Shale Gas to Replace Coal Fuel?
Published August 15, 2012 | 
Policies and regulations currently in place to reduce CO2 emissions are not likely sufficient to handle the threat of increased emission from the India, China and US.
One has to imagine that gasoline’s energy density is peerless that we would have to make a nuclear plant worth of clean energy daily for the next 5 decades just to meet our energy demands at present. Wave source is also a widely adopted alternative source but it is not nearly as viable, and consistently reliable, as shale gas.
There are experts who believe that simply using less coal would solve the problem nicely. They argue that if top emitters like India and China resort to shale gas as an alternative, it could greatly affect the future of global CO2 emissions as shale gas emits 50% less carbon dioxide compared to that of coals. Naturally, players in the coal sector do not want this proposition to advance and even go as far as to propose that we might as well remove all conventional fuels of the present.
Both supporters and critics would not acknowledge that the carbon dioxide emission policies are simply not enough to deal with threat of the coal-fueled economies like US and China. So unless a viable and quickly deployable fuel alternative of coal is discovered, it would not be possible to control the rising trajectory of CO2 levels worldwide.
And although environmentalist groups might, at first sight, consider shale gas as a scam posing as a solution, widespread use of shale gas could be our best bet in securing quick reduction of CO2 emissions that the Earth desperately needs.
The shift of momentum in using alternative fuel like shale gas could additionally buy us more time in developing more effective and viable solutions to further reduce the world’s CO2 emissions. Renewable power resources at present cannot give the same results of emission savings as much as with the shale gas’.
Accomplishing cooperation from the international community in suppressing coal might give a solid base in creating a valuable coalition to implement an effective “decarbonization” of the sector by turning shale gas into a totally sustainable market.
Scotland gears for cleaner energy sources
Published August 9, 2012 | Scotland is gearing for a more streamlined renewable energy projects that harness water energy. This move appears to be warmly welcomed by energy firms and various environmental groups, noting that the approach should take into consideration other possible danger to nature.
Such positive changes are set to make the development and application of wave, tidal and wind generation more efficient and viable.
Scotland is now leading the world to clean energy alternatives and they are making sure that the lengthy planning process won’t allow other countries to overtake them.
Through meticulous planning, they can utilize their tidal and wave energy to aid in cutting down their climate emissions as well as protecting their rich marine resources. They would want to ensure that they get the right renewable energy in the right places.
Scotland has been big in marine energy because it’s the only country today that is actively striving to explore a cleaner energy source. The recent development in their aim is their move towards harnessing the energy of the sea through the partnership of SSE Renewables and Alstom (an energy construction firm that deals with anything ranging from coal to wind power). Their deal is set to develop a huge wave power site in Orkney.
The firms involve in the project strongly believe that their effort can generate around 200 MW of electricity from the site from a wide array of wave power converters. This can possibly make them the world’s largest wave farm.
Their technology is composed of multi-cell sets of flexible membrane absorbers that will convert wave power to pressure by compressing the air inside the enjoined cells. A turbine generator then converts the pneumatic power into electricity.
But the first thing Alstom and SSE Renewables must do is to conduct a detailed survey of the site along with an environmental assessment. Then they start building a site for 10 MW as the first phase, and eventually reach the full site capacity.
Global CO2 Emission Increased by 3%
Published August 9, 2012 | Global carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere continue to increase, reaching an all-time high of 34 billion tonnes, according to a study for the year 2011.
The said results were published in the yearly “Trends in Global CO2 emissions” report, released by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. Their data came from the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR).
According to the report, there is a significant decrease in emission for countries belonging to the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The 34 member countries account for around one third of the emissions worldwide and is equal to the combine emission share of India and China. In total, the carbon dioxide emissions globally increased by 3%, reaching a historic level of 34 billion tons.
The three percent emission increase in 2011 exceeds the last decade’s average yearly increase of 2.7%. However, carbon dioxide emissions from Japan and US has decreased by around 2% owing to mild winters, generally weak economic states and high oil prices, but the two nations still remain in the top emitter spots along with China, EU, India and Russia.
China has registered the greatest increase in emission with 7.2 tons per capita or 9%, bringing an average Chinese carbon footprint on the level of an average European’s.
Meanwhile the US has reduced its emission by 2% due to high oil prices and high interest in natural gas, though it is still the highest emitter with 17.3 tonnes per capita.
Japan and the European Union has also clocked a 2% and 3% decrease in their respective emissions while India’s increased by 6%.
As of now, the official figures on carbon emissions announced this week are based on where fossil fuels were burned but a committee report from UK suggested that it also include in the nation’s calculation the energy expended on the export and import of goods.
The UN has implemented a goal of reducing global warming to 3.6F by the year 2050, which was believed by scientists as possible as long as the total carbon dioxide emissions from 2000 to 2050 would not go over the 1000-1500 billion tons threshold. That limit should be observed in order for us to control the mean increase in worldwide temperature or the cumulative emissions will exceed the limit within a mere 20 years.
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