US leads the world in reduction of CO2 emissions

Anthony Watts at Watts Up With That, brings us the chart of the week, which shows how countries are doing with carbon emissions.

Last year the United States had the largest decline in CO2 emissions *in the entire world* for the 9th time this century.

For that impressive “greening” of America, we can thank the underground oceans of America’s natural gas that are now accessible because of the revolutionary, advanced drilling and extraction technologies of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal/directional drilling, and are increasingly displacing coal for the nation’s electricity generation.

Read more here.

Turning CO2 into ethanol

Avery Thompson reports at Popular Mechanics,

Scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have discovered a chemical reaction to turn CO2 into ethanol, potentially creating a new technology to help avert climate change. Their findings were published in the journal ChemistrySelect.

The researchers were attempting to find a series of chemical reactions that could turn CO2 into a useful fuel, when they realized the first step in their process managed to do it all by itself. The reaction turns CO2 into ethanol, which could in turn be used to power generators and vehicles.

Read more here.

CO2

Bookworm writes,

Because city dwellers have limited exposure to the positive effects of CO2, they view it as dangerous, rather than beneficial. They smoke the pot but don’t understand that their favorite bit of greenery relies heavily on the CO2 they fear so much.

...All of which begs the question: Why aren’t blue urbanites changing their minds along with everyone else? I think it’s because living in the city, they don’t know diddly-squat about the important role CO2 plays in making green things grow. When they think of CO2, they assume it’s this:



What you’re looking at there is smog in Beijing. According to Wikipedia, “visible air pollution is composed of nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, ozone, smoke or particulates among others (less visible pollutants include carbon monoxide, CFCs and radioactive sources).” CO2 is not a major smog component.

What they really should be assuming about CO2 is that it’s this: