Biofuels are heralded as a climate-friendly replacement of fossil fuels, but encouraging people to drive less and shift to other modes of transport would cut more emissions.
Ultra long-haul flights make it possible to go Sydney to London non-stop. But does the world need them, given they are more polluting and less efficient?
Harvesting soybeans in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Brazil exports soybeans and uses them domestically to make animal feed and biodiesel.
Paulo Fridman/Corbis via Getty Images
Allowing the sale of gasoline that’s 15% ethanol year-round won’t have much impact on gas prices, but recent research shows that growing corn for fuel affects the climate – for the worse.
Surplus corn piled outside a farmer’s co-op storage facility in Paoli, Colorado.
Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images
The US has required motor fuels to contain 10% biofuels since 2005. As this program nears a key milestone in 2022, farm advocates want to expand it while critics want to pare it back or repeal it.
A human rights-based approach to food production will have environmental, social and economic benefits.
(Shutterstock)
The hidden costs of industrial food production include immense health and environmental impacts. These include millions of deaths, climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.
How do we ensure solutions to climate change doesn’t make biodiversity loss worse? Fifty of the world’s leading researchers on biodiversity and climate have sought to answer this question.
A complete switch to biofuels is neither feasible nor desirable, but they could replace some fossil fuels in transport and heating. If biofuels are produced from waste products, that’s even better.
Giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) is a potential energy crop.
Linking Tourism & Conservation/Flickr
Diane Kim, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences; Ignacio Navarrete, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and Jessica Dutton, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Making biofuels from crops grown on land poses trade-offs between food and fuel. A new study looks offshore.
We analysed what the world’s top 58 airlines – such as American Airlines, British Airways and Qantas – are doing about climate change. Even the best airlines are not doing anywhere near enough.
Many vehicles can’t just be powered by battery.
MuchMania/Shutterstock
Many current and former US military leaders call climate change a serious national security threat, but few of them mention the Defense Department’s big carbon footprint.
Increased use of renewable energies could help curb climate change, but the water required for their production has dispossessed rural Guatemalans.
The New Zealand government is introducing legislation to become zero-carbon by 2050, but will consider new permits for coal mining, offshore oil drilling and fracking on a case-by-case basis.
from shutter stock.com
Natural gas is touted as a “bridging fuel” to displace coal while moving to a low-carbon economy. In New Zealand, this is shortsighted and could lead to stranded assets and hold back renewables.
The potential clean energy sources are all around Sydney, just waiting to be harnessed.
Collage by Rocco Furfaro
Sun, wind, waste biomass, geothermal, tides and waves: all these energy sources in Sydney’s backyard add up to a zero-carbon energy solution for the city.