While we all wring our hands and think that government and our institutions are doing little about climate change - too hard, too many parties to get to work together and so on, there may be some options that can provide effect in both the near term as well as mid term.
And they use existing technology.........and can be implemented now.
Methane is a clear problem gas in the atmosphere, with much greater greenhouse gas potential than carbon dioxide. While methane from ruminants is often seen as giant problem, it is also a problem from termites. And either issue might not be fixed any time soon, although higher quality feed for ruminants does help in their case to reduce methane emissions.
The following link to a recent report published / presented on 23 February does seem to offer some sensible suggestions.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cutting-black-carbon-methane-immediate-climate-change&WT.mc_id=SA_CAT_TECH_20110222
The issue of methane from landfill is a significant one and in Australia, many of the larger municipal sites do collect and utilise methane, with data available during the now aborted ETS scheme showing about an average of around 65% of produced methane being collected.
Australia is in the small league as regards landfills however, with much more potential in north America.
There is also a developing industry of anaerobic digestion of organic materials to generate methane, prior to aerobic composting. A sensible development, in both rural areas [ dairy herds, feedlots for example] as well as larger urban areas generating food wastes.
We need to start now though, if we are to have a reasonable chance of restricting temperature rise to the two degrees desirable.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment