Hope and wisdom in 2011

Plant life in a small pool on a rock face

The year 2010 started inauspiciously with the failure of the climate talks in Copenhagen in December 2009. Fortunately, the Cancún Adaptation Framework, that resulted at the end of the year, will hopefully enable actions that are already being undertaken in many vulnerable developing countries to get further impetus and support.

The year's Human Development Index (HDI) was full of good news and celebrated the fact that over the past 40 years average life expectancy rose from 59 to 70 years, primary school enrollment grew from 55 to 70 percent, and per capita income doubled to more than $10,000.

However the report cautioned “the main threat to maintaining progress in human development comes from the increasingly evident unsustainability of production and consumption patterns. .... The continuing reliance on fossil fuels is threatening irreparable damage to our environment and to the human development of future generations.”

The warning bells set ringing about plummeting populations of tropical species as humanity's demands on natural resources go sky-rocketing to 50 per cent more than the earth can sustain. The 2010 edition of WWF's Living Planet Report shows that our demand on natural resources has doubled since 1966 and we're using the equivalent of 1.5 planets to support our activities.

In northern Ireland all it took was a thaw in icy conditions that caused water pipes to go burst leading to a water shortage like never before. With three million people affected by the floods in Pakistan during the first week of August, the year was also the warmest one on record.

Breakthroughs came in the field of materials like graphene and carbon nanotubes in generating cheaper energy. Ultracapacitor research took energy storage a bit closer to the ideal. However, the technology much banked upon by the coal industry - CCS – was shown to be costly and requiring more space than realised.

Efficiency of the solar cell crossed 40 percent. Photovoltaic module prices, plummeted by about 30 percent over the past year thanks to an oversupply of modules and the rise of low-cost Chinese manufacturers. The smart grid caught the fancy of developing countries like India, China and Brazil. While China has committed huge finds for the same, Indian utilities are still looking at pilot projects.

India forged ahead in nuclear power – two French reactors worth $10bn are expected to be built at Jaitapur in Maharashtra. The clean energy "cess" announced by the Indian government has raised the price of each ton of coal by Rs. 50. India also announced a voluntary goal to reduce its carbon intensity by 20 to 25 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels. New regulations announced by the Indian government reward the renewable energy producers not only for the generating power but also for preventing emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The first set of projects under India's ambitious National Solar Mission went under the hammer in 2010. Meanwhile, the market for clean energy products likes solar lanterns, clean stoves, small-scale hydropower, saw a surge.

The business as usual scenario saw coal production rise in 2010, with new coal-fired power plants taking off in China, India, and the United States.

The energy demand continues unabated. Emissions too. Human race is inching towards a climate catastrophe, but refusing to take adequate action. Change was mostly the result of government action. Will the individual initiate action in the coming year? Remains to be seen. But hope remains. That energy and water will be conserved. Wasteful ways curbed. Recycling become a part of life. That we take cognizance of the gift of life on this beautiful planet and mend our ways. Happy, wise new year to you all.

No laughing matter this

Scientists report in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), river and stream networks are the source of at least 10 percent of human-caused nitrous oxide emissions to the atmosphere. That's three times the amount estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Human activities, including fossil fuel combustion and intensive agriculture, have increased the availability of nitrogen in the environment.. Much of this nitrogen is transported into river and stream networks. Atmospheric nitrous oxide concentration has increased by some 20 percent over the past century, and continues to rise at a rate of about 0.2 to 0.3 percent per year.

The global warming potential of nitrous oxide is 300-fold greater than carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide accounts for some six percent of human-induced climate change, scientists estimate. While more than 99 percent of denitrified nitrogen in streams is converted to the inert gas dinitrogen rather than nitrous oxide, river networks are still leading sources of global nitrous oxide emissions, according to the new results.

Irreversible damage on the ecosystem, in whatever activity we involve in. That is the anthropogenic era for you!

Thirsty days ahead

With over 50 percent of the population poised to shift to cities in the coming decades, it is time our city planners take serious note of vital resources, like water.

Catering to water requirements of millions living in dense regions will be a challenge. Already groundwater is fast receding, and what natural water bodies are left are being encroached upon most unscrupulously by land developers. In the rush for homes and offices, very few are stopping to think about the vital ingredient to life.

"Lake 2010," a symposium on "Wetlands, Biodiversity and Climate Change" held in Bangalore saw scientists at Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES), IISc, caution against blatant exploitation of groundwater and poor maintenance of lakes. If trends continue, in a few years from now, Bangalore will neither have groundwater or river water left, they said.

The study found that the built-up area in the city had increased by a whopping 466 percent between 1973 and 2007. Due to this, the City's temperature shot up by at least two degrees. Creating more wetlands, the study revealed, was the right solution. The IISc had shown a way to raise the water table through plantations and creating a water body in the campus.

Surprisingly, for a city of technocrats that once boasted to be India's Silicon Valley, the literacy level about ecological conservation among Bangaloreans is just 3.5 per cent! Speaks a lot about why we the Garden City has turned Traffic City?!

Water has been pouring from our taps since years, and nobody believes this water is fast disappearing. Unlike food which we can still try grow on our own, we cannot manufacture water. Any ideas?

Surya namaskar!

Many countries around the world are experiencing a boom in roof-top solar panel installation on residential premises. In Australia, for example, the Clean Energy Council has reported in their “Clean Energy Australia Report 2010” that 105,520 solar power systems were installed between the start of January and the end of September of 2010.

In this context, here is what a review says, comparing solar and nuclear energy in terms of resource required to produce same energy. In terms of how much power is packed into each gram of its respective material: cadmium telluride, versus uranium. CdTe thin film solar power (using cadmium telluride) takes ten times less PV material to make 1 kilowatt hour of electricity, than nuclear uses of uranium, to make an identical 1 kilowatt hour of electricity.

Goes without saying that solar doesn’t burn up fuel. You can get electricity from the same grams of PV material for at least thirty years, and then the material can be recycled and still used again. By contrast, the equivalent grams of nuclear uranium must be replaced with newly mined uranium once the first has yielded its energy.

But the comparison comparison to coal is something else! Even assuming just thirty years use, then tossing the solar, the thin film photovoltaic material uses just five millionths of the weight of coal needed to make the same kilowatt hour of electricity.

Question is of recycling. How well can PV cells be recycled, given their toxicity?

What to do with waste

If there is one thing the world citizens have in abundance, it is waste. So, why not turn it into energy like so many are doing?

European countries have embraced Waste to Energy (WTE) as a way to reduce landfill growth as well as dependence on imported fuels. Today, about 400 WTE facilities are operating in Europe, using municipal solid waste as their primary fuel source. In Denmark alone, 29 WTE plants are currently in operation with 10 more on the way. In Sweden, the city of Kristianstad has essentially weaned itself off of fossil fuels in just ten years by replacing these energy sources with the city’s own waste.

If deployed across a nation like US, WTE facilities could reduce the volume of the more than 250 million tons (PDF) of material being thrown away each year by up to 90 percent. If burned properly, the remaining 10 percent would be mostly inert ash. With proper filtering systems in place, WTE facilities can meet and even exceed federal air emissions standards.

Yet, in the US WTE is being adopted in some regions while in many places it faces flak from environmentalists. Why? The problem is with the manual sorting and filtering required. The technology is safe – IF you can separate out hazardous materials (like batteries) in the incoming fuel (trash).

But like in any technology, there are trade-offs between cost and environmental costs. It would be foolish to look for something which does not have any negative fall-out. This is where we need to balance the positives against the negatives. With so much waste generated, time may not be far off when the waste starts spilling into our lives. More so when the use and throw culture seems to be spreading.

100 % sustainable?

San Francisco has set its sights on becoming the greenest city in the country by turning 100% sustainable by 2020.

Announced at the completion of the Sunset Reservoir Solar Project, the project which is the largest municipal solar facility in the state, and covers an area said to be the size of 12 football fields the mayor announced a $250,000 grant from the Sidney Frank Foundation to assess how to meet the city’s 950-megawatt peak power demand with nothing but renewables by 2020. (While the plant has tripled the amount of solar energy made available to the state.)

San Francisco already has an impressive renewable record, including 10 MW of distributed solar and 3.5 MW of biogas. Firstly the state is expected to increase the amount of wave-derived energy from 30 MW to 100 MW, with local officials set to launch a 1 MW to 3 MW wave pilot project next year.

San Francisco has also signed into effect the nation’s first law mandating that all residents and businesses separate their recycling and compost material from normal trash. While many other cities in the US require recycling, no other city requires separation of food scraps and foot material to be composted. The measure, which will take effect this fall, is intended to help increase landfill diversion rates to 75% by 2010 as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

We surely need more such role models.

No risk coverage for this one

Are we simply fooling ourselves? Appears so.

Governments have so far based their calculations for cutting emissions on only a 50:50 chance of holding temperature rises to 2C, the point that many scientists consider to be the threshold for catastrophic climate change which, once passed, will leave millions exposed to drought, hunger and flooding. This constitutes an unacceptable risk, says a report from Friends of the Earth.

It suggests that to have any reasonable chance – 70% rather than 50% – of avoiding dangerous climate change emissions will need to fall 16% by 2030 worldwide, based on 1990 levels.

If the maximum amount of global emissions the world could allow – what is called the remaining "carbon budget" – were shared out equally on the basis of average populations between now and 2050, the US would need to slash its emissions by as much as 95% by 2030, the EU by 83%, and the UK by 80%. Just a week ago, the government's climate advisers said the UK should aim for a 60% cut by 2030.

If historical, cumulative emissions are counted, the US and EU have already used more than their share of the global carbon budget. Emissions in these countries would need to cease immediately! Fat chance, especially in the US with the Republicans poised to take over!

If the world had cut emissions by just 1.5% a year even 15 years ago, a year after countries ratified the UN climate change convention, there would have been a good chance of avoiding a 2C rise in global temperatures, the report says.

We sure seem to be headed for a runaway warming scenario with no one wanting to make amends. Bleak future. But, who cares?!

The devil in the details

India's environment minister is being seen as a villain back home but praised abroad for helping make a near-deal possible at Cancun. Making committments legally binding was a change in India's stance for which he won wrath back home, but it could have brought some agreement between the US and China in suggesting that international monitoring be allowed (but not the penalty!).

Often the fact lies in the details. Another case in point is the Indian solar mission - very laudable and ambitious. But who will it benefit, is the hidden detail that some experts point to. Will it benefit the milions still denied basic needs of energy? Perhaps not.

Writing at the world economic forum, Harish Hande says: It attacks the very fabric of a sustainable model for reaching the poor with high-quality, need-based systems, deserved doorstep service and affordable financing. The very incentives needed have been ignored and trampled upon - by infusing unsustainable subsidies, under-designing prescribed products, and forcing low pricing and poor financing suggestions.

He goes on to say that the mission is an 'extremely well-intentioned programme that has been in the planning stages for a couple of years has become anti-poor, anti-innovation and anti-small enterprises. It is a document that has trashed democratic systems, insults the decision-making of the poor and disregards all the work done by rural energy enterprises over the last two decades'.

'The mission specifies the type of product, the price and a confused financing structure. By defining the product configurations, it is killing innovation and choice for the poor. The design of most of the prescribed 11 products are heavily under-designed - a consequence that will be borne by the poor'.

What do you think? Do write in.

CANcun couldn't

From Copenhagen to Cancun to South Africa, the nations hop in a bid to avoid taking firm decisions on the most compelling issue of the century - climate change. At every step, everyone agrees that action needs to be taken but none are willing to 'sacrifice' development for mitigation plans. This short-sighted view that refuses to acknowledge resource crunch will perhaps delay action till inevitable. For now, let's hear what Cancun concluded.

In the 1992 U.N. climate treaty, the world’s nations promised to do their best to rein in carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases emitted by industry, transportation and agriculture. In the two decades since, the annual conferences’ only big advance came in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, when parties agreed on modest mandatory reductions by richer nations.

But the U.S., alone in the industrial world, rejected the Kyoto Protocol, complaining it would hurt its economy and that such emerging economies as China and India should have taken on emissions obligations.

Since then China has replaced the U.S. as the world’s biggest emitter, but it has resisted calls that it assume legally binding commitments -- not to lower its emissions, but to restrain their growth.

UN talks in Cancun have reached a deal to curb climate change, including a fund to help developing countries. The Green Climate Fund is intended to raise and disburse $100bn (£64bn) a year by 2020 to protect poor nations against climate impacts and assist them with low-carbon development.

Nations endorsed compromise texts drawn up by the Mexican hosts, despite objections from Bolivia. Debate on a larger pact was deferred to the 2011 conference in Durban, South Africa.

The draft documents say deeper cuts in carbon emissions are needed, but do not establish a mechanism for achieving the pledges countries have made. The new agreement creates “building blocks” for a new global pact and, unexpectedly, gives recognition to the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from industrial countries by 25 to 40 per cent from 1990 levels within the next 10 years. Current pledges amount to about 16 per cent.

Bolivia has protested that the weak pledges condemned the Earth to temperature increases of up to 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 F), which was tantamount to “ecocide” that could cost millions of lives.

The deal is a lot less than the comprehensive agreement that many countries wanted at last year's Copenhagen summit and continue to seek. It leaves open the question of whether any of its measures, including emission cuts, will be legally binding. Developing countries will have their emission-curbing measures subjected to international verification only when they are funded by Western money - a formulation that seemed to satisfy both China, which had concerns on such verification procedures, and the US, which had demanded them.

Underscoring what’s at stake in the long-running climate talks, NASA reported that the January­-November 2010 global temperatures were the warmest in the 131-year record. It's data indicated the year would likely end as the warmest on record, or tied with 2005 as the warmest.

Perhaps the mercury will rise higher before world nation leaders arrive at South Africa next year,

Broadband connectivity - the great leveller

Spare a thought to the energy you use as you download the next byte of info from the Net. And keep downloading, but only what you can read!

Assuming that the average westerner's media consumption moves fully online but does not rise substantially beyond current levels, and the global middle class reach western levels of consumption, researchers at Bristol University estimate the overall demand to be 3,200 megabyte (MB) a day per person, totalling 2,570 exabytes per year by the world population in 2030.

The academics found, based on two independent sources of data, the current energy demand for bandwidth to be four watt-hours (Wh) per MB. They conclude that the average power required to support this activity would be 1,175 gigawatts at current levels of efficiency, and that a factor of 60-performance improvement would be needed if infrastructure energy is to be provided by one per cent of renewable energy capacity in 2030. By looking at historical trends in energy efficiency, they observed that this would be reached around 2021 if these trends continue.

Dr Chris Preist, Reader in Sustainability and Computer Systems in the Department of Computer Science, said: "This research suggests that in a future which is increasingly environmentally constrained, there is still a good chance that broadband connectivity can be provided equitably to the majority of the world. This contrasts significantly with other aspects of western lifestyle, such as aviation, which could become increasingly the preserve of the wealthy."

Happy surfing!

Global monitoring: will it do?

Let's harp a bit on Cancun before moving on...

India is pushing a global emissions monitoring system in Cancun talks that could become the centerpiece of a compromise with the United States if other developing countries sign on. Jairam Ramesh, India's environment leader, has however placed conditions on such transparency - money and technology assistance to developing countries and the extending of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol beyond its expiration date in 2012.

How to establish a system for use by developing countries to monitor, report and verify their emission cuts has emerged as the most contentious issue in the talks and the main sticking point between America and China. The latter resists international monitoring of its steps while the former refuses to part with funds unless this happens.

Under Ramesh's plan, a global monitoring system would be constructed "on the strict understanding that it is a facilitative process for transparency and accountability, and that it will not have any punitive implications of any sort." Countries would do their own reporting to the United Nations, and a panel of experts chosen by a variety of countries would review the submissions.

The proposed system would be applicable to all countries that emit more than 2 percent of global greenhouse gases, but there will still be a distinction between developed and developing nations. Industrialized countries like the United States will report on the progress of their emission reduction commitments, while developing countries will report on their mitigation actions.

Will this make a difference? More important, will the two nations agree?

Emissions performance

The UK Coalition Government should move ahead with its pre-election commitment to introduce an emissions performance standard (EPS), according to the Energy and Climate Change Committee.

An EPS would effectively prevent new coal-fired power stations being built without adequate carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.

However, the Parliamentary Committee cautions that plans for an EPS should be carefully considered in light of existing policies, including the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), the Renewables Obligation and the CCS demonstration programme.

The Committee welcomes the Government’s plans for an independent review of the electricity market, potential reforms and how this would work with an EPS.
But the report urges the Government to consider what a UK EPS should be intended to achieve – faster emissions reductions from the power sector? Stopping the building of new high-carbon infrastructure – as EPS has been used in California and other US states? Or stimulating the development and deployment of CCS?

"There is a range of options to be considered in designing an EPS for the UK, including the way in which the limit is expressed, the facilities to which it applies, when it should come into force, whether and how it should be made more stringent over time and whether there should be any exceptions to the regulation,” says the report.

Boggling chemistry

Venus has lessons for earthlings, and lessons of an unromantic kind!

It was the detection of a sulphur dioxide layer at 90-110 km by ESA's Venus Express orbiter in 2008 that posed a complete mystery and finally has been solved with some thinking. In the process throwing some darts at geo-engineering.

Venus is blanketed in sulphuric acid clouds that block our view of the surface. The clouds form at altitudes of 50-70 km when sulphur dioxide from volcanoes combines with water vapour to make sulphuric acid droplets. Any remaining sulphur dioxide should be destroyed rapidly by the intense solar radiation above 70 km. So, how did the layer form at 100 kms?

Some sulphuric acid droplets could have evaporated at high altitude, freeing gaseous sulphuric acid that is then broken apart by sunlight, releasing sulphur dioxide gas.

Nobel prize winner Paul Crutzen has recently advocated injecting artificially large quantities of sulphur dioxide into Earth's atmosphere at around 20 km to counteract the global warming resulting from increased greenhouse gases. The proposal stems from observations of powerful volcanic eruptions, in particular the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines that shot sulphur dioxide up into Earth's atmosphere. Reaching 20 km in altitude, the gas formed small droplets of concentrated sulphuric acid, created a haze layer that reflected some of the Sun's rays back into space, cooling the whole planet by about 0.5°C.

But now the Venus story shows that we cannot predict some things yet, like how quickly the initially protective haze will be converted back into gaseous sulphuric acid. The gas unlike the droplets is transparent and so allows all the Sun's rays through.

All the more reason why geo-engineering can only be the very last resort.

Fuel cells advance

With advances in nanostructured devices, lower operating temperatures, and the use of an abundant fuel source and cheaper materials, a group of researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) are increasingly optimistic about the commercial viability of the solid-oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) technology.

Electrochemical fuel cells have long been viewed as a potential eco-friendly alternative to fossil fuels -- especially as most SOFCs leave behind little more than water as waste. The obstacles to using SOFCs to charge laptops and phones or drive the next generation of cars and trucks have remained reliability, temperature, and cost.

Fuel cells operate by converting chemical energy (from hydrogen or a hydrocarbon fuel such as methane) into an electric current. Oxygen ions travel from the cathode through the electrolyte toward the anode, where they oxidize the fuel to produce a current of electrons back toward the cathode.

The team has reported critical advances in SOFC technology that may quicken their pace to market. Lesser materials used, no platinum, low operating temperatures make it less costly and more reliable. High-performance solid-oxide fuel cells that operate in the 300-500°C range could allow their use in transportation vehicles and portable electronics, and with different types of fuels.

The use of methane, an abundant and cheap natural gas, in the team's SOFC was also significant. Until recently, hydrogen has been the primary fuel for SOFCs. Pure hydrogen, however, requires a greater amount of processing.

Thinking ourselves out of a tight spot has been mankind's strength. But will there ever be unlimited energy?