Again East Coast states have won disproportionate recognition in a national analysis of energy efficiency programs, this time from the well-respected American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
ACEEE named five of the best state-led efficiency programs in a report issued Wednesday. Three of the five awards went
Modeling for climate change is an extremely complex process because Earth’s climate is so complex. It is an interrelated system that involves the atmosphere, biosphere, land, and oceans. A change in one can cause a chain reaction in all the others. By studying ancient climate change patterns, scientists are better able to predict what might happen in future events. However, one factor that
Global Warming is caused by several factors such as the release of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. One solution to the problem is to capture the carbon dioxide before it enters the atmosphere, and instead, deposit the CO2 into the ground. However, up to this point, scientists have been unable to effectively track how it might move underground. The desire is to get the CO2 in place and not have it move elsewhere and potentially cause problems. Now, with the advent of Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT), developed at the
With the clock ticking down on the legislative calendar, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are jockeying to get an energy bill onto the stage that will find the required votes for passage. The goals couldn’t be more clear: enact policy that will save energy, curb greenhouse gas emissions and encourage the production of green alternatives that will reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil. In the wake of the national catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, one might think that characteristic partisan interests and knee-jerk procedural bickering might be put aside in favor of compelling national unity. Yet the legislative waters on the issue remain, for now, murky as usual.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced the timing for major sources of greenhouse gases to revise their permits, or to obtain new permits under the new greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting and permitting regulations.
The first stationary sources will be required to get Clean Air Act permits that cover greenhouse gases in January, 2011.
The EPA is trying to balance what it sees as its mandate to protect Americans’ health and welfare, and to provide time for large industrial facilities and state governments to put in place cost-effective, innovative technologies to control and reduce carbon pollution. The permitting requirements will be effective on January 2, 2011.
This is a common sense plan for phasing in the protections of the Clean Air Act. It gives large facilities the time they need to innovate, governments the time to prepare to cut greenhouse gases and it ensures that we don’t push this problem off to our children and grandchildren,” said EPA Administrator Jackson. “With a clear process in place, it’s now time for American innovators and entrepreneurs to go to work and lead us into the clean energy economy of the future.”
Economy versus the Environment. This is a slogan for many when they consider the challenges of dealing with Climate Change and the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
In 2007, McKinsey issued Reducing US Greenhouse Gas Emissions: How Much at What Cost? that provided a a significant contribution to this discussion. McKinsey’s conclusion: at an “affordable” cost of well below $50 per ton, in aggregate, the United States can meet necessary 2030 targets for GHG emission reductions. All-in-all, this was quite good news for those advocating acting to deal with Climate Change.
There was (and is) reason why the original study and McKinsey’s continuing work in this arena have been widely discussed / cited over the past two years. And, variants of the graphic on cost abatement have shown up in briefing after briefing, article after article, book after book. Good news.
Or, well, is it? McKinsey’s work provides significant data that addressing the environment will have economic cost. Even if a low number, with many actions providing economic benefit, the McKinsey work has a serious underlying thematic: it will cost to address climate change.
Scientists are reporting that biochar, which is a material that the Amazonian Indians used to enhance soil fertility centuries ago, has the potential in the modern world to help slow global climate change. Mass production of biochar could capture carbon that otherwise would wind up in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. Their report appears in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology, a bi-weekly journal.
It has only recently been realized that pyrogenic carbon or biochar or charcoal, can make up a significant fraction of the organic carbon in soils and sediments. As such, it is an important but poorly understood portion of the global carbon cycle. Biochar also may be useful as an additive to soils to enhance fertility.
The University of Bristol in the UK has published a study based not on climate modeling, but on statistical analysis of data including historical data from Antarctic ice cores.
The study shows that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of carbon dioxide has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of carbon dioxide having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now. This suggests that terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans have a much greater capacity to absorb CO2 than had been previously expected.
Dr. Ken Caldeira, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington provided a balanced look at the potential benefits and also the costs and possible harm that geoengineering techniques could offer in our quest to find a “Magic Bullet” to counter global warming.
Can global warming be mitigated by a technological fix such as injecting light-blocking particles into the atmosphere or chemically “scrubbing” excess greenhouse gases from the atmosphere? Department of Global Ecology scientist Ken Caldeira addressed this question in his testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology in a hearing titled “Geoengineering: Assessing the Implications of Large-Scale Climate Intervention” on November 5, 2009.
The number of small hydropower projects in the U.S. is increasing as utilities try to avoid concerns about the environmental impact of large dams, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission now has applications for 14,000 megawatts of hydropower projects — enough to power 7 million to 14 million homes — and most are located on small rivers, streams, and creeks. That figure is a 20 percent increase from two years ago.
As the number of projects grows in states such as Washington, Colorado, and Montana, environmentalists are beginning to raise objections to the small dams, which critics say can still block fish runs, interfere with whitewater rafting trips, and carve up wilderness habitat with roads, power lines, and other infrastructure.
India will not accept limits on its greenhouse gas emissions at climate talks later this year and instead will focus on economic growth and lifting its people out of poverty, according to Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh. He said that a legally binding emissions target would endanger India’s food security and transport, adding, “India cannot and will not take emission reduction targets because poverty eradication and social and economic development are first and overriding priorities.”
The explosive growth of modern refrigerants, originally developed to replace ozone-destroying chemicals, could become a significant cause of global warming if they are not soon replaced by a new class of coolants, according to Dutch and U.S. researchers.
Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists said that hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) – now used in most air conditioning in cars and buildings – are a potent greenhouse gas whose heat-trapping effects currently equal less than one percent of all CO2 emissions worldwide. But booming economic growth in the developing world and the rapid spread of air conditioning mean that by 2050 HFCs could cause at least 25 percent of human-induced global warming, the study said.