Word: carbonization
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...bottom, you can read the climatic history of the island as if you were counting tree rings going back tens of thousands of years. Oxygen isotopes trapped in the ice core can tell you what the temperature was in a given year; trapped air bubbles can reveal how much carbon dioxide and other gases were in the atmosphere at a particular time. You can even trace impurities that were in the air during the Roman Empire to a specific lead mine in Spain, according to J.P. Steffensen, one of NEEM's field leaders...
...comprehensive strategy. (McCain's economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin didn't respond to my calls.) McCain's energy answers are often traditional - drilling for oil offshore, building new nuclear-power plants - and occasionally courageous. To the dismay of most Republicans, he supports a cap-and-trade program to limit carbon emissions, although the candidate himself seems not to fully understand that a hidden carbon tax is involved. McCain's opposition to disgraceful boondoggles like the farm bill, which Obama favored, is a real strength, as is his clarity about the economic advantages of free-trade agreements - a weak dollar makes...
...Beneath their fine, carbon-fiber exteriors, the two cars employ different methods of sucking power and speed out of batteries. Tesla's Energy Storage System utilizes several thousand lithium-ion cells, which, due to their high energy density, exceptional energy-to-weight ratio and capacity for hundreds of charge and discharge cycles, are increasingly one of the most popular types of battery. The Lightning, on the other hand, has benefited from the wonders of nanotechnology. Its 30 batteries are made of lithium-titanate nanoparticles, a development from the conventional lithium-ion cell; they boast a range of over 185 miles...
Beyond making up the bricks of life, carbon is virtually inescapable in industry as well. The plastics that can be found in everything from your chair to the space shuttle contain carbon - as does, of course, our energy supply. Our main fossil fuels - coal, petroleum and gasoline - are made up of carbon that has been compressed in the Earth for millions of years and we're now burning and rapidly restoring to the atmosphere. (The same process occurs when we burn wood in a fireplace...
...sheer ubiquity of carbon is what makes eliminating greenhouse-gas emissions so difficult. But the surprising truth, Roston writes, is that we have actually been decarbonizing over time. Humanity's main fuel for eons was wood, which has a carbon-to-hydrogen ratio of 10 to 1 when burned; by comparison, that ratio is 2 to 1 for coal and 1 to 2 for oil. The problem is that we're burning ever larger amounts of fossil fuels, putting a greater concentration of carbon into the atmosphere than has been seen for millions of years. Though carbon has its positive...