New Voice

There are whole masses of positive news items circulating the science media. When you read around, the collection is not always particular to the fear-mongering I discussed in an earlier post. When I sat down a few months ago to begin these selections on the new science that may impact on climate change, I always imagined it as a positive approach to a vastly ominous situation. I think that this positivity is expressed in the media, with multitudes of blogs and news sites discussing the effects of climate change but through the prism of significant counter-action from the global community. I think in my posting I may have got side tracked in my last two pieces and begun the tremulous fixation of the ‘deer in head lights’, as the all powerful wonder of nature became all too clear in my readings. Partly, this was the blame of my picking through that mighty tome of a work, On the Origin of Species, which has enamoured my mind for the past while. Given the timing (2009, one hundred and fifty years since it was first published) it seemed an apt period to finally embrace the book and see if it was (in my opinion) as comprehensively argued as it is understood to be. Having completed the work, it seems there is no question but that it makes its point; rather well if I might say. (continue reading…)

There are reams of words. Whole spillages of words delivered into the ether of the internet acknowledging the fear of humanity at our capacity to wreak lasting damage on our society. Just read the pages of the climate project or the climate count down. Whole earthquakes of tiny words. Such is the embrace of the people and the fear. Bill Bryson, in his revelatory work of simple genius – A Short History of Nearly Everything – discusses at length the shocking power of the earth to unleash damage on the surface of the planet. In fact it incorporates a number of chapters. There is as seriousness to that power. I think that it is always present, and can never be fundamentally shifted. Utilised, though, is another thing entirely. (continue reading…)

You might recall from a while back my look at some of the new technologies being introduced to tackle the global issue of climate change. Maintaining that focus I thought I would comment on the continued expansion of biofuels, of which so many potential sources have be found that it would take a veritable ocean of web space to begin to mumble around the fringes of this tumultuous field.  Needless to say, one specific element has piqued my interest.  A number of years ago (the eighties, a shockingly interesting time for novel scientific endeavour with sadly many of the original ideas produced petering out by the end of the decade), some scientists noted that algae (an awful looking autotroph, most of us would know them as seaweed) was a possible candidate for renewable energy given its photosynthetic machinery, and its tough and resilient nature.  How they could operate it as an energy source was derived from the fact that algae produces oil, during its processes, which, not being fossilized, is clean of carbon. But, as was the way of the period, this theorizing failed to gain enough credence and by the end of the decade with little material investment the energy source failed to acquire backing.  As time passed and the requirement for alternative energies became notably stronger and all potential biofuel sources received further attention, it seems that algae was viewed as too difficult, and expensive, to develop. Until some far-reaching science was manufactured that changed its potential. (continue reading…)

To my mind, Biomass has long been hailed as a standard bearer for the renewable energy world. Allowing the comprehensive destruction of dead materials with an output made up of distributable energy, its use in our high-energy-demand world is both logical and consistent – and indeed comprehensive. Though not specifically a carbon free scheme (roughly one half of the burnt matter contains carbon) it sits well as a renewable energy source. Its problems, as is irritatingly the case with so many renewables, lies in the amount of energy needed to complete the manufacturing process: in the case of Biomass – far too much to warrant significant use. Be that as it may, in a world floundering in the impact of too much carbon, technology is needed to find alternatives to the burning of fossil fuels, and hopefully, to burn a source clean and free of pollutants. A goal I feel is vitally important over the next twenty years. (continue reading…)