HORIZON INTERNATIONAL SOLUTIONS SITE

Study Reveals the Potentially Large Influences of Fungi, One of the Most Biologically Diverse Classes of Organisms, On Our Energy Supplies

A new study which includes the first large-scale comparison of fungi that cause rot decay suggests that the evolution of a type of fungi known as white rot may have brought an end to a 60-million-year-long period of coal deposition known as the Carboniferous period. Coal deposits that accumulated during the Carboniferous, which ended about 300 million years ago, have historically fueled about 50 percent of U.S. electric power generation.

A total of five percent of global electricity consumption could be saved every year through a transition to efficient lighting, resulting in annual worldwide savings of over US$ 110 billion. These are among the main findings of 150 country lighting assessments and a new global policy map on efficient lighting.  An en.lighten press conference at Rio +20 highlighted the planned phase-out of inefficient lighting which is designed to deliver major economic and climate benefits by 2016.

The oceans may be acidifying faster today than they did in the last 300 million years, according to scientists who published a paper in the March 2, 2012 issue of the journal Science. "These scientists have synthesized and evaluated evidence far back in Earth's history," said Candace Major, program officer in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research. "The ocean acidification we're seeing today is unprecedented…a result of the very fast rates at which we're changing the chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans."

Denmark is a leader in implementing well-designed policies for renewable energy, energy efficiency and global climate change, according to a review of Danish energy policies published on 21 February 2012 by the International Energy Agency (IEA).