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"TrueFuel™ is the Answer"

Good News on Global Warming

Oceans and land masses absorb most of the sun's energy that reaches the earth. The oceans and land masses radiate the energy back into the atmosphere in the form of heat.

Most of this heat is absorbed and bounced back to earth by atmospheric gases such as water vapor and carbon dioxide. These atmospheric gases trap the heat and send the heat back to the earth. This is called the greenhouse effect and the gases that trap the heat are called greenhouse gases. The greenhouse effect keeps the earth some 60°F warmer thanit would otherwise be. As concentrations of greenhouse gases increase, the warming effect increases.

The Reality of Global Warming

There is no doubt that the composition of the atmosphere is changing because of human activities. Today greenhouse gases are the largest human influence on global climate according to the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center, and the head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. They predict more frequent heat waves,
droughts, extreme precipitation events, and related impacts, e.g., wildfires, heat stress, vegetation changes, and sea-level rise, with average global temperatures likely to rise by between 3.1 and 8.9 degrees Fahrenheit. This will further melt already crumbling glaciers, flooding coastal areas. Many other groups have already shown that ice in Greenland, the Arctic and Antarctica is melting quickly.

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have risen by 31 percent since pre-industrial times. Carbon dioxide is the No. 1 greenhouse gas, causing warming temperatures by trapping the Sun's energy in the atmosphere. In fact, climate change is truly a global issue, one that may prove to be humanity's greatest challenge, because it is very unlikely to be solved without greatly improved international cooperation and action.

How Serious is Global Warming?

Rising global temperatures are expected to raise sea level, and change precipitation and other local climate conditions. Changing regional climate could alter forests, crop yields, and water supplies. It could also affect human health, animals, and many types of ecosystems. Deserts may expand into existing rangelands, and features of some of our National Parks may be permanently altered.

Most of the United States is expected to warm. Scientists currently are unable to determine which parts of the United States will become wetter or drier. However, there is likely to be an overall trend toward increased precipitation and evaporation, more intense rainstorms, and drier soils.

Unfortunately, many of the potentially most important impacts depend upon whether rainfall increases or decreases, which can not be reliably projected for specific areas.

The bad effects of global warming are already out there. For example, the United Nations weather agency reports that the year 2003, marked by a sweltering summer and drought across large swaths of the planet, was the third hottest in nearly 150 years. The hottest year was 1998 and 2002 was the second hottest. The World Health Organization says that climate change may be to blame for some 150,000 deaths each year, with tropical places and poor countries being the most vulnerable. The WHO also predicted that diarrhea,
malaria and dengue fever will surge and swathes of southern Asia are likely to be hit by malnutrition as a result of global warming. France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Britain and Spain, had estimated 21,000 deaths in the 2003 heat wave. Glaciers melted in Europe's mountain ranges twice as fast as the record set in 1998. Parts of the United States including Alaska, Canada, parts of China, Russia, and Africa and the Indian subcontinent had heat waves. There were more typhoons, cyclones and hurricanes than average in the Pacific and Atlantic regions. Global warming could submerge three of India's biggest cities beneath the sea by 2020 unless the crisis is brought under control. Since 1976 temperatures have risen three times faster than during the 20th century, so the rate of increase in temperatures is accelerating.

Solutions

Because the problem is so difficult to solve, you may hear of some strange solutions. For example, scientists are drilling deep into the earth of West Virginia. They want to see if a spongy layer of rock 9,000 feet beneath the surface can hold carbon dioxide. You can just imagine how expensive collecting carbon dioxide and storing it this way could be.

New Study: Diesel Soot Causes Global Warming

Today there is a new study announcing that soot is twice as potent as carbon dioxide in changing global surface temperatures.

Soot, mostly from diesel engines, is blocking snow and ice from reflecting sunlight, which is contributing to "near worldwide melting of ice" and as much as a quarter of all observed global warming, top NASA scientists say.

Soot is made up of carbon particles that are the byproduct of burning fossil fuels and vegetation. In developed countries, the biggest source of soot is diesel fuel. Elsewhere, burning wood, animal dung, vegetable oil and other biofuels are a major source of soot.

The director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a staff associate there recently found that soot is twice as potent as carbon dioxide in changing global surface air temperatures in the Arctic and the Northern Hemisphere.

TrueFuel™ is the Answer

TrueFuel can be used to power diesel engines. When used to power diesel engines, TrueFuel can reduce or virtually eliminate diesel hydrocarbons, the “black smoke,” from diesel engines.

There are over 50,000 megawatts of diesel generators installed in the U.S. Making one megawatt of
electricity uses about $60,000 of diesel fuel per month. The world market is many times the size of
the U.S. market.

These diesel generators can be set up as bi-fuel systems with TrueFuel. A bi-fuel system is one where
the engine may be switched from one fuel to another. A bi-fuel diesel system allows the diesel generator to
be fueled by either diesel fuel or by TrueFuel. Using TrueFuel as the primary fuel reduces cost, reduces harmful emissions, cuts fuel storage requirements, and TrueFuel can be made on site in remote locations.

Diesel generators, like the one pictured below, are already being produced to run as bifuel systems with natural gas. These can readily be adapted to run TrueFuel. Aside from up to a 90% reduction in NOx emissions and a near elimination of hydrocarbon particles (“black smoke”), the diesel genset’s performance is virtually unchanged. AERC has already started to market these systems.

Conclusion

This new report on soot causes us to see that for the problem of global warming as well, TrueFuel is the Answer.