:: P O S E I D O N Z B L O G ::

Targeting Texas.. atti-tood

Author Kelpie Wilson (Primal Tears) and Environmental Editor at Truthout.org wrote the following article on 22/11/2006. It is pertinent and deservedly to the point. Of one at a time, or one by one, and meaning state by state if necessary - and it looks necessary - in terms of developing a national American collective consciousness on behalf of the planet from which much of Texas wealth is derived and to which its waste is distributed...

Power Companies Order Up Texas Toast

On Tuesday, climate scientist James Hansen said that the world has less than a decade to take decisive action on global warming or risk tipping the planet towards catastrophe. 'The biggest problem is that the United States is not taking an active leadership role - quite the reverse.' The world can't get its act together without the United States, and the US can't do it without Texas. The world may have ten years, but Texas only has six months to stop TXU from turning our climate to toast.

Texas toast is that super-sized slab of unwholesome white bread that you get with your eggs and bacon at diners in Texas and other red states. Texas toast is also a good name for what power generators want to do in the Lone Star State as they order up a giant helping of new, dirty coal-fired plants.

In October 2005, after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita drove up natural gas prices, and after a meeting with power giant TXU, Texas governor Rick Perry issued an executive order fast-tracking new power generation that uses Texas natural resources for "energy diversity." Although Texas has plenty of solar and wind power potential, power companies like TXU had only one alternative in mind: coal.

Coal is cheap. Cheaper than natural gas and a whole lot dirtier. With Governor Perry's order in hand, TXU applied for permits for eleven new giant coal power plants. Several other power companies and utilities put projects in the pipeline too, but TXU's plants are way ahead in the process. That might have something to do with its generous campaign contributions to the Governor. The Dallas Morning News reported in October 2006 that since Perry signed the executive order, TXU and its associates had contributed $87,000.

Coal may be cheap to TXU, but it's not cheap for people or the planet. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, TXU's eleven proposed plants, totaling more than 9,000 megawatts, will produce about 78 million tons of CO2 per year. EDF says that's equivalent to the annual emissions of 10 million Cadillacs and more than the annual emissions of the entire country of Denmark.

Texas is already the number one CO2 polluter in the United States, which is the number one CO2 polluter in the world. If Texas were a separate country, it would rank as the world's tenth largest greenhouse gas emitter. But TXU could care less about that. When the company pitched its plans to municipal leaders last summer, it was happy to point out that CO2 is not a regulated pollutant. Expensive measures to control the gas would not be required.

Clearly, TXU is rushing to complete these cheap and dirty plants before any federal CO2 regulations can be enacted, thereby locking Texas and the planet into increased CO2 emissions for the 50 year life of the plants.

But Texans are becoming increasingly concerned - about climate change, about escalating power prices and about air quality. A number of local citizen groups have sprung up in opposition, and at least twenty mayors and county executives, including the mayors of Dallas and Houston, have raised concerns.

The most immediate victims of TXU's dirty coal expansion will be children and the elderly, some of whom will die. Texas Public Citizen just released a report on the deadly consequences of the fine particulate pollution that the plants will emit. The new plants will add 50,568 tons of sulfur dioxide and 24,031 tons of nitrous oxides per year. The report says: "This pollution can be expected to cause 177 premature mortalities per year, and 8,869 premature mortalities over the expected lifetimes of the plants."

Jo Cervenka is a member of T.P.O.W.E.R. (Texans Protecting Our Water, Earth and Resources), one of the many local groups organizing to stop TXU. She and her husband are ranchers near Waco, where there are four coal plants planned within five miles of her house and nine within sixty miles. "I don't want to live in a ring of fire," she said. "There is already asthma and cancer in my family and we can't take any more fine particles, mercury or dangerous acid gases."

Jo and others like her are preparing for hearings beginning November 27th that mark the start of the expedited approval process. Hearings and discussions that normally take a year and a half will be compressed into six months. The timing is so tight that many hearings have been scheduled for the same day and time. That means that people like Jo Cervenka who will be affected by more than one of TXU's plants can only attend one hearing.

TXU says that since the price of natural gas keeps going up, its new cheap coal plants will bring rates down for consumers. But the company is playing a shell game. Energy regulators in Texas have tied rates to the price of natural gas, so power producers can charge the natural gas premium price for their cheap dirty coal. TXU can make billions of dollars on that price differential because no one will make them pay the real cost of coal.

Laurie David, global warming activist and producer of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, calls TXU's new coal plants "global warming factories." She says Texans need help from the rest of country, and she's asking people to write to TXU (txuenergy@txu.com) and tell them to drop their plans for these dirty coal plants. More suggestions for action.

On Tuesday, climate scientist James Hansen said that the world has less than a decade to take decisive action on global warming or risk tipping the planet towards catastrophe. "The biggest problem is that the United States is not taking an active leadership role - quite the reverse," he said.

The world can't get its act together without the United States, and the US can't do it without Texas. The world may have ten years, but Texas only has six months to stop TXU from turning our climate to toast.

Truly,

Technorati Tags: Economics, environment, politics, religion, security, US politics, World Affairs

'Collision Energy' Could Get a Life..

Perhaps better recognised in the future as collision energy nuclear fusion looks set for full-on experimental R&D in France with very significant back-up by Japanese engineers. Which summarizes Christine Ollivier's take for AP.. in the following article..

The ITER project by the United States, the European Union, China, India, Russia, Japan and South Korea will attempt to combat global warming by harnessing the fusion that runs the sun, creating an alternative to polluting fossil fuels.

But the project is still only experimental and will take decades to get going - and environmental groups say it may not even work.

French President Jacques Chirac, who hosted the signing at the Elysee Palace in Paris, praised the attempt to "tame solar fire to meet the challenge of ecological energy."

"The growing shortage of resources and the battle against global warming demand a revolution in our ways of production and consumption," Chirac said. "We have the duty to start research that will prepare energy solutions for our descendants."

Raymond Orbach of the U.S. Department of Energy said, "This energy represents the hope of the world."

Fusion reproduces the sun's power source and produces no greenhouse gas emissions and only low levels of radioactive waste.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor will be built in Cadarache in the southern French region of Provence. It is expected to create about 10,000 jobs and take about eight years to build.

Some 400 scientists from around the world would operate the reactor, and officials hope to set up a demonstration power plant in Cadarache around 2040. If it works, only then could the energy be made commercially available.

Officials involved in the project say 10 percent to 20 percent of the world's energy could come from fusion by the end of the century.

The EU will pay 50 percent of the cost to build the experimental reactor, with the six other parties contributing 10 percent each.

Fusion, which powers the sun and stars, involves colliding atoms at extremely high temperatures and pressure inside a reactor. When the atoms fuse into a plasma they release energy that can be harnessed to generate electricity.

Its backers say one quart of sea water would be able to generate energy equivalent to a quart of oil or two pounds of coal.

While Chirac praised the international cooperation that led to the project, it has faced multiple delays because of internal disagreements - over the choice of the site, financing and reactor design.

At one point, the United States withdrew, leaving scientists warning that the country would eventually have to buy the technology from other nations. The United States announced in January 2003 that it was rejoining the project.

Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya acknowledged Tuesday that it was a "difficult decision" for Japan to abandon its hopes for housing the reactor. The project's director will be Japanese, however, and Japan will supply the reactor's most complex parts.

The seven partners agreed last year to build the reactor at Cadarache, which already houses one of the biggest civil nuclear research centers in Europe, and initialed the ITER plan in May.

Each partner must still ratify the deal. French anti-nuclear group Sortir du Nucleaire predicted in a statement Tuesday that the United States could resist, given its refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on fighting global warming.

The group also warned that the project will still produce radioactive waste, though less than conventional nuclear reactors.

Environmental activists, who generally oppose nuclear power, have argued that the project is too costly and would divert attention from current efforts to fight global warming.

Truly,

Technorati Tags: World Affairs, religion, security, UK politics, US politics, Economics, environment, faith, politics, renewable energy

APEC - Sentient & Strong..

In this Reuters article, republished at Planetark under byline Darren Schuettler we learn of sentient and possibly significant "Calls for Climate Change Action at Asia-Pacific Summit" held in Vietnam last weekend. Datelined 20th November 2006...[my emphases and bracketting]..

HANOI - Climate change and its threat to Asia-Pacific economies grabbed attention at a regional trade summit in Vietnam where some leaders pressed for urgent action against greenhouse gas emissions.

According to a draft of their final communique, the 21-nation Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting will pledge to accelerate the development of new technologies and alternative energy sources.

The statement echoed a call from leaders such as New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who, (speaking to applause overheard on RNZ) said that climate change should be a top priority for the trade-focused group.

"The dire economic effects of unchecked climate change should be addressed by APEC because of the organisation's primary concern for growth and development," she told an audience of business leaders on Friday.

"Without a commitment to sustainability, we will likely get neither in future," Clark said.

APEC members account for nearly half of the world's global trade and include some of its top polluting nations -- the United States and China -- as well as major energy suppliers such as Canada and Australia.

In the draft statement, the group "encouraged member countries to transition to low-carbon energy systems and called for rapid transfer of low-carbon technologies to lower-income economies."

They also asked APEC energy ministers to assess how the group could promote cleaner energy and address climate change in 2007.

The Hanoi summit is being held a day after global talks in Nairobi to widen the fight against climate change ended in gridlock.

Those talks stalled on setting steps to extend the UN's Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012 to rein in emissions mainly from burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars widely blamed for heating the planet.

Australia, which refuses to sign Kyoto because it would hurt the country's fossil-fuel reliant economy, is using the APEC summit to push for Asia-wide emissions trading as part of a planned "new-Kyoto" pact.

With climate change shaping up as a key issue in elections next year, Prime Minister John Howard recently overturned his blanket opposition to carbon trading to fight global warning.

He has set up a task force with business to look at how Australia, the world's biggest coal exporter, could be part of a global trading scheme.

Howard told business leaders on Saturday he did not believe everything that is said about climate change.

"I am, nonetheless, of the view that the accumulation of sensible scientific opinion suggests that the level of greenhouse gas emissions is potentially dangerous," Howard said.

"And even if, at a minimum, we adopt the insurance principle, it's important that the world do something about it," he added.

In Hanoi, Howard has pressed his case for a six-nation alliance of the world's biggest polluters -- China, India, the United States, Australia, South Korea and Japan -- to promote new technologies to tackle climate change.

Howard said he and Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed during their talks on Friday to establish a joint working group on clean coal technology.

The Australian leader also won support from US President George W. Bush.

"John has got some very strong ideas about the use of technologies to enable countries like our own and the rest of the world to be able to grow, and at the same time, protect the environment," Bush said after their meeting on Friday.

"I share those views," Bush said, pointing to his government's funding of research on alternative fuels and clean coal technology.

Truly,

Technorati Tags: World Affairs, Economics, environment, religion, security, UK politics, US politics, politics, Australian politics

US Uncomfortable with "Outsider" Status

AP's Charles Hanley Reports that events at home and abroad from next year will see them seek "Insider" status. Reminiscent of Ike.. inside the tent etc..

The U.S. delegation, the outsiders, slipped away quietly into the Nairobi drizzle on Friday as the annual U.N. climate conference wrapped up two weeks of talks on combating global warming.

In the coming months, however, the world will hear a lot from Washington about joining the insiders - the Europeans and other industrial countries committed to reducing their emissions of greenhouse gases. The weight of science, economics and politics is pushing the world's biggest emitter in that direction.

The science will grab headlines in February, when an authoritative U.N. network of 2,000 scientists issues its first detailed update in six years of the state of climate research. It will present "much stronger evidence" that manmade emissions are changing the climate, says chief scientist Rajendra K. Pachauri.

That's not surprising: The atmosphere's accumulation of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, spewed skyward by industry, transportation and agriculture, climbed to record levels again last year.

The economics made news just before the Nairobi conference, when Britain issued a detailed, high-level report making the case that cutting emissions now is much cheaper than suffering extensive global economic damage later from rising seas and other effects of climate change.

Political pressure built in the United States in September when California imposed state-level reductions on greenhouse gases. But the real shift occurred Nov. 7, when voters put the Democrats, largely in favor of mandatory U.S. caps on emissions, back in power in Congress.

They have Republican allies on the issue, including Arizona Sen. John McCain, a prospective 2008 presidential candidate. And opinion polls show the U.S. public rallying around the idea of more forceful action on climate change.

A week after the elections, three new Senate committee chairmen put President Bush on notice that they would push for "caps" legislation. "We urge you to work with us," they said in a letter.

In Nairobi the next day, the U.S. delegation chief was asked in an Associated Press interview about this changed political climate.

"We look forward to an innovative discussion on the most effective approaches," Paula J. Dobriansky replied.

The Kyoto Protocol is one current approach. The 1997 pact requires 35 industrial nations to cut their global-warming gases by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Bush rejected Kyoto in 2001, contending that it would slow the U.S. economy intolerably and that it should have required reductions by poorer but fast-growing nations, such as China and India.

It's too late for the United States to join the Kyoto regime, since U.S. emissions have swelled by 16 percent between 1990 and 2004. But the Kyoto countries hope that, under Bush or the next president, Washington will begin setting firm limits on greenhouse gases, in a separate "Kyoto" that would reassure others that America is in the game.

But what about China, India and others exempted under Kyoto because they didn't cause the greenhouse-warming problem and they need swift growth to lift their people out of poverty?

A procedural decision in Nairobi may have opened the way toward making insiders of more of these outsiders.

The conference decided to launch a review of the workings of the Kyoto Protocol, taking stock of the current science and of what carbon-dioxide cutbacks will be needed. Many hope this review will set the stage for talks, in 2008 or 2009, to broaden the approaches to include "sectoral" targets for developing nations in the post-2012 period.

China, for example, might be held accountable to meet energy-efficiency standards in its power plants - without committing to blanket, nationwide cutbacks in emissions.

Such issues may come into focus at the 2007 U.N. climate conference in Bali, Indonesia. "Strong leadership will be required at the next climate talks," said the environmental group Friends of the Earth International.

That role may fall to politically conservative German Chancellor Angela Merkel, next year's leader of the G-8 industrial nations and an advocate of climate action.

More insiders and strong leadership will be required for decades to come, in fact, if the world's nations are to accomplish what experts say is needed: Emissions cuts of 50 percent or more by 2050, to head off the worst.

Truly,

Technorati Tags: Economics, environment, faith, politics, religion, security, US politics, World Affairs

UN Initiative..

With thanks to the Science and Development Network, the following sets out constructive aspects possible at the UN Conference on Climate Change taking place in Nairobi this week... datelined 16/11/2006... by Ochieng Ogodo

UN plan aims to share carbon projects more fairly || The initiative will help Africa plan for climate change

The UN has launched a new initiative to help developing nations — especially in Africa — participate in carbon finance funds, such as the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol.

The Nairobi Framework was announced yesterday (15 November) at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Nairobi, Kenya, following urgent requests from leaders of developing nations for help to cope with the impacts of climate change that already affect their countries.

UN secretary general Kofi Annan urged rich donor nations to contribute to the fund, which he said would help developing nations promote clean energies such as wind and hydropower.

As part of the initiative, a partnership between the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) will provide rapid response services for governments seeking to account for climate change in their infrastructure projects — 'climate proofing' — and other development plans.

This will enhance the capacity of both public and private sector in sub-Saharan Africa and other countries to successfully access the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), explained Olav Kjørven, director of UNDP's Energy and Environment Group.

"It is no secret that, to date, only a few countries in sub-Saharan Africa are likely to benefit from the CDM in the coming years. Most other countries in the region are shut out for a variety of financial and technical reasons," he said.

"We aim to change this so that sub-Saharan Africa and other poor countries can have their fair share of carbon finance."

Achim Steiner, UN under-secretary general and UNEP executive director said the two agencies hope to strengthen national designating authorities, participate in local capacity building to apply CDM projects, and work with local financial institutions in funding CDM projects.

Steiner told SciDev.Net that investments in roads, railways, hospitals, fisheries and power systems are underway across sub-Saharan Africa, but few are being planned with future climatic change impacts taken into account.

"We need in-depth studies and national adaptation plans, but we also need rapid response services, so that a minister, faced with planning applications, can pick up a phone and have climate change proofing expertise on his or her door step within a matter of days," he said.

Steiner said Africa offers a lot of room for clean energy exploitation, including solar, hydropower and geothermal power, but none have been carried out due to a number of reasons, mostly bad planning and poor political leadership.

Several prospective European donors have already pledged funding to the scheme. Spain pledged US$2 million, with half going to Africa and the other half to Latin America.

Truly,

Technorati Tags: Economics, environment, politics, security, World Affairs

Come January..

The following article has Margaret Talev writing for Knight Ridder's McClatchy Newspapers about Senator Barbara Boxer's upcoming intentions and role On the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee... datelined 14/11/2006...

Boxer plans Senate hearings on global warming

WASHINGTON - Automakers and manufacturers, beware: There's a new environmental policy boss in town, she scowls a lot, and two of her favorite phrases are "global warming" and "extensive hearings."

The Democrats' coming takeover of Congress is expected to feel pressure for policy change on a number of fronts, from Iraq to taxes, but the starkest change may come at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, when Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., will surrender the gavel to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. Her appointment was announced Tuesday, but won't take effect until January.

Inhofe rejects a wide scientific consensus that human use of fossil fuels is largely responsible for catastrophic climate change, calling it "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." He's accused environmental activists of exploiting people's fears to raise money. And he's blocked legislation aimed at curbing global warming.

Boxer, in contrast, is a fiercely liberal environmental activist. She has railed against Inhofe, crusaded for cleaner drinking water and led wilderness protection efforts in her home state and for Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Her likely counterparts in the House of Representatives - Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., incoming chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., of the Resources Committee - are less sympathetic to environmentalists. Dingell's constituents include the auto industry, and Rahall's include the coal industry. Then too, of course, George W. Bush remains president, and he's not exactly a global-warming crusader, either.

But Boxer said Tuesday that starting in January, her priority will be to begin "a very long process of extensive hearings" on global warming.

"I think there ought to be a global-warming bill that looks at all the contributors to carbon-dioxide emissions," she said. She cited California's legislation requiring automakers to reduce emissions as "an excellent role model."

Boxer also wants to boost the cleanup of Superfund toxic-waste sites by reinstating "polluter pays" fines, which lapsed under the Bush administration, and increase oversight of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Inhofe couldn't be reached for comment; Boxer said he'd called to wish her well.

Melinda Pierce, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club, cheered the coming change, saying Inhofe had been bad for the environment and that Boxer is an activist hero. But with a bare 51-49 Democrat majority in the next Senate and Bush in the White House, Pierce said, "We have no illusions that there's going to be some comprehensive global-warming bill signed by the president." Instead, she said, Boxer will likely "set an agenda and make modest gains for a time in 2009 when we have a new president."

Hank Cox of the National Association of Manufacturers said his group "will certainly have our door open," although he said Boxer "does represent a tougher stand on environmental issues than we've had in the past, and we can potentially see where there's going to be more vigorous debate."

"If you're going to make these assumptions about what is causing global warming, the whole world needs to participate together," Cox said. "The Chinese are opening a new coal-fired power plant every week, and within a few years they will pass us in terms of carbon-dioxide emissions. For the U.S. to impose severe, expensive economic restraints on our own economy, while the Chinese ignore it, would not have any appreciable impact on total global emissions."

Truly,

Technorati Tags: Economics, environment, faith, politics, religion, security, US politics, World Affairs

Expanding and Contracting

The following is a brief take by Tim Clark of a global forestation report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Datelined 14 November 2006 he is optimistic that good government direction and legislation can and does lead to afforestation and reforestation (expansion) as opposed to the recent economic growth trend of deforestation(contraction)..

Forests expand thanks to government policy

Afforestation is replacing deforestation in an increasing number of countries, highlighting the positive impact that government policies — including those in China and India — are having on forest expansion, say scientists.

However, the research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences yesterday (November 13) shows that in many developing countries forests are shrinking, but this situation could be reversed.

The scientists developed a new method to calculate carbon stored in forest areas, information that is critical to the study of climate change. The technique is a reliable way of translating forest area, volume and biomass across countries.

One of the study's authors, Jingyun Fang of Peking University in Beijing, China, says the new approach will affect how carbon credits are calculated, adding that it will "encourage governments to consider the value of reforestation".

Instead of simply measuring the areas covered by trees, the researchers calculated the volume of a country's 'growing stock' — trees large enough to be considered timber — as well as the amount of biomass and atmospheric carbon stored in forests.

They used data from a UN report, and found that between 1990 and 2005, forest stocks rose in 22 of the world's 50 most forested countries.

Forest area shrank fastest in Nigeria and the Philippines, and expanded fastest in China, Spain and Vietnam.

In China, reforestation and afforestation efforts, spurred by government policy, allowed forest areas to increase from 96 to 143 million hectares.

These changes are also due to urban migration and agricultural yield, and they have led the team to predict that more nations will achieve forest transition, where reforestation overtakes deforestation, in the next three years.

But the scientists also warn of the negative effect of bad land management.

"The main obstacles to forest transition are fast-growing poor populations who burn wood to cook, sell it for quick cash, and clear forest for crops," said lead researcher Pekka Kauppi of the University of Helsinki, Finland.

Forest transition at a global level will depend largely on Brazil and Indonesia, where huge areas of tropical forest are being cut and cleared.

"I think we need more effort to protect and restore primary forests, especially tropical rain forests," Fang adds.

"As our report has indicated, forest area and biomass are still being lost in two critical tropical countries, Brazil and Indonesia," he added.

The authors also suggest that the expanding forests can compensate for industrial emissions by capturing and storing carbon. The research may have an impact on discussions at the United Nationals Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Nairobi, Kenya until November 17.

Proceedings

Truly,

Technorati Tags: Economics, environment, faith, India, politics, religion, science, security, US politics, World Affairs

An Independent Viewpoint

Writing in the UK's Independent Geoffrey Lean has an article up entitled: Climate Change. It's the same and it is different. That is to say his material is the same as most writers' in recent times, but his style is a welcome informative. Wide-ranging and pointed on occasion..

In the future we may each have our own personal emissions allowance. When that happens, we will truly have entered the carbon age. Until then, this is how a world of national CO2 targets looks

Report by Geoffrey Lean || Published: 12 November 2006

We are now standing on the threshold of the carbon age. Throughout the rest of our lifetimes, and far into the future as global warming takes hold, we will progressively measure our actions in the stuff.

Already the rules for the new age are beginning to emerge. We are beginning to learn that we should reduce our "carbon footprint" - the amount of greenhouse gases we each produce - to tread more lightly on the Earth. Companies are taking up "carbon trading". Ministers are even starting to consider carbon rationing (except that they dare not use the words), where each of us will be entitled to cause only a limited, and diminishing, amount of pollution. It has all come a long way since the element was known mainly as the "lead" in a pencil.

Carbon - which combines so readily with other elements that it is known to form nearly 10 million different compounds - is the most important building block of life. We exhale it with every breath, eat it in every meal. And, since the Industrial Revolution, we have used it, laid down over eons in underground "fossil fuels" - coal, oil and gas - to power our ever more prosperous and mobile lives.

Yet it is our very use of these fuels and the felling of forests that are causing our carbon crisis. Each emits carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming. Thanks to us, concentrations of the gas are higher than they have been at any time in the past 650,000 years, and they are rising. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps some of the energy that reaches Earth from the sun, preventing it from escaping back into space; thus, like an invisible blanket, it warms the planet. We know this happens because natural levels of the gas keep in enough heat to make the world habitable - without it, ours would be a freezing planet. It is little more than common sense that adding more carbon dioxide will make the blanket thicker, heating the world up more.

The warming effect of the gas was first pointed out in 1827 by the French scientist Jean-Baptiste Fourier. And on Christmas Eve 1896w Svante Arrhenius, a depressed 35-year-old Swedish chemist trying to take his mind off the collapse of his marriage to his beautiful research assistant, sat down and started a year-long mathematical calculation. This concluded that doubling the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would raise global temperatures by some 5C to 6C.

And ever since, the basic physics has never been seriously challenged. So why the much-touted scientific debate over global warming? The truth is that there really isn't one. A recent survey of 928 scientific papers found not one that disputed the reality of climate change. Last year, the scientific academies of the G8 countries, plus India, China and Brazil, issued a joint statement confirming it.

Yet a handful of much-publicised contrarians create the illusion of a debate. Few are climatologists. Even fewer publish any research. Some openly admit to being funded by the oil industry.

They flourish because of the media's love of controversy and newspaper columnists' understandable desire to be provocative. This "debate" provides politicians with excuses for inaction, but the public seems to have made up its mind - 85 per cent of Britons now recognise that climate change is already taking place.

Since the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have risen by more than a third, from around 280 parts per million to above 380, and the rise is accelerating. Emissions from transport are growing particularly fast.

Other greenhouse gases add to the warming: methane, released by fuels and paddy fields; nitrous oxides, mainly from fertilisers; and a few manufactured chemicals. Now at last, the world is beginning to try to restrain them, before climate change runs out of control.

Some Western European countries, including Britain, have reduced emissions by policy changes. Eastern Europe and Third World nations have seen them fall through economic decline.

In other developing countries they are rising rapidly, often from a low base. A small increase in the US, which emits a quarter of the world's carbon dioxide, is much more damaging than a big one in Bangladesh.

This month, the massive Stern report concluded that emissions will have to be cut by 25 per cent by 2050, to give the world a chance. As natural justice and political reality dictate that poor countries must be allowed to burn more fuel to grow, rich ones will have to cut their emissions by 60 per cent.

This week, ministers from around the world will fly to Nairobi to join the latest negotiations on how to achieve this. One of the favoured means is by "carbon trading", whereby nations and companies are given pollution allowances; those that wish to exceed them have to buy spare permits from those producing less.

The most sophisticated such system, "contraction and convergence", was dreamed up by a former London busker, Aubrey Meyer, who runs the Global Commons Institute. Under it everyone on Earth would be entitled to the same carbon footprint. National emissions would have to "converge" until each country emitted the same amount of pollution per person. Rich ones would cut back while poor ones increased, within a "contracting" and ever-reducing world total.

Politically difficult though it may be, it is attracting growing support. David Miliband, the Secretary of State for the Environment, has recently endorsed an even more controversial proposal - that each person should be given a steadily reducing carbon allowance. Those who want to exceed this permitted footprint, such as by driving more or flying frequently, would have to buy permits from those who live more modestly.

Experts think it would be the best way to bring down emissions fast and it should mean that the poor get wealthier by selling part of their allowances to the rich. Then we will be in the carbon age indeed.

Since the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have risen by more than a third, from around 280 parts per million to above 380, and the rise is accelerating. Emissions from transport are growing particularly fast.

Other greenhouse gases add to the warming: methane, released by fuels and paddy fields; nitrous oxides, mainly from fertilisers; and a few manufactured chemicals. Now at last, the world is beginning to try to restrain them, before climate change runs out of control.

Some Western European countries, including Britain, have reduced emissions by policy changes. Eastern Europe and Third World nations have seen them fall through economic decline.

In other developing countries they are rising rapidly, often from a low base. A small increase in the US, which emits a quarter of the world's carbon dioxide, is much more damaging than a big one in Bangladesh.

This month, the massive Stern report concluded that emissions will have to be cut by 25 per cent by 2050, to give the world a chance. As natural justice and political reality dictate that poor countries must be allowed to burn more fuel to grow, rich ones will have to cut their emissions by 60 per cent.

This week, ministers from around the world will fly to Nairobi to join the latest negotiations on how to achieve this. One of the favoured means is by "carbon trading", whereby nations and companies are given pollution allowances; those that wish to exceed them have to buy spare permits from those producing less.

The most sophisticated such system, "contraction and convergence", was dreamed up by a former London busker, Aubrey Meyer, who runs the Global Commons Institute. Under it everyone on Earth would be entitled to the same carbon footprint. National emissions would have to "converge" until each country emitted the same amount of pollution per person. Rich ones would cut back while poor ones increased, within a "contracting" and ever-reducing world total.

Politically difficult though it may be, it is attracting growing support. David Miliband, the Secretary of State for the Environment, has recently endorsed an even more controversial proposal - that each person should be given a steadily reducing carbon allowance. Those who want to exceed this permitted footprint, such as by driving more or flying frequently, would have to buy permits from those who live more modestly.

Experts think it would be the best way to bring down emissions fast and it should mean that the poor get wealthier by selling part of their allowances to the rich. Then we will be in the carbon age indeed.

We are now standing on the threshold of the carbon age. Throughout the rest of our lifetimes, and far into the future as global warming takes hold, we will progressively measure our actions in the stuff.

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Technorati Tags: Economics, environment, faith, politics, religion, science, security, UK politics, US politics, World Affairs

Power Projections..

Courtesy of the BBC we have a report from the International Energy Agency on future world prospects energy-wise on two projections of possible present trends. Buisiness as usual supplies, resources use and wastage, and is a certain alternate path is also pursued. That that path weighs in heavily in favor of nuclear power should be no surprise for clearly they take their 'International' tab very seriously and quantifiably. That is to say huge energy needs and 'global' more than local'. That aside there are important things to learn here..

The International Energy Agency's (IEA) World Energy Outlook 2006 echoed the findings of a recent UK report that said the benefits of cutting emissions outweighed the costs of combatting climate change.

"WEO 2006 reveals that the energy future we are facing today, based on projections of current trends, is dirty, insecure and expensive," said Claude Mandil, executive director of the IEA.

"But it also shows how new government policies can create an alternative energy future which is clean, clever and competitive," he added.

The document considered two scenarios:

* Business as usual - Referred to in the report as the "reference scenario", this projects how the globe's energy mix would look in 2030 if current trends were followed
* Alternative policy scenario - projects how the energy mix would appear in 2030 if the package of policies and measures being considered by governments were adopted

Under the business as usual scenario, the document warned that the demand for fossil fuels, and the related carbon emissions, would continue to grow through to 2030, if there was no action from the world's politicians.

Overall, the WEO says primary energy demand would grow by about 53%, with fossil fuels accounting for 83% of the increase between 2004 and 2030.

But it said that the alternative policy scenario projected that the growth in demand for energy could be cut by 10% by 2030 - the equivalent to China's current total energy consumption.

It also said this scenario would deliver 16% less carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions than the business as usual scenario, the same as the current total emissions from the US and Canada combined.

Nuclear option

The WEO champions the role of nuclear power, saying it could make a "major contribution to reducing dependence on imported gas and curbing CO2 emissions".

It forecasts that the total global generation capacity of nuclear power plants could increase from 368 gigawatts in 2005 to 519 gigawatts in 2030.

The additional nuclear power plants would also have the advantage of being less vulnerable to fuel price changes than coal or gas-fired generation, helping to enhance the security of electricity supplies.

However, it said that governments would have to convince the private sector that the initial investment of about $2bn-3.5bn (£1-1.8bn) per reactor would be a wise move.

Ian Hore-Lacy, director of public communications for the World Nuclear Association, welcomed the IEA's report.

"Given that world energy demand, and more particularly electricity demand, is increasing strongly, we need sources of electricity supply that are safe, affordable, with abundant fuel and are environmental benign," he said.

"The virtues of nuclear power in all of those respects are becoming widely obvious."

But Greenpeace International called it a "wasted opportunity".

In a statement, the environmental group said: "While it is important that the IEA has finally recognised the need to drastically change the global energy supply in light of climate change, it has offered 'business as usual' solutions, which are not commensurate with the problems it seeks to solve."

They said the agency's nuclear plan would require more than 200 new nuclear reactors in the next 24 years, which was "neither desirable nor realistic".

Biofuels growth

The report also projected that biofuels were set to play an increasing role in road transport, providing up to 7% of the total consumption in 2030.

To meet this demand, the IEA envisaged that the total amount of arable land required would be equivalent to at least the combined size of France and Spain.

But the WEO warned that the growing demand for food would limit the potential of the plant-derived fuel produced using current technologies.

Yet the emergence of new "second generation" technologies, which allow more of a plant's material to be turned into fuel, could allow biofuels to play a much bigger role in either of the projections outlined in the report's two scenarios, it said.

As for the financial viability of the alternative policy scenario, the IEA reached a similar conclusion to the findings outlined in a report by Sir Nicholas Stern, who was commissioned by the UK government to assess the economic impact of climate change.

"The good news is that these policies are very cost effective," said Mr Mandil. "There are additional upfront costs involved, but they are quickly outweighed by savings in fuel expenditure."

He added that every $1 invested in energy efficient appliances and equipment delivered a $2 saving on power generation.

The report concluded that a shift to the alternative scenario would "serve all three of the principal goals of energy policy: greater security, more environmental protection and improved economic efficiency".

Excellent pictures, graphics and graphs are here

Truly,

Technorati Tags: Economics, environment, faith, politics, religion, security, UK politics, US politics, World Affairs

Solar Power Shaping Up

<p>In the following article by Joanna Glasner @ wired.com we come face to face with a limiting factor in solar power generation. Silicon. Or, more specifically, the kind of silicon which has high efficiency in 'sucking' energy from incidental light on let's say, a solar panel. Presently 20 percent is in the order of top rate. Choices then would lie in improving this efficiency or utilising alternative materials. Preferably cheaper materials which retain significant durability as well. Having both is a great idea - premium and other - but one only - the premium - will do little to aid rapid solutions in mass renewable energy terms. So.. with rising investment and inventive minds and risk-takers and marketers and.. and.. over to JG..

Entrepreneurs promise that soon solar-energized "power plastic" will radically extend the battery life of laptops and cell phones. Ultra-cheap printed solar cells will enable construction of huge power-generating facilities at a fraction of today's costs. And technologies to integrate solar power-generation capability into building materials will herald a new era of energy-efficient construction.

Those are ambitious goals for a technology famous for powering pocket calculators, but investors are paying heed. This year, solar startups have snapped up more than $100 million in venture capital to develop printable materials capable of converting sunlight into electrical power. Soaring energy demand, as well as short supplies of polysilicon, a key ingredient in most solar cells, is fueling interest in alternative materials.

"These technologies look incredibly more real than they did five years ago," said Dan Kammen, founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. Kammen predicts solar sources, which today produce less than 1 percent of power consumed nationwide, could eventually meet one-fifth of U.S. energy demand.

Printed solar cells, produced with conductive metals and organic polymers in place of silicon, could help. As early as next year, startups plan to begin manufacturing printed solar products for use in power-generating facilities, rooftop installations and portable gadgets. While industry experts don't expect manufacturing on a massive scale to be viable for years, production capability is ramping up quickly.

Executives at Nanosolar, based in Palo Alto, California, plan to finish building a factory next year to churn out thin-film solar cells using copper-based semiconductors instead of silicon.

"Silicon models are too expensive in the first place," said Martin Roscheisen, Nanosolar's CEO, who expects the company will be able to build a 400-megawatt plant for about $100 million. Providing equivalent capacity using silicon technology, Roscheisen estimated, would cost close to $1 billion.

When Nanosolar's products become commercially available, Roscheisen plans to warranty the cells for 25 years -- similar to silicon solar products.

Miasolé, in neighboring Santa Clara, California, has developed a competing thin-film photovoltaic cell using a layer of photoactive material containing a compound called CIGS. The company plans to incorporate the technology into building materials and rooftop solar installations.

On the shorter end of the power-generation life cycle, Konarka, a startup in Lowell, Massachusetts, has agreements in place with manufacturers to produce a printed "power plastic" to supply solar energy for portable devices.

"When people think of solar, they think of rooftop, grid-connected. We're trying to change that mindset," said Daniel Patrick McGahn, Konarka's chief marketing officer. Unlike silicon-based solar cells used on rooftops today, Konarka's specialized plastics typically last years, but not decades. The company is marketing its technology for use in products with similar life spans.

While research into printed photovoltaic technologies dates back decades, progress on non-silicon applications has accelerated in recent years due to the shortage of polysilicon, said Travis Bradford, president of the Prometheus Institute for Sustainable Development in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Today, nearly 95 percent of solar cells use semiconductor-grade silicon, he estimates, but that should drop to around 80 percent over the next few years.

To compete against silicon solar manufacturers, Bradford says developers of new technologies will need to show that they can be cost-effective. They'll also have to prove supplies of core materials are adequate for mass production and demonstrate that their products don't degrade too quickly. While he's optimistic about the prospects, he's not convinced any technology is meeting all the criteria today.

"It takes a lot longer and a lot more money to commercialize technology than people think ... which is why crystalline silicon has been around for so long," he said.

Still, printed photovoltaics could soon be ready for commercial use, said Raghu Das, CEO of research firm IDTechEx. The key hurdle remaining is to make materials resilient enough to last for years. Das expects manufacturers to resolve those concerns and produce viable printed photovoltaics in 2009 or 2010. He envisions large-scale deployment around 2012.

In the meantime, solar startups entice investors with visions of clean, low-cost, energy-generating capability bundled into a range of products, from building materials to cell phones. While that vision may eventually prove realistic, says Das, it's still quite futuristic.

"As plastics are used to make this and not silicon, it will be incredibly low-cost -- you could compare it to the cost of printing ink on paper," he said. "However, if it was ready today, everybody would be doing it."

Truly,

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