We don’t. And we can’t. But there are those crazy enough to try, and trying essentially boils down to  sampling, sampling, sampling, then a whole lot of extrapolating. If you imagine a landscape in which there is a continuous but highly variable distribution of carbon, the only way we’re gong to get any sort of meaningful estimate of the total is to dig a lot of holes. The points you see below represent a lot of holes that I actually helped dig! (I’m one of those crazies). I’ve thrown them up over this topographical surface to give you a sense of just how variable carbon can be across space.

Rather than subject you to a discussion of a ecosystem carbon storage, I’d like to share some pretty pictures I’ve been putting together. I’m attempting to create a model for carbon storage across a roughly 10 km area of forest in northeastern Puerto Rico that is underlain by two bedrock types, contains three distinct forests dominated by different tree species, and has broad gradients in temperature and rainfall across the topographically varied landscape.

Bluer regions represent areas of greater carbon storage while yellower regions store less carbon. Essentially I’ve created an image made of a series of pixels -here, the resolution is coarse enough that you can distinguish individual pixels around the edges. For each pixel, a predicted carbon value has been calculated from a very simple equation that takes bedrock, forest type and elevation into account.

Breaking it down by forest type…

That’s all for now, hopefully I’ll have more and more interesting pictures to show in the future.

Don’t worry I’m not going to write a long extensive post on climate models, the data is too vast and besides it would be very long and you’d all stop reading before the end! That said, and before I go any further, all too often some parts of the media focus on short term trends in the data for dramatic effect to try and create uncertainty where there really isn’t any. The global long term trends clearly show that temperatures are already increasing and the polar ice caps are already melting.

Given that it is too late to completely avert changes to our climate, and our unwillingness to dramatically change the way we live, technological advances are now vital in our battle to survive. We need to find solutions that allow us to negate our future impact on the climate and solutions to the problems we will face as a result of the changes that have already begun.

The UK produces an average of 10 tonnes of CO2 per person per year, the USA and Australia 20 and China 5 (but this is steadily increasing). So what can we do with all this CO2 instead of releasing it into the atmosphere? This is a brief overview of Professor Hupperts opinion on some of the different carbon storage solutions.

Trees take up CO2, we could trap it in ecosystems. To trap the CO2 from all the UK power plants half the surface area of England would need to be covered in trees. This might sound attractive to some but especially given the predicted rise in sea level there simply won’t be enough land for the trees and all of the people.

We could store it at the bottom of the ocean. There are two major problems with this, firstly that would cause acidification of the oceans which would in time destroy the ocean ecosystems. In fact we’re already seeing some acidification and the resulting damage to coral from atmospheric CO2. Secondly, not all CO2 is produced near an ocean and transporting it long distances would be very expensive, we need local storage solutions.

Depleted oil reserves could have the CO2 pumped into them. This could be an option but as for the oceans one of the limitations is their location.

What about mineralization (the process that occurs when CO2 reacts with rocks to form carbonate)? This happens very slowly and so far the only way we know of to speed it up requires huge amounts of energy and would therefore be prohibitively expensive. Maybe if the technology improves this will become a more viable option.

Saline aquifers are plentiful and could potentially store a lot of CO2. If you pump CO2 down to below 800m it is compressed sufficiently to become a fluid and will take up a lot less space. This is already being done successfully at Sleipner in Norway where they are capturing the CO2 produced from processing natural gas. This is quite a simple idea, the aquifer is contained by rocks so once pumped into it the CO2 is physically trapped. Some of the CO2 will react with the salt water but this is a limited reaction and causes no particular concern, mineralization will also occur with the CO2 reacting with the rock. What is concerning is the prospect of a leak if there is a fracture which would over time lead to all of the CO2 be released again. One project in Australia has attempted to address this problem by using slopes so that if a leak occurs any CO2 that has already gone past the fracture will remain trapped.

In the USA saline aquifers have the potential to trap up to 3631 billion tonnes of CO2 which would be sufficient for around 500 years. If we are to make full this of this possibility it will require investment in the technology and the research to ensure we have a sufficient knowledge base to choose appropriate sites and fix any problems that occur.

Global temperature increases greater than 2°c are expected to cause widespread devastation, with increases of 4°C being catastrophic. Scientists have estimated that to limit the global temperature increase to 2°c the levels of green house gas emissions must peak before 2020 and fall 50% by 2050. As part of this global effort the UK needs to cut it’s emissions to 80% of the 1990 level by 2050. With science and innovation, as well as some sensible decisions, this can be achieved. Given the current economic climate it’s all too easy to cut investment in green technology and in revolutionizing our power industry but this would be a huge mistake.

If you don’t like the prospect of spending more on fuel, using nuclear power or investing in carbon storage then what action would you take to avert disaster?

But now, American and Canadian researchers report that climate change is causing wildfires to burn larger swaths of Alaskan trees and to char the groundcover more severely, turning the black spruce forests of Alaska from repositories of carbon to generators of it. And the more carbon dioxide they release, the greater impact that may have in turn on future climate change.

“Since the proliferation of black spruce, Alaskan soils have acted as huge carbon sinks,” says Evan Kane, a research assistant professor in Michigan Technological University’s School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science.  “But with more frequent and more extensive burning in recent decades, these forests now lose more carbon in any fire event than they have historically been able to take up between fires.”

Kane is co-author on a paper published in the January 2011 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience. Lead author on the research study titled “Recent Acceleration of Biomass Burning and Carbon Losses in Alaskan Forests and Peatlands” is Merritt R. Turetsky of the University of Guelph, Ontario.

The overall impact of burning northern forests depends on both the frequency and severity of the fires, the researchers note. A majority of the carbon in these forests is stored in the layers of moss, peat and leaf litter that cover the ground, and those are the layers most likely to burn in forest fires.

This burning not only releases carbon emissions, but the loss of that ground layer affects a number of natural processes, such as regulation of soil climate, maintenance of permafrost and the kinds of trees that can grow back.  The new forest types likely to establish after repeated severe fires act as a much weaker carbon sink than black spruce forests.

During their study, Kane and colleagues collected data on the depth of ground-layer combustion in 31 Alaskan black spruce forest and peatland fires at 178 sites.  Black spruce forests cover two-thirds of all woodlands in the interior of Alaska.

They found that when larger areas burned, the severity of the damage—measured by the depth of burning—was high throughout the fire season. Also, the carbon emissions were greater. In fact, the researchers found that the annual carbon losses from forest fires in 2000 to 2009 were more than twice the carbon lost during each of the previous five decades.

Climate change is an undeniable fact in the Arctic, where Arctic sea ice in January 2011 covered 5.23 million square miles, the lowest January ice measurement since satellite records began in 1979, and air temperatures over much of the Arctic were 4 to 11 degrees above average. These climate conditions are  already thawing the permafrost, where the northern forests sequester much of their carbon intake. The researchers say that an increase in area burned and severity of fires is likely to increase that permafrost loss, in turn accelerating the negative effects of climate change.

The annual burned area in the Alaskan forests is expected to increase by 200 to 300 percent over the next 30 to 100 years, the scientists said. Since the changes over the past decade have already turned the black spruce forests from carbon sinks or repositories to carbon sources that release emissions into the air, they say, the future threat is very real.

“Soil carbon losses will increase dramatically if warming continues to affect the thawing of permafrost, exposing deeper carbon pools to rapid loss through burning,” they wrote. “In turn, deeper burning events are likely to further accelerate permafrost degradation, potentially triggering a positive feedback between permafrost thaw and severe fire activity.  Such feedback has significant implications for greenhouse gas emissions in northern regions.”

More at www.mtu.edu.

Earthworms are important regulators of many ecological properties of soils. Their burrowing activity increases soil pore space and contributes to soil structure and drainage. Most importantly, earthworms can digest a huge quantity of dead and partially decomposed plant material. This digestion causes chemical transformations that ultimately produce nutrient-rich soil organic matter, or SOM. SOM helps ensure soil fertility, and contributes to numerous physical and chemical soil properties such as soil structure, porosity, water retention, and the capacity of soils to buffer pH changes. SOM’s aggregate structure causes it to have high water stability. This is an essential property in tropical forests, which have the highest rainfall levels of any biome on Earth.

SOM produced by earthworms is also rich in both carbon and nitrogen. A detailed biochemical and molecular analysis of earthworm casts suggests that these creatures may in fact play a key role in controlling tropical carbon storage.

Casts are clumps of digested organic matter excreted by earthworms that aggregate into large and distinctive structures. Researchers working in the rain forest neighboring the Dong Cao village in Northeast Vietnam studied the effect of cast production by Amynthas Khami on soil C storge. A. Khami is a species of tropical earthworm that can grow up to 50 cm long and produce tower-like casts. The researchers first used a “simulated rainfall” experiment to determine the relative stability of casts versus control soils. They then measured total carbon content, lignin and mineral-bound SOM content of casts and control soils.

An earthworm cast produced by A. Khami, a large tropical species found in Northeast Vietnam.

The study found striking differences in the chemical composition of earthworm casts versus control soils that ubiquitously indicate higher carbon storage in casts. Casts are more structurally stable and can withstand at least twice as long a rainfall event as control soils without compromising their structural integrity. They are enriched in carbon compared with controls, and particularly in carbon compounds such as lignin that have a high “carbon storage” potential. Lignin, a primary constituent of woody plant tissue, is a complex and heterogeneous molecule that is both carbon-rich and difficult for microbes to decompose. Earthworms probably excrete high quantities of lignin after obtaining the more digestible carbon sources from the roots and leaves that they eat. Finally, high levels of mineral associated-SOM were found in casts. Soil minerals bind to organic matter through electrostatic interactions, and in doing so make it unavailable for decomposers.

Though it well known that earthworm digestion initially speeds up decomposition, this new study suggests that casts may in fact contribute to long-term carbon stabilization. In tropical soils, which tend to cycle carbon quite rapidly, this mechanism should not go unappreciated. Future tropical land-use decisions may want to account for the welfare of this often-unappreciated soil organism.

Hong et al. 2011. How do earthworms influence organic matter quantity and quality in tropical soils? Soil Biology and Biochemistry 43: 223-230.

according to researcher Galina Churikina, who led the study, US cities store about 20 billion tons of organic carbon. most of this carbon is held in soils, though a sizable fraction is also contained within buildings constructed with wood. ironically, the key to city’s’ remarkable capacity to store carbon seems to be their artificial nature. buildings and asphalt “bury” soils, locking away carbon that was once part of a dynamic forest, grassland, or other natural ecosystem.

Shanghai, one of the world's largest cities, is an enormous carbon sink!

this is not to discount the importance of urban trees in both storing carbon and providing numerous ecosystem services. trees and other urban plants ameliorate temperatures, providing a cooling effect in summers that reduces the need for air conditioning. trees also directly take up CO2 emitted from cars, reducing the amount of pollution that enters the atmosphere from cities in the first place.

Urban trees such as those in Central Park, NYC, keep buildings cool, capture CO2, reduce stormwater runoff, and improve quality of life.

there is a less appreciated truth about enzymes that i find to be equally intriguing, almost poetic. enzymes not only build and maintain life, they destroy it. or, to be a bit more accurate, they recycle its components. enzymes are largely responsible for decomposing organic matter, breaking down trees and blades of grass and human beings into the tiny carbon-rich compounds that RuBisCO created. in fact, if you take a small handful of soil from your garden, you are holding billions of free floating enzymes. they have been constructed by plants and microbes and were released into the environment to acquire something that their creator needs (i hate to use the word “creator”, when writing about science, if you have a better word, please do share). most often, this is an essential nutrient or a small sugar that can be used for energy. imagine if you could take your stomach out, and send it off to wendy’s to eat a chicken sandwich for you. not the prettiest analogy, perhaps, but this is in essence this is what microbes and plants do in the soil.

while intellectually it may be somewhat interesting to imagine billions of microbial exo-stomachs scouring the earth for their lunch, why should anyone really care about enzymes in the environment? well, truth be told, very few people do. but i’m going to tell you why an increasing number of environmental scientists are taking an interest in enzymes, not only in order to understand a process, but with the growing realization that understanding how enzymes shape our planet may be essential to averting looming environmental catastrophes.

as the agents responsible for the breakdown of organic, carbon containing compounds (and this is true in soils and aquatic ecosystems), enzymes are gatekeepers. they regulate how quickly carbon is broken down and taken up anew by living organisms. if you want to think realistically about any form of carbon sequestration in soils (an idea that has exploded in popularity in the last several years), or understand how global warming is altering ecosystems and the balance of carbon and nutrients within them, you simply cannot ignore enzymes.

the fact is, much as we would like to find a way to store the huge amounts of  carbon our activities are releasing into the atmosphere back in the earth, adding carbon feeds the soil. and just as human populations increase during times of food surplus, microbial populations explode, produce more enzymes and cycle that carbon at a faster rate.

another aspect of enzyme behavior that makes global climate change scenarios even stickier is that enzymes are very, very sensitive to changes in their environment. the activity and efficiency of enzymes in the environment is closely linked to temperature, moisture, and pH conditions. my own research on soil enzymes from northeastern forests is showing that even a few degrees of temperature increase can cause a dramatic increase in the rate of the carbon-cycling reactions that these enzymes perform. droughts, on the other hand, can quickly kill demolish enzyme communities and cause carbon cycling in a system to drop off.

the behavior of enzymes in the environment, we are discovering, is far more complex and nuanced than the story i’ve outlined here. moreover, ecologists know that enzymes must be understood within a broad context. the plants, animals and environmental processes that interact to form complex ecosystems, which enzymes regulate on a very fundamental level, must be somehow integrated if we are to fully understand how these tiny reaction machines keep our earth running.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/11/e-u-biofuel-expansion-plans-worse-than-burning-fossil-fuels.php

Carbon – money for revegetation

Gawler Environment and Heritage Association has received a Community Sustainability grant for a study to measure the carbon stored by local native vegetation.  The grant will allow measurement of the carbon stored in mature mallee woodland typical of the Adelaide plains north of the Gawler River and grassy woodland typical of the foothills on the west of the Mount Lofty Ranges.  This is turn will provide an estimate of the potential benefit which is available via sale of the carbon to a company which needs to provide a carbon offset for its pollution.  After the survey is completed a workshop/field day is proposed later this year where the results and logistics of getting involved will be explained.

Out in the fresh air

Gawler Bushwalkers are an active group that organises regular bushwalks on Sundays.  A new program for this Winter and Spring is now available. Next walks are on 4 July at Devil’s Nose and 18 July at Mount Crawford – both very accessible.  For details contact Mary on 85225046 or Noel on 85222980.

History Week.

A range of local activities were highlighted in History Week walks and displays.  The story of migrants in the Migrant Hostel set up at Willaston after World War 2 was a feature.  The Hostel was established in former Air Force buildings – some of these buildings still remain and the Willaston Football clubrooms for example is a conversion of one of these buildings and the Gliding Club airstrip has the same origin.  The National Trust Museum is featuring the Migrant Hostel display for a few more weeks – well worth a look.

Also of interest that the majority of the 50 people who attended the Gawler South and railway walks came from outside Gawler.  History based tourism seems to have the potential to be quite a factor in the local economy.

Gawler Rivers project

Good to hear that some work on the ground is starting soon on this project which will produce a walk and cycle path connecting Gawler East via Dead Man’s Pass and the river junction to Clonlea and Hewett as well as revegetation and conservation benefits.

Cast iron seats

GEHA is trying to locate cast iron and wood seats (or information about them) which were in the Willaston cemetery until about 20 years ago.  We are looking to make a replica as a memorial for Geoff New.  We believe the seats may have been a “Plantation” style built at the Eagle Foundry.  Contact Adrian Brown 85224494.

Native plant sale and information day at the Gawler Regional Natural Resource Centre – early notice for July 31.

Questions or feedback for this column – contact Gawler Environment & Heritage Association via Adrian Shackley or Sue Coldbeck on 8522 4363 or email  geha1@bigpond.com

I’m not bringing up his statement as a belated exercise in Bush-bashing.  Rather, Bush’s statement and the Deepwater Horizon disaster are a vivid reminder to be skeptical of claims that new technologies — or old technologies applied in new settings — are disaster proof.

The World Coal Institute says that underground carbon sequestration is a proven technology.  Maybe so.  But offshore drilling was also supposed to be a proven technology.  The BP blowout is a sobering reminder that things don’t always stay underground where we want them to be, particularly when they’re under high pressure.  I think we have to assume that sooner or later there will be a major CO2 blowout from a sequestration site.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that we shouldn’t develop carbon sequestration as a climate mitigation strategy.  But we shouldn’t make unrealistic assumptions about reliability.

Ms. Marie Briere at The University of Adelaide

Hello, my name is Marie Briere. I am a Masters student from the National Institute of Applied Sciences, in Lyon, France (www.insa-lyon.fr). It is one of the biggest engineer-schools in France with over 4800 students. The Masters course goes for 5 years and I chose the specialisation “Energy and Environment” for the last 3 years. In my 4th year, I completed a 6 month internship with a company named Seitha, in Villeurbanne, France (www.aximaseitha-gdfsuez.com). I worked on climatic software to calculate how much energy a building consumes. This software is in compliance with the French thermal regulations, which I had to study (http://www.textinergie.org/en/regulation.html). I wrote a user guide and did presentations for the company’s employees. To complete my last year of study, I am doing a 4 month research project. I can graduate in September with a Masters Degree in Energy and Environmental Engineering.

I came to Adelaide to work on the Climate Change, Communities and Environment project to gain international experience and to improve my English. Prof Wayne Meyer was very helpful and suggested a project on carbon accounting for farms. As I had worked on energy accounting for my first internship, the opportunity to work on carbon accounting was really good.

I am building a tool, using spreadsheets, to organise data for all farm carbon stocks, inputs and outputs. The tool will help us to understand how much carbon can be captured and stored on a farm and what are the most significant inputs and outputs. This information is useful for understanding carbon sequestration, which is very important if carbon markets are introduced in the future. Who knows, farmers could earn money by growing carbon as well as grapes!

The thought is to create a place for innovators and entrepreneurs to test energy science, city design, sustainable development and environmental architecture. The focus is not only on test and design, but also on making an alluring place to live and work. If your creating the city of the future and money is not an object(budgeted at $22 billion), why not reach for the sky? They have!

Masdar City will be powered by 100% renewables, it will be zero waste, zero carbon and it will have a sustainable water system. Transportation, materials, foods…all sustainable. They are going all out and the level of detail is amazing. From the orientation and width of the streets to the wind cones (shown in the Masdar Headquarters photo above) that naturally ventilate interior spaces to the retractable shades (shown below) covering City Plaza, nothing was overlooked.

Transportation is beneath the city, leaving the ground level open for pedestrians. The transportation system includes a light rail and a Personal Rapid Transport (PRT) system that a transports up to 4 adults to any PRT station at the touch of a button.

The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology(MIST), developed in cooperation with MIT will be at the heart of the R&D in Masdar City. It will eventually be home to 600 master’s and PhD students, with over 100 faculty members. MasDar City with also be the home of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) headquarters and host operations for companies like GE and BASF.

They are currently in Phase One of seven, which focuses on MIST. This means that first residents will be students testing new technologies, while being test subjects themselves. I would encourage you to learn more about Masdar City.

Source: http://www.masdarcity.ae/en/index.aspx

Cup Plant (Silphium perfoliatum), one of the prairie’s big-personality forbs, is being studied to explore its potential as a biomass crop that can store carbon from the atmosphere in its deep and complex root system. If you’ve introduced this plant into a damp portion of your property, you know it can become a taller-than-you competitor for garden space. However, mixed with co-evolved grasses (already recognized for their biofuel value), it offers diversity, habitat, and adaptive range to conservation real estate. Read more about South Dakota State University’s research project, funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, here.

Photo source: John Hilty
Illinois Wildflowers

I got lucky last fall. Together with a friend I toured what many consider America’s most important power plant to see the future of coal. But it turns out: There is nothing to see, really. Long pipes connect the colossal Mountaineer Power Plant on the Ohio River to a structure four stories tall made of metal beams and aluminum tubes. Three hundred feet further down the road a pump station sits listlessly under the winter sky, two pipes disappear in the ground. That’s it. Nothing is moving. But energy companies and politicians along with environmentalists the world over are watching closely what’s happening in New Haven, West Virginia.

Here the United States government and American Electric Power, America’s biggest provider of electricity, are developing a technology that attaches to a coal plant, filters carbon dioxide out of the power plant’s emissions and stores the gas directly underground. Their goal: Pioneering a process that reduces CO2 emissions, which significantly contribute to manmade global warming, and thus creating a future for the most abundant energy resource in the US. The pilot project is the first of it’s kind in the world. It got under way in September and the Department of Energy just announced that it would fund its expansion with $334 million dollars.

The importance of the project becomes clear when we consider the role coal plays in the US economy – and in climate change science. America generates nearly 50 percent of it’s electricity with coal and is home to the lion share of the world’s known coal reserves, some 27 percent. At the same time, the fuel is responsible for 80 percent of all CO2 emissions in the power sector and a big reason why the United States, a country with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, produces more than 20 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Enter carbon capture and sequestration, as the technology at the 30-year-old Moutaineer plant is called. Or CCS for short. Essentially it consists of a chemical factory and two deep wells, AEP engineer Gary Spitznogle told me. “In the factory smoke that has been diverted from the plant’s chimney is mixed with a chilled ammonia-based chemical. Once the mixture is heated, the carbon dioxide separates itself and is pumped nearly two miles into the earth under a protective layer of sandstone,” explains Spitznogle. There the liquid CO2 displaces saltwater from fine pores in a layer of dolomite and stays put, theoretically of tens of thousands of years.

At the moment AEP is operating a small-scale validation of the technology together with the French company Alstom, which captures less than 2 percent of the CO2 emitted by the power plant. But with the financial assistance of the federal government, equivalent to half the cost of the projects next phase, AEP plans to scale-up the project until 2015. At that point the CCS project is supposed to capture 90 percent of the carbon dioxide from 235 megawatt of the plant’s 1,300 megawatt capacity. With the help of of CCS technology AEP, America’s biggest emitter of CO2, could eliminate all CO2 emissions by retrofitting their fleet of existing coal plants by 2025, says the company’s CEO Mike Morris.

But whether or not those long-term goals are achievable, remains to be seen. From the power generator’s perspective lowering the operating cost is the first priority. CCS is only cost-effective for AEP if the technology consumes 20 percent of the electricity generated in the plant or less – currently the test unit is using 35 percent. At this price coal power could easily cost as much as or more than nuclear or solar power. Project risk analyses also list geological shifts, earthquakes and contamination of water supplies as potential complications, according to the New York Times, all of which worry residents. Most importantly though, in order to move the CO2 emitted by all 600 US coal-plant to places where the gas could be stored underground, a giant national pipeline network would have to be constructed. Many regions of US have little to no storage capacity.

That’s why advocates of renewable energy think CCS the wrong investment. David Holtz, executive Director of Progress Michigan, an environmental group, told the New York Times CCS resembled a methadone cure for addiction. He argues the industry would do better to go cold turkey. “There is no evidence that burying carbon dioxide in the earth is a better strategy than aggressively pursuing alternatives that clearly are better for the environment and will in the long-run be less costly.”

Power generators like AEP disagree and are eager to see the New Haven CCS project supply evidence of coal’s cleaner future. The rest of the world will be watching too.

This research has put in place a first-ever clean energy collaboration between the U.S. and China, which has now expanded to an extensive effort “to create various institutions and programs addressing a wide array of cooperation on clean-energy technologies and capacity building” [2]. This expansive collaboration includes the establishment of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center, in which $150 million US dollars, provided by various public and private sectors, will be available to facilitate further research as mentioned above [2]. With the U.S. being the world’s second largest greenhouse emitter, this collaboration could mean great advances in the global reduction of CO2 emissions and a more promising clean energy future. Both President Jintao of China and President Obama are in agreement of the severity of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and are committed to taking the essential steps to mitigating the problem.

From this, I feel a sense of encouragement that this dire issue will be addressed in the diligent manner in which it deserves and I look forward to the next several years, as I fully agree with the statement of Steven Chu, U.S. Secretary of Energy, “What the U.S. and China do over the next decade will determine the fate of the world.” Let’s just hope that what is done is something good…

[1] http://energyenvironment.pnl.gov/news/pdf/us_china_pnnl_flier.pdf

[2] http://www.grist.org/article/2009-11-17-u.s.-and-china-announce-positive-cooperative-and-comprehensive-p/

Boreal forests, found in northern areas like Canada, Russia, Scandinavia and parts of the United States, cover 11 percent of the earth and store 22 percent of all carbon on the land surface in soil, permafrost, peatlands and wetlands.

via Boreal forests store carbon, need help: Canada study | Canada | Reuters.

Groundbreaking Technologies

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703746604574461342682276898.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Timing could not be worse, as oil continues to spill from West Atlas rig 250 kms off the Kimberley coast, creating a slick 180 kms long and approaching 20 kms offshore. Estimated 470,000 litres of oil per day are spewing into the ocean and with 50 days to cap it with equipment coming from Singapore, the final spill may equal the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster. 

Garrett says consent conditions on his Gorgon approval will adequately protect the environment from damage by ‘far the largest carbon capture and storage experiment in Australia’. An experiment indeed!

Proposed site of the Gorgon facility is Barrow Island, an A class nature reserve with significant coral reefs, sanctuary for flatback marine turtles, and geological fault lines susceptible to leakage of stored carbon.

“Compounding one mess with another in the rush to sell fossil fuels in an era of climate change makes us gasp in horror at its insanity”, says Mora Main, Greens councillor Waverley.

Garrett may not be familiar with Zola’s masterpiece ’Germinal’ about miners poverty and socialist rumblings, but he could well consider two Zola quotes:

“The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous; it is indissolubly connected with the fate of men”.

“If you shut up truth, and bury it underground, it will but grow”.

Here’s the deal: The most reliable way to store and secure CO2 is to get it to attach to a solid and form a carbonate. (Think coral covering rocks in the ocean.) That process is thermodynamically stable and also provides a long-term solution to holding onto CO2. The problem is that it takes a very long time for that to happen using current methods — as in, thousands of years.

But Lawrence Berkeley recently managed to produce nanoscale magnesium oxide crystals, which staff scientist Jeff Urban says could help speed up that CO2-solid bonding process. “Magnesium oxide crystals are known to influence processes and rates of reaction,” he said. “And if we can control the size and surface chemistry of the crystals, we may be able to dramatically increase the rate of CO2 being stuck to the surface.”

Lawrence Berkeley researchers still need to figure out those pieces, and Urban said they plan to study the crystals further to see how they react when flushed with CO2 and how they interact with fluid carbon dioxide. But the end result could be an answer to the wait-and-see scenario that has plagued carbon sequestration. “Right now with the process trials in Europe and the U.S., it’s difficult to assess how well geologic carbon sequestration is working because it takes hundreds to thousands of years to really see,” Urban said. This breakthrough could lead scientists to be able to do an injection and immediately see carbonate form, which can help them instantly assess how much storage space we need and how long it will take to store the CO2, said Urban, adding: “It lets you really quantitatively assess the feasibility of carbon sequestration.”

While they’ve made a lot of progress, researchers still have a long way to go to prove that the process could work and, more importantly, that it’s safe. “Societal attitudes towards nanotech are a definite challenge to the field,” says Skip Lockard, a partner in Alston & Bird’s environment and land use litigation practice who focuses specifically on nanotechnology regulation and developments. “Most people haven’t heard much about nanotechnology, and what they have heard has created concern about the potential effects that nano-engineered products and processes could have on human health and the environment. Stories in the press have created almost a ‘nanophobia,’ particularly with carbon nanotubes.”

Carbon sequestration has stirred an equal number of phobias — what if all that CO2 gets released in one big boom? — and both fields are in that limbo between testing new technologies and the involvement of government regulations. “We’re at a formative point in regulations related to nanotechnology,” Lockard said. “Right now the EPA and state departments of toxic substance control are gathering information about nanomaterials and their possible effects on people and the environment, and that’s likely to lead to regulations governing them in the next couple of years.”

Lockard also said that insurance companies are trying to figure out how to support the nanotech industry: “It’s a big unknown liability, both in terms of product liability and environmental liability, so insurance companies are figuring out right now how much coverage people in the nanotechnology field need to have.”

The federal government has shown enough concern that Massachusetts Senator John Kerry recently introduced a new nanotechnology bill into the U.S. Senate. The bill, S. 1482, sets federal research priorities related to nanotechnology, focusing on health and safety concerns as well as various “areas of national concern,” which include energy production and efficiency, water remediation, and precision agriculture, among other things. (Carbon sequestration is not on the list.) That research will inform the future of the field and the regulation of it — and with this new twist potentially determine the future of storing CO2.

Here’s the deal: The most reliable way to store and secure CO2 is to get it to attach to a solid and form a carbonate. (Think coral covering rocks in the ocean.) That process is thermodynamically stable and also provides a long-term solution to holding onto CO2. The problem is that it takes a very long time for that to happen using current methods — as in, thousands of years.

But Lawrence Berkeley recently managed to produce nanoscale magnesium oxide crystals, which staff scientist Jeff Urban says could help speed up that CO2-solid bonding process. “Magnesium oxide crystals are known to influence processes and rates of reaction,” he said. “And if we can control the size and surface chemistry of the crystals, we may be able to dramatically increase the rate of CO2 being stuck to the surface.”

Lawrence Berkeley researchers still need to figure out those pieces, and Urban said they plan to study the crystals further to see how they react when flushed with CO2 and how they interact with fluid carbon dioxide. But the end result could be an answer to the wait-and-see scenario that has plagued carbon sequestration. “Right now with the process trials in Europe and the U.S., it’s difficult to assess how well geologic carbon sequestration is working because it takes hundreds to thousands of years to really see,” Urban said. This breakthrough could lead scientists to be able to do an injection and immediately see carbonate form, which can help them instantly assess how much storage space we need and how long it will take to store the CO2, said Urban, adding: “It lets you really quantitatively assess the feasibility of carbon sequestration.”

While they’ve made a lot of progress, researchers still have a long way to go to prove that the process could work and, more importantly, that it’s safe. “Societal attitudes towards nanotech are a definite challenge to the field,” says Skip Lockard, a partner in Alston & Bird’s environment and land use litigation practice who focuses specifically on nanotechnology regulation and developments. “Most people haven’t heard much about nanotechnology, and what they have heard has created concern about the potential effects that nano-engineered products and processes could have on human health and the environment. Stories in the press have created almost a ‘nanophobia,’ particularly with carbon nanotubes.”

Carbon sequestration has stirred an equal number of phobias — what if all that CO2 gets released in one big boom? — and both fields are in that limbo between testing new technologies and the involvement of government regulations. “We’re at a formative point in regulations related to nanotechnology,” Lockard said. “Right now the EPA and state departments of toxic substance control are gathering information about nanomaterials and their possible effects on people and the environment, and that’s likely to lead to regulations governing them in the next couple of years.”

Lockard also said that insurance companies are trying to figure out how to support the nanotech industry: “It’s a big unknown liability, both in terms of product liability and environmental liability, so insurance companies are figuring out right now how much coverage people in the nanotechnology field need to have.”

The federal government has shown enough concern that Massachusetts Senator John Kerry recently introduced a new nanotechnology bill into the U.S. Senate. The bill, S. 1482, sets federal research priorities related to nanotechnology, focusing on health and safety concerns as well as various “areas of national concern,” which include energy production and efficiency, water remediation, and precision agriculture, among other things. (Carbon sequestration is not on the list.) That research will inform the future of the field and the regulation of it — and with this new twist potentially determine the future of storing CO2.