Climate Climate & Energy

Record global glacial melt

"Record Glacier Thinning Means No Time to Waste on Agreeing New International Climate Regime," said the U.N. Environment Programme on Sunday.

That statement is based on the data of the World Glacier Monitoring Service, which "has been tracking the fate of glaciers for over a century. Continuous data series of annual mass balance, expressed as thickness change, are available for 30 reference glaciers since 1980." Here's the mean annual specific net balance:

City selected for largest U.S. smart grid project

When Xcel Energy announced a few days ago that it had selected Boulder, Colo. as "the nation's first fully integrated Smart Grid City," it represented a vitally important step toward creating a low-carbon energy network.

Xcel previously announced its intention to stage the largest and most comprehensive deployment of smart grid technologies in the U.S. ever, and now it says it has targeted Boulder for a several-year effort that will cost up to $100 million. The aim at a comprehensive system is precisely what makes this a breakthrough.

Smart grid technologies exhibit the classic network effect. Deployed individually, some can still have valuable benefits, as the personal computer did before the internet. To maximize benefits, however, they must be put together. Because this requires an overall systems transformation, and because such changes generally pose all sorts of chicken-and-egg challenges, the smart grid has been slow to catch on in the U.S. (France and Italy, who have more centrally managed electrical systems, have managed to advance farther.)

Electric cars could impact water supplies, says analysis

Converting most U.S. vehicles to run on electricity could have an impact on water supplies, according to an analysis to be published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. Generating the needed electricity would require more water than producing gasoline, the report found — that is, if the nation’s electricity grid continues to be powered […]

Thoughts from a cellulosic ethanol agnostic

"If America can win a race to the moon, we can win a race for a battery," Bill Clinton said last night on TV, stumping for Hillary. He also pointed out that if our cars got 100 mpg, the rise in fuel prices -- which is inevitable -- will have a much smaller economic impact. In short, he thinks America needs to get its shit together and start leading the world again with innovation.

Easier said than done, in my opinion. We seem to be going backwards at present. All three of the remaining presidential hopefuls claim to be big supporters of corn ethanol.

Keep in mind that there is no such thing as commercially produced cellulosic ethanol, so the following is based on an assumption that may never come to fruition. Imagine for a moment that the picture to the right, a power plant being fed a continuous supply of coal, is instead a cellulose ethanol refinery, and instead of coal in those cars, you have cellulose.

Now, instead, assume it is a power plant again, but keep the cellulose in the train cars.

Climate change will make Ireland less green, says well-timed report

It’s St. Patty’s day — so you just knew someone would do a study on the impact of climate change on Ireland, didn’t you? Sure enough, the Irish American Climate Project has issued a report entitled “Changing Shades of Green,” warning that decreased rainfall could necessitate a nickname change for the Emerald Isle, and summer […]

China, with emissions rising, urges developed countries to carbon diet

China’s greenhouse-gas emissions are rising far faster than expected, according to a new analysis to be published in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. Researchers estimate that by 2010, China may spew 600 million more metric tons of greenhouse gases than it did in 2000; to put that in perspective, the total emissions reductions […]

Peruvian Amazon under threat from oil exploration, illegal logging

There’s no better way to start off a Monday than with depressing news from the Peruvian Amazon, which is under threat from both fossil-fuel development and illegal logging. Despite protests from environmental and human rights groups, Peru’s government plans to auction off dozens of parcels of remote rainforest for oil and gas companies to explore. […]

N.J. firefighters puttin’ out the flames of the planet

“We’d all be heroes if we quit using petroleum,” says the fictional firefighter played by Marky Mark in I Heart Huckabees, who memorably opted to ride his bike to fires rather than take the truck with the rest of the fire department. If he’d only known about a group of New Jersey firefighters who claim […]

World’s glaciers melting rapidly, report says

The world’s glaciers are melting quite rapidly and will likely cause all sorts of environmental problems, according to data from the World Glacier Monitoring Service. The WGMS tracks the health of 30 “reference” glaciers throughout the world and has said that their rate of melt has sped up significantly in recent years. Between 1980 and […]

The athletics news you can’t live without

Here’s a fun game for the whole family: You name a sport; I’ll tell you how it’s jumping on the green bandwagon. Ready? OK! Baseball: Milwaukee Brewers first basement Prince Fielder has become a vegetarian after his wife gave him a copy of the book Skinny Bitch. He’s probably not in their target demographic, but […]