Climate Climate & Energy
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Thursday event in D.C. seeks carbon questions
Gear up your brains and flex those diatribe muscles, carbon offset nerds -- the offset debate is coming to the Capitol, and you're all invited to participate.
Institute of Ecosystem Studies Dr. William Schlesinger is going to be speaking at 6:00 pm this Thursday on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., about his recent work on the interaction between forests and climate -- and its implications for how and whether carbon offsets should be allowed. I'm on the board of the American Lands Alliance, the organization sponsoring the event, and we'd like to get some hot questions to fire at Schlesinger -- which is where Gristmill's offset nerd legions come in. If you're an outside-the-Beltway climate nerd, feel free to ask questions in the comments section below. If you're an inside the Beltway climate nerd, you should just come.
Schlesinger, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, is one of the top authorities on this topic -- and he's shown a rare willingness, for a scientist, to venture into the policy and political arena. In 2005, for instance, he endorsed a carbon tax, calling it "potentially the most effective means to improve our energy-use efficiency and reduce carbon dioxide emissions." He also serves on the board of TerraPass, a company that provides offsets to people and corporations that pollute.
American Lands invited Schlesinger because we're very concerned about the impact a massive expansion in biofuels production could have on wildlands, in national forests and elsewhere. If we're cutting down ancient forests to grow woody biomass tree farms, it will be neither climate nor ecosystem friendly. But we're also intrigued by the possibility of allowing polluters to get carbon credits for protecting intact ancient forests. Conceivably, it could radically alter the financial incentives in national forests and elsewhere so that timber companies and others could make more money by helping restore forests than logging them. But, if not carefully managed, there's also potential for abuse. Such a system is largely dependent on having a robust cap-and-trade or cap-and-auction system in place as well; if we adopt a carbon tax, does that mean that forests and other native ecosystems won't benefit from the massive investments in tackling the climate crisis?
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Notable quotable
Nate Tyler, organizer of Lights Out San Francisco: If we don’t do something, by 2050, all the polar bears will be gone. That’s where Santa Claus lives, man. That’s a bummer.
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Mercury moves from coal plant to fish dinner as fast as its name implies
A Scientificblogging post explains that it only takes three years for mercury emitted by coal-fired plants to travel up the food chain into fish that we eat:
"Before this study, no one had directly linked atmospheric deposition (mercury emissions) and mercury in fish," says study co-author Vincent St. Louis of the University of Alberta.
The experiment filled a major gap in scientists' understanding of how mercury moves from the atmosphere through forests, soils, lakes and into the fish that people eat.
It's immediate value is that it provides undeniable proof of a direct link, said St. Louis, who specializes in what is called whole-ecosystem experimentation.
He said it should spur policy-makers to enact regulations for more rapid reductions in mercury emissions by industry. -
Yesterday
We had a lot of great stuff on the blog yesterday — so much that it was difficult to keep up. If you have time, go back and check out: Bill McKibben’s review of two new books on climate change politics, one by Bjorn Lomborg, on from Shellenberger & Nordhaus. Sierra Club head honcho Carl […]
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Another positive feedback loop
Scientificblogging reports on the link between atmospheric water vapor and greenhouse gases:
The water vapor feedback mechanism works in the following way: as the atmosphere warms due to human-caused increases in carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons, water vapor increases, trapping more heat in the atmosphere, which in turn causes a further increase in water vapor.
Basic theory, observations and climate model results all show that the increase in water vapor is roughly 6 percent to 7.5 percent per degree Celsius warming of the lower atmosphere.
The authors note that their findings, when taken together with similar studies of continental-scale river runoff, zonal-mean rainfall, and surface specific humidity, point toward an emerging human-caused signal in the cycling of moisture between the atmosphere, land and ocean.
"This new work shows that the climate system is telling us a consistent story," Santer said. "The observed changes in temperature, moisture, and atmospheric circulation fit together in an internally- and physically-consistent way." -
San Francisco plans hour of darkness for October
If you’ll be in San Francisco between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 20, be sure to have a candle handy. Green group Lights Out San Francisco is encouraging residents to turn off all unnecessary lights during that hour to raise awareness of energy use. Nate Tyler, a former Google spokesperson who is […]
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Discover Brilliant: Renewables + smart grid
Today at the conference, everyone’s broken out into small groups and are having more free-form discussions. Consequently, it’s somewhat more difficult to summarize. I’m hanging out for the day in the “State of the Union in Renewables + Smart Grid” room. I’ll try to pass along insights as they drift by. For now, there’s some […]
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Rising blowback against wind power
Stumbled across an interesting site the other day -- an anti-wind power site.
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On buying solar electricity, not panels
One of the biggest hurdles to going solar is the large up-front costs. That's why solar power purchase agreements (PPAs in wonk-speak) have been so popular. With this model, a third party designs, installs, and owns a system on your roof. You simply sign a long-term contract to buy the output on a kWh basis. You avoid the need for financing, and shift performance risk to the service provider -- you only buy what the system produces. Check out this article for more.
To date, solar PPAs have been offered exclusively for commercial-sized systems. That's because the developer has to take a 15-yr maintenance/service/billing interest in the property, and the economics are better for big systems.
Until now. Sun Run Generation is, as far as I can tell, the first company to legitimately offer a form of residential solar PPA*. They make a fairly convincing case that they can offer a PPA with net customer economics better than an outright purchase. The reason? As a business, they are not restricted by the $2K residential Fed investment tax credit cap, but can take the full 30 percent.
I predict that the next few significant developments in the solar field are going to be in the field of financial rather than technical innovation. Solar Power 2007, the largest solar conference in the U.S., is next week in Long Beach. If I see anything that contradicts my prediction, I'll let you know. (You should also consider going yourself. All the kids will be there, and there's a no-fee public night on Tuesday).
*Note: there have been other companies that claim to offer this service. The most notorious don't currently have ... what's the technical term ... any actual product. As with everything, buyer beware.
