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Let's get a little something in exchange for our biogas

Here's something someone should run with. Via Green Inc. I learned that Sen. Ben Nelson just introduced a bill that would encourage development of the agricultural biogas industry with hopes of including it in the stimulus package. Biogas is a renewable form of natural gas derived from any methane source, like, say, manure. While burning biogas does create carbon emissions, it's more than offset by its effect in eliminating methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas (Marc from the Ethicurean explains how much of an offset in this comment).

In many ways, it's not a particularly high-tech approach and it's currently in common use in China and India - although unlike with the digesters in use in the developing world, the US biogas industry is attempting to significantly increase biogas content to almost pure methane. Because biogas can be produced and used on site as well as shipped via pipeline to power stations, it's theoretically possible for farms to become energy self-sufficient AND deal with excess manure. This isn't a magic bullet, of course, and in the future, farms are likely to use a lot more manure as fertilizer (remember Peak Phosphorus?). But, even in the post-CAFO world we all dream about, there will continue to be excess manure around. Indeed, this is exactly the sort of thing USDA chief Tom Vilsack means when he talks about developing "new technologies and expanded opportunities in biofuels and renewable energy."

On the verge of revolutionizing the U.S. power grid

Rachel Maddow, a kindred spirit whose heart beats a little faster at the word "infrastructure," has been campaigning recently for more infrastructure spending in the stimulus package. Pointing to the mass blackouts caused by Midwest storms, she asked the other day on her MSNBC show, "Can I put in a request for a grid that works, even in the snow?"

Yes, Rachel, you can! What you want is a smart grid rich in distributed energy resources.

First, it is important to be clear that we have two power grids: a transmission grid, which consists of the big lines carrying power from distant generating stations, and a distribution grid, which carries power in the local area to homes, businesses, etc. Failures on the transmission grid, that's T to us geeks, lead to the really big blackouts like that in the Northeast in August 2003. But most failures -- around 90 percent -- happen on the distribution, or D grid, and they are usually not well publicized.

Electric Power Research Institute estimates that, overall, blackouts and other power disturbances cost the U.S. economy in the range of $119-188 billion (see p. ES-3 [PDF].) By comparison U.S. power customers paid a total of $343.7 billion for electricity in 2007.

The shocking fact is that the costs of an aging and technologically backward power grid adds something like one-third to one-half to our annual electricity costs. Ghost Town Louisville is a poster child, but most power problems do not receive national publicity.

Smart grids sexy enough for Super Bowl

After three and a half hours of Super Bowl, finally, the first eco-related ad, for GE's Ecomagination campaign. Appears smart grids are now sexy enough for prime time:

Guess those falling profits weren't enough to stop them from dropping big bucks tonight, because it was followed shortly thereafter with a wind energy ad:

World's glaciers shrink for 18th year

Like the Wicked Witch of the West, the world is melting.

The University of Zurich's World Glacier Monitoring Service reports that in 2006 and 2007 that the world's glaciers lost 2 meters (2000 mm) of thickness on average:

They note, "The new data continues the global trend in accelerated ice loss over the past few decades." The rate of ice loss is twice as fast as a decade ago.

This is consistent with other recent research (see here and "AGU 2008: Two trillion tons of land ice lost since 2003").

Bloomberg has an excellent story on report:

Canadian bishop challenges the 'moral legitimacy' of tar sands production

The Catholic bishop whose diocese extends over the tar sands has posted a scathing pastoral letter, "The Integrity of Creation and the Athabasca Oil Sands."

The letter by Bishop Luc Bouchard concludes, "even great financial gain does not justify serious harm to the environment," and "the present pace and scale of development in the Athabasca oil sands cannot be morally justified." Equally powerful is who the letter is addressed to:

The critical points made in this letter are not directed to the working people of Fort McMurray but to oil company executives in Calgary and Houston, to government leaders in Edmonton and Ottawa, and to the general public whose excessive consumerist lifestyle drives the demand for oil.

We have met the enemy and he is us!

Other than sticking with the euphemism "oil sands" (see "Canada tries to tar-sandbag Obama on climate" the remarkably detailed and heavily footnoted letter is a brilliant piece of work dissecting what has been called the "biggest global warming crime ever seen."

Bishop Bouchard notes that "The environmental liabilities that result from the various steps in this process are significant and include":

• Destruction of the boreal forest eco-system
• Potential damage to the Athabasca water shed
• The release of greenhouse gases
• Heavy consumption of natural gas
• The creation of toxic tailings ponds

He writes at length on all five, and concludes

Any one of the above destructive effects provokes moral concern, but it is when the damaging effects are all added together that the moral legitimacy of oil sands production is challenged.

Here is what he says specifically about greenhouse gases:

Environmentalists go at it in Santa Barbara

Know what makes big, evil corporations happy? Watching environmentalists scratch each other's eyes out. Exhibit A: The coastal-drilling flap in Santa Barbara.

The basic story is this: California's State Lands Commission has just nixed a deal that would have allowed a Texas oil company to drill off the Santa Barbara coast. It would have been the first such drilling approved in the state since the late 1960s. The twist? Anti-oil activists had convinced the oil company to agree to shut down its four offshore drilling platforms by 2022, close a couple of processing plants, and give the county $1.5 million for low-emission buses (the hell?) -- all in exchange for fresh, juicy oil.

Gentlemen, start your pissing match!

Turkey's only bidder for first nuclear plant offers a price of 21 cents per kilowatt-hour

New nuclear power is going to be very expensive -- no matter where the plants are built. The most detailed and transparent recent cost study on the new generation of plants put the cost of power at 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour -- triple current U.S. electricity rates (see "Exclusive analysis, Part 1: The staggering cost of new nuclear power").

Some have suggested that other countries will fare better -- in spite of Finland's nightmarish nuclear troubles (see "Satanic nukes? Finnish plant's cost overruns to $6.66 billion" and below). They should read the story in today's Today's Zaman, Turkey's largest English-language newspaper:

The only company bidding, the Russian-Turkish JSC Atomstroyexport-JSC Inter Rao Ues-Park Teknik joint venture, offered a price of 21.16 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Current electricity prices in the country vary between 4 cents and 14 cents per kWh.

[Wholesale prices in Turkey are 7.9 cents per kWh.]

That gives new meaning to the word "turkey."

The company apparently offered a revised price "Immediately after the envelope was opened ... that better reflected current market prices" (i.e. the global recession and collapse in commodity prices). But another English language news source, Hurriyet Daily News, reports today:

Email of the day

This just hit my inbox, from Gary T. Strasburg, DAF Civ, Chief, Environmental Public Affairs, US Air Force:

After a thorough review of project requirements and information submitted by a team of functional experts, the Air Force has determined proposals received for a coal-to-liquid synthetic fuel plant on Malmstrom AFB, Mont., are not viable and will no longer pursue possible development of a plant at the installation.

Mail delivery cutbacks could trim vehicle emissions

Apparently, the U.S. Postal Service is considering cutting back on one day of mail delivery per week.

Personally, I suppose I'm fine with this, since I get very little time-sensitive mail. But I imagine that there are some folks who'd see this as a real hardship -- yet another little blow, at a time when there are plenty of big ones to absorb.

Regardless, someone just emailed me to ask how the service cutbacks might affect global warming.

Sadly, I've got no time for a real answer. But Google gives me just enough information for a ballpark answer: as an upper-bound estimate, I think that a one-day-per-week cutback in mail delivery could reduce vehicle CO2 emissions nationwide by as much as 700,000 tons per year.

Revealing skeptics as sock puppets in a few quick clicks

Want to play a fun Friday game? It's called Six Degrees of ExxonMobil. The object: To see how quickly you can get from a denier to ExxonMobil's coffers.

All you need to start is an opinion piece by a global warming denier. Let's take this column by Deroy Murdock for Scripps Howard News Service (he's also a contributing editor for the National Review Online).

OK, let's start. Deroy Murdock is a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. The Hoover Institution has received at least $295,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

Wow, wasn't that easy and fun? OK, so it's not quite "Bruce Campbell was in The Majestic with Susan Willis, who was in Mystic River with Kevin Bacon," but the connection is just as reliable.