tingilinde

a grand challenge

California goes after urban sprawl.

(thanks for the link Fred)

don't mention green

Marguerite talks about getting people to do green things by appealing to their pocketbook rather than the approach used by most greens.

I agree that the "green" approach has largely failed. The message of is viewed as both shrill and confusing by many. There is confusion about the issues, poor education, political confusion -- in short it is a mess. (the actions of both parties reacting to high oil prices are shameful and is driven by polls rather than rational thought)

I don't think the pocketbook approach works well unless potential solutions and the concept of return on investment are made clear. An economist friend has been doing research on the level of ROI required to convince a consumer to make an energy saving choice. Consumers don't think in these terms, but his early work (not published yet) indicates that it has to be over thirty percent before people get interested. I don't think we're there yet -- look at the reaction to weather stripping, oil and food prices, etc. People need to be convinced there is a crisis if large numbers are to move - we are seeing single digit percentage reductions in driving, but it isn't clear if that represents behavioral change.

People should work at this approach, but most of us (myself included) are not rational actors. Pip Coburn would say people won't change until the perceived benefits outweigh the perceived pain of trying to learn something new. Change has to be very attractive and/or there needs to be a national emergency. Perhaps a path is to emphasize fun and (for young people) sex appeal...

Colleen and I talk about this a lot and our belief is one approach is to get people enjoying cleaner activities. The savings part is great, but if somehow you can have fun and perhaps improve your health and physical shape, you may have accomplished a behavior change. Our focus is on young people, but that is just a convenient entry point for Colleen as she is the primary mover in our collaboration.

Reducing car use is a good thing for the pocketbook, energy consumption, pollution and global warming. Displacing it with biking (for example) can be good for your health. Perhaps convincing kids that using a bike gives them a bit of freedom and can improve their strength and physical appearance is useful. At some point they can displace car use. Maybe, just maybe, a teen will see herself as being sexier and others might be convinced to try the same. If enough kids use bikes again, perhaps we will see action on bike paths (my experience is that it is much easier to move city councils and politicians towards projects that improve safety for kids than adults).

But fun and the implication of sexy is important if you are working with teens.

A pro beach volleyball player can be an outstanding motivator for a kid.

green flying

We are decades from airplanes fueled by liquid hydrogen that is extracted by clean energy sources. A recent New Scientist had an overview piece on the problem of what to do in the meantime - it is behind their paywall, but appears here.

Dealing with ground based transportation is much easier -

carbon toeprints

Most, perhaps all, of the carbon footprint calculators are flawed usually underestimating. For several years some of us have been referring to this as "carbon toe prints"...

Matthews, et al at CMU are urging a more robust methodology.

A couple of interesting case studies and highly recommended for people who worry about this sort of thing. Book publishing only accounts for 6% of its total carbon footprint and many other business sectors have improper accounting.

CMU does have a project to worry about the details.

I've done a bit of work tallying up individual use and came to the conclusion that most of the calculators underestimate by 30 to 80%.

If you use a calculator, realize that you are getting qualitative, rather than quantitative results. Use them to look for areas to improve, but they don't go much beyond that.

nothing is free

Carbon sequestration schemes are usually energy intensive. Science News points to a study that suggests coal fired plants with sequestration may emit up to 40% more sulfur and nitrogen oxides.

snip

“The decision to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions is going to be intertwined with decisions about how to deal with these other emissions,” comments Jim Dooley, an expert in carbon sequestration at the Joint Global Change Research Institute in College Park, Md., and one of the lead authors for a major 2005 report on carbon sequestration by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That IPCC study concluded that nearly all properly buried CO2 would probably remain underground for centuries.

“People are turning their attention to this, which is great,” Dooley adds, referring to the environmental costs of sequestration.

At the time that IPCC scientists were writing the 2005 report, “everyone was thinking what are the environmental benefits of [carbon capture], not so much the environmental costs,” comments Ken Caldeira, an ecologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif., and another lead author of the IPCC report. “The costs people talked about were mostly economic costs.”

global warming/cheap oil shortage analogy

from a correspondent"

It is like knowing you have to lose a lot of weight, but being told the answer is to come up with a way to make a lot of doughnuts

I worry the natural inclination is to be short sighted and afraid of change. Dumb moves like claiming offshore oil with not only make a difference, but do it in the short term will be accepted at face value by a large segment of the population.

Discontinuities on the horizon

friedman on denmark

I often disagree with Friedman and consider some of his thinking embedded in the moment. But today he has an op-ed that captures some of what Danish friends tell me ..

The key points are that this took a long time - you are talking about changing infrastructure. It also took place during periods of very low oil prices. Most people in the US would have considered the Danes just wacky to be "wasting money" and taxing.

Some societies are much better at adapting to change than others. Some countries have that politicians pander more than others. Some countries seem to be thinking.

Terry Box, in The Washington Post has some counterpoint that points to attitudes that cause our politician to pander and treat us like little kids (they often act like little kids themselves).

At least the NY Times editorial gets it right

how carbon intensive is your electricity?

Most of us get our electricity from the local utility. Just how clean is it?

The Energy Information Agency of the Department of Energy has a regional breakdown (this is the most current data I could find)

in pounds of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hr

1.077 New England
1.058 Middle Atlantic
1.579 East North Central
1.756 West North Central
1.342 South Atlantic
1.470 East South Central
1.529 West South Central
1.542 Mountain
0.435 Pacific Contiguous
1.393 Pacific Noncontigous
1.341 US Average

(note the Pacific Contiguous region has a lot of hydro and nuclear power)

If carbon taxes or caps exist, the Pacific Coast is at a great advantage compared with the rest of the country Of course a cap and trade scheme is likely to be very political and adjusted.

So Jessica, Colleen, Fernando, Dave, Richard, Shel, Nancy, Jerry, Marguerite and other friends on the "left" coast - you needn't feel as guilty as the rest of us.

In the US coal generation produces about 2.1 pounds of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hr. China is estimated to be around 2.23 pounds of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour. CAMRA has lots of interesting data - it should be noted that intensity is pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour

cars + 25, a view from mit

Greg notes an assessment of light vehicle technology from MIT. (pdf)

I have only been into it for an hour and need to get back to work, but it looks very good.

ON THE ROAD IN 2035: REDUCING TRANSPORTATION'S PETROLEUM CONSUMPTION AND GHG EMISSIONS

Anup Bandivadekar, Kristian Bodek, Lynette Cheah, Christopher Evans, Tiffany Groode, John Heywood, Emmanuel Kasseris, Matthew Kromer, Malcolm Weiss

MIT Laboratory for Energy and the Environment, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Report No. LFEE 2008-05 RP

July 2008

abstract:

This report summarizes the results of a research program that assessed the technology of light-duty vehicles and fuels that could be developed and commercialized during the next 25 years. The research was done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from mid-2005 to mid-2008. Our objective was to assess and compare options for reducing fuel consumption, especially fuels from petroleum and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, during the production and use of both fuels and vehicles.

This is a successor to our 2000 report, “On the Road in 2020”, which addressed similar objectives. Since that report was written, the world has moved on with new vehicle and fuel technologies, and with inexorably increasing worldwide demand for all transportation services. That demand lends more urgency to curbing the growth of consumption of petroleum fuel and of GHG emissions.

Our research for the current report was confined to industrialized countries, with an emphasis on the United States but also including some western European countries. We first assessed the application of new vehicle and fuel technologies to the performance, cost, and lifecycle emissions of individual vehicles. We then considered the effects on the total on-the-road fleet of introducing those technologies using plausible assumptions about how rapidly they could be developed, manufactured, and sold to buyers to replace existing vehicles and fuels or to add to the total fleet.

We have concluded that a 30–50% reduction in fuel consumption is feasible over the next 30 years. In the short-term, this will come as a result of improved gasoline and diesel engines and transmissions, gasoline hybrids, and reductions in vehicle weight and drag. If these improvements are achieved, we estimate a $1,500–$4,500 increase in vehicle costs. Over the longer term, plug-in hybrids and later still, hydrogen fuel cells may enter the fleet in numbers sufficient to have significant an impact on fuel use and emissions.

Alternative fuels that replace petroleum fuels are unlikely to change GHG emissions significantly. The major near-term alternatives are based on fossil raw materials like the Canadian oil sands or coal, which increase GHG emissions. Some biofuels may prove beneficial, depending on the particular biomass feedstock and conversion technology. But the U.S. emphasis on corn-based ethanol is not obviously justifiable. It has high economic costs, questionable GHG advantages, and other unfavorable environmental impacts.

No single technology development or alternative fuel can solve the problems of growing transportation fuel use and GHG emissions. Progress must come from a comprehensive, coordinated effort to develop and market more efficient vehicles and benign fuels, and to find more sustainable ways to satisfy transportation demands.

Detailed discussions of our research conclusions and policy prescriptions can be found in the Executive Summary (pp. ES-2 to ES-11) and in Section 8 of the report (pp. 155-160).

clean energy lecture

Daniel Nocera and Angela Belcher gave lecture at the MIT Museum

highly recommended

available at iTunesU

Note that Nocera is the guy who published a paper in Science last week on better electrolysis

energy and election year politics

I finally listened to Obama's energy speech and tried to sort things out. The pressure of November and the success McCain is having with off-shore drilling have forced some changes.

Tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to deal with a long term issue like oil prices is dumb. There will be short term depression of prices, but the SPR is finite and the recognition the holiday is coming to an end combined with the need to refill the SPR to handle real disasters is just foolish.

Likewise off-shore drilling will not have a significant impact for a decade and it will amount to only a few percent of oil production worldwide. Any impact on prices will be tiny if world supplies remain constrained. I think Obama is bright enough to realize there is no such animal as an isolated US market, but the rhetoric doesn't so it (same for McCain).

Energy independence is possible with electricity (although not in the decade Gore wants), but not for oil. The US imports 12 million barrels a day (and increasing) - the few millions from Alaska and off-shore are not enough. First generation biofuels aren't enough and second generation probably aren't either - plus they won't be ready. One can use oil shales and I was unhappy to see shale mentioned in the speech.

Even with tax credits for cars won't change the fleet quickly - that will take a couple of decades.

There are no real specifics, no real vision and a hodgepodge of quick fixes for the short term to keep voters and some of the special interests happy.

He could have done much better.

A voice that moves is needed. I once had hopes his might be the one, but now he is worried about November and is an pander mode.

But - his is much better than the McCain energy train wreck.

___

Bob Herbert comments on the short term low hanging fruit ... a common theme here

a different sort of carbon credit

A third of china's carbon emissions are tied to exports.

I'm not terribly surprised An interesting paper by Weber, C. L. , Peters, G.P., Guan, D., and K. Hubacek (2008). The Contributions of Chinese Exports to Climate Change. Energy Policy. Pointer to the journal here (spendy academic journal)

the abstract:

Within 5 years, China's CO₂ emissions have nearly doubled, and China may already be the world's largest emitter of CO₂. Evidence suggests that exports could be a main cause for the rise in Chinese CO₂ emissions; however, no systematic study has analyzed this issue, especially over time. We find that in 2005, around one-third of Chinese emissions (1700 Mt CO₂) were due to production of exports, and this proportion has risen from 12% (230 Mt) in 1987 and only 21% (760 Mt) as recently as 2002. It is likely that consumption in the developed world is driving this trend. A majority of these emissions have largely escaped the scrutiny of arguments over “carbon leakage” due to the current, narrow definition of leakage. Climate policies which would make the developed world responsible for China's export emissions have both benefits and costs, and must be carefully designed to achieve political consensus and equity. Whoever is responsible for these emissions, China's rapidly expanding infrastructure and inefficient coal-powered electricity system need urgent attention.

When it comes to carbon emissions the Earth is far from flat.

So when you buy that laptop, tv, bicycle or christmas ornament that is made in China, the carbon is listed as Chinese, but you own it and the emissions the entire world. The West is effectively outsourcing a good deal of its carbon emissions.

The paper is interesting (hopefully it will be made available for free. The authors find even radical improvements in efficiency only partially offset projected increases in consumption in China and elsewhere. They forecast that China's CO₂ emissions will triple in the next 20 years.

This is everyone's problem - China's rapidly expanding infrastructure and inefficient coal powered electric grid are in urgent need of attention.

It should be noted that long range projects - particularly those associated with rapidly expanding economics - are rarely accurate. It is probably likely that China will cool in the next two decades. It may also be important that countries be held to carbon use. Perhaps we should pay more for anything from countries (and this would include IT services) that might force better choices in producing countries.

cheap and natural carbon capture

Roughly 20 percent of carbon emissions are from deforestation. Many have been suggesting ending it as a way to lock up huge amounts of carbon. It is even one of the Princeton "wedges". The problem is how do you guarantee that lands are kept virgin? How much does it cost to do this for long periods of time?

Science News notes an analysis that claims you can prevent the emission of half a billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year for about a billion dollars a year. Probably very cheap.

not greenwashing, but...

Recently someone sent a piece about a new shoe made with more recycled goods than its competitors and designed to use less material in certain places. It is, like most shoes, made in China and costs something over $70.

While it is good to see attention to design, the major criteria for a shoe should be fit, durability and price. You aren't going to save much carbon dioxide in something like a carefully designed shoe - particularly one made in China. If a shoe, any shoe, causes you to walk enough to displace even a small amount of driving, the net effect is positive. If you find a shoe that is as durable and comfortable as a "green" shoe and $30 cheaper, a good strategy would be to invest that $30 in energy savings that you would not have otherwise done. $30 worth of CF lights will save a lot of energy as well a $30 hot water liner and some pipe insulation or $30 worth of insulation or weather stripping. Perhaps a $100 pair of wonderful feeling, but non-green (whatever that means) shoes will get you walking so much that your car use drops.

More power to companies that move to greener designs. But the buyer needs to think about where they are spending their money if green is a goal. It may be wise to rank order the impact of your various choices and spend your money wisely.

Cutting consumption may be in greenest choice for some things. I get about 1000 miles from a pair of shoes (I'm hard on shoes and your mileage may vary). If I could find a pair that would go 2000 miles I'd only be buying half as many shoes and avoiding half of the production and waste streams associated with a shoe. For items that don't require oil or electricity for their operation, that may be very important. small

Recently I learned about a small bike maker who only buys energy from alternate sources. They don't advertise the practice as they feel it would amount to greenwashing, but it is something the owner just does. He points out that any bike - even one made in China where energy is much "dirtier" than in the US or Europe - is very green as long as it is displacing something that burns hydrocarbons.

oil shale

Of the multitude of ideas for new sources of energy, oil shale is one of the dumbest. I see that some of the Republicans are now pushing it as an answer.

There is certainly a lot of it in the US, but the energy density is low (a famous statement is that it has one third the energy density of Captain Crunch -- actually that isn't true in general. That is only for the highest grade of oil shale. Most is much less.), it requires a large amount of energy to process, it requires a huge amount of water to process and the process of makes and burning it creates much more carbon dioxide than comparable amounts of oil. One of the more stupid choices.

A good analysis comes from Alex Farrell's group at Berkeley (sigh - sadly Alex died this year)

dot-X: a social X prize

The motivation for X Prizes is to motivate people to solve grand challenges and competitions. The idea has its roots in the Longitude Prize which was looking for a practical method for determining a ship's longitude. John Harrison won and the world changed.

Most of the X Prizes are technical and the basic model focuses on the technical - DARPA's grand challenge for example..

Last year I was giving a talk focused on energy and its coupling to global warming. Part of the talk was on low hanging fruit - the easy things we can do. Some are technical, but many are things people can choose to do. You can properly inflate your tires, choose to accelerate slowly, combine your trips, car pool, choose energy efficient appliances ... the list goes on and on.

For short trips you can use a bike.

I was in the Q and A session of the talk at Disney Animation and someone noted he commuted by bicycle, but had to modify his schedule to deal with traffic. What a shame. The human-bike combination incredibly efficient - imagine getting 1000 miles per gallon. A huge percentage of trips are short - on the order of a few miles. Cities like Copenhagen see something like 40 percent of trips involving a bike. But an analysis of why people don't use bikes points out a huge number of issues. Some are social, some involve a bit of road engineering and others point to new business opportunities.

This was buzzing around in my head as I left the talk and kept bugging me for a few days. Soon afterwards I described something I called the dot-X Prize to a friend who works with foundations.

Basically it is this:

Every community has unique issues and has a core group of enthusiasts who are passionately interested in human powered transit. A good deal of work has been done on road engineering and bike safety (a dated, but useful reference is here, current federal programs are described here). Create a central repository for that work and challenge these groups to raise their communities percentage of bike trips from the US average of 0.4 percent to one tenth the Copenhagen average - four percent. Grants would be given to the best proposals for implementation. This seed money would start projects across the country with everything being measured and published and questions would be answered.

• How do communities get funding for bike paths?

• What types of paths are safe and appropriate?

• How do you encourage people to move some portion of their travel to bikes?

• Where are rental schemes important?

• How do businesses participate?

• How do you get kids excited?

• etc...

All of these are social issues and may need to be tailored to fit local needs. One can imagine working out better human-electric hybrid bikes (this scheme is very good, btw), but people need to be riding bikes first.

Throwing money at the problem won't work. A billion dollars for bike paths would go a long way (current paths cost $10,000 to $30,000 a mile) and would be cheap if people used the bikes. Obama has mentioned the need for path funding. But first we need to know how to do it. Portland and Sacramento have done great work but may not work in all areas. And how do you motivate people?

I've been working on this a bit in my spare time - mostly collecting information and making connections. Colleen has been working on motivating kids. The motivation aspect is key. How do you make this attractive and, to young people, even sexy? Comments and suggestions are welcome.

sorting out drilling strategies

Why aren't the oil companies drilling where they have permission and why are they asking for new areas?

Its economics ...

In this week's Science Friday Ira Flatow interviews Robert Kaufman, Director of BU's Center for Energy and Environmental Studies.

worth listening to

wwwd?

Bob Herbert offers his commentary on Gore and America's "can't do" attitude.

Perhaps, but one of the best lessons I learned in physics is that you should pick hard problems - but they have to be problems that have a hope of being solvable.  Gore could have offered challenges that are still on the scale of dozens moon shots (the moon shot was a solvable problem - von Braun and his team were convinced of that a few years before Kennedy's speech), but stand a chance.  He could also offer immediate challenges in conservation - but he doesn't have the trust and respect of the mass of American citizens.

Gore is too bound up in sexy energy production and his tax restructuring schemes.  He isn't strongly in the conservation camp as he pushes carbon offsets and lives a very energy intensive life himself.  He did a good job publicizing the work of the IPCC, but he never went beyond that. 

We need to rethink this.

       what would wall-e do?

getting around without oil

I read Gore's speech last night and am very disappointed. He seems to have jumped the shark. What he suggests is not going to happen in a decade and may have the counterproductive effect of destroying the credibility of more reasonable projects. Gore is someone who falls for technological fixes rather than more balanced approaches.

The most reasonable short term fixes involve conservation. A few simple and available technologies combined with good choices can make a dramatic impact without changing lifestyle. You do have to tune them for your location and situation.

Sukie is interested in expanding her zero gasoline range and our township (thanks to a lot of work by her) has a series of bike and walking paths. The best way to do this is a bike and she needs something that is stable when carrying a load. Trek makes two models of adult trikes that look reasonable and she will be road testing one soon - so more to follow.

By combining trips and walking to local stores we've cut our gasoline use by over 40% in the past few years. This will push that number up a bit higher and will make the process easier. A huge benefit is that it combines errands with exercise.

A tip of the hat to Dave K for suggestions

smart power

Burning coal is dumb for a variety of reasons, but it may case problems with cognitive development in children - from Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health

snip

Closing coal-fired power plants can have a direct, positive impact on children’s cognitive development and health according to a study released by the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. The study allowed researchers to track and compare the development of two groups of children born in Tongliang, a city in China’s Chongqing Municipality – one in utero while a coal-fired power plant was operating in the city and one in utero after the Chinese government had closed the plant. Among the first group of children, prenatal exposure to coal-burning emissions was associated with significantly lower average developmental scores and reduced motor development at age two. In the second unexposed group, these adverse effects were no longer observed; and the frequency of delayed motor developmental was significantly reduced. The study findings are published in the July 14th Environmental Health Perspectives.

“This study provides direct evidence that governmental action to eliminate polluting coal-burning sources benefits children’s neurodevelopment,” said Frederica Perera, DrPH, professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health, director of the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health, and lead author of the study. “These findings have major implications for environmental health and energy policy as they demonstrate that reduction in dependence on coal for energy can have a measurable positive impact on children’s development and health – in China and elsewhere.”

double nickels

If we are really concerned about saving money on oil, conservation is the only short term path. There are many tactics that drop miles driven and we have seen two and three percent drops in recent months (year to year).

But enforcing an efficient speed limit is something that is viewed as political suicide. Senator Warner has called for looking at the idea of a 55 mph national speed limit, but he is only calling for studies and no one is joining him.

There have been a few studies on the effectiveness of the 55 mph speed limit when it was Federal law (one is here). Most of the studies show 2,000 to 4,000 fewer deaths per year and a 2% drop in oil consumption. They also note that compliance was only about 25% to 30%.

Finding the optimal mileage range of a car is tricky as there are a variety of components. Some have no velocity dependence (running your A/C and electricals) and others that increase linearly, as the square and as the cube of velocity. Above 40 mph, wind resistance begins to dominate. The power to overcome it goes as the cube of velocity. The shape of a car influences its coefficient of drag (called the Cd) and some vehicles are much "slipperier" than others. A gas or diesel engine has a fairly narrow power range and a transmission is used to match this efficient range with the speed of the car. How well a car is geared and shifted moves the sweet spot for best economy. Most manufacturers, worried about CAFE fines, optimize for 50-55 mph. It is possible to move a bit higher - 60 or even 65, but that demands a low Cd and the mileage will not be as good as if the manufacturer had re-geared the car (not only Ferrari, but some high end German makes are famous for optimizing a bit on the high side - they could improve their fuel scores significantly by re-gearing).

In the past few weeks I've exchanged mail with an engineer who design cars for a living (a German company). His view is that you can't fool physics. With drag coefficients that we see on normal cars an enforced 55 mph speed limit would drop fuel consumption dramatically over what we see on highways today. He said people talk about 6 to 9 percent in the US with the current speed and vehicle mix (this may be very consistent with the observations of the old speed limit). If there was an enforced national speed limit, you would probably also see manufacturers re-gearing their offerings.

Of course people wouldn't get to where they are going as quickly and there may or may not be economic impacts from this, but if you want to save oil a strictly enforced national speed limit is probably the quickest path. A few people (say those with high end touring cars) will see worse mileage, but the vast majority will see an improvement.

I doubt it will happen.

One thing you can do is clean up you vehicle. Things that protrude can dramatically increase the Cd of your car. Roof racks are bad, a closed tailgate on an open-bed pickup can cost a few mpg at 60 mph. Even the rough surface on a dirty car can make a difference (this is why you wash airplanes - it is very cost effective).

What I don't recommend is driving 55 when the traffic is flowing at 70 - difference in speed can be a dangerous thing.

american attitudes on production v conservation...

a move towards dig and drill ... from a new Pew Research survey.

Other than helping one of the political parties, this is not a viable solution. There is probably little in the way of "cheap" liquid hydrocarbons remaining to be discovered. Even if we found them, the supply would have to be enormous given the demand and it can take a decade to reach reasonable production levels. But politicians have long specialized in myth and fantasy, so one party may find this a viable approach.

moving to 1990

A useful thesis on transportation technology and policy by Nicholas Lutsey of UC Davis. Lots of useful background and resources for anyone interested in greenhouse gases and transportation.

ABSTRACT

Governments worldwide and in the U.S. are enacting a variety of measures to mitigate
greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from various economic sectors. Tools to prioritize these
measures are generally lacking in analytical rigor. On the other hand, the research literature
continues to proliferate with assessments of energy efficiency and GHG mitigation options
that can be adapted to the policy evaluation process. This dissertation formulates an
analytical method to better prioritize future climate change policy actions.

A framework is developed to integrate current research on climate change mitigation
technology alternatives from all sectors of the U.S. economy on an equal footing. Applying
consistent economic assumptions, a multi-benefit cost-effectiveness accounting tool is
developed that simultaneously evaluates the technology costs, lifetime energy saving
benefits, and GHG reductions in a single cost-per-tonne-reduced metric. The framework
synthesizes the disparate studies’ data to compare and prioritize options across sectors as
well as determine the aggregate impacts from multiple sectors’ GHG mitigation actions.
A broad portfolio of cost-effective technologies is available from each major sector of the
economy. The findings indicate that there are many net-beneficial “no regrets” climate
change mitigation technologies – where the energy savings of the technologies outweigh the
initial costs – and most of these technologies are not being widely adopted. Transportation
technologies are found to represent approximately half of the “no regrets” mitigation
opportunities and about one-fifth of the least-cost GHG mitigation measures to achieve the
benchmark 1990 GHG level. With the adoption of known near-term technologies, GHG
emissions by 2030 could be reduced by 14% with net-zero-cost technologies, and emissions
could be reduced by about 30% with technologies that each have net costs less than $30 per
tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent reduced.

Exercises like these are rarely predictive, but they are necessary for crafting policy. Like it or not, policy has enormous impact.

The 1990 benchmark is, in my mind, an intermediate goal. Tough, but something along the way.

biofuels and food prices

Lots of debate on food prices and the increasing use of biofuels.

The Guardian is reporting a classified World Bank document estimates a very large impact on food prices by biofuels.

First generation biofuels are patently dumb - inefficient and politically driven. It would be horrible if they are increasing poverty and starvation.

snip

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.

"It would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House," said one yesterday.

In any event they are talking about a huge effect - reading the paper and trying to understand if it is accurate - indeed, understanding what is going on, is important.

samsø and the sport of energy

We've talked about Samso before - Blizabeth Kolbert has a piece on it and the 2000 watt society in the July 7, 2008 issue of The New Yorker.

(thanks for the link Greg!)

snip

For months, which stretched into years, not much happened. “There was this conservative hesitating, waiting for the neighbor to do the move,” Hermansen recalled. “I know the community and I know this is what usually happens.” Rather than working against the islanders’ tendency to look to one another, Hermansen tried to work with it.

“One reason to live here can be social relations,” he said. “This renewable-energy project could be a new kind of social relation, and we used that.” Whenever there was a meeting to discuss a local issue—any local issue—Hermansen attended and made his pitch. He asked Samsingers to think about what it would be like to work together on something they could all be proud of. Occasionally, he brought free beer along to the discussions. Meanwhile, he began trying to enlist the support of the island’s opinion leaders. “This is where the hard work starts, convincing the first movers to be active,” he said. Eventually, much as Hermansen had hoped, the social dynamic that had stalled the project began to work in its favor. As more people got involved, that prompted others to do so. After a while, enough Samsingers were participating that participation became the norm.

“People on Samsø started thinking about energy,” Ingvar Jørgensen, a farmer who heats his house with solar hot water and a straw-burning furnace, told me. “It became a kind of sport.”

“It’s exciting to be a part of this,” Brian Kjær, an electrician who installed a small-scale turbine in his back yard, said. Kjær’s turbine, which is seventy-two feet tall, generates more current than his family of three can use, and also more than the power lines leading away from his house can handle, so he uses the excess to heat water, which he stores in a tank that he rigged up in his garage. He told me that one day he would like to use the leftover electricity to produce hydrogen, which could potentially run a fuel-cell car.

cutting coal?

An interesting ruling

snip

The construction of a coal-fired power plant in Georgia was halted Monday when a judge ruled that the plant's builders must first obtain a permit from state regulators that limits the amount of carbon dioxide emissions.
Fulton County Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore's decision overturned a ruling that allowed the construction of the $2 billion Longleaf Energy Plant, which would become Georgia's first new coal-fired plant in more than two decades.

Environmentalists said the decision marks the first time that a judge has applied a U.S. Supreme Court finding that carbon dioxide is a pollutant to emissions from an industrial source.

The court's April 2007 decision said the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which are blamed for global warming.

(thanks to the dozen people who mentioned this)

the bush administration solar freeze

offered without comment

mpg is a dumb measure

We've noted this before, but gallons per mile (or liters per kilometer) makes much more sense if you are worried about how much you will spend and pollute.

Recently someone mentioned trading in their nearly 30 mpg subcompact for a Prius when they still have a SUV for "hauling the kids around". Focusing on the more hungry vehicle makes more sense.

Miles Per Gallon	Gallons Consumed per 100 Miles Driven	Gallons Consumed per 10,000 Miles Driven
10	10.00	1,000
15	6.67	667
20	5.00	500
25	4.00	400
30	3.33	333
35	2.86	286
40	2.50	250
45	2.22	222
50	2.00	200
100	1.00	100
infinite	0.00	0

In the extreme case trading a 10 mpg car for one that gets 20 saves 5 gallons per 100 miles, while going from 20 mpg to an infinite number of mpg saves the same.

Getting the inefficient stuff off the roads makes a lot of sense Buying and crushing like Los Angeles did with high pollution cars may be a good strategy. Crushing is important as trading has the vehicle going to another driver where it is still polluting -- and perhaps more if the new buyer drives a lot.

really bad advice

I was given a copy of a "green" book of suggestions as part of an order recently. A nice green cover and full of celebrity comments - and a bit of good advice, some silly advice and some very wrong and dangerous advice.

The people who put it together weren't entirely numerate - somehow little things that might save a bit here and there dominate the book, while real change is not given the attention it deserves. But the scary part was a recommendation that people use homeopathic rather than real medicine because the manufacture of drugs is "dirty"... yikes!

Recently the term green noise has appeared. There is a lot of confusing and often bad advice. The real danger is that this sort of thing is off-putting to the public and there is already burnout. Perhaps the only thing that will bring action is a high price for energy.

charged up at gm

A nice article on the GM Volt project via The Atlantic

Probably the hardest thing the company has done. It will be breathtaking if they pull it off. The best batteries are probably a bit under 0.25 MJ/kg. Gasoline is 46.9 MJ/kg ... it gives a sense of scale.

better than lawns?

Plant your yard with edibles - an increasingly good idea if your zoning allows it and perhaps something to fight for if it doesn't

Frtiz Haeg has a project called Edible Estates where he goes around the county and plants vegetable and fruit gardens in front of ordinary homes - here is Maplewood, NJ

chinese cement and other nightmares

The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency has published a 2007 estimate of global CO₂ emissions.

In 2007, global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from fossil fuel use and cement production increased by 3.1%, which is less than the 3.5% increase in 2006. The emissions from China, with an emission increase of about 8%, accounted for two thirds of this global increase. Smaller contributions were made by India, the USA and the Russian Federation, in contrast to the European Union (EU-15), where a relatively warm winter and high fuel prices led to a 2% decrease in CO₂ emissions. The increase in emissions, in 2007, of about 800 million metric tons of CO₂, was mainly due to a 4.5% increase in global coal consumption, to which China contributed by more than 70%. At present, CO₂ emissions per person from China, EU-15 and the USA come to about 5, 9 and 19 tonnes of CO₂, respectively. In the 1990-2007 period, total CO₂ emissions related to the use of global fossil fuel and cement production increased by about 34%.

Lots of interesting stuff. China now accounts for half of global cement production - something that is a very strong greenhouse gas source - twenty percent of China's emissions are from cement manufacturing and this is likely to get worse after the earthquakes.

For what its worth, here is a 2004 distribution of regional per capita greenhouse gas emissions for all gases and including land use. The distribution is rapidly changing .. the east asia box is now about the same volume as the us+canada box and is increasing, but you get a sense of who is doing what.

forests and climate change

a video from Science

worth watching

Lots of print behind their paywall

have you driven a ford lately?

One wonders if that statement will be possible five years from now.

Ford's Mark Fields, speaking at a the Plug-In Electric Vehicles 2008 conference, calls for government welfare for the car companies and environmental laws that are favorable to the same group. This is a company that did almost nothing for a decade other than turn basic pickup designs into SUVs with enormous profit margins.

Plug-in hybrids are a step in the right direction, but 4000 pound plus monsters are not going to offer the advantages many dream about. That pesky thing called physics gets in the way. The fact that gasoline has about 47 megajoules per kilogram and the best lithium-ion batteries are below 0.3 gives a sense of scale.

GM has a serious lead on Ford. There have been some government Li-ion battery programs, but they are spending serious money on the Volt as well as downsizing their fleet.

We really need to be thinking about what it takes to make safe vehicles that weigh less than 2000 pounds and figure out ways to cut the need for getting in a car in the first place.

update on china's ctl program

bad news -- really bad news. India is moving ahead with a larger plant (and plans for more). Carbon dioxide out per unit of gasoline or diesel is nearly twice that of refined gasoline if you go the CTL route.

"green" meat?

Insects (via Science News)

snip:

Diners who want to reduce the size of their environmental footprint might reassess their aversion to bugs, DeFoliart says. Insects typically eaten by people are vegans—at least for much of their life cycles, he says—and generally “clean-living in their choice of food and habitat.” Moreover, edible insects can forage on a far wider range of plants than do traditional meat animals. As such, he says, bugs can tap food sources normally worthless in conventional meat production, such as cacti, bamboo shoots, mesquite and woody scrub brush.

What’s more, insects turn more of what they eat into tissue that can be consumed by others. For crickets fed diets comparable in quality to the feed given to conventional Western livestock, diet conversion efficiency is about twice as high as for broiler chicks and pigs, four times higher than sheep and nearly six times higher than steers, DeFoliart reports. Insects’ quick reproduction and high fecundity makes them look even more environmentally attractive. For the crickets, DeFoliart has calculated, this translates into “a true food conversion efficiency close to 20 times better than that of beef.”

Gracer likens these differences to gas-guzzling versus gas-sipping vehicles: “Cows and pigs are the SUVs of the food world. And bugs—they’re the Priuses, maybe even bicycles.”

And bugs can be raised sustainably, the U.N.’s Durst says, pointing to an industry that has sprung up in northeast Thailand since 1999. Entomologists and agricultural extension agents at Khon Kaen University developed low-cost, cricket-rearing techniques and offered training to local residents. Currently, 4,500 families in Khon Kaen Province raise crickets, as do nearly 15,000 others elsewhere around the country, Khon Kaen entomologist Yupa Hanboonsong said at the recent meeting organized by Durst.

nope - I'll stick with being a vegetarian

carbon tax - but 100% dividend to the people

Jim Hansen of global warming fame is getting a lot of press with his "tax carbon, but refund 100% to citizens" proposal. (pdf)

All schemes have some problems, but this one would probably cause some slowly moving companies to speed up ... It strikes me as much more workable than any of the cap and trade schemes I've seen and also one that many industrial segments of the economy would fight tooth and nail...

environment360

Yale's online eco-magazine

comment

One of the articles suggested we may be past a tipping point - bringing James Hansen's work to mind. Jim is arguing the carbon dioxide target should be 350 ppm, rather than the 450 or 550 numbers that are thrown about. Getting there may well be impossible in the lifetimes of anyone we have a chance of meeting without enormous focused effort. At this point it seems very unlikely to see a major focus on real carbon dioxide reduction, but rather on a bit of efficiency (not nearly enough - although this is probably the best thing to be doing right now) and energy production that mostly involves coal. Hansen's latest paper on the subject is here (pdf)

will china crash and burn

A few of us were talking about issues with China's growth and I remember Elizabeth Economy's article in Foreign Affairs last Fall...

Summary: China's environmental woes are mounting, and the country is fast becoming one of the leading polluters in the world. The situation continues to deteriorate because even when Beijing sets ambitious targets to protect the environment, local officials generally ignore them, preferring to concentrate on further advancing economic growth. Really improving the environment in China will require revolutionary bottom-up political and economic reforms.

Elizabeth C. Economy is C. V. Starr Senior Fellow and Director for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenges to China's Future.

palm oil

People are usually shocked when I mention that Indonesia is the third worst offender when it comes into Greenhouse gases (China is first, the US second, Brazil fourth). The issue is deforestration, which is happening at a terrific rate.

NPR's Bryant Park Project talks to Rolf Skar of Greenpeace. He has his biases, but I would consider this a reasonably accurate representation. Increased palm oil production can be a very very bad thing.

what rather than where

Dietary shifts may be more effective than eating local produce

The paper (behind a paywall)

Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States

Christopher L. Weber* and H. Scott Matthews

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213

Received for review November 28, 2007

Revised manuscript received March 4, 2008

Accepted March 14, 2008

Abstract:

Despite significant recent public concern and media attention to the environmental impacts of food, few studies in the United States have systematically compared the life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with food production against long-distance distribution, aka “food-miles.” We find that although food is transported long distances in general (1640 km delivery and 6760 km life-cycle supply chain on average) the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household’s 8.1 t CO₂e/yr footprint for food consumption. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. Different food groups exhibit a large range in GHG-intensity; on average, red meat is around 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish. Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than “buying local.” Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food.

good automotive battery information

Axsen, Jonn, Andrew F. Burke, Kenneth S. Kurani (2008) Batteries for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs): Goals and the State of Technology circa 2008. Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis, Research Report UCD-ITS-RR-08-14 (pdf)

Abstract

This report discusses the development of advanced batteries for plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) applications. We discuss the basic design concepts of PHEVs, compare three sets of influential technical goals, and explain the inherent trade-offs in PHEV battery design. We then discuss the current state of several battery chemistries, including nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) and lithium-ion (Li-Ion), comparing their abilities to meet PHEV goals, and potential trajectories for further improvement. Four important conclusions are highlighted. First, PHEV battery “goals” vary according to differing assumptions of PHEV design, performance, use patterns and consumer demand. Second, battery development is constrained by inherent tradeoffs among five main battery attributes: power, energy, longevity, safety and cost. Third, Li-Ion battery designs are better suited to meet the demands of more aggressive PHEV goals than the NiMH batteries currently used for HEVs. Fourth, the flexible nature of Li-Ion technology, as well as concerns over safety, has prompted several alternate paths of continued technological development. Due to the differences among these development paths, the attributes of one type of Li-Ion battery cannot necessarily be generalized to other types. This paper is not intended to be a definitive analysis of technologies; instead, it is more of a primer for battery non-experts, providing the perspective and tools to help understand and critically review research on PHEV batteries.

A very nice piece for those of us who are not battery chemistry experts to get up to speed in current developments. Batteries are far from optimal and this is a great place to start if you want to sort out current progress.

speaking of food

Mark Bittman at Ted (NY Times) on what we eat - our Western diet is an odd form of malnutrition

energy efficiency

From the Economist - if energy conservation is such a good idea, why don't more people do it?

In the US mandating efficiency seems to be a good thing (appliances), but home owners seem to demand as much as thirty percent payback before investing in conservation. Education and bribery may be answers along with sharp increases in energy prices, but it is difficult motivating consumers and small businesses.

interesting article ...

green cartoons

great little shorts noted by Jessica

(although methane from cows is mostly from the other end)

two wheeled ev use in china

We've all heard about the explosion of car use in China and worry about its long term implications, but cars are still beyond the means of most citizens. It turns out bicycles and gas or electric motorbikes are still common.

The growth of the two wheeled electric segment is particularly impressive. A new study(1.7 MB pdf) by Weinert, Jonathan X., Joan M. Ogden, Daniel Sperling, Andrew F. Burke from UC Davis takes a fairly deep look.

There is a good chance for quite a bit of growth. Modularity applies and sophisticated (lithium ion) battery development would have a positive impact. Finding cleaner sources of electricity would be good, but even with China's heavy use of coal (1 kg CO₂/kWh_china vs. 0.58 g/kWh_us), the efficiency of a small electric bike buys quite a bit over most four wheel vehicles.

Of course a vibrant market of several tens of millions of advanced two wheel electrics would put a huge downward pressure on prices - perhaps enough to make them attractive in "advanced" regions like the US.

but new jersey isn't denmark

It is very important to encourage car dependancy and thinking about the last century I guess. And it isn't just this school - "no bike" policies are increasingly common in suburbia.

Many studies indicate kids are terrible drivers, so providing parking places for kids with cars and none for bikes is a bit daft. If the road is an issue, perhaps it makes sense to recognize kids are important and reduce the speed limit to 20 or 25 mph (something that probably makes sense in all towns to encourage bike use). Maybe the students will learn a bit about activism.

and there are other things to consider...

(thanks for the link Greg)

cutting car use

Gas prices are replacing weather and politics as a topic of conversation. It is relatively easy to do something about it at a personal level. Changing your driving style and combining trips should be low hanging fruit for most people, but most balk at resorting to human power for short trips.

We live in a dense (condominium) community that is very close to a large shopping center. Sidewalks are available, but one rarely sees residents carrying groceries by hand, cart or bicycle (there are a few eccentrics such as us who do). Another shopping center is about four miles away and connected by sidewalks and a bike path.

Getting a sensible commuter bike makes a lot of sense if you have places to go that are within five to ten miles. For people who worry about their physical shape, or who have hills to contend with, there are human-electric hybrids. Electric Cyclery in Laguna Beach is a good example (I visited them last Fall - the staff was knowledgeable). The BionX hybrid approach seems to be popular. There are a variety of kits and you can install yourself or have it done at any bike shop.

Some friends in Davis, California replaced their second car with two good commuter bikes. After a year they reported no real need for the second car - the loss of convenience was more than compensated by the thousands of dollars they had saved (car payments, maintenance, insurance, gas) and both of them have lost weight and are now in good physical shape. Nancy says she looks ten years younger (she is in her mid forties) and feels like she did in her twenties. Their total driving mileage is less than half of what it was when they had two cars. Of course your mileage may vary and few places in the US are as bike friendly as Davis.

cleaner and more efficient trucks?

I don't know anything about the American Trucking Association, but they have announced steps to make trucking more efficient. Some are surprising from an industry group (lowering speeds). Others are familiar - more combination trucks (which may be more dangerous).

Setting governors on new trucks to limit speeds to no more than 68 mph and reduce the national speed limit to 65 mph for all vehicles. A truck traveling at 75 mph consumes 27% more fuel than one going at 65 mph, according to the ATA. Bringing speed limits down to 65 mph would save 2.8 billion gallons of diesel fuel for trucks in a decade and reduce CO₂ emissions by 31.5 million tons—equal to a year’s CO₂ generated by 9 million Americans, or the total population of the State of Connecticut. Automobile consumption of gasoline would drop by 8.7 billion gallons, with an accompanying drop in CO₂ emissions of 84.7 million tons.

Reduce engine idling. The ATA recommends pursuing a federal solution that reduces non-discretionary idling—i.e., idling when stuck in traffic—through highway infrastructure improvements and reduces discretionary idling through incentives for new technology.

These types of idling annually consume an estimated 1.1 billion gallons of diesel fuel. Options currently available to fleets to minimize discretionary idling have the potential to reduce CO₂ emissions by an estimated 61.1 million tons over the next ten years—the equivalent of 16 million Americans not driving for a year.

Increase fuel efficiency by encouraging participation in the US EPA SmartWay Transport Partnership Program.

Reduce congestion by improving highways, if necessary by raising the fuels tax. The ATA has recommended a 20-year program, focused initially on fixing critical bottlenecks. Longer-range ideas include creating truck-only corridors which would permit carriers to further increase the use of more productive vehicles. If congestion in all 437 urban areas were eliminated, the reduction in truck CO₂ emissions would be 45.2 million tons over ten years—equal to the annual output of a population the size of the State of Colorado.

Use more productive truck combinations. Permitting truck combinations to be more productive will help reduce the number of trucks needed on the road. Research shows that increased volumes of freight can be moved with less fuel and fewer emissions by using a smaller number of large trucks rather than a larger number of small trucks. A reduction of 294.7 million tons of CO₂ could be achieved with these changes.

Support national fuel economy standards for trucks. The American Trucking Associations supports setting technologically feasible national fuel economy standards for medium- and heavy-duty trucks that reduce fuel consumption if they do not compromise the performance of the vehicles.