5 ways to stash carbon

A sidebar to #9 in Discover's Top 100 of 2009.

1. Capture it at the source.

A coal-fired plant in Spremberg, Germany, is using the same carbon capture and storage method planned for FutureGen. Engineers are having no trouble capturing the carbon dioxide, but efforts to store it in underground rock formations in eastern Germany have run into local opposition.

2. Grab it with artificial trees.
To corral widely dispersed CO2 emission from cars, "artificial trees" - towers filled with carbon-absorbing materials - could line roadways, pulling the gas from the air and compressing it into a storable form. Several companies, including Global Research Technologies in Tucson, are testing prototypes.

3. Bury it under the sea.
Some research groups have tried fertilizing the ocean with iron to encourage massive plankton blooms that suck carbon dioxide from the air. When the plankton dies and sinks to the seafloor, it should buty the carbon, but early results have not been impressive. Proposals to pump CO2 dirctly to the ocean bottom also seem unlikely to move forward, as the piped-in carbon could have nasty environmental consequences.

4. Turn it into charcoal.
Wood or other biomass heated slowly in a chamber without oxygen will transform into that does not decompose for thousands of years. In addition to locking away carbon, this "biochar" makes a good fertilizer. Carbonscape in New Zealand and a few other companies are now working on economical biochar-producing ovens.

5. Turn it into rock.
Certain types of minerals naturally combine with carbon dioxide. In the right locations, CO2 injected into the ground at high pressure would react with those minerals to form stable carbonate rock. This approach is currently being tested in Oman and at other sites around the world.

WCI #14: Experimental power plant takes the CO2 out

Number 9 on Discover's Top 100 science stories of 2009:

"Coal is a dirty business, one of the leading sources of carbon emissions in the US. But coal is also a big business, generating 51 percent of the nation's electricity. With that in mind, in June the Obama administration revived FutureGen, an advanced-technology coal-fired pwoer plant axed by the previous administration in 2008. By burying 60 percent of it carbon dioxide emissions deep underground, the 275-megawatt FutureGen plant, to be built in Mattoon, Illinois, seeks to show that coal can be, if not exactly clean, then at least cleaner.

Once FutureGen is up and running - now scheduled to happen in 2014 - the carbon dioxide gas it produces will be siphoned off, compressed into a near-liquid state, and piped at least a mile sown into porous sandstone capped by a layer of impermeable shale. Engineers will essentially be trying duplicate the geologic circumstances that trapped natural gas deposits underground fro millions of years.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu has called FutureGen "a flagship facility" that will demonstrate how to capture and store carbon on a commercial scale; that technology would allow us to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions while still burning coal. The project could also help spur other proposals for sequestering human-generated carbon.

But FutureGen ha drawn criticism from left and right. Some environmentalists say America should shift from coal-generated electricity entirely; others believe the goal of capturing 60 percent of emissions is too modest. Meanwhile, some fiscal conservatives disapprove of spending so much money (the Department of Energy has committed $1 billion) on an unproven technology for an established industry. Their nickname for the behind-schedule and over-budget project: NeverGen."

- Eliza Strickland

WCI #13: New Battery Tech

Number 19 on Discover's Top 100 science stories of 2009:

"Last year the car battery turned glamorous: Hybrid hysteria invigorated the faltering auto industry, and General Motors touted its upcoming plug-in hybrid, the Chevy Volt, at every opportunity. For decades researchers have labored to make batteries smaller, cheaper and more efficient. At last some of those projects are yielding encouraging results.

The latest electric vehicles use lithium-ion batteries, in which lithium ions move from anode to cathode (negative to positive), transforming chemical energy into electrical current. These batteries are smaller, lighter and more robust than their nickel-based or lead-acid predecessors. IBM announced in June that it is pursuing a new kind of lithium battery that uses the surrounding air as a cathode, making it even lighter and more compact than existing designs.

Traditional lead-acid batteries (like the one that starts your car) produce energy for as little as one-tenth the cost of lithium batteries, but they wear out more quickly and are heavy. Blended battery packs, pioneered this year by Indy Power Systems of Noblesville, Indiana, strike a balance. Software switches between lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries, offering a transitional technology until lithium energy storage gets cheaper.

Engineers are also finding ways to shorten recharging times. In March an MIT team unveiled technology that could theoretically charge an electric car in five minutes rather than the eight hours that is typical today. MIT's battery contains a vast number of microscopic particles that have a lithium center and a glassy phosphate coating. The coating allows lithium ions, which travel quickly in the core of the battery but slowly at the surface, to maintain their speed and to be shed quickly. "The coating allows the lithium to get tho the right place on the phosphate very fast," says Gerard Ceder of the MIT team. "We fixed the bottleneck at the surface." One company has already licensed the technology."

- Jocelyn Rice

Great website: Build it solar

"The renewable energy site for do-it-yourselfers," Build it Solar, has hundreds of projects for those wishing to become greener.

They don't sell anything, but they do have everything from helpful hints to full-blown plans to give you a blueprint to a greener future.

Check it out, enjoy and get those synapses firing.

WCI #7: Delivering the US from oil

According to December's Scientific American "Plug-in Hybrid Trucks are improving the long view of the short haul."

The ubiquitous cargo trucks that haul everything from mail to produce use about 40 percent of the fuel consumed in the US every year. Many are looking to use vehicles with better fuel efficiency, but a major technological opportunity is being overlooked by most.

"The fuel use of even a small truck is equal to many, many car," says Bill Van (heh) Amberg, senior VP of Calstart, a clean transportation technology nonprofit and director of the Hybrid Truck Users Forum. "A utility truck as a hybrid would reduce more petroleum than nine Priuses."

The article states: "Some 1,300 commercial hybrids on the toad today get up to twice the fuel efficiency of their conventional counterparts. But these traditional hybrids are inherently limited. They make more efficient use of petroleum-based fuel by capturing some of the energy lost during braking.

"Plug-in hybrids, on the other hand, draw energy from the grid. They can drive for miles - in many cases, an entire day's route - without using any fossil fuel at all. This shifts energy demand away from petroleum and toward grid-based sources."

This still leads to carbon usage, as many electrical plants are still coal burners, but last year 30 percent of electric power was supplied by nuclear and other zero-carbon renewables and with more and more responsible companies shifting their paradigm, this number is sure to grow.

Using plug-in hybrid technology for such vehicles just makes common sense in many ways.

"A cargo truck runs a short daily route that includes many stops to aid in regenerative braking. Most of the US Postal Service's 200,000-plus mail trucks, for example, travel fewer than 20 miles a day. In addition, fleet vehicles return nightly to storage lots that have ready access to the 120- or 240-volt outlets required to charge them."

The Department of Energy has recently launched a massive, $45.4 million project to put near ly 400 medium-duty plug-in hybrid trucks on the road in 50 municipalities and utilities. They are working with Ford using the auto-makers F-550 chassis. They will be running in 2011.

Start-up Bright Automotive is going even further, planning to replace 50,000 conventional trucks by 2014. Their prototype, called IDEA, travels 40 miles on battery power, then switches to a four-cylinder engine that manages an eco-friendly 40 mpg. The truck is streamlined and more aerodynamic than most on the road today and only weighs as much as a mid-sized sedan.

Even with the appeal of carbon savings, the vehicles offer a far more practical benefit. Once battery technology improves the price will make it almost idiotic to not have one.

It won't take long for the vehicles to become the economic choice.

As David Lauzman, Brights VP of product development projects, people will soon be saying, "I have to have them because it saves me money."

WCI #5: Wind power from the stratosphere

The fifth installment of new ideas from Scientific American:

"According to a Stanford University study released in July, the high-altitude winds that constantly blow tens of thousands of feet above the earth hold enough energy to supply all of human civilization 100 times over. California's Sky WindPower has proposed harvesting this energy by building fleets of airborne, ground-tethered windmills (below), while Italy's Kite Gen proposes to accomplish the same feat using kites."


One would hope they are taking flight plans into account.

WCI #4: Save energy with information

From SciAm:

"Studies show that simply making customers aware of their energy use lowers it by 5 to 15 percent. Smart meters allow customers to track their energy consumption minute by minute and appliance by appliance. Countless start-ups are offering the devices, and Google and Microsoft are independently partnering with local utilities to allow individuals to monitor their power usage over the web."

Maybe a little anal, but every little bit helps, right?

Power transformers, pt. 2: James D. McCalley, electrical and computer engineer, Iowa State University

The Concept: Energy systems analysis

While the energy industry is facing a crisis in the present, the future holds even more conundrums unless they are addressed now.

McCalley is working on computer models to "plan the mix of technologies, the means of distribution and the environmental impact of our energy supply 40 years out."

Meaning he is looking ahead to 2050 right now by researching "optimal energy flow patterns, indentifying infrastructure enhancements to realize the optimal performance and forecasting the influence of the market on energy supply and demand."

His equations include the good stuff: solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear and clean fossil fuels.

He may need to concentrate on the first four as the final one may literally go the way of the dodo by the end of the century. Maybe he should look more closely at biofuels but he idea is sound.

Maybe pre-efficiency will (it certainly should) become the new energy buzzword.

Power transformers, pt. 1: S. Massoud Amin, electrical and computer engineer, University of Minnesota

While the last half-dozen "power broker" entries have outlined our rethinking of the current energy paradigm, the next two spotlight technologies.

S. Massoud Amin's concept: Giving the grid an immune system.

This is a self-healing energy grid that isolates and restores problematic elements to normal routine with little or no human involvement.

It may include multiple energy sources linked by a network that identify malfunctions and relay information to automatic repair devices. This would ensure constant running with no inefficiency.

Problem: Fear of robotic control of resources.
Resolution: Human supervision.

Power brokers, pt. 6: Brooke Coleman, executive director, New Fuels Alliance

From Discover, if you haven't figured that out by now.

Brooke Coleman's "bright idea": let biofuels compete freely with petroleum on the open market.

Verbatim (again):

"Sometime people compare using advanced biofuels to the Internet boom. But no one had control of the Internet market before the Internet existed. The oil companies do have control of the liquid fuels market, however - so at the end of the day, what the biofuel folds are looking to do is to take market shate away from probably the most powerful industry in American, and arguably in the world. It's not an easy thing to do, and it's policy driven.

"So what do you need to do to solve the problem? You have to cut the knot by allowing these fuels to compete in the marketplace on a level playing field. Get flex-fuel vehicles on the roads that can run on any combination of biofuels. In the United States, people pretend it's really difficult. It's not. It's less expensive than putting a seat belt in a car, certainly less expensive than air bags, definitely less expensive than stereos and a leather interior. Comapnies have to attract investment, build plants, and produce gallons ahead of the market, in time for these mandates to kick in.

"Anybody who has lived in this country for the last 18 months knows that when petroleum prices go up and down, you have a variety of indirect carbon effects in the market. If we place controls on carbon in the future, we will have to score each fuel based on specific variables and assumptions that might make or break entire industries. We need to let renewable fuels out of the box so they can compete on a level carbon playing field. If you're going to carbon-score them and compare them on a relative basis, threat petroleum and biofuels alike."

That would show 'em.

Bio-engineered plastics

Their neighbors to the north may be under the crushing grip of a megalomaniac with a severe personality disorder, but South Korea is kicking some serious scientific booty.

See story here.

Power brokers, pt. 5: Daniel Nocera, chemist, MIT

Again, from Discover

Nocera's "bright idea": Split water to generate hydrogen energy - but do it in a cheap way.

Since he puts it so well himself, this is verbatim:

"Nature is the best solar fuel enerhy storage machine known, so let;s figure out how it works. Light comes in four photons, and then it hits the leaf, and it splits water into oxygen and hydrogen. A leaf makes twice as much hydrogen as it does oxygen, and then it stores the result as a solid fuel. So you've stored the sunlight in a fuel,and the energy is in the chemical bonds. Then you eat that fuel, and you get all the sunlight back out in a time-released way. So you are literally chewing the sun.

"Our lab at MIT invented a process that splits water and performs photosynthesis cheaply, outside the leaf. Lately we've found out we can use the Charles River as a water source. We can use waste streams as water sources. We can use the ocean as a water source. So you can generate hydrogen through artificial photosynthesis whenever you need it. I'm very interested in the nonlegacy world, especially Africa and India. Giving a little kid in Africa 500 watts of energy will change his life. And that's not much energy.

Al Gore has been walking around saying: "Just use the technologies. They're on the shelf. Take them off." But he's gone a bit over the deep end. Yes, we do have the technologies. I have photovoltaics. I can store hydrogen in a fuel cell and get all the energy out. I can build any number of systems for you right now, but guess what? They're too expensive. The reason you need scientists like me to discover my little cobalt phosphate catalyst - the material that can drive photosynthesis outside the leaf and in the lab - is because I'm going to do it cheaply.

"To take care of the average house in a day, you need 20 kilowatt-hours of electricity, which is equivalent to only 5.5 liters of water. To drive that point home, I'm holding the amount of water in my hands that you need to power a very big house on the California coast. That amount of water takes care of that house as well as powering a fuel cell car around town. So that's the future. There's no way to stop it. Nature already did this 2-billion-year experiment and decided on this process, and it's coming soon."

There ya go!

Power brokers, pt. 4: Vivian Loftness, Carnegie Mellon architect

Still from Discover.

Slap an "i" between the two syllables of her last name, and her surname would be synonymous with arrogance and possible hubris, but what Vivian Loftness proposes is more aptly called idealistic - even Utopian perhaps - but infinitely doable and realistic.

Her "bright idea": Use natural light, better airflow and smart design to make buildings more efficient.

It worked for the Mycanaean's. In the 1000s BC, the proto-Greek civilization had developed a form of air conditioning uses nothing more than a crafty series of vents and air holes. Most builders forgot this in the last few hundred years, making AC a must-have, especially in the warmer climes. But universities and colleges and even the House and Senate Buildings in DC were originally designed to let nature provide cooling breezes.

And for lighting in workspaces: the sun, duh. Most work, especially in offices occurs during daylight hours. Using larger ventilating windows would cut down on both the need for an artificial climate and unnatural, soul-killing fluorescent lighting.

Close the ventilation for sun-provided warmth in the winter.

Worker morale would increase as well - studies show that natural lighting is more soothing to the psyche. Plant trees around work spots for shade.

Instead of sending waste heat from furnaces out a chimney, re-route it and use it to provide warmth, cutting back on the amount of heat that needs to be generated. It is self-sustaining and relies on nature.

As she puts it: "If you use daylight as your dominant source of lighting, your work environments are so much more beautiful."

It worked for the ancient Greeks. Now, if we just started exercising a little more, maybe we could run around in the same state of undress without inducing nausea in those around to witness it.

:-b

Power brokers, pt. 3: George Huber, chemical engineer at UMass Amherst

From the December issue of Discover magazine.

Huber's "bright idea": Produce ethanol or other renewable fuels from biomass we do not use for food.

This has been addressed in A Cooler world previously. Grassoline is one such fuel, onion skins another. Non-edible plants are known as cellulosic biomass and include wood chips and agricultural waste, all of which can be converted to fuel.

First you break it down to liquid or gas form. Then add catalysts to convert it into a compound. From this basic compound of biomass one can produce gasoline, diesel, even jet fuel.

People could be at the pump and not even know that they are pumping a plant product in their tank; it can be used interchangeably meaning that radical engineering changes in automobile manufacturing won't be necessary.

And it can happen in five to 15 years.

Another bonus: lower to zero admissions when compared to fossil fuels.

Woo hoo!

Power brokers, pt. 2: Ralph Masiello, innovation director at KEMA (

From the December 2009 issue of Discover magazine.

KEMA - A global, leading authority in energy consulting and testing & certification.

Ralph Masiello's "bright idea": Store renewable energy so we can use it when we need it.

One of the main problems with the electrical infrastructure is that there is really no way to store electrical power - "every time somebody in the house turned the light on or off, ultimately the source of electricity - the generation plant - had to wiggle up or down."

But we have finally reached the point that we can put storage on the grid, handling fluctuations and the imbalance between demand and supply.

Right now, plants have to pay someone to send excess energy to, sometimes dropping the price of electricity to -$20/megawatt hour, an expenditure that is passed on to the consumer.

However, batteries are too limited, and Masiello suggests figuring it out as a fuel problem. He calls for a smart grid that only releases energy when asked for, storing it otherwise.

There are some legal and industrial hurdles, but in the long run, it would mean cheaper electricity, and power generated by wind and solar, not coal.

Power brokers, pt. 1: Lowell Ungar, senior policy analyst, Alliance to Save Energy

The December issue of Discover Magazine contains an article called "Power Brokers." In it, "Eight leading thinkers offer visions of how to make our energy supply cleaner, more efficient and more abundant.

Lowell Ungar of the Alliance to Save Energy suggests treating efficiency like a fuel and make it the cornerstone of US energy policy.

He states there are dozens of simple things everyone can do, from merely knowing which lightbulb is the best to use or if a ground source heat pump would work where you live. Is your home adequately insulated, saving energy that could be lost through leakage?

Write your congressman. Let them know you support energy-efficiency policies such as carbon cap legislation. Encourage local builders to use natural lighting and cooling.

Try to buy a more energy efficient home. Some of the foreclosure problems in the country sprang from utility bills - there is good evidence that such bills are the second-leading cause of foreclosures.

Protect your pocketbook while you protect the planet and go Green.

Rice alliance calls to make Houston clean tech capital

Story here.

Director of New Energy Institute Named At The University of Texas at Austin

Maybe this will get the ball truly rolling on alternative energy research and ways to reduce Texas' carbon footprint.

From the University of Texas website:

July 14, 2009

AUSTIN, Texas — Dr. Raymond Lee Orbach, the U.S. Department of Energy's first undersecretary for science, has been appointed director of The University of Texas at Austin's Energy Institute, a multi-disciplinary institute that combines the strengths of the university's schools and colleges to advance solutions to today's energy-related challenges.

Dr. Raymond Lee Orbach

The Energy Institute is developing multi-disciplinary research programs and educational materials to overcome the scientific and technological barriers to a secure and sustainable energy future, while helping policy leaders make the informed decisions required to reach this goal.

Orbach, whose appointment begins Aug. 1, also will have joint appointments as a professor with tenure in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Cockrell School of Engineering; the Department of Physics, the College of Natural Sciences; and the Jackson School of Geosciences.

The Energy Institute will integrate the most advanced expertise from across the university's schools and colleges, including the Cockrell School of Engineering, Jackson School of Geosciences, College of Natural Sciences, McCombs School of Business, School of Law, LBJ School of Public Affairs, School of Architecture and the College of Liberal Arts, as well as expertise from the private sector.

"I am delighted that Ray Orbach has agreed to serve as the director of our Energy Institute at The University of Texas at Austin," said Steven Leslie, provost of the university. "He is a world leader of energy research and policy and he will be instrumental in organizing research efforts of our faculty in areas of critical importance to our state's and nation's energy needs."

"It is with great enthusiasm that I look forward to becoming a part of The University of Texas at Austin," said Orbach. "The superb quality of the faculty and students, its supportive relationship with the State of Texas, and its national and international renown make this an opportunity of enormous promise. I am delighted to be a part of the university's faculty, and I look forward to working with the campus, the city of Austin, the Texas legislature and our nation's leaders to solve the technical and policy issues facing our planet's energy future."

Orbach said he sees the Energy Institute as a unifying collaborator to help The University of Texas at Austin mobilize its faculty and academic resources, as well as talent from other universities in The University of Texas System, to make "transformational changes in energy production and usage" of fossil fuel, renewable and nuclear energy resources. He said these changes would address threats to the economic future of Texas, the nation and the world.

Orbach said the energy resource issues to be addressed initially would include:

• Fossil fuel production and use operating in a carbon-constrained environment. The lack of economical technology, combined with an absence of a legal and policy framework, could put Texas' energy resources at risk.
• New concepts and technologies in wind and solar energy for the development of electrical energy storage for these resources.
• Recycling spent fuel from carbon-free nuclear energy. The university has the opportunity to recreate a robust radio-chemistry program to extract the energy contained in spent fuel and to substantially reduce its toxicity and heat load for subsequent storage.

"These three areas combine to form the nexus of the future of energy production and use in the State of Texas requiring game-changing transformational research and development," said Orbach. "With success in this endeavor, our state will enjoy an economy and quality of life in the future comparable to that which it has enjoyed in the past."

Orbach was sworn in as the Department of Energy's first undersecretary for science in June 2006. He was the chief scientist of the Department of Energy, and adviser to Secretary Samuel W. Bodman on science policy as well as all scientific aspects of the Department of Energy, including basic and applied research ranging from nuclear energy, to environmental cleanup of Cold War legacy sites, to defense programs. Orbach was responsible for planning, coordinating and overseeing the Energy Department's research and development programs and its 17 national laboratories, as well as the department's scientific and engineering education activities.

Orbach also was responsible for the department's implementation of the president's American Competitiveness Initiative, designed to help drive continued U.S. economic growth. He led the department's efforts to transfer technologies from Department of Energy national laboratories and facilities to the global marketplace.

From the time of his Senate confirmation in 2002, Orbach also was the 14th director of the Office of Science at the Department of Energy. He managed an organization that was the third largest federal sponsor of basic research in the United States, the primary supporter of the physical sciences in the country and one of the premier science organizations in the world.

From 1982 to 1992, Orbach was the provost of the College of Letters and Science at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and from 1992 to 2002, he was chancellor of the University of California (UC), Riverside. Under his leadership, UC Riverside doubled in size, achieved national and international recognition in research and led the University of California in diversity and educational opportunity. In addition to his administrative duties at UC Riverside, Orbach sustained a research program, worked with postdoctoral, graduate and undergraduate students in his laboratory and taught the freshman physics course each year.

Orbach received his bachelor of science degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1956. He received his Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1960 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He began his academic career as a postdoctoral fellow at Oxford University in 1960 and became an assistant professor of applied physics at Harvard University in 1961. He joined the faculty of UCLA two years later as an associate professor and became a professor in 1966.

Orbach's research in theoretical and experimental physics has resulted in the publication of more than 240 scientific articles. He has received numerous honors as a scholar, including two Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowships, a National Science Foundation Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship at Oxford University, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship at Tel Aviv University, the Joliot Curie Professorship at the Ecole Superieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielle de la Ville de Paris, the Lorentz Professorship at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, the 1991-1992 Andrew Lawson Memorial Lecturer at University of California, Riverside, the 2004 Arnold O. Beckman Lecturer in Science and Innovation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Outstanding Alumni Award from the California Institute of Technology in 2005.

Orbach is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has held numerous visiting professorships at universities around the world and is a member of 20 scientific, professional and civic boards.

For more information, contact: Robert D. Meckel, Office of Public Affairs, 512-475-7847.

UT Austin works toward energy independence for the state and the nation

UT Austin has established The Energy Institute, drawing together "researchers whose interests range from social policy to carbon sequestration," according to an article in today's Houston Chronicle.

Building upon its $100 million portfolio in energy research, the University of Texas at Austin is launching an ambitious initiative to promote energy independence in Texas and the rest of the country.

The Energy Institute, headed by Raymond Orbach, former undersecretary for science at the U.S. Department of Energy, will draw together researchers whose interests range from social policy to carbon sequestration.

“Texas is very rich in its energy resources and has lived off them beautifully for over a century,” Orbach said. “I wanted to see if we could assist the state in terms of its energy future … and the major issues facing the energy companies.”

Steven Leslie, provost and executive vice president at UT, said the institute — launched a few weeks ago and to be officially announced today — was the brainchild of faculty and department heads who wanted to pull together the sprawling range of energy interests on campus.

Orbach, who served at the Department of Energy from 2002 until January, officially starts work Aug. 1. His previous experience includes stints at several schools in the University of California system.

At UT, he will work with researchers from nearly every corner of the campus, including the law school, business school, liberal arts, architecture, engineering and science.

Gregory Fenves, dean of engineering at UT, said the timing is right, thanks to stimulus funding and federal initiatives to promote sustainable energy. “The theme is, how do we make this transition work for the United States and the world?” he said. “The transition is going to be decades long.”

But the prescription for energy independence will take more than new technology, Fenves said. “There is not going to be a technology silver bullet that will solve all our problems. Every approach has consequences. There are legal issues. Business model issues. Social issues.”

The oil companies and other major energy players also will be involved, Orbach said.

“These are very smart people, and they are well aware of what the future holds,” he said of increasing pressure to limit greenhouse gases and other industrial byproducts.

While the Institute is not solely dedicated to alternative energy, it is closely looking at ways to limit emissions and free us from petroleum dependence.

It's more than just a start.

It's a huge stride, especially in Texas, where the current governor seems only concerned with lining his own pocket and that of his cronies.

Some potential problems with Exxon Mobil's natural gas mining in Colorado

This relates to the previous blog (see below).

While natural gas is a cleaner alternative to petroleum fuels, Exxon Mobil may be harming the environment while getting at it in the following ways:

- They are drilling into a region that consisted mainly of wilderness and ranches. Local folks appreciate that the company is replanting grass and placing cattle guards to protect ranchers livelihood and minimize harm to local fauna, some ranchers worry that "the drilling will pollute the water table and drive out wildlife from the area." - Larry Robinson, a rancher in the Piceance Basin, west of Denver. From The Houston Chronicle.

- What fuels the drills? Many use gasoline, while other are powered off of electricity from coal-powered plants.

- A lot of energy and manpower goes into the drilling. Why not invest in grassoline and other biofuels that are more readily available?

These are some questions that should be answered, but one would assume Exxon Mobil is counting on the amount of natural gas mined will make up for the energy expended.

Here's to hoping that assumption is correct and won't lead to the ass out of you and me thing.