Jatropha is a weed that grows in plenty in nations like India, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania and is often a serious threat to food crops as it grows at a rapid pace and uses up all nutrients in soil. But Air New Zealand along with Boeing and Rolls Royce’s testing unit are turning this unwanted pest into biofuel for flights of tomorrow.

Boeing committed to going the biofuel way for jets because it sees a very urgent need to change from fossil fuel dependency that has been affecting the planet and the aviation industry in a seriously negative way.

Air New Zealand is helping them in this regard as both of them are coming together for a test flight on December 3 that will be powered by a 50/50 blend of Jet A-1 fuel and a synthetic paraffinic kerosene derived from Jatropha that was developed by UOP (!! pdf link)

Rolls Royce has successfully tested this mix and has found it good enough for a Boeing flight. Now it will be just a matter of time, some fine tweaking and maybe a little luck before we have jets that are completely powered by biofuel derived from algae and weed. - via Ecogeek

Image courtesy of Thomas@Bod

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Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions hit a record high making Japan the world’s fifth-largest CO2 producer and putting them at risk of an embarrassing failure to meet its Kyoto target over the next four years. The increase of 2.3 percent last year was largely due to the closure of Japan’s biggest nuclear power plant after an earthquake.

Emissions rose to 1.371 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent in the Japanese fiscal year through March. The year before Japan finally saw a decline of 1.3 percent decline. Japan needs to cut emissions by an estimated 13.5 percent to hit its 2008-2012 target under Kyoto of down 6 percent from 1990 levels.

The task of cutting emissions may be its worst since the onset of a global recession, a diversion of governments’ focus away from climate change the investment needed.

Japan is not going to make their goal.

Source: Yahoo!

Carbon Sciences has recently declared that it has made an important breakthrough that can convert CO2 emissions into fuels. This would cut down on the 62 billion metric tones of CO2 - root cause of global warming, which is let out into the atmosphere every year.

The technology will use these harmful emissions and convert them into useful sources of energy.

As CO2 requires a lot of energy to break them into hydrocarbons that is used for fuel, Carbon Sciences is working on a technology, with the help of chemical and bioengineering principles that would hasten up this process. Since this process is highly energy efficient, they’ll set up a CO2 transformation plant that would use the CO2 released by a larger producer such as a power plant, and transform it into useable fuels.

This breakthrough technology promises that it can successfully give the world a cleaner atmosphere by closing the loop on carbon releases. - via Inhabitat

The world’s speed and nuclear power do not belong in the same sentence, but sure enough China is doing its darnedest to build as many nuclear power plants as it can, using OLD technology. Their target is 4 new generators each year, through 2015.

However, the nuclear plants are going to be just a partial answer for its mounting pollution, energy security problems and the fast growing electricity use, because they will not be able to provide more than 5 percent of its power. Is coal still an option for them? Did they never hear of wind or solar power?

China’s nuclear power companies want to export that ability and technology overseas and the biggest problem would be a huge push to expand the country’s reliance on nuclear power domestically.

Nuclear power is an alternative if it is managed correctly, and when it does go wrong, it goes seriously wrong. But, who manages it correctly?