What is the gas playing a key role in climate change? — Carbon dioxide is a colourless and odourless gas which occurs naturally in the earth’s atmosphere. It is often known by its chemical symbol CO2. How is carbon dioxide formed? Carbon is the basis of life on earth. It is found in almost everything on our planet. Because the earth has a closed atmosphere, the same…

How do we make sure there’s always a balance between the demand and supply of electricity? — Electricity trading is the way companies that generate electricity sell it to the companies that supply power. Power suppliers then sell that electricity on directly to their customers. The process is managed by the system operator, currently National Grid ESO in Great Britain. It’s the system operator’s responsibility to ensure…

Renewable energy is key to tackling climate change. But what exactly is it? — Renewable energy is energy that is generated from a source that is either limitless — like the sun, wind or water — or one that can be regenerated in a human timescale: such as sustainably managed forests. Non-renewable energy comes from finite resources — like coal, oil and natural gas…

Why is our planet’s climate changing and what can we do to mitigate it? — Climate change is how we describe the process that has led to rising temperatures around the world since the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century. What causes climate change? Temperatures around the world have always gone up and down over long periods of time in the past. However, temperatures are climbing more quickly today…

We investigate some of the ways nature and technology can enable us to remove more CO2 from the atmosphere than we emit. The 6th post in our series ‘Powering to net zero’. — Negative emissions are what we call the process when more CO2 or greenhouse gases are taken out of the atmosphere than are being emitted. There are a number of ways to achieve negative emissions. Some are based on nature, whilst others are a result of innovative technology developed to remove…

Why we need to reduce and remove our carbon dioxide (CO2) output — At its simplest level, decarbonisation means the process through which we remove or reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) an individual country’s economy emits. It’s usually achieved by reducing the CO2 emissions produced by the industries that play a part in that country’s economy. Why does decarbonisation matter so much? Many parts of industry rely…

How energy dense sustainable biomass wood pellets can help us generate the renewable electricity we need to reach net zero. The 4th post in our series ‘Powering to net zero’. — Since humans first lit a log fire, we’ve been using biomass to generate energy. But nowadays we can use biomass for heating or to generate renewable bioenergy at a much greater scale than ever before. How? By compressing organic materials such as wood, sawdust and by-products from the forestry industry…

Powering to net zero — Exploring how sustainable biomass can deliver negative emissions. The 3rd in our series ‘Powering to net zero’. Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is the name given to the process of capturing and permanently storing the carbon dioxide (CO2) produced when generating electricity from biomass. Why does BECCS matter so much for decarbonisation? When combined with carbon…

In the second in our series ‘Powering to net zero’, we look at how planting more trees could help limit climate change. — At its simplest level, reforestation is the technical term that describes the process of planting new native trees in a wooded area where the number of trees is going down. It literally means ‘re-foresting’ a location. Afforestation is what professionals call it when they create a new area of forest — by planting trees or sowing seeds where there were no trees before.