During a visit to a bookstore a few weeks ago, we couldn’t help but stare at a display unit featuring no fewer than ten books telling you how to rid plastics from your daily life. We’re bombarded by information on the topic of marine litter and plastic pollution, but how much do we really know about the problem?
From Styrofoam packages to saran wrap to toys and dental wear, much of our daily lives involve plastics. The plastic itself is extremely cheap to produce, which is why it seems ubiquitous; but because it does not break down easily, it has become a major pollutant in waterways, oceans, and soils. In short, the Earth has a plastic problem.
Startups focusing on agriculture target either specialty crops or row crops. But what about that 28% of the U.S. land mass tied up in pastures? Is there value to be captured in that 600 million acres? That’s the question Enriched Ag aims to answer with its grazing and carbon insights platform.
Governor Kathy Hochul is proposing to make New York the first state in the US to ban natural gas heating and appliances in new buildings as a way to fight climate change, the latest salvo in a nationwide fight over the fuel.
In this Instructable, we describe how to build a photo-bioreactor that uses algae to convert carbon dioxide and sunlight into energy. The energy that is produced is in the form of algae biomass. The photo-bioreactor is built from plastic recycled water bottles. By designing the apparatus to be compartmentalized, we are able to do many experiments in parallel. By using algae as a biofuel, we can increase the world’s supply of oil while at the same time we decrease the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide used during its production. The resulting product is a sustainable biofuel whose carbon footprint is neutral inasmuch as the CO2 produced on consumption is essentially balanced by the CO2 used in its production. In this Instructable, we first make the carbon dioxide delivery system, then mount the water bottles on a rack, and then inoculate the bottles with algae. After letting the algae grow for a week, we extract the biomass.
Rural communities across the country are about to get a renewable energy boost. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that USDA has allocated $285 million in federal funding to support renewable energy initiatives in rural communities. Those projects are intended to improve critical infrastructure, lower costs, combat climate change and expand access to clean energy.
More than 300,000 students, teachers, and families across the country have been engaged in learning about what bioenergy can do to reduce carbon emissions and provide good jobs through a collaborative approach to science outreach adopted by the Center for Bioenergy Innovation (CBI) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Indigo Ag today issued the second set of payments totaling more than $3.7 million to farmers through the Carbon by Indigo program. The company plans to issue the second set of carbon credits to buyers in the first half of 2023.
Nearly 450 farmers received payments in the program's second year of producing carbon credits. Farmers who generated credits during the 2020 crop year also received an additional payment to reflect the $30 per credit final payment rate for that issuance, which was a 200% increase over the original minimum payment rate. The program's guaranteed minimum payment rate for the 2021 crop year was $20 per carbon credit, with the opportunity to earn more as the credit demand and price rise.
It was not even close. In 2022, seaweed levels floating in the Caribbean smashed the record set in 2018 by 20%. You could see the consequences drifting up on shorelines from Puerto Rico to the Florida coast. Briny piles of brown algae invaded white sand beaches. Locals worried the inundation would harm tourism, clog ports, and release noxious fumes if left to rot.
Combining chemical and biological processes is a promising new strategy for the valorization of mixed plastic waste, according to researchers with the Bio-Optimized Technologies to keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment (BOTTLE) Consortium.
