Posts Tagged ‘research’
Posted in New research, reported this week in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that coal burning, primarily in North America and Europe, contaminated the Arctic and potentially affected human health and ecosystems in and around Earth’s polar regions.
The study, titled “Coal Burning Leaves Toxic Heavy Metal Legacy in the Arctic,” was conducted by the Desert Research Institute (DRI), Reno, Nev. and partially funded by the National Science Foundation.
Detailed measurements from a Greenland ice core showed pollutants from burning coal–the toxic heavy metals cadmium, thallium and lead–were much higher than expected. The catch, however, was the pollutants weren’t higher at the times when researchers expected peaks.
“Conventional wisdom held that toxic heavy metals were higher in the 1960s and ‘70s, the peak of industrial activity in Europe and North America and certainly before implementation of Clean Air Act controls in the early 1970s,” said Joe McConnell, lead researcher and director of DRI’s Ultra-Trace Chemistry Laboratory. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: absorption, Academy, Act, activity, advent, Air, Arctic, associate research professor, atlantic sector, atmosphere, beginning, burning, cadmium, caribou, catch, century, chain, Chemistry, chemistry laboratory, Clean, clean air act, coal, concern, consequence, consumption, Contamination, Continuous, conventional wisdom, core, Desert, desert research institute, Detailed, director, DRI, early edition, Earth, edition, environment, Europe, european economies, fact, food, Foundation, Greenland, greenland ice core, growth, health, Heavy, heavy metals, ice, Impacts, implementation, increase, Institute, Joe McConnell, Laboratory, land, Leaves, Legacy, Metal, metal pollution, National, national academy of sciences, national science foundation, Nev., North America, North American, North Atlantic, oil, online, partner, peak, pollution, pollution levels, preindustrial, problem, Proceedings, proceedings of the national academy, proceedings of the national academy of sciences, professor, region, reliance, Reno, reno nev, report, research, research partner, researcher, risk, Ross Edwards, Science, sector, southern Greenland, study, switch, thallium, today, Trace, Ultra, way, week, whale, wisdom
The world has taken a step closer to “clean coal,” thanks to new technology that actually uses CO2 to make power generation more efficient.
The research by scientists at Columbia University means that millions of tons of CO2 could be prevented from entering the atmosphere and instead used to turn coal, biomass and municipal waste into cleaner fuel.
This remarkable double hit is based on a well-established process called “gasification” that is already used to clean “dirty” fuels by heating them with steam and turning them into a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, known as syngas. In turn, that is then burned in power stations or used to create transport fuels.
But until now this process has demanded very large amounts of energy and water, and produced substantial CO2 emissions. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: adoption, amount, angel, article, assistant, assistant professor, atmosphere, bark, base, biomass, carbon, carbon monoxide, castaldi, CNN, co2 emissions, coal, Columbia, columbia researchers, columbia university, development, efficiency, efficiency savings, Electro, end, energy, Environmental, environmental science technology, equivalent, everyone, fifth, Firstly, flue, fuel, gain, gas, gasification, gasifier, generation, Global, good job, grass, group, hit, Hopefully, hydrogen, impact, improvement, influence, investment, job, Journal, journal of environmental science, knowledge, lab, lot, Marco Castaldi, mix, mixture, moment, monoxide, new technology, November, part, percent, percentage, piece, place, plant, power, power generation, process, processing, professor, question, reaction, research, road, scale, Science, sequestration, show, society, steam, step, study, support, syngas, system, team, technique, technology, thing, transport, transport fuels, turn, type, unit, University, unwanted materials, value, waste, water, way, work, world