The magnitude of humanity’s energy needs requires that we embrace a multitude of various energy sources and applications. For a variety of reasons, nuclear energy must be a major portion of the distribution, at least one-third. The often-cited strategic hurdle to this approach is nuclear waste disposal. Present strategies concerning disposal of nuclear waste need to be changed if the world is t...

Hydrogen is the most environmentally friendly fuel and can be efficiently used for stationary power and mobile applications. When burned or oxidized, it generates water as the only emission (small amounts of NOx are generated during the combustion process but can be controlled to very low levels). At present, hydrogen is produced almost entirely from fossil fuels such as natural gas, naphtha, a...

This study investigates the causal relationship between clean and non-clean energy consumption and economic growth in Brazil over the period of 1980–2009. Clean energy consumption at aggregated level of total renewable energy consumption and disaggregated levels of hydroelectric, new renewables, and nuclear energy consumption are tested within a production function framework. A cointegration te...

Kathy Corbin, Colorado State University The problem of human-induced climate change has emerged as one of the grand challenges facing humanity. Advances in scientifi c understanding in the past 20 years have confi rmed the fact of climate change and its likely acceleration, driven primarily by rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels—mostly from fossil-fuel combustion. We must reduce CO2 emissions to...

An atmospheric general circulation model is coupled to an atmospheric chemistry model to calculate the radiative forcing by anthropogenic sulfate and carbonaceous aerosols. The latter aerosols result from biomass burning as well as fossil fuel burning. The black carbon associated with carbonaceous aerosols is absorbant and can decrease the amount of reflected radiation at the top-of-the-atmosph...

BACKGROUND The amount of reactive nitrogen deposited on land has doubled globally and become at least five-times higher in Europe, Eastern United States, and South East Asia since 1860 mostly because of increases in fertilizer production and fossil fuel burning. Because vegetation growth in the Northern Hemisphere is typically nitrogen-limited, increased nitrogen deposition could have an attenu...

A model describing latitudinal mixing and accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the entire (projected) fossil-fuel era of human history but in the absence of climatic feedback is developed, including a new formulation of the oceanic sink term based on the tendency of atmospheric concentrations toward chemical and phase equilibrium with carbonic acid reactions in the deep oceans....

Satellite observations of carbon dioxide (CO2) offer novel and distinctive opportunities for improving our quantitative understanding of the carbon cycle. Prospective observations include those from space-based lidar such as the active sensing of CO2 emissions over nights, days, and seasons (ASCENDS) mission. Here we explore the ability of such a mission to detect regional changes in CO2 fluxes...

We present a 60-year record of the stable isotopes of atmospheric carbon monoxide (CO) from firn air samples collected under the framework of the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) project. CO concentration, δ13C, and δ18O of CO were measured by gas chromatography/isotope ratio mass spectrometry (gc-IRMS) from trapped gases in the firn. We applied LGGE-GIPSA firn air models (Witrant et ...

With the increasing attention on developing a low-carbon economy, it is necessary to seek appropriate ways on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through innovative municipal solid waste management (MSWM), such as urban symbiosis. However, quantitative assessments on the environmental benefits of urban symbiosis, especially in developing countries, are limited because only a limited number ...