2Expand
SynBERC - Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center
-
to catalyze biology as an engineering discipline
-
despite great progress in engineering microorganisms, significant challenges persist and prevent engineers to easily and predictably reprogram existing systems, let alone build new enzymes, signal transduction pathways, genetic circuits, and eventually whole cells
2Expand
Synthetic Genomics
-
To obtain the cassettes the JCVI team worked primarily with the DNA synthesis company Blue Heron Technology, as well as DNA 2.0 and GENEART.
-
allowing them to transform one type of bacteria into another type dictated by the transplanted chromosome. The work was published in the journal Science, and outlined the methods and techniques used to change one bacterial species,
1Expand
Cereals and Oilseeds Review: Highlights
-
Also, on July 31st, 2008, CWB announced that western Canadian farmers would receive about $7.0 billion from grain marketed through the Board in 2007/2008, a 57.0% increase from 2006/2007 and the double of 2005/2006.
3Expand
Starting a Commercial Greenhouse Business
-
since heating may represent from 15-35% of your total
operating cost is significant -
before long you have a total investment of $15-$25
per sq. ft. -
An estimate for gross revenue is $8 per sq. ft. of greenhouse area
for a wholesale grower. Heat cost will be close to $1 per sq. ft.
for the whole year.
5Expand
Alberta Research Council - Media & Resources: CARS News Release
-
The base case chosen for the preliminary CARS work is sized to consume up to 30 per cent of the greenhouse gases produced by the average 300 megawatt coal-fired power plant.
-
“Until now, it was believed Canada’s climate and light conditions wouldn’t support these kinds of algae projects,”
-
“We’ve now discovered the less intense sunlight in Canada is actually beneficial to the growth of algae, and we are devising concepts of how covered pond systems could work economically in our climate.”
-
On the engineering side, the researchers have already determined that neither the existing photobioreactor nor the open pond systems would deal with large enough volumes of CO2.
-
I-CAN partner researchers are now developing a hybrid covered pond system that maintains the consistent environment required by the chosen strains of algae.
3Expand
About CEA
-
Studies have suggested the (non-solar) energy required to grow and
transport fresh produce at least 1000 miles is equivalent to the energy required
for local production within CEA facilities in cold and cloudy climates such
as the Northeast and upper Midwest. -
Where the climate is cloudy, electricity needed
yearly for suitable lighting can be as much as on hundred kilowatt-hours per
square foot of lighted area -
This load is primarily during off-peak hours and
can be interrupted for short periods. These features should make CEA electricity
loads highly attractive to many local utilities.A Brief History of CEA
3Expand
Government of Alberta
-
The council will be led by Jim Carter, the former Syncrude president, whose efforts were critical in making significant advances in oil sands productivity and environmental performance.
-
Energy Minister Mel Knight.
-
Setting up the council was a commitment made under Alberta’s 2008 climate change strategy. Under the strategy, Alberta committed to reducing projected emissions by 200 megatonnes by 2050. Expert analysis indicated carbon capture and storage would account for 139 megatonnes of the total reductions.
3Expand
Government of Alberta
-
Edmonton...
Amendments to Alberta’s climate change legislation will ensure a new fund to fast-track low-emission technology achieves the highest possible return on investment. -
said Environment Minister Rob Renner.
-
The proposed amendment would allow Alberta Environment to collect the money separate from general revenues and provide it as a yearly grant to an arm’s-length group that will invest it like a portfolio instead of in a piecemeal manner.
7Expand
Alberta Climate Change and Emissions Management Amendment Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
-
Starting from July 1, 2007 Alberta facilities that emit more than 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases a year will be required to reduce their emissions intensity by 12 per cent under the Climate Change and Emissions Management Amendment Act.
-
Climate Change and Emissions Management Fund.
-
The regulations apply to about 100 large facilities which emit more than 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases a year. Those facilities account for about 70 per cent of Alberta's industrial greenhouse gas emissions.
-
The annual cost of compliance is estimated to be $177 million - or less than one tenth of one per cent of Alberta's nominal GDP ($242 billion in 2006).
-
A facility can purchase credits from large emitters that have reduced their emissions intensity beyond their 12 per cent target.
-
They can also purchase credits from facilities whose emissions are below the 100,000-tonne threshold but are voluntarily reducing their emissions
-
A third option would be for companies to pay $15 for every tonne over their reduction target. The money will be put into the Climate Change and Emissions Management Fund, which will be directed to strategic projects or transformative technology aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the province.
1Expand
Climate Change, Trade, and Competitiveness: Risks and Opportunities in a North American Perspective
-
From 1988 until 2000, Canada and the United States pretended to address greenhouse gas emissions, argued Mark Jaccard of Simon Fraser University.
12Expand
stalbertgazette.com: Top News: Environment
-
Alberta Environment released a study last week by Mark Jaccard & Associates on the province’s climate change strategy.
-
The strategy proposes to cut Alberta’s total greenhouse gas emissions by 200 megatonnes by 2050,
-
The province charges companies $15 a tonne if they can’t meet their reduction targets, the idea being the charge would encourage industry to invest in technologies like CCS
-
The study found this charge would have "very little effect on emissions" by 2050 because it was so low and would leave the province about 195 megatonnes short of its goal. The fee would have to jump to at least $50 to $75 a tonne before substantial investment in CCS occurred, it found.
-
Fifteen dollars a tonne was far too low to get CCS happening, agreed Clare Demerse, climate change analyst with the Pembina Institute.
-
The province agrees, says Andy Ridge, head of the climate change policy unit at Alberta Environment, and knew that before it commissioned the Jaccard study. "The modelling reaffirms that we need to go well beyond $15 a tonne."
-
Carbon-capture would be a key reduction action in any policy as the majority of the province’s future growth in emissions comes from industry, particularly the oil industry.
-
Emissions were predicted to rise by 80 per cent by 2050,
-
One policy would require all large industrial facilities built after 2015 to use carbon-capture, cutting emissions by 173 megatonnes. The other adds in a carbon tax that starts at $15 a tonne and rises to $100 by 2046, resulting in reductions of more than 200 megatonnes.
-
Carbon-capture will be a key part of Alberta’s climate change plan, said Rick Hyndman, spokesperson for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers
-
and there’s only two places where you can do it on a large scale: coal-fired power plants and the oilsands.
-
The province is still discussing how to get large-scale CCS projects moving in Alberta, Ridge said, with a development committee scheduled to report on the subject this fall.
2Expand
Media Release | The Pembina Institute: Advancing Sustainable Energy Solutions
-
The Pembina Institute
today applauded Opposition Leader Stéphane Dion's commitment to
implement a broad-based carbon tax that would reach $40 per tonne of
greenhouse gases in its fourth year. -
he carbon tax would be "revenue neutral,"
meaning that all the funds collected would be returned to individuals
and businesses through the tax system. This means that additional
public funds would be needed for spending on critical climate solutions
like renewable energy.
2Expand
Announcement of ecoTRUST fund and carbon capture taskforce by Prime Minister Harper in Edmonton, Alberta
-
Canada ecoTrust fund.
-
It is a $1.5 billion pool of capital that is being distributed equitably among
all the provinces and territories to assist with their clean air and climate
change initiatives.
1Expand
Prime Minister of Canada: Out of the air and into the ground: Alberta and Canada join forces to assess technology to capture greenhouse gases
-
CO2 Capture and Storage Technology Roadmap
2Expand
Green Car Congress: Canada and Alberta Launch Carbon Capture and Storage Initiative
Tags: C02, BEH on 2008-07-06 and saved by2 people -All Annotations (0) -About
more fromwww.greencarcongress.com
-
Western Canada has large concentrations of CO2 being produced in close proximity to large storage opportunities,
-
The task force is to be headed by Steven Snyder, a former GE executive who is now CEO of TransAlta Corp.
8Expand
Job Losses and Surge in Oil Spread Gloom on Economy - NYTimes.com
-
The unemployment rate surged to 5.5 percent in May from 5 percent — the sharpest monthly spike in 22 years — as the economy lost 49,000 jobs, registering a fifth consecutive month of decline, the Labor Department reported Friday.
-
staggering rise in the price of oil — up a record $10.75 a barrel to more than $138 —
-
Sally and Sam on Main Street are already well aware of this, and that’s why sentiment surveys are lower than they were in each of the last two recessions.”
-
"We’re beginning to see the signs that the stimulus may be working," Mr. Bush said during a swearing-in ceremony for the housing secretary
-
“The wrong change for our country would be an economic agenda based upon the policies of the past that advocate higher taxes,”
-
Among the 8.55 million people who were unemployed in May, 1.55 million had been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer. Unemployment benefits now expire after 26 weeks
-
The spike in joblessness significantly cooled talk that the Federal Reserve could stop worrying about recession and might soon begin to raise interest rates to choke off rising prices for crucial goods like gasoline and food.
-
A chorus of economists has warned that the Fed has unleashed too much easy money, feeding inflation and driving down the dollar.
4Expand
Teeth Gritted, Drivers Adjust to $4 Gasoline - NYTimes.com
-
Americans spend 3.7 percent of their disposable income on transportation fuels. At its lowest point, that share was 1.9 percent in 1998, and at its highest, it reached 4.5 percent in 1981, said Ms. Johnson of Global Insight.
-
In France, for example, a gallon of gasoline costs about $7.70 at today’s exchange rates. Also, Americans pay less to drive a mile today than they did in 1980, once the impact of inflation and gains in fuel efficiency are taken into account,
-
Mr. Schipper estimates that the cost of gasoline for each mile traveled will be about 15 cents this year. That is nearly three times the low of 5.6 cents a mile reached in 1998, when fuel efficiency peaked and prices were at their lowest. But it is still cheaper than the record paid in 1980 of 17.1 cents a mile, adjusted for inflation.
-
As gasoline prices have risen to record highs, consumer confidence, as measured in surveys, has fallen to its lowest level since 1980.
5Expand
Teeth Gritted, Drivers Adjust to $4 Gasoline - NYTimes.com
-
The Transportation Department reported Friday that in March, Americans drove 11 billion fewer miles than in March 2007, a decline of 4.3 percent. It is the first time since 1979 that traffic has dropped from one March to the next, and the month-on-month percentage decline is the largest since record keeping began in 1942.
-
Typically, gasoline sales rise before Memorial Day weekend. But gasoline sales dropped nearly 7 percent last week compared with the same week in 2007, according to an estimate by MasterCard.
-
On Friday, gasoline prices reached yet another record, a nationwide average of nearly $3.88 a gallon. That figure was up 4 cents in one day and is 65 cents higher than this time last year, according to AAA. Diesel hit $4.65 a gallon on Friday, up $1.73 a gallon in a year.
-
Every one-cent increase in gasoline prices means Americans pay $1.42 billion more a year for gas
-
The Energy Department expects gasoline sales to fall by 0.6 percent this year, the first drop since 1991,
7Expand
The Free-Trade Paradox: Financial Page: The New Yorker
Tags: macroeconomics, china, US, inflation on 2008-05-24 and saved by3 people -All Annotations (0) -About
more fromwww.newyorker.com
-
The reason for this is simple: free trade with poorer countries has a huge positive impact on the buying power of middle- and lower-income consumers—a much bigger impact than it does on the buying power of wealthier consumers.
-
estimate that poor Americans devote around forty per cent more of their spending to “non-durable goods” than rich Americans do. That means that lower-income Americans get a much bigger benefit from the lower prices that trade with China has brought.
-
they sextupled as a percentage of U.S. imports between 1990 and 2006
-
By some estimates, Wal-Mart alone has accounted for nearly a tenth of all imports from China in recent years.
-
machinery and electronics products made in developed countries sell in the U.S. for four times the average price of Chinese products. And, since the late nineteen-eighties, that price gap has widened by almost forty per cent.
-
And the result is that, in the past decade, the products that they spend more on have become a lot cheaper compared to the stuff that rich people spend more on.
-
between 1999 and 2005 alone the inflation rate for lower-income Americans was almost seven points lower than it was for the wealthiest Americans.
2Expand
NEB - Pricing - Natural Gas - Current Market Conditions April-May 2008
-
Cool weather in February and March has reduced storage reserves to more normal levels which will likely increase demand for storage injections and support the higher prices that we are currently seeing.
-
In addition, for those industrials that can fuel switch between oil and natural gas, the continued high price of oil is supporting industrial demand for natural gas.
Notation: * = Private bookmark and comment|… = Clipping [?] | … = Public highlight [?]
Recent Tags (50)
- 1335d,
- 2@read,
- 1@read!,
- 5AG,
- 5BE,
- 34BEH,
- 28C02,
- 15CBEV,
- 1LEED,
- 4US,
- 2agriculture,
- 8algae,
- 2auction,
- 2biodiesel,
- 4biofuel,
- 4biofuels,
- 1biomass,
- 1brown's,
- 2canada,
- 8carbon,
- 1chiptuning,
- 1cogen,
- 2commodities,
- 3competition,
- 3dashboard,
- 7economics,
- 3energy,
- 1fertilizer,
- 1ffinder,
- 1fleet,
- 10greenbuilding,
- 1greenhhouse,
- 6greenhouse,
- 3housing,
- 5inflation,
- 4macroeconomics,
- 1metals,
- 2modular,
- 2naturalgas,
- 1overunity,
- 1roadbike,
- 9salt,
- 1sft,
- 1sprung,
- 2sustainability,
- 1svo,
- 5tech,
- 2tidal,
- 2transportation,
- 3wvo
Public Tags (383)
- 4***,
- 12****,
- 14*****,
- 51.6,
- 101.6na,
- 121.6_turbo_install,
- 11.6_turbo_installthis,
- 12.0,
- 12.4,
- 1335d,
- 22@read,
- 4@read!,
- 2@sort,
- 1activist,
- 6ad,
- 1africa,
- 5AG,
- 37agriculture,
- 1aids,
- 2airstream,
- 14alberta,
- 8algae,
- 1ang,
- 1anti-aging,
- 1appropriatetechnology,
- 1aquaponics,
- 1art,
- 2ascension,
- 1asia,
- 3astrology,
- 14auction,
- 2audi,
- 1audio,
- 1auto,
- 1autofluff,
- 1balle,
- 3banking,
- 2battery,
- 15BE,
- 1bees,
- 38BEH,
- 12biodiesel,
- 11bioenergy,
- 4biofuel,
- 17biofuels,
- 43biogas,
- 20biomass,
- 3biomethane,
- 1bioplastics,
- 2biorefinery,
- 1birthday,
- 1blackberry,
- 5blog,
- 1blogs,
- 1bluenergy,
- 4bmw,
- 1bod,
- 2books,
- 5brazil,
- 1brown's,
- 1buildingmaterials,
- 1burningman,
- 1bush,
- 30C02,
- 1camelina,
- 12canada,
- 1cancer,
- 2canola,
- 1capital,
- 1capricorn,
- 1car,
- 18carbon,
- 3cars,
- 1case,
- 15CBEV,
- 2cbm,
- 1chanting,
- 7chcp,
- 19china,
- 1chiptuning,
- 2cholesterol,
- 4climate,
- 10coal,
- 1cobra,
- 3code,
- 12cogen,
- 1coldfusion,
- 2collaborate,
- 18commodities,
- 1commuinty,
- 8community,