NGT directs Centre, states to periodically review steps to stop crop burning

NEW DELHI: The National Green Tribunal(NGT) has directed the Ministry of Agriculture and the Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi chief secretaries to periodically review steps taken to stop crop burning incidents. The tribunal had earlier directed the Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture to submit a status report within six weeks on providing infrastructural assistance to farmers to stop them from burning crop residue to prevent air pollution. 

China expands ban on waste imports

China will expand its ban on imports of solid waste, local media reported Monday, almost a year after its first curbs caused havoc in countries that sent their rubbish to the Asian giant. The regulatory action—which expands the prohibition to 32 categories of solid waste from the 24 banned last year—will go into effect from December 31, according to official news agency Xinhua, citing four Chinese government agencies.

What does a persistent bloom of algae indicate about the health of the planet?

While the harmful algae known as red tide have historically been common in warm waters like those of the Gulf of Mexico, the troublesome blooms are no longer seasonal. The algae kill marine animals and make life miserable for beachgoers. Regions of harmful algal blooms across the globe have increased in size, number and frequency.

Toxic mercury poisoning the Amazon

Alongside the all-too-visible deforestation, the Amazon is facing an invisible but increasing threat from mercury pollution according to a new WWF report released today at the Second Conference of the Parties to the Minamata Convention on Mercury in Geneva, Switzerland. Healthy Rivers, Healthy People highlights the dangers mercury pollution poses across the Amazon and calls for urgent action to reduce the use of mercury in small-scale gold mining to protect the world's largest river system and the people and species that depend on it. The mercury pollution crisis in the Amazon is unfortunately both invisible and largely ignored despite growing evidence of the dangers it poses for people and wildlife across the river system

Greenhouse gasses triggering more changes than we can handle

A new study published in Nature Climate Change provides one of the most comprehensive assessments yet of how humanity is being impacted by the simultaneous occurrence of multiple climate hazards strengthened by increasing greenhouse gas emissions. This research reveals that society faces a much larger threat from climate change than previous studies have suggested.An analysis of thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers reveals 467 ways in which human health, food, water, economy, infrastructure, and security have been impacted by multiple climatic changes including: warming, drought, heatwaves, wildfires, precipitation, floods, storms, sea level rise and changes in land cover and ocean chemistry.

Radical environmental groups weaponize the courts and aggravate wildfire threats

• November’s tragic California wildfires brought a Twitter war between President Trump, who argued the fires were due to forest mismanagement, and Leonardo DiCaprio who asserted (big surprise) climate change is to blame. I cannot speak to the specifics of these fires and any proximity to national forests, which have been so terribly mismanaged (as pointed out in by Chuck DeVore and more recently by Matthew Vadum). I can provide, however, a view from the Rocky Mountains.
• It is an oft-repeated truth in the West to call the federal government the “world’s worst neighbor,” and nowhere is that more true than the U.S. Forest Service's mismanagement of national forests. Beginning with President Jimmy Carter’s War on the West, which continued under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the ability to engage in prudent forest management is under attack.
• Of course, the Forest Service has help in the endless lawsuits by radical (is there any other kind?) environmental groups to prevent timber harvesting. Even after a fire, when salvageable timber remains, the groups sue to prevent logging. One radical in Oregon opined that such harvests were “like raping a burn victim.” Judges have abused the National Environmental Policy Act by stopping harvesting for more studies. The studies, which cost millions, continue until the burned timber is not salvageable, a fire sweeps through and destroys the timber up for sale, or the local timber companies go out of business. Here in Colorado, as elsewhere in the West, the timber industry has been reduced to a fraction of its former self and its ability to service national forests.
• Meanwhile, counties, states, and American Indian tribes are not so hampered. They understand the vital need, not just economically but ecologically and environmentally, to engage in science-based forest management.

Mineral and Energy (Financial Provisioning) Bill passed - New financial assurance and environmental rehabilitation regime for Queensland

On 14 November 2018, the Queensland Parliament passed the Mineral and Energy Resources (Financial Provisioning) Act 2018 (Act).

The Act introduces two major reforms for the resources industry in Queensland. It will:

• replace the current financial assurance regime with a new financial provisioning scheme for all resource authorities; and
• introduce new progressive rehabilitation requirements for mining leases, through progressive rehabilitation and closure plans (PRC plans)
• The Bill introduces amendments to the Environmental Protection Act, that require all holders of site specific EAs for a mining lease to submit a PRC plan.Under the transitional provisions, DES has three years from the “PRCP start date” (to be prescribed by regulation but no later than 1 November 2019) to give notice to these holders, requiring them to submit a proposed PRC plan to comply with the new requirements. DES must give the holder at least six months to comply with the notice.

Google celebrates 45th anniversary of Chipko movement with a doodle

The movement's biggest triumph was opening the eyes of people to their rights to forests, and how grassroots activism can influence policy-making regarding shared natural resources.

Google on Monday commemorated the 45th anniversary of the Chipko movement with a doodle. The doodle depicts four women bedecked in traditional attire, holding hands and forming a chain around a tree, with the fauna which are denizens of the forest portrayed as spectators to this scene of solidarity that is played out on a starry night. In 1973, villagers in Uttar Pradesh’s Chamoli district (now Uttarakhand) took to hugging trees to prevent their felling at the hands of contractors and to protect trees from the deforestation that accompanied rapid industrialization in the years following independence.

The word 'chipko', which means to hug, soon became the name of the eponymous movement and the catchphrase for environmentalists the world over. However, the practice of embracing trees, both literally and figuratively, predate the Chipko movement. The Bishnoi community in Rajasthan were the pioneers in protecting forest resources. In the 18th century, a group of people from 84 villages in Rajasthan united under a woman called Amrita Devi and laid down their lives to protest a royal decree that commanded the felling of trees. Taken aback by the self-sacrifice of his subjects, the Maharaja of Jodhpur went on to rescind his order preventing the felling of trees in all Bishnoi villages.

Kerala’s largest freshwater lake shrinking

The Sasthamcotta Lake in Kollam district which was designated as a Ramsar Site in November 2002 and listed by the Government of India as a wetland of national importance has started shrinking at an alarming rate. Sasthamcotta Lake is also Kerala’s largest freshwater lake.

Although the water level of the lake has always fluctuated in response to the summer and monsoon, environmental activists and others living in the vicinity of the lake said the decline in the lake’s water

volume at present is simply alarming. Even as summer has only started advancing, the lake exposes its parched bed on all sides.

At a couple of locations, the lake has shrunk by about 250 meters to 300 meters. Indiscriminate exploitation of water from the lake and environment degradation activities carried out around the catchment area of the lake is being cited as the main cause for the reduced lake volume.

Iceberg-glacier collision could trigger climatic changes

An iceberg about the size of Luxembourg, which struck a glacier off Antarctica dislodging another massive block of ice, could lower oxygen levels in the world’s oceans, Australian and French scientists said on Friday.

The two icebergs are now drifting together about 100 to 150 km off Antarctica, following the collision on February 12 or 13, said Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist Neal Young.

“It gave it a pretty big nudge,” Mr. Young said of the 97- km-long iceberg that collided with the giant floating Mertz Glacier and shaved off a new iceberg. “They are now floating right next to each other.”

The new iceberg is 78 km long and about 39 km wide and holds roughly the equivalent of a fifth of the world’s annual total water usage, Mr. Young said.

Flying into a danger zone

The only Ramsar site in Tamil Nadu, Point Calimere Wildlife and Bird Sanctuary, a mix of salt swamps, mangroves, backwaters, mudflats, grasslands, and tropical dry evergreen forest, presents a picture of concern for bird lovers.

The site is spread over 38,500 hectares. With habitats ranging from swamp to dry evergreen forests, it is a haven for migratory birds and resident species. A total of 257 species of birds have been recorded, including 119 water birds. During peak season, it is home to over four lakh birds.

“In reality, the few thousand acres at Kodiakarai that actually constitute the core bird habitat do not belong to the Forest Department,” K. Balachandran, senior scientist, Bombay Natural History Society, says with concern.

Set up in 1982, the Vijayaraghavan Committee recommended handing over of 25,544.47 acres, including unsurveyed swamp and land leased to a private chemical industry, to the Forest Department so that it could be maintained as an exclusive water birds habitat.

Air pollution has reached dangerous levels not only in cities but in our villages as well

It is that time of the year when there is much breast-beating about the poisonous air in our capital. The hazardous quality of air in the national capital region (NCR) is indeed a cause for serious concern. On Diwali, a combination of farm residue burning in Punjab and Haryana, vehicular and industrial emissions, and bursting of firecrackers led to the air quality index in Delhi and its satellite cities exceeding 999 in many areas. The World Health Organisation considers air quality to be healthy only till a reading of 50.

This seasonal worry about air pollution in winter actually ends up hiding the darker reality of its all-pervasive nature throughout the year. Central Pollution Control Board data shows that air quality is bad not just in Delhi but in more than a hundred cities across the country, including our coastal metros. Also, in the brouhaha over cities and towns, we conveniently ignore the fact that people in our villages also suffer severely from the ill effects of air pollution.

A bigger nose, a bigger bang: Size matters for ecoholocating toothed whales

A new study sheds light on how toothed whales adapted their sonar abilities to occupy different environments. The study shows that as animals grew bigger, they were able to put more energy into their echolocation sounds -- but surprisingly, the sound energy increased much more than expected.Trying to find your lunch in the dark using a narrow flashlight to illuminate one place at a time may not seem like the most efficient way of foraging. However, if you replace light with sound, this seems to be exactly how the largest toothed predators on the planet find their food. A paper out this week in the journal Current Biology shows that whales, dolphins, and porpoises have all evolved to use similar narrow beams of high intensity sound to echolocate prey. Far from being inefficient, this highly focused sense may have helped them succeed as top predators in the world's oceans.

SOURCE : SCIENCE DAILY

Study tracks severe bleaching events on a Pacific coral reef over past century

As climate change causes ocean temperatures to rise, coral reefs worldwide are experiencing mass bleaching events and die-offs. For many, this is their first encounter with extreme heat. However for some reefs in the central Pacific, heatwaves caused by El Nino are a way of life. Exactly how these reefs deal with repeated episodes of extreme heat has been unclear. A new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), has uncovered the history of bleaching on a reef in the epicenter of El Nino, revealing how some corals have been able to return after facing extreme conditions.

SOURCE : SCIENCE DAILY

Ragweed may expand its range northward with climate change

A new predictive model developed by ecologists and climate scientists suggests that climate change may allow common ragweed to extend its growing range northward and into major northeast metro areas, worsening conditions for millions of people with hay fever and asthma.Although other factors and modeling approaches should be explored, we offer preliminary insight into where common ragweed might be a new concern in the future. Due to the health impacts of ragweed, local weed control boards may be well advised to monitor areas of expansion and potentially increase eradication efforts.

SOURCE : SCIENCE DAILY

Alpine ice shows three-fold increase in atmospheric iodine

Analysis of iodine trapped in Alpine ice has shown that levels of atmospheric iodine have tripled over the past century, which partially offsets human-driven increases in the air pollutant, ozone.Surface ozone concentrations have stabilised over much of Europe and the Atlantic ocean, although are still growing over other regions.Surface ozone concentrations have stabilised over much of Europe and the Atlantic ocean, although are still growing over other regions.

SOURCE : SCINECE DAILY

Order of the National Green Tribunal regarding pollution caused to river Periyar .

Order of the National Green in the matter of Shibu Manuel, Secretary, Green Action Force Vs. The Govt. of India & Ors. dated 26/09/2018. The case relates to pollution being caused to the River Periyar in Kerala by the discharge of effluents by more than 400 industrial units. As per the information received from the State Pollution Control Board, although the four most polluting industries have been identified, other industries also contribute to pollution.

Con­ser­va­tion areas help bird­life ad­apt to cli­mate change

A warming climate is pushing organisms towards the circumpolar areas and mountain peaks. A recently conducted study on changes in bird populations reveals that protected areas slow down the north-bound retreat of species.By slowing down the harm caused by climate change, conservation areas provide us with a grace period for tackling the causes and consequences of climate change. The findings encourage us to increase the number of conservation areas, which is also what the international goal of protecting 17% of all land area does

SOURCE : SCIENCE DAILY

PNW woodlands will be less vulnerable to drought, fire than Rocky Mountain, Sierra forests

Forests in the Pacific Northwest will be less vulnerable to drought and fire over the next three decades than those in the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada, computer modeling shows.The researchers stress that there is a lot of spatial variability in future vulnerability. And that fire vulnerability is not the same as fire intensity.Stress from drought causes trees to shed leaves, limiting their capacity for photosynthesis; insect infestations also make life hard for drought-affected trees.

SOURCE : SCIENCE DAILY

Climate change/biodiversity loss: Inseparable threats to humanity that must be addressed together

Demand for biofuels to fight climate change clouds the future for biodiversity. The demand could cause a 10- to 30-fold expansion of green energy-related agricultural land use, adding crushing pressure on habitat for plants and animals and undermining the essential diversity of species on Earth.Climate change/biodiversity loss: Inseparable threats to humanity that must be addressed together: Models foresee 10 to 30-fold rise in agricultural land devoted to bioenergy.

SOURCE : SCIEMCE DAILY

Report on river stretches for restoration of water quality: state wise and priority wise

The number of critically polluted stretches of the country's rivers has increased to 351 from 302 two years ago, and the number of critically polluted stretches has gone up to 45 from 34, according to this recent assessment released by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

Order of the Supreme Court of India regarding pollution caused by Graphite India in Whitefield, Bangalore, Karnataka

 Order of the Supreme Court of India in the matter of M. C. Mehta Vs Union of India & Others dated 29/10/2018 regarding pollution caused by Graphite India in Whitefield, Bangalore, Karnataka. Graphite India has been directed to deposit an amount of Rs. 50 lakhs with the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board.

'Earth Day Every Day': 4 Tips for Successful Corporate Activism

Companies have long-run sustainability initiatives that exclude customers. To be fair, these companies have donated a percentage of profits to charities, volunteered employee time, reduced emissions, cleaned up supply chains, and much more. However, their customers have been on the sideline, sometimes aware but not personally engaged. Through corporate activism, brands can change this dynamic and make customers partners in their most meaningful sustainability initiatives. Here are some tips based on brands that have used it successfully.

The mechanics of corporate activism

1. Take a stand that makes sense

Advocate for an issue that is tied to your business and consistent with your existing brand image. 1 Hotels — “a mission-driven, nature-inspired, luxury lifestyle brand” did just that. In April 2018, it launched its “ Earth Day every day" campaign, a year-long initiative to raise awareness of environmental issues related to saving the world’s coastlines.

2. Provide easy access to information

Corporate activism campaigns should make it easy for consumers to understand the issue. 1 Hotels created a smart awareness campaign involving a speaker series, film screenings, t-shirts, letter-writing rooms and more.

3. Personal concern through action

After sharing information about the state of our coastlines, the 1 Hotels kiosks invite visitors to select a cause, then message their federal, state and local lawmakers via email. The advocates can use pre-filled messages or create their own content. 

4. Walk the talk

Some companies run into trouble because their sustainability campaigns look like shameless marketing ploys. To be credible, the brand advocating for an issue must operate in ways that further the cause. 

Fifth London garage joins electric bus revolution

Plans to decarbonize London's bus fleet are continuing apace after it was confirmed Shepherds Bush has become the fifth bus garage in the capital to install a bank of electric bus charging units. UK Power Networks announced late last week it has completed work at the Sulgrave Road site to enable 36 new electric buses to charge overnight. The work, which was commissioned by bus operator RATP Dev, provides an additional 2.5MW of capacity to power buses on two of the routes operated out of the garage.

UK Power Networks said the system makes use of a "timed connection", which will allow the buses to reliably charge overnight while avoiding the need to install extra electricity cables and infrastructure. It added that the approach helped reduce both pressures on the grid and costs, ensuring maximum power requirements are met between 11pm and 6am when local electricity demand is very low.

The upgrade follows similar work at Waterloo Bus Garage in August 2016, which made it the first depot in the UK to 'go electric' resulting in 900 tonnes of CO2 emissions savings in its first year. It has since been followed by charging installations at bus garages in Willesden, Camberwell and Northumberland Park. Stephen Bradley, head of major connections for UK Power Networks, said the upgrades were delivering a host of benefits to bus operators and the public. "By enabling more buses to run on electricity instead of diesel, we bring another breath of fresh air for Londoners and we are pleased to be playing our part as the city looks forward to a greener future," he said.

Catherine Guillouard, chairwoman and CEO of RATP Group, said the project underlined the company's commitment to slashing emissions across its fleet. "We have been looking forward to the upgrade of this depot, which very tangibly demonstrates our commitment to clean and sustainable travel," she said. "RATP Group's aim to switch to 100 percent clean buses reflects our ambition to be an innovative and trusted partner of the city of London in its journey towards being a smarter and more sustainable city."

The project is part of a city-wide push to ensure all of London's buses are zero emission by 2037. However, advocates of electric and hydrogen buses remain optimistic that falling costs could see the switch to zero-emission fleets made far earlier. Overall, Transport for London is aiming to have 240 electric buses running on the network by the end of next year and for all new double-decker buses to be zero-emissions or hybrid. Every single-decker bus operating in central London is expected to be zero-emission by the following year.

Energy revolution risks 'two-tier' society

Britain risks becoming a 'two-tier' energy society, according to a new report out today, which warns modern energy infrastructure such as electric vehicles (EVs), smart meters, and Internet-connected appliances are being adopted unevenly across the country. The report, commissioned by the Drax Group and conducted by Imperial College London and E4tech, breaks down the energy revolution into 20 distinct sectors and tracks progress against a range of metrics, including the rollout of smart meters, hydrogen transport stations, heat pumps, EV chargers, and electric buses.

It warns that regional divides are already emerging, with London and Scotland pulling ahead in terms of their access to new clean energy technologies. In contrast, the North of England and East Midlands lag furthest behind, the study warns. The disconnect risks a two-tier society emerging, argues Dr. Iain Staffell from Imperial College, one of the lead researchers on the report. "The country is going through an energy revolution," he said. "We are creating an energy system which will power our future economy and help tackle climate change."

"But, our research reveals that Britain is at risk of creating a two-tier economy, leaving millions of families and businesses less well equipped to enjoy cheaper bills and better health outcomes," he added. "Our concern is they will not be offered the same opportunities as people living in regions which are modernizing their energy infrastructure. "The differences in the pace of the energy revolution are the result of uneven investment from both national government and local authorities, the report said, as well as variations in average household income.

London is leading the way because of its high provision of public transport - it receives 45 per cent of national funds for rail electrification, for example - and the relatively low cost of owning an electric car in the capital. Residential homes in the capital also tend to be more energy efficient, while households in the south east tend to enjoy higher incomes.

The future is frozen why fresh may not be best when buying fish

Standing in your supermarket seafood department, you see a counter with fillets of salmon, cod, and tuna bedded on ice. Their tenderness beckons. Somewhere nearby, packages of those same fish and more, each fillet vacuum-sealed, wait behind a freezer glass door. They look... Well, you can’t quite tell, but the labels indicate where the stuff comes from and its sustainability. Which ones will go in your basket?

In many cases, the frozen fish is less expensive and ought to be a slam-dunk. Yet “fresh is best” has been hammered home as a selling point for so many people fortunate enough to have the choice that they will opt for what’s on display.

Why go frozen? “It is a major win for sustainability,” says Barton Seaver, the Maine-based chef and seafood educator who once called Washington home. “It decreases waste and takes advantage of seasonal bounty to spread its availability throughout the year.

“From the introduction of micro-misting to more powerful and rapid deep-freeze technologies at lower temperatures, the process has really turned the frozen product ... into a means to capture pristine quality,” he says.

Experts agree about those advances in technology, which can allow consumers to buy fish that is frozen mere hours after being harvested. The “fresh”-looking fish at the counter may be weeks old, and, these days, a good portion of it might be labeled “previously frozen” – all of which means that frozen can be fresher, or at least in better condition.

At the consumer level, though, frozen fish is still seen as less than optimal. You can’t open a package and smell it – a historically fail-safe test of quality – although I can’t remember the last time I saw a supermarket shopper ask to sniff first before buying.

Wegman's stocks half as much frozen fish as it does fresh, says Steve Philips, the East Coast grocery chain’s seafood group manager. With a few exceptions, the supermarket’s fresh fish on display has not been previously frozen – in part, he says because Wegmans noticed that its customers “weren’t moving over to the frozen case”. The result is that its seafood department pulls fresh fish after two days in the case and destroys it; none of it is repurposed for in-house use.

Nestle looks for sustainable label for water bottling sites

Nestle is moving to bolster the sustainability credentials of its bottled water business amid criticism that packaging the precious resource and transporting it across the world causes unnecessary environmental damage.

The maker of Perrier and Pure Life is strengthening its ties with Alliance for Water Stewardship, which will monitor whether 20 sites meet its standards on water use by 2020, the Vevey, Switzerland-based company said in a statement Wednesday.

Nestle already has four plants certified by the group in Pakistan and California. The announcement comes a month after competitor Danone said it aims to make Evian the first major carbon-neutral springwater brand. Nestle has reduced its additional water consumption to make a litre of bottled water by 20 per cent since 2011.

One of the company’s plants in Mexico is entirely water-self-sufficient, meeting all its needs with a liquid that’s left over when milk is dried into Nido brand powder.

The AWS certification process includes a commitment to improving water usage and gathering data on water collection.

Nestle’s water-saving approach will vary among factories, but in rural areas, it may work with farmers in the surrounding areas to help them optimise irrigation practices and avoid the use of pesticides.

Overflowing crater lakes carved canyons across Mars

Today, most of the water on Mars is locked away in frozen ice caps. But billions of years ago it flowed freely across the surface, forming rushing rivers that emptied into craters, forming lakes and seas. New research has found evidence that sometimes the lakes would take on so much water that they overflowed and burst from the sides of their basins, creating catastrophic floods that carved canyons very rapidly, perhaps in a matter of weeks.
The findings suggest that catastrophic geologic processes may have had a major role in shaping the landscape of Mars and other worlds without plate tectonics, said lead author Tim Goudge, a postdoctoral researcher at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences who will be starting as an assistant professor at the school in 2019.

The research was published Nov. 16 in the journal Geology. Co-authors include NASA scientist Caleb Fassett and Jackson School Professor and Associate Dean of Research David Mohrig.

From studying rock formations from satellite images, scientists know that hundreds of craters across the surface of Mars were once filled with water. More than 200 of these "paleolakes" have outlet canyons tens to hundreds of kilometers long and several kilometers wide carved by water flowing from the ancient lakes.

However, until this study, it was unknown whether the canyons were gradually carved over millions of years or carved rapidly by single floods.

Staggering extent of human impact on planet revealed in new report

Humanity and the way we feed, fuel and finance our societies and economies are pushing nature and the services that power and sustain us to the brink, according to a new report that presents a sobering picture of the impact of human activity on the world's wildlife, forests, oceans, rivers, and climate.
A comprehensive overview of the state of our natural world, through multiple indicators including the Living Planet Index (LPI), which examines trends in global wildlife abundance. Tracking 16,704 populations of 4,005 vertebrate species, the LPI finds that global populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians have declined, on average, by 60 percent between 1970 and 2014, the most recent year with available data.

The top threats to species identified in the report are directly linked to human activities, including habitat loss and degradation and overexploitation of wildlife.

"This report sounds a warning shot across our bow. Natural systems essential to our survival -- forests, oceans, and rivers -- remain in decline. Wildlife around the world continue to dwindle," said Carter Roberts, President, and CEO of WWF-US. "It reminds us we need to change course. It's time to balance our consumption with the needs of nature, and to protect the only planet that is our home."

Over recent decades, human activity has also severely impacted the habitats and natural resources wildlife and humanity depend on, such as oceans, forests, coral reefs, wetlands, and mangroves. The Earth is estimated to have lost about half of its shallow water corals in the past 30 years and 20 percent of the Amazon has disappeared in just 50 years.

Reducing US coal emissions through biomass and carbon capture would boost employment

Many have expressed concerns about the loss of jobs as current technologies like coal-fired power plants. A new study has run the numbers associated with the impacts of cutting coal plant jobs while at the same time employing techniques for bioenergy coupled with carbon capture and storage. The model indicates that the BECCS approach would not only retain 40,000 jobs currently held as part of the coal industry but would create 22,000 new jobs in the forestry and transportation sectors by the middle of this century.

"In the ambitious attempt to limit global warming below 2°C, BECCS features as the dominant technology, yet it's been under considerable scrutiny for its unknown effects on the environment and society.

BECCS is a proposed technology for reducing the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It combines carbon capture and storage, in which CO2 is collected from large emission sources such as power plants and injected into underground geologic formations, with the increased use of biomass, like plant-based materials, as a source of fuel. Proponents of BECCS predict that more than 99% of carbon dioxide stored through geologic sequestration is likely to stay in place for more than 1,000 years. 

In the new study, the researchers studied in detail the major processes and steps involved in the potential energy supply chains for the U.S. coal fleet. Specifically, they looked at the supply of sustainable forest resources for biomass and the design and cost of infrastructure for transporting and injecting CO2 into appropriate geologic sites. The investigators used a number of different models to analyze existing data, including a biophysical model called the Global Forest Model; a techno-economic model called BeWhere, which optimizes the technology development of U.S. coal, including feedstock logistics; and the Jobs and Economic Development Impact model, which they used to estimate the employment impacts of technology development.

There are some limitations to this type of analysis. One thing, it does not consider the potential substitution of coal with other low-carbon options like renewables; thus, it reflects a limited picture of the future economy. For another, the models don't include any equilibrium in the economy but are a bottom-up supply-chain optimization for specific technologies. Depending on these issues, outcomes of employing BECCS could differ with regard to job creation. Further analysis could, therefore, focus on emphasizing the socioeconomic effects of substituting renewable technologies for existing fossil-based capacity or on detecting larger, macroeconomic effects of low-carbon technology deployment, the researchers say.