EcoRadio

Category: Climate chaos

The atmosphere is to the earth as a layer of varnish is to a desktop globe. It is thin, fragile and essential for preserving the items on the surface.150 years of burning fossil fuel have overloaded the atmosphere to the point where the earth is ill. It now has a fever. Read the detailed article, Soothing Gaia’s Fever for an evocative account of that analogy. The items listed here detail progress on coordinating 6.5 billion people in the most critical project undertaken by humanity. 

  • The price of climate change

     

    Opponents of Waxman-Markey, when not denying that global warming is real, are resorting to another time-honoured tactic of scaring people with wildly inflated cost estimates. Fortified with alarming numbers from thinktanks, opponents are calling the bill a “tax-and-trade” scheme that would saddle families with an unbearable financial burden for decades.

    One source of these spurious numbers, the Heritage Foundation, claims that Waxman-Markey would reduce GDP by a total of $7.4tn and destroy 1.9 million jobs by the year 2035. A family’s electricity bill would climb 90% and natural gas prices would climb 55%, adding $1,500 to the family budget. An even scarier assertion that the bill would cost families $3,100 was purportedly based on an MIT study – a claim that one of the study’s authors, John Reilly, roundly disputed.

    Opponents reached these conclusions by exaggerating the downside and ignoring the upside altogether. They have overstated the costs of renewable energy, underestimated the future costs of fossil fuels and left out the cost savings of improving energy efficiency. The Heritage Foundation report projects home energy prices will increase three to four times faster than the Congressional Budget Office or Environmental Protection Agency studies, and doesn’t include any benefits from improvements in energy efficiency or investing in new industries.

    The CBO came in with a cost of $175 per household. The EPA projects a lower net cost per household of $80 to $111 per year, and predicts energy savings for US households would lower utility bills by roughly 7% by 2020. Critics often cite the burden on the poor as a reason to not support renewable energy. But the CBO analysis projects a net benefit to the lowest income quintile of $40 per year.

    These savings will come by investing in renewable energy technologies that won’t be subject to the relentless and inexorable increase in fossil fuel prices. The EPA projects that by 2025 two thirds of new energy generation will be from renewable sources.

    We heard similar scare tactics here in Delaware during a recent debate over offshore wind power, when opponents tossed out wildly inflated cost projections, some as much as 10 times higher than official estimates. But citizens and elected leaders considered the benefits, not just the exaggerated cost projections, and Delaware became the first state to sign off on an agreement to build offshore wind power.

    There is one important factor the Heritage, CBO and EPA analyses all leave out: the cost of unchecked global warming, which could be considerable. Global warming will do more than inconvenience a few polar bears. Reduced snow melts in the Rockies and the Himalayas could disrupt agricultural water supplies in the US, China and India.

    As more water is released from ice caps and mountain ranges, rising sea levels could force the relocation of significant populations and disrupt important infrastructure. Here in Delaware, rising sea levels could flood the principal highway and rail line connecting New York and Washington. Water and sewer service for more than half of Delaware’s residents could be rendered unsafe or shut down altogether.

    A bill this complex on a subject this important deserves careful review. But opponents of Waxman-Markey have resorted to distorted analysis, one-sided arguments and crass exaggerations to make the case that we can’t afford to act. More careful – and balanced – analysis leads to the opposite conclusion that can’t afford to wait.

  • Rising sea level to submerge Louisiana coastline by 2100, study warns

     

     

    For New Orleans, and other low-lying areas of Louisiana whose vulnerability was exposed by hurricane Katrina, the findings could bring some hard choices about how to defend the coast against the future sea level rises that will be produced by climate change.

     

    They also revive the debate about the long-term sustainability of New Orleans and other low-lying areas.

     

    Scientists say New Orleans and the barrier islands to the south will be severely affected by climate change by the end of this century, with sea level rise and growing intensity of hurricanes. Much of the land mass of the barrier island chain sheltering New Orleans was lost in the 2005 storm.

     

    But the extent of the land that will be lost is far greater than earlier forecasts suggest, said Dr Michael Blum and Prof Harry Roberts, the authors of the study. “When you look at the numbers you come to the conclusion that the resources are just not there to restore all the coast, and that is one of the major points of this paper,” said Roberts, a professor emeritus of marine geology at Louisiana State University.

     

    Blum, who was formerly at Louisiana State University, now works at Exxon. “I think every geologist that has worked on this problem realises the future does not look very bright unless we can come up with some innovative ways to get that sediment in the right spot,” said Roberts. “For managers and people who are squarely in the restoration business, this is going to force them to make some very hard decisions about which areas to save and which areas you can’t save.”

     

    Efforts to keep pace with the accelerated rate of sea level rise due to global warming are compromised by the Mississippi’s declining ability to bear sediments downstream into the delta.

     

    The authors used sediment data from the Mississippi flood plain to estimate the amount of sediment deposited on the river delta during the past 12,000 years. They then compared this with sediment deposition today.

     

    In paper published in Nature Geoscience they calculate that due to dam and levee building on the Mississippi the sediment carried by the river has been reduced significantly. There are now about 8,000 dams on the Mississippi river system. Roberts said such constructions and the system of levees in Louisiana had cut in half the sediment carried down to the delta, inhibiting the river’s ability to compensate for the land lost to rising seas.

     

    Sustaining the existing delta size would require 18 to 24bn tonnes of sediment, which the authors say is significantly more than can be drawn from the river in its current state. “We conclude that significant drowning is inevitable,” the authors wrote. “In the absence of sediment input, land surfaces that are now below 1m in elevation will be converted to open water or marsh.”

     

     

     

  • Climate war could kill nearly all of us,leaving survivors in the Stone Age

     

    The followers of the peace lobbies of the 1930s resembled the environmentalist movements now; their intentions were more than good but wholly inappropriate for the war that was about to start. It is time to wake up and realize that Gaia, the Earth system, is no cozy mother that nurtures humans and can be propitiated by gestures such as carbon trading or sustainable development.

    Gaia, even though we are a part of her, will always dictate the terms of peace. I am stirred by the thought that Gaia has existed for more than a quarter the age of the universe and that it has taken this long for a species to evolve that can think, communicate, and store its thoughts and experiences.

    If we can keep civilization alive through this century perhaps there is a chance that our descendants will one day serve Gaia and assist her in the fine-tuned self-regulation of the climate and composition of our planet.

    We have enjoyed 12,000 years of climate peace since the last shift from a glacial age to an interglacial one. Before long, we may face planet-wide devastation worse even than unrestricted nuclear war between superpowers. The climate war could kill nearly all of us and leave the few survivors living a Stone Age existence. But in several places in the world, including the U.K., we have a chance of surviving and even of living well.

    For that to be possible, we have to make our lifeboats seaworthy now. Back in May 1940, we in the UK awoke to find facing us across the Channel a wholly hostile continental force about to invade. We were alone without an effective ally but fortunate to have a new leader, Winston Churchill, whose moving words stirred the whole nation from its lethargy: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.”

    We all need modern Churchills to lead us from the clinging, flabby, consensual thinking of the late twentieth century and to bind our nations with a single-minded effort to wage a difficult war.

    • From Conservation magazine, part of the Guardian Environment Network

  • Energy bills ‘too low’ to combat climate change

     

    “We have adapted to an energy price which is unrealistically low if we’re going to try and preserve the environment,” John Shepherd, a climate scientist at Southampton University and co-author of the report said. “We have to allow the economy to adapt to higher energy prices through carbon prices and that will then make things like renewables and nuclear more economic, as carbon-based alternatives become more expensive.”

    Shepherd admitted higher energy costs would be a hard sell to the public, but said it was not unthinkable. Part of the revenue could be generated by a carbon tax that took the place of VAT, so that the cost of an item took into account the energy and carbon footprint of a product. This would allow people to make appropriate decisions on their spending, and also raise cash for research into alternatives.

    “Our research expenditure on non-fossil energy sources is 0.2% of what we spend on energy itself,” said Shepherd. “Multiplying that by 10 would be a very sensible thing to do. We’re spending less than 1% on probably the biggest problem we’ve faced in many decades.”

    He said that the priority should be to decarbonise the UK’s electricity supply. Measures such as the government’s recent support for electric cars, he said, would be of no use unless the electricity they used came from carbon-free sources.

    Though the creation of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) was a good move, Shepherd said: “We’ve had a lot of good talk but we still have remarkably little in the way of action.”

    He cited the recent DECC proposals on carbon capture and storage (CCS) as an example. The department plans to legislate that any new coal-fired power station must demonstrate CCS on a proportion of its output. Once the technology is proven, a judgment made by the EnvironmentAgency around 2020, power plants would have five years to scale up to full CCS.

    Shepherd said the proposals were not bold enough. “Really, it needs to be ‘no new coal unless you have 90% emissions reductions by 2020’. That is achievable and, if that were a clear signal, industry would get on and do it. It’s taken a long time for that signal to come through and now that it has, it’s a half-hearted message.”

    A spokesperson for DECC argued that its proposed regulatory measures were “the most environmentally ambitious in the world, and would see any new coal power stations capturing at least 20-25% of their carbon emissions from day one”.

    Ed Miliband, energy and climate change secretary, said that a white paper due next month will lay out how Britain will source its energy for the coming decades.

    “This white paper will be the first time we’ve set out our vision of an energy mix in the context of carbon budgets and climate change targets. We have identified ways to tackle the challenges – we will need a mix of renewables, clean fossil fuels and nuclear and we’re already making world-leading progress in those areas. It’s a transition plan, a once in a generation statement of how the UK will make the historic and permanent move to a low-carbon economy with emissions cut by at least 80% in the middle of the century.”

    The Royal Society report will argue that energy policy has been too fragmented and short-term in its outlook, with a tendency to hunt for silver-bullet solutions to climate change. “That really isn’t the case. What we need is a portfolio of solutions, horses for courses,” said Shepherd.

  • China recruits algae to combat climate change

     

    Developed by a groundbreaking Chinese firm, ENN, the greenhouse is a bioreactor that breeds microalgae, one of the fastest growing organisms on the planet, with carbon captured from gasified coal.

    China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, largely because it relies on coal for 70 per cent of its power. Almost none of the carbon dioxide is captured, partly because there is no profitable way of using it.

    Algae may be the answer. The organism can absorb carbon far more quickly than trees, a quality that has long attracted international scientists seeking a natural method of capturing the most abundant greenhouse gas.

    At ENN’s research campus in Langfang, an hour’s drive from Beijing, scientists are testing microalgae to clean up the back-end of a uniquely integrated process to extract and use coal more efficiently and cleanly than is possible today.

    Coal is first gasified in a simulated underground environment. The carbon dioxide is extracted with the help of solar and wind power, then “fed” to algae, which can be then used to make biofuel, fertiliser or animal feed.

    Foreign experts are enthusiastic. “Algae biofuels and sequestration are being tried in a bunch of places, but never with such an innovative energy mix,” said Deborah Seligsohn, of the World Resources Institute, who visited ENN recently with a group of international energy executives. “It is really interesting and ambitious.”

    Researchers at the algae greenhouse plan to scale up the trial to a 100 hectare (247 acre) site over the next three years. If it proves commercially feasible, coal plants around the world could one day be flanked by carbon-cleaning algae greenhouses or ponds.

    “Algae’s promise is that its population can double every few hours. It makes far more efficient use of sunlight than plants,” said Zhu Zhenqi, a senior advisor on the project. “The biology has been proven in the lab. The challenge now is an engineering one: We need to increase production and reduce cost. If we can solve this challenge, we can deal with carbon.”

    The algae must be harvested every day. Extracting the oily components and removing the water is expensive and energy intensive.

    ENN is experimenting with different algae to find a hybrid that has an ideal balance of oil content and growth speed. It is testing cultivation techniques using varying temperatures and acidity levels.

    Algae tests are also being carried out at the University of Ohio. In Japan, algae is farmed at sea where it absorbs carbon from the air. Elsewhere carbon is sprayed or bubbled into algae ponds. But ENN is focusing on a direct approach.

    “Here we can control it, like in a reactor,” said Gu Junjie, a senior advisor. “Theoretically we can absorb 100% of carbon dioxide emissions through a mix of microalgae and chemical fixing with hydrogen.”

    This might work on a large scale in the northern deserts of Inner Mongolia, where land is cheap, plentiful and in need of fertiliser. But elsewhere, application may be limited because of the large areas of land or water needed for cultivation.

    “Algae is not likely to be the main solution for the carbon problem because of the amount of CO2 that needs to be consumed,” said Ming Sung, Chief Representative for Asia Pacific of Clean Air Task Force.  But, he said: “Algae is part of the solution and is closer to what nature intends. Being one of the simplest forms of life, all it takes is light and CO2 in salt water,”

    The advanced algae, solar and coal gasification technology is the latest stage in the rise of ENN, which has been spectacular even by modern Chinese standards. Founded in 1989 as a small taxi company, it has branched successfully into the natural gas industry and now into the field of renewable energy. The private company now employs about 20,000 people, and owns a golf course and hotel near its headquarters in Hebei province, where a new research campus is under construction.

    In the short term, ENN’s advanced underground coal gasification technology is likely to prove more significant than its algae work. This technique enables extraction of fuel from small, difficult-to-access coal seams, and could double the world’s current coal reserves. It also avoids the release of the pollutants sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide.

    The company is also one of only a small handful in the world capable of mass producing thin-film solar panels, which can be manufactured with less water and energy than conventional photovoltaic materials. Late last year, the World Bank’s International Financing Corporation announced a US$136m loan for ENN’s solar business.

    ENN executives have talked to the US department of energy about joint research , a sign that the transfer of low-carbon technologies is no longer a one-way street from west to east.

    The development of the algae technology trails the others, but Zhu says the results from the 10,000 litre algae greenhouse have been sufficiently encouraging to move ahead.

    For the 100 hectare test facility, ENN is looking at sites near the company’s 600,000 tonne-a-year coal mine in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, where the cold winters will require a heated greenhouse, and a location on Hainan Island, where the hot weather would allow the algae to be grown more cheaply in open ponds, but further away from China’s main coal deposits.

    With China building the equivalent of more than one new 500MW coal-fired plant every week and likely to be dependent on coal for at least two decades, the further studies planned by ENN could be crucial.

    Recognising the continued role of the fossil fuel in China, the European Commission proposed a plan this week to co-finance a demonstration coal plant that aims to have near zero emissions through the use of carbon capture and storage technology.

    If members states and the European parliament agree on the €50m plan, the facility would be operational by 2020.

  • Science Museum has a vital role in the climate change debate

     

    No wonder then that decarbonising the world’s energy system to avoid dangerous climate change is proving to be intractable, for it embodies all these features. Despite the rhetoric and a host of initiatives by individuals, corporations and governments, human carbon emissions continue to increase, with no sign of the essential peak and decline. The latest research indicates that if the maximum does not occur by 2015, we will almost certainly have committed ourselves to changes in weather patterns that will adversely affect our food and water supplies, as well as triggering an ineluctable, long-term rise in world sea level.

    Link to this audio

    One hundred years ago the future looked brighter. Our forebears saw science and engineering as the means to improve the human condition. They celebrated the fruits of industrialisation in cathedrals of innovation, such as the Science Museum. The practitioners were the celebrities of the day, and people flocked to see the wonders that were shaping the future. Many were inspired to become the scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs who designed and built the modern world.

    So as the Science Museum enters its second century today, what is its role? I believe little has changed from a century ago, except for the degree of urgency. Our unique collection provides us with a powerful means to make sense of the science that shapes our lives. We seek to raise curiosity and release creativity, and to do so in a way that engages and inspires our visitors to participate in shaping the future.

    In particular, our climate change gallery, currently being designed, aims to change the way people think, talk and act about climate change. A glimpse into the museum’s enormous reserve collection of objects (only 6% of the collection is on public display), or along the 20km of historical books and technical documentation in our library, can quickly convince of the ability of the scientists and engineers of the world to develop the array of technical solutions that can make a sustainable future possible.

    What is not clear, is whether humanity has the capacity to marshal this technical capability and to exploit it in time. This is where the role of the museum as a trustworthy source of information, and its track record of presenting a balanced view of the evidence will be especially valuable in stimulating public debate. With many experts viewing the upcoming UN’s Copenhagen Conference in December this year as “the last chance saloon” to put in place the international negotiating mechanism without which a globally coordinated effort cannot take place, the importance of such debate is paramount.

    The Science Museum may be 100 years old, but it has never been more relevant.

    • Professor Chris Rapley CBE is director of the Science Museum