U.S. solar grew sharply in 2010, still lags Europe
* U.S. solar market grew 67 pct in 2010
* U.S. had 5 pct of global PV share in 2010, down from 2009
* U.S. PV installations expected to double in 2011
LOS ANGELES, March 10 (Reuters) – The U.S. solar power sector grew 67 percent in 2010 but still lagged European markets by a wide margin in installing solar systems, the industry’s trade group said on Thursday.
The U.S. market for solar energy reached $6 billion in 2010, up from $3.6 billion the previous year, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.
But U.S. share of worldwide photovoltaic solar installations slipped to 5 percent last year from 6.5 percent in 2009 due to booming growth in Germany and Italy, where solar players enjoy generous government incentives.
Photovoltaic, or PV, solar systems transform sunlight into electricity.
Solar electric installations reached 956 megawatts in the United States last year, including 878 MW of PV systems. More than 17 gigawatts of PV were installed globally.
In 2011, SEIA expects U.S. PV installations to double from 2010, while the global market will experience slower growth due to subsidy cuts in Europe.
“Much of the global PV industry is turning its eye toward the U.S. with great expectations,” the report said.
This year is likely to be “light” for concentrating solar power, or solar thermal, SEIA said. In 2010, 77.5 MW of CSP were installed, and that portion of the market is expected to grow quickly in the coming years with 41 projects totaling 9 GW currently under development.
As Ozone Decision Looms, EPA Finds Stronger Science
Recent studies suggest that smog-filled air kills more people and causes more breathing problems than previously thought, U.S. EPA scientists say in a new draft paper, but due to a procedural twist, the findings can’t be taken into account as Administrator Lisa Jackson decides whether to set stricter limits than the George W. Bush administration chose in 2008.
The new research provides stronger evidence that short-term spikes in ground-level ozone can cause premature death, according to the 996-page scientific assessment, which was released late Friday. And on top of that, EPA scientists found evidence that long-term exposure could lead to more premature deaths — a conclusion that was not reached when the agency last reviewed the state of smog science in 2006.
It is well-established that ozone can have health effects at the current limit of 84 parts per billion (ppb), which still has not been met in parts of the Northeast, much of Southern California and industrial cities such as Houston. According to the assessment, recent studies found a robust link between health effects and smog levels below either the current limit or the standard of 75 ppb that was selected by the last administration.
Environmental and public health groups said the most recent studies show why the Obama administration should move this summer to tighten the national limits on smog even further, as EPA originally proposed doing last year (Greenwire, Jan. 7, 2010).
The perpetual politics of petroleum
The boom-bust cycle of oil politics is booming this week on Capitol Hill, where the only thing more predictable than politicians’ policy solutions are their claims that the other side is ignoring the issue.
With gas prices surging to about $4 a gallon in some places, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are recycling … the same talking points they used the last time there was such pain at the pump.
Call for “all of the above?” Check. Demand the White House open the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? Check. Find some old quotes from the other guy about high oil prices? Check.
Rising oil prices are a serious issue, especially with the economy just beginning to recover. And the U.S. Energy Information Administration says prices at the pump will continue to rise because the recent increases in oil prices haven’t been fully passed on to consumers. Gasoline could average about $3.70 per gallon “” or higher, depending on the region “” in the peak April-September driving season, EIA says.
But Washington’s reaction demonstrates the limits of any policy response “” as well as the reality that the issue can be more useful as a political tool.
GOP gas price claims under fire ahead of climate vote
State of Play: House GOP claims that legislation to block Environmental Protection Agency climate change rules will combat rising gasoline costs are coming under fire ahead of a committee vote Thursday.
The claim “” which Republicans including Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) are touting “” has struck a nerve as pump prices move up the political agenda.
“It is one of the most pathetically, economically invalid arguments ever made in human history,” Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, told E2 Wednesday.
Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) is the chief sponsor of the bill that will be taken up Thursday in the Energy and Power subcommittee.
Senior House Republicans have tailored their political messaging on the bill to focus more heavily on gasoline prices.
But their claims about the degree to which prices will rise are rooted in an industry-commissioned study of cap-and-trade legislation that died in the last Congress “” not an analysis of rules that EPA is moving ahead with under its existing powers.
Health Groups Gird for Fight Over EPA’s Power-Plant Toxics Rules
With the Obama administration required to put its plan for reducing toxic air pollution from coal-fired power plants on the table a week from today, the American Lung Association and other public health groups have started an early push to explain why U.S. EPA shouldn’t flinch on the long-delayed rules.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is under a legal deadline to release a proposal by March 16 and finalize it by November. Environmentalists and public health groups are pushing her to make the rules far stricter than the George W. Bush administration’s Clean Air Mercury Rule, a cap-and-trade program that aimed to cut mercury pollution by about 70 percent but did not place limits on other types of toxic emissions.
According to a report (pdf) released yesterday by the Lung Association, the technology needed to control all of the toxic pollutants is already in wide use, and in most cases, it cuts emissions by more than 90 percent. Currently, the power sector produces about 40 percent of U.S. mercury emissions and 76 percent of acid gases, the report says.
Janice Nolen, the group’s director of national policy, said power plants have gone long enough without cleaning up their pollution, as Congress had ordered 20 years ago. In late 2000, just before the Clinton administration left office, EPA wrapped up a years-long study and decided that limits on toxic pollution from power plants were needed to avoid health problems such as asthma, heart attacks and cancer.
Jay Inslee: Republicans Suffer From ‘Allergy To Science And Scientists’
Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) accused Republicans on Tuesday of having an “allergy to science and scientists” during a House hearing on a Republican-led proposal to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
The New York Times reports that the meeting, which focused largely on the effect of the gases on climate change, was contentious and ultimately unproductive, as representatives on both sides of the aisle appeared to stubbornly reject claims that countered their own views.
Despite the impasse, however, the hearing didn’t go over without its fair share of sparks.
“If Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and Einstein were testifying today,” Inslee, an environmentalist with a knack for confrontation over green initiatives, posited, “the Republicans would not accept their views until all the Arctic ice has melted and hell has frozen over, whichever comes first.”
In another exchange, Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), a man-made climate change skeptic, took a shot at Inslee’s wealth of scientific literature when he offered to get him an e-reader to organize it.
The race to deploy carbon capture and storage projects shifted to North America and away from Europe last year, according to an annual report on the sector, but industry watchers are keeping a close eye on China as well.
Carbon-capture technology pulls carbon dioxide from the smokestacks of coal and other fossil-fuel plants, pressurizes the gas and pumps it underground for permanent storage. The technology is seen by many governments and energy companies …
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
LOL!
From the story on Inslee.
That was classsic.
Inland sea floods outback Qld towns
“This is an unprecedented event where there’s been up to 20 inches of rain in parts of the Diamantina Shire which happened over a two-day period,” he said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/08/3157833.htm
Joe,
I have given some thought about why the Obama Administration has not done a better job of communicating to the American people the seriousness of the issues of and surrounding global warming and climate destablization. And I have come to the conclusion that the administation does NOT want to really talk about it because they are concerned (afraid?) of the reaction (panic?) of the general public and subsequent ramifications to the economy.
To Joe and the other commentators: What are your thoughts about this?
[JR: No. I think they just suck at messaging, as I've said.]
Char provided by Dynamotive was applied once at the initiation of trials. They are also the first biochar field trials undertaken in northerly latitudes (45° north). Key results include:
* Continued greater biomass growth for the third consecutive year in biochar-amended soils;
* Nutritional quality of plants grown in biochar-amended soil is verified by near infrared spectroscopy for the first time;
* Plant nutrient uptake efficiency and plant nutritional quality is greater in plants grown in biochar-amended soil;
* This greater plant nutritional value leads to greater milk production from these forage plants;
* In addition to the greater nutritional value of plants grown in biochar-amended soil as well as greater milk production, environmental advantages are anticipated through reduced leaching and reduced greenhouse gas emissions;
* These results were achieved with a relatively low biochar application rate (3.9 t/ha), in a northerly climate (N45?), on normal agricultural soils.
http://biochar.be/everything-biochar/projects/118-blueleaf-and-dynamotive-announce-3rd-year-field-trial-results.html
Turning sunlight into fuel
Two Caltech scientists lead an effort in California, called JCAP, to perfect a clean, cheap energy source from sunlight.
“At the California Institute of Technology, they’re developing a way to turn sunlight and water into fuel for our cars,” President Obama said in his Jan. 25 State of the Union address. He was referring to the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, or JCAP, where a team of California scientists are taking a multi-pronged approach to try to engineer a clean, cheap energy source from the sun.
The project will be led by Caltech’s Nathan Lewis, a chemist. Caltech physicist Harry Atwater is also part of the newly formed Department of Energy-funded project. The Times recently spoke with them about their work on the joint effort.
It’s exciting that the president is talking about innovation happening in California.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-sci-0205-caltech-sun-energy-20110205,0,4109052.story
Budget hawks: Does US need to give gas and oil companies $41 billion a year?
As President Obama and Congress look for budget cuts, some experts say federal energy subsidies are ripe for trimming. Among oil companies, nuclear power, and coal, who gets what from US taxpayers? http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0309/Budget-hawks-Does-US-need-to-give-gas-and-oil-companies-41-billion-a-year
Group of 122 environmentalists, elected officials send President Obama letter urging swift development of offshore wind on Atlantic coast while ensuring environmental protections http://zepto.industryintel.com/zepto/index.cfm?event=readStory&id=2897160552&uR=53423
EU Comm.for Research says BioEconomy worth 2 Trillion Euros & more than 22MM jobs. http://ht.ly/4bJRI
ACORE
Interactive Report: Renewable Energy in America
Markets, Economic Development and Policy in the 50 States
Renewable Energy in America is intended to provide an executive summary on the status of renewable energy implementation at the state-level. The report provides a two-page, high-level overview on the key developments that have shaped the renewable energy landscape in each state, including information on installed and planned capacity, markets, economic development, resource potential and policy.
The report is a “living” document that will continue to evolve with updates and periodic revision. It is ACORE’s intention to update each state profile at least twice per year. http://www.acore.org/publications/50states
Going to Earth’s core for climate insights
A NASA/university study of data on Earth’s rotation, movements in Earth’s molten core and global surface air temperatures has uncovered interesting correlations. Credit: NASA/JPL-Université Paris Diderot – Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris
(PhysOrg.com) — The latest evidence of the dominant role humans play in changing Earth’s climate comes not from observations of Earth’s ocean, atmosphere or land surface, but from deep within its molten core.
Scientists have long known that the length of an Earth day – the time it takes for Earth to make one full rotation – fluctuates around a 24-hour average. Over the course of a year, the length of a day varies by about 1 millisecond, getting longer in the winter and shorter in the summer. These seasonal changes in Earth’s length of day are driven by exchanges of energy between the solid Earth and fluid motions of Earth’s atmosphere (blowing winds and changes in atmospheric pressure) and its ocean. Scientists can measure these small changes in Earth’s rotation using astronomical observations and very precise geodetic techniques.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-earth-core-climate-insights.html
Insights from oil spill air pollution study have applications beyond Gulf
During a special airborne mission to study the air-quality impacts of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill last June, NOAA researchers discovered an important new mechanism by which air pollution particles form. Although predicted four years ago, this discovery now confirms the importance of this pollution mechanism and could change the way urban air quality is understood and predicted.
The NOAA-led team showed that although the lightest compounds in the oil evaporated within hours, it was the heavier compounds, which took longer to evaporate, that contributed most to the formation of air pollution particles downwind. Because those compounds are also emitted by vehicles and other combustion sources, the discovery is important for understanding air quality in general, not only near oil spills.
“We were able to confirm a theory that a major portion of particulate air pollution is formed from chemicals that few are measuring, and which we once assumed were not abundant enough to cause harm,” said Joost de Gouw, lead author of a new paper on the finding, published in the March 11 edition of Science.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-insights-oil-air-pollution-applications.html
“Peak coffee” due to climate change?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42003896/ns/business-the_new_york_times/
[JR: ON the list.]
Of course the Republicans hate science. First because they are too dumb to understand it. Second because most of them are religious obscurants who actually believe the world was created in 4004 BC, in six days and that dinosaurs sailed with Noah in the Ark. Third because, as Karl Rove said, these creatures have egos so great that they believe that they actually create reality, not experience it, so, by dint of ‘magical thinking’ they can simply dismiss the mundane reality of laws of physics and other inconveniences. Fourth because, as Hofstadter and others understood, paranoia is a perennial feature of the Rightwing mentality. They believe in conspiracies, particularly amongst people, like scientists, who talk in a language that they are unequipped to comprehend. And fifth, the science threatens their money, their power and their worldview that we can go on growing the economy forever, and, if we stuff the planet up, well, that’s just ‘God’s Will’ and we will be ‘raptured’ shortly. ‘God’ being, of course, a projection onto the cosmos of the Rightwingers’ own hypertrophied egos.
The deadliest heat wave in human history–the 2010 Russian heat wave, which killed approximately 56,000 people last summer–was due to a natural atmospheric phenomenon often associated with weather extremes, according to a new NOAA study. The study, titled “Was There a Basis for Anticipating the 2010 Russian Heat Wave?” was accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, and used observations and computer climate models to evaluate the possible roles of natural and human-caused climate influences on the severity of the heat wave.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1760
[JR: An odd study that asks the wrong question, I think. More later.]
Geographic disparities and moral hazards in the predicted impacts of climate change on human populations
Aim It has been qualitatively understood for a long time that climate change will have widely varying effects on human well-being in different regions of the world. The spatial complexities underlying our relationship to climate and the geographical disparities in human demographic change have, however, precluded the development of global indices of the predicted regional impacts of climate change on humans. Humans will be most negatively affected by climate change in regions where populations are strongly dependent on climate and favourable climatic conditions decline. Here we use the relationship between the distribution of human population density and climate as a basis to develop the first global index of predicted impacts of climate change on human populations.
Location Global.
Methods We use spatially explicit models of the present relationship between human population density and climate along with forecasted climate change to predict climate vulnerabilities over the coming decades. We then globally represent regional disparities in human population dynamics estimated with our ecological niche model and with a demographic forecast and contrast these disparities with CO2 emissions data to quantitatively evaluate the notion of moral hazard in climate change policies.
Results Strongly negative impacts of climate change are predicted in Central America, central South America, the Arabian Peninsula, Southeast Asia and much of Africa. Importantly, the regions of greatest vulnerability are generally distant from the high-latitude regions where the magnitude of climate change will be greatest. Furthermore, populations contributing the most to greenhouse gas emissions on a per capita basis are unlikely to experience the worst impacts of climate change, satisfying the conditions for a moral hazard in climate change policies.
Main conclusions Regionalized analysis of relationships between distribution of human population density and climate provides a novel framework for developing global indices of human vulnerability to climate change. The predicted consequences of climate change on human populations are correlated with the factors causing climate change at the regional level, providing quantitative support for many qualitative statements found in international climate change assessments.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00632.x/abstract
Packing away the poison
Genetic mutation allows Hudson River fish to adapt to PCBs, dioxins
Some fish in New York’s Hudson River have become resistant to several of the waterway’s more toxic pollutants. Instead of getting sick from dioxins and related compounds including some polychlorinated biphenyls, Atlantic tomcod harmlessly store these poisons in fat, a new study finds.
But what’s good for this bottom-dwelling species could be bad for those feeding on it, says Isaac Wirgin of the New York University School of Medicine’s Institute of Environmental Medicine in Tuxedo. Each bite of tomcod that a predator takes, he explains, will move a potent dose of toxic chemicals up the food chain — eventually into species that could end up on home dinner tables.
From 1947 to 1976, two General Electric manufacturing plants along the Hudson River produced PCBs for a range of uses, including as insulating fluids in electrical transformers. Over the years, PCB and dioxin levels in the livers of the Hudson’s tomcod rose to become “among the highest known in nature,” Wirgin and his colleagues note online February 17 in Science. Because these fish don’t detoxify PCBs, Wirgin explains, it was a surprise that they could accumulate such hefty contamination without becoming poisoned. His team now reports that the tomcod’s protection traces to a single mutation in one gene. The gene is responsible for producing a protein needed to unleash the pollutants’ toxicity.
All vertebrates contain molecules in their cells that will bind to dioxins and related compounds. Indeed, these proteins — aryl hydrocarbon receptors, or AHRs — are often referred to as dioxin receptors. Once these poisons diffuse into an exposed cell, each molecule can mate with a receptor and together they eventually pick up a third molecule. This trio can then dock with select segments of DNA in the cell’s nucleus to inappropriately turn on genes that can poison the host animal.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/69976/title/Packing_away_the_poison
[JR: An odd study that asks the wrong question, I think. More later.],
yes, i missed to past Jeff’s commentary.
Can we start to attribute geosphere activities and magnitude uptake, which seem to be a major force in climate shifts. Attributes from sea level rise and corresponding gravity fluctuations – mass distribution changes, ice sheet melt pressure releases / triggers contributes to earthquakes or underwater landslides.
There is also the high possibility, influences from deep sea fossil explorations. The following catastrophe could affect worldwide – from fall out patterns or clouds who take up radioactivity and distribute it later through rain.
Scary footage: Tsunami waves raging, buildings burn after 8.9 Japan earthquake
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4lIFEDFYIw&feature=player_embedded#at=45
Al Jazeera’s metereologist explains Japan quake. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXEbXiYtxTA
Japan: trying to fix nuclear plant cooling problem http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/11/japan-quake-reactor-idUSTFD00666420110311
State of emergency is declared at Japanese nuclear plants
Process for cooling reactor ‘not going as planned’ in wake of quake, administrator says
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42025882/ns/world_news-asiapacific/
Another reason to go clean tech …
Potential for a hazardous geospheric response to projected future climate changes
Periods of exceptional climate change in Earth history are associated with a dynamic response from the geosphere, involving enhanced levels of potentially hazardous geological and geomorphological activity. The response is expressed through the adjustment, modulation or triggering of a broad range of surface and crustal phenomena, including volcanic and seismic activity, submarine and subaerial landslides, tsunamis and landslide ‘splash’ waves, glacial outburst and rock-dam failure floods, debris flows and gas-hydrate destabilization. In relation to anthropogenic climate change, modelling studies and projection of current trends point towards increased risk in relation to a spectrum of geological and geomorphological hazards in a warmer world, while observations suggest that the ongoing rise in global average temperatures may already be eliciting a hazardous response from the geosphere. Here, the potential influences of anthropogenic warming are reviewed in relation to an array of geological and geomorphological hazards across a range of environmental settings. A programme of focused research is advocated in order to: (i) understand better those mechanisms by which contemporary climate change may drive hazardous geological and geomorphological activity; (ii) delineate those parts of the world that are most susceptible; and (iii) provide a more robust appreciation of potential impacts for society and infrastructure. http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/368/1919/2317.abstract