Algae to the rescue

The California based company Aurora Biofuels have successfully cultivated a new strain of algae that absorbs twice as much CO2 and produces double the amount of biofuel as conventional strains. In a pilot facility in Melbourne (FL) this new algae strain has reached a daily biodiesel production of one gallon (3,79 liters) in a olymic pool sized pond.

According to Robert Walsh the CEO of Aurora:

"Algae have a built-in mechanism to be effective at low light and as it gets brighter during the day their uptake of carbon dioxide levels off,” said Mr. Walsh. “We’ve been able to go in and alter strains by natural mutation to cause the algae to deal with light across the whole spectrum. The algae continue to uptake CO2 through brighter light and are more productive."

The company plans to open a demonstration plant capable of producing daily 1,000 gallons of fuel in operation by the second quarter of 2010. A full-scale production facility is to follow in 2011.

Do you think the use of algae can contribute to the fight against climate change?

Source: greeninc

Report: Ensuring quality of life in Europe's cities and towns.

Ensuring quality of life in Europe's cities and towns – report developed jointly by several organizations is now available. Get to know more about the various perspectives on, and perceptions of, quality of life with a specific focus on cities and towns. The report stresses the challenges ahead to ensure quality of life in the long run for all social groups, and the crucial importance of sustainability and the environment as our life supporting system. The report sheds light on certain aspects of the current quality of life discussions in order to illustrate how different conceptions of quality of life influence the quality of life of others, and provides ideas for ways to meet the challenges that lie ahead. It aims to support individuals and politicians to discover a balanced concept for quality of life compatible with sustainable development. EEA Report No 5/2009

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Buy your own carbon emission permits.

In order to fight climate change, policy makers have developed carbon emission permits which control the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. There are a limited amount of permits and they must be bought by the polluters so they can keep on there production/pollution.

Sandbag is a non profit community organization who wants to influence this market by collecting money and buying carbon emission permits. This way there are less permits available which means the price of the emission permits will rise. If the price increases polluters will have to pay more for there emissions and will consider investing in cleaner technologies rather than buying emissions credits to cover their excess pollution.

Source: sandbag