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Yale Environment 360

Yale Environment 360 is an online magazine offering opinion, analysis, reporting and debate on global environmental issues. We feature original articles by scientists, journalists, environmentalists, academics, policy makers, and business people, as well as multimedia content and a daily digest of major environmental news. Yale Environment 360 is published by the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and Yale University. We are funded in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The opinions and views expressed in Yale Environment 360 are those of the authors and not of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies or of Yale University.

Renewable Energy

Air Pollution Smartphone App Seeks to Shame China’s Polluting Factories

written by Yale Environment 360

A new smartphone app seeks to shine a spotlight on major Chinese polluters by letting users see in real-time which factories are violating air pollution emissions limits.

The app, developed by Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), uses data from some 15,000 factories throughout China that are now required to report emissions to local officials and the Environment Ministry on an hourly basis.

The government made all the data public at the beginning of this year, but now, for the first time, those data are available in one place through IPE’s new app and website. The app allows users to check air quality data for 190 cities and share air emissions data from polluters in those areas.

Factories producing excessive emissions are shown in red, making them easily identifiable. “If the air quality is bad you can switch (to the factory map) and see who is in your neighborhood,” IPE’s senior project manager explained. “It will be a very effective tool for people to voice their concerns.” Environmental groups applauded IPE’s efforts and said public supervision is essential to stopping local officials from simply ignoring pollution from profitable factories.

06/11/2014 2 comments

Energy Efficiency

Air Conditioning Can Raise Urban Nighttime Temperature by 2 Degrees

written by Yale Environment 360

Excess heat from air conditioners raises outdoor temperatures at night by nearly 2 degrees F (1 degree C), worsening the urban heat island effect and increasing cooling demands, according to research from Arizona State University.

Studying the Phoenix metropolitan area, researchers found that air conditioning systems pumped more waste heat into the air during the day, but the effect on near-surface temperatures was negligible. The same was not true for nighttime temperatures, however, when waste heat significantly boosts air temperatures because of nighttime atmospheric conditions.

Air conditioning systems can consume more than 50 percent of total electricity during extreme heat, the researchers note, and summertime extreme-heat days are projected to become more frequent and intense as a result of climate change.

Redirecting waste heat from air conditioning systems to household appliances such as water heaters, for example, could help alleviate the problem, the scientists say. They project that such strategies would save at least 1,200 to 1,300 megawatt-hours of energy per day in the Phoenix metropolitan area alone.

06/10/2014 2 comments

Renewable Energy

Brazil Leads the World in Cutting Deforestation, Analysis Finds

written by Yale Environment 360

Brazil has become the world leader in reducing deforestation and, at the same time, has increased its soy and beef production, researchers report in the journal Science. The country has cut its forest loss by 70 percent since 2004, sparing more than 86,000 square kilometers of rainforests and keeping more than 3.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Brazil’s decline in deforestation in 2013 alone represented a 1.5 percent reduction in global emissions that year, the report says; globally, tropical forest loss accounts for 15 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.

The analysis credits the success to bold government policies, pressure from environmental groups, and market fluctuations in the price of soy and beef, but the authors warn that these wins may be short-lived without more positive incentives for farmers. “These gains are globally significant, but fragile,” one researcher explained. “We’re bumping up against the limits of what can be achieved through punitive measures.”

06/09/2014 0 comment

Green Building

Coating for Roof Tiles Could Help Clear Smog-Causing Air Pollutants

written by Yale Environment 360

Engineering students have created a roof tile coating that, when applied to an average-sized residential roof, breaks down the same amount of smog-causing nitrogen oxides per year as a car driven 11,000 miles makes.

If applied to one million roofs, the titanium-dioxide based coating, which costs roughly $5 per roof, could clear 21 tons of nitrogen oxides each day, the team calculated. That could put a noticeable dent in atmospheric levels of the pollutant; in Southern California, for example, an average of 500 tons of nitrogen oxides are emitted daily.

The team, which was recently recognized in a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency student design contest, showed that their tiles could remove 88 to 97 percent of nitrogen oxides in laboratory tests — a feat that other roof tile prototypes have not demonstrated.

06/06/2014 1 comment

Renewable Energy

New Ozone-Depleting Gases Discovered in Atmosphere, Researchers Say

written by Yale Environment 360

Researchers this week identified three new ozone-depleting gases in the atmosphere, bringing the total number of such gases discovered this year to seven. Alone, none of the three gases were found in concentrations high enough to harm the ozone layer, researchers from the University of East Anglia. But the scientists believe more such gases will likely be discovered, and, cumulatively, they could have a significant impact.

Two of the newly discovered gases are chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and one is a hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC), both of which were once widely used in refrigerants. All three of the newly discovered gases are likely man-made, researchers said. Both CFCs and HCFCs fall under the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement that bans the use of 13 such compounds. Including the four new gases discovered earlier this year, there are now a total of 20 known ozone-depleting gases.

06/05/2014 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Developing Countries Lead Global Surge in Renewable Energy Capacity

written by Yale Environment 360

The number of developing nations with policies supporting renewable energy has surged more than six-fold in just eight years, from 15 developing countries in 2005 to 95 early this year, according to a report from REN21, an international nonprofit renewable energy policy network.

Those 95 developing nations today make up the vast majority of the 144 countries with renewable energy support policies and targets in place. The report credits such policies with driving global renewable energy capacity to a new record level last year — 1,560 gigawatts, up 8.3 percent from 2012. More than one-fifth — 22 percent — of the world’s power production now comes from renewable sources.

Overall, renewables accounted for more than 56 percent of net additions to global power capacity in 2013, the report says. Although financial and policy support declined in the U.S. and some European countries, China, the U.S., Brazil, Canada, and Germany remained the top countries for total installed renewable power capacity. China’s new renewable power capacity surpassed new fossil fuel and nuclear capacity for the first time, the analysis found.

06/04/2014 0 comment

Renewable Energy

New Battery Technology Could Offer Cheap Renewable Energy Storage

written by Yale Environment 360

New battery technology that uses cheaper and safer materials to store large amounts of energy may soon enable utility companies to use more renewable power, according to MIT Technology Review.

The new device is a type of flow battery, and it uses liquid materials that rely on iron-chromium chemical reactions to store energy. California-based startup Enervault, developer of the new battery, figured out how to use materials that had been tried in batteries decades ago; Enervault overcame a key technical challenge that had caused the earlier batteries to quickly degrade.

The new battery is large — it can store one megawatt-hour of electricity, or enough to run 10,000 100-watt light bulbs for an hour — and the materials last more than 20 years, according to its developer. Although the battery is inefficient compared to conventional batteries — it loses 30 percent of the energy used to charge it — it is still economically viable, the company says. The iron-chromium flow battery costs 80 percent less than vanadium flow batteries, a competing technology. The batteries are currently in use at a small power plant near Modesto, California.

06/02/2014 0 comment

Clean Transportation

Electric Airplane Debut Offers Hopes for Cutting Emissions

written by Yale Environment 360

The aircraft manufacturing giant Airbus recently unveiled a fully-electric airplane which, if widely adopted, could reduce the aerospace industry’s carbon dioxide emissions by an order of magnitude.

The E-Fan aircraft has two, 30-kilowatt electric motors powered by a series of lithium-ion batteries in the wings of the plane, as well as a 6-kilowatt electric motor in the wheel to provide extra power during takeoff and taxiing. Despite incorporating highly energy-efficient and aerodynamic design elements, however, the E-Fan has only a one-hour range and cannot leave the vicinity of the airport.

Airbus says that future designs will rely on electric-hybrid engine technology and that by 2050 such airplanes should be able to accommodate 70 to 80 passengers on a three-hour flight. The plans were spurred, in part, by the European Union’s Flight Path 2050, which aims to reduce the aviation sector’s nitrous oxide emissions by 90 percent, noise pollution by 65 percent, and carbon dioxide emissions by 75 percent by 2050. “It’s a very different way of flying,” said Jean Botti, a technology officer at Airbus Group, “absolutely no noise, no emissions.”

05/30/2014 0 comment

Renewable Energy

To Sway The U.S. Public, ‘Global Warming’ Beats Out ‘Climate Change’

written by Yale Environment 360

If politicians and scientists want to convey the urgency and importance of a warming world, they are far better off using the term “global warming” than “climate change,” according to a new report.

Produced by researchers at the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University, the report says that Americans are much more familiar with the term “global warming” and that it engenders more negative associations and concern.

Based on recent surveys, the report said that — to varying degrees — moderates, women, Hispanics, political independents, and younger Americans associate the term “global warming” with alarming developments such as melting glaciers and extreme weather. Among many groups, “global warming” also creates a greater sense of threat to one’s family and future generations.

“Scientists often prefer the term climate change for technical reasons, but should be aware that the two terms generate different interpretations among the general public and specific subgroups,” the report said. The survey found that among Republicans the two terms are generally synonymous.

05/28/2014 1 comment

Renewable Energy

Oil Drilling Permits Issued for Key Area of Yasuni Park

written by Yale Environment 360

The Ecuadorean government has issued permits to begin oil drilling in a key area of the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve and National Park, one of the most biodiverse places on the planet.

Environment Minister Lorena Tapia said the government had signed permits to begin preparations for drilling in the so-called ITT section of the park, which contains two uncontacted indigenous tribes; drilling itself could begin as early as 2016, the government said.

Ecuador’s President, Rafeal Correa, had offered to ban drilling in large sections of the park if the international community raised $3.6 billion to compensate the country for leaving the oil in the ground. But after only $13 million was raised, Correa gave the green light to drilling, saying “the world has failed us.”

Oil drilling has already taken place in some areas of the 6,500-square-mile park. As this Yale Environment 360 video shows, Yasuni is home to a remarkable array of species, including roughly 400 species of fish, 600 species of birds, and thousands of species of vascular plants and trees.

05/27/2014 0 comment

Recycling & Waste Mgmt.

Trash Scooping Water Wheel Cleans Up Garbage From Baltimore Harbor

written by Yale Environment 360

A new contraption in a Baltimore river is helping to clear trash and debris — up to 50,000 pounds of it each day — from the city’s Inner Harbor. The 50-foot-long “water wheel” gathers garbage floating in the Jones Falls River, which runs through the city to the Baltimore Inner Harbor, and deposits it in a large dumpster so the trash can be hauled away.

Two large booms funnel debris toward a conveyor belt powered by the wheel, which itself is powered primarily by the flowing river. When the flow isn’t strong enough to turn the wheel, water pumps, run by solar panels lining a canopy over the wheel, turn on and push water up to spin the wheel.

The water wheel was designed to handle the heavy debris and larger pieces of trash that the river often carries, said its designer, Baltimore-based Clearwater Mills. It began operating earlier this month and cost $750,000, with $500,000 of that contributed by the Maryland Port Administration, Co.Exist reports.

05/23/2014 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Widespread Greenland Melting Due to Forest Fires and Warming, Study Says

written by Yale Environment 360

Rising temperatures and ash from Northern Hemisphere forest fires combined to cause large-scale surface melting of the Greenland ice sheet in 2012, an echo of a similar event that occurred in 1889, a new study finds.

The massive Greenland ice sheet — the second largest ice body in the world after the Antarctic ice sheet — experiences annual melting at low elevations near the coastline, but surface melt is rare in the dry snow region in its center. In July 2012, however, satellites observed for the first time surface melt across more than 97 percent of the ice sheet, generating reports that the event was almost exclusively the result of climate change.

These NASA maps show how, within the space of four days in the summer of 2012, Greenland’s vast ice sheet faced a degree of melting not seen in three decades of satellite observations. The image at left shows the ice sheet on July 8, 2012, with a large part of it experiencing no melting (shown in white) in summer, as is typical. By July 12, 2012, the surface of virtually the entire ice sheet was melting (shown in red). (Image credit: NASA)

In the new report, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers analyzed an ice core from the dry snow region of the ice sheet. Their findings indicate that in both 2012 and 1889 exceptionally warm temperatures combined with black carbon sediments from Northern Hemisphere forest fires to darken the surface of the ice sheet to a critical albedo threshold, causing the large-scale melting events. Since Arctic temperatures and the frequency of forest fires are both expected to rise with climate change, large-scale melt events on the Greenland ice sheet may begin to occur almost annually by the end of century, the researchers say.

05/21/2014 1 comment

Renewable Energy

India’s New Prime Minister Plans to Make a Major Push on Solar Energy

written by Yale Environment 360

India’s new government plans to bring electricity to the homes of its entire population of 1.2 billion within the next five years, largely through solar panel installations, Bloomberg News reports.

Although nearly 400 million Indians do not have access to electricity, newly elected prime minister Narendra Modi, who won an overwhelming victory in last week’s national vote, has pledged to enable every household to run at least one light bulb by 2019.

If all goes well, household solar projects would allow every home to run two light bulbs, a solar cooker, and a television, one of Modi’s energy advisers said. The plan follows an unfulfilled pledge from the previous administration to bring electricity to all homes by 2012.

Modi, who pioneered India’s first incentive program for large-scale solar projects when he was chief minister of Gujarat state, has made expanding solar a top priority because it has the potential to create jobs and supply power to millions of households, many of which are scattered throughout rural areas and not connected to the grid. “We look upon solar as having the potential to completely transform the way we look at the energy space,” said the energy adviser.

05/20/2014 1 comment

Renewable Energy

Early El Niño Conditions May Spell Big Weather Impact This Year

written by Yale Environment 360

Indications are growing that an El Niño weather pattern may be forming in the Pacific Ocean, which could have a profound impact on global weather. El Niño events are spawned by unusually warm ocean waters in the Pacific, and these NASA satellite images are one indication of warmer waters.

The images depict sea-surface height anomalies, with above average sea-surface height shown in various shades of brown. Above average sea-surface heights are an indication of warmer waters, which expand as temperatures rise. These two images compare conditions in 1997 — a year with one of the most powerful El Niño events of the 20th century — with conditions this May.

If an El Niño pattern does develop this year, it could lead to wetter conditions in western North America and South America, which could help end a severe drought now plaguing the U.S. West. The 1997/98 El Niño also created warmer and drier conditions in much of Asia. Other evidence, including data from a network of buoys in the Pacific, also shows a deep pool of warm waters sliding east across the Pacific since January.

05/15/2014 0 comment

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