Other stories below: Electric power plants shift from coal to natural gas; Russia warming at alarming pace
Group says Keystone pipeline benefits are embellished, Wants focus shifted to renewable sources
A coalition of businesses is the first such group to denounce the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL oil pipeline and is urging President Obama to reject the project and turn the nation’s focus to alternative and renewable energy.
The American Sustainable Business Council disputes Keystone’s job numbers and energy security claims that most other business organizations tout when discussing the project.
“Keystone makes no economic sense for America,” said ASBC communications manager David Brodwin. “Once we take into account the true cost of oil including subsidies, environmental damage and military costs, oil is far more expensive than the alternatives. The best thing we can do for the American economy, and for American businesses as a whole, is to wean ourselves from oil as quickly as possible.”
Electric Power Plants Shift From Coal To Natural Gas
The huge, belching smokestacks of electric power plants have long symbolized air pollution woes. But a shift is under way: More and more electric plants around the nation are being fueled by natural gas, which is far cleaner than coal, the traditional fuel.
The most optimistic projections describe an abundant domestic energy source that will create enormous numbers of jobs and lead to cleaner skies.
Nationwide, the electricity generated by gas-fired plants has risen by more than 50 percent over the last decade, while coal-fired generation has declined slightly. The gas plants generated about 600 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2000 and 981 billion hours in 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency.
During the same period coal generation declined from 1,966 billion hours to 1,850 billion hours, while hydroelectric and nuclear generation stayed about the same. The figures include electricity use by consumers and industry.
Russia warming at alarming pace
Temperatures in Russia in the past century rose at twice the rate of warming in the rest of the world, the emergencies ministry said.
“Despite ongoing discussions in the scientific community about the nature and long-term outlook for global climate change, the fact of global warming itself is uncontroversial,” the ministry said in its forecast of emergency situations in 2012.
“Average warming in Russia in the past 100 years was 1.5 to two times higher than overall global warming,” the forecast read.
GOP Foreign Policy — When the Earth Was Flat
This season’s crop of Republican candidates scare me. They appear to be rushing headlong into the 1950s with a Cold War foreign policy and a notion of science that embraces any fossil fuel on the horizon. Most are more belligerent than many of their predecessors and openly toy with an attack against Iran — and anyone else who gets in our way.
While a Republican candidate or even a Republican president may moderate such views, the national conversation before the election is dangerous at home and abroad and may force Congress to put down more shoot-from-the-hip foreign policy markers. It would be unwise to dismiss them as buffoons.
Alarming is the earth-is-flat crowd that includes every candidate, now that Jon Huntsman has dropped out of the race. Climate change and the necessity of a global shift to a low-carbon economy are NOT in dispute among reputable scientists. (Hopefully a challenge to evolution will not rear its head now that Michele Bachmann is out of the race although Rick Santorum believes in intelligent design and Ron Paul and Rick Perry call it a “theory” out there somewhere.)
Experts say gas prices could double this summer
It is something some people wish they could live without: gas or gas prices.
Right now, what you pay at the pump in the Columbus area is a little more than $3 a gallon, but some experts say you could see that double this year!
Filling up your gas tank can make you cringe, but some experts are saying that by this summer it could even break your wallet.
GasBuddy specializes in gasoline price predictions. The company reports the rise in gas prices has slowed in the last week lingering around $3.30 or more per gallon as oil prices have temporarily stabilized.
However, that may not be for long. The company’s experts predict a roller coaster in prices throughout the year with a peak of up to as much as $4.60 per gallon by Memorial Day in our area.
Environmentalists expect a more pugnacious Obama at next week’s State of the Union (subscription required)
Less than three months removed from a mid-term election “shellacking” and three weeks from a tragic mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz., President Obama delivered a 2011 State of the Union address that called for a cooling of political rhetoric.
In its place, Obama asked for a new era of cooperation and compromise where the White House and Congress could work together to “win the future” on issues like energy development and environmental protection.
It was a speech, many observers concluded, of a president adjusting to the circumstances of his time.
A year later, circumstances have changed again.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
A decent way to start a decent conversation about the climate
NEW! [Climate Action] TShirts (EU + USA) http://climateforce.net/2012/01/17/climate-action-tshirts-eu-usa/
Chevron oil rig catches fire off Nigeria coast
The company is still investigating the fire, which occurred near its North Apoi oil platform, where two workers are missing
• Nigeria on alert as Shell announces worst oil spill in a decade http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jan/17/chevron-oil-rig-fire-nigeria
[Solutions] Trial convicts fossil fuel bosses of ‘Ecocide’
There are 86 people who can diceide this, in the world. http://climateforce.net/2012/01/17/trial-convicts-fossil-fuel-bosses-of-ecocide/
Several States Using Little-Known Fund to Jump-Start the Clean Economy
Report finds that 22 states are tapping “CEFs” to build renewable energy projects. Some are going further by using the money to build entire industries. http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20120110/clean-economy-green-jobs-clean-energy-funds-massachusetts-new-york-brookings-institution
prokaryotes, good link to insideclimatenews on clean energy fund by the states. thx.
The green deal will be the biggest home energy program of modern times, UK climate minister says http://t.co/9tWdE4yi
Gavin Schmidt on communicating climate change
“Most people hear what they know about climate change from a politician, from a headline, from a sound bite, from a joke in a bar,” said climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, who was selected by EarthSky’s 1,000+ Global Science Advisors as our Science Communicator of the Year.
http://earthsky.org/earth/gavin-schmidt-on-communicating-climate-change
Comes with embeddable 8 min podcast..
There is influx of stuff to read, watch and listen to about climate change, probably a good sign – hinting large steps of progress. Tides are turning!
“Now, more than ever, the world needs bold leadership to make the promise of renewable energy a reality” UN Ban Ki-moon http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40947&Cr=energy&Cr1=
Mr. Ban noted that IRENA members – 84 States and the European Union – recognize that renewable energy can boost competitiveness and growth while combating climate change.
“They see the potential for universal energy access, cleaner air and better public health,” he said. “They understand that we can no longer burn our way to global prosperity.”
“Together, we can make progress on the twin challenges of sustainable growth and climate change while striking a blow against extreme poverty.”
IRENA’s Director-General, Adnan Amin, is a member of the high-level group the Secretary-General set up last year to promote his Sustainable Energy for All initiative, which seeks to ensure universal access to modern energy services, double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency and double the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix, all by 2030.
The group is developing an action plan and building a network of governments, companies, investors and civil society organizations that are making commitments that will be unveiled at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), which will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this June.
Oh no, not $4.60 a US gallon!
$3.00 rising to $4.60 a gallon in the UK we are paying an average UK price of £1.38 per liter so around £5.24 per US gallon which is about £8.04 a US gallon.
…rising to $4.60 by Memorial Day… so you will still be paying slightly over half what the UK and most of Europe we are paying NOW!
How an electric car scheme plans to drive down social divisions
A public mobility project with a social purpose – Britain should sign up now, says Randeep Ramesh
When José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, launches the Hiriko electronic car next week, he aims to answer a question being asked by much of the rest of the world: after the euro, what is the continent for?
The electric vehicle, developed in Spain, aspires to transform city transport, doing for electric cars what London’s “Boris bikes” have done for pedal cycles. The idea is that a local authority owns a fleet of Hiriko cars and rents one to people when they need it – for a small fee. Hiriko’s hi-tech, on-board computers will mean that all the cars are instantly located by a smart phone, so they can be left anywhere, and the electric batteries mean they have zero emissions. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/17/hiriko-electric-car-social-purpose?CMP=twt_fd
Proofreader’s note: the source link on the Keystone/ASBC story points back here, rather than to the source story.
Bain Bain Bain and Climate Change
Someone at CAP ought to search and examine the Bain website for any discussions about climate change or related energy/economic work that mentions climate change.
Why? Because Bain is now becoming a household word for anyone in politics or who watches politics closely. And it will become even more of a household word, if Romney becomes the Repub nominee, during the entire political contest this year, up to November. Romney’s credibility is being somewhat tied to Bain; and Bain folks, for the most part, are considered to be highly intelligent — at least in some senses.
What you’ll find, I suspect, is that Bain DOES talk about, and acknowledge, the reality of climate change, and (probably) at least some of their work involves helping clients face it, respond to it, or capitalize on it in one way or another. Thus, there is a disjoint between the denial of climate change, or the doubting of it, and the work that the (presumably) smart folks at Bain do, work that (presumably) smart clients of Bain pay them a lot to do. This disjoint — between what Romney says he believes, and what Bain’s own views and work reflect — deserves a lot of light-shining, a lot of exposure!
McKinsey too. McKinsey has done a lot of work related to climate change and ways to reduce emissions. And McKinsey doesn’t normally do work related to imagined make-believe problems or make-believe opportunities. They’re too serious and focused for that, and clients won’t pay them for that. Same with Bain.
So, hopefully someone at CAP could examine the Bain, McKinsey, and (why not?) Booz websites for comments and work on climate change or related energy (or other) work mentioning climate change or emissions reductions. What will be found, I believe, could be highly helpful as the public debates and political contests proceed.
(All I can do is offer suggestions and ideas: I hope someone with the resources, like CAP, can follow them up.)
Cheers,
Jeff
HBS, class of 1986, Baker Scholar
McKinsey and Company, 1986-1990
Concerned citizen and parent
Widespread effects on U.S. health, environment and economy
The nitrogen cycle has been profoundly altered by human activities, and that in turn is affecting human health, air and water quality, and biodiversity in the U.S., according to a multi-disciplinary team of scientists writing in the 15th publication of the Ecological Society of America’s Issues in Ecology. In “Excess Nitrogen in the U.S Environment: Trends, Risks, and Solutions,” lead author Eric Davidson and 15 colleagues from universities, government, and the private sector review the major sources of reactive nitrogen in the U.S., resulting effects on health and the environment, and potential solutions. The report can be viewed at http://www.esa.org/science_resources/issues/FileEnglish/issuesinecology15.pdf
http://www.nitrogennews.com/nitrogen-media-advisory-1172012/
Check out http://www.witsendnj.blogspot.com for in depth reporting on the casacading nitrogen cycle.
Business vs. business is a good way to go. It helps nix the Republican talking point on environmentalism is bad for business. The House wants to use Keystone as an election year talking point of how Obama is impeding job creation and is anti-business, anti energy security. While not everyone is going to be completely convinced, the effect of 350.org and sustainable business speaking up is to raise question to their talking point. At the very least it’s “controversial” and not self evident. Also, this is a good time to raise the “C” word, climate change.
(If people really wanted to create jobs, there are less controversial ways, such as repairing our aging infrastructure, broken roads and bridges, which the American Society of Civil Engineers gives a grade of “D” for our country. …But it’s not about jobs. It’s about politics.)
Report: DoD bases potential hotbeds for solar development
Military bases in the Western United States could be hidden harnessers of the sun’s power — providing thousands of megawatts of solar power and leading to millions of dollars in revenue and reduced energy bills for the government.
The Defense Department’s Office of Installations and the Environment, in a new study, estimates there’s enough vacant land on seven military bases, stretching from California to Nevada, to generate 7,000 megawatts of solar energy — the same as seven nuclear power plants.
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/394/2708114/Report-DoD-bases-potential-hotbed-for-solar-development
The NOAA ENSO report predicts the current La Nina will continue into Northern Hemisphere Spring 2012.
Scroll down to page 14 and look at the map of temperature anomalies across the country over the last 30 and 90 day periods ending Jan. 15. North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota have been averaging between 7 deg C (12.6 F) and 9 deg C (16.2 F) over the past month:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
CBS Evening News: Radioactive waste from ‘decontamination’ buried in elementary school playground (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/shock-cbs-evening-news-radioactive-waste-buried-in-elementary-school-playground-video
Massive amounts of nuclear news … grim…
http://radioactivechat.blogspot.com/2012/01/fukushima-daiichi-running-without.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Shell’s Arctic Drilling Plan Clears Hurdle
Royal Dutch Shell has been on a six-year crusade to drill in Arctic waters off Alaska’s coast, and has spent about $4 billion on the effort so far without drilling a single well.
But the company took one more bureaucratic baby step forward this week toward drilling in the Chukchi Sea later this year. An appeals board of the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday rejected four challenges brought by Alaska Native entities and environmental groups like Earthjustice to block Clean Air Act permits covering airborne emissions from industrial operations.
Opponents argued that nitrogen dioxide emissions from drilling would pollute the air of Native communities, but the appeals board concluded that the evidence presented was not robust enough to support the claim.
Nonetheless, Shell faces more hurdles, including a possible appeal of the decision to the federal courts. http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/shells-arctic-drilling-plan-clears-hurdle/
Wikipedia anti-SOPA blackout http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout
A technical examination of SOPA and PROTECT IP
http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/technical-examination-of-sopa-and.html
502 Bad Gateway http://www.reddit.com/
Thank You Mr Lamar!
VIDEO Bill Moyers: What stands between us and the solution to the climate, energy and sustainability problem (The system is not broken, it is fixed.). Interview of Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, authors of “Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer — And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class”
http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2012/01/bill-moyers-what-stands-between-us-and.html
Historic winter storm likely to blast Northwest
A potentially historic winter storm is forecast to dump heavy snow across the Pacific Northwest Wednesday, probably wreaking travel havoc across a region not used to the white stuff.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/storms/winter/story/2012-01-17/pacific-northwest-seattle-winter-snow-storm/52616064/1
Russian warming:
Temperatures will continue to grow in Russia throughout the 21st century, with Siberia and Arctic Russia being most affected, according to the report.
“Water resources will increase in regions with higher precipitation, while arid zones, on the contrary, will face further precipitation decline,” it said.
Five Deep-Wells Shut in Ohio Following Eleven Earthquakes
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Five-Deep-Wells-Shut-In-Ohio-Following-Eleven-Earthquakes.html
Yes, unfortunately electricity generators have moved strongly into burning natgas. (1) Installing wind turbines encourages natgas burners as balancing agents, i.e., backup. (2) Natgas is a transportation fuel and ought to be reserved for that purpose. (3) Natgas burning externalities are not included in the current price.
Conservatism Is Not Consumerism, Ctd
I’m an environmental engineer with a specialty in water resources and I’m taking some issue with your petroleum engineer reader who wrote about fracking. The biggest issue is that natural gas fracking is essentially unregulated and they are injecting who knows what. That’s a huge problem as it relates to groundwater. Methane and other chemicals are reaching groundwater in some areas where fracking is occurring, there is no denying this. Not sure about you, but I like my water to be free of harmful chemicals.
His main argument is that it creates jobs. Yeah, and so does sex trafficking and other activities that are harmful to people or the environment. http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/01/conservatism-is-not-consumerism-ctd-2.html
Global warming threatens China’s advance
Global warming threatens China’s march to prosperity by cutting crops, shrinking rivers and unleashing more droughts and floods, says the government’s latest assessment of climate change, projecting big shifts in how the nation feeds itself.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/global-warming-threatens-chinas-advance-20120118-1q5x1.html
“China faces extremely grim ecological and environmental conditions under the impact of continued global warming and changes to China’s regional environment,” says the 710-page report, officially published late last year but released for public sale only recently.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/global-warming-threatens-chinas-advance-20120118-1q5x1.html#ixzz1jnS871b5
China report spells out “grim” climate change risks http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/18/us-china-climate-idUSTRE80H06J20120118
Flu Pandemic, Climate Pattern May Be Linked, Study Says http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/17/flu-pandemic-climate-pattern-la-nina_n_1211480.html
Hedgehog hibernation could hold clue to climate change
A new study of hedgehogs could provide the latest clue on climate change by finding out if the prickly creatures are coming out of hibernation earlier or later.
Usually hedgehogs, made famous by the Beatrix Potter Miss Tiggywinkle story, come out of their winter hibernation in March.
However as the climate changes, scientists want to know if the mammals are coming out earlier – or even later.
The People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) also want to know why populations are declining.
Recent research has show that populations of hedgehogs have dropped by at least a quarter in the past decade, with numbers declining over the long term from an estimated 30 million in the 1950s to 1.5 million in 1995. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9020973/Hedgehog-hibernation-could-hold-clue-to-climate-change.html