One of the assumptions underlying efforts to convert cropping land, especially marginal crop land, to plantations is that there will be a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, with a gas "sink" replacing a high energy system in which the breakdown of biomass is routinely accelerated to prepare for new crops. This research, based on case studies in Kingaroy in southeast Queensland, compares...

For some years now, problems relating to gas emissions that affect climate and result from human activities have assumed a global dimension of large importance. The climate is, indeed, influenced by the concentrations of some pollutants in the atmosphere; these pollutants trap the long wave radiation emitted by the Earth and alter the energy balance, causing an accentuation of the natural green...

This article briefly outlines the cause of global warming, its trends and consequences as indicated by the International Panel on Climate Change. Sea-level rise is one consequence of particular concern to Pacific island states. It also reviews the views of economists about connections between economic growth and global warming. Whereas the majority of economists did not foresee a conflict betwe...

The prospect of state government driven carbon emission reduction targets brings with it the prospect of local target setting. Such targets will need to be based on good quality estimates of energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions along with viable assumptions about reduction potential at the local level. So there is a growing requirement for good quality emissions data at the level of local...

conjunction with horizontal drilling. However, the environmental implications of NG production and its use have been called into question.1-4 One of the major concerns is the amount methane (CH4) leakage from production activities and its impact on the life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of NG. Examining the Impacts of Methane Leakage on Life-Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Shale and Co...

Independent verification of greenhouse gas emissions reporting is a legal requirement of the Kyoto Protocol, which has not yet been fully accomplished. Here, we show that dedicated long-term atmospheric measurements of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO(2)) and methane (CH(4)), continuously conducted at polluted sites can provide the necessary tool for this undertaking. From our measu...

Transport makes up 20 percent of the World’s energy use; in OECD countries this has exceeded 30 percent. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the global energy consumption will increase by 2.1 percent annually, a growth rate that is higher than for any other sector. The high energy consumption means that transportation accounts for nearly 30 percent of CO2 emission in OECD count...

Concerns about atmospheric emissions of greenhouse gases and operation costs are converging to increase incentives for both the electric utility and magnesium industries to rapidly locate and repair equipment leaks (Irwin, 1997). The primary culprit is sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), an invisible, non-hazardous, inert gas with near-perfect dielectric properties that is used as an insulating gas in h...