The concentrations of the atmospheric greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide, methane and water vapor - are undergoing continuous net increases, and in recognition of this situation, engineering and natural scientists have been working at developing technologies for the abatement of the emission of greenhouse gases, GHG. Evolving from these development efforts are of technologies that aptly are GHG Emission Abatement Technologies. These constitute alternative energy adoption aimed at remedying the continual net increase generation of GHG emission. These technologies are anticipated as the second generation to the first generation GHG Emission Reduction Technologies, which provide immediate response to GHG emission by adapting current energy generation technologies to emit less GHG than otherwise.

GHG Emission Abatement Technologies

In addition to mitigating the ecologically unbalanced generation of carbon dioxide, another consideration has been on the adoption of a bio-fuel as an alternative fuel source to fossil fuels. The rationale underpinning this consideration is that a bio-fuel, in the least, will lead to a dynamic equilibrium between the generation and consumption of the carbon dioxide: The volume of production of carbon dioxide as a result of the usage of the bio-fuel by humanity will equal the rate of absorption of the carbon dioxide by bio-systems from which the bio-fuel is produced; and thereby establishing a plateauing of the heating effect of the carbon dioxide.

With respect to the use of bio-fuel instead of fossil fuels, three approaches are currently being pursued. The initial decision to use bio-fuel, consequent on the rationale for use for bio-fuel in the rush for alternative energy source for adoption, adopted  ethanol produced from Corn grains as the interim choice bio-fuel. The secondary approach, obtaining as a result of evolving opposing-considerations towards the use of corn, is the use of Cellulosic materials as grasses to produce the ethanol. A parallel approach to this latter alternative, albeit a third approach, is the use of Algal Bio-Diesel (ab-diesel) which grows algae that produce the bio-oil needed to synthesize the bio-diesel. 

The essence of grain ethanol process is fairly straight forward, a concept process based on a direct conversion of the technique to a continuous commercial process has also been well-document under Combustibles Energy sources Review addressing issues involving the adoption of  forms of energy sources. At the moment an alternative source being advocated is the use of grasses. The adoption of cellulosic ethanol has been advocated on the recognition that these grasses are able to grow

in virtually any environment, and a such farm lands need not be used for their cultivation. The Cellulosic ethanol process too has been addressed under the Combustibles Energy Sources Review, as is the process for a Bio-diesel process; and the engineer entrepreneur interested in these processes may refer to those.

Another GHG emission abatement technology is the  Green Freedom Technology, supposedly a net-neutral GHG emitter. This is technology developed at the US Los Alamos Laboratory which captures carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converts it into gasoline for consumption. The technology on the surface promise net-neutral GHG emission in the sense that the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere is captured converted into gasoline and when used simply produces the carbon dioxide from which it is produced. This is the argument as presented by the developers of the technology.

Impact of Abatement Technologies

Each approach however has it attendant problems that needs addressing as well.

With respect to the approach of using bio-fuel of grain alcohol, an obvious defect with this  consideration is that there is no way of knowing when this plateau will occur, if it would occur soon enough to save the planet Earth, or if it will even occur at all given the continuous growth of the human population. In fact this consideration will invariably at some point in time require population control in order to maintain a balance between the eco-systems and the activities of human beings, because the aforementioned dynamic equilibrium in the rate of production and consumption of the carbon dioxide is consequent on the latter balance between the eco-systems with human beings embodied in it as well.

However, besides the doubts about the prevalence of the anticipate dynamic equilibrium in the use of bio-fuel as explained above, there is even a more immediately adverse impact of the use of ethanol as an alternative fuel: Global hunger; the number people who are going hungry everyday has increased. The conversion of farmlands to produce ethanol has the opportunity cost of production of less food for meals by human beings. There are now calls against the adoption of ethanol as bio-fuel in view of this opportunity cost on humanity.

Admittedly, the contribution to World hunger by the adoption of grain ethanol, however, can be alleviated with use of alternative sources of energy that do not require the use of farm lands for energy source production instead of food production; and the adoption of cellulosic ethanol has been advanced because of this development, however, even that alternative seem to be replete with issues of invasive species.

An effective solution to this seemingly intractable problem, though not desirable is the adoption of Palm Ethanol. Tropical countries have large count of Palm trees that do not interfere with food production both in the tropical countries and in anywhere else. besides these plants do not have to be harvested and replanted regularly or even occasionally. These plants therefore provide the best alternative to the grain and cellulosic ethanol adoption issues.

The use of algal bio-diesel while very interesting and submits to the production by individual fuel needs with the resulting saving of funds, and not minimizing the possible venture opportunity that it also provides an entrepreneur, this approach does not have any real market potential to support commercial viability.

Analysis of the Green Freedom Technology also raises some concerns of potential limitations. In essence as presented the technology captures carbon dioxide converts it into gasoline for use, which simply re-discharges the carbon dioxide. The seemingly potential limitation to the claim is that energy is consumed to support the capturing and conversion into gasoline process. A net energy analysis has not been performed and the performance of such analysis seems to either give very little net-gain or non-at-all in energy in excess of the quantity of energy consumed for the production. Such a situation effectively would leave this technology promising more than it can deliver. A detailed energy balance analysis really needs to be performed on the technology in order to confirm that the technology is in fact as it is purported to be. Until then, the asserted provisions of the technology is only being taken on face value.

However, even with the anticipated issues with the net advantage in the energy content of the gasoline from the Green Freedom Technology, the technology still provides the opportunity for using less fossil fuel energy source and consequentially, abatement of the rate of GHG emission into the atmosphere.

Ultimately for society to move forward and get a handle on the issue of global warming and energy shortage price-spikes, other methods must be developed. Besides, the adopted method must either support the need for centralized corporate level production operations such as is true of Power companies as well as energy distribution requirements, or complement itself with the adoption of hydrogen gas as the means of distribution of the energy.

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