Climate Climate & Energy

California takes the lead

California is once again taking the lead: California Attorney General Jerry Brown has sued San Bernardino County, the largest in area in the contiguous USA and one of the fastest growing, for failing to account for greenhouse gases when updating its 25-year blueprint for growth. “It’s groundbreaking. California is just leading the way for other […]

Great idea or load of crap?

In Minnesota, a state that produces more turkeys than any other (some 44.5 million birds per year), a new power plant that burns turkey litter just began operations. According to the article in today's NYT, operators of the plant, which is the first in the country to run on animal waste, is environmentally friendly. But critics say the manure is more valuable "just as it is, useful as a rich, organic fertilizer at a time when demand is growing for all things organic."

They also say the electricity is expensive -- that it requires a lot of energy for a relatively small output. It would take 10 turkey-powered plants, they say, to churn out the juice of one medium-sized coal fired operation.

Though it does mention particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and hydrogen sulfide as some nasty fallout of biomass burning, the Times article offers no hard numbers on the energy balance that poultry-power yields. Since know too well by now that all biomass is not created equal, that would have been some helpful info.

Perhaps you Gristmillers know some stats?

A man ahead of his times

I've always thought that Edison's notion of using DC instead of AC would've resulted in a better energy situation -- more locally produced power through cogeneration and other sources, and better storage capability. But this New York Times piece on how he worked to build an electric car, and his dream of powering every house with its own wind generator, puts him squarely ahead of his time.

Umbra on thin-film solar panels

Dear Umbra, I read that thin-film solar panels are now being produced on a wider scale. I always hear that they can be sandwiched into window glass, but are there any companies that are actually using the technology in architectural products? How does thin film compare to the traditional PV panel? Jen Oakland, Calif. Dearest […]

Glade Runners

Florida utilities commission rejects Everglades-area coal plant The Florida utilities commission voted unanimously yesterday to reject a proposal for building the nation’s largest coal-burning power plant there. The $5.7 billion project, put forth by Florida Power & Light Co., was booted primarily on economic grounds. But since it would have been located near the Everglades, […]

Agrifuels creating insecurity of demand for their oil

According to an article by Javier Blas and Ed Crooks in the Financial Times (London), the Secretary-General of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Abdalla El-Badri, warned Western countries yesterday that their efforts to develop biofuels as an alternative energy source risked driving the price of oil "through the roof".

Oh, the irony of it all.

The Musing Environmentalist highlights a keeper

Karen Street, who comments here regularly, runs an interesting blog of her own called Musing Environmentalist.

I was taken with a graphic she highlighted from an article in Mechanical Engineering magazine, representing the GHG emissions from various sources. Check it out (click for larger version):

Well, Uh, At Least No One Got Zero?

California, Vermont, Connecticut top ranking of energy-efficient states Less than a week after California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) declared at an economic summit in Canada that clean energy is becoming the basis for “a new gold rush,” his all-star state has topped an energy-efficiency ranking issued by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. Looking […]

Or is that geoengineering at work?

A new study shows that geoengineering should work. Just not exactly how we imagined:

Geoengineering could indeed cool the atmosphere, ecologist Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution in Stanford, California, and colleagues conclude in their new analysis. The team examined the impact of 11 possible projects over the next century using computer simulations and assuming trends in greenhouse-gas emissions will continue unchecked.

The good news is such measures would be effective even if undertaken decades from now, the researchers report online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The bad news is that in all cases studied, reducing solar radiation would also shift global rainfall patterns, potentially drenching some areas and parching formerly productive agricultural land. Worse, the simulations predict that if the atmospheric fiddling suddenly stopped, the warming would accelerate dramatically -- possibly to 20 times the current rate -- because CO2 would still be accumulating.

Credits will be auctioned and limits tightened

This is extremely heartening: Europe is moving toward making significant changes to its emissions-trading system that could force large polluters to pay for most, if not all, permits to produce climate-changing gases, European officials said Monday. Although the European carbon-trading arrangement is considered to be among the world’s most functional, the countries that administer it […]