Future of Western U.S. Water Supply Threatened b Climate Change
As the West warms, a drier Colorado River system could see as much as a one-in-two chance of fully depleting all of its reservoir storage by mid-century assuming current management practices continue on course, according to a new University of Colorado at Boulder study.
The study, in press in the American Geophysical Union journal, Water Resources Research, looked at the effects of a range of reductions in Colorado River stream flow on future reservoir levels and the implications of different management strategies. Roughly 30 million people depend on the Colorado River — which hosts more than a dozen dams along its 1,450 journey from Colorado’s Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California — for drinking and irrigation water.
The Colorado River system is presently enduring its 10th year in a drought that began in 2000, said lead study author Balaji Rajagopalan, a CU-Boulder associate professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering. Fortunately, the river system entered the drought with the reservoirs at approximately 95 percent of capacity. The reservoir system is presently at 59 percent of capacity….
See also “Australia today offers horrific glimpse of U.S. Southwest post-2040” and “NOAA stunner: Climate change “largely irreversible for 1000 years,” with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe.” Photo above is of Lake Powell in Utah.
Nissan Plans to Add Electric Vehicles to U.S. Factory
Nissan Motor Co., aiming to be the top seller of electric vehicles in the U.S., is hedging its bets.
Nissan will use a $1.6 billion U.S. loan to retool a Tennessee factory so battery-powered cars can be made on the same line that currently produces hybrids and other models to keep from wasting capacity. Electric-vehicle assembly will be phased in “to avoid under-utilizing the plant while the market is developing,” said Senior Vice President Andy Palmer.
Carmakers are readying electric vehicles in response to higher oil prices, demand for more fuel-efficiency and concerns over climate change tied to carbon exhaust. Even with U.S. aid to build and buy them, the higher cost and shorter driving range of electric vehicles may hold the total market to less than the 150,000 vehicles Nissan will be able to build at the factory.
France Resists a Power-Monitoring Business
A decision by France’s energy regulator that seems to defy both logic and Europe’s green consciousness has set off a political storm here.
At the center is a tiny company that seeks to save consumers money.
Two weeks ago, the French Energy Regulatory Commission, the C.R.E., decided that Voltalis, a company that installs electricity management devices in homes and businesses and then manages their use, would have to, in effect, pay power producers for the power that it saves.
Montreal Protocol eyed as weapon in fight against global warming
There’s growing momentum for amending the Montreal Protocol, the landmark treaty credited with rescuing the earth’s ozone layer, for use in a global battle against climate change.
Widely regarded as the most successful environmental treaty of all time, the Montreal Protocol is credited with eliminating 97 percent of gases used in refrigerant and cooling systems that were eating away at the atmospheric layer that protects life from harmful ultraviolet radiation.
Now, some officials are confident the treaty can be employed to fight climate change, as well, by reducing the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). The move is controversial, as HFCs do not harm ozone and are widely used as a safer substitute for chlorofluorcarbons (CFCs), with the protocol mentioning HFCs as an attractive alternative coolant.
DOE report outlines ‘smart grid’ progress, barriers
“Smart grid” faces significant barriers to expansion, despite growing interest in the technology, the Energy Department said in a report released yesterday.
The study found low penetration for most smart-grid components but saw potential for growth as more cash for technology development and deployment becomes available.
As connection requirements for distributed generation resources become more standardized and cost-effective, “the area is experiencing high growth,” the report says. But some distributed generation resources, including electric vehicles and demand-response initiatives, are only at a “nascent phase of development,” it notes.
Rice Defies Its Reputation As A Thirsty Crop
Two new sister lines of rice are defying rice’s reputation as a thirsty crop as they demonstrate their improved productivity in drought-prone regions of India and the Philippines.
Rice Today‘s July-September 2009 edition features the development of drought-tolerant rice and other research the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and its collaborators are doing to curb the devastating effects of drought.
With some degree of water shortages predicted to affect 15-20 million hectares of irrigated rice within 25 years, smart crop management and even genetically modified rice may also play a role in helping farmers cope with the crisis.
Army Works to Cut Carbon ‘Bootprint’
The army is beginning to measure its carbon footprint, as part of a broader emphasis on the costs of climate change.
An environmental, health and safety management system called Enviance, piloted at Fort Carson, is being rolled out to 11 more Army facilities around the country, including Fort Hood and Fort Benning, to help track their carbon “bootprint.”
The Army has well over 100 installations in the United States.
Tad Davis, the Army’s deputy assistant secretary for environment, safety and occupational health, said it is expanding its focus to climate change issues beyond its traditional energy security.
Climate Loopholes [op-ed]
The House’s approval of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill earlier this month was a remarkable political achievement and an important beginning to the task of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But in all the last-minute wheeling and dealing, the House bill acquired two big loopholes that the Senate must close.
Rules for U.S. stimulus grants exclude private equity
Grants introduced in President Barack Obama’s economic recovery package were aimed at spurring investments in renewable energy, but the program’s structure threatens to hobble it from the start by restricting private equity participation in any government-backed projects.
Under the terms of the program announced July 9, any tax-exempt investors — including many endowments, pension funds and family trusts — would not qualify for grants. Even if a tax-exempt entity holds just a 0.1 percent interest in the renewable energy project four tiers up the ownership structure, the entire project is disqualified, according to the rules published on the U.S. Treasury Department Web site and several attorneys and industry members.
China must ‘pay’ to cut greenhouse gases – U.S.
China and other developing nations must help “pay” for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said on Monday, backing off a recent statement that put a greater burden on the United States.
As the United States and other developed countries make costly commitments to address climate change, “developing countries like China must do the same,” Locke told members of the Manufacturing Council, a private sector advisory group.
“They’ve got to step up. They’ve got to pay for the cost of complying with global climate change. They’ve got to invest in energy efficiency and conservation, but also very definitive steps in reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Locke said.
Of Congress, Coal Plants and Biomass
The potential market for second-generation liquid biofuels has gained growing public and investor attention lately, including a lengthy feature on “grassoline” in the latest issue of Scientific American.
But the less glamorous pellet industry has grown in large part because of surging demand from Europe.
The United States is fashioning its own climate legislation and renewable energy policy, which would, among other things, compel utilities to turn to renewable energy sources for a growing portion (6 percent in 2012, rising to 20 percent by 2020) of the electricity they sell.
“¦could Congressional legislators push utilities even further by requiring them to co-fire a mandated proportion of biomass pellets in coal plants “” in effect, establishing a renewable solid-fuel standard to mirror biofuel content rules for gasoline?
Beneficial Biofuels: Leading National Experts Reach Consensus
Biofuels can be produced in large quantities and have multiple benefits, but only if they come from feedstocks produced with low life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions, as well as minimal competition with food production. This consensus emerges in a new journal article by researchers from the University of Minnesota, Princeton, MIT and the University of California, Berkeley.
“The world needs to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, but recent findings have thrown the emerging biofuels industry into a quandary. We met to seek solutions,” said the U of M’s David Tilman, a noted ecologist and lead author of the paper. “We found that the next generation of biofuels can be highly beneficial if produced properly.”
Will Global Warming Melt the Permafrost Supporting the China-Tibet Railway?
Building a railway across the unstable soil of the Tibetan Plateau was an improbable endeavor from the start, but an army of Chinese government engineers did it anyway.
Now, with the frozen soil disturbed by the process of laying down the rail and a warming climate on the plateau, some scientists question whether the $4-billion rail line will survive as is or require major reconstruction.
Three years after the railway opened in 2006, international research shows that the Tibetan territories are among the fastest warming, and fastest melting, on the planet. The research into the fate of glaciers and the permafrost soils””done by the United Nations, China’s scientific agencies, and several independent scientists””is not focused on the railway. But the work raises concerns that the warming ground could lead to a buckling of the railway.
Future aquifer water supplies could be in jeopardy
Future water supplies from the High Plains aquifer could be in jeopardy if large amounts of water are pumped out of it and if farmers continue using chemicals on land above the vast underground reservoir, the U.S. Geological Survey said in a report.
While the aquifer’s water quality is good, there will have to be “some substantial changes” in how the aquifer is used “if we want to extend the life of it,” said Jason Gurdak, lead author of the study.
“¦ The aquifer is the most heavily used groundwater resource in the United States, supplying water to Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming. Most of the water is used for irrigation, but about 2 million people also depend on it for drinking water.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
I am curious what Joe thinks about the NY Times editorial on Climate Loopholes.
The first “loophole” is exempting coal plants from EPA regulation. I believe it begins with a factual error: saying that coal accounts for more than half the electricity in the US, while it is actually 46% (as I remember). More important, it seems to me that they miss the basic point of cap and trade: that energy is so central to the economy that we should use a market based method that promotes least-cost solutions rather than direct regulation. And it seems that carbon pricing would, in fact, eliminate most of the coal plants without EPA regulation, as the RFK Jr. post says. So this “loophole” actually seems like a non-issue.
The second “loophole” is the possibility of abusing offsets, but as I understand it, Waxman-Markey already has strong protections against abusing offsets.
The Times editorial seems to deal with non-issues, but to ignore the biggest defect in Waxman-Markey: the weak short-term target of only 17% reductions by 2020.
[JR: Yeah, I didn't blog on the NYT piece because it didn't move me. Also, the offsets were in the original draft -- they weren't due to "last-minute wheeling and dealing" as the NYT claims. I'll blog more on offsets soon.]
Several of these articles emphasize the basic fact that it is ultimately every *individual* who is going to have to lead the charge on climate change. Neither the government or the mass media really get it and so it’s up to us. Even the article which reported Nissan will start making electric cars in Tennessee was hedged with talk about the EV market only just “emerging” and there being no real consumer demand for EVs unless gas is over $5 a gallon. That’s just factually wrong, but pepetuates the corporate-media myth that EVs can’t cut it in the marketplace (even as they report that they will be building more of them).
Meanwhile, in France, the government is saying a company that saves consumers electricity must now pay the utility company for the electricity they save? Pay for a product that was never delivered or consumed? And we thought U.S. regulators were idiots.
But never fear, because we’re still in the running for first place dummies as the story about the stimulus package denying alternative energy development grants to any project that takes investment from a non-profit entity demonstrates. What the heck difference does that make? Where’s the logic in such a ruling? It doesn’t even seem to benefit any big-money constituencies like most loopholes. It’s just plain bureaucratic stupidity. And don’t get me started about the article which points out just two of Waxman-Markey’s endless loop holes, counterproductive provisions and criminal pork-barrel industry giveaways.
And, of course, this kind of idiocy is exactly what will plague the actual implementation of the Climate Bill in whatever form it finally reaches the President’s desk.
People are just going to have seriously conserve all resources on their own and at their own cost. They are going to have to figure out how to drive less and live smarter. They are going to have to buy slightly more expensive but lower-impact products without government rebate programs to motivate them, etc. And, of course, we are still going to have to watch-dog the corporations and the government every step of the way to 2030 to try and hold the damage their natural stupidity does to a minimum.
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/07/22/22greenwire-usda-sees-house-climate-bill-yielding-long-ter-74914.html
USDA analysis of W-M: small short-term increase in costs for farmers, long term net benefit.
Pat: I would say that we need to do more than watch dog the government and corporations. I’ve been saying forever that we need an educated, activated mainstream or voters and consumers. We’re well past the point where watch dogging is enough; we need to “convince” all large concentrations of economic power–federal, state, and local governments, corporations, universities, NGO’s, religious institutions, etc.–to do the right thing.
I’m particularly worried about how hard it will be to motivate voters and keep them motivated. The 2008 election was more a primal scream in response to eight horrific years than anything else. (Although I’m very happy we had that little yell.) We need to find a way to make more people place a much higher value on green issues throughout the process, beginning with the primaries, so that we’re no longer voting for the lesser of two evils or casting a “protest vote” for a candidate who has virtually zero chance of winning. We also have to stay involved once people are elected. Yes, it’s work, and yes, it takes time, but I don’t see any other way we can improve the performance of our elected representatives on these critical issues.
Startling animation of warming….
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9v0qi_5year-average-global-temperature-an_tech
“Drought in Texas has led to an estimated $3.6 billion in crop and livestock losses, and without ample rains, the year’s final tally could top the state record set in 2006, Texas agriculture officials say.”
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/ap/20090721/twl-us-farm-scene-texas-drought-ef375f8.html
US Renewable Energy Grant Rules Exclude Private Equity
(WSJ 7.20.09)
The rules, published July 9, exclude from the program any projects with investors that have tax-exempt status. That was done because the grant program is intended to replace tax credits, which have become less widely used as taxable incomes have fallen. Tax-exempt investors wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of tax credits so the intention is to bar them from the grant program too, according to industry participants.
However, most private equity firms receive backing from tax-exempt limited partners like endowments, pension funds and family trusts, excluding them from the program. Even if the tax-exempt entity holds just a 0.1% interest in the renewable energy project four tiers up the ownership structure, the entire project is disqualified, according to the rules published on the U.S. Treasury Department Web site and several attorneys and industry members. In a similar vein, if any of a project’s ownership lands in the hands of a tax-exempt entity within five years of operation, the grant can be reclaimed by the government, according to the Treasury rules . . . {extended discussion}
The issue hearkens to a broader discussion in the renewable energy world, according to Edwin Feo, partner at the law firm of Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy LLP, where he co-chairs the project finance and energy practice.
Feo said that all types of tax subsidies have unequal effect on industry members. So there’s a school of thought, he said, that questions “why are we continuing to play the game of having subsidies through tax benefits that have these pernicious unequal effects versus direct pay subsidies that provide cash usable by anyone. That’s the school of thought that’s pushing feed in tariffs. And that’s seeing traction at the state level.”
Replacing the electrical output provided by the dams would be a very difficult matter, and the water restrictions that would accompany declined availability would challenge agriculture, industry, and residential development. The study illustrates some key points about climate change:
* People in rich developed states are also vulnerable
* Serious impacts could arise in the medium term
* Significant aspects of our current economic system could be disrupted in the coming decades, if we fail to reduce our emissions
Hopefully, these messages will get through to voters and policy-makers, and the kind of mobilization required to cut emissions will begin.