- Industry: Broadcasting & receiving
- Number of terms: 5074
- Number of blossaries: 1
- Company Profile:
The largest broadcasting organisation in the world.
Biodiesel is fuel generated from vegetable oil that can be used pure or blended with regular diesel (diesel produced by refining crude oil) in conventional, unmodified diesel engines. It is not the same as waste vegetable oil, otherwise known as 'unwashed biodiesel', which requires engine modification.
Industry:Natural environment
Biofuel is a general term for fuel, including biodiesel, that is derived from biomass - living or recently dead organic matter. In general it is made from sugar, starch, vegetable oils or animal fats. Examples include bio-ethanol from energy crops such sugar cane, corn, palm oil, and rape seed.
Industry:Natural environment
Biomass is renewable organic matter that can be used as fuel. It is living or recently dead material - wood and other plant matter, or even animal waste. Fuel derived from biomass is known as biofuel. It does not include fossil fuels, which have formed - and stored their carbon - over millions of years. Because the CO2 released when biomass is burned is balanced by the CO2 absorbed during its production - and because new plant matter is re-growing and absorbing more CO2 all the time - it's regarded as carbon neutral.
Industry:Natural environment
Carbon is the fourth most common chemical element in the universe, and carbon compounds - in other words, carbon chemically combined with other elements - are the basis of all known life forms on earth. Pure carbon appears in many apparently diverse forms, from diamond to graphite to charcoal, but it is much more commonly found in substances such as coal, oil, natural gas, wood and peat that we use for fuel. When we burn these substances to provide energy - either directly in our homes as heat, or in power stations to produce electricity - the combustion process produces 'oxides' of carbon, including the gas CO2.
Industry:Natural environment
CO2 is made up of the elements carbon and oxygen. It exists quite naturally in our atmosphere, as part of the carbon cycle. Everyday processes in the plant and animal world both add CO2 to the atmosphere and take it out. However, because it is a greenhouse gas - meaning it affects the temperature of the earth - the exact level of CO2 is important. Burning fossil fuels releases CO2 into the atmosphere, hence the anxiety that extensive use of these fuels is causing climate change.
Industry:Natural environment
Six greenhouse gases are limited by the Kyoto Protocol and each has a different global warming potential. The overall warming effect of this cocktail of gases is often expressed in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent - the amount of CO2 that would cause the same amount of warming.
Industry:Natural environment
A unit of measure. The amount of carbon emitted by a country per unit of Gross Domestic Product.
Industry:Natural environment
A term used to refer to the problem whereby industry relocates to countries where emission regimes are weaker, or non-existent.
Industry:Natural environment
A business or a process is described as carbon neutral if it doesn't add to the net amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. This can be achieved either by emitting no CO2 to begin with - by using only renewable energy, say - or by 'offsetting' emissions (a controversial issue) which means compensating for emissions by another action which might reduce atmospheric CO2, such as planting trees. In practice, it is impossible for a person to live in an entirely carbon neutral way because even if you cut out energy consumption derived from fossil fuels, most products and services people rely on will have embodied emissions.
Industry:Natural environment
Global warming refers to the increase in the earth's surface (or near-surface) temperature in recent decades due to higher levels of greenhouse gases, and the projected worsening of this effect over time.
Industry:Natural environment
