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Posts Tagged ‘Carbon Dioxide Emissions’

In a rather “environmentally concerned” approach to cut down on the carbon emission from flights, Lufthansa airlines has announced that they will start commercial biofuel flights daily between Hamburg and Frankfurt in a six-month trial from April 2011. The move to operate an aircraft engine with biofuel over a long stretch of six months, is first of its kind in the world.

Energy security issues, hike in petrol prices and climate change from greenhouse gases emitted by airplanes have been troubling the airline industry for quite some time. Virgin Atlantic Airlines, British Airways and Continental Airline have have already tested on biofuel flights in the last two years. However, environmentalists have been constantly warning that production of biofuels can also have adverse effects on environment.

Utilizing biofuel in flight operations can save around 1,500 tonnes (15,00,000 kg) of Carbon dioxide emissions. However, as the airline industry worldwide is calling for an alternative source of energy, there’s a need to check for the sustainability of biofuels against fossil fuels and their effect on aircraft’s engine over a longer term. Plus, environmental concerns are another big issue related to production of biofuels.

According to a report by UN Food and Agricultural Organisation, biofuel plantations are destroying ecosystem of various regions in the world. Palm oil plantations set up for biofuel production in Indonesia and Malaysia, have led to deforestation resulting in more emission of greenhouse gases as the worst consequence.

In such a situation, a sustainable and environment-friendly way to produce biofuels is the need of the hour.

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Carbon management is now a major focus of environmental initiatives. Although carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas, it is the most common and therefore at the centre of attempts to reduce the rate of growth of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and eventually to cause these emissions to fall.
Carbon management is a controversial area, involving politicians, public servants, social and physical scientists, activists, businesses and many others. The controversies include:
– Whether carbon dioxide is a cause or a consequence of global warming or both
– Whether global warming is a fact – depending on the time period analysed
– Whether particular initiatives or mechanisms for carbon reduction (such as carbon trading) work (whether scientifically, technologically or in terms of incentives)
– Whether they have desirable or undesirable other consequences,
This report abstracts from these and other controversies. It focuses on the extent to which emerging economies are involved in innovative and/or leading edge practices in carbon management. So it focuses on questions such as whether a particular initiative works to reduce carbon emissions, whether it has known or suspected adverse consequences in other areas, whether environmental, economic or other; whether the approach to funding it creates problems; whether the initiative may lead to diversion of energy from other initiatives; and whether the initiatives taken together are in some sense enough for the emerging economy in question.

Key features of this report

• A review of the principles of carbon management
• An examination of carbon trading and the working of carbon markets
• Comprehensive and up-to-date data on CO2 emissions for emerging nations, broken out by fuel type
• Insights on the principlal initiatives taken by nation to reduce CO2 emissions
• Examination of the key technology introductions and innovations.
• Implications for the future

Scope of this report

• Achieve a quick and comprehensive understanding of the various options and models available for reducing carbon emissions
• Definitive source work, including the most up to date data on carbon emissions by emerging nation
• An overview of trends and initiatives in reduction of carbon emissions, both worldwide and by emerging nation
• Comparison of initiatives by nation: which countries are making the greatest progress in dealing with carbon emissions; which are struggling

Key Market Issues

• Core Issue: Different paths to managing CO2 emissions require different degrees of participation by industry, consumers and governments. The future of carbon management is still uncertain, due to lack of international consensus on how best to manage efficiency and equity issues, and the lack of consensus about the continuation of global warming.
• Alternative approaches: Various initiatives are used to greater or lesser extent, including:
– Improved carbon management
– The Clean Development Mechanism: an important stimulus for carbon reduction initiatives, but high cost and bureaucratic
– Carbon trading: the cap and trade approach depends for its success on realistic caps
– Taxation, subsidies and regulation
– Innovation
• Approaches vary by location: Most African countries have low carbon emissions. A few – Libya, Algeria, Nigeria and Ghana – have significant oil reserves, and so tend to focus their carbon management on reduction of flaring and other oil and gas-related projects. Access to energy is Africa’s main problem.

Key findings from this report

– The carbon management situation in emerging economies has produced a mixed picture, with two giants – China and India – focused on carbon management, making significant improvements in some area, but with some substantial gaps.
– The carbon market looks like it will continue to grow very rapidly, once the recession is over, leading to greatly increased demand for auditing capability – and a risk that there will be a worldwide shortage the of the skills needed to audit carbon savings.
– The bureaucracy of carbon management is still posing significant problems, even though some progress is being made with reducing validation times for carbon investments.
– In the CDM, there is tension between the “cleanness”, which leads to carbon saving, credits and money for the emerging economies, and “development”, the much wider objective that all emerging economies have adopted.

Key questions answered

– What are the key issues affecting different approaches to carbon reduction?
– How are various emerging economies adapting to the demands of carbon reduction?
– What are the key trends in carbon emissions by emerging economy?
– What are the main obstacles to a co-ordinated worldwide approach to carbon reduction?
– How has the perceived failure of Copenhagen impacted on international policy in this area?

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Carbon credits are a financial instrument that is part of national and international attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. One carbon credit is equal to one ton of destroyed greenhouse gasses. These credits are generated by projects that either absorb carbon or otherwise reduce emissions through clean energy. Many individuals are now taking an interest in their carbon footprints, trying to lower their usage, as well as trying different ways to offset their carbon usage.

Carbon credits are part of an approach to emissions trading. With a certain amount of greenhouse gas allotted to markets, each individual group is given the opportunity to decide how much of a limited amount can be designated to each area. This allows industries to control the amount of greenhouse gasses they are using. This also allows industrial and commercial processes to market in the direction of lower emissions, or approaches that are used to not emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. This helps to finance carbon reduction schemes.

Carbon credits are in two different markets, the large compliance market and the smaller voluntary market. Corporations and industries participate in the compliance market where they purchase carbon offsets to comply with caps on carbon dioxide emissions. In 2006, about .5 billion of carbon offsets were purchased in the compliance market. This represents about 1.6 billion metric tons of CO2e reductions.

Many companies sell carbon credits. Carbon credits are purchased from investment funds or carbon development companies. Many of these companies have saved these credits from other individual products, and offset themselves and the buyers by selling them. The quality of the credits is based on the validation process, the type of fund, and the development company. The price is also affected by these things. Voluntary units typically have less value than the units sold through the rigorously-validated Clean Development Mechanism.

There are common features to carbon offsets: vintage, source, and certification regime. Vintage refers to the year in which the carbon reduction takes place, while the source refers to the project or technology used in offsetting the carbon emissions. The certification regime describes the rules and regulations that are in correlation to the carbon offsets.

In the smaller, voluntary market, individuals, companies, and others purchase carbon offsets because of their own determination to lower greenhouse emissions. The emissions they focus on lowering are most often transportation and electricity usage. In 2006, about million of carbon offsets were purchased in the voluntary market, representing about 24 million metric tons of CO2e reductions.

There are two distinct types of carbon credits: carbon offset credits (COCs) and carbon reduction credits (CRCs). Carbon offset credits consist of clean forms of energy production, wind, solar, hydro and biofuels. Carbon reduction credits consist of the collection and storage of carbon from the earth’s atmosphere through reforestation, forestation, ocean and soil collection and storage efforts. Both ways are valid and positively recognized, each used in different situations.

Carbon credits initially came into existence as an attempt to inform and create awareness of the need to control emissions. Since then, it has been proven that the concept of carbon credits can be highly successful. This tradable system is one of the policy instruments that are very effective. As long as prices are maintained it should continue to be positive.

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Copyright (c) 2010 Alison Withers

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation food and bioenergy crops are now competing for land, water and other resources in many parts of the world.

The FAO argues that the rising price of basic foods in 2007 – 08 that generated food scarcity worries and import restrictions in some countries wasn’t caused only by poor harvests in major producing countries and high oil and energy prices raising the cost of inputs like fertilizers and irrigation as well as the transport costs of inputs and food.

The speculation on the commodity markets was also partly driven by the rising demand for liquid biofuel, it says.

The environmental argument for using bio-diesel made from oilseed rape, or bio-ethanol, manufactured from wheat, maize or sugar, is the significantly lower carbon dioxide emissions over the full cycle of production and use compared with fossil fuels.

Not surprisingly the prospect of a smaller carbon footprint and greater energy security has encouraged Governments around the world to offer tax breaks to encourage use of biofuels and to set targets for the inclusion of biofuels in transport and other fuels.

When there was an over-supply of commodities like food it was fine, but not once it was clear that global population growth and diet change were together generating increased demand for food while climate change with its associated droughts and storms seemed to be limiting the world’s productive capacity.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), confusingly, takes the view that the increase in biofuels production has NOT been the dominant driver of food price inflationfor certain crops and certain countries.

It cites long-term factors – like the failure to accord the importance it deserved to the agricultural sector during the last decades, plus distorted agricultural markets and the dismantling of policies supporting domestic markets in developing countries – as being far more accountable for the present food crisis than biofuels.

It argues that where biofuels have had an impact, the relationship between biofuels and food price spikes should be interpreted more as a policy failure than as an intrinsic and unavoidable consequence of the production of biofuels. Nevertheless plainly bioenergy can provide opportunities to increase rural incomes and employment.

But while rising commodity prices imply potential greater profits from switching land to crops for biofuels they also arguably lead to the destruction of vast areas of rainforest, as trees are felled to make way for palm oil plantations in countries like Brazil and Malaysia, and to the threat of creating “a monocultural desert, devoid of biodiversity, across vast swathes of the British countryside”.

According to Andre Croppenstedt, an economist with the Agricultural Development Economics Division of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, biofuel production need not compete with food production if biofuel demand generates increased incomes for farm households and this in turn is invested in raising productivity of all farm activities, including food production.

UNCTAD also argues that what’s needed in the longer term is support for investment efforts aimed at enhancing the agricultural productivity of developing countries, particularly of small farmers, and making sure that these investments increase farmers’ ability “to capture a larger share of the growing agricultural revenues”

Whatever the pros and cons of the arguments there is a finite amount of available crop-producing land,

So there needs to be greater investment in the resources and support farmers need to improve their land’s yield while farming sustainably.

One way of doing that would be to support the efforts of biopesticide developers with globally agreed and quicker regulation of their new generation low-chem agricultural products and with Government investment towards the costs of developing more environmentally friendly crop protection and yield enhancing products.

Even if such higher yielding methods come to market, however, land availability still sets limits to how much cna be produced.

Investment should therefore be also coupled with promoting the development of second-generation biofuels – based on converting cellulose resources such as grass and fast-growing trees into fuels – to help to limit the direct competition between food and fuel associated with most first-generation biofuels.

The EC Climate Change Initiative accepted that second generation biofuels produced from materials like straw and forestry residues could enable far greater reductions in Greenhouse gases.

It also advocates selecting an overall production chain that can use a high yielding biomass crop to improve land use efficiency.

For instance most oils seed crops only produce a few tonnes per hectare per annum, sugar and starch crops may generate 5 to 10 tonnes, while significantly greater yields come from woody plants – or from conventional crops like cereals if the straw can be used.

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We need only read the front page headlines of every major newspaper to understand the deepening oil crisis and the worldwide repercussions of supply and demand as it relates to our traditional energy resources. Is it any wonder that renewable sources of energy are gaining in popularity as an alternative resource? Biofuel is one emerging energy source that may help address the supply-and-demand dilemma versus modern world overdependence on petroleum and petroleum-based applications. Furthermore, biofuel advocates stress that biofuels give off cleaner emissions of carbon dioxide and sulfur oxide, two greenhouse gases that are responsible for climactic change and global warming.

The Difference Between Biofuel and Fossil Fuel

The critical difference between biofuel and traditional fossil fuel is the number of years it takes to form. Biofuel is derived from recently dead biological or organic material. Traditional fossil fuel comes from long dead (read: millions of years old) biological organisms. For this reason, biofuel is considered a renewable resource because it can be replenished in a short period of time. Fossil fuel is classified as a non-renewable resource because its reserves are being depleted much faster than it takes to form new reserves.

While biofuel and fossil fuel are carbon-based properties (they both derive from biological matter) biofuel is considered carbon neutral because the energy is derived from plants, which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Whereas, fossil fuels released carbon dioxide, which has been stored beneath the earth surface for millions of years, into the air. Carbon dioxide emissions are the number one pollutant.

Biofuel comes from a variety of feedstock sources, of which the more common ones are corn, sugar cane, palm, wheat, algae, and jatropha. From these feedstock sources, two popular fuels are produced for transportation and machineries. They are biodiesel and bioethanol. Broken down further, biodiesel is derived from plant oils; bioethanol is derived from fermented starch or sugar crops.

How Are Biofulels Used?

Biofuels can be used in a pure (denoted as B100) or a blended form (denoted as a percentage). Biofuel is the most common fuel used in Europe because European car manufacturers outfit their cars with diesel engines. For most unmodified diesel engines, advocates say blends of up to 20% (B20) are deemed safe. Higher concentrations require modifications to the diesel engine.

Bioethanol is suggested as a substitute for gasoline in vehicles. However, users have to be careful in choosing the proper blend of ethanol. Generally, a 10% blend of ethanol (E10) may be safe to be used in newer cars. Lower concentrations have been used in some older engines without having adverse effects on vehicle fuel lines, but users should consult their car manufacturers to find out if bioethanol is safe for their engines. In some cases, conversions can void the manufacturer warranty.

Proponents Say

Advocates suggest businesses, especially those in the transportation industry will benefit from using biofuels on two fronts: (1) When biofuel prices are more stable than oil prices, companies are in a better position to plan and budget fuel expenditures for the year. (2) Cleaner vehicular emissions may save transportation companies maintenance costs, while helping them meet new government mandated environmental standards.

Opponents Say

Opponents question how governments establish standards, regulations, and mandates and suggest that the underlying motivation for setting certain standards and enforcing mandates is political.

In other words, opponents contend that politicians are showing preferential treatment to their constituents and lobbyists. The end result is that governments, not the economy, are creating winners and losers. If your company or industry falls on the out of political favor side, you may wind up paying higher taxes or incurring higher costs to meet those politically inspired mandates

Car Manufacturer Status

Car manufactures today are being forced to produce more vehicles that are biofuel ready. In addition to using cheaper fuel, both manufacturers and buyers will be given government incentives (in the form of tax credits) to embrace renewable and alternative energy. Studies also suggest that certain types of biofuel (e.g., biodiesel) can make engines last longer when users maintain their cars by using the right biofuel blend.

The Food vs. Fuel Debate

Biofuel does have an underside and has been the subject of a current debate on food vs. fuel. Since biofuel uses plants that are also used in food supply (corn, maize, wheat, sugar cane, and coconut), this raises the question of whether it is appropriate to use food crops to create alternative fuel instead of filling world food demand. The debate has been further intensified as the world experienced what was deemed as a food crisis in 2007. Critics contend that using agricultural land to produce crops to be used in biofuel production led to this crisis.

These issues must be ironed out by policymakers and regulatory bodies to ensure a workable balance between access to energy and all other necessities.

Proponents and opponents come together around environmental and health benefits of going green. Thus the conversion to more biofuels is probably inevitable. Some are very concerned with how that is executed, since the timing of the changes is not clear. Also total direct and indirect costs and what groups benefit and which groups suffer are major concerns. With Congressional leadership dedicated to accelerating greener energy in a way that benefits their constituents and lobbyists (For example, why do tax deductions for trial attorneys help the general public?), there will definitely be winners and losers.

What the biofuels discussion is pointing to is the urgency to begin planning NOW for this inevitability to help protect industries and consumers from rising costs from energy, regulations and taxes.

According to the latest reports, Spain is one of the top five worst ozone polluters in the world, and one of the furthest away from meeting protocols on greenhouse gas emissions as set out by the Kyoto Agreement.

In the Environmental Ministry Report released earlier this month, fifty of Spains biggest cities are more than exceeding governments guidelines for limits on air pollution. The worst offenders are Madrid, Seville, Valencia and Barcelona.

In Barcelona, the biggest contribution to these alarming figures are a massive increase in CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions produced from an influx of personal vehicles on the roads.

CO2 levels have more than doubled since the 1990s, when Cataloni’s most rapid phase of growth and development occurred. The Catalonian Generalitat’s Environment Ministry reports that 98 % of CO2 pollution is directly caused by road transport activity.

In 2006, a report released by the Encuasta de Movilidad indicated that just over 40% of Catalonians use a private vehicle for an average of three trips per day. Three times the figure for those that use public transport. This is despite a high awareness of the damage cars cause the environment as well as the higher costs of using a household vehicle compared to public transport costs.

It wasn’t until 2005 that the Spanish government actually passed laws relating to greenhouse gas emissions but these early reports reveal that laws in themselves are not enough.

A spokesman for Pollution Prevention confirms that air pollution is ‘one of the biggest problems threatening Spains environment today. Almost all cities in Spain are failing to comply with air quality regulations’.

With the naked eye it’s easy enough to observe the thick, dark haze that sits just above Barcelona’s skyline. But there are other signs of the damage affecting not only the environment, but also threatening to affect one of the citys biggest growth industries: tourism.

A recent increase in the amount of jellyfish, locally known as medeusas in waters of the Catalan coast have for the last few years been responsible for beach closures in and around Barcelona, preventing visitors access to one of the area’s biggest summer attractions- the Mediterranean Sea.

A jellyfish plague was first noticed in Catalonia in 2005. The Oceana Environment Group reported that numbers had tripled and that an average of 10 jellyfish per square meter were counted close to beaches surrounding Barcelona.

In 2006, 30,000 people were treated over the summer for jellyfish stings and a number of beaches were closed to prevent further injuries. Whilst not usually fatal, a jellyfish sting can cause pain and discomfort and in severe cases of allergic reaction, a heart attack may be triggered.

Increasing numbers of jellyfish have been attributed to rising sea temperatures, which are now at least 2 degrees above average for this time of year. Rising sea temperatures are caused when a buildup of greenhouse emissions prevent the dissipation of the suns heat. The smog produced from pollution acts like a layer of insulation, trapping the heat close to the earths surface.

Warmer waters boost the rate at which jellyfish grow and multiply, and their natural predators, larger fish such as tuna and swordfish have been migrating further away from the Mediterranean in favour of cooler currents found in the Atlantic ocean.

Small boats can be seen trawling for jellyfish and their larvae just off the coast in an effort to reduce the amount that make their way close to shore, but if a solution is not found to combat the problem on a long term basis, holiday makers will soon have to find alternative summer leisure activities other than a visit to the beach.

Aside from environmental problems, air pollution has been labeled responsible for an increase in the number of cases of illnesses including heart problems, cancer, asthma, allergies and other cardiovascular complications in patients. It appears that Catalonians are now choking on their own smoke.

On July 12th, the Catalonian Regional Government approved a plan to reduce the permitted traveling speed for cars on major roadways in Catalonia to less than 80 kms per hour in an effort to lower car emission levels.

These new limits will come into effect by this autumn and will affect Barcelona as well as 15 other municipalities in Catalonia, with a target reduction figure of 30%.

The affects of this plan remain to be seen. One can only hope that Catalonians will take action to reduce greenhouse gas emission, for the security of their health and the health of the Spanish coast.

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