Water stress & climate change

In Ground Water and Climate Change, international scientists explain how several human-driven factors, if not rectified, will combine with climate change to significantly reduce useable groundwater availability for agriculture globally. The paper was published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The authors note that inadequate groundwater supply records and mathematical models for predicting climate change and associated sea-level-rise make it impossible to forecast groundwater's long-range fate globally. "Over-pumping of groundwater for irrigation is mining dry the world's ancient Pleistocene-age, ice-sheet-fed aquifers and, ironically, at the same time increasing sea-level rise, which we haven't factored into current estimations of the rise," says a team member. "Groundwater pumping reduces the amount of stored water deep underground and redirects it to the more active hydrologic system at the land-surface. There, it evaporates into the atmosphere, and ultimately falls as precipitation into the ocean."

Current research estimates oceans will rise by about a metre globally by the end of the century due to climate change. But that estimation doesn't factor in another half-a-centimetre-a-year rise, says this study, expected due to groundwater recycling back into the ocean globally.

Increasing climate-change-induced storm surges will also flood coastal areas, threatening the quality of groundwater supplies and compromising their usability. This is the second study from the team to assist the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in assessing the impact of climate change on the world's groundwater supply.

Carbon bombs?

China and Australia top a global list of planned oil, gas and coal projects that will act as "carbon bombs" and push the planet towards catastrophic climate change, according to a Greenpeace report. The Point of No Return study calculated that the 14 giant fossil fuel projects would produce 6.3 gigatonnes of CO2 a year in 2020 – as much as the entire United States emits annually.

The largest contributors will be China's five north-western provinces, which aim to increase coal production by 620m tonnes by 2015, generating an additional 1.4bn tonnes of greenhouse gases a year.

Australia's burgeoning coal export industry, already the largest in the world, is in second place due to its potential growth to 408m tonnes of shipped resource a year by 2025, resulting in an annual 760m tonnes of CO2.

Meanwhile, controversial exploitation of oil and gas reserves in the Arctic could release 520m tonnes of CO2 a year, with further major emissions set to flow from other new fossil fuel frontiers, such as tar sands oil in Canada and shale gas in the US.

The Greenpeace report states that these 14 "carbon bomb" projects will increase global emissions by 20% and eat up nearly one-third of the carbon budget that the International Energy Agency says can't be breached if warming is to be kept below 2C, considered the threshold for dangerous climate change.

The analysis suggests that there is a 75% chance of keeping emissions below the 2C target if all 14 projects – which are at varying stages of planning and approval – are cancelled, with emissions peaking in 2015 before falling by 5% annually.

Fueling a revolution

Rapid deployment and high learning rates for technology “has produced a virtuous circle that is leading to significant cost declines and is helping fuel a renewable revolution,” according to a new global study of renewable power generation costs in 2012 produced by IRENA, the International Renewable Energy Agency. The agency announced it is establishing its global headquarters in the United Arab Emirates during last week’s Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.

Additions to global wind power generation capacity totalled 41 gigawatts (GW) in 2011, according to IRENA’s “Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2012: An Overview.” That’s in addition to 30 GW of new solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity generation capacity, 25 GW of hydro power, 6 GW of biomass, 0.5 GW of concentrated solar power (CSP), and 0.1 GW of new geothermal power capacity.

“Renewable technologies are now the most economic solution for new capacity in an increasing number of countries and regions,” IRENA concluded upon analyzing the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) among some 8,000 renewable power projects in its database and related literature. No wonder over 50 percent of all new power plants globally are renewable.

IRENA’s analysts emphasize that while a single global LCOE for the wide variety of renewable energy systems being deployed today offers a general indication of cost trends, attempts to do so entail making numerous substantive, generalized assumptions and somewhat arbitrary choices regarding inputs that can substantially alter results. More generally, “The costs of renewables are very site specific, and resources are distributed unevenly across regions, countries and within a country. There is therefore no single ‘true’ LCOE value for each renewable power generation technology.

Forecasting ongoing declines in equipment costs across the range of renewable energy technology, the report authors go on to focus on the growing share of so-called “soft costs” – those in addition to equipment costs, such as permitting, installation, operations, and maintenance – in the overall cost of deploying renewable power systems, and the need to drive these balance-of-system (BOS) costs lower as rapidly as possible.

Non-equipment costs are also higher in developing countries where transmission lines and roads must be built as part of the project. IRENA report authors see CSP, solar PV, and wind power as having the greatest potential for further cost reductions. Access to affordable financing is another essential factor in the drive towards ongoing renewable energy growth. To this point, access to affordable financing is not yet the norm globally, IRENA report authors find.

Water & energy: sustaining one another

Our leadership believes water is more important than oil, said the CEO of Masdar, addressing the Sustainability week at Abu Dhabi.

Now there are ways to look at that 'profound' statement. Incredulous. Cynical. Hilarious. How can anyone have believed that oil is more important than water? But believe it or not, it can happen in oil-soaked economies. The other way to look at the statement is the seriousness to be accorded to water prospecting, water conserving, etc vis a vis oil. An acknowledgement of tough times ahead. What better venue than the sustainability week at Abu Dhabi.
'We are gathered here today because we are confronted with a shared responsibility. A shared responsibility to address the intricate balance between our rising economies, our growing societies, and our limited resources. A balance that is crucial to achieving a sustainable future. And a balance that rests on two critical and deeply linked elements — energy and water. Without access to both, economic growth and human development cannot thrive and poverty and conflict cannot be prevented', said CEO Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber said at the ongoing Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, the 6th World Future Energy Summit, the 5th International Renewable Energy Conference. 'Achieving it will require creating the necessary regulations and policies, forging public and private partnerships, and driving the investment required to deliver real solutions. And solutions that will require a collective action, on a massive scale, from both governments and businesses.'

'Realizing action on such scale, may be viewed by some as a challenge. However, the UAE views this as a unique opportunity. In the UAE, a nation with the 5th largest proven oil reserves, our leadership believes that water… is more important than oil. We believe that water and energy require the equal attention of world leaders.'

Today, roughly 7% of the world’s energy consumption is used for water, when nearly 50% of the water withdrawn is used for creating energy. No longer can we address water without considering the energy needed to withdraw, treat, and transport it. And no longer can we address energy without considering the water needed to extract, generate, and produce it. Care to take a guess on which is more important??

Hidden energy

About 25 per cent of India’s total primary energy demand is attributed to manufacture of building materials, and another 15 per cent is to operate them. Buildings account for the largest energy and ecological footprint. Globally, buildings consume one-third of the world’s resources. In India, the construction sector adds 30 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions, states a 2007 report by the Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment.

Appliances consume energy to operate, but materials used in the construction of buildings consume energy, too. Embodied energy is the total energy used in the construction process—right from extraction of raw materials, manufacture of products to their transportation and incorporation in buildings.

Not so evident as the monthly electricity bill, embodied energy often gets neglected, as reported by Down To Earth. Assessing EE accurately is difficult because energy consumed in the making of a building material is documented only till the factory gate. Cement, steel and bricks, the basic construction materials are major contributors to embodied energy but their use cannot be reduced too much but.materials like ceramic and vitrified tiles, which are highly energy intensive, can be easily replaced with energy-benign materials like stone.

Fly ash brick has less embodied energy compared to stabilised earth block. But if transported across long distances, the advantage is lost. So also with bamboo and mud. The idea is to use locally available materials.

While Indian regulators are pushing for energy-efficient buildings with tools like energy conservation building code (ECBC), the embodied energy is neglected. The West is a step ahead trying to lower embodied carbon of materials. Embodied carbon takes into account the source of energy and then evaluates its impact on environment. So while the same product made in different factories—such as one using coal energy and the other hydro power—may have the same EE, they will have vastly different embodied carbon values.

Low pricing of materials with high embodied energy does not help the cause. Products that can be recycled or reused must be encouraged. More awareness should help. True, there are shades and shades of green and before we can call a building green, we need to cover a lot of ground!

Telecom to look at renewables

Diesel prices have nearly tripled in the past twelve years in India, and is expected to increase further with diesel deregulation. One of the direct hits of this will be on the mobile industry which uses diesel to power its towers.

The Indian telecom industry consumed an estimated 3.2 billion liters of diesel in 2011, and the amount could rise to six billion liters by 2020, according to Greenpeace India. Enforcement of new regulation that requires use of renewable energy instead of diesel would save more than 540 million liters of diesel annually and cut about nine million tons of carbon emissions by 2015.

In India, which has about 400,000 base stations, the government has mandated that 50 percent of rural sites be powered by renewables by 2015. The decision comes as the Indian government, which heavily subsidizes diesel, looks to lessen the country’s reliance on foreign oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By 2020 75 percent of rural and 33 percent of urban stations will need to run on alternative energy.

There are about five million cell phone towers worldwide, 640,000 of which aren’t connected to an electrical grid and largely run on diesel power. One study estimated that 75,000 new off-grid towers would be established in 2012 alone.
Today, solar installations with battery backups are more expensive to install upfront, but the yearly operational expenditure is far lower, recouping the investment in about two to four years. The current annual cost to run a diesel generator for a base station is about $14,510 in India, compared with $8,215 for solar with battery backup. By 2020 the annual cost of using diesel is expected to be more than $20,000 whereas the cost of solar and batteries will likely fall to less than $5,500.

Renewable options also become much more viable as the amount of energy needed to power base stations is reduced. Most of the energy is used by the radio to transmit and receive cell-phone signals. On the low end, a tower that runs all the time uses about the same energy annually as an average U.S. household. Many of the off-grid stations, however, use closer to five kW, according to Pike Research, a market research firm that covers global clean-tech markets.

Globally, the focus is on efficiency and low-power components, especially as bandwidth requirements strain networks. Lowering the energy needs of base stations could also help spur the adoption of renewables. If the architecture of mobile networks moves to smaller, more distributed small cells, renewable power could be more attractive in developed and developing countries.

Black carbon is 'black'!

Black carbon is the second largest man-made contributor to global warming and its influence on climate has been greatly underestimated, according to the first quantitative and comprehensive analysis of this issue. Black carbon has a much greater (twice the direct) climate impact than reported in previous assessments. Black carbon ranks “as the second most important individual climate-warming agent after carbon dioxide”. Cleaning up diesel engines and some wood and coal combustion could slow the warming immediately.

Published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres the study says the direct influence of black carbon, or soot, on warming the climate could be about twice previous estimates.  Accounting for all of the ways it can affect climate, black carbon is believed to have a warming effect of about 1.1 Watts per square meter (W/m²), approximately two thirds of the effect of the largest man made contributor to global warming, carbon dioxide. Co-lead author David Fahey from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said, “This study confirms and goes beyond other research that suggested black carbon has a strong warming effect on climate, just ahead of methane.”  The study, a four-year, 232-page effort, led by the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry  (IGAC) Project, is likely to guide research efforts, climate modeling, and policy for years to come.

The international team urges caution because the role of black carbon in climate change is complex.  “Black carbon influences climate in many ways, both directly and indirectly, and all of these effects must be considered jointly”, says co-lead author Sarah Doherty of the University of Washington, an expert in snow measurements. The dark particles absorb incoming and scattered heat from the sun (solar radiation); they can promote the formation of clouds that can have either cooling or warming impact; and black carbon can fall on the surface of snow and ice, promoting warming and increasing melting.  In addition, many sources of black carbon also emit other particles whose effects counteract black carbon, providing a cooling effect.

The study suggests mitigation of black carbon emissions for climate benefits must consider all emissions from each source and their complex influences on climate. Black carbon and its contribution to global warming has been a bone of contention between some academic groups with some believing that it is merely a hype to focus the spotlight on the poor nations where burning wood and charcoal could be seen as a major contributor!

Muscle to CSP

The storage capacity of concentrating solar power (CSP) can add significant value to a utility company's optimal mix of energy sources, a new report by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) suggests.

The report found that CSP with a six-hour storage capacity can lower peak net loads when the sun isn't shining, enough to add $35.80 per megawatt hour to the capacity and operational value of the utility, compared to photovoltaic (PV) solar power alone, and even higher extra value when compared to CSP without storage.

The net load is the normal load minus variable renewables such as photovoltaic and wind. The additional value comes because thermal storage allows CSP to displace more expensive gas-fired generation during peak loads, rather than displacing lower-priced coal; and because it can continue to flatten the peak load in the evenings when PV isn't contributing to the mix because the sun has set.

The report, "Simulating the Value of Concentrating Solar Power with Thermal Energy Storage (TES) in a Production Cost Model,"  noted that the $35.80 per megawatt extra value would come in a scenario in which there is relatively high penetration of renewables into the utility's mix, about 34 percent. If the penetration was lower, the extra value would be lessened.

CSP with TES, with an ability to store thermal energy in, say, molten salt, can use its heat-energy to drive turbines at power plants over much longer stretches of the day. Compared to other renewable options, at high penetration levels CSP with TES can be dispatched to displace natural gas rather than coal. This is important because electricity produced from natural gas fired generators is typically more costly than that produced from coal.

Must invest in future: Stiglitz

Are we responding in ways that exacerbate our long-term problems? Economist Joseph Stiglitz has a thought-provoking article on what is going wrong and how to set it right, as climate change crisis deepens. As he notes, the path marked out by the deficit hawks and austerity advocates both weakens the economy today and undermines future prospects. (Read on)

Given insufficient aggregate demand, we must invest in our future, in ways that help us to address simultaneously the problems of global warming, global inequality and poverty, and the necessity of structural change. Growing inequality is one of the reasons for the economic slowdown, and is partly a consequence of the global economy's deep, ongoing structural changes.

Just as the Great Depression arose in part from the difficulties in moving from a rural, agrarian economy to an urban, manufacturing one, so today's problems arise partly from the need to move from manufacturing to services… Before the 2008 crisis there was much talk of global imbalances, and the need for the trade-surplus countries, such as Germany and China, to increase their consumption. That issue has not gone away.

As China increases its consumption it will not necessarily buy more goods from the United States. In fact, it is more likely to increase consumption of non-traded goods – such as health care and education – resulting in profound disturbances to the global supply chain, especially in countries that had been supplying the inputs to China's manufacturing exporters.

Finally, there is a worldwide crisis in inequality. The problem is not only that the top income groups are getting a larger share of the economic pie, but also that those in the middle are not sharing in economic growth, while in many countries poverty is increasing. In the US equality of opportunity has been exposed as a myth...

Unfair trade agreements – including the persistence of unjustifiable agricultural subsidies, which depress the prices upon which the income of many of the poorest depend – have played a role. The developed countries have not lived up to their promise in Doha in November 2001 to create a pro-development trade regime, or to their pledge at the G8 summit in Gleneagles in 2005 to provide significantly more assistance to the poorest countries.

The market will not, on its own, solve any of these problems. Global warming is a quintessential "public goods" problem. To make the structural transitions that the world needs we need governments to take a more active role.

Methane leaks from gas fields

Recent studies show unexpectedly high methane leakage from some oil and gas fields in the U.S., findings that underscore concerns that the climate benefits of the natural gas boom may be overstated. Researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder say new data indicates that as much as 4 percent of methane from a production area in Denver is leaking into the atmosphere, echoing findings first reported in a much-disputed study published last year in the Journal of Geophysical Research. A separate field study in Utah suggested even higher methane leakage rates of 9 percent.

The calculations were made based on aerial and ground-based measurements and atmospheric models that estimated the level of emissions required to produce the recorded concentrations. “We were expecting to see high methane levels, but I don’t think anybody really comprehended the true magnitude of what we would see,” said Colm Sweeney, lead scientist for the federal Earth System Research Lab Aircraft Program.

Burning natural gas produces significantly fewer greenhouse gas emissions than coal, but scientists are concerned that those benefits could be partially offset by methane leaks from the controversial gas-drilling practice known as hydrofracturing, or fracking.

Tough action

Hong Kong has tried for decades to reduce the constant smog smothering one of the world’s most populated cities. Now a new initiative will ban the dirtiest diesel vehicles from the city limits while offering companies financial incentives for modernizing their delivery fleets.

The main factor for pollution is the more than 120,000 diesel-powered heavy vehicles, including delivery trucks and buses that operate in the city limits. Around 40% of these vehicles are older diesel models that comply with the Euro II model, emitting more than 12x the emissions that more modern diesel vehicles complying with the Euro V standard do.

Hong Kong plans to get companies to phase out these older diesel vehicles by offering substantial government subsidies, while banning older diesel vehicles from operating in the city limits, says a Bloomberg report. City leaders hope that threat of banning businesses from operating their fleets in Hong Kong proper, along with generous subsidies, will lead to a cleaner, greener fleet of modern diesel vehicles. Other cities, including Paris, France and London, England have experimented with ways of reducing urban congestion and pollution. While London enacted a congestion charge for downtown that exempts EV and plug-in hybrid vehicles, Paris has talked about banning older, larger, and dirtier vehicles from the city limits, though without the draconian efficiency of Hong Kong. Will Hong Kong show the way?