Headline: RIFS Blog November 2014

The German Minister for Education and Research Professor Johanna Wanka spoke recently at the inauguration of a power-to-liquid plant in Dresden: “This method reduces CO2 emissions and thus makes us less dependent on crude oil. In this way, we can protect our climate, save resources, and at the same time promote a technology that promises economic growth. Furthermore, the biggest advantage of power-to-liquid fuels is that the entire infrastructure of already existing gas stations, pipelines and engines can be used without any adjustments.

This December, the 20th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) will be held in Lima, Peru. There climate change negotiations will focus on reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, the long-lived greenhouse gas primarily responsible for anthropogenic climate change. However, on the short-term, air pollutants that also have an influence on climate, known as short-lived climate forcing pollutants (SLCPs) should also be addressed.

In the basement, in an alcove that’s almost a small room, stands a small wood stove. If it weren’t on a pedestal, it would barely be a metre high; but even so it’s small, almost cute. The wood from which it’s made appears to be untreated; its whiteness is rustic, quaint, innocent.

It takes a minute to realise what’s wrong. A ‘wood stove’ should be a stove for burning wood – not one made of wood. It should make combustion possible without itself being combustible.