Climate Climate & Energy

Jet Propulsion Laboratory has new climate website that shows global sea-level trends

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has a very good new website on global climate change. It offers a nice summary of the relevant science in a variety of areas: key indicators, evidence, causes, effects, uncertainties, and solutions. The website is a good place to send people who are uninformed on global warming, but looking for basic information.

JPL has a very nice front-page banner with pulldown menus providing data on "Vital Signs of the Planet," including Arctic sea ice, carbon dioxide, sea level rise, global temperature, and the ozone hole. Here is the expanded chart showing the recent 70 percent jump in sea level rise:

The WSJ alleges that our use of hybrids increases oil prices

The Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital blog is a must-read. But what exactly were they thinking with this column:

So you think you're being virtuous by trading in the SUV for, say, a Prius? What if, instead, you're really sticking the next guy in line with higher pump prices?

Yes, The WSJ is revoking the law of supply and demand. Less demand translates into higher pump prices! How is this possible, you ask?

Marketplace commentary gives a misleading picture of government’s role in energy use

In a commentary on Thursday's Marketplace, the Cato Institute's Will Wilkinson critiqued T. Boone Pickens' new energy plan. In doing so, he painted a misleading picture of the government's role in our energy usage.

Pickens wants wind energy to replace natural gas in electricity generation, and use the freed-up natural gas to fuel vehicles so we can use less foreign oil. There are problems with this energy plan, but Wilkerson is most concerned that the government might be "picking a winner" if it helps Pickens realize his scheme. (Wilkerson doesn't specify exactly what Pickens wants the government to do, but Reuters reports that under the Pickens plan, the government would need to create power transmission corridors.)

Wilkerson doesn't seem to think the government should get involved; his criticism of the Pickens Plan is that it's "not about offering you, the consumer, a choice." This is where he overlooks one crucial factor in the energy puzzle. He says:

Five Gore steps to carbon-free electricity and electrified transportation

On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to comment about Al Gore's next step on Earthbeat Radio, a syndicated, weekly, hour-long environmental program, and speaking with me was long-time anti-nuclear, environmental, and political activist Harvey Wasserman, author of "Solartopia! Our Green Powered Earth." The show is co-hosted by Daphne Wysham, global environmental activist from the Institute for Policy Studies. Our segment [mp3] is a little more than halfway through.

Our conversation got me to thinking about what a set of five "Gore" steps might look like. Gore has put forth the first and second steps, so now we can pitch in and propose a few more. Here are mine:

With research breakthrough, solar power could work when the sun don’t shine

Wind and solar energy face a distinct hurdle: sometimes the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine. But new research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests a breakthrough in the intermittency problem. In a study published Friday in Science, researchers demonstrate a photosynthesis-inspired process to use electricity from renewable sources to split regular […]

Appalachian Mountains: old and in the way

“A lot of people look at mountain top removal [mining] as a negative, but I see it as a positive. We need to stop apologizing for coal … I want us to promote mountain top removal, because we need flat land. We can not have economic expansion without places to do things and part of […]

More oil can be found in your car than offshore

How much oil can be found in Americans' cars -- through more efficient driving and better vehicle maintenance? Using current numbers from the Bush DOE and EPA, the answer appears to be some 2.5 to 3 million barrels a day -- 20 times what could be found if we ended the congressional moratorium on offshore drilling (see "The cruel offshore-drilling hoax") and three times the oil we are likely to find in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (see "Opening ANWR cuts gas prices two cents in 2025").

These savings would quickly lower Americans' annual fuel bills perhaps $700 a year, whereas drilling might save them about $12 a year in 20 years.

But let me begin at the beginning. Obama, as everyone knows, has presented detailed national strategies to reduce oil consumption as part of his climate plan months ago. Now the right wing is all agog at some remarks Obama made yesterday about what individuals can do:

We could save all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling if everybody was just inflating their tires and getting regular tune-ups. You could save just as much.

Limbaugh said:

This is unbelievable! My friends, this is laughable of course, but it's stupid! It is stupid! … Avoid jackrabbit starts, keep your tires properly inflated, there's a list of about ten or twelve these things. I said if I follow each one of these things I'll have to stop the car every five miles, siphon some fuel out, for all the fuel I'm going to be saving. This is ridiculous…. Who has filled his head with this stuff?

Actually, it is probably the Bush administration's own Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency that has filled him with that stuff. Let's do the math.

French independent nuclear commission reports four malfunctions in four plants in 15 days

Just when you thought it was safe to build 45 new nuclear plants by 2030 as John McCain wants, comes this word from France's Independent Commission on Research and Information on Radiocactivity (CRIIRAD):

"In less than 15 days, the CRIIRAD has been informed of four malfunctions in four nuclear plants, leading to the accidental contamination of 126 workers," CRIIRAD head Corinne Castanier told Reuters in an interview ...

But the conservative francophile said last year,

If France can produce 80 percent of its electricity with nuclear power, why can't we?

McCain seems to forget we are a much, much larger country than France. Heck, we already have more nuclear reactors than they do. To achieve McCain's goal, we'd need 500 to 700+ new nuclear reactors plus five to seven Yucca mountains, at a cost of some $4 trillion. Not to mention the soaring electricity bills Americans would have to suffer through, with electricity from new nukes projected at some $0.15 a kilowatt hour -- some 50 percent higher than current national rates -- not even counting transmission (or reprocessing).

The only thing scarier than the radioactivity hazard of nuclear power is the economic hazard.

EPA OKs giant coal plant on Navajo land in New Mexico

After more than four years of deliberation, the U.S. EPA has bestowed an air permit to a proposed 600-acre coal plant on Navajo land in New Mexico. Announcing the step forward for the 1,500-megawatt Desert Rock Power Plant, the EPA noted that Navajo Nation leaders have “staunchly supported” the project since its inception — though […]

By century’s end we can expect extremely high surface temperatures

Sure glacier melt, sea level rise, extreme drought, and species loss get all the media attention -- they are the Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Barack Obama of climate impacts. But what about good old-fashioned sweltering heat? How bad will that be? Two little-noticed studies -- one new, one old -- spell out the grim news.

Bottom line: By century's end, extreme temperatures of up to 122°F would threaten most of the central, southern, and western U.S. Even worse, Houston and Washington, D.C. could experience temperatures exceeding 98°F for some 60 days a year.

The peak temperature analysis comes from a Geophysical Research Letters paper [PDF] published two weeks ago that focused on the annual-maximum "once-in-a-century" temperature. Researchers looked at the case of a (mere) 700 ppm atmospheric concentrations of CO2, the A1b scenario, with total warming of about 3.5°C by century's end. The key scientific point is that "the extremes rise faster than the means in a warming climate."