Political Climate Articles
Major Economies 'Ignored' UN Climate Science
NEW YORK, New York, July 21, 2009 (ENS) - When proposing actions to limit greenhouse gas emissions, the world's major economies "ignored" the findings of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning United Nations scientific body that assesses climate change, says that body's top official.
Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, told reporters Monday it is important that leaders of the Group of Eight, G8 and nine other nations at the Major Economies Forum in Italy recognized that the global average temperature should not increase by more than two degrees Celsius, an "aspirational goal" which they had not agreed on or discussed earlier.
But, he said, they disregarded the IPCC's findings that emissions will have to peak in 2015 and then rapidly decline to avert the worst consequences of global warming.
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New Geothermal Heat Extraction Process To Deliver Clean Power Generation
ScienceDaily (July 20, 2009) - A new method for capturing significantly more heat from low-temperature geothermal resources holds promise for generating virtually pollution-free electrical energy. Scientists at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will determine if their innovative approach can safely and economically extract and convert heat from vast untapped geothermal resources.
The goal is to enable power generation from low-temperature geothermal resources at an economical cost. In addition to being a clean energy source without any greenhouse gas emissions, geothermal is also a steady and dependable source of power.
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Higher Speed Limits Cost Lives, Researchers Find
ScienceDaily (July 18, 2009) - The repeal of the federal speed control law in 1995 has resulted in an increase in road fatalities and injuries, according to researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health.
The law, which restricted the maximum speed limit to 55 mph on all interstate roads in the United States, was initiated in 1974 in response to the oil embargo and had an immediate impact.
"During the first year there was a drop of almost 17 percent in fatalities after the speed laws were reduced to 55 miles per hour," said Lee Friedman, assistant research professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at UIC and lead author of the study.
"The primary finding of our study was that over the 10-year period following the repeal of National Maximum Speed Law, there were approximately 12,500 deaths due to the increased speed limits across the U.S.," said Friedman.
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Jet turbine could power hybrid electric car
KFAR SABA, Israel (Reuters) - With a brief, muffled hiss of a jet engine, the test vehicle that an Israeli start-up hopes will be the future of the hybrid electric car, ignites.
The car is built on the shell of a normal Toyota Prius, a top-selling gasoline-electric hybrid, but without the need for its internal combustion engine.
Instead, an electric engine, containing a supercapacity battery and a micro-jet turbine engine, powers from the rear as it drives almost silently around a test track.
With automakers racing to develop the most efficient, environmental friendly cars with minimal emissions, the concept of turbine-powered electric vehicles is not new.
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Gregoire: State Has 47,000 'Green' Jobs, Thanks Two Year Colleges
WASHINGTON - Gov. Chris Gregoire testified before a U.S. Senate committee on Tuesday, touting the state's success at creating clean, green jobs and tipping her hat to the green training programs at Washington's two-year colleges.
"In 2007, when we adopted a set of climate change goals related to reduced greenhouse gas emissions, we also set a goal … to reach 25,000 green jobs by 2020," Gregoire said. "Less than two years later, we can point to 47,000 green jobs right now. Our green jobs are growing much faster than predicted."
She pointed to training programs at the state's community colleges.
At Olympic College, architects and those involved in the building industry can earn a certificate in sustainable building during a nine-month program. Bainbridge Graduate Institute awards master's degrees in sustainable business and has seen interest climb.
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China wind turbine makers blow over foreign rivals
China-based wind turbine manufacturers have overtaken foreign competitors in the race to supply domestic wind power projects for the first time - a lead that is likely to widen due to the government's controversial "buy Chinese" procurement policy.
According to figures from the state-run Chinese Wind Energy Association, domestic and Sino-foreign joint venture turbine makers accounted for 61.8 per cent of China's market share at the end of 2008, surpassing overseas producers for the first time.
The top three wind turbine suppliers were homegrown companies Sinovel Wind, Goldwind Science & Technology and Dongfang Electric. Denmark's Vestas Wind Systems, the world's largest turbine manufacturer, maintained its fourth-ranking position from 2007, while Spain-based Gamesa fell to fifth place from third.
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Geoengineering Climate Requires More Research, Cautious Consideration And Appropriate Restrictions
ScienceDaily (July 22, 2009) - Geoengineering - deliberately manipulating physical, chemical, or biological aspects of the Earth system to confront climate change - could contribute to a comprehensive risk management strategy to slow climate change but could also create considerable new risks, according to a policy statement released by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) July 21.
According to the Society, geoengineering will not substitute for either aggressive emissions reduction or efforts to adapt to climate change, but it could help lower greenhouse gas concentrations, provide options for reducing specific climate impacts, or offer strategies of last resort if abrupt, catastrophic, or otherwise unacceptable climate-change impacts become unavoidable by other means.
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U.S. top greenhouse gas emitter, counting imports
OSLO (Reuters) - The United States is by far the biggest greenhouse gas emitter ahead of China if consumers in rich nations are given responsibility for energy used to make imported goods, a researcher said on Wednesday.
Greenhouse gases, including by factories making goods such as cars or televisions for export, usually count toward the total of the country where they are made. Such data indicate that China has overtaken the United States as top emitter.
But adjusting emissions according to the country where consumers of goods live swells emissions by developed nations, said Glen Peters, a researcher at the Center for International Climate and Environment Research in Oslo (CICERO).
"The ranking makes a lot of rich countries look worse and a lot of poor countries look better," he told Reuters.
In the ranking of 73 nations, Americans have the biggest annual "carbon footprint" at the equivalent of 29 tonnes of carbon dioxide per capita, ahead of Australians on 21 tonnes and Canadians on 20 tonnes.
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Wal-Mart Scrutinizes Supply-Chain Sustainability
Wal-Mart's announcement last week that it will require its suppliers to evaluate and disclose the full environmental costs of their products was greeted with fanfare in the media and among green business champions.
The excitement is grounded in the notion that when the world's largest retailer asks more than 100,000 businesses around the world to assess [PDF] their environmental and social sustainability, the responses may lead companies to reduce waste, cut emissions, and improve profitability.
Wal-Mart critics have applauded the company for its ambitions, while casting doubt on whether the wider goal - a "sustainability label" similar to the nutritional information required on U.S. food packaging - can capture the full costs of producing a product or substantially shift consumer behavior.
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"Realistic" first-generation CCS costs a whopping $150 per ton of CO2 - 20 cents per kWh!
Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has published a blockbuster study, "Realistic Costs of Carbon Capture." The paper concludes that First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) carbon capture and storage plants are going to be much more expensive than most people realize:
1. The costs of carbon abatement on a 2008 basis for FOAK IGCC plants are expected to be approximately $150/tCO2 avoided (with a range $120-180/tCO2 avoided), excluding transport and storage costs....
This yields "levelised cost of electricity on a 2008 basis is approximately 10 cents/kWh higher with capture than for conventional plants." So pick your favorite price for new coal plants - Moody's said last year that is about 11 cents/kWh - and add 10 cents and you get 20+cents/kWh.
We're talking nuclear power prices (see "$26 Billion cost - $10,800 per kilowatt! - killed Ontario nuclear bid").
But all is not lost for CCS, because we have many optimistic assumptions yet to be thrown in:
2. 2008 may have represented a peak in costs for capital-intensive projects. If capital costs de-escalate, as appears to be happening, then these costs may decline. If general cost levels were to return to those prevailing in 2005 to 2006, for example, the costs of abatement for FOAK plants would fall by perhaps 25-30% to a central estimate of some $110/tCO2 avoided (with a range of $90-135/tCO2 avoided).
3. Consequently, the realistic costs of FOAK plant seem likely to be in the range of approximately $100-150/tCO2
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Money can't buy YOU love - but it can buy the fossil fuel industry the GOP's love
Oil companies, electric utilities and the coal industry have poured more than $250,000 this year into the coffers of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the party's House fundraising arm that has played a lead role in attacking Democrats who supported climate legislation.
All told, political action committees for various fossil fuel industries have given at least $280,000 to NRCC through the end of June, according to quarterly finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission....
In the 2008 campaign cycle, the oil and gas industry and utilities combined to contribute more than $1.6 million to NRCC, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
So reports Greenwire (subs. req'd) today. See also "Follow the money: Global warming polluters pay to undermine Waxman-Markey clean energy bill."
And don't get me started how stupid the natural gas industry is for using their money to stop a climate bill that will be a boon to their industry
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