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global warming

U.S. Can Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions 80 Percent by 2050, Study Says

The United States can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, using existing or near-commercial technologies, according to researchers with the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project.

The study analyzed scenarios with four types of decarbonized electricity: renewable energy, nuclear energy, fossil fuel with carbon capture and storage, and a mixed case. The scenarios achieved reductions of 83 percent below 2005 levels and 80 percent below 1990 levels, according to the study, which was released ahead of next month’s climate talks in Lima, Peru, and negotiations in Paris in December 2015.

The energy efficiency of buildings, transportation, and industry would need to increase through the use of smart materials and energy-efficient designs, and vehicles will need to be fueled with electricity generated from wind, solar, or nuclear, as opposed to coal, the researchers said. They project the net costs would be on the order of 1 percent of gross domestic product per year.

The 80-percent reduction by 2050 is a long-standing goal of the Obama administration, in line with the global commitment to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius. “One important conclusion is that investment opportunities in clean technologies will arise during the natural rollover and replacement of infrastructure,” said lead author Jim Williams. “The plan calls for non-disruptive, sustained infrastructure transitions that can deeply decarbonize the U.S. by 2050, and enhance its competitive position in the process.”

11/24/2014 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Tragic Irony in U.S. Politics on Energy and Environment

written by 2GreenEnergy

In conversations I had many years ago with people who followed U.S. energy politics closely, I received several suggestions that I not criticize Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) too harshly. “He’s a laughing stock,” I was told repeatedly. “The incredible ignorance he reveals in his extreme anti-environmentalist position does his cause more harm than good.” That seemed reasonable, and, accordingly, I backed off.

But now that Inhofe will take control of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in January, I’m wondering (not that my lone voice would have made a significant difference): Did I make the right call? His star isn’t rising, it’s soaring. He may be a laughing stock among people who rely on science to guide environmental policy, but this constituency doesn’t appear to be flourishing in today’s United States.

Inhofe is on a self-proclaimed mission to dismantle the EPA and put asunder every inch of progress we’ve made with respect to the environment. He’s gaining ground, and he’s completely unabashed in his beliefs, as evidenced by recent his statement:

As we enter a new Congress, I will do everything in my power to rein in and shed light on the EPA’s unchecked regulations.

and his earlier statement on climate disruption:

The United Nations invented the idea of global warming in order to “shut down the machine called America.”

Among his systems of intellectual support for all this is the Old Testament, where he quotes Genesis 8:22 and points out:

‘As long as the earth remains there will be seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.’ My point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.

As always, I’m reluctant to criticize his (or anyone’s) faith. But using the bible to suggest that modern science is irrelevant is not a reasonable way to set policy in the 21^st Century.

At the risk of sounding hysterical, this is a singularly lame point in U.S. history. To top it, we’ll need a Surgeon General who advocates leeches and blood-letting, or a NASA director whose understanding of the solar system is based on the retrograde motion of the planets.

11/18/2014 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Public Views of Climate Science Hinge on Solutions, New Study Finds

written by Yale Environment 360

People often evaluate scientific evidence not on the basis of its perceived merits, but on whether they agree with the policy implications of the research, according to a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Using issues like climate change and air pollution as test cases, Duke University researchers sought to determine if what they call a “solution aversion” bias could be detected among self-identified Republican or Democratic survey participants.

In one example, participants were provided a scientific assertion that global average temperatures could rise as much as 3.2 degrees by the end of the century, after which they were presented with potential policy solutions. If that solution involved government regulation or increased taxes, just 22 percent of Republican participants expressed confidence in the initial scientific finding. But if the solution emphasized using market forces to curb temperatures, the percentage of Republicans accepting the initial temperature predictions rose to 55 percent. Self-identified Democrats displayed no difference in the same experiment, but liberal biases were clearly elicited on other issues, including crime and gun control, the researchers found.

The study complements previous analyses from Yale University and elsewhere, which suggest that education in the sciences is a poor predictor for global warming beliefs, and that rejection or acceptance of the problem is a product of much complicated sociological and psychological factors.

11/11/2014 0 comment

Renewable Energy

New Mechanism Behind Arctic Warming Revealed

written by Environmental News Network

We all know that greenhouse gases contribute to global warming, but new research identifies a new mechanism that could turn out to be a major contributor to melting sea ice, specifically in the Arctic region.

Scientists from the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have studied a long-wavelength region of the electromagnetic spectrum called far infrared. Far infrared is a region in the infrared spectrum of electromagnetic radiation. While it is invisible to our eyes, it accounts for about half the energy emitted by the Earth’s surface.

Despite its importance in the planet’s energy budget, it’s difficult to measure a surface’s effectiveness in emitting far-infrared energy. In addition, its influence on the planet’s climate is not well represented in climate models.

Current models assume that all surfaces are 100 percent efficient in emitting far-infrared energy. However, scientists found that open oceans are much less efficient than sea ice when it comes to emitting in the far-infrared region of the spectrum. This means that the Arctic Ocean traps much of the energy in far-infrared radiation, a previously unknown phenomenon that is likely contributing to the warming of the polar climate.

“Far-infrared surface emissivity is an unexplored topic, but it deserves more attention. Our research found that non-frozen surfaces are poor emitters compared to frozen surfaces. And this discrepancy has a much bigger impact on the polar climate than today’s models indicate,” says Daniel Feldman, a scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division and lead author of the paper.

Simulations conducted by the researchers revealed that far-infrared surface emissions have the biggest impact on the climates of arid high-latitude and high-altitude regions.

In the Arctic, the simulations found that open oceans hold more far-infrared energy than sea ice, resulting in warmer oceans, melting sea ice, and a 2-degree Celsius increase in the polar climate after only a 25-year run.

This could help explain why polar warming is most pronounced during the three-month winter when there is no sun.

“The Earth continues to emit energy in the far infrared during the polar winter,” Feldman says. “And because ocean surfaces trap this energy, the system is warmer throughout the year as opposed to only when the sun is out.”

Their research appeared this week in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

11/07/2014 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Planet Set to Reach CO2 Threshold in 30 Years, Researchers Say

written by Yale Environment 360

Only 1.2 trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide can be emitted in the future if nations are to avoid causing the global mean surface temperature to rise more than 2 degrees C beyond the pre-industrial average, according to researchers with the Global Carbon Project.

Historical (black dots) and projected (red dots) global CO2 emissions in trillions of metric tons. (Image credit: Friedlingstein et al., Nature Geoscience 2014)

Combined historical and future carbon dioxide emissions must remain below 3.2 trillion metric tons to have a 66-percent chance of keeping that temperature increase below 2 degrees C — the internationally accepted benchmark for restraining global warming. But two-thirds of this allotment has already been emitted, and at the current pace of emissions, the global population will burn through the rest within the next 30 years, the researchers conclude.

CO2 emissions rose 2.3 percent in 2013 and are on track to increase by another 2.5 percent in 2014, according to the report, which was released ahead of tomorrow’s UN climate summit in New York. China and the U.S. were the leading emitters in 2013 and were responsible for 28 percent and 14 percent, respectively, of global CO2 emissions.

09/24/2014 1 comment

Renewable Energy

A Strong Rebuke for Paper That Forecasted ‘Climate Departure’

written by Yale Environment 360

Thirteen climate scientists and meteorologists have published a sharp criticism of a paper in Nature by University of Hawaii biogeographer Camilo Mora, who calculated dates when earth’s climate will move into a new state caused by human-driven global warming. Mora and his ideas were featured in an interview last week at Yale Environment 360.

In a comment article in Nature, the 13 scientists say that Mora and his colleagues used faulty methodology that produced artificially early dates when specific regions would reach “climate departure.” They also said Mora underestimated the uncertainty involved in forecasting the time of emergence of a new climate regime.

“This overconfidence could impair the effectiveness of climate risk management decisions,” the 13 scientists said in their comment. In his own comment in Nature, Mora defended his methods and said that “our findings are conservative and remain unaltered in the light of their analysis.”

Nature commissioned an independent climate scientist — Scott B. Power of Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology — to assess the arguments of the two sides. Power said that while the 13 scientists presented a more appropriate estimate of when the planet could enter a new climatic state, “important conclusions of Mora and co-workers’ original paper remain valid.”

07/08/2014 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Deforestation of Sandy Soils Increases the Release of CO2, Study Finds

written by Yale Environment 360

The texture of the soil that microbes live in determines how much carbon they release after deforestation, with sandy soils sending the most carbon into the atmosphere, according to research led by Yale scientists.

Subterranean microbes regulate carbon emissions from soil, and drastic changes to the microbial community, such as those that follow deforestation, can allow more CO2 to escape into the atmosphere and exacerbate global warming.

The texture of soil, rather than such factors as temperature or nutrient concentrations, was the most important factor governing the release of CO2, the researchers found. Muddy, clay-like soils provide the most stable environment for microbial communities, likely because they’re better at retaining nutrients than loose, sandy soils.

The team used the findings to map areas in the U.S. where soil microbial communities would be most affected (red) and least affected (yellow) by deforestation, which could help inform land management practices.

04/04/2014 1 comment

Renewable Energy

Is a New Global Climate Change Deal in the Works?

written by Environmental News Network

Could another climate change deal be in the works? World leaders are meeting in Brussels this month to discuss climate change. While environmentalists are calling for urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, diplomatic language presented in the introductory document is most likely not ambitious enough.

“Sustainable economic growth will only be possible if we tackle climate change,” a draft communiqué ahead of the EU-US summit on 26 March says. The text is subject to further negotiation between the European Union and the United States.

Both blocs are preparing new pledges on cutting emissions for the first quarter of 2015, ahead of a UN summit in Paris that is meant to agree a new global deal.

Its aim must be to limit any global average temperature increase to less than 2 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels “and should therefore include ambitious mitigation contributions, notably from the world’s major economies and other significant emitters,” the document says.

Brussels has sought to lead efforts to curb global warming with more ambitious carbon-cutting goals than any other bloc, but some of its member states, notably Poland, say there is no point in Europe taking the lead when it is responsible for little more than 10% of global emissions.

About 40% of greenhouse gas emissions come from the US, the world’s second biggest emitter, and China, which tops the pollution table.

Earlier this month, the UN’s climate chief, Christiana Figueres, said closer cooperation between Beijing and Washington could boost prospects for a UN deal in 2015.

European environmental campaigners say such a partnership could also marginalize Europe in the debate, and in the race to keep up with technological advances to decarbonize energy.

To prepare its negotiating stance ahead of the 2015 talks, the EU executive, in January proposed 2030 climate and energy goals, including a 40% carbon-cutting target. That compares with a 2020 goal to cut emissions by 20% from 1990 levels, which has almost been achieved.

By contrast, the US has said it will reduce carbon by 17% by 2020 compared with 2005, a fall of just 3.5% below 1990 levels.

Shortly before Obama’s visit to Brussels, a summit of EU leaders on 20-21March, will debate 2030 climate and energy policy, but is not expected to reach a firm agreement, due to the blocking Polish vote.

03/17/2014 0 comment

Renewable Energy

New Report Shows Path Forward on Cutting Methane Emissions

written by

Environmental Defense Fund was the first environmental group to hire a full-time economist, way back in the 1970s. At the time, many wondered what economics had to do with protecting the environment. We saw an opportunity and seized it because we believe prosperity and stewardship can go hand-in-hand, and solutions that make good business sense have the best chance of catching on and delivering environmental benefits that stick. That idea remains one of our guiding principles today.

So, it should be no surprise that EDF recently commissioned a detailed economic analysis of opportunities to cut methane emissions from the U.S. oil and gas industry. Our objective was simple – show how leading companies can cut methane emissions quickly and cost-effectively.

Why focus on methane emissions, and why now? Because pound for pound, methane is a very potent greenhouse gas – initially at least 120 times more potent than CO2 when released into the air. Whether intentionally vented or inadvertently leaked, methane from the oil and gas sector is America’s largest industrial source of U.S. methane emissions.

It’s a serious problem… but after extensive analysis and discussion with industry leaders and other experts, this study shows us it’s a solvable one. Better yet, it makes a solid case for immediate action.

Here is EDF’s view of what the report tells us:

Methane emissions are a growing problem – Even with current regulations, emissions from oil and gas production are expected to grow 4.5% between now and 2018, with nearly 90% of emissions in 2018 coming from existing infrastructure.

Significant reductions are achievable – With current technologies already used in the oil and gas sector, we can cost effectively cut methane emissions from onshore oil and gas sources by 40% from 2018 projections.

Reducing emissions is cost effective – The 40% cut in emissions is achievable at a net cost of less than a penny per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) of gas produced – which has traded in the range of $2.00-4.50 per McF over the last few years. In other words, the climate will take notice if we cut methane emissions, but your electricity and gas bills won’t.

Lower emissions means higher revenues – Lastly, some of the emission controls more than pay for themselves, as the methane captured and sold offsets the cost of implementing these state-of-the-art technologies. Just over half of the emissions reduction measures identified will actually make industry money.

Now that the facts are clear, it’s time for industry to seize this opportunity.

EDF calls on companies across the oil and gas value chain to take a hard look at the report, and take action starting this year in four steps:

Measure– As a first step in benchmarking, take measurements of your emission, including direct measurements, to better understand how your company is performing on this issue;

Reduce – Set targets and use reduce your emissions with the proven technologies identified in the cost curve study and any others that may work for your company; and

Report –Monitor and report on your progress implementing methane management activities and reducing emissions.

Lead – Ultimately, leverage your position as an industry leader to advocate for emissions reductions across the value chain, encourage peers to follow your lead, and support policy changes that maximize the climate benefits of natural gas.

Cutting methane emissions won’t solve climate change by itself – we need to continue to reduce CO2 emissions – but doing so will put a major dent in the rate of near-term global warming. That means a real chance of reducing emissions that warm the planet for decades and deliver climate benefits in our lifetime. And, because methane is also a product – natural gas – cutting waste of that resource is often a win-win for companies and the environment.

If every company in the oil and gas industry takes these steps, it will go a long way toward helping the climate. That’s a win that matters.

Article by Tom Murray of EDF, appearing courtesy 3BL Media.

03/03/2014 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Loss of Arctic Sea Ice Has Greater Warming Impact Than Expected

written by Yale Environment 360

The steady disappearance of Arctic sea ice, which is causing the exposed and darker surface of the Arctic Ocean to absorb more sunlight, is having a more profound impact on global warming than previously estimated, according to a new study.

The decline of albedo, or reflectivity, from the Arctic

02/20/2014 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Most Americans Want Action on Climate Change, Despite Costs, Report Finds

written by Yale Environment 360

A large majority of Americans — 83 percent — say the U.S. should make an effort to reduce global warming, even if those efforts have economic costs, according to a new report from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.

As many as 56 percent of Americans would be

02/13/2014 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Let It Shine Chronicles The History of Solar Power

written by Walter Wang

The history of mankind’s technological use of solar power is thoroughly chronicled in a new book penned by John Perlin. With Let it Shine: The 6000-Year Story of Solar Energy, solar and forest conservation expert Perlin takes the reader on a journey that stretches back to ancient times, around 2,500 years ago, when Greek architects

12/16/2013 0 comment

Renewable Energy

U.N. Climate Chief Says Coal Industry Must Leave Many Reserves in the Ground

written by Yale Environment 360

United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres said that coal power can be part of the solution to curbing global warming, but it would require shuttering older coal power plants, advancing carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, and resolving to leave much of the planet’s existing coal reserves in the ground.

11/19/2013 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Ozone Treaty from 1987 Has Also Slowed Global Warming, Study Finds

written by Yale Environment 360

The 1987 Montreal Protocol, an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by banning chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), has also slowed global warming since the mid-1990s, a new analysis has found.

The ban has lowered global temperatures by about 0.2 degrees F since it was enacted, scientists report

11/12/2013 0 comment

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