It is possible, today, to have a world entirely free of fossil fuels. What was once an abstract concept is possible because, technically speaking, electricity can power everything we do every day – heat homes, drive a car, watch TV or charge a computer. And this electricity can come simply from wind turbines, solar panels […]
The industrial production of materials such as cement and steel is a significant contributor to carbon dioxide emissions, or so claims the International Energy Agency. Cement, for example, accounts for 7% of such emissions globally. Reducing the sector’s emissions would go a long way towards fighting climate change. Industries can avoid such emissions Heliogen is […]
Who is credited with having made the lives of an estimated 2 billion people possible over the last century? The German chemists Fritz Haber (1868-1934) and Carl Bosch (1874-1940). How? They invented a process to produce ammonia on an industrial scale. Why is that important? Ammonia can be converted into fertilizer. And abundant fertilizer translates […]
Companies are using drones to fight deforestation. One of them, BioCarbon Engineering, based in Oxford, England, aims to plant as many as 1 billion trees per year. It uses drones flying 300 feet over land to map an area’s level of deforestation, topography and soil quality, and report its potential for reforestation. With that information, automated planting drones carrying […]
In Japan, the city of Fukuoka is using human sewage to fuel hydrogen-powered cars. It’s part of the Fukuoka Hydrogen Leader City Project to achieve a hydrogen society. And it’s the first project in the world to produce sewage-powered cars. Fukuoka sends the human sewage produced by its 1.55 million citizens to a sewage treatment plant, where biogas generated from […]
Biotechnology or biotech is not just the weird stuff that goes on in Michael Crichton novels (for example Jurassic Park, Next, Prey or The Andromeda Strain). According to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, it is “any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific […]
Calera Corporation aims to stop global warming and ocean acidification by pulling greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere. Essentially, the company is developing a technology capable of converting CO2 into building materials. The company is drawing carbon dioxide from its surroundings during the manufacturing of cement. Normally cement making generates massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, by some estimates […]
