Climate Change

We were in St. Martin for vacation.  The southern part is Dutch and the northern part is French.  The whole island uses desalinated water, so I’ve been thinking about that some more.

Here’s a succinct piece from “Scientific American” on desalination:  Why don’t we get our drinking water from the ocean by taking the salt out of seawater?  It turns out that many do:  “The International Desalination Association says that as of 2007 there were about 13,000 desalination plants operating around the world. They pumped out approximately 14.7 billion gallons (55.6 billion liters) of drinkable freshwater a day.”  But why don’t we use more?  The short answer is energy.  It’s an energy-intensive process.  My answer?  Use renewables.

I’ve referenced the very exciting Desertec project here a few times.  The concept is to provide a very significant bit of Europe’s electricity and most of North Africa’s from solar power from the Sahara.  I mentioned it here last month in the context of the “SuperSmart Grid.”  It’s an exciting prospect:  the idea of supplying virtually limitless amounts of power from solar arrays in the Sahara Desert.  See the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) project. See also this informative UK website on this concept.  Solar power for massive desalinization projects? Why in the world not?  See this recent article from “The Guardian” too.

I talked to the manager of the beach resort where we stayed.  I wanted to pitch renewables to him:  sun, wind, ocean power.  It turns out he was on it.  They are well along in researching and deploying a big PV arrangement.  Since they also have a reverse osmosis plant for the hotel, the solar arrays would presumably help power that.

For another perspective on desalination and freshwater use, see this from the Pacific Institute where Peter Gleick, the author of the short “Scientific American” piece, is president.

Now don’t go away because while we’re on the subject of desalination, here’s another angle:  use seawater in an industrial process that takes waste heat and carbon dioxide from power plants to make cement.  The seawater is stripped of calcium and magnesium making it ideal for desalination technologies, according to this exciting article, also from “Scientific American.”  One of the companies referenced in the article, Calera, claims that it can take more than 90% of the carbon dioxide from power plant emissions to, for all intents and purposes, sequester it in concrete.  This company and some others are working now to pilot this process.

It’s one more hugely exciting prospect for getting to the zero-carbon society that we have to realize, and sooner rather than later.  

Here are some items to begin to pick up some of the slack from the past two weeks.  We’ve been away – and there’s some interesting stuff to say about that in a day or two.  For now, here are some morsels, I hope, for your delectation.

More Renewable Stories – I wrote last week about some renewable projects around the world.  (See the last post below.)  Now here are two more items, this time from the Pacific.  In this story from the AFP (via the WBCSD), Indonesia’s President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, announces an initiative to increase both energy efficiency and the country’s use of renewables, including geothermal.  One has to think that Indonesia has a plentiful resource in the geothermal department.  See this recent article, for instance, from the IHT.  As of now, “Indonesia supplies just 850 megawatts of an estimated 27,000 megawatt potential from geothermal sources, or about 3 percent of its current power output.”  The pace of development seems sure to increase rapidly with the new government focus.

Meanwhile in Brunei, Mitsubishi and the government have agreed to build a pilot solar facility.  See this from Reuters, also via the WBCSD. 

Sun, wind, geothermal, ocean power!  Every nation in the Pacific ought to be on a renewables development spree.  Having just come back from a more southerly clime, I can testify that the sun alone could power these countries.  Throw in the other modes, as appropriate, and you would never have to so much as think about oil or gas prices again. 

Very Green Development in British Columbia – There’s an exciting project in Canada, Dockside Green, that will, when it’s all phased in, be a 26-building, 1.3-million-square-foot mix of apartments, restaurants, stores and offices.  See this article from Bloomberg News.  I’ve written a fair bit about Green Building at the blog and I can say this is one more very exciting project. 

The project will feature, among other things, a biomass gasification plant, an onsite sewage treatment plant that will have effluent clean enough to serve as water for gardens, and a passive cooling system. 

I do take exception to one sentence in the article:  “Conservation and efficiency have generally been treated condescendingly in the U.S. energy debate, like the bright but annoying student whose hand always shoots up first.”  If you look at the new federal energy bill from December of 2007, developments in energy efficiency in many areas, not the least of which in green building, and the trends, the truth of the sentence pretty much evaporates.  (See Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency here.)

Perceptions – I’ve had a few items over time about Public Opinion.  Here’s an article from ABC News about a recent poll of theirs.  This is a mixed bag.  Although a surprising number, 63%, of those polled “favor oil drilling in coastal waters where it’s currently prohibited,” most of the respondents also “support higher taxes on oil company profits” and “stricter fuel efficiency rules for cars.”

On climate change, many Americans, it seems, are concerned about the issue and are taking some action, such as reducing energy use.  The reduction in energy use, of course, may well be more of a pocketbook issue than environmentally driven.  The disparities in concern and desire for action are quite striking between Democrats and Republicans and between men and women.  Look at charts and more information here.  See also the video segment. 

Going a little deeper, the American Psychological Association discussed climate change at its recent annual convention in Boston.  In this APA release, we get a taste of what some researchers have been seeing on the public perception of climate change.  “With climate change in the news and on peoples’ minds, psychologists have been studying human behavior and attitudes to determine how people feel about global warming, what psychological changes might result from a hotter planet and what would best motivate people to conserve.”  There’s contact information at the release for getting more information on the various studies.

Two Great Opinion Pieces – The peerless Betsy Kolbert wrote about the continuing American cultural and political obsession with gas prices in “The New Yorker” recently.  See Changing Lanes in which she notes John McCain’s recent emphasis on offshore drilling as a panacea for high prices at the pump.  Sadly, Barack Obama, seems to have succumbed to this same short-sighted political tomfoolery.

The “Financial Times” calls both of their cards in this terrific piece from today’s paper, Strategic choice for US energy policy.  The bottom line here:  a price on carbon is critical to averting the worst of the climate change crisis.  The next administration can face that reality and get on with the work at hand or it can choose to “disguise or deny the vital role of prices, and be forced to rely entirely on fiscal and regulatory micro-management – with the limitless opportunities for picking losers and falling prey to special interests that this path entails.”  For some basic insight on what the American people, among others, and their political candidates must recognize and acknowledge, read these two pieces.

Green Dancing – Last but certainly not least, my colleague, Cassandra Clifford flagged this compelling article from Der Spiegel.  (Cassie writes passionately and well about Children for the FPA.)  Dutch Club to Recycle Dancers’ Energy is about how a dance floor, through “electromagnetic induction,” can convert movement into energy.  Beyond that, it’s about the Sustainable Dance Club (SDC) initiative being coordinated by Dutch-based Enviu, “innovators in sustainability.”

Party on!

The Ocean of Renewables – I came across this fascinating “Salon.com” post recently, Exajoules of Hope, by Andrew Leonard. Leonard writes “How the World Works,” a regular “conversation about globalization.” In the piece, we learn that “A joule is one watt of power for one second. An exajoule is 10 to the 18th power joules. Current estimates are that the world demand for energy in a year is 428 exajoules.” That’s succinct!

Now for the really good stuff. In researching carbon trading, Leonard came across a paper on “The Potentials of Renewable Energy.” He finds a chart saying that the technical potential for hydro in the world is 50 exajoules, biomass is 250, solar 1,600, wind is 600, and geothermal is 5,000. That’s about 7,500 and doesn’t count ocean energy.

The conclusion: the total technical renewable potential is 17 times current demand. That, my friends, is one of the messages I’ve been trying to convey: we are swimming in renewable energy. Let’s get on it!

Leonard cites another study, “The price of power: poverty, climate change, the coming energy crisis and the renewable revolution” from the New Economics Foundation. The conclusion here? As Leonard says, “… small-scale renewable energy installations are increasingly appropriate for deployment in impoverished nations where millions still live far from the electricity grid.”

Kenya Geothermal – Which brings us to this: Kenya energy goes green to meet electricity boom. In this AFP story, courtesy of the WBCSD’s “Energy & Climate News,” we learn that Kenya intends to triple its 1 gigawatt energy output in the next ten years, with 85% of the new capacity coming from geothermal. I’ve written a number of times about geothermal, including here and here.

I’ll quote in full from more than a year ago at the blog on a study done for the US: “On geothermal, in January [‘07] a major new report found enormous “… potential for geothermal energy within the United States” and “… that mining the huge amounts of heat that reside as stored thermal energy in the Earth’s hard rock crust could supply a substantial portion of the electricity the United States will need in the future, probably at competitive prices and with minimal environmental impact.” See this from the M.I.T. news service and the report itself.”

Nepal – The headline from a recent issue of “The Hindu” is Nepal to raise climate change at SAARC meet. SAARC is the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and has Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as members. Nepali Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat is quoted in the article as saying “The glaciers are melting in the Himalayan region faster than before; mountains are melting and agricultural cycle is also affected, we’ll be raising these issues at the Summit.” He called for regional cooperation on energy and climate. He also noted Nepal’s considerable hydropower potential.

And how! See this paper on hydropower’s potential in Nepal from a few years back from the South Asia Regional Initiative for Energy (SARI/Energy) and USAID. The report notes: “Nepal has a huge hydro-power potential of 83,000 MW, out of which 42,000 MW is considered to be economically feasible in the present condition. The present hydro-power capacity is about 500 MW. Only 18% of the population has access to electricity.” Sound evocative of what Andrew Leonard was saying?

China Green – Besides all the smoke (literally) and mirrors of the attempt by the PRC to mask their massive, killing pollution ahead of the Olympics, there’s an ongoing story, noted here among other places at the blog, about how China is trying to break through to a new, clean tech era. Now see Reuters’ recent article, Green Revolution Emerges in Smokestack China. The article notes that a new report from The Climate Group, “China’s Clean Revolution,” says that China is now “… the world’s top maker of solar power panels, is set to become the top exporter of wind turbines and has two-thirds of the global market in solar water heaters. China is also a leading producer of energy efficient domestic appliances and rechargeable batteries.”

Can you say leapfrogging?

IEA Database – What exactly is going on throughout the world on renewables and energy efficiency? You can find out a lot about projects and policies here with the International Energy Agency’s comprehensive and interactive database. Have fun.

People say that you can’t rely on solar because it doesn’t run at night, besides how are you going to store energy that you don’t need at a given time? Well the folks at MIT seem to have come up with what amounts to all the answers. “With today’s announcement,” reads the press release, “MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.”

The key to the breakthrough is “… a new catalyst, consisting of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode. When the catalyst is placed in water and electricity runs through the electrode, oxygen gas is produced. When another catalyst is used to produce hydrogen gas, the oxygen and hydrogen can be combined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power a house or an electric car, day or night.” (For an abstract of the paper in “Science,” go here.)

“With Daniel Nocera’s and Matthew Kanan’s new catalyst, homeowners could use their solar panels during the day to power their home, while also using the energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen for storage. At night, the stored hydrogen and oxygen could be recombined using a fuel cell to generate power while the solar panels are inactive.”

(Graphic/Patrick Gillooly, MIT)

Here’s a video of Daniel Nocera, the lead researcher on this.

Download

James Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London and one of the world’s leading experts on photosynthesis, was over the moon: “This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind. The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem.”

Right up there with algae, I’m loving electric cars these days. See several recent posts here, here, here, here, and here. Now let’s get a look at some news from Spain and France. Spain Sees 1 Mln Electric Cars in Energy Plan is the arresting headline from Reuters’ PlanetArk service. When? By 2014! See also this from BusinessGreen. Industry Minister Miguel Sebastian said that electric vehicles represented the future of transport.

Meanwhile, up north from Spain, in the City of Lights, following on the smashing success of a citywide bike-sharing program, Paris is going to put 4,000 electric cars at the disposal of residents in the city and suburbs. See this from the A.P. The ambitious program hopes to launch in late 2009 or early 2010. Obviously, the French want to encourage mass transit and bicycling – and never forget that Paris is one of the great walking cities of the world – but the rationale here is that if people must drive, they should borrow a ZEV. Sweet.

I’ve been a fan of Stan Ovshinsky and the company he founded, Energy Conversion Devices, for some time. Some people have compared Ovshinsky to Edison. Among his many inventions, the most ubiquitous must be the nickel metal hydride (NiMH) battery. In a recent paper, he was to be found touting the hydrogen economy. For a significantly less technical look at his vision, see this from CarbonFree. The article says “Reversible storage of hydrogen in a solid hydride permits the entire loop of hydrogen generation, storage and use, to be carried out now, rather than at some distant point in the future.”

Hydrogen and fuel cells are not something that we’ve looked at a lot here, I find somewhat to my own surprise. Here’s a special issue of “E/The Environmental Magazine” which includes an interview with Amory Lovins, and also an article on the Hydrogen Economy by Jeremy Rifkin. (We need to look at fuel cells more. I’ll get on it.)

The last time I invoked this French lament, it was in reference to President Bush’s attempted flimflammery on climate change when he announced “….a new national goal: to stop the growth of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2025.”

Now the Republicans in the Senate have once again blocked the extension of tax credits for renewables. (I’ve written about this a number of times: here and here for instance.) See this story from RenewableEnergyWorld about the proposed legislation and this from Reuters on today’s developments.

The National Governors Association also, spitting into the wind it seems, issued this letter calling for a five-year extension, signed by all 50 governors! They, Democrats and Republicans, seem to have their priorities straight. See also this from Industry Week.

I’m sorry, folks, because I don’t like to see one of the critical issues of our age – if not the most critical – be caught up in a partisan shooting match. But that’s just what it is. When people say “the Senate” did this, or “Congress” didn’t do this, I want them to state the political realities of a particular situation. In the case of progressive energy and environmental legislation, the political reality is that the Republicans have been hugely obstructive. If you don’t believe me, check the votes. Here’s a statement on today’s travesty from the head of the Solar Energy Industries Association. It too fails to reflect the political reality.

It looks like the tax credits are going to run out before the next Congress. It also looks, at this point, as if the American people are going to further punish the Republicans in Congress in November for their obstructionism on these vital matters of energy and the environment, and others, just as they did in 2006. The American people want responsibility, finally, on energy. It looks like the only way to get it from their federal government is to vote for folks who believe as they do. I only wish that all the elected members of our federal government, legislative and executive, wanted to make the clear choices there are to be made to get what people want and the planet needs.

I wrote one week ago about Al Gore’s important speech setting a very high bar indeed for renewables. I have believed in 100% renewables for many years but, to tell you the truth, never thought the stars would align as they have to make that vision perfectly realizable. Well, if you’ve read the many posts I’ve done here on renewable energy and energy efficiency, and you look around the world at all the incredible activity, it’s already happening!

There was a particularly off-key op-ed in yesterday’s “NY Times” calling for Solar from Space. (This evokes the old Muppet Show sketch: “Pigs in Space.”) It – very strangely – lumps together everything that’s not Solar from Space into one category, saying: “alternative energy sources — coal, oil shale, ethanol, wind and ground-based solar — are either of limited potential, very expensive, require huge energy storage systems or harm the environment.” Huh? Oh well, maybe the guy drank too much Tang.

In any event, if you’d like to see six minutes of highlights of Gore’s speech, see this:

For the full half-hour speech and transcript you can go here.

In the spirit of my post from a good while back, If You Don’t Like Al Gore, Then …, here are some reactions to Gore’s speech from three Presidential candidates and an EPA administrator under Reagan. (from wecansolveit.org)

Sen. John McCain: McCain said he admires Gore as an early and outspoken advocate of addressing the global warming problem even though “there may be some aspects of climate change that he and I are in disagreement (on).” Of the goals Gore outlined Thursday for generating more electricity with solar and wind resources, McCain said, “If the vice president says it’s do-able, I believe it’s do-able.”

Sen. Barack Obama: “For decades, Al Gore has challenged the skeptics in Washington on climate change and awakened the conscience of a nation to the urgency of this threat. I strongly agree with Vice President Gore that we cannot drill our way to energy independence, but must fast-track investments in renewable sources of energy like solar power, wind power and advanced biofuels …”

Bob Barr: “America responds well to challenges, if it is laid out, if it’s in terms that people can understand and relate to, if it makes sense – and what he’s laid out makes sense.”

Lee Thomas: “Our environment, economy and national security interests are threatened as never before. It’s time for all of us to commit to a comprehensive plan to break free of these threats. Al Gore is challenging each of us to be a part of the solution. I believe it will take this kind of bold initiative and strong national leadership if we are to be successful.”

China – This article from RenewableEnergyWorld.com, talks about the continuing explosion in China’s deployment of windpower and its rapidly growing manufacturing capacity. China was in fifth place worldwide in installed base at the end of last year with 6 GW, heading to 20 GW by 2010, and 100 by 2020. The current global wind installation is 94 GW.

This sort of growth rate for putting windpower in place obviously conduces to manufacturing. The article says “According to Steve Sawyer, secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council, by 2009 China will become the world’s largest producer of wind turbines.” The article covers a lot of ground on the companies, the financing and the components involved.

Micro Wind – The same issue of RenewableEnergyWorld has a piece written by Jim Fugitte, a manufacturer of micro wind. While stipulating that large-scale renewable projects are important, he says that “The U.S. government, and the renewable energy industry in general … desperately need to reexamine the utility-scale solutions that many see as the only answer.” He points out, for one thing, the difficulties in routing and building transmission lines. His pitch: “The new generation of wind turbines makes distributive wind solutions feasible in urban areas and other settings where wind power is just not an alternative today. And micro-wind research is enabling applications and sites never before considered; meaning consumers, no matter where they’re located, have the potential to harness a new energy resource for themselves.”

The American Wind Energy Association does not seem to disagree. See this area of their website devoted to “small wind.” See also this informative article from CleanTechnica.

Big Solar – Going back to the macro, see Large-Scale U.S. Solar Power Facilities Becoming Commonplace from the excellent weekly newsletter “EERE Network News” (from DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy division). According to the article, “…relatively large-scale systems are becoming commonplace” with the trend “most apparent in concentrating solar power (CSP).” The article talks about plans for facilities in California, New Mexico and Florida. Plenty of sun in those places!

CSP, not incidentally, is discussed at some length in the terrific EDF book, “Earth: The Sequel”. CSP, as you no doubt know, relies on a solar thermal approach, rather than photovoltaic. These big projects are all thermal. (Photovoltaics, which are also burgeoning, are applicable much more for distributed generation.)

PV Windows – While we’re on the subject, here’s a promising take on PV, from “DailyTech” - MIT Designs Solar Power Producing Windows, Coming Within 3 Years. Definitely micro and hugely interesting. Excellent article.

DG – So let’s revisit distributed generation (aka distributed energy) or, as the Europeans call it, decentralized energy. It’s simply locally generated power; not generated by an enormous plant and transmitted over long distances. DG has a big contribution to make. It should be, at least in the medium term, complementary to the utility-scale, central-power model. However, there is nothing but potential for locally generated power. Here are a couple of good videos: this from the National Renewables Energy Lab (short and to the point), and this from Greenpeace UK. It’s 18 minutes but it’s a great survey of DG and combined heat-and-power (CHP).

Smart Grid – What do you need to make DG work? The smart grid. The DG power is available to the local user but also needs to be taken up by the local utility if there’s a surplus. Conversely, the consumer needs to be able to draw on the utility when necessary. The importance of the smart grid also lies in the self-monitoring capacity embedded in the system that will help optimize it. I’ve written about the smart grid concept at Green Building, Smart Grids and Renewables. See also this on Boulder, Colorado from WorldChanging and this from the Gristmill. (The comments here, as is often the case, are as interesting as the article.)

SuperSmart Grid – So now it’s time to join the micro and the macro. I wrote the other day about the $5 billion infrastructure upgrade in Texas to bring windpower to the cities. I also wrote in March about an “… exciting prospect: the idea of supplying virtually limitless amounts of power from solar arrays in the Sahara Desert. The Europeans and some of the North African and Middle Eastern states are working on precisely this. See the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) project. See also this informative UK website on this concept. Solar power for massive desalinization projects? Why in the world not?!”  See this recent article from “The Guardian” too.

Well, you need High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) technology to bring all that juice to Europe and, when it gets there, you need to integrate it into the grid. If there’s a simultaneous building out of new infrastructure to accommodate DG, then you need, what else, a SuperSmart Grid. Some very smart people from places like the European Climate Forum and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research are working on this. Here’s a fascinating paper that lays out the rationale for, the shape of, and the obstacles to the SSG in Europe.

I wrote about all the huffing and puffing by the “Alliance to Save Nantucket Sound” in my recent look at the great book, Cape Wind.  One of their arguments is that the windfarm will destroy the view.  Here’s the thing:  I am among a number of folks who think the view of offshore (or onshore) windfarms is fairly magnificent.  I love the picture of the EU Environment Minister, Stavros Dimas, here.

But here’s a really terrific picture.  A tall ship gathering for a race from Liverpool (the 2008 European City of Culture) to Norway juxtaposed on the horizon with the Burbo Bank wind farm.

(credit to Getty Images)

Meanwhile, Texas is looking at a massive transmission infrastructure upgrade to enable wind farms inWest Texas to power much of Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio.  The “NY Times” has a great story today, Texas Approves a $4.93 Billion Wind-Power Project.  I mentioned the astonishing TXU buyout that killed eight coal-fired power plants in Texas with the flourishing of a pen here (with a link to a “Frontline” segment), and highly recommend the documentary Fighting Goliath.  I also wrote here recently about “The Pickens Plan” to provide more windpower to Texas and the rest of the country.  The new lines approved by Texas “… can handle 18,500 megawatts of power, enough for 3.7 million homes on a hot day when air-conditioners are running.” 

I wrote about The Crime of Mountaintop Removal Mining, and Burning the Future, another terrific documentary, in May.  Well it appears that Appalachian Residents Have Found the Antidote to Coal according to the Pacific News Service.  You guessed it!  Wind.  440 MW.  See more information at Coal River Wind.

“The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind, the answer is blowin’ in the wind.” 

Al Gore made an important speech today in Washington:  In it he challenged the US to become carbon free in its electricity production in ten years time.  See this from CNN.  Regarding surface transportation, the article quotes him as saying “The way to bring gas prices down is to end our dependence on oil and use the renewable sources that can give us the equivalent of $1 a gallon gasoline.”  (For much more on Gore’s speech, see the blisteringly hard-working Andy Revkin’s piece, The (Annotated) Gore Energy Speech, at his Dot Earth blog.)

Is Gore’s challenge technologically feasible?  Absolutely!  I have written about scores of ways of doing this, including reducing the amount of energy we use in the first place.  Politically do-able?  That’s a maybe, but it’s looking better every day.   

But there’s one more driver, folks, and we’ve been examining it here on a regular basis:  economics.  The cost of not radically cutting our carbon output down is astronomical, according to the Stern Review on the economics of climate change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, among others.  The Stern Review likens the economic impact of an unaltered, “business-as-usual” energy and development path to be tantamount to another Great Depression or World War II.  Are you on for that?  Me neither. 

With the maturing of the European Trading System, the coming regional American cap-and-trade regimes (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and the Western Climate Initiative), the federal cap-and-trade scheme we’ll see come into being in 2009, and the post-Kyoto regime that will be born in Copenhagen in December of 2009, there’s no turning back.

As Kevin Parker, global head of Deutsche Asset Management, says in a really fine op-ed in today’s “FT” the Carbon emitters’ free ride is about to end.  “The effects of a repricing of carbon will be profound. Carbon will take its place alongside oil, coal and gas as one of the most closely followed commodities in the world. This will mark the beginning of externalities at last being priced into the cost of production. [my emphasis]  It will signal that carbon emitters have had a free ride for long enough. Governments – the US’s in particular – will have to join Europe to create a global market for pricing carbon and businesses around the world will have to accept the price the market sets.”