Climate Climate & Energy

Hmmm …

James Connaughton says George W. Bush wants to be an "honest broker" on global warming. Sound familiar?

And at what temperature Greenland’s ice sheet will melt

Climate tipping points have been the subject of much debate and confusion. Now Professor Tim Lenton of the University of East Anglia has published a very good piece, "Tipping points in the Earth System," giving some intellectual substance to the notion.

Not surprisingly, the tipping point Prof. Lenton worries about most is the disintegration of Greenland's ice sheet. He told The Guardian:

We know that ice sheets in the last ice age collapsed faster than any current models can capture, so our models are known to be too sluggish.

Substitution isn’t the solution to peak oil

The growing recognition that the world is at or nearly at the all-time peak of conventional oil production (meaning from that point on, oil flows will inexorably decline at some unknown rate) has prompted a furious search for replacements, all intended to keep the high-carbon, high-flying, automobile lifestyle going.

Like crack addicts warned of a future shortage, we are literally searching the corners of the Earth to figure out how we're going to get our fix when times is tight.

But given our climate crisis, peak oil could be appreciated as a push in the direction we already have to go (a decarbonized society). If we adopt the oil depletion protocol suggested by Colin Campbell, and made more widely known by Richard Heinberg, we can improve our resiliency, our health, and our social well-being -- and avoid the chaos that comes when a junkie loses his supplier while still stuck in full-blown addiction.

New Scientist offers yet another argument for this approach:

A new technology to reduce GHG emissions from coal plants

The carbon capture and storage (CCS) discussion has focused on pre-combustion capture of CO2, since it has long been assumed that it is easier and cheaper than trying to capture the CO2 post-combustion from the flue gas (exhaust stream). The problem is: (1) that approach limits CCS to new coal plants, and (2) that requires utilities to build integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plants, which are more expensive to build and more expensive to maintain.

Post-combustion capture would allow CCS to be retrofitted on existing coal plants. If it proves practical and affordable, that would be a major breakthrough in efforts to control greenhouse-gas emissions. Last week brought us this announcement:

BP Alternative Energy and Powerspan Corp. today announced their collaborative agreement to develop and commercialize a post-combustion CO2 capture process for conventional power plants.

More details on this potentially important technology below:

Each country will have to find its own way to carbon neutrality

Thankfully the lay press has finally stopped calling for the United States to follow Brazil's lead for energy independence. The blogosphere took over where the lay press left off on that misdiagnosis, although I still hear the echo once in a while. Turns out, Brazil may be heading for an energy crunch of its own. According to this article in the Economist, Brazil may be experiencing blackouts within five years if the economy grows as predicted.

Because they are fat with rivers, they plan to build more dams, which is one of those damned damned if you do dam, damned if you don't dam situations. Apparently they already get four-fifths of their energy from dams, and there are still lots of rivers to tap. Wind, solar, and geothermal power don't enter the discussion -- I suspect because they are not as cheap.

But then there was this:

Except not really

I don’t do much writing about peak oil here. It’s horrifically depressing, for one thing, and for another I doubt I could add to the comprehensive work being done at the Oil Drum and elsewhere. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. If you’re like me and you only tune in to the issue […]

All So You Can Have Cheap Electricity

Three workers killed, six injured in Utah coal-mine rescue effort Three rescue workers were killed and at least six others injured when a section of Utah’s Crandall Canyon coal mine caved in Thursday night. The workers were involved in the nine-day effort to reach six miners trapped deep within the mine. Seismic activity has caused […]

The tragedy grows

Two Three rescue workers were killed and at least seven six others injured when a tunnel collapsed in Crandall Canyon mine, the site of a rescue operation attempting to reach six miners that have been trapped inside for what is now 11 days without contact. Mine officials are discussing whether to shut down the rescue […]

Scientists try to reduce methane emissions by tweaking cow diets

Did you know that cows belch every 40 seconds? I did not. A recent article in The Christian Science Monitor states this fun fact, and goes on to explain how scientists are trying to manipulate bovine diets to reduce the amount of methane that they emit:

In nontechnical terms

For those wondering why the planet hasn't yet exceeded the 1998 El Niño-fueled temperature record, a new Science magazine article ($ub. req'd) explains why. Basically, in addition to the steady increase in anthropogenic warming from greenhouse gases, you have to add a smaller variation from climate oscillations linked to the oceans. Those oscillations have been tamping down temperatures a tad, and will keep doing so for the next couple of years, but the decade of the 2010s is going to bring a return to record-smashing temperatures:

Our system predicts that internal variability will partially offset the anthropogenic global warming signal for the next few years. However, climate will continue to warm, with at least half of the years after 2009 predicted to exceed the warmest year currently on record.