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Organizers of 350 Day aim to stabilize the planet and prevent disaster. Turns out many more are paying attention than expected.

"Shell, on behalf of the Athabasca Oil Sands Project, a joint venture among Shell Canada (60 per cent), Chevron Canada Limited (20 per cent) and Marathon Oil Sands L.P. (20 per cent) has proposed a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project. The Quest CCS Project would be based at Shell's Scotford Upgrader, located near Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. Commissioned in 2003, the Upgrader turns bitumen from the Athabasca oil sands into synthetic crude oil, most of which is turned into consumer products such as gasoline."

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) are possible, but the cost of doing so - both early on and even as the technology matures - is likely to be staggering, according to a study from Harvard University's Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs.

"The Vacon 100 HVAC is the first ac drive that is purpose-built and designed to meet the stringent requirements of the energy-intensive HVAC sector," says Heikki Hiltunen, Executive Vice President, Vacon.

In HVAC applications, ac drives bring both energy-saving and controllability benefits, thus offering a huge potential reduction in CO2 emissions globally.

Leading UK scientists say there is no single solution to meeting future energy needs and tackling climate change.\n\nIn a report, Towards a low carbon future, for the Royal Society, the scientists call for an end to the UK's "half-hearted" approach.\n\nThe country lacks a coherent energy system able to meet the challenges ahead, says the report, and needs a new vision for the future.\n\n"It is time for us to break away from the endless debate which is so often dominated by vested interests and the search for a silver bullet," says lead author of the report, John Shepherd.

Electronics manufacturer Panasonic has developed a simulation technology that allows factories to identify energy-saving measures that can reduce CO2 emissions from manufacturing.

In the absence of specific policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions, the world's energy use is expected to increase by 44% between 2006 and 2030, causing a 39% increase in global carbon dioxide emissions, according to DOE's Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) found that global annual emissions of greenhouse gases totalled 41 billion tonnes in 2005, up from 24 billion tonnes in 1970 and 33 billion tonnes in 1990. Between 1990 and 2005, total greenhouse gas emissions amounted to 560 billion tonnes.

The EDGAR dataset shows that greenhouse gas emissions have been higher in developing countries than in industrialised countries since 2004, though developing countries emit significantly lower levels of emissions per capita than developed countries (4 tonnes, versus approximately 15 tonnes).

Two strong potential candidates for the Next Big Thing in cleantech venture capital are nuclear and carbon capture and storage.

I've spoken with numerous VCs recently who are looking for innovative ways to play in nuclear power. Bets have already been made by VCs in small-scale nukes, hot fusion, and technologies related to big-scale nukes. The hope is to find a low-cost solution that is practically zero carbon emissions and also provides reliable "base load" power. So in other words, the hope is for a lower-carbon replacement for coal power. The challenges are also significant, however, not least of which being time to market for any new innovations, as this interesting article illustrates.

With the recent news that the DOE will be putting $2.4B into carbon capture and storage, and its inclusion in emerging climate legislation, it's also clear that CCS will be leaned upon as a hoped-for way of making our existing coal-fired generation infrastructure less impactful on the atmosphere, while still preserving its value as low-cost baseload power. So in other words, the hope is for a lower-carbon "fix" for coal power.

A new report by Sir David King, senior scientific advisor to UBS Investment Bank, explores the challenges facing biofuels (PDF) and the role they can play in a low-carbon future.

Siemens started working with Norwegian utility Statkraft earlier this year to develop a CO2 capture technology that suit the conditions and mode of operation of combined cycle plants.

The bad news: organisations in the UK are wasting as much as £300 million a year by keeping idle computers switched on at night, according to a report conducted by Harris Interactive® on behalf of 1E and the Alliance to Save Energy.

The good news: British organisations are much better at conserving computer energy than are their counterparts in the US.

Concerns about the environment inspire 27 percent of UK workers to power down their computers at the end of the workday, according to the report. In the US, only 10 percent cited such concerns.

If all the 17 million computer-using workers in the UK would power down at night, they could reduce the nation's yearly carbon dioxide emissions by about 1.3 million tonnes - about as much as is produced by 245,000 cars.