Browse Topic: Greenhouse gas emissions
The societies around the world remain far from meeting the agreed primary goal outlined under the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change: reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to keep global average temperature rise to well below 20°C by 2100 and making every effort to stay underneath of a 1.5°C elevation. In 2020 direct tailpipe emissions from transport represented around 8 GtCO2eq, or nearly 15% of total emissions. This number increases to just under 10 GtCO2eq when indirect emissions from electricity and fuel supply are added, for a total share of roughly 18%. Following the current trend, direct and indirect emissions in transport could reach above 11 GtCO2eq by 2050. Roughly 76% of transport emissions are related to land-based passenger and freight road transport. Emissions from aviation and shipping account for the remaining 24% of 2020 emissions. Hydrogen (H2) is in this scenario considered to play a key role as a carbon-free and versatile energy carrier. Combustion of hydrogen
Sustainability remains a dominant trend in packaging and processing, continuing to attract the attention of the life sciences industry and inspire its new initiatives. Although pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers must prioritize patient safety and product protection, concerns about climate change, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, plastic waste, and pressure to move toward a circular economy are prompting a greater focus on improving the sustainability of their products and packaging
In response to global climate change, there is a widespread push to reduce carbon emissions in the transportation sector. For the difficult to decarbonize heavy-duty (HD) vehicle sector, hybridization and lower carbon-intensity fuels can offer a low-cost, near-term solution for CO2 reduction. The use of natural gas can provide such an alternative for HD vehicles while the increasing availability of renewable natural gas affords the opportunity for much deeper reductions in net-CO2 emissions. With this in consideration, the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory launched the Natural Gas Vehicle Research and Development Project to stimulate advancements in technology and availability of natural gas vehicles. As part of this program, Southwest Research Institute developed a hybrid-electric medium-HD vehicle (class 6) to demonstrate a substantial CO2 reduction over the baseline diesel vehicle and ultra-low NOx emissions. The development included the conversion of a 5.2 L diesel engine to
The global transportation industry, and road freight in particular, faces formidable challenges in reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions; both Europe and the US have already enabled legislation with CO2 / GHG reduction targets. In Europe, targets are set on a fleet level basis: a CO2 baseline has already been established using Heavy Duty Vehicle (HDV) data collected and analyzed by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in 2019/2020. This baseline data has been published as the reference for the required CO2 reductions. More recently, the EU has proposed a Zero Emissions Vehicle definition of 3g CO2/t-km. The Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) designation is expected to be key to a number of market instruments that improve the economics and practicality of hydrogen trucks. This paper assesses the permissible amount of carbon-based fuel in hydrogen fueled vehicles – the Pilot Energy Ratio (PER) – for each regulated subgroup of HDVs in the baseline data set. The analysis indicates that a PER
Current GHG emissions are rebounding from an intermediate decline during the economic downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. To get back on track to support the realization of the formulated goals of the Paris Agreement, scientific communities suggest that worldwide GHG emissions should be roughly halved by 2030 on a trajectory to reach net zero by around mid-century. Carbon neutrality imposes substantial changes in our energy mix. Hydrogen (H2) is considered to play a key role as a carbon-free and versatile energy carrier for all kinds of applications and use cases. Considering the high technological maturity of internal combustion engines (ICEs), the interest in ICEs powered by hydrogen as a CO2-free solution is rising worldwide. The content of this publication displays the necessary engineering steps to successfully convert a diesel-based engine to H2 DI operation. In this context, upfront simulations work dictated the newly designed combustion system layout and the associated
Advanced two-dimensional (2D) materials discovered in the last two decades are now being produced at scale and contribute to a wide range of performance enhancements in engineering applications. The most well known of these novel materials is graphene, a nearly transparent nanomaterial comprised of a single layer of bonded carbon atoms. In relative terms, it has the highest level of heat and electrical conductivity, protects against ultraviolet rays, and is the strongest material ever measured. These properties have made graphene an attractive potential material for a variety of applications, particularly for transportation-related uses, and especially for automotive engineering. The goal of drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions has prioritized the electrification of transportation, the decarbonization of industry, and the development of products that require less energy to make, last longer, and are fully recyclable. While this chapter reviews the current state of graphene
Most heavy trucks should be fully electric, using a combination of batteries and catenary electrification, but heavy trucks requiring very long unsupported range will need chemical fuels. Hydrogen is the key to storing renewably generated electricity chemically. At the scale of heavy trucks, compressed hydrogen can match the specific energy of diesel, but its energy density is five times lower, limiting the range to around 2,000 km. Scaling green hydrogen production and addressing leakage must be priorities. Hydrogen-derived electrofuels—or “e-fuels”—have the potential to scale, and while the economic comparison currently has unknowns, clean air considerations have gained new importance. The limited supply of bioenergy should be reserved for critical applications, such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), aviation, shipping, and road freight in the most remote locations. Additionally, there are some reasons to prefer ethanol or methanol to diesel-type fuels as they are
Advanced two-dimensional materials discovered in the last two decades are now being produced at scale and are contributing to a wide range of performance enhancements in engineering applications. The most well known of these novel materials is graphene, a nearly transparent nanomaterial comprising a single layer of bonded carbon atoms. In relative terms, it has the highest level of heat and electrical conductivity, protects against ultraviolet rays, and is the strongest material ever measured. These properties have made graphene an attractive potential material for a variety of applications, particularly for transportation-related uses, and especially for aerospace engineering. The goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating a world that achieves net-zero emissions have prioritized the electrification of transportation, the decarbonization of industry, and the development of products that require less energy to make, last longer, and are fully recyclable. These aspects have
The transportation sector has an enormous demand for resources and energy, is a major contributor of emissions (i.e., greenhouse gases in particular), and is defined largely by the kind of energy it uses—be it electric cars, biofuel trucks, or hydrogen aircraft. Given the size of this sector, it has a crucial role in combating climate change and securing sustainability in its three forms: environmental, societal, and economic. In this context, there are many questions concerning energy options on the path toward a more sustainable transportation sector. Is hydrogen the fuel of the future? Is there enough electricity to power a fully electric transportation sector? What happens when millions of electric vehicle batteries need to be decommissioned? Which regulatory measures are effective and appropriate for moving the sector in the right direction? What is the “right” direction? This chapter does not aim to answer all those questions. It does, however, highlight and discuss the most
Carbon capture is a critical technology in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other industrial facilities. But a suitable material for effective carbon capture at low cost has yet to be found. One candidate is metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs. This porous material can selectively absorb carbon dioxide
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Columbia University have developed a way to convert carbon dioxide (CO2), a potent greenhouse gas, into carbon nanofibers, materials with a wide range of unique properties and many potential long-term uses. Their strategy uses tandem electrochemical and thermochemical reactions run at relatively low temperatures and ambient pressure. As the scientists describe in the journal Nature Catalysis, this approach could successfully lock carbon away in a useful solid form to offset or even achieve negative carbon emissions
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