Daffodills at Christmas and snow in October were just some of the unusual weather patterns noticed by the National Trust in the last year as climate change begins to takes its toll on the British landscape.
By Louise Gray, Environment Correpsondent Last Updated: 2:41AM GMT 27 Dec 2008
The National Trust saw plants emerge early because of a warm spring only to be washed out by a wet summer.
Poor weather led to a bad breeding season for birds and mammals due to a lack of insects. Scientists blamed climate change and said further extreme weather could wipe out many species altogether.
Matthew Oates, the National Trust nature conservation adviser, said a warm January and February brought out plants and encouraged birds to nest early.
However, the spring and summer was cold and wet, meaning there were fewer insects to pollinate plants or for birds to feed on.
By the autumn the wet weather meant a profusion of colour as the leaves turned and flowers bloomed early but a cold snap killed off more bees. Winter was mild, but species such as bats will struggle to survive because of the lack of feeding earlier in the year. Mr Oates said many species could not survive another poor spring and summer.
"A cold late spring, a wet summer, with few sunny days, and the long dry autumn has shown how dependent our wildlife is on the weather," he said. "Many species closely associated with the four seasons are having to cope with higher incidents of poor weather as our climate becomes more unpredictable.
"After two very poor years in a row we desperately need a good summer in 2009. Climate change is not some future prediction of what might happen, it's happening now."
Already daffodils are out in Guernsey this Christmas and spring flowers are expected to come out earlier.
Dr Tim Sparks, a climate change specialist at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, said Britain would experience warmer, drier summers and wet, mild winters, which could mean an increase in invasive species. He said: "The likelihood is we will gain species from the south and lose more vulnerable native species."
Sunday, 28 December 2008
Money in old coal
Drax, which produces about 8 per cent of Britain's electricity, might seem an odd choice for a stock tip. One of Europe's dirtiest coal plants, it churns out millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. With Europe planning a tougher carbon emissions trading scheme in 2012, the theory is that such dirty plants will be gradually priced out of the market. But power station owners, and the government, are scared stiff about Britain's looming generation gap - by 2015 many older coal plants will be shut down because they do not comply with EU laws on air quality. The word is that the industry will ask the government for an exemption to keep the old coal plants open. Drax, which already complies with these EU rules, would quite rightly cry foul and expect some compensation in return - for example some easing of the carbon penalties it must pay under the EU trading scheme. It may not be good for the environment, but expect some haggling from the coal power lobby in the next year or two. With the government not wanting to risk blackouts, expect the likes of Drax to get their way.
Saturday, 27 December 2008
Targeting the Wasteful, Activists Seek End to California's Waste Board
By JIM CARLTON
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has repeatedly scolded state legislators for not doing enough to resolve California's budget deficit, which now stands at nearly $15 billion and which he said could balloon to more than $40 billion over the next two years.
Yet activists say the governor and other lawmakers continue to practice patronage politics that keeps questionable spending on the books. A prime example, they say, is the California Integrated Waste Management Board.
Last month, the Republican governor appointed former state Sen. Carole Migden to a $132,000-a-year seat on the waste-management board, an obscure panel that many critics say serves chiefly as a landing spot for out-of-work politicians. Ms. Migden, a Democrat, was trounced in her bid for re-election following a series of scandals including being fined $350,000 for state campaign-finance violations.
Mr. Schwarzenegger nearly three years ago appointed his former director of scheduling, Margo Reid Brown, to the board, which she now heads.
Leaders of the Democrat-controlled Assembly and Senate appointed two other former state legislators to the waste board last month after they were forced out of office by term limits. The governor gets to appoint the four other members of the six-person board.
"It's become a senior-fellow program for favored legislators," said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, a public-advocacy group based in Santa Monica.
One main function of the waste board is to oversee California's trash disposal, including approving permits to open or expand a municipal dump. But some groups say its duties could easily be folded into the California Environmental Protection Agency.
Jon Myers, a spokesman for the waste board -- who said he would have to speak on behalf of Ms. Migden, Ms. Brown and the two other newest board appointees, former state Sen. Sheila Kuehl and former Assemblyman John Laird -- disagreed that the job is redundant. He also said the board members themselves do a lot of work.
Lisa Page, a spokeswoman for Mr. Schwarzenegger, said the governor agrees the waste board is a waste -- even though he has appointed members to allow for a quorum to conduct business. "He agrees with those who have said this board should be eliminated, and will propose this again in his January budget," Ms. Page said.
The waste board is one of dozens of boards and commissions in California that consumer advocates say should be abolished because they serve no vital purpose. There are boards for barbers, landscape architects, court reporters and auto dealers. Advocacy groups managed to get rid of one for dry cleaners, and stopped the legislature from setting up ones that would have overseen aerobics instructors and astrologers.
Most board members are paid a per diem fee that often doesn't exceed $1,000 a year, and the boards' budgets are relatively small. The waste board's budget of $200 million, for example, pales next to California's overall general-fund budget of $104.3 billion.
Critics of the boards -- mainly consumer groups and many Republican lawmakers, who say they squander tax money -- say the spending looks bad when lawmakers are taking the ax to budgets of schools, social programs and other services. They also say the boards add a layer of bureaucracy to doing business.
"The savings from abolishing a lot of these boards would be an easier entry to business and cheaper prices for goods and services," says Bob Fellmeth, director of the Center for Public Interest Law, a consumer-advocacy group based at the University of San Diego School of Law.
In 2004, Mr. Schwarzenegger recommended killing off 88 boards and commissions -- including the waste board -- after ordering a review that found most redundant with other state and local bodies or simply not needed. But he withdrew the proposal after fierce criticism from legislators and public-interest groups.
In the waste board's case, there has been widespread agreement that it should go. According to the California Performance Review the governor ordered, one of the board's chief functions -- acting as final authority on solid-waste permits -- is adequately handled through a thorough vetting by local agencies.
Some lawmakers, including several Democratic leaders, defend the board, as do groups that work to ensure public access to and oversight of government workings. The waste board's Mr. Myers said board members play a key oversight role, meet as many as four times a month and often inspect facilities whose permits they are considering.
Mr. Myers added that the board helps set the tone for what he called California's national leadership in recycling.
Write to Jim Carlton at jim.carlton@wsj.com
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has repeatedly scolded state legislators for not doing enough to resolve California's budget deficit, which now stands at nearly $15 billion and which he said could balloon to more than $40 billion over the next two years.
Yet activists say the governor and other lawmakers continue to practice patronage politics that keeps questionable spending on the books. A prime example, they say, is the California Integrated Waste Management Board.
Last month, the Republican governor appointed former state Sen. Carole Migden to a $132,000-a-year seat on the waste-management board, an obscure panel that many critics say serves chiefly as a landing spot for out-of-work politicians. Ms. Migden, a Democrat, was trounced in her bid for re-election following a series of scandals including being fined $350,000 for state campaign-finance violations.
Mr. Schwarzenegger nearly three years ago appointed his former director of scheduling, Margo Reid Brown, to the board, which she now heads.
Leaders of the Democrat-controlled Assembly and Senate appointed two other former state legislators to the waste board last month after they were forced out of office by term limits. The governor gets to appoint the four other members of the six-person board.
"It's become a senior-fellow program for favored legislators," said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, a public-advocacy group based in Santa Monica.
One main function of the waste board is to oversee California's trash disposal, including approving permits to open or expand a municipal dump. But some groups say its duties could easily be folded into the California Environmental Protection Agency.
Jon Myers, a spokesman for the waste board -- who said he would have to speak on behalf of Ms. Migden, Ms. Brown and the two other newest board appointees, former state Sen. Sheila Kuehl and former Assemblyman John Laird -- disagreed that the job is redundant. He also said the board members themselves do a lot of work.
Lisa Page, a spokeswoman for Mr. Schwarzenegger, said the governor agrees the waste board is a waste -- even though he has appointed members to allow for a quorum to conduct business. "He agrees with those who have said this board should be eliminated, and will propose this again in his January budget," Ms. Page said.
The waste board is one of dozens of boards and commissions in California that consumer advocates say should be abolished because they serve no vital purpose. There are boards for barbers, landscape architects, court reporters and auto dealers. Advocacy groups managed to get rid of one for dry cleaners, and stopped the legislature from setting up ones that would have overseen aerobics instructors and astrologers.
Most board members are paid a per diem fee that often doesn't exceed $1,000 a year, and the boards' budgets are relatively small. The waste board's budget of $200 million, for example, pales next to California's overall general-fund budget of $104.3 billion.
Critics of the boards -- mainly consumer groups and many Republican lawmakers, who say they squander tax money -- say the spending looks bad when lawmakers are taking the ax to budgets of schools, social programs and other services. They also say the boards add a layer of bureaucracy to doing business.
"The savings from abolishing a lot of these boards would be an easier entry to business and cheaper prices for goods and services," says Bob Fellmeth, director of the Center for Public Interest Law, a consumer-advocacy group based at the University of San Diego School of Law.
In 2004, Mr. Schwarzenegger recommended killing off 88 boards and commissions -- including the waste board -- after ordering a review that found most redundant with other state and local bodies or simply not needed. But he withdrew the proposal after fierce criticism from legislators and public-interest groups.
In the waste board's case, there has been widespread agreement that it should go. According to the California Performance Review the governor ordered, one of the board's chief functions -- acting as final authority on solid-waste permits -- is adequately handled through a thorough vetting by local agencies.
Some lawmakers, including several Democratic leaders, defend the board, as do groups that work to ensure public access to and oversight of government workings. The waste board's Mr. Myers said board members play a key oversight role, meet as many as four times a month and often inspect facilities whose permits they are considering.
Mr. Myers added that the board helps set the tone for what he called California's national leadership in recycling.
Write to Jim Carlton at jim.carlton@wsj.com
In technology, an effort to help the Japanese fishing industry
By Martin Fackler
Published: December 26, 2008
OTOSHIBE, Japan: The Shinei Maru No. 66 looks like the dozens of other fishing boats moored in this Japanese harbor. But its builders say it is the world's first hybrid fishing trawler. Switching between oil and electrical power for propulsion, it uses as much as one-third less fuel than conventional boats.
"It's like a Prius for the sea," said Tadatoshi Ikeuchi, 62, the boat's owner and captain.
Until very recently, commercial fishermen around the world have been laboring under the weight of high fuel prices. In Europe earlier this year, fishermen expressed their frustration by blockading ports to protest prices and taxes. In the United States, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, the former Republican vice presidential nominee, has called for low-interest loans to help Alaskan fishermen buy fuel-efficient engines.
Japan, meanwhile, is searching for high-technology solutions. The hybrid boat engine, which is still a prototype, is part of a multimillion-dollar government-led effort to rescue the Japanese fishing industry from energy costs, which are likely to resume their increase once the global recession ends and demand revives.
As part of the two-year-old program, the Japanese are also testing biofueled marine engines, computer-engineered propeller designs and low-energy LED lights on squid boats, which use bright lights to lure their catch.
There is a vast international market for such solutions. Many Japanese boat engines that use computers to improve fuel efficiency are already popular with American fishermen. And Yamanaka, the Tokyo-based maker of the hybrid engine for the trawler, which is called the Fish Eco, says the United States and Europe are large potential markets.
The Agriculture and Fisheries Ministry in Japan, which has led development of the new technologies, will subsidize their introduction as part of a $700 million aid package announced in July to help the fishing industry.
Modernization of this ancient profession seems the natural answer here to the commercial fishing crisis, which predates the steep rise (and recent fall) of fuel prices. Japan gave the world both sushi and the hybrid car. But fishermen say they doubt the effort will be enough to break the deep sense of malaise that has started to afflict fishing communities like this one in northern Japan.
After decades of sending its fleets to the far corners of the globe, and paying high prices for tuna and other premium fish for sashimi in global markets, Japan appears to many to be letting its fishing industry sink. The number of commercial fishermen has shrunk by 27 percent in the past decade, to 204,330 last year, hurt by declining birthrates and migration of young people to the cities, according to the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations, an industry group representing fishermen.
The federation warns that rising fuel costs could prompt an additional 25,000 to 45,000 fishermen to hang up their nets. Before the recent decline in prices, boat fuel, known as heavy fuel oil, accounted for 20 percent to 30 percent of a fisherman's total costs in Japan, almost double the proportion three years ago.
The fishermen cannot pass on the increase to consumers in the form of higher seafood prices for fear of losing sales to less expensive imports from competitors like China and Vietnam.
They also worry that higher seafood prices would only intensify the shift in Japanese consumer tastes away from a traditional seafood-centered diet - a trend known as "sakana banare," or flight from fish.
"Higher fish prices will just encourage Japanese to eat more hamburgers and fried chicken," said Nobuhiro Nagaya, a managing director at the fisheries federation.
The average Japanese eats about 94 grams, or 3.3 ounces, of fish a day.
Gloomy sentiments about the future of Japan's industry are shared by officials at the Agriculture and Fisheries Ministry.
While their multimillion-dollar projects recall the government-orchestrated technology drives of previous decades, when Japan rose to global dominance in industries like semiconductors and supercomputers, officials express far more modest expectations today in an era of tight budgets.
"Technology cannot be the only answer," said Kazuo Hiraishi, an assistant chief in the ministry's maritime technology research division. "But Japan's excellence in electronics and energy-saving should be of some help to our fishermen."
While fishermen in countries like France, Spain and Ireland have staged disruptive demonstrations, protests in Japan have been more sedate, though still large.
Last summer about 200,000 fishing boats stayed in port on a one-day strike, and thousands of fishermen gathered for a rally in Tokyo.
The government responded two weeks later with the $700 million aid package, under which it promised to pay 90 percent of fuel price increases since December, but only to fishermen who found ways to reduce their consumption. The package also contained subsidies to help fishermen buy efficient new engines, like the hybrid.
A $250,000 subsidy from the Agriculture Ministry, for example, meant that Ikeuchi, the hybrid boat's captain, paid only $650,000 for the trawler, the same price as for a conventional boat.
Ikeuchi said his fuel use had dropped to about 285 liters a day, or 75 gallons, cutting his daily bill by about $100.
The propulsion system switches between a 650-horsepower heavy oil motor, which powers the main engine, and a 150-horsepower heavy oil motor, which turns a generator that runs a smaller electric engine for use when the boat moves slowly.
When Ikeuchi showed off the boat, which he uses to hunt for scallops, Pacific cod and kelp, the only visible difference from other boats in this small, man-made harbor was its dashboard, with small touch-controlled screens - high-tech devices for a craft made mostly of traditional-looking wood and steel.
Still, many fishermen who walked over to take a peek at the boat doubted it would be enough to save their industry.
Published: December 26, 2008
OTOSHIBE, Japan: The Shinei Maru No. 66 looks like the dozens of other fishing boats moored in this Japanese harbor. But its builders say it is the world's first hybrid fishing trawler. Switching between oil and electrical power for propulsion, it uses as much as one-third less fuel than conventional boats.
"It's like a Prius for the sea," said Tadatoshi Ikeuchi, 62, the boat's owner and captain.
Until very recently, commercial fishermen around the world have been laboring under the weight of high fuel prices. In Europe earlier this year, fishermen expressed their frustration by blockading ports to protest prices and taxes. In the United States, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, the former Republican vice presidential nominee, has called for low-interest loans to help Alaskan fishermen buy fuel-efficient engines.
Japan, meanwhile, is searching for high-technology solutions. The hybrid boat engine, which is still a prototype, is part of a multimillion-dollar government-led effort to rescue the Japanese fishing industry from energy costs, which are likely to resume their increase once the global recession ends and demand revives.
As part of the two-year-old program, the Japanese are also testing biofueled marine engines, computer-engineered propeller designs and low-energy LED lights on squid boats, which use bright lights to lure their catch.
There is a vast international market for such solutions. Many Japanese boat engines that use computers to improve fuel efficiency are already popular with American fishermen. And Yamanaka, the Tokyo-based maker of the hybrid engine for the trawler, which is called the Fish Eco, says the United States and Europe are large potential markets.
The Agriculture and Fisheries Ministry in Japan, which has led development of the new technologies, will subsidize their introduction as part of a $700 million aid package announced in July to help the fishing industry.
Modernization of this ancient profession seems the natural answer here to the commercial fishing crisis, which predates the steep rise (and recent fall) of fuel prices. Japan gave the world both sushi and the hybrid car. But fishermen say they doubt the effort will be enough to break the deep sense of malaise that has started to afflict fishing communities like this one in northern Japan.
After decades of sending its fleets to the far corners of the globe, and paying high prices for tuna and other premium fish for sashimi in global markets, Japan appears to many to be letting its fishing industry sink. The number of commercial fishermen has shrunk by 27 percent in the past decade, to 204,330 last year, hurt by declining birthrates and migration of young people to the cities, according to the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations, an industry group representing fishermen.
The federation warns that rising fuel costs could prompt an additional 25,000 to 45,000 fishermen to hang up their nets. Before the recent decline in prices, boat fuel, known as heavy fuel oil, accounted for 20 percent to 30 percent of a fisherman's total costs in Japan, almost double the proportion three years ago.
The fishermen cannot pass on the increase to consumers in the form of higher seafood prices for fear of losing sales to less expensive imports from competitors like China and Vietnam.
They also worry that higher seafood prices would only intensify the shift in Japanese consumer tastes away from a traditional seafood-centered diet - a trend known as "sakana banare," or flight from fish.
"Higher fish prices will just encourage Japanese to eat more hamburgers and fried chicken," said Nobuhiro Nagaya, a managing director at the fisheries federation.
The average Japanese eats about 94 grams, or 3.3 ounces, of fish a day.
Gloomy sentiments about the future of Japan's industry are shared by officials at the Agriculture and Fisheries Ministry.
While their multimillion-dollar projects recall the government-orchestrated technology drives of previous decades, when Japan rose to global dominance in industries like semiconductors and supercomputers, officials express far more modest expectations today in an era of tight budgets.
"Technology cannot be the only answer," said Kazuo Hiraishi, an assistant chief in the ministry's maritime technology research division. "But Japan's excellence in electronics and energy-saving should be of some help to our fishermen."
While fishermen in countries like France, Spain and Ireland have staged disruptive demonstrations, protests in Japan have been more sedate, though still large.
Last summer about 200,000 fishing boats stayed in port on a one-day strike, and thousands of fishermen gathered for a rally in Tokyo.
The government responded two weeks later with the $700 million aid package, under which it promised to pay 90 percent of fuel price increases since December, but only to fishermen who found ways to reduce their consumption. The package also contained subsidies to help fishermen buy efficient new engines, like the hybrid.
A $250,000 subsidy from the Agriculture Ministry, for example, meant that Ikeuchi, the hybrid boat's captain, paid only $650,000 for the trawler, the same price as for a conventional boat.
Ikeuchi said his fuel use had dropped to about 285 liters a day, or 75 gallons, cutting his daily bill by about $100.
The propulsion system switches between a 650-horsepower heavy oil motor, which powers the main engine, and a 150-horsepower heavy oil motor, which turns a generator that runs a smaller electric engine for use when the boat moves slowly.
When Ikeuchi showed off the boat, which he uses to hunt for scallops, Pacific cod and kelp, the only visible difference from other boats in this small, man-made harbor was its dashboard, with small touch-controlled screens - high-tech devices for a craft made mostly of traditional-looking wood and steel.
Still, many fishermen who walked over to take a peek at the boat doubted it would be enough to save their industry.
Winter cold puts a chill on green energy
By Kate Galbraith
Published: December 26, 2008
Old Man Winter, it turns out, is no friend of renewable energy.
This time of year, wind turbine blades ice up, biodiesel congeals in tanks and solar panels produce less power because there is not as much sun. And perhaps most irritating to the people who own them, the panels become covered with snow, rendering them useless even in bright winter sunshine.
So in regions where homeowners have long rolled their eyes at shoveling driveways, add another cold-weather chore: cleaning off the solar panels. "At least I can get to them with a long pole and a squeegee," said Alan Stankevitz, a homeowner in southeast Minnesota.
As concern has grown about global warming, many utilities and homeowners have been trying to shrink their emissions of carbon dioxide — their carbon footprints — by installing solar panels, wind turbines and even generators powered by tides or rivers. But for the moment, at least, the planet is still cold enough to deal nasty winter blows to some of this green machinery.
In January 2007, a bus stalled in the middle of the night on Interstate 70 in the Colorado mountains. The culprit was a 20 percent biodiesel blend that congealed in the freezing weather, according to John Jones, the transit director for the bus line, Summit Stage. (Biodiesel is a diesel substitute, typically made from vegetable oil, that is used to displace some fossil fuels.)
The passengers got out of that situation intact, but Summit Stage, which serves ski resorts, now avoids biodiesel from November to March, and uses only a 5 percent blend in the summertime, when it can still get cold in the mountains. "We can't have people sitting on buses freezing to death while we get out there trying to get them restarted," Jones said.
Winter may pose even bigger safety hazards in the vicinity of wind turbines. Some observers say the machines can hurl chunks of ice as they rotate.
"It's like you throw a plate out there and that plate breaks," said Ralph Brokaw, a cattle rancher in southeast Wyoming who has 69 wind turbines on his property. When his turbines ice up, he stays out of the way.
The wind industry admits that turbines can drop ice, like a lamppost or any tall structure. To ameliorate the hazard, some turbines are painted black to absorb sunlight and melt the ice faster. But Ron Stimmel, an expert on small wind turbines at the American Wind Energy Association, denies that the whirling blades tend to hurl icy javelins.
Large turbines turn off automatically as ice builds up, and small turbines will slow and stop because the ice prevents them from spinning — "just like a plane's wing needs to be de-iced to fly," Stimmel said.
Brokaw says that his turbines do turn off when they are too icy, but the danger sometimes comes right before the turbines shut down, after a wet, warm snow causes ice buildup.
From the standpoint of generating power, winter is actually good for wind turbines, because it is generally windier than summer. In Vermont, for example, Green Mountain Power, which operates a small wind farm in the southeastern part of the state, gets more than twice the monthly production in winter as in August.
The opposite is true, however, for solar power. Days are shorter and the sun is lower in the sky during the winter, ensuring less power production.
Even in northern California, with mild winters and little snow, solar panels can generate about half as much as in the summer, depending on how much they are tilted, according to Rob Erlichman, chief executive of Sunlight Electric, a San Francisco solar company.
Operators of the electrical grid do not worry much about the seasonal swings, because the percentage of production from renewable energy is still so low — around 1 percent of the country's power comes from wind, and less from solar panels. In addition, Americans use slightly less electricity in the winter than in the summer because air conditioners are not running. This is especially true in sunny areas, so solar panels' peak production matches the spikes in demand.
But as renewable energy becomes a bigger part of the nation's power mix, the seasonable variability could become more of a problem. Already, power developers are learning that they must make careful plans to avoid the worst impacts of ice and snow.
Trey Taylor, the president of Verdant Power, which has put small turbines in the tidal East River in New York City and plans more for the St. Lawrence River in Canada, said that ice chunks could slide over one another "like a deck of cards," pushing ice below and harming turbines. That may rule out parts of otherwise promising sites like the Yukon River in Alaska, he said.
Kevin Devlin, the vice president for operations of Iberdrola Renewables, a wind developer, said that winter was probably the hardest time of year to maintain turbines, because workers must go out in snow and ice. Occasionally, he said, the turbines will shut down or set off alarms if it is too cold, and workers must brave the elements to fix them.
For homeowners, the upkeep of their power sources can also be a bother.
Stankevitz keeps his panels tilted 40 degrees or higher, but they still become covered with snow — and experts say that if even one cell in a panel is covered, the panel will not produce power.
On the other hand, the panels can get extra power from sunlight reflected off nearby snow. And like other electronic gear, solar panels work better when cold.
Stankevitz said that on some rare winter days, when the Minnesota sky is clear, the weather is freezing and the sun is shining brightly, his panels can briefly churn out more electricity than they were designed to produce, more than on the balmiest days of summer.
Published: December 26, 2008
Old Man Winter, it turns out, is no friend of renewable energy.
This time of year, wind turbine blades ice up, biodiesel congeals in tanks and solar panels produce less power because there is not as much sun. And perhaps most irritating to the people who own them, the panels become covered with snow, rendering them useless even in bright winter sunshine.
So in regions where homeowners have long rolled their eyes at shoveling driveways, add another cold-weather chore: cleaning off the solar panels. "At least I can get to them with a long pole and a squeegee," said Alan Stankevitz, a homeowner in southeast Minnesota.
As concern has grown about global warming, many utilities and homeowners have been trying to shrink their emissions of carbon dioxide — their carbon footprints — by installing solar panels, wind turbines and even generators powered by tides or rivers. But for the moment, at least, the planet is still cold enough to deal nasty winter blows to some of this green machinery.
In January 2007, a bus stalled in the middle of the night on Interstate 70 in the Colorado mountains. The culprit was a 20 percent biodiesel blend that congealed in the freezing weather, according to John Jones, the transit director for the bus line, Summit Stage. (Biodiesel is a diesel substitute, typically made from vegetable oil, that is used to displace some fossil fuels.)
The passengers got out of that situation intact, but Summit Stage, which serves ski resorts, now avoids biodiesel from November to March, and uses only a 5 percent blend in the summertime, when it can still get cold in the mountains. "We can't have people sitting on buses freezing to death while we get out there trying to get them restarted," Jones said.
Winter may pose even bigger safety hazards in the vicinity of wind turbines. Some observers say the machines can hurl chunks of ice as they rotate.
"It's like you throw a plate out there and that plate breaks," said Ralph Brokaw, a cattle rancher in southeast Wyoming who has 69 wind turbines on his property. When his turbines ice up, he stays out of the way.
The wind industry admits that turbines can drop ice, like a lamppost or any tall structure. To ameliorate the hazard, some turbines are painted black to absorb sunlight and melt the ice faster. But Ron Stimmel, an expert on small wind turbines at the American Wind Energy Association, denies that the whirling blades tend to hurl icy javelins.
Large turbines turn off automatically as ice builds up, and small turbines will slow and stop because the ice prevents them from spinning — "just like a plane's wing needs to be de-iced to fly," Stimmel said.
Brokaw says that his turbines do turn off when they are too icy, but the danger sometimes comes right before the turbines shut down, after a wet, warm snow causes ice buildup.
From the standpoint of generating power, winter is actually good for wind turbines, because it is generally windier than summer. In Vermont, for example, Green Mountain Power, which operates a small wind farm in the southeastern part of the state, gets more than twice the monthly production in winter as in August.
The opposite is true, however, for solar power. Days are shorter and the sun is lower in the sky during the winter, ensuring less power production.
Even in northern California, with mild winters and little snow, solar panels can generate about half as much as in the summer, depending on how much they are tilted, according to Rob Erlichman, chief executive of Sunlight Electric, a San Francisco solar company.
Operators of the electrical grid do not worry much about the seasonal swings, because the percentage of production from renewable energy is still so low — around 1 percent of the country's power comes from wind, and less from solar panels. In addition, Americans use slightly less electricity in the winter than in the summer because air conditioners are not running. This is especially true in sunny areas, so solar panels' peak production matches the spikes in demand.
But as renewable energy becomes a bigger part of the nation's power mix, the seasonable variability could become more of a problem. Already, power developers are learning that they must make careful plans to avoid the worst impacts of ice and snow.
Trey Taylor, the president of Verdant Power, which has put small turbines in the tidal East River in New York City and plans more for the St. Lawrence River in Canada, said that ice chunks could slide over one another "like a deck of cards," pushing ice below and harming turbines. That may rule out parts of otherwise promising sites like the Yukon River in Alaska, he said.
Kevin Devlin, the vice president for operations of Iberdrola Renewables, a wind developer, said that winter was probably the hardest time of year to maintain turbines, because workers must go out in snow and ice. Occasionally, he said, the turbines will shut down or set off alarms if it is too cold, and workers must brave the elements to fix them.
For homeowners, the upkeep of their power sources can also be a bother.
Stankevitz keeps his panels tilted 40 degrees or higher, but they still become covered with snow — and experts say that if even one cell in a panel is covered, the panel will not produce power.
On the other hand, the panels can get extra power from sunlight reflected off nearby snow. And like other electronic gear, solar panels work better when cold.
Stankevitz said that on some rare winter days, when the Minnesota sky is clear, the weather is freezing and the sun is shining brightly, his panels can briefly churn out more electricity than they were designed to produce, more than on the balmiest days of summer.
Friday, 26 December 2008
Exxon Could Benefit from Emissions Work
Technology for Capturing and Storing Greenhouse Gas Puts Oil Giant in Unusual Favor with Environmentalists
By RUSSELL GOLD
While Exxon Mobil Corp. has been among the most vocal skeptics of man-made causes of climate change, the company has spent the last two decades forging an expertise in one of the key technologies to combat the problem: capturing and storing carbon-dioxide emissions.
Since the 1980s, an Exxon natural-gas processing plant in Wyoming has been doing just what many environmentalists say needs to happen on a global scale: capturing carbon dioxide and storing it underground instead of venting it into the air. Indeed, Exxon's La Barge, Wyo., facility, for years has captured more carbon dioxide -- the most abundant greenhouse gas -- than any other facility in North America.
Technology at Exxon Mobil's La Barge, Wyo., facility strips carbon dioxide from natural-gas wells and reinjects the greenhouse gas underground.
Now Exxon, at the insistence of state officials, is spending $70 million to expand by 50% the plant's capacity to capture carbon dioxide, brought to the surface along with the natural gas. The plant separates the natural gas from impurities. And the Texas oil giant is spending another $100 million to test new technology to make it easier and less expensive to strip carbon dioxide out of the natural gas.
Both investments could secure a place for Exxon in the emerging marketplace aimed at lowering emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. There is also a growing market for carbon dioxide itself, because it helps produce more fossil fuels.
Carbon dioxide is a key tool in the growing work of rejuvenating worn-out oil fields. The gas is pumped into old reservoirs and helps the remaining oil flow out.
Much of the carbon dioxide worrying environmental regulators comes from burning fossil fuels, which is why coal-fired power plants and automobiles are major emitters. But the global hunt for natural gas to heat homes and generate electricity also contributes.
About one-third of the world's natural-gas reserves are mixed with high levels of carbon dioxide, according to Exxon Mobil. That means producing more natural gas will lead to even more carbon dioxide being vented into the air. In Exxon's natural-gas fields near La Barge, about 65% of the gaseous mixture from the wells is carbon dioxide. Natural gas is only 22%.
Wyoming officials have urged Exxon for years to capture more carbon dioxide. "In a world that is very concerned about too much carbon dioxide, we are actually carbon dioxide short. We could use a lot more carbon dioxide right now," says Rob Hurless, energy adviser to Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal.
Exxon's carbon-dioxide efforts have earned the company grudging respect from environmentalists.
"Certainly, Exxon isn't usually thought of as being in the forefront of environmental progress," says A. Scott Anderson, a senior policy adviser with the Environmental Defense Fund, "but the fact is they are deeply involved in carbon capture and storage technology."
Exxon has recently turned a corner in its views on global warming. The company, which once funded a think tank that argued carbon-dioxide emissions were helpful to human life, today acknowledges that burning fossil fuels is a significant source of greenhouse-gas emissions and increases the risks of climate change -- although it remains unsure about the exact role of human activity in global warming.
Exxon currently captures about four million metric tons a year of carbon dioxide at La Barge, the equivalent of tailpipe emissions from 600,000 cars. The plant's expansion, scheduled to be completed in 2010, will increase that to six million tons a year.
Exxon spokesman Len D'Eramo said the company's goal is "to safely and efficiently extract additional CO2 for sales as market conditions warrant. La Barge CO2 has been extensively utilized by producers in Colorado and Wyoming."
Outside of the Rockies, oil producers in West Texas also are using carbon dioxide to boost recovery in the Permian Basin's aging fields. A new $1.1 billion natural-gas-processing plant in West Texas scheduled for start-up in 2010 will capture about 13.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year -- twice as much as the expanded La Barge facility -- according to SandRidge Energy Inc., which is developing the project with Occidental Petroleum Corp.
None of the companies would disclose the price at which carbon dioxide is sold.
More carbon dioxide for use in old oil fields could be a boon for oil production. A 2006 report to the U.S. Energy Department, by industry consultants Advanced Resources International, noted that with enough carbon dioxide 210 billion additional barrels could be recovered from worn-out U.S. oil fields -- enough oil to satisfy U.S. consumption for 29 years.
As an added bonus, the same rock formations that trapped oil for thousands of years can be used to store the carbon dioxide.
About half of the carbon dioxide that Exxon Mobil pulls from the ground at La Barge is captured and then sold. The other half is vented into the atmosphere, according to state records, one reason Wyoming officials insisted that the plant's capacity to capture carbon dioxide be expanded. After the expansion, about 75% of the carbon dioxide will be captured.
The demand for carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery far outstrips current supply, says Michael Moore, executive director of the North American Carbon Capture and Storage Association. Future projects to capture carbon dioxide emitted by industrial facilities or power plants could increase the supply of gas to be injected into oil reservoirs.
Plano, Texas-based oil company Denbury Resources Inc., is planning to build a large pipeline from Mississippi to Texas to transport carbon dioxide that it can inject into the historic Hastings oil field, which has been producing since 1935. The company would tap into a large natural source of carbon dioxide in Mississippi, and is negotiating with industrial plants along the pipeline route to acquire more captured gas.
In addition to its continuing expansion, Exxon is building a pilot plant in La Barge to test a new way to separate carbon dioxide from natural gas, making it more economic to capture carbon dioxide for storage.
The process, originally patented in 1985 by Exxon scientists, makes the separation simpler -- eliminating the need for expensive equipment -- and leaves the carbon dioxide as a liquid that can be easily injected underground. It is expected to be operational in late 2009.
The Exxon natural-gas wells are about 40 miles from its La Barge processing plant. The mixture of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases is produced and gathered and sent to the plant, where the methane is separated from the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is then sent via pipeline hundreds of miles to injection sites in Wyoming and Colorado.
Write to Russell Gold at russell.gold@wsj.com
By RUSSELL GOLD
While Exxon Mobil Corp. has been among the most vocal skeptics of man-made causes of climate change, the company has spent the last two decades forging an expertise in one of the key technologies to combat the problem: capturing and storing carbon-dioxide emissions.
Since the 1980s, an Exxon natural-gas processing plant in Wyoming has been doing just what many environmentalists say needs to happen on a global scale: capturing carbon dioxide and storing it underground instead of venting it into the air. Indeed, Exxon's La Barge, Wyo., facility, for years has captured more carbon dioxide -- the most abundant greenhouse gas -- than any other facility in North America.
Technology at Exxon Mobil's La Barge, Wyo., facility strips carbon dioxide from natural-gas wells and reinjects the greenhouse gas underground.
Now Exxon, at the insistence of state officials, is spending $70 million to expand by 50% the plant's capacity to capture carbon dioxide, brought to the surface along with the natural gas. The plant separates the natural gas from impurities. And the Texas oil giant is spending another $100 million to test new technology to make it easier and less expensive to strip carbon dioxide out of the natural gas.
Both investments could secure a place for Exxon in the emerging marketplace aimed at lowering emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. There is also a growing market for carbon dioxide itself, because it helps produce more fossil fuels.
Carbon dioxide is a key tool in the growing work of rejuvenating worn-out oil fields. The gas is pumped into old reservoirs and helps the remaining oil flow out.
Much of the carbon dioxide worrying environmental regulators comes from burning fossil fuels, which is why coal-fired power plants and automobiles are major emitters. But the global hunt for natural gas to heat homes and generate electricity also contributes.
About one-third of the world's natural-gas reserves are mixed with high levels of carbon dioxide, according to Exxon Mobil. That means producing more natural gas will lead to even more carbon dioxide being vented into the air. In Exxon's natural-gas fields near La Barge, about 65% of the gaseous mixture from the wells is carbon dioxide. Natural gas is only 22%.
Wyoming officials have urged Exxon for years to capture more carbon dioxide. "In a world that is very concerned about too much carbon dioxide, we are actually carbon dioxide short. We could use a lot more carbon dioxide right now," says Rob Hurless, energy adviser to Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal.
Exxon's carbon-dioxide efforts have earned the company grudging respect from environmentalists.
"Certainly, Exxon isn't usually thought of as being in the forefront of environmental progress," says A. Scott Anderson, a senior policy adviser with the Environmental Defense Fund, "but the fact is they are deeply involved in carbon capture and storage technology."
Exxon has recently turned a corner in its views on global warming. The company, which once funded a think tank that argued carbon-dioxide emissions were helpful to human life, today acknowledges that burning fossil fuels is a significant source of greenhouse-gas emissions and increases the risks of climate change -- although it remains unsure about the exact role of human activity in global warming.
Exxon currently captures about four million metric tons a year of carbon dioxide at La Barge, the equivalent of tailpipe emissions from 600,000 cars. The plant's expansion, scheduled to be completed in 2010, will increase that to six million tons a year.
Exxon spokesman Len D'Eramo said the company's goal is "to safely and efficiently extract additional CO2 for sales as market conditions warrant. La Barge CO2 has been extensively utilized by producers in Colorado and Wyoming."
Outside of the Rockies, oil producers in West Texas also are using carbon dioxide to boost recovery in the Permian Basin's aging fields. A new $1.1 billion natural-gas-processing plant in West Texas scheduled for start-up in 2010 will capture about 13.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year -- twice as much as the expanded La Barge facility -- according to SandRidge Energy Inc., which is developing the project with Occidental Petroleum Corp.
None of the companies would disclose the price at which carbon dioxide is sold.
More carbon dioxide for use in old oil fields could be a boon for oil production. A 2006 report to the U.S. Energy Department, by industry consultants Advanced Resources International, noted that with enough carbon dioxide 210 billion additional barrels could be recovered from worn-out U.S. oil fields -- enough oil to satisfy U.S. consumption for 29 years.
As an added bonus, the same rock formations that trapped oil for thousands of years can be used to store the carbon dioxide.
About half of the carbon dioxide that Exxon Mobil pulls from the ground at La Barge is captured and then sold. The other half is vented into the atmosphere, according to state records, one reason Wyoming officials insisted that the plant's capacity to capture carbon dioxide be expanded. After the expansion, about 75% of the carbon dioxide will be captured.
The demand for carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery far outstrips current supply, says Michael Moore, executive director of the North American Carbon Capture and Storage Association. Future projects to capture carbon dioxide emitted by industrial facilities or power plants could increase the supply of gas to be injected into oil reservoirs.
Plano, Texas-based oil company Denbury Resources Inc., is planning to build a large pipeline from Mississippi to Texas to transport carbon dioxide that it can inject into the historic Hastings oil field, which has been producing since 1935. The company would tap into a large natural source of carbon dioxide in Mississippi, and is negotiating with industrial plants along the pipeline route to acquire more captured gas.
In addition to its continuing expansion, Exxon is building a pilot plant in La Barge to test a new way to separate carbon dioxide from natural gas, making it more economic to capture carbon dioxide for storage.
The process, originally patented in 1985 by Exxon scientists, makes the separation simpler -- eliminating the need for expensive equipment -- and leaves the carbon dioxide as a liquid that can be easily injected underground. It is expected to be operational in late 2009.
The Exxon natural-gas wells are about 40 miles from its La Barge processing plant. The mixture of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases is produced and gathered and sent to the plant, where the methane is separated from the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is then sent via pipeline hundreds of miles to injection sites in Wyoming and Colorado.
Write to Russell Gold at russell.gold@wsj.com
Generation of green electricity showing a big surge
Published Date: 24 December 2008
By David Maddox
Scottish Political Correspondent
NEW statistics have shown that the amount of energy produced by renewable sources in Scotland has dramatically increased.
Government figures have revealed that a fifth of the electricity used in Scotland last year came from renewable sources.The statistics from the Department of Energy and Climate Change showed that 20.1 per cent of electricity used in 2007 came from green sources, up from 16.9 per cent the previous year.The figures have been taken as evidence that the Scottish Government is winning the battle to make renewables the main source of energy and that Scotland's renewable power potential is being turned into reality.Jim Mather, the energy minister, said the country was now on track to exceed its target of having 31 per cent of electricity demand met by renewables by 2011.A total of 48,217 gigawatt hours of electricity were generated in Scotland in 2007, with more than 15 per cent of it exported. This was a drop of almost 8 per cent compared with 2006's total of 52,222Gwh. Nuclear power was responsible for 25.6 per cent of the electricity generated.Mr Mather said: "These figures prove that, backed by government support, continuous investment by the private sector is turning Scotland's renewables potential into a reality
An Ethanol Bailout?
And we thought we'd seen everything.
Along with Russia, Venezuela, Iran and the Dubai property market, add another name to the list of bubble economies hurt by the falling price of oil: the ethanol industry. And naturally, the ethanol lobby is looking for a bailout on top of its regular taxpayer subsidies.
The commodity bust has clobbered corn ethanol, whose energy inefficiencies require high oil prices to be competitive. The price of ethanol at the pump has fallen nearly in half in recent months to $1.60 from $2.90 per gallon due to lower commodity prices, and that lower price now barely covers production costs even after accounting for federal subsidies. Three major producers are in or near bankruptcy, including giant VeraSun Energy.
So here they go again back to the taxpayer for help. The Renewable Fuels Association, the industry lobby, is seeking $1 billion in short-term credit from the government to help plants stay in business and up to $50 billion in loan guarantees to finance expansion. The lobby would also like Congress to ease the 10% limit on how much ethanol can be added to gasoline for conventional cars and trucks -- never mind the potential damage to engines from such an unproven mix.
Of course, the ethanol industry wouldn't even exist without the more than $25 billion in taxpayer handouts over the past 20 years. Congress only recently passed energy and farm bills that further greased ethanol production with a 51 cent a gallon tax credit, corn subsidies, plus increasingly stringent biofuel mandates. We were told, as usual, that profitability was just around the corner.
The uglier realities of corn ethanol are at least becoming more widely recognized, even on the political left. The Environmental Working Group and five other environmental organizations said this week they oppose a bailout because subsidies "for corn-based ethanol have produced unintended, yet potentially catastrophic environmental consequences, with little or no return to taxpayers in energy security [or] protection from global warming."
Don't expect Congress to listen. Ethanol may never be profitable in the real world, but in Washington it's a lucrative business that provides jobs and votes. Like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, ethanol is a business created by Congress that now has to be bailed out to save Congress from embarrassment.
Along with Russia, Venezuela, Iran and the Dubai property market, add another name to the list of bubble economies hurt by the falling price of oil: the ethanol industry. And naturally, the ethanol lobby is looking for a bailout on top of its regular taxpayer subsidies.
The commodity bust has clobbered corn ethanol, whose energy inefficiencies require high oil prices to be competitive. The price of ethanol at the pump has fallen nearly in half in recent months to $1.60 from $2.90 per gallon due to lower commodity prices, and that lower price now barely covers production costs even after accounting for federal subsidies. Three major producers are in or near bankruptcy, including giant VeraSun Energy.
So here they go again back to the taxpayer for help. The Renewable Fuels Association, the industry lobby, is seeking $1 billion in short-term credit from the government to help plants stay in business and up to $50 billion in loan guarantees to finance expansion. The lobby would also like Congress to ease the 10% limit on how much ethanol can be added to gasoline for conventional cars and trucks -- never mind the potential damage to engines from such an unproven mix.
Of course, the ethanol industry wouldn't even exist without the more than $25 billion in taxpayer handouts over the past 20 years. Congress only recently passed energy and farm bills that further greased ethanol production with a 51 cent a gallon tax credit, corn subsidies, plus increasingly stringent biofuel mandates. We were told, as usual, that profitability was just around the corner.
The uglier realities of corn ethanol are at least becoming more widely recognized, even on the political left. The Environmental Working Group and five other environmental organizations said this week they oppose a bailout because subsidies "for corn-based ethanol have produced unintended, yet potentially catastrophic environmental consequences, with little or no return to taxpayers in energy security [or] protection from global warming."
Don't expect Congress to listen. Ethanol may never be profitable in the real world, but in Washington it's a lucrative business that provides jobs and votes. Like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, ethanol is a business created by Congress that now has to be bailed out to save Congress from embarrassment.
Lunacy clouds climate change policy
British politicians have failed to heed expert advice on greenhouse gases, but maybe Barack Obama will be different
Peter Melchett
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 December 2008 12.00 GMT
At long last, it seems as if a US president will be getting honest scientific advice about climate change, with Barack Obama's appointment of John Holdren as the director of the White House office of science and technology policy.
In the UK, as long ago as the late 1980s, we were lucky enough to have Sir John Houghton at the Met office and Sir Crispin Tickell, then the UK's ambassador to the UN, to convince Margaret Thatcher that climate change was a reality. So British politicians have had almost 20 years to plan the changes we will need to make as we remove carbon from our economy. All the more inexcusable then that many UK politicians, including Gordon Brown, are still running the country as if climate change did not exist.
As The Observer reported, Gordon Brown seems determined to give the go-ahead to a third runway at Heathrow.
The arguments deployed in favour of this lunacy bear an uncanny resemblance to the arguments made for decades by the then Department of Transport and its ministers to justify building more roads. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the car lobby said that traffic congestion led to slower journey times and cars sitting in traffic jams, which in turn meant more pollution and more CO2 emissions. It was already clear then (and is now accepted) that building more roads simply leads to more cars and an overall increase in emissions. The same will clearly be true for runways and aeroplanes, despite the ludicrous argument that a third runway will only mean less congestion before and after take-off, and therefore less pollution.
The other argument made by those in favour of airport expansion is that a variety of technological advances will lead to lower emissions from planes and that expansion of airport capacity and, therefore, increasing the number of planes does not matter.
On examination, of course, these technological innovations turn out to be untried or unworkable. Alternative fuels, such as biofuels, burn at the wrong temperature for aircraft engines. Kerosene could be made from coal, but like many of the current biofuels, would cause more pollution not less. New aircraft designs turn out to be untested and probably unworkable. In any event, these technical fixes would go nowhere near achieving the 80% cuts in greenhouse gases that we are now committed to make by 2050. We need fewer planes and fewer runways, not more.
Exactly the same is true for farming. Almost 90% of the greenhouse gas emissions from farming come from nitrous oxide and methane, mainly from the use of artificial nitrogen fertiliser (N2O) needed to grow non-organic crops, and from the waste (particularly slurry) and burping from cows and sheep (methane).
As with transport, it is clear that we need to develop farming in new directions, obtaining the fertility to grow crops from the sun through nitrogen-fixing legume crops such as clover, peas and beans. And to reduce greenhouse emissions from cattle, we need to eat less meat and dairy products, particularly from grain-fed rather than grass-fed animals.
Yet many of the UK government's pronouncements on farming suggest they are wedded not only to business as usual, but to further growth in unsustainable systems, just as they are committed to airport expansion. The government, egged on by the National Farmers' Union, blithely ignore the need for 80% cuts in farming's greenhouse gas emissions and instead talk endlessly about the need to increase output.
As with aeroplanes, proponents of this doomed strategy claim that technical innovations, in the case of farming it is GM crops, will come to the rescue. The words of Professor Robert Nolan of Reuters University, about one of the proposed solution for aeroplanes, (the blended-wing jet), quoted in The Observer story, apply with equal force to GM crops: "an utterly new concept and has not been tested in any significant way....They are also associated with all sorts of problems, particularly concerned with safety".
Let's hope that Barack Obama not only gets good advice about climate change science when he becomes US president, but that he has the guts, so notably lacking in successive UK governments, to start to make the real changes we will need to combat climate change.
It's one thing for governments that don't know how serious the threat to our future security is, to do nothing. Our political establishment has understood the science of climate change for two decades. Gordon Brown and many of his ministers do understand the threat of climate change, and they have been willing to agree tough targets for cuts by 2050. In these circumstances, for our government to continue with policies which will inevitably increase greenhouse gas emissions from crucial sectors of the economy is nothing short of criminal.
Peter Melchett
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 December 2008 12.00 GMT
At long last, it seems as if a US president will be getting honest scientific advice about climate change, with Barack Obama's appointment of John Holdren as the director of the White House office of science and technology policy.
In the UK, as long ago as the late 1980s, we were lucky enough to have Sir John Houghton at the Met office and Sir Crispin Tickell, then the UK's ambassador to the UN, to convince Margaret Thatcher that climate change was a reality. So British politicians have had almost 20 years to plan the changes we will need to make as we remove carbon from our economy. All the more inexcusable then that many UK politicians, including Gordon Brown, are still running the country as if climate change did not exist.
As The Observer reported, Gordon Brown seems determined to give the go-ahead to a third runway at Heathrow.
The arguments deployed in favour of this lunacy bear an uncanny resemblance to the arguments made for decades by the then Department of Transport and its ministers to justify building more roads. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the car lobby said that traffic congestion led to slower journey times and cars sitting in traffic jams, which in turn meant more pollution and more CO2 emissions. It was already clear then (and is now accepted) that building more roads simply leads to more cars and an overall increase in emissions. The same will clearly be true for runways and aeroplanes, despite the ludicrous argument that a third runway will only mean less congestion before and after take-off, and therefore less pollution.
The other argument made by those in favour of airport expansion is that a variety of technological advances will lead to lower emissions from planes and that expansion of airport capacity and, therefore, increasing the number of planes does not matter.
On examination, of course, these technological innovations turn out to be untried or unworkable. Alternative fuels, such as biofuels, burn at the wrong temperature for aircraft engines. Kerosene could be made from coal, but like many of the current biofuels, would cause more pollution not less. New aircraft designs turn out to be untested and probably unworkable. In any event, these technical fixes would go nowhere near achieving the 80% cuts in greenhouse gases that we are now committed to make by 2050. We need fewer planes and fewer runways, not more.
Exactly the same is true for farming. Almost 90% of the greenhouse gas emissions from farming come from nitrous oxide and methane, mainly from the use of artificial nitrogen fertiliser (N2O) needed to grow non-organic crops, and from the waste (particularly slurry) and burping from cows and sheep (methane).
As with transport, it is clear that we need to develop farming in new directions, obtaining the fertility to grow crops from the sun through nitrogen-fixing legume crops such as clover, peas and beans. And to reduce greenhouse emissions from cattle, we need to eat less meat and dairy products, particularly from grain-fed rather than grass-fed animals.
Yet many of the UK government's pronouncements on farming suggest they are wedded not only to business as usual, but to further growth in unsustainable systems, just as they are committed to airport expansion. The government, egged on by the National Farmers' Union, blithely ignore the need for 80% cuts in farming's greenhouse gas emissions and instead talk endlessly about the need to increase output.
As with aeroplanes, proponents of this doomed strategy claim that technical innovations, in the case of farming it is GM crops, will come to the rescue. The words of Professor Robert Nolan of Reuters University, about one of the proposed solution for aeroplanes, (the blended-wing jet), quoted in The Observer story, apply with equal force to GM crops: "an utterly new concept and has not been tested in any significant way....They are also associated with all sorts of problems, particularly concerned with safety".
Let's hope that Barack Obama not only gets good advice about climate change science when he becomes US president, but that he has the guts, so notably lacking in successive UK governments, to start to make the real changes we will need to combat climate change.
It's one thing for governments that don't know how serious the threat to our future security is, to do nothing. Our political establishment has understood the science of climate change for two decades. Gordon Brown and many of his ministers do understand the threat of climate change, and they have been willing to agree tough targets for cuts by 2050. In these circumstances, for our government to continue with policies which will inevitably increase greenhouse gas emissions from crucial sectors of the economy is nothing short of criminal.
Emirates claims world's first cross-polar green flight
By Joe Sharkey
Published: December 23, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO: Granted, the environmental credentials of a man whose airline features in-flight showers are subject to question.
Nevertheless, Sheik Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum, the chairman of Emirates, said his airline had demonstrated that smarter preparation and flight-routing could help reduce carbon emissions in air travel.
"The whole world is going in this direction" in at least giving consideration to the effects of air travel on the environment, Ahmed said last week as Emirates introduced nonstop service between Dubai and San Francisco. "And everybody should be doing more."
The first Emirates airplane flying the route to San Francisco from Dubai was a Boeing 777-200LR, which landed after an 8,100-mile flight that took 15 hours and 20 minutes.
Emirates said it was the "world's first cross-polar green flight." By that, Emirates meant that the aircraft, already known for having better fuel efficiency than older long-range planes, had been routed near the North Pole to save about 2,000 gallons, or 7,500 liters, of carbon-emitting fuel. Making the trip required special clearances from Canada, Iceland, Russia and the United States and from the Emirates home state of Dubai, where the plane received priority clearance for departure.
Today in Business with Reuters
Dollar shift: While Americans spent, Chinese saved
China's financial industry recruits abroad
Winter cold puts a chill on green energy
There is nothing particularly innovative about airlines tracking near the North Pole to save time and fuel on long-haul flights, though the routes can be tricky because communications and navigation technology are not yet as extensive as they are for standard transoceanic flights.
For decades, the North Pole routes were scarcely used, partly because of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was suspicious about aircraft of any type that flew over its far northern airspace.
With the end of the Cold War, tension abated just as long-haul aircraft became available to serve the growing demand for nonstop travel between cities half a world apart. United Airlines, for example, had more than 1,400 flights on the polar route last year, up from a dozen in 1999.
Emirates is not alone among the world's airlines in promoting better environmental thinking. Continental Airlines, for example, plans a demonstration flight in Houston on Jan. 7 using a 737-800 equipped with engines designed to be powered by a special fuel blend that includes some components derived from plants. (The flight will not carry passengers.)
Emirates, which depends on long-haul Boeing and Airbus jets and heavily promotes its luxurious business-class and first-class cabins on the 12- to 16-hour flights it is known for, clearly wants to position itself as a leader in the industry's incipient environmental initiatives.
But what about those showers? I'm referring to the latest over-the-top innovation, the recent introduction of two showers for use by first-class passengers on Emirates A380 superjumbo jets. The showers are obviously not an environmental step forward, given the additional fuel needed to carry enough water to let all 14 first-class passengers have two showers, if they want.
In fact, said Andrew Parker, an Emirates senior vice president whose duties include the carrier's environmental affairs, first-class passengers have not been using the showers to the extent Emirates originally anticipated when it allotted 500 kilograms (more than half a ton) of weight for the additional water.
Usually, he said, the first-class cabins have been full. But passengers "are using half the allotment" of water. Emirates still carries the full load, but Parker said that the airline was re-evaluating the requirements and looking into ways to "reprocess water" on board to cut down on the weight and the extra fuel required.
Emirates has three A380s in service and another 55 on order from Airbus. Ahmed said that the airline intended to fly them configured into three classes, with no more than 500 passengers.
(The A380 is certified to carry almost 900 passengers in an all-coach configuration, but none of the airlines that have ordered the plane have indicated they were considering doing that.)
Meanwhile, it isn't clear whether the first-class A380 passengers have cut back on showers because of environmental concerns, or merely because they don't want to take themselves out of their private compartments and away from the free Champagne. Nor is it clear whether they might object to showering in the future with recycled water on that long flight to the other side of the world.
But hey, everybody has to sacrifice.
Published: December 23, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO: Granted, the environmental credentials of a man whose airline features in-flight showers are subject to question.
Nevertheless, Sheik Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum, the chairman of Emirates, said his airline had demonstrated that smarter preparation and flight-routing could help reduce carbon emissions in air travel.
"The whole world is going in this direction" in at least giving consideration to the effects of air travel on the environment, Ahmed said last week as Emirates introduced nonstop service between Dubai and San Francisco. "And everybody should be doing more."
The first Emirates airplane flying the route to San Francisco from Dubai was a Boeing 777-200LR, which landed after an 8,100-mile flight that took 15 hours and 20 minutes.
Emirates said it was the "world's first cross-polar green flight." By that, Emirates meant that the aircraft, already known for having better fuel efficiency than older long-range planes, had been routed near the North Pole to save about 2,000 gallons, or 7,500 liters, of carbon-emitting fuel. Making the trip required special clearances from Canada, Iceland, Russia and the United States and from the Emirates home state of Dubai, where the plane received priority clearance for departure.
Today in Business with Reuters
Dollar shift: While Americans spent, Chinese saved
China's financial industry recruits abroad
Winter cold puts a chill on green energy
There is nothing particularly innovative about airlines tracking near the North Pole to save time and fuel on long-haul flights, though the routes can be tricky because communications and navigation technology are not yet as extensive as they are for standard transoceanic flights.
For decades, the North Pole routes were scarcely used, partly because of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was suspicious about aircraft of any type that flew over its far northern airspace.
With the end of the Cold War, tension abated just as long-haul aircraft became available to serve the growing demand for nonstop travel between cities half a world apart. United Airlines, for example, had more than 1,400 flights on the polar route last year, up from a dozen in 1999.
Emirates is not alone among the world's airlines in promoting better environmental thinking. Continental Airlines, for example, plans a demonstration flight in Houston on Jan. 7 using a 737-800 equipped with engines designed to be powered by a special fuel blend that includes some components derived from plants. (The flight will not carry passengers.)
Emirates, which depends on long-haul Boeing and Airbus jets and heavily promotes its luxurious business-class and first-class cabins on the 12- to 16-hour flights it is known for, clearly wants to position itself as a leader in the industry's incipient environmental initiatives.
But what about those showers? I'm referring to the latest over-the-top innovation, the recent introduction of two showers for use by first-class passengers on Emirates A380 superjumbo jets. The showers are obviously not an environmental step forward, given the additional fuel needed to carry enough water to let all 14 first-class passengers have two showers, if they want.
In fact, said Andrew Parker, an Emirates senior vice president whose duties include the carrier's environmental affairs, first-class passengers have not been using the showers to the extent Emirates originally anticipated when it allotted 500 kilograms (more than half a ton) of weight for the additional water.
Usually, he said, the first-class cabins have been full. But passengers "are using half the allotment" of water. Emirates still carries the full load, but Parker said that the airline was re-evaluating the requirements and looking into ways to "reprocess water" on board to cut down on the weight and the extra fuel required.
Emirates has three A380s in service and another 55 on order from Airbus. Ahmed said that the airline intended to fly them configured into three classes, with no more than 500 passengers.
(The A380 is certified to carry almost 900 passengers in an all-coach configuration, but none of the airlines that have ordered the plane have indicated they were considering doing that.)
Meanwhile, it isn't clear whether the first-class A380 passengers have cut back on showers because of environmental concerns, or merely because they don't want to take themselves out of their private compartments and away from the free Champagne. Nor is it clear whether they might object to showering in the future with recycled water on that long flight to the other side of the world.
But hey, everybody has to sacrifice.
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