The key finding is that new residential heating systems fuelled by LPG are 20% lower carbon and 15% lower overall-environmental-impact than those fuelled by heating oil. An unexpected finding was that an LPG system’s environmental impact is about the same as that of a bio heating oil system fuelled by 100% rapeseed methyl ester, Europe’s predominant biofuel. Moreover, a 20/80 blend (by energy content) with conventional heating oil, a bio-heating-oil system generates a footprint about 15% higher than an LPG system’s.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2012.01.004

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1. National energy policies: Obstructing the reduction of global CO2 emissions? An analysis of Swedish energy policies for the district heating sector
2. Life-Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Shale Gas, Natural Gas, Coal, and Petroleum

Previous studies on the life-cycle environmental impacts of corn ethanol and gasoline focused almost exclusively on energy balance and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and largely overlooked the influence of regional differences in agricultural practices. This study compares the environmental impact of gasoline and E85 taking into consideration 12 different environmental impacts and regional differences among 19 corn-growing states. Results show that E85 does not outperform gasoline when a wide spectrum of impacts is considered. If the impacts are aggregated using weights developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), overall, E85 generates approximately 6% to 108% (23% on average) greater impact compared with gasoline, depending on where corn is produced, primarily because corn production induces significant eutrophication impacts and requires intensive irrigation. If GHG emissions from the indirect land use changes are considered, the differences increase to between 16% and 118% (33% on average). Our study indicates that replacing gasoline with corn ethanol may only result in shifting the net environmental impacts primarily toward increased eutrophication and greater water scarcity. These results suggest that the environmental criteria used in the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) be re-evaluated to include additional categories of environmental impact beyond GHG emissions.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es203641p

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1. Comparison of Environmental Cost-Benefits of Gas, Corn Ethanol, and Cellulosic Ethanol
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Although laboratory experiments have shown that organic compounds in both gasoline fuel and diesel engine exhaust can form secondary organic aerosol (SOA), the fractional contribution from gasoline and diesel exhaust emissions to ambient SOA in urban environments is poorly known. Here we use airborne and ground-based measurements of organic aerosol (OA) in the Los Angeles (LA) Basin, California made during May and June 2010 to assess the amount of SOA formed from diesel emissions. Diesel emissions in the LA Basin vary between weekdays and weekends, with 54% lower diesel emissions on weekends. Despite this difference in source contributions, in air masses with similar degrees of photochemical processing, formation of OA is the same on weekends and weekdays, within the measurement uncertainties. This result indicates that the contribution from diesel emissions to SOA formation is zero within our uncertainties. Therefore, substantial reductions of SOA mass on local to global scales will be achieved by reducing gasoline vehicle emissions.

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2011GL050718

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1. Evaluation of mobile source emission trends in the United States
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After a year-long process of peer review, the DEMS scientists recently turned over to industry and others copies of two major papers they planned to publish in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The mining coalition made no official reply, but in mid-February, as the 90-day waiting period began to wane, Henry Chajet, a Washington D.C.-based lawyer and lobbyist for the Mining Awareness Resource Group (MARG), a party in the court cases, sent a letter to at least four science journals warning them that they risked unspecified consequences if they published the study. (For more on Chajet’s letter, and the background of the case, see this post.)Today marks the 91st day after the DEMS scientists submitted to JNCI. With the legal case still ongoing (it’s currently on appeal in a federal court in New Orleans) and the possibility of future complications, DEMS scientists wasted no time publishing either paper (available here and here; NCI and NIOSH also summarized the results here and here).

Daylight at Last for Study of Diesel Lung Cancer Risks – ScienceInsider

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A potential strategy for tackling the negative environmental impact of conventional plastics is to produce them from renewable resources. However, such a strategy needs to be assessed quantitatively, by life cycle assessment (LCA) for example.This screening LCA is intended to identify key aspects that influence the environmental impact of sugarcane low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and compare these results against fossil-based LDPE.The study showed that the major contributors to the environmental impact of sugarcane LDPE are ethanol production, polymerization, and long-distance sea transport. The comparison between sugarcane- and oil-based plastics showed that the sugarcane alternative consumes more total energy, although the major share is renewable. Moreover, for their potential impacts on acidification, eutrophication, and photochemical ozone creation, no significant difference between the two materials exists.However, with regard to global warming potential (GWP), the contribution of land use change (LUC) is decisive. Although the range of LUC emissions is uncertain, in the worst case they more than double the GWP of sugarcane LDPE and make it comparable to that of fossil-based LDPE. LUC emissions can thus be significant for sugarcane LDPE, although there is need for a consistent LUC assessment method.In addition, to investigate the influence of methodological choices, this study performed attributional and consequential assessments in parallel. No major differences in key contributors were found for these two assessment perspectives.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2011.00405.x

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1. Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Charcoal, Biogas, and Liquefied Petroleum Gas as Cooking Fuels in Ghana
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Improving engine efficiency and reducing pollutant emissions are extremely important. Here, we report our fuel injection technology based on the new physics principle that proper application of electrorheology can reduce the viscosity of petroleum fuels. A small device is thus introduced just before the fuel injection for the engine, producing a strong electric field to reduce the fuel viscosity, resulting in much smaller fuel droplets in atomization. Because combustion starts at the droplet surface, smaller droplets lead to cleaner and more efficient combustion. Both laboratory tests and road tests confirm our theory and indicate that such a device improves fuel mileage significantly. The technology is expected to have broad applications, applicable to current internal combustion engines and future engines as well.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ef8004898

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