated solar energy to convert waste CO2 into diesel fuel. The solar reforming technology platform will be colocated next to industrial facilities that have waste CO2 streams such as coal power plants, natural gas processing facilities, ethanol plants, cement production facilities and other stationary sources of CO2. A solar reforming system is currently being demonstrated in Sacramento, CA, and demonstrations will continue both at Sandia’s facilities in New Mexico and at a power plant project site in Bakersfield, CA.

Anheuser-Busch InBev has reduced water use by 8.5 percent, energy use by 7 percent and CO2 emissions by 8.5 percent in 2009, all per hectoliter of production, according to the company’s 2009 Global Citizenship Report. In 2009, AB InBev emitted 4.55 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent, of which 65.1 percent were direct emissions and 34.9 percent were indirect. AB InBev has reduced its water use by nearly 32 percent since the end of 2004.

In 2009, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the United States saw their largest absolute and percentage decline (405 million metric tons or 7.0 percent) since the Energy Information Administration began keeping records in 1949. The slow economy played a large role, but there were also shift from high carbon fuels (coal) to lower carbon fuels (natural gas, biomass, and nuclear). The US shifted away from dirtier, primary manufacturing to cleaner, high tech industries. This latter kind of indicates that the US is just farming out the more carbon-intensive industries. Still, it looks like all the lost jobs and closures of the last two years have at least taken our US emissions levels back to about 1995 levels.

Revisions to a Purdue University economic analysis have cut about 10 percent of the total emissions expected from an increase in corn ethanol production. The findings, released in a report to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, show that ethanol could be a somewhat better option than previously thought for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Wally Tyner, a Purdue agricultural economist and the report’s lead author, said revisions to the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model better reflect market conditions and land productivity than a 2009 report that showed corn ethanol wouldn’t significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions over gasoline.

Air officials for years have blamed dairy cow emissions for the unusually high ozone levels in California’s San Joaquin Valley, but a new study points more to what goes into the animals than what comes out. University of California, Davis researchers, however, found that the bigger ozone culprit appears to be millions of tons of fermenting cattle feed. This previously unrecognized source is likely the reason why ozone levels have not dropped even as the region has implemented control programs, scientists said.

The Center for Climate Strategies analyzed climate actions plans and proposals created in 16 states by teams of stakeholders — leaders of businesses, industries, environmental groups, local governments and others. In a report being announced on Capitol Hill today, it narrowed down the more than 900 policy options to 23 that it dubs the “super options.” The two of the more popular options are federal renewable portfolio standards for power generation and nuclear power. All 23 are summarized.

On Thursday, 40 years after that first Earth Day in 1970, smog levels nationwide have dropped by about a quarter, and lead levels in the air are down more than 90 percent. Formerly fetid lakes and burning rivers are now open to swimmers. The challenges to the planet today are largely invisible — and therefore tougher to tackle.

Consumers will pay more for cars upfront under new rules finalized Thursday by the Obama administration that will increase fuel efficiency and for the first time set greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and light trucks. The new fuel efficiency standards, issued by the Transportation Department and the Environmental Protection Agency as the result of a May 2009 deal with the auto industry, represent a peaceful end to a contentious legal battle over how to regulate tailpipe emissions. By model year 2016 vehicles must get an average of 35.5 miles per gallon. The requirements will add as much as $985 to a vehicle’s initial cost, according to EPA estimates, but buyers will save about $4,000 on fuel over the life of the car, administration officials said.

A memo earlier this month from USDA Chief Economist Joe Glauber to his boss, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, should give all caught up in the renewable energy and climate change debate pause. Glauber said USDA and EPA are going back and re-evaluating the assumptions that went into an economic model that theoretically plotted the consequences of climate legislation, particularly cap-and-trade provisions.

A new study from the National Research Council, “Verifying Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Methods to Support International Climate Agreements,” concludes there is not a sufficiently accurate way to verify the self-reported estimates against independent data. In addition, the report found there is no accurate way “to estimate other greenhouse gas emissions” – a matter of key importance to agriculture since the Environmental Protection Agency says the livestock is the main emitter of methane, a greenhouse gas.

New renewable fuel standards could lead to more than $13 billion increase in net farm income, according to a new study by researchers at RTI International and Texas A & M University. The study, “RFS2 Final Rule Life Cycle Analysis Supplemental Materials,” funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, analyzed the economic impacts of new EPA renewable fuels standards (RFS). – mj: The press release also mentioned and increase in food prices by about $10 per person annually by 2022. Inflation will increase food prices more than that in the next 12 years. Looks more like a news ‘grabber’ than a useful finding.

UOP, a Honeywell company, announced that it has been awarded a $1.5 million cooperative agreement from the U.S. Department of Energy for a project to demonstrate technology to capture carbon dioxide and produce algae for use in biofuel and energy production. A demonstration system will capture carbon dioxide from exhaust stacks at Honeywell’s manufacturing facility in Hopewell, VA, and deliver the captured CO2 to a cultivation system for algae. Algal oil can then be extracted from the algae for conversion to biofuels, and the algae residual can be converted to pyrolysis oil, which can be burned to generate renewable electricity.

The Obama administration announced that it has drafted rules that would require federal government to take climate change into consideration for the first time when judging actions under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). According to the statement, any proposed activity would have to emit the equivalent of 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide “to trigger a quantitative analysis.” The Statement can be viewed at: http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/post-carbon/NEPA-Guidance-FINAL-02182010.pdf

AUSTRALIAN red meat production is much more carbon-efficient than often reported in the media, says an important study by the University of New South Wales (NSW). The three-year Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study of production systems in Victoria, NSW and WA showed carbon emissions from sheep and cattle meat production were among the lowest in the world.
It showed sheepmeat produced 7-8kg of CO2-equivalent per kg of meat (carcase weight) while for beef, values ranged from 8-11kg. Based on figures from the research, eating red meat three times weekly results in 164kg to 258kg of CO2 emissions a year - vastly different to claims of emissions up to 1.5 tonnes. Most cattle and sheep are grazed in Australia.

At Josh Frye’s poultry farm in West Virginia, the chicken litter is fed into a large, gasifier. In addtion to heat, out comes a charcoal-like substance known as “biochar” — which is not only an excellent fertilizer, but also helps keep carbon in the soil instead of letting it escape into the atmosphere, where it acts as a greenhouse gas. – mj: The biochar research is still being conducted, but this article is a nice contrast to the more common reports of manure destroying the environment articles.

Denbury is a regional oil and natural-gas producer based in Plano, TX, whose primary source of carbon dioxide is a basin near Jackson, MS. For decades, oil companies have pumped naturally-occurring carbon dioxide from geological basins into existing oil wells. The gas acts like a solvent for the oil, removing it from rock formations. Denbury plans to treat and ship its first batch of industrial emissions from a Dow Chemical Co. factory in Plaquemine, LA, to its oil fields in Texas via a pipeline network it is building, taking a liability off Dow’s hands equivalent to the annual emissions of 27,000 cars.

California is preparing to introduce the first statewide system of monitoring devices to detect global-warming emissions, installing them on towers throughout the state. The monitoring network, which is expected to grow, will initially focus on pinpointing the sources and concentrations of methane, a potent contributor to climate change. The air resources board has bought seven portable analyzers made by Picarro, a company in Silicon Valley that also supplies the machines to the federal government and academic scientists. A Picarro analyzer costs $50,000. It is about the size of a desktop PC and takes precise, real-time measurements of greenhouse gases.

While soybean-based biodiesel has been unfairly knocked at times for not being as environmentally friendly as it should be, a new study shows just how green fuel from the bean really is. A new peer-reviewed life cycle profile released by the United Soybean Board (USB) documents multiple energy and environmental benefits of U.S. soybean farming and processing, including biodiesel.