For all the hope and hype surrounding algae-based biofuels, producers like Solazyme are finding perhaps more success in selling their low-carbon oil for use in cosmetics, lubricants and food.
FORBES: Solazyme Taps Asia Market In Algae Oil Deal With Japanese Conglomerate
Before we started torching carbon stored in forests and then carbon stored underground as coal and oil, the carbon dioxide concentration of our atmosphere was about 280 parts per million (ppm).
FORBES: Global Warming: Hotheads, Flatliners and Lukewarmers, Part One
Natural gas emits 29% less carbon dioxide than oil and 45% less than coal, and it can be used in high-efficiency combined cycle power stations.
The three conventional forms of fossil carbon oil, coal and gas differ both in the way the Earth stores them and the way its people use them.
Sure, it would be cheaper (short term) to use carbon-spewing oil.
Indeed, the division with the highest return on investment in the Kinder empire (26% in 2011) provides carbon dioxide for oil companies and itself to inject into old fields to goose out stubborn oil.
Both agree that geology is a strong card: there is thought to be enough space to store billions of tonnes of carbon in empty oil and gas fields alone, and far more in subterranean salt caverns.
ECONOMIST: Carbon-capture technology offers a new use for old assets
Also looming is a decision whether to grant a permit to the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would transport carbon-laden tar sands oil from Canada to Texas.
Ecuador has also proposed that OPEC levy a carbon tax at the oil wellhead, a concept devised by environmental economist Herman Daly.
The oil sands catch a lot of flack from the antis for being, among other things, more carbon intensive than other sources of oil.
Last year a Dutch study found that draining Indonesian swamps to make way for oil-palm plantations resulted in 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions for each tonne of palm oil produced, by speeding up the decomposition of the peaty soil.
Our final table (Green Dividends, above) looks at an assortment of potential winners in an era of costly oil and penalized carbon.
The Senate is considering clean-energy and climate legislation that would put Americans back to work, reduce our reliance on foreign oil and cut carbon emissions.
CNN: Obama's China trip is high-stakes mission for environment
You might think that Team Obama would accept this development (if not be particularly delighted with it) since natural gas emits significantly less carbon dioxide than coal and oil, but you would be wrong.
FORBES: A "Mean Green", Obama Wages War Against Cheap Energy
Many analyses, though, suggest that, to have an appreciable effect on the oil sector, carbon taxes would have to be quite high in the neighborhood of two dollars on a gallon of gasoline precisely because today there are no readily available substitutes for gas or diesel or jet fuel.
Shell, Chevron and Marathon Oil announced today that they will build a carbon capture and sequestration mechanism into their 225, 000 barrels per day Athabasca Oil Sands Project.
"Biofuels, like palm oil, produce more carbon emissions than they save, fuel land grabs and increase global food prices, " she said.
Now, the only long-term solution to high energy prices is reducing our dependence on foreign oil and lowering the carbon intensity of our economy.
CNN: Clinton's November 19, 2007, speech on economic challenges
Because of the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, carbon dioxide levels have gone up by that amount in just 55 years.
Just days after the American election, the Canadian prime minister proposed a continental cap-and-trade system to control carbon emissions something the oil industry in Canada adamantly opposed.
Because the carbon fuels industry -- big oil and coal -- have a 50-year lease on the Republican Party, and they are drilling it for everything it's worth.
Because the carbon fuels industry big oil and coal have a 50-year lease on the Republican Party, and they are drilling it for everything it's worth.
In some locations, sedimentation created sufficient pressure to convert -- to cook -- the unoxidized carbon in the organic material into oil, some of which was trapped in reservoirs.
While the pipeline project is a better alternative from a carbon pollution standpoint than shipping the oil by rail, the emissions created by harvesting tar sands, processing them into oil and eventually burning it in automobiles in the U.S. and abroad will contribute to global warming.
The prime minister urged the wealthy oil-producing Gulf nations to invest more in areas such as carbon capture and storage, as a way of diversifying beyond oil.
The Carbon Club is green slang for the oil companies and other purveyors of hydrocarbon fuels.
It is premised on the notion that Big Oil is pouring lots of carbon-drenched money into pockets of climate crisis skeptics.
FORBES: 'Greeny Lying Bastards' and Other Carbon Disinformation
While raising the tax is politically unpopular, theoretically, raising the gas tax would fix crumbling highways, lower oil imports, and reduce carbon emissions.
Carbon dioxide can sometimes be sold to oil companies for injection into partially depleted wells, in order to force more petroleum out of them.
It is seen, therefore, as a bridge fuel, one that takes us from coal and oil to some mix of carbon-free energy in the future.
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