Word: biomass
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...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...
...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...
...rjan Gustafsson, the study's lead author, and his colleagues at Stockholm University conducted research with Indian scientists from January to April 2006 to determine that two-thirds of the cloud's soot particles come from biomass combustion like household cooking and slash-and-burn agriculture. The researchers confirmed that the layer of haze - which many have blamed for the world's increasingly extreme weather patterns - makes rain both more rare during the dry season and more intense during monsoons. And in South Asia, the cloud's net effect on climate change, says the study, rivals that of carbon dioxide...
...findings imply that controlling biomass combustion, particularly the small-scale burning of wood and dung for home heating and cooking common throughout Asia and Africa, will be an important step towards improving the world's air quality. Gustafsson, a professor of biogeochemistry at Stockholm University, urges environmentalists not to limit their efforts to curbing car traffic and coal-fired power plants. He says fighting poverty and spreading green technologies that limit emissions from small-scale biomass burning are equally important. "More households in South Asia need to be given the possibility to cook food and get heating without using open...
...course, the wind doesn't always blow. At Kuzumaki Highland Farm, 200 dairy cows share the power load. Their manure is processed into fertilizer and methane gas, the latter used as fuel for an electrical generator at the town's biomass facility. Nearby, a three-year project sponsored by Japan's Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry's New Energy Development Organization (NEDO) uses wood chips from larch trees to create gas that powers the farm's milk and cheese operations. The bark of other trees is also made into pellets for heating stoves used throughout the community. A local winery...