Word: biomass
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...study makes the case that ethanol isn't even the greenest way to use biomass as a fuel. In an article published in the May 8 issue of Science, researchers from the Carnegie Institution, Stanford University and the University of California-Merced (UCM) used life-cycle analysis - which takes into account the entire impact of a biofuel from field to vehicle - to show that converting biomass to electricity (to power electric cars) produces 80% more transportation energy than turning it into ethanol (to power a flex-fuel car), with a carbon footprint that is half as small. (Bioelectricity is created...
...every acre of land planted with an energy crop - like corn or switchgrass - turning that biomass into electricity gives you more "miles per acre" than converting it to liquid ethanol, which is how biomass is used today, according to the study. A small SUV powered by bioelectricity could travel nearly 14,000 miles on the energy produced by an acre of switchgrass, while an ethanol-powered SUV could go only 9,000 miles. "It looks like converting biomass to electricity, instead of using it to make ethanol, makes the most sense for both transport and the climate," says Elliott Campbell...
...renewable energy. At the time Samso was entirely dependent on oil and coal, both of which it imported from the mainland. A little more than a decade later Samso is effectively carbon negative, producing more than 100% of the electricity it needs from renewable sources, chiefly wind and biomass. The architect of that transformation is Soren Hermansen, a former farmer and environmental studies teacher, who lobbied, cajoled and pushed his initially reluctant neighbors to go green...
Island Lessons A tour of Samso feels a bit like a greatest hits collection of Denmark's successful energy policies. The island features district heating plants fired by waste biomass such as straw. The plants provide heat to homes in lieu of more polluting oil-burning furnaces. When the sun is shining - which, admittedly, is not often - solar thermal panels provide hot water. Wind power is everywhere - on land, where towering turbines shade cows on a dairy farm, and offshore, where 10 turbines greet the incoming ferries like a row of sentinels. Many of the turbines are owned collectively...
...sense that controlling whale populations would be smart "ecosystem management," as whaling supporters put it. But a new article in the Feb. 13 issue of Science demonstrates that's hardly the case. "Essentially what we found was that...if you remove whales, it has a negligible impact on the biomass that is commercially available for fishing," says Leah Gerber, a conservation biologist at Arizona State University and the article's lead author. Translation: killing whales won't resuscitate depleted fisheries. (Read "Why the Stamford Chimp Attacked...