Month: April 2017

Your Roundup of Climate and Energy News for the week ending April 21, 2017 follows.  Please forward the URL to anyone you think might be interested.

Although it is a couple of weeks old, I thought this article about the healing powers of nature was worth sharing with you.  I also just learned about the new book by Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope entitled Climate of Hope.  From the book’s website: “In Climate of Hope, Bloomberg and Pope offer an optimistic look at the challenge of climate change, the solutions they believe hold the greatest promise, and the practical steps that are necessary to achieve them.”  I just picked up a copy at a local bookstore and look forward to reading it.  Hannah Rothstein, a Berkeley-based artist, has reimagined some iconic National Park posters in 2050.  Warning, they’re not pretty.  If you have had a frustrating discussion with a climate change denier, you might be interested in this article about an AskReddit discussion that asked former climate deniers what changed their minds.  Take four minutes and watch this powerful video featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about science and science-denial.  The editor of the journal Nature Communications devoted this month’s editorial to the threat fake newsposes to action on climate change.  Finally, Bloomberg has added a section called “Climate Changed.”

The main political news this week was the meeting that didn’t happen.  The group of Trump advisors that was going to meet to prepare a recommendation on whether the U.S. should stay in the Paris Climate Accord, didn’t.  The meeting hasn’t been rescheduled.  Nevertheless, other countries are quite interested in what we plan to do.  Carbon Brief interviewed Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, about the ramifications of the U.S. pulling out of the Paris Accord, among other things.  Energy Secretary Rick Perry directed his department to conduct a study of the U.S. electric grid, causing concern within the renewable energy industry.  Also, changes to the DOE website downplay the climate benefits of each form of technology and distance the agency from the idea that they might be used to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, instead emphasizing their economic advantages.  During the congressional recess Republican lawmakers have been receiving heat at town hall meetings over their positions on climate change.  A group of 11 Republican state attorneys general is protesting an investigation into whether Exxon Mobil Corp. violated consumer protection laws when selling fossil fuel products while failing to reveal information about the effects of burning them on the global climate.  Their argument is that the “debate” over whether carbon emissions cause climate change is not settled.

Climate

NOAA scientists have determined that the average global temperature in March was 56.8°F (13.8°C), second only to last year’s record, which was boosted by a strong El Niño.  This was the first time the Earth was more than 1°C (1.8°F) warmer than normal without an El Niño.  NASA scientists also concluded that March 2017 was the second hottest on record.  Meanwhile, the U.S. (lower 48) is in the middle of the warmest period ever recorded.  A new study published in Nature Communications examines changes in solar activity and CO₂ levels over the past 420 million years. It found that unless we change, by mid-century we will be causing the fastest climate change in approximately 50 million years.

A pair of papers in the journal Nature provide a new understanding of how water moves across Antarctica’s ice sheets and shelves through a network of interconnected lakes and rivers.  The authors suggest that this transport could make ice shelves increasingly vulnerable to collapse as melt rates accelerate under future climate change.  On the other hand, in at least one instance, a drainage system appears to be stabilizing an ice shelf rather than weakening it.  The Arctic is melting as well.  Writing for Bloomberg, Eric Roston and Blacki Migliozzi are presenting a three-part series entitled “How a Melting Arctic Changes Everything.”  Part I, “The Bare Arctic” came out this week.

A new study by the Berlin thinktank Adelphi and commissioned by the German foreign office investigated the links between insurgency and terrorism in a warming world.  Their conclusion: climate change will fuel acts of terrorism and strengthen recruiting efforts by terrorist groups such as Islamic State and Boko Haram.  The New York Times Magazine published a new world map that overlays human turmoil with climate turmoil, illustrating the striking correlation between the two.  This is one of six articles in this “climate issue.”

A paper in the journal Nature Climate Change reported on a study of possible migration patterns in the U.S. in response to sea level rise by 2100.  Surprisingly, the study suggested that many migrants will move to inland locales in different states, not just in the state where they originally resided.  This suggests that inland states will also be impacted by sea level rise and should plan for it.

Between 2004 and 2012 deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell from 11,000 square miles per year to 1,700 square miles, causing many to think that the deforestation problem had been solved.  Unfortunately, deforestation has trended upwards since 2012, with a sharp 29% increase in the rate of clearing in 2016.  As explained by Philip Fearnside, a Brazilian ecologist who has worked in the Amazon for more than 30 years, the forces acting to cause deforestation are many and complex.

NOAA has a new interactive map that shows how planting zones have changed due to climate change.  Cassie Kelley at EcoWatch explained the map and presented a graphic showing how the zones have changed.  Generally, the zones have moved northward.  Growing zones have also changed in the Arctic, bringing woody shrubs to regions that haven’t had them.  As a consequence, beavers are also moving north, which is having a variety of effects on the ecosystem.

Energy

The small Danish island of Samsø, population 3750, has received a lot of attention because it became energy independent 10 years ago using a mixture of wind, solar, and biomass.  What is really interesting about this achievement is that it was attained by conservative farmers.

Writing at Think Progress, Mark Hand reviewed the role of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the idea that it could take actions that favor the climate.

In 2016, for the first time, more than 100,000 people in the United States were employed in some manner by the wind industry, according to an annual report released Wednesday by the American Wind Energy Association.  A new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists that ranks states on their recent clean energy momentum finds leaders in states led by Republicans and Democrats alike.  Currently the largest offshore wind turbine has a generation capacity of 8MW, but projects slated for completion by 2025 will have turbines with capacities between 13 and 15 MW, allowing them to deliver electricity at market prices without subsidies.

A report from the European Commission, prepared by the German research group Öko-Institut e.V., has found that mechanisms that allow countries to offset emissions by purchasing credits linked to green-energy projects in another country via an international market are unlikely to actually reduce emissions and should be phased out.  Jerry Taylor of the Niskanen Center, a former climate change denier who is now a strong advocate for a carbon tax as a way to reduce emissions, countered anti-tax arguments in a blog post on Thursday.

Southern California Edison has installed a unique system that uses gas turbines in combination with 10MW lithium-ion battery storage units to cover peak loads during summer evenings when solar production is shutting down but electricity demand is up.  The hybrid system reduces greenhouse emissions and cooling water use.  Nevertheless, in the long-term, gas-fired power plants will either have to capture and store their carbon emissions, or they will have to be shut down.  In an earlier Roundup I linked to an article about the partnership between researchers at Colorado State University and Google Street View to map pervasive natural-gas leaks.  Well, this article provides more details about their joint venture.

If you are like me, you may have wondered how we (the U.S.) could have invented solar panels and yet now only have a 2% market share of global solar panel sales.  Well, a new paper in Science Advances studied that question and has some answers that might surprise you, such as financialization of our economy.

Four of the five states with the most net zero energy schools underway in 2016 were in the South — despite low power rates and few policy incentives.

Your Roundup of Climate and Energy News for the week ending April 14, 2017 follows.  Please forward the URL to anyone you think might be interested

I thought some of you might be interested in this site for climate change podcasts.

On the political front, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has been facing increasing criticism from the right for his refusal to challenge EPA’s endangerment finding, which provides the legal basis for all climate change regulations.  Meanwhile, at a Pennsylvania coal mine on Thursday, Pruitt spoke as part of a new public relations campaign, gathering together the Trump administration’s EPA priorities into an effort called “Back 2 Basics,” which does things like reconsider the rule limiting the discharge of heavy metals in wastewater from coal-fired power plants.  Elsewhere on Thursday, Pruitt said the Paris Climate Agreement “…is something we need to exit in my opinion.”  On Monday, G7 energy ministers failed to agree on a statement supporting the Paris climate accord after the US delegation said it was reviewing its position.  On Tuesday, China, Brazil, India and South Africa urged industrialized countries to honor financial commitmentsmade in Paris in 2015 to help developing countries fight against global climate change.  Younger Republicans increasingly say they believe climate change is a human-caused problem and that Americans have a responsibility to act on it, according to a Thomson Reuters Foundation review of college Republican clubs across the U.S.

Climate

Carbon Brief has updated its data dashboard, summarizing key indicators on our climate, atmosphere, oceans, and cryosphere.  NOAA now has its Climate Explorer online.  It is a collaborative effort of several agencies and lets you look at both historical data and projections for two future emission scenarios for locations all over the U.S.  Unfortunately, the Trump administration has signaled a desire to eliminate funding for the NASA satellites that provide the type of data used to construct those images.  Henry Fountain discussed the concerns of climate scientists about such cuts.

A new study published in Nature Climate Change compared the amount of permafrost likely to be lost with 1.5°C warming to that likely lost with 2°C warming and found that the difference was an area equivalent to that of Mexico.  Although not quantified, the release of larger amounts of CO₂ and methane would also result from the greater warming.  Meanwhile, a freezer malfunction at the University of Alberta in Edmonton caused ice cores from across the Canadian Arctic to melt, destroying them and the scientific information they contained.  Although this article about the impacts of climate change on Glacier National Park is over a week old, I thought the story it told is well worth its inclusion this week.

Using helicopter borne instruments, scientists have been able to measure the depth and configuration of the ice in the Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland.  Their findings show that the glacier extends farther below sea level than previously realized and that the depth increases the farther inland the glacier extends, forming a grounding with a “retrograde” slope.  This means that the glacier is susceptible to melting from warm sea water against its face and that the area exposed increases the more the glacier melts and retreats, leading to accelerating melting over time.  Another large Greenland glacier, the Petermann, has apparently developed a new crack in its floating ice shelf that could contribute to a future break, releasing a large ice island like those released in 2010 and 2012.  Mashable compiled a group of stunning photos from the Arctic and paired them with an interesting essay by Andrew Freedman about the fate of Arctic ice.

Most research on melting glaciers in Antarctica has been carried out in the western part of the continent, which contains only about 10% of the ice.  Now researchers are learning more about eastern Antarctica, thanks to better airborne sensors and a successful cruise along parts of the coastline.  Writing in Nature, Jane Qiu has summarized the surprising, and disturbing, new findings by the scientists.

Although the reason is not well understood, liana vines are proliferating in the world’s tropical rainforests and are having a negative impact on the storage of carbon by the trees.  Because climate models do not account for this effect, they may be overestimating the amount of carbon storage that will occur in the future.

Scientists just completed a 5,000 mile aircraft survey of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in which they found that 900 miles of its 1,400 mile length experienced severe bleaching at some point during the past two years.  Having two years of back-to-back bleaching greatly raises the possibility that the affected sections will die.  The 2017 bleaching occurred in the absence of an El Niño event, raising questions about the ability of the reef to recover.

Energy

A new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, has found that to keep global warming below 1.5°C the world economy would need to achieve net zero carbon emissions before 2040.  Net zero means that any CO₂ emissions would be removed from the atmosphere, either through natural systems or carbon capture and storage (CCS).  To put the difficulty of achieving that into perspective, you might want to check out the World Resources Institute’s latest release of its CAIT Climate Data Explorer.

The Petra Nova CCS project at a coal fired power plant in Texas is now capturing 90% of the CO₂ released from its combustion.  Meanwhile, the Illinois Industrial Carbon Capture Project, operated by ethanol giant Archer Daniels Midland, has launched.  It couples CCS technology with biochemical ethanol production, thereby removing CO₂ from the atmosphere, making it an early application of BECCS.  Carbon capture technology is also being applied by NET Power, only they are applying it to a unique gas turbine design.  Brad Plumer at Vox has analyzed the possible future of CCS during the Trump administration.

You may recall that in an earlier Roundup I linked to an article about President Trump announcing that his administration would reevaluate EPA’s CAFE standards for light trucks and cars.  Associated with that is the question of whether California will continue to be granted a waiver to issue its own standards.  Writing at Yale Climate Connections, Bruce Lieberman provided the history of the California standardsand the state’s willingness to fight to retain them.  On Tuesday, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers stated that it hoped to reach a deal with California and the Trump administration on the standards.  On another front in California, a state appeals court upheld the California Air Resources Board’s cap-and-trade program for controlling CO₂ emissions.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated via Twitter on Thursday that the company will unveil a concept version of an electric semi-truck in September.  In addition, a Tesla pickup is also in the works and will be unveiled in 18 to 24 months.  But, the big question is still whether the cars and trucks of the future will be powered by batteries or by fuel cells.  If this new development in battery technology turns out to really be the breakthrough that it appears to be, then batteries may beat out fuel cells for cars.  It will also have a major impact on the energy storage field.

Although we tend to hear less about the shift from coal to renewable energy in India than in China, a significant shift has been occurring.  This piece by Keith Schneider chronicles the cancellation of plans for Ultra Mega Power Projects.  An example of circumstances driving the shift is the recent winning bid to build a 250 MW solar PV facility, which set a new record low for India at the equivalent of 5¢/kWh.  It should be noted, however, that China effectively controls the global solar panel market, and this can cause cascading effects on solar employment all over the world.

If you have ever wondered why the Southeast U.S. has so few wind farms, then this essay by Lyndsey Gilpin at Inside Climate News is for you.  Speaking of wind farms, Texas is the top state for wind energy jobs.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said energy-related CO₂ emissions in 2016 from petroleum and natural gas increased 1.1% and 0.9%, respectively, while coal-related emissions decreased 8.6%, leading to an overall 1.7% decline in energy-related CO₂ emissions.

On Tuesday, Advanced Microgrid Solutions announced it is working with Walmart to install behind-the-meter batteries at 27 stores in Southern California to balance on-site energy production and use, and to provide flexibility to utilities.  Speaking of batteries for energy storage, their size and weight combine to make it logical to build them near the facilities where they will be used.

Your Roundup of Climate and Energy News for the week ending April 7, 2017 follows.  Please forward the URL to anyone you think might be interested.

In a bit of good news, the U.S. House Climate Solutions Caucus has increased its membership by 10, bring the total to 34, evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.  Nevertheless, many in the House view those colleagues with skepticism.  Still, there are some Republicans who doubt President Trump’s climate policies, as do three quarters of the public.  In a real “in-your-face” move, the Bureau of Land Management changed the banner on its home page from backpackers looking at the sunset in the mountains to a huge coal seam.  In the courts, environmental groups, led by the Environmental Defense Fund, and 17 Democratic states are fighting the Trump administration’s request that a federal appeals court put on hold its case regarding the Clean Power Plan.  Meanwhile, Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, continued to attack climate scientists, saying Wednesday that people raising red flags about climate change have ulterior motives beyond wanting to protect the environment: “It is all posturing for their own purposes, including a desire to control people’s lives or get another government grant or an academic promotion.”  In a Yale Environment 360 interview, climate scientist Kevin Trenberth talks about why scientists need to continue to speak out.  Finally, if you like out-of-the-box prognostications, you may be interested in Brad Plumer’s ideas on the climate surprises that might be in store during Trump’s presidency.

Climate

Although it didn’t come out this week, I thought you might be interested in this article about Paul Hawken’s new book Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed To Reverse Global Warming, which will be released April 18.  Also, Chicago Review of Books Senior Editor Amy Brady interviewed Kim Stanley Robinson, author of New York 2140, a new climate fiction book mentioned recently.  On the subject of the arts and climate change, another artist who works with climate themes has been profiled.  Check out this piece about Zoria Forman’s hauntingly beautiful drawings of ice.  Also, the Geological Society of America recently published a paper featuring the work of photographer James Balog, who has documented the retreat of glaciers around the world.  Finally, Justin Nobel had a touching essay at National Geographic on changes in the snowy region of Japan.

Two scientists at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Horn Point Laboratory in Cambridge, MD have spent the last two years studying 114 years of environmental data around the Chesapeake Bay to document the impacts of climate change on the Bay.

Carbon Brief has updated its chart showing the times remaining before the carbon budgets for 1.5°C, 2.0°C, and 3.0°C are exhausted if we continue to emit at current rates.  The allowable budget to have a 66% chance of staying below 1.5°C will be exhausted in 4.1 years.  And speaking of CO₂, a new paper in the journal Nature Communications reported on studies to determine its atmospheric concentration during the past 420 million years.  The authors found that until humans started burning fossil fuels with the start of the Industrial Revolution, CO₂concentrations had been fairly stable for the past 20 million years.  Now CO₂ levels are higher, causing plant growth to accelerate.  Furthermore, 50 million years ago CO₂ concentrations were much higher (600 ppm or more) and a new paper in Nature has reported that Antarctic temperatures were much warmer, allowing palm trees to grow there.

Have you been uncertain about how and why the “discount rate” influences the social cost of carbon, i.e., the costs associated with the release of a ton of CO₂ to the atmosphere?  If so, then this piece from the New York Times by Michael Greenstone, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, may be helpful.  When it comes to the economics of the market place, a very important component is hedging against risk.  John Sutter of CNN, among others, has said that we must view climate change from the same perspective.

Three recent studies have examined climate change impacts on ecosystems and the creatures that live in them.  Taken together they suggest that most species on Earth are being impacted by climate change, some for the good, but some for the bad.  How it all turns out will depend largely on how we respond.

A new study, published this week in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, has found that flight turbulence during transatlantic flights could increase significantly under climate change.  Furthermore, fuel and maintenance costs for air carriers could increase.  The author of the paper explained its broader significance at Carbon Brief.

In most oceans of the world, water gets colder as you go deeper.  Historically, this has not been true in the Arctic Ocean, where denser, saltier water flowing north from the Atlantic Ocean tends to sink beneath the colder, less salty water covered by ice.  That is now changing, according to a new paper in Science, which found that the warmer Atlantic-originating water is rising and melting sea ice from the bottom.

Energy

David Roberts at Vox has attempted to answer two important questions about the goal of 100% renewable energy: Is it the right goal, and is it even possible.  Which, raises another question, is an electric or hybrid electric air craft possible or desirable.  Zunam Aero thinks the answer to both questions is yes.

U.S. renewable energy production grew 7% between 2015 and 2016, but electricity from coal decreased 18%, reaching its lowest level since 1978 according to the Energy Information Administration.  Globally, 139GW of renewable capacity was installed in 2016, an 8% increase over the previous year, according to a new report from the UN Environment Program and Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

The Washington Post had an interesting article in their Sunday edition about the solar energy projects in Chile’s Atacama Desert.  Chile hopes to become “A Solar Saudi Arabia”.  Across the Atlantic, in Africa, the demand for electricity is growing rapidly.  A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined the potential for wind and solar generation to meet that demand and found that it could do so, with proper siting and interconnectedness.  Meanwhile, the European Environment Agency issued a report stating that the use of renewable energy helped Europe reduce its CO₂ emissions by about 10% in 2015.  In the U.S., however, some states are continuing to adopt policies to limit rooftop solar development; also see here and here.  It is interesting to note, though, that the Kentucky Coal Mining Museum is adding solar panels to its roof.

During the past three weeks, E&E News posted a series of articles about energy storage.  The articles were “Energy storage is America’s industry to lose”, “Is energy storage the next jobs creator?”, and “Where the energy storage industry is happening now.”  On the subject of storage, South Australia’s desire to build a 100MW energy storage system has generated a lot of interest, and not just from battery manufacturers.  Thermal storage is also being proposed.

I’ve recently linked to articles about the new wind energy lease off the shore of North Carolina.  One thing that the leasee must consider before starting construction of a windfarm is how the electricity generated will be transmitted to shore and to market.  Another point of interest concerns the number of jobs that would be associated with a strong offshore wind energy industry in the U.S.

One of the objections to the rule requiring companies to monitor for methane leaks at oil and gas facilities is that the equipment is expensive and labor-intensive.  Now, IBM scientists and engineers, working with researchers at Harvard and Princeton universities, have devised a miniature sensor chip that continuously monitors for methane.  Will this be the key that allows continuous, autonomous monitoring at reasonable cost?  A recent study of the environmental impacts of a tar sands oil pipeline found that the carbon emissions associated with tar sands oil are around 21% larger than the emissions associated with an average U.S. refinery mix.

The leaders of two large U.S. coal companies are urging the Trump administration not to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, arguing that their interests are better served by the U.S. having a place at the bargaining table.  In addition, a Reuters survey of 32 utilitiesindicates that the bulk of them have no plans to alter their multi-billion dollar, years-long shift away from coal, suggesting demand for the fuel will keep falling.