Climate Climate & Energy

Solar thermal plants make a comeback

As part of the Back to the Future alternative energy series, The New York Times has an article today about the rising demand for solar thermal power plants, which use solar panels to heat water and operate a steam turbine.

Among the advantages cited:

On sunny afternoons, those 10 plants would produce as much electricity as three nuclear reactors, but they can be built in as little as two years, compared with a decade or longer for a nuclear plant. Some of the new plants will feature systems that allow them to store heat and generate electricity for hours after sunset.

In addition, solar thermal can provide energy more reliably than wind can, and it provides the most energy during mid-day, when energy usage peaks.

An honest, interesting statement from Piedmont Biofuels of North Carolina

I’m a fierce critic of biofuels, but I’ve always had a soft spot for small, region-based biodiesel projects that create fuel from local resources, providing jobs in the bargain. (I proudly ran Emily Gertz’s feature on the topic in our 2006 biofuels series.) The income from such projects remains within communities, rippling around and building […]

The Heartland conference recycles the usual climate change skeptics in its speakers list

The New York Times carried this interesting write-up of the Heartland Institute's 2008 International Conference on Climate Change. For those not familiar with this conference, it's like a scientific meeting on climate change -- without the science.

The NYT article concluded with this statement, which pretty much sums it up:

The meeting was largely framed around science, but after the luncheon, when an organizer made an announcement asking all of the scientists in the large hall to move to the front for a group picture, 19 men did so.

I wonder where the other 95 percent of the Inhofe 400 was. Perhaps they were at their unicorn farm. Or relaxing with the snuffalufagous.

This pretty much confirms what I've been saying for a while: While advocates against action on climate change claim that there are lots of legitimate climate scientist skeptics out there, it's simply not true. To further convince yourself of that, take a look at the speakers listed on the program. You'll see the same old tired skeptics have been recycled yet again: Michaels, Spencer, Singer, McKitrick, Balling, Carter, Gray, yada, yada, yada ...

I guess I shouldn't complain. Here at Grist, we firmly encourage recycling. And no one recycles more effectively than the climate denial machine. The problem is that this is one type of recycling that's not good for the environment.

What if the MSM simply can’t cover humanity’s self-destruction?

If those who counsel inaction and delay succeed, billions of humans will suffer unimaginable misery and chaos while most other species will simply go extinct.

Maybe the best one line description of our current situation I have read is:

It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.

That's the final sentence in Elizabeth Kolbert's fine global warming book, Field Notes from a Catastrophe, and as I'll show in this post, it is entirely accurate.

How can the traditional media cover a story that is almost "impossible to imagine"? I don't think they can. I'll be using a bunch of quotes, mostly from the NYT's Revkin, not because he is a bad reporter -- to the contrary, he is one of the best climate reporters -- but because now that he has a blog, he writes far more than any other journalist on this subject and shares his thinking. A new Revkin post, "The Never-Ending Story," underscores the media's central problem with this story:

I stayed up late examining the latest maneuver in the never-ending tussle between opponents of limits on greenhouse gases who are using holes in climate science as ammunition and those trying to raise public concern about a human influence on climate that an enormous body of research indicates, in the worst case, could greatly disrupt human affairs and ecosystems.

This sentence is not factually accurate (the boldface is mine). It would be much closer to accurate if the word "worst case" were replaced by "best case" or, as we'll see, "best case if the opponents of limits on GHGs fail and fail quickly." The worst case is beyond imagination. The word "holes" is misleading. And this isn't a "tussle" -- it is much closer to being a "struggle for the future of life as we know it." And all of us -- including Andy -- better pray that it ain't "never-ending. " Before elaborating, let me quote some more :

Fixing environmental problems necessary and doable, says OECD

It is not only highly necessary but entirely affordable to tackle climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, and other environmental problems, according to a report released Wednesday by some wacko environmentalists the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Summed up OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria: Solutions “are available, they are achievable, and they are affordable” […]

Building faster to get the power to build faster

There's an old saying in the military: "There's always someone who doesn't get the word."

Here is a post that reports on an analysis, repeated a number of times, strongly suggesting that the up-front energy investment in nuclear plants is simply too large to allow nuclear to be a serious contender for replacing fossil fuels in an energy- and carbon-constrained world.

Here's a piece in the Baltimore Sun that says ... well, look:

While the governor and others in Annapolis are demanding cuts in electricity consumption, there's a better way: increasing the supply through nuclear power.

Yep, there's always someone who doesn't get the word.

A cascade of news shows that coal is on the ropes

Remember, oh, about a year ago when every day brought a new article about the coming Coal Boom? How times change. A few pieces worth noting, just from the last few days: Mark Clayton covers the Coal Bust; Keith Johnson covers the latest blow to Big Coal, Missouri’s Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. canning a planned […]

Readying for the Olympics, revisiting artificial turf, and racing with Formula One

As Beijing prepares for the Summer Olympics, officials claimed the best run of blue-sky days on record between Jan. 21 and Feb. 18, and said that 26 of February’s 29 days met the city’s clean-air standard. International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge lauded Beijing’s pollution-reducing efforts, stating, “I can’t hide the fact that there is […]

Chris Anderson: Paper mags are better on carbon than websites

From 1998 until 2006, the Wired website and Wired magazine had different owners and were run separately. In 2006, Condé Nast bought the website back and reunited them. I’ve heard rumors that there were some tensions along the way. I can’t help but wonder if those tensions are behind an odd post from Chris Anderson, […]

Hansen throws cold water on cooling climate claim

NASA's James Hansen has weighed in (PDF) to ...

... expose the recent nonsense that has appeared in the blogosphere, to the effect that recent cooling has wiped out global warming of the past century, and the Earth may be headed into an ice age. On the contrary, these misleaders have foolishly (or devilishly) fixated on a natural fluctuation that will soon disappear.

As Hansen explains: