Fourth Assessment Report of IPCC Working Group I

February 6, 2007 at 12:15 am · Filed under Energy

On Friday, Feb. 2nd, the fourth assessment report from Working Group I, of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was published. Working Group I is composed of scientists from all over the world who focus on the “Physical Sciences Basis” of global warming. The IPCC was established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 1988.

You can download the PDF summary report here.

Under the heading “DIRECT OBSERVATIONS OF RECENT CLIMATE CHANGE”:

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level.

At continental, regional, and ocean basin scales, numerous long-term changes in climate have been observed. These include changes in Arctic temperatures and ice, widespread changes in precipitation amounts, ocean salinity, wind patterns and aspects of extreme weather including droughts, heavy precipitation, heat waves and the intensity of tropical cyclones

And under the heading “A PALEOCLIMATIC PERSPECTIVE”:

Paleoclimate information supports the interpretation that the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1300 years. The last time the polar regions were significantly warmer than present for an extended period (about 125,000 years ago), reductions in polar ice volume led to 4 to 6 metres of sea level rise.

And finally, under the heading “UNDERSTANDING AND ATTRIBUTING CLIMATE CHANGE”:

Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.

It’s seems like the time of debating whether global warming is real and caused by humans (anthropogenic) is over. Whether there is political will and political leadership at the national level is still to be seen. And just because we’re confident about the causes of the problem, doesn’t mean we have a plan to mitigate it.

There are some good ideas floating around. One of the more interesting ones I’ve read is by Oliver Tickell, in the article, “Climate change: Time to get serious.” Tickell addresses the sticky issue of a cap-and-trade system by proposing that carbon rights be allocated and sold globally. He also suggests controlling greenhouse gases at the point of production rather than where they are emitted:

1 impose a series of global caps on annual greenhouse gas production
2 set aside the country-based approach, replacing it with a unified global approach
3 control greenhouse gases at point of production, not of emission; in the case of fossil fuel emissions, control the production of the fuel itself as close as feasible to the mine or well-head, based on the global warming potential of the fuel in question when burnt
4 sell greenhouse gas production “Rights” at a global auction open to all bidders
5 limit the fossil fuel production of any company in any year to the level for which they have obtained Rights

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Global Warming vs. Climate Change search trends

January 31, 2007 at 1:46 am · Filed under Energy, Tech

Google Trends show world wide search for “global warming” is heavier than the search for “climate change.” Interesting. Unfortunately, we don’t know the actual number of searches so its hard to draw real conclusions from this. It’s probably safe to say that people are becoming concerned. Link

Blue=Global Warming
Red=Climate Change

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Careful carbon offsets

December 16, 2006 at 2:34 am · Filed under Energy

Computer models of tree planting to offset carbon dioxide show that care must be taken not to plant too many trees in mid-latitude or high altitude locations. [BBC article]

Computer modelling indicates that trees only really work to cool the planet if they are planted in the tropics. The research has been discussed at an American Geophysical Union meeting.

Planting more trees in high latitudes could be counterproductive from a climate perspective Dr Govindasamy Bala “What we have found is in the so-called mid-latitude region where the United States is located and majority of European countries are located, the climate benefits of planting will be nearly zero,” said ecologist Govindasamy Bala of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

“[In] the seasonally snow-covered regions [at even higher latitudes], planting new trees could be actually counter-productive,” he told BBC News.

The basic idea is that trees absorb CO2 during photosynthesis. They can also evaporate water into the atmosphere causing clouds to form, reflecting incoming solar radiation. This works well in the tropics but not so well here in the U.S. More forest cover means more darker, heat absorbing, regions. And in areas that are covered by snow during part of the year, planting trees could actually be counterproductive, due to decreased reflection of solar radiation.

This new study highlights the importance of getting our facts right before we plunge ahead with solutions. On one hand we have an immense problem (climate change global warming) and increasing personal and political will to do something about it. On the other hand, even though the severity of problem is generally agreed upon, we aren’t yet sure which solutions will actually work.

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What IS Sustainable

December 14, 2006 at 7:22 pm · Filed under Bode, Home

When I arrived home from work on Mon, Laura was very excited to have Bode (who is 3yrs old) tell me what he learned at nursery school that day. With some prompting, he turned to me, smiled, and said

I pledge to myself, on this day
To try to be kind in every way.

With a little searching I found the rest of the pledge..

To every person, big and small,
I will help them if they fall.
When I love myself and others too,
That is the best thing that I can do!

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10 Things

December 12, 2006 at 10:24 pm · Filed under Energy

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A terrible thing to waste

December 12, 2006 at 3:00 am · Filed under Energy

The NY Times has commissioned three ad agencies to come up with “can’t-get-it-out-of-your-head” ads (ala The Ad Council, “This is your brain on drugs”) to promote energy convservation. Click on an image to see the article. I don’t think any of the three are all that compelling, but then again advertising and conservation are strange bedfellows.

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Daniel Boone, you are parked in a tow-away zone

November 22, 2006 at 8:12 pm · Filed under Energy, Home

Thomas Kemp, a local attorney and friend, posted an excert from a Washington Post article by Joel Achenbach, who visited an eco-village in North Carolina called Earthaven (post here). His quote from the article gets to the heart of where we find ourselves:

We live in a world we didn’t make, by rules and customs and laws we didn’t invent, using tools and technologies we don’t understand.

This is truth. Our culture, in large part, is focused on consumption. It is the purchase, the checkout, the finish line that matters. The foundations, history, and the true accounting of our technological triumph in retail sales and electric and fuel distribution is for scholars, retirees, or the coffee table.

Thomas has spoken on this topic, with Chris Hardie of Richmond News Review, as it applies to the food we eat and specifically concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). He asks if we need “industrial farming to meet our nutritional needs?” I don’t believe we do, but it certainly distances us from the process of production (that is unless you live next door).

It is partly because our production systems are so efficient that we are so removed from them. Unfortunately, if we allow ourselves too much separation from the pork we eat or the electricity we use, we lose the big picture. We stop valuing the energy, engineering, and effort that gave us the end-product. And we lose the biological connection between the life of the pig and our need for nourishment. We lose the ecological connection between the land stripped for coal and the power line running to our house.

We don’t all need to go back to building water wheels and killing what we eat. We can be more intentional about our choices and examine why we make them:

On the official Earthaven tour, a banker with a small farm who was taking the tour just to get tips on animal husbandry, shook his head at the thought of living by consensus with lots of other people. “That’d kill me,” he said.

What the visitor realizes at Earthaven is how much energy is expended in mainstream culture just keeping other people out of our hair. There’s a reason everyone on the block drives separately to the grocery store. It’s a waste of energy but, arguably, a rational purchase of independence. For the most part, we don’t use energy to be powerful; we use it to be alone

[emphasis added]

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Intro to Sustainability Podcast

November 20, 2006 at 3:56 am · Filed under Energy, Home

Last Sunday after meeting, Phil Seybold talked to an audience of 20+ at First Friends Meeting Richmond about sustainability, green building, saving energy and the environment. Click HERE for the mp3. It should play in your browser.

Phil (and the audience) provide a lot of information but a couple of things really stick out: 1) Reducing the energy requirements of your house, i.e. conservation, through the use of compact flourescent light bulbs, effective use of storm windows, and insulation will pay for itself very quickly - on the order of a year. 2) When accompanied by conservation, alternative energy solutions such as solar panels and wind turbines, are much more cost effective than you might think. I have heard a figure of $9/watt installed for solar panels. Looking at our last electricity bill, we used 860 kWh for the month. Divide that by 30 days = 28.6 kWh per day. If the avg. number of peak sun hours is 5 then we would need to harvest 5.7 kW during each hour that sunlight is available. Multiply that times 1.43 to account for system losses** and we come up with 8.2 kW per hour. $9/watt times 1000 watts = $9,000/kW times 8.2Kw = $73,788. A second mortgage! But if we can find ways to reduce our energy use by 2/3rds that figure goes down to $24,571. A new car!

If that is the simple cost of sustainability, and we know it isn’t always simple, then we have a starting place. There is no risk to going down this path. The technology is proven. It is reliable. It makes use of a limitless energy source. There _is_ risk to continue down the path of burning coal to power our homes.

I’ve wanted to upload this for a week now. Thanks to Phil Seybold (Phil, if you have a website send me a link and I’ll add it here), Doug Gwyn and First Friends Meeting Richmond, and the Cope Environmental Center for allowing me to record this. I hope you’ll give it a listen because I think it’s really important to make this a regular conversation.

**Real Goods

[technical details]
The podcast is stored using the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). Ask me for more details.

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Oh Chemistry II

October 31, 2006 at 12:58 am · Filed under Energy

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Wind energy coming soon to Indiana

October 26, 2006 at 8:09 pm · Filed under Energy

Yesterday the South Bend Tribune covered an announcement by Indiana Michigan Power to explore wind energy sites in east-central Indiana:

I&M announced Wednesday that it would place meteorological test sites in east-central Indiana to explore the economic and technical feasibility of building a wind farm in the area.

A specific test site has not been selected in east-central Indiana, Mayne said. East-central Indiana includes areas such as Jay, Randolph and Wayne counties.

I&M will locate two or three 200-foot towers that will collect long-term wind data to determine the profile of wind resources in the area.

The towers will have instruments that can measure wind speed and the consistency of the wind in the area. The company will analyze whether there is sufficient wind to generate electricity economically.

This announcement comes on the heals heels of two others [1] [2] by companies planning wind farms in Benton and Allen counties. I learned through a conversation with Phil Seybold, local owner of a green building company and consultant with CEC, that RP&L has sponsored a meteorological study of wind in northern Wayne county by placing wind measuring equipment on the Kicks96 towers on Tingler Rd. This is great news. The genie is out of the bottle. Will this push Indiana lawmakers to enact a Renewable Energy Portfolio? Who knows, but the prospect of hundreds of millions of dollars in wind energy investment should get their attention. The road map for these companies to develop wind project seems to be:

• Find some investors
• Identify potential wind sites
• Petition the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission
• Meet with landowners to negotiate terms for building testing towers
• Build towers with wind measurement equipment and monitor data for a year or two
• Analyze the data
• If the wind speed and power density are sufficient sign a long-term contract with a power company to purchase the power generated
• Petition the county government for tax abatements
• Erect 50-75 1.5MW turbines at a cost of $2-3M apiece
• Collect 1.9 cents per kWh subsidy from the Federal government
• Sell the power to people

Is this accurate? I don’t know. I do know that local government should take notice. There are lots of good reasons to support projects like these. Climate change happens to be #1 on my list. Others include the potential for economic development and offsetting rising energy costs. There is real possibility here to invest in a better future.

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