11. How will hydrogen impact the environment?
Every kilogram of hydrogen that replaces a gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel will save the environment over 20 pounds of CO2. Dramatic reductions of NOx (nitrogen compound emissions), SOx (sulfur compound emissions,) and soot (unburned carbon nanoparticles) have been shown in the laboratory.
Since the United States burns 20.7 million gallons of petroleum products per day, any substitution of hydrogen will have a beneficial effect on the environment.
(www.greencarcongress.com/2006/01/us_petroleum_co.html)
The lowest cost way to make hydrogen at the moment is to use steam to reform methane. Using current techniques, the carbon atom in methane (CH4) becomes CO2, so the overall CO2 savings would be reduced to a net of 10 pounds. However, Asemblon and others are working on ways to capture this carbon, solidify it, and either turn it into a commercial product or bury it. When these technologies are available in a few years, then the full benefit of 20 pounds of CO2 per gallon of gasoline or diesel replaced will be realized.
Of course, using wind or solar energy to electrolyze water releases no CO2. However, at the moment, these techniques are 3 to 4 times more expensive than reforming methane.
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The Earth's temperature has
The Earth's temperature has increased about 0.75 ° C since the Industrial Revolution. Eleven of those years with the highest temperatures of the past 125 years occurred since 1990 to record what has, until now, 2005. There is overwhelming consensus on the causes: emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) from burning fossil fuels.
The analysis of ice cores shows that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere than at any time in the past 600,000 years. The global anthropogenic CO2 emissions nearly tripled between 1960 and 2002. Only since 1987 an increase of approximately 33%.
It is believed that in this century global warming will be between 1.4 and 5.8 ° C. The effects of climate change are already visible: the shrinking Arctic ice cap, the accelerated sea level rise, melting glaciers worldwide, the melting of permafrost, melting glaciers advance of layers in rivers and lakes, the greater intensity and duration of tropical storms, the extension of the stations in middle and high latitudes, and changes in the ranges and behavior of plants and animals.
In the Arctic, as peat bogs melt and release methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than CO2. Scientists are increasingly concerned about the possibility of abrupt climate change, including reductions in ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream which warms Europe, and changes in rainfall patterns, as the monsoon season phenomena that affect food security of billions of people.
Ask a polar bear ...
The temperature of the Arctic grows twice as fast as the rest of the world average. The area of the Arctic Ocean each summer ice cover has shrunk, and the remaining ice is becoming thinner. As the sea absorbs more heat than ice, it creates a cycle that leads to even faster melting. Between 20 and 30% of sea ice has been lost in the European Arctic since 1980.
Polar bears depend on sea ice where they hunt seals and use ice corridors to move from one area to another. The females build winter dens in areas with thick layers of snow are. In spring emerge with their cubs after not having tasted food for five to seven months. Their survival needs of sea ice in good condition.
The health of adult polar bears of Hudson Bay in Canada has been affected over the past twenty years, average weight and number of pups born between 1981 and 1998 recorded falls of between 15 and 26%. Some climate models project the possible total loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic before the end of the century. Polar bears are unlikely to survive.
Ask a farmer ...
Although crops in some areas could benefit from climate change, it is likely that the negative effects of warming are predominant. Africa is particularly vulnerable and there are studies that point to the possibility of a worsening famine.
The ways of life of poor communities directly dependent on a stable and welcoming. It is common to live on subsistence farming and that it depends on rainfall, so that climatic events such as the Asian monsoons are essential.
They are also highly vulnerable to drastic changes in weather such as droughts and tropical storms.
As glaciers melt in the major mountain ranges on the planet will affect water supply to rivers. Eight of the nine areas of glaciers in Europe recorded significant losses in volume, the only earning volume glaciers are in Norway. wireless internet providers
Between 1850 and 1980 glaciers in the European Alps have lost about a third of its area and half its volume.
The glaciers in the highlands of China lost an annual volume equivalent to the mass of water that forms the Yellow River. The Chinese Academy of Sciences says that 7% of the country's glaciers are vanishing annually. Up to 64% of China's glaciers will have disappeared by 2050. It is estimated that the population of arid western China is 300 million people, their survival depends on water from glaciers.