Monday, July 25, 2011

More with less

Is a low-carbon necessarily a low-energy future?

Given the intermittency issue of solar and wind, and the huge investments needed for storage and long distance transmission, low-carbon path requires a high rate of growth in that expensive sector, and therefore high rates of investment. Governments would have to jump-start the transition with big subsidies—a tough order!

Global coal production will max out in the next few years and start to decline. And then there is China which now burns almost half the world’s total and is starting to import enormous quantities, driving up prices worldwide. Costs of production of natural gas and per-well depletion rates also are high.

Of course, even if one were to continue on the high carbon track, things are bound to grind to a halt soon. Enormous amounts of coal, oil, gas, and other fossil fuels still remain underground, but each new increment will cost significantly more to extract (in terms of both money and energy). Most of what is left is lower quality, expensive-to-produce, less accessible resources.

After a certain point, even if gross energy production is still climbing, the amount of energy actually useful to society starts to decline anyway. From then on, it is impossible to increase the amount of useful energy available. Whatever the path, we have less energy to use.

As more energy observers concur, energy conservation must be brought from the background to centrestage. This covers not only efficient use of energy which releases more energy for other uses, it should also look at discouraging extravagance. For many of our daily requirements, this means a re-look at new (or old) ways to do things.

Surprisingly, in releasing so much energy from our menu, we could find ourselves living healthier lives than before.

A low energy future is the sane choice. Agree?

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Tech saviour

Can technology do it? As the human race heads to the 9 bn mark by mid-century, the challenge of feeding the billions raises the same question again. Will technology, as evilly cast as GM foods, help? Or is it just another chance we have to take? Even if the consequences are far worser than what we face now in the aftermath of the Green revolution?

Can technology take us of the fuel impasse? Provide more fuel for our dreams? can technology in the form of geo-engineering help us continue burning our fossil fuels?

Or is it time to change our outlook on what we call progress? But can we lay down the comforts that 'abundant' energy and resources had afforded? can we dump the GDP? After all, it reveals nothing about income distribution, non-monetary transactions or people’s overall well-being. For example, if you eat at home instead of at restaurants and grow your own food rather than buying it, you’re hurting GDP even as you practice thrift and self-reliance.

Even as the UN Security Council failed at a consensus in terming climate change a direct threat to peace and security, Achim Steiner from the UN Environment Program said climate change would also “exponentially” increase the scale of natural disasters.

Have we reached the 'critical mass' point of drastic transformation that experts are talking of? A transformation that can spell doom on the unlimited growth incline, or one that will bring a change in the collective human consciousness?

Which option would you prefer? Why?

Thursday, July 21, 2011

A feather in the PV cap

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have discovered an added benefit to solar panels: In summer, they cool the buildings on which they are installed. Using thermal imaging, the scientists found that solar photovoltaic panels act like giant sun shades and that building ceilings under the panels were 5 degrees F cooler than top-floor ceilings of buildings with exposed roofs.

Reporting in the journal Solar Energy, the researchers also found that tilting the solar panels allowed for the efficient passage of air underneath, further cooling the buildings.

In winter, the solar panels prevent some sunlight from warming buildings, but at night the panels trap heat and warm buildings, essentially offsetting any reduction of solar heating during the day. Solar panels reduced the amount of heat reaching the roof by 38 percent, the study said.

Overall, the study said that the energy savings from the cooling effect of solar panels amounted to getting a 5 percent discount on the price of the panels. Isn't that cool?

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Do it for your country!

Growth, some believe, is inextricably tied with energy. But is it? Does increased energy consumption lead to better quality of life? Or does cheap, abundant (seemingly!) fuel cause indirectly obesity and diabetes, pollution, waste, etc?

Take for instance Europe with a collective economy larger than that of the US.
It has considerably lower levels of inequality; provides universal health care with better overall outcomes; and enforces stricter environmental, health and safety regulations--all on half the energy per person as in the US.

Vaclav Smil illustrates this phenomenon in a recent article entitled "Science, energy, ethics, and civilization." He notes that there is an inflection point for many quality of life measures at around 100 gigajoules/year per person. Above that, indicators improve very little. For comparison the United States uses 330 gigajoules/year per person. Smil thinks consumption above 200 gigajoules is actually counterproductive.

Humans are energy-gathering machines. If they did not gather more energy than they expend, they would instantly die out. Every organism on the planet seeks to maximize its energy gain. But as with any adaptive strategy, it eventually becomes maladaptive. If an organism cannot evolve to match changing conditions--in this case, rapid fossil fuel depletion, climate change, soil degradation and so on--then dieoff or extinction can follow.

One way around this, according to experts like Kurt Cobb, is to use some strong attachment of the race, like nation or God! 'To say one needs to use less energy for the good of humanity has very limited appeal. To say one needs to do it for God, king and country is a move in the right direction.'

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Hold on to that green cover

Forests play an even greater role in Earth’s climate system than previously known, according to the most comprehensive assessment yet of the carbon storage potential of the world’s wooded areas.

Between 1990 and 2007, the planet’s tropical, temperate, and boreal forests absorbed about 2.4 billion tons of carbon annually, or the equivalent of about one-third of fossil fuel emissions, and re-growth of trees in previously cleared lands absorbed an additional 1.6 billion tons, according to a study published in the journal Science.

During the same period, however, rampant deforestation — particularly in the world's tropical regions — released 2.9 billion tons of carbon annually. Overall, the planet’s forests provide a net carbon sink of about 1.1 billion tons of carbon, or the equivalent of about 13 percent of the emissions produced by humankind annually.

According to researchers, the findings suggest that forest protection should play an even more important role in strategies to protect the planet’s climate, including the emergence of carbon markets.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Cities need those old trees

At a time when cities are committing hara-kiri and cutting down trees to widen roads, here is something to think over.

Vegetation in towns and cities can make a significant contribution to carbon storage and, ecologists say, could lock away even more carbon if local authorities and gardeners planted and maintained more trees. The study was published week in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology.

Using satellite data and information gathered by visiting local parks and gardens, the researchers surveyed vegetation across Leicester, including domestic gardens and council-owned parks, golf courses, abandoned industrial land, road verges and river banks.

They found 231,000 tonnes of carbon (C) locked up in Leicester's above-ground vegetation, equivalent to 3.16 kg C per square metre of the city, an order of magnitude greater than current national estimates. Most of this carbon pool is associated with trees.

Large trees are especially important carbon stores, said the team leader. Trees, particularly large ones, should be protected and maintained and if more trees are planted in urban areas for their carbon storage value, they must be the right kind of tree planted in the right place so that they have a long, productive life span, and when trees die they should be replaced.

Are our city planners listening?

Coal rush

Indian coal companies are trying to earn hundreds of millions of carbon credits from the coal expansion, much to the concern of international watchdogs, who believe they are not fully equipped.

Seven major and more than 30 smaller coal-powered power stations are planned in Andhra Pradesh alone, together intended to have a capacity of 56GW. The largest plant, expected to be opened in two years, will be the $4bn Krishnapatnam power station, India's first "ultra-mega" class of coal-fired power station. With 4GW, capacity it will be one of the world's 25 biggest electricity sources, capable of powering 7m middle-class homes.

The Krishnapatnam plant has been registered with the UN clean development mechanism (CDM) and, if approved, could generate 3.5m carbon credits a year.

India last year approved plans for 173 coal-fired power stations expected to provide an extra 80-100 gigawatts (GW) of electricity capacity within a few years. Many are expected to be fuelled by cheap coal imported from Australia, Indonesia and southern Africa, but applications to mine more than 600m tonnes of coal in India have been lodged.

Will the CDM encourage more such mega plants? Is it good in the long run for the environment and human health? Write in.

Friend or foe?

Can natural gas be the best transition fuel for an economy going green? Yes and no, say sources. The latest report from Canada says that natural gas could delay action on climate change.

Taking the case of Canada, it notes how switching from coal to natural gas could help meet Canada's short-term goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020. But if that's the only change Canada makes, the 2050 targets — an 80 per cent greenhouse gas reduction — would be almost impossible to achieve.

The David Suzuki Foundation recommends the government bring in an emissions-reduction plan that emphasizes energy-efficiency measures and renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and hydro.

The report also found other problems with the increased development and production of natural gas. Among them are environmental impacts unrelated to climate change. Like fracking!

Shale gas, it points, requires a tremendous number of wells to be drilled. A typical shale gas region could be drilling in the thousands of new wells every year. You're looking at a well-site every square mile. Game?

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Green energy looking breezy and sunny

There was a 32% rise in green energy investments worldwide last year according to the latest annual report on renewable energy investment trends issued by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Wind farms in China and small-scale solar panels on rooftops in Europe were largely responsible for this. Investors pumped a record $211 billion into renewables -- about one-third more than the $160 billion invested in 2009, and a 540% rise since 2004.

For the first time, developing economies overtook developed ones in terms of "financial new investment"--spending on utility-scale renewable energy projects and provision of equity capital for renewable energy companies. on this measure, $72 billion was invested in developing countries vs. $70 billion in developed economies.

The report, Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2011, has been prepared for UNEP by London-based Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

"The continuing growth in this core segment of the Green Economy is not happening by chance. The combination of government target-setting, policy support and stimulus funds is underpinning the renewable industry's rise and bringing the much needed transformation of our global energy system within reach," Said UNEP director Achim Steiner.

The price of PV modules per megawatt has fallen 60% since mid-2008, making solar power far more competitive in a number of sunny countries. By the end of 2010, many countries were rushing to make their PV tariffs less generous.

Nevertheless the small-scale solar market is likely to stay strong in 2011, the report suggests. Further drops in costs for solar, wind and other technologies lie ahead, the report says, posing a growing threat to the dominance of fossil-fuel generation sources in the next few years.

Throughout the last decade, wind was the most mature renewable energy technology and enjoyed an apparently unassailable lead over its rival power sources.Wind turbine prices have fallen 18% per megawatt in the last two years, reflecting, as with solar, fierce competition in the supply chain. In 2010, wind continued to dominate in terms of financial new investment in large scale renewables, with $94.7 billion (up 30% from 2009). However, when investments in small scale projects are added in solar is catching up, with $86 billion in 2010, up 52% on the previous year.

The sharpest percentage jumps in overall investment were seen in small-scale projects -- up 91% year-on-year at $60 billion, and in government-funded research and development, up 121% at $5.3 billion, as more of the "green stimulus" funds promised after the financial crisis arrived in the sector.

Indoor air pollution leads to cardiac problems

An estimated two billion people in the developing world heat and cook with a biomass fuel such as wood, but the practice exposes people -- especially women -- to large doses of small-particle air pollution, which can cause premature death and lung disease. And now, a study shows cardio risk too!

In a study just published online in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have associated indoor air pollution with increased blood pressure among older women.

In a remote area of Yunnan Province, China, 280 women in an ethnic minority called the Naxi wore a portable device that sampled the air they were breathing for 24 hours. By correlating exposure over 24 hours with blood pressure, the team associated higher levels of indoor air pollution with a significantly higher blood pressure among women aged 50 and over.

Small-particle pollution raises blood pressure over the short term by stimulating the nervous system to constrict blood vessels. In the long term, the particles can cause oxidative stress, which likewise raises blood pressure.

Other studies have shown that improved stoves or cleaner fuels can cut indoor air pollution by 50 to 75 percent. In fact, the researchers concluded that this reduction would translate into an 18 percent decrease in coronary heart disease and a 22 percent decrease in stroke among Asian women aged 50 to 59.

Because biomass fuels are also the primary source of energy for more than 2 billion people globally, cleaner fuels and better stoves would produce even greater cardiovascular benefits worldwide.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Natural selection to blame

On an average, human civilization consumes some 14 terawatts of power, mostly provided by burning coal, oil and natural gas. And yet, roughly two billion people lack reliable access to modern energy—whether fossil fuels or electricity—and largely rely on burning charcoal, dung or wood for light, heat and cooking.

Lighting and battery charging take a big helping of power at home, followed by television. But when talking of ghg emissions, it is the gadgets and vehicles that take the cake.In the U.S., for example, household emissions tripled between 1950 and 2009, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, thanks to the use of electricity in the home for devices like TVs.

But looking for alternate energy also means more mining and energy use for rare-earth elements for electric motors; more pollution from purifying process for wafers, etc. Biggest challenge is that of dwindling resources. Minerals, food, water...

So, do we blame it all on population? Taking a different line recently was Nobel Laureate Christian de Duve at a lecture. He pointed the finger at natural selection, saying that this principle which drives us to reproduce and advance our genes operates "on the here and now level" and pays no heed to imminent food, energy and resource crises.

Our ancestors in the Central African forests and savannahs evolved to embrace intra-group selfishness and inter-group hostility as a matter of survival, he said.

Humans are the only species that have the ability to act against natural selection, he said. "If we don't act soon to overcome our genetic tendency to intra-group selfishness and inter-group hostility, the future of humanity and of much of life on Earth will be gravely endangered, possibly leading to total extinction under conditions that can only be visualized as apocalyptic."

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Warming up

For those of you surfing regularly (the Net), pictures of the dust storm in Phoenix in the US give some amazing real footage. The stuff of photoshop, but this one is for real!

Such extreme events are becoming the norm. And there is consensus that this is a direct outcome of climate change. In this year alone, tornadoes have ripped through the nation, mighty rivers like the Mississippi and Missouri have flowed over their banks, and floodwaters have covered huge swaths of Australia as well as displaced more than five million people in China and devastated Colombia. Last year there were the record floods in Nashville, Tenn., and Pakistan monsoon that killed 1,500 people and left 20 million more homeless, and Russia's crippling heat wave.

Munich Re, one of the world's largest reinsurance companies, has compiled the world's most comprehensive database of natural disasters, reaching all the way back to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Researchers at the company add 700 to 1,000 natural catastrophes to the database each year. The data indicates a small increase in geologic events like earthquakes since 1980 because of better reporting. But the increase in the number of climate disasters is far larger.

The second line of evidence comes from a nascent branch of science called climate attribution. The idea is to examine individual events like a detective investigating a crime, searching for telltale fingerprints of climate change. Those fingerprints are showing up—in the autumn floods of 2000 in England and Wales that were the worst on record, in the 2003 European heat wave that caused 14,000 deaths in France, in Hurricane Katrina.

Global warming is warming up and getting real close.

What's good for you is bad for another

Well, the debate over fracking for shale gas continues. The French parliament voted on June 30 to ban the controversial technique for extracting natural gas from shale rock deposits known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. This, even as the New York state in US considers revoking a ban!

Companies that currently own permits for drilling in oil shale deposits on French land will have two months to notify the state what extraction technique they use. If they declare to be using fracking, or if they fail to respond, their permits will be automatically revoked.

Fracking requires the injection of vast quantities of water and potentially hazardous chemicals into the ground to force the release of natural gas. The U.S. government is investigating the environmental impact of the technique, which critics say produces toxic waste and pollutes water wells.

A UK panel had found that fracking does not cause damage to the surroundings, especially to water. But not everyone is convinced.

And as though to commemmorate the BP oil spill, we have yet another spill as a pipeline ruptured and sent oil into the Yellowstone river!

Looks like we humans are hell bent on messing up the place - digging up muck, throwing our waste around, making gashes and ravines on the surface as we go searching for all the things we need. Or rather, believe we need! Any opinions on that?

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Cooled by pollution!

Hold it, things are worser than we thought. A new study says rising sulfur emissions from the growth of Asian industry triggered a cooling effect that partially offset the effects of global warming for a decade. While carbon dioxide emissions increased by nearly a third from 1998 to 2008, global surface temperatures did not rise sharply during that period.

A key reason, researchers say, is that increased sulfur emissions — particularly from coal combustion in Asia, which grew by more than 100 percent during the decade —allowed the formation of aerosols that reflect the sun’s heat back into space, cooling the surface of the Earth. Such effects have long been recognized by scientists studying volcanic eruptions, which in the past have caused cooling and significant crop failures.

Anthropogenic activities that warm and cool the planet largely cancel after 1998, which allows natural variables to play a more significant role, according to the paper, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. That natural cooling effect may abate, however, when nations impose stricter emissions standards, and could release a rapid, pent-up climate change, according to the researchers.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

New terrain, old questions

Is all energy development at the cost of environment? Should we go ahead despite the eco-risks? Or is it time for a serious re-look at what we call 'development'? Is this taking us forward in terms of actual well-being, or is it merely physical comfort we are calling 'development'?

The Sand Hills of Nebraska are a unique Great Plains prairie ecosystem. The grasses and wildflowers, and ponds and lakes that feed the acquifer - should these be valued at all or only the oil from the tar sands that lie below? Roughly 173 billion barrels of Alberta tar sands reserves, worth more than $15 trillion, underlay an area the size of Florida, making it by far the largest petroleum deposit in North America.

Should we continue expanding supplies of planet-warming fossil fuels, especially when the tar sands project has razed hundreds of square miles of boreal forest, led to the creation of dozens of toxic tailings ponds, and released vast quantities of CO2?

Should we exploit the Arctic that contains almost one-quarter of the undiscovered, technically recoverable, hydrocarbons in the world? Amounting to 90bn barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil, 1,670 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas, and 44bn barrels of technically recoverable natural gas liquids in 25 geologically defined areas thought to have potential for petroleum.

A single spill can have disastrous impact on marine life in the area. But do we care (beyond rhetoric) about marine life when the issue is about energy security and scarce resources? Will nations take the long-term view or seize the 'opportunity' of unexploited, vast terrains?