Month: May 2021

Politics and Policy

John Kerry said that the US is looking into introducing a carbon fee on imports from countries that don’t tax heavy greenhouse gas polluters.  Gina McCarthy said that existing nuclear power plants are going to be needed in the Biden administration’s effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  The EPA issued a final rule laying out methane emission thresholds for municipal solid waste landfills, giving landfill operators 30 months to install appropriate systems to meet the standards.  President Biden has reappointed Michael Kuperberg, the scientist responsible for the National Climate Assessment, after he was removed from his post last year by President Trump.  The administration announced a major push to cut carbon emissions from federal buildings and from homes by setting new efficiency standards and investing in innovative research.  It also took the first step to reinstate an energy efficiency standard for light bulbs, a move that’s expected to undermine incandescent bulbs in favor of LEDs.

Achieving effective climate policies is proving to be a divisive task.  Two camps disagree on how to decarbonize Colorado — Gov. Jared Polis (D) favors public investment and an incentives-based approach, whereas a group of state legislators and environmentalists wants a hard mandate to cut emissions across the economy.  A proposal for a wind and solar project near a 7,000 year-old sacred Indigenous spiritual site has divided a Minnesota community.  At the federal level, environmental advocates are arguing over a “clean electricity standard” versus a “renewable electricity standard” for climate legislation.  Except in Washington DC, support for putting a price on CO₂ emissions is steadily spreading.  Catholic support for it was on display during a weekend climate change conference, where two bishops touted it as a critical climate solution that is both effective and “eminently doable.”  The Alliance for Market Solutions announced on Wednesday the launch of an advocacy campaign to garner support on Capitol Hill for it.

President Biden on Thursday signed an executive order directing several federal departments and agencies to analyze the risks climate change poses to the US financial system and federal government.  Politico said the measures will reach well beyond Wall Street.  On Monday, in a 7-1 decision that will impact similar climate liability lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry, the US Supreme Court ruled that the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals must take a fresh look at the remand order that sent Baltimore’s liability case against BP back to the state court where it was originally filed.  As EVs increase in numbers on the nation’s highways, states and the federal government must come up with an equitable system for raising funds for road construction and maintenance.

The world can still reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but only if governments redouble their efforts, all fossil fuel investment is halted, and renewable energy capacity and infrastructure are added at unprecedented scale, according to a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).  Asian energy officials disputed the IEA’s approach, viewing it as too narrow.  Meanwhile, in France a proposed climate law has passed the National Assembly and moved on to the Senate, but has sharply divided the country.  Britain’s Emissions Trading System kicked off on Wednesday, with carbon prices reaching over $70 per metric ton, making the cost of polluting in Britain higher than in the EU.  A debt-for-climate swap plan is expected from the IMF and the World Bank ahead of COP26, and if done right, could be highly effective in addressing both spiraling low- and middle-income country debt and the climate crisis.  Even if the Biden administration sets a deadline to sunset sales of gas-powered passenger vehicles in the US, the export of used cars could stall the global reductions in CO₂ emissions needed to stave off catastrophic warming.

Climate and Climate Science

The cover article in Chemical and Engineering News this week addressed the issue of replenishing depleted soil as a means of removing CO₂ from the atmosphere, and the scientific and policy issues associated with it.  With a changing climate, fires in far northern forests that smolder throughout winter and erupt again in spring could become more common, a new study suggests.  Glaciers, like the soil, have their own community of microbes, their own microbiome, transforming them from what we thought were sterile wastelands into vibrant ecosystems that can control how fast glaciers melt — and may even influence the global climate.

A new report from the NRDC and others shows that the health costs of climate change now far exceed $820 billion per year in the US.  According to a study published in Nature Communications, sea level rise from global warming caused approximately 13% ($8.1bn) of the $62.7bn in damages associated with Superstorm Sandy in 2012.  Trees that were poisoned and killed by saltwater from rising seas are emitting greenhouses gases, prompting researchers to warn of a warming source that could become worse as rising seas encroach on forests.

A new guidance document aims to help National Park Service ecologists and managers confront the fact that they must now actively choose what to save, what to shepherd through radical environmental transformation, and what to let vanish forever.  When it comes to the highest surface temperature, the Lut Desert in Iran and the Sonoran Desert along the Mexican-US border have Death Valley beat, having recently reached a sizzling 80.8°C (177.4°F).  Extreme heat risks may be widely underestimated and sometimes left out of major climate reports, but new studies sharpen warnings for unlivable heat in the tropics, and nearly unthinkable extremes in major Northern Hemisphere cities.

A significant part of the Greenland ice sheet is on the brink of a tipping point, after which accelerated melting would become inevitable even if global warming was halted.  The Arctic is now warming three times as fast as the global average, and faces an ongoing barrage of dangerous climate and environmental pollutants, Arctic Council experts warned at the start of their meetings in Reykjavik, Iceland this week.  A drastic drop in caribou and shorebird populations is a reflection of the dire changes unfolding on the Arctic tundra.  As part of the “natural cycle” of the Ronne Ice Shelf, a huge ice block has broken off from western Antarctica into the Weddell Sea, becoming the largest iceberg in the world.

NOAA said in a forecast released on Thursday that there’s a 60% chance of an above-normal hurricane season, a 30% chance of a near-normal season and only a 10% chance of a below-normal season.

Energy

Air France-KLM has launched its first long-haul flight powered by sustainable aviation fuel, petroleum mixed with a synthetic jet fuel derived from waste cooking oils.  Over the next year, at a research site run by NASA on the fringes of the Mojave Desert, companies will be demonstrating their best efforts at eliminating carbon pollution from aviation via a new generation of electric airplanes.  Canada-based seaplane airline Harbour Air aims to offer zero-emission, all-electric commercial flights by 2022.

In a presentation Wednesday night in Dearborn, MI, Ford Motor Co unveiled an electric version of its popular F-150 pickup truck, called the Lightning, which is aimed at small businesses and corporate customers such as building contractors and mining and construction companies that buy lots of rugged pickups.  Ford and South Korean battery maker SK Innovation announced they will form a battery joint venture in North America to support Ford’s EV rollout.  Duckyang Industrial Co. said that it will invest $10 million and hire 285 people northeast of Atlanta to make battery modules and energy storage systems for SK Innovation’s plant in Commerce.  To jump-start EV battery recycling, governments and industry are putting money into an array of research initiatives.

A new report from the Ohio River Valley Institute estimates that the cost of cleaning up all abandoned coal mine land is more than double what the federal inventory previously claimed — $26 billion.  Malta Inc. and Duke Energy, using a Department of Energy grant, will examine integrating Malta’s 100 MW, 10-hour pumped heat energy storage system into existing infrastructure at a Duke Energy coal plant in North Carolina.  While lithium-ion batteries are dominant in the EV market, several other battery types are vying to dominate the grid storage market.

China’s CO₂ emissions rose 9% in the first quarter of 2021 compared with pre-pandemic levels, driven by a carbon-intensive economic recovery and big hikes in steel and cement output.  Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin witnessed via video link the groundbreaking ceremony of four advanced nuclear reactors powered by Russia’s third-generation nuclear technology in China on Wednesday.

In its first commercial installation, startup Fervo Energy will develop an advanced geothermal energy project to deliver 5 MW around the clock to supply Google’s Nevada data centers beginning next year.  Wind turbine maker Vestas unveiled new technology which will enable wind turbine blades to be fully recycled, avoiding the dumping of old blades in landfills.  If you are considering solar panels with batteries for backup power, then you need to learn about Span’s digital smart electric panel.

Potpourri

Christopher D. Stone, a legal scholar who argued in a seminal 1972 paper that trees, rivers, oceans, and nature itself possess fundamental legal rights, died May 14 in Los Angeles; he was 83.  New research shows that organized climate denial is still funded mostly by anonymous donors; the funding has increased at a steady rate of around 3.4% per year over the past two decades.  Bill McKibben wrote of a new book from the British psychoanalyst Sally Weintrobe, Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis: Neoliberal Exceptionalism and the Culture of Uncare.  Cyril Christo had an homage to the Himalayas at The Hill.  Carbon Brief had a guest post explaining how world weather attribution works.

Closing Thought

There is a new dimension to the controversy over climate communication — at its heart is the question of how “depressing” or “hopeful” it should be.

Politics and Policy

To bolster preparedness for a warming world, President Biden wants to retool and relaunch the Civilian Conservation Corps as the Civilian Climate Corps.  Biden expressed optimism that a bipartisan compromise could be reached on infrastructure spending after he held a meeting with a handful of Republican senators.  Several experts say that a clean energy standard must be at the heart of any energy policy if it is to survive a change of administrations.  Biden’s proposal to wean the US electric grid off of fossil fuels has run into a new band of enemies: Left-wing climate and environmental justice activists who believe it isn’t ambitious enough.  Another dilemma became evident as a result of the cyber-attack that shut down the Colonial Pipeline: How to build a clean energy future while shoring up the present’s carbon-intensive infrastructure.  The EPA is rescinding a Trump-era rule that would make it harder to regulate air pollution, including CO₂.  One Trump policy that Biden has retained is the tariff on solar panels.  The US Federal Reserve has asked lenders to start providing information on the measures they are taking to mitigate climate change-related risks.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed two bills Wednesday that will — among other things — set aside hundreds of millions of state dollars for flooding infrastructure projects.  The California Energy Commission released a draft version of the next update to the state’s building code, a document that favors the use of electric heat over gas furnaces by saying that heat pumps would be the preferred technology for new construction, but not a mandated technology.  The Texas legislature is considering a bill that would impose annual fees of $250-$400+ on drivers of EVs, while Washington Gov. Jay Inslee vetoed the 2030 gas car ban because it was tied to a road-use fee for EVs.

Most net-zero targets adopted by governments include both emissions reductions and negative emission components.  A recent survey revealed that in the interest of transparency, experts think that the two components should be targeted individually.  A trio of British policy researchers has laid out four actions that entities can take to make their net-zero pledges credible.  In an opinion piece in The Washington Post, elder statesmen Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Erskine B. Bowles called for the adoption of a carbon tax.

A survey of 800 cities found that about 43% of them, representing a combined population of 400 million people, did not have a plan to adapt to the climate crisis.  A researcher with Peking University’s Institute of Energy said China is on track to reach peak coal consumption, coal-fired power capacity, and emissions from the power sector by 2025.  The French Senate voted to weaken a constitutional commitment to fighting climate change and preserving biodiversity, preferring wording that was less binding.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet approved draft legislation for more ambitious CO₂ reduction targets, including becoming carbon neutral by 2045.  A report from CEWASTE, a two-year project funded by the EU, has called for mandatory recycling of critical raw materials present in circuit boards, magnets used in disc drives and electric vehicles, batteries in electric vehicles, and fluorescent lamps.  Since March, the Republic of the Marshall Islands has been advancing a proposal before the International Maritime Organization to impose a $100 per ton tax on all greenhouse gas emissions in the industry.

Climate and Climate Science

Even though last week I included an article about NOAA’s new 30-year average temperature, I call your attention to this article because of the great graphics in it.  With a moderately strong La Niña event in the tropical Pacific Ocean, global temperatures in 2021 are running decidedly cooler when compared to recent years.  James Hansen’s newsletter bears this out, including data from April.  It also shows a forecast for continued La Niña this year, suggesting continued cooler global temperatures.  However, the long-term trends in methane and CO₂ emission rates are not encouraging.  A new EPA report offered a snapshot of the extent to which the science around climate change grew more detailed and robust during Trump’s term, showing that the nation has entered unprecedented territory in which climate effects are more visible, changing faster, and becoming more extreme, affecting both public health and the environment.

A large new modeling study investigated whether the loss of Arctic sea ice is causing the jet stream to become wavier; the results were negative.  However, new evidence from weather records suggests that the jet stream actually has gotten slightly wavier since the 1950s, although the cause is still unknown.  Last week I included two articles reporting on modeling studies about the fate of glaciers in a warmer world that had contradictory results.  This week, Jeff Goodell at Rolling Stone focused on the inclusion of MICI (Marine Ice Cliff Instability) in one study as the main explanation for the differences.  At Yale Climate Connections, meteorologist Jeff Masters discussed the possible reasons for the recent increase in the number of Atlantic named tropical storms.

An area of forest the size of France has regrown around the world over the past 20 years, showing that regeneration in some places is paying off.

Of the 100 cities worldwide most vulnerable to environmental hazards all but one are in Asia, and 80% are in India or China.  Southern Madagascar is in crisis with more than a million people facing acute food insecurity as the region suffers its worst drought in four decades.  Some of the world’s biggest tea-growing areas will be among the worst hit by extreme weather, and their yields are likely to be vastly reduced in the coming decades, if climate change continues at its current pace.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters that federal fire officials had warned them to prepare for an extremely active fire year, as several types of drought are converging in the West.  Improved agricultural practices and widespread irrigation may stave off another agricultural calamity in the Great Plains, but scientists are now warning that two inescapable realities — rising temperatures and worsening drought — could still spawn a modern-day Dust Bowl.  New research indicates that economic damages from droughts in Europe could rise by one third by the end of the century, even if warming is limited to 1.5°C and countries implement adaptation measures.

Energy

In 2020, the world’s renewable energy industry grew at its fastest pace since 1999, despite the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).  Furthermore, the IEA’s “renewable energy market update” forecast nearly 40% higher growth in 2021 than it expected a year ago, putting wind and solar on track to match global gas capacity by 2022.  Finally, the IEA expects the rapid growth in renewables to become the “new normal.”  The Nature Conservancy is working with Sun Tribe Development to install up to 75 MW of solar energy at several sites covering approximately 550 acres of deforested minelands in the 253,000 acre Cumberland Forest property in Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.  A collaborative piece in The Guardian explored the ways in which energy companies want to impose charges on people who produce their own power with rooftop solar arrays.

Coal shipments in 2020 to the US electricity sector hit their lowest yearly level since the Energy Information Administration (EIA) began publishing such data in 2007.  The EIA also predicted that this summer will bring a 12% decline in natural gas-based electricity generation, offset by a 21% rise in renewable generation and an 18% increase in coal-based generation.

The Biden administration has approved the nation’s first major offshore wind farm, the Vineyard Wind project, which will be located 14 miles off the coast of Massachusetts, contain 84 turbines, and generate around 800 MW of electricity.  The approval injected fresh optimism into the nation’s offshore wind industry.

Under the guidance of the DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory, carbon capture technologies are improving nicely, according to an article in E&E News and reprinted by Scientific American.  A new study by Aurora Energy Research revealed that hydrogen is the key to decarbonizing hard-to-abate industrial sectors, such as steel.

Electric cars and vans will be cheaper to produce than conventional, fossil fuel-powered vehicles by 2027, according to forecasts from BloombergNEF.  South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group said it plans to invest $7.4 billion in the US by 2025 to produce EVs, upgrade production facilities, and further its investment in smart mobility solutions.

Potpourri

Film maker Neil Halloran has a new video that examines uncertainty in climate science.  EPA has launched a new website of climate change indicators.  A new study by Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes charted the trajectory of ExxonMobil’s climate messaging, finding that the oil giant used “the subtle micro-politics of language to downplay its role in the climate crisis.”  Vanessa Nakate, the young Ugandan climate activist who was cropped out of a photo from the World Economic Forum in Davos last January, has used her new-found fame to argue for the role of racial justice in the climate change movement.  Facebook is “fueling climate misinformation” through its failure to come to grips with misleading content, according to a new report that calls on companies to boycott the platform until significant action is taken.  All around the globe, artists are capturing their fears, worries, and hopes about climate change through their art.  Paul Greenberg, author of The Climate Diet, provided his take on the Netflix documentary Seaspiracy.  Faith Kearns’ new book, Getting to the Heart of Science Communication: A Guide to Effective Engagement, argues that there’s no one “right” approach to talking about the climate crisis and other contentious scientific issues.

Closing Thought

In an article sponsored by Anheuser-Busch, Grist spotlighted EverGrain, a company that is developing nutrient-rich ingredients for all kinds of human-grade food products, using spent brewing grains as their feedstock.

Politics and Policy

The deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions promised by President Biden and other global leaders since last September have slightly improved the outlook for global warming, with the world now being on track to warm by 2.4°C by the end of this century.  A new report identified 22 high-voltage transmission projects that are “shovel-ready,” but which are being held up by financing and administrative barriers.  ABC News investigated how Biden’s infrastructure plan could revitalize the nation’s archaic rail system.  The Department of Energy announced plans to encourage deployment of more solar and storage in low- and moderate-income communities, including a $15 million commitment for technical assistance and to help underserved areas attract investment.  Although short on specifics, a new 22-page document from the Commerce, Interior, and Agriculture Departments, entitled “America the Beautiful,” outlines steps the US could take to restore biodiversity, tackle climate change, and make natural spaces more accessible to all Americans.

The EPA proposed a rule to slash the use of hydrofluorocarbons, potent climate-warming gases commonly used in refrigerators and air conditioners, by 85% over the next 15 years.  Citing its failure to reinstitute a rule on building in flood zones, its lack of an overarching climate resilience strategy, and its failure to hire senior staff to manage and coordinate work, climate experts warned that the Biden administration has yet to take steps that would turn his pledge to “build back better” into reality.  Pennsylvania officials issued a final rule on Tuesday that solidifies the state’s plan to adopt a carbon pricing policy and join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.  David Roberts thinks that Washington State has the most comprehensive and ambitious slate of climate and energy policies of any US state.  Several environmental groups have filed a new legal challenge to a US Army Corps of Engineers program that allows oil and gas pipelines to be built across bodies of water under a blanket construction permit.  Fifteen states have enacted anti-protest laws since 2017.

According to Yale Climate Connections, only 25% of more than 400 American newspaper front pages acknowledged Biden’s climate summit in some way and only ten newspapers addressed it in editorials.  Eight of the ten largest coal-fired plants have no firm retirement dates, even though the President has talked about wanting to see a phaseout of fossil fuel-generated electricity by 2035.  Eversource Energy, New England’s largest utility, is part of a national “Consortium to Combat Electrification,” whose mission is to “create effective, customizable marketing materials to fight the electrification/anti-natural gas movement.”  In the long run, ethanol is a dead-end fuel, but that’s not stopping the ethanol lobby from trying to get ethanol production written into Biden’s infrastructure plans.  America’s environmental and conservation groups have disparate opinions about new renewable energy infrastructure and its trade-offs.

Four European climate experts asserted that scientifically speaking, humanity can still limit global warming to 1.5°C this century, but political action will determine whether it actually does.  They further said that “Conflating the two questions … is dangerous.”  In an interview with the Independent, Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said that quitting coal-fired power is the “single most important” step the world must take as it gears up for COP26.  The stark gap in vaccination rates between the world’s rich and poor countries is emerging as a test for how the world will respond to that other global challenge: averting the worst effects of climate change.  The EU carbon price hit a record high of above €50/metric ton on Tuesday.  German officials proposed that the country could bring forward the date for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to “net zero” from 2050 to 2045 and increase its emissions reduction targets from 55% below 1990 levels to 65% by 2030, and to 88% by 2040.  China’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 rose to 27% of the world’s total, surpassing those of the US and the rest of the developed world combined.  At The Guardian, environment editor Damian Carrington wrote: “… until every government and corporate decision has to pass the bullshit test — does it really cut carbon now — then we are kidding ourselves if we think we are treating the climate crisis like the emergency it is,” while the Economist said: “net-zero thinking … allows the ultimate scope of emission cuts to remain undefined and sweeps all the uncertainties under a carpet of techno-optimism.”

Climate and Climate Science

MIT has three interesting new “Explainers” on its Climate Portal website: “Forests and Climate Change,” “Coastal Ecosystems and Climate Change,” and “Soil-Based Carbon Sequestration.”  Climate change is causing a growing crisis in the sex ratio of global sea turtle populations, but according to newly published research, a simple intervention could help address the imbalance.

On Tuesday, NOAA released an updated set of climate averages for the contiguous US based on the 30-year period from 1991 to 2020.  Compared with previous 30-year periods, the climate has turned unambiguously warmer.  A report from the UN Environment Program has found that, through a combination of measures targeted at agriculture, fossil fuel production, and the waste industry, methane emissions could be slashed by 45% by the end of this decade, avoiding nearly 0.3°C of global warming by 2045.

Holding global temperature rise to no more than 1.5°C – rather than following current emissions pledges – could halve the sea level rise from melting land ice by the year 2100.  Another study found that with global warming limited to 2°C or less, Antarctic ice loss would continue at a pace similar to today throughout the 21^st century, but with 3°C of warming, an abrupt jump in the rate of ice loss would occur around 2060.  Scientists have warned that an increasing number of people are being threatened by glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) as Earth warms.

A string of weather events has battered thousands of farmers and ranchers across the US over the past two years and the billions of dollars in damage caused by such weather could soon overwhelm the banks and lenders that provide critical cash flow to farmers, endangering our food supply.

A severe multiyear drought, deepened by a shortage of monsoon rains in 2020 and disappointing snowfall over the winter, has helped spark major wildfires months earlier than usual, leading to concerns that large swaths of the American Southwest could face a harsh fire season.  The Brazilian Amazon released nearly 20% more CO₂ into the atmosphere over the past decade than it absorbed.

Energy

The world isn’t mining enough minerals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel to reach a future that runs on clean energy.  The development of mines here in the US has led to a contest of sorts about how best to extract and produce large amounts of lithium in ways that are less destructive than past practices.

Chinese manufacturers are erecting factories for EVs almost as fast as the rest of the world combined.  If you’ve never driven an EV, you’ll find Robinson Meyer’s article about the importance of the new Ford Mustang Mach-E to be particularly interesting.  If you’re thinking of buying an EV, this article has some advice.

National Geographic examined the future role of nuclear energy in the US, including some of the new reactor designs.  The White House has signaled privately to lawmakers and stakeholders that it supports taxpayer subsidies to keep existing nuclear facilities from closing, bending to the reality that it needs these plants to meet US climate goals.  The staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has backed Dominion Energy’s application to extend operations at its Surry Nuclear Power Station in Virginia by 20 years, into the 2050s.

Hydrostor has proposed building advanced compressed air energy storage facilities in California to provided needed long-term electricity storage.  Mainspring Energy has a new approach to providing on-site electricity generation, whether for backup power or for a microgrid, while offering the opportunity to switch fuels easily as alternatives are developed.  Eric Wesoff at Canary Media provided a status report on several companies hoping to capitalize on the potential of geothermal energy.

New research has concluded that using electricity directly to power cars and warm houses is far more efficient than using it to produce hydrogen for the same purposes.  Solid-oxide fuel cells manufactured by South Korea’s Bloom Energy have successfully completed testing while powered entirely by hydrogen.  Prototypes of BMW’s hydrogen fuel cell powered cars are now being tested under real-world conditions on the streets and highways of Germany.  Daimler Trucks and Volvo AB are working together to reduce the cost of hydrogen fuel cells by five or six times their current cost to make the zero-emission technology commercially viable for long-haul trucking.  The Chairman of Avia Solutions has projected that the hydrogen aircraft market will reach about $174 billion by 2040.

Potpourri

AJ Dellinger compiled seven podcasts to help you make sense of the future.  Physicist Steven Koonin, who proposed having a “red team, blue team” climate debate during Trump’s presidency, has published a new book entitled Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What it Doesn’t and Why it Matters.  Marianne Lavelle wrote two articles about it at Inside Climate News, one providing five statements from it that mainstream climate scientists say are misleading, incorrect, or undercut by current research and another presenting the views of several climate scientists about it.  A review of the book by the Wall Street Journal was considered to be of “very low” scientific credibility by 12 reviewers at Climate Feedback.  At Yale Climate Connections, Sara Peach investigated the types of climate related jobs that are likely to be in high demand in the future.  Professor of Earth System Science Mark Maslin had an article at The Conversation based on his new book How to Save Our Planet: The Facts.  Torched Earth Ale, a new beer from New Belgium Brewing, is a dark, starchy brew made with less-than-ideal ingredients that would be more available and affordable to brewers in a climate-ravaged future.

Closing Thought

At The Guardian, author Rebecca Solnit wrote: “That we cannot see all the way to the transformed society we need does not mean it is impossible.  We will reach it by not one great leap but a long journey, step by step.”

Politics and Policy

In his first joint address to Congress, President Joe Biden outlined a transformative vision, with climate policy driving both domestic and international affairs.  An administration official said that the 2020 decade is the “decisive decade” to take meaningful climate change action, but the administration is receiving criticism because it has not released details about how it determined that its goals were achievable.  The Department of Energy (DOE) is offering up to $8.25 billion in loans for companies to improve resilience and expand transmission capacity across the power grid.  A group of transmission developers and advocates unveiled a report detailing how 22 existing transmission projects could enable 50% growth in US wind and solar power generation capacity.  The Department of Transportation (DOT) will help speed the siting and permitting of transmission projects that use public highways and other transportation rights-of-way.  E&E News provided more details on the DOE and DOT initiatives.  The administration highlighted more than a dozen programs with $41.9 billion in federal grant funding available now for electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure buildout.

A report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers said that the US has fallen behind its biggest global competitors in efforts to develop technologies that could reduce the effects of climate change.  Proposals in Biden’s infrastructure plan to expand renewable energy tax credits and to mandate clean energy and system modernization are the tools utilities need to meet the demand for clean energy.  The White House hopes to capitalize on support from US utilities, unions, and green groups for a national clean energy mandate by backing efforts to require the US grid to get 80% of its power from emissions-free sources by 2030.  A bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress is working on an alternative to the infrastructure plan that would cost roughly half as much but spend far more on roads and bridges.  While discussing Biden’s pledge at last week’s Climate Summit, David Roberts wrote: “… history will judge Biden … by which policies and investments his administration and Democrats in Congress put in place, … .”  Infrastructure and climate are linked issues that offer both economic and environmental returns.  Biden’s bet on EVs is drawing opposition from Republicans who associate it with the Green New Deal, so that even GOP lawmakers who sense the inevitability of EVs are opposed, leaving some fearful that EVs could become entangled in the culture wars.  An advocacy group representing auto suppliers urged Congress not to back a rapid phase-out of gas-powered vehicles.  South Dakota is joining a multi-state lawsuit aimed at stopping federal regulators from making decisions that factor in the social cost that carbon has on the environment.

Grist evaluated Biden’s energy and climate accomplishments during his first 100 days in office.  The Senate voted to reinstate an Obama-era regulation designed to reduce methane emissions by using the Congressional Review Act to turn back a Trump methane rule enacted late last summer.  The EPA announced that it will reinstate California’s authority to set more stringent climate requirements for cars and SUVs.  Federal eminent domain policy currently favors natural gas projects over renewable energy ones, but some argue that the government needs to reconsider which projects serve the public good.  High-voltage transmission lines buried along road and rail rights of way could carry renewable power across the US while avoiding siting and permitting roadblocks.  According to a new analysis by CarbonPlan, California’s forest carbon offset rules allow inflated climate benefits to be claimed.  If Governor Jay Inslee signs the bill as expected, Washington will become the second state, after California, with a comprehensive carbon cap-and-trade system.

The issue of whether burning wood pellets for energy is carbon neutral is back in focus because of the US rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement.  Germany’s highest court has ruled that the country’s climate change laws are insufficient and violate fundamental freedoms by putting the burden of curbing CO₂ emissions on the young.  Scientists have identified a 5.5-billion-ton gap between greenhouse gas emissions acknowledged each year by the world’s nations and the emissions calculated by independent models.  Energy Monitor put the carbon-reduction commitments of the US, UK, and EU on an equal base so they could be compared.   Poland’s government and unions signed an agreement with the coal mining industry to phase out coal production by 2049, while Chile will close half of its coal-fired power plants by 2025.  Denmark is building an island that could ultimately supply 10 GW of renewable energy from offshore wind turbines.

Climate and Climate Science

Although climate scientists used to talk of a certain amount of warming as being “locked in” due to past CO₂ emissions, they now understand that when CO₂ emissions stop, Earth’s temperature will quickly stabilize; Carbon Brief explains why.

A warming climate does not pose one single risk, but rather multiple, interacting risks.  In a guest post at Carbon Brief, the authors of a recent paper explain how the multiple facets of climate risk can be considered.  Grist published a comprehensive article with great illustrations and graphics explaining seven climate tipping points.

Moving quickly to cut emissions of methane could slow Earth’s warming as much as 30%, new research has found.  Furthermore, a UN report to be released next week says that a concerted effort could slash methane emissions by as much as 45% by 2030, helping to avoid nearly 0.3°C of warming as early as the 2040s.

No-till farming could slash greenhouse gas emissions from crop production by nearly a third and increase the amount of carbon soils can store.  Joanne Chory and the Harnessing Plants Initiative strive to modify grain crops to increase the amount of carbon they store in their root systems.  Colombia is the second-largest producer of Arabica coffee, but changing climate, soil, and precipitation patterns are altering the harvest volume, production techniques, and the taste of coffee.

Glacier melt across the world (exclusive of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets) has accelerated over the past two decades, with the resulting meltwater accounting for 21% of global sea level rise over the same period.  This massive melting has caused marked shifts in the Earth’s axis of rotation since the 1990s.  The rapid loss of glacial ice poses a particularly high risk in developing regions where millions depend on glaciers for drinking water.  If total collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were to occur, the resultant sea level rise (over a long period of time) would likely be around 30% greater (14.1 ft rather than 10.8 ft) than previously expected because of the rebound of the rock underlying the ice sheet.

Energy

In his weekly column at The New Yorker, Bill McKibben quoted from a new report by Carbon Tracker Initiative: “The land required for solar panels alone to provide all global energy is 450,000 km², 0.3% of the global land area of 149 million km². That is less than the land required for fossil fuels today, which in the US alone is 126,000 km², 1.3% of the country.”  A growing body of data indicates that 2030, not 2050, should be the deadline for US utilities to close all coal-fired power plants and that the time to stop building new natural-gas-fired power plants is now.

Decarbonizing energy and other industries globally using hydrogen will require investment of almost $15 trillion between now and 2050.  Toyota and Chevron will work on public policies supporting hydrogen supplies for light- and heavy-duty fuel cell EVs, for hydrogen infrastructure, and for further development in hydrogen transportation and storage.  Many shipping industry figures are pinning their hopes on blue or green hydrogen to help steer the industry away from bunker fuel, but others say it is not up to the job.  Another industry that would benefit from the availability of blue or green hydrogen is steel production, which currently has very high CO₂ emissions.

A report by the International Energy Agency has found that the number of electric cars, vans, trucks, and buses on the world’s roads is on course to increase from 11 million vehicles today to 145 million in 2030.  According to Honda, by 2030 it expects 40% of the vehicles it sells to be battery or fuel cell EVs; by 2035, 80%; and by 2040, 100%.  Saying that it wants to control the key technology for EVs, Ford plans to open a battery development center by the end of next year.

According to the CEO of TVA, recently shut coal-fired power plants could serve as sites for a new generation of small modular nuclear reactors because of their existing water resources and power grid connections.  He also said that TVA is preparing to phase out the last of its aging fleet of coal-fired power plants by 2035 and turn to more natural gas, nuclear, and renewable energy sources.  Duke Energy Corp said that it plans to triple its renewable power output to 23% by 2030 as it continues to retire coal-fired plants; combined with its six nuclear plants, Duke said its carbon-free energy will be around 53% in 2030.

John F. Kennedy once said, “The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not … .”  Grist reporter Derrick Jackson wrote, “The same is true of offshore wind.”  The Danish wind power firm Ørsted has found that the rocks placed at the base of offshore wind turbine foundations to prevent erosion of the seabed are wearing down the protection system of the undersea transmission cables, which could cause the cables to fail.

Potpourri

White evangelicals have become more willing to acknowledge anthropogenic climate change over the past decade.  Overconsumption, overpopulation, and uncertainty about the future are the top concerns of people who say climate change is affecting their decision whether to have children.  The popular cooking website Epicurious will not publish new beef recipes over concerns about climate change.  Biden’s not taking away your meat, as Republicans claimed this weekend, but partisan conflict over eating animals is just getting started.  Grist had an interview with Jenny Price, author of Stop Saving the Planet! An Environmentalist Manifesto.  There are several interesting items at the Artists and Climate Change website.  Amy Brady interviewed poet Tamiko Beyer at the Burning Worlds website.  While you’re there, check out the items following the interview.

Closing Thought

The Global Cooling Prize was a challenge to cooling engineers to design a residential air conditioner with a fivefold reduction in climate impact, compared to today’s standard models.  Two winners were recently announced.