I haven’t been posting as much as I usually do, since I have been preparing testimony for the Congressional hearing on Wednesday. The committee has finally posted details of the hearing here. It should be a rousing debate. At least I won’t be all alone on the anti-CTL side.

In the course of preparing, one of Climate Progress’s readers sent me some high-quality information on the high level of water use in the liquid coal process, which I though I’d share. The key factoid is five to seven gallons of water are necessary for every gallon of diesel fuel that’s produced (and double that if you coproduce diesel fuel and electricity from coal).

This comes from a very useful report: “Emerging Issues for Fossil Energy and Water” by DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory. The key chart is (click on it for a clearer image):

GPM is gallons per minute, Bgal is billions of gallon, BPSD is barrels per steam day (whatever a “steam day” is), and I think 42 gallons per barrel (that’s what it is for oil, anyway). Ed Markey (D-MA) put this all in layman’s language on Grist:

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We have known for a while that global warming is making our weather more extreme, especially extreme heat, drought, heavy rainfall, and flooding. Now we have more predictions:

NASA scientists have developed a new climate model that indicates that the most violent severe storms and tornadoes may become more common as Earth’s climate warms.

Perhaps that is why we have been setting records for tornados lately. This is especially bad news for this country because, as the study notes: “The central/east U.S. experiences the most severe thunderstorms and tornadoes on Earth.”

The full study, “Will moist convection be stronger in a warmer climate?” was published in Geophysical Research Letters (subs. req’d) earlier this month. The research has mixed implications for wildfires:

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Energy efficiency easiest path to aid climate – Reuters. “The cash needed to return rising [global] emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, to current levels by 2030 would amount to 0.3 to 0.5 percent of projected gross domestic product (GDP), or 1.1 to 1.7 percent of global investment flows, in 2030,” according to a new U.N. report that can be found here.

As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes – New York Times. One of the best newspaper articles ever written on China’s pollution problem.

Vulnerable to rising seas, Singapore envisions a giant seawall – International Herald Tribune “Most of the business-end of Singapore – its airport, its business district and, of course, its busy container ports, lie less than two meters above sea level.” Just how ideal it is to live on a walled island is another issue. I’m sure any Singaporean would agree – let’s just keep the sea from rising.

To go green in jet fuel, Boeing looks at algae – Seattle Times. “These slimy aquatic creatures not only absorb great quantities of carbon dioxide during their lifetime, but they are also the source of energy-rich oil that can be turned into fuel. Lurking in the depths of ponds, they take a lot less space than conventional horizontal above-ground crops — and they can live in brackish water.” Bottom Line: “Instead of needing all of Florida [for U.S. transport needs], you could provide the whole world’s fleet with biojet fuel if you had a bioreactor the size of Maryland.”

Solar thermal power is back! Solar thermal gets less attention than its sexier cousin — high-tech photovoltaics — but has two big advantages. First, it is much cheaper than PV. Second, it captures energy in a form that is much easier to store — heat — typically with mirrored surfaces that concentrate sunlight onto a receiver that heats a liquid (which is then used to make steam to drive a turbine).

Back in the 1980s, Luz International was the sole commercial developer of U.S. solar thermal electric projects. The company built nine solar plants, totaling 355 MW of capacity, in California’s Mojave desert. Luz filed for bankruptcy in 1991 for a variety of reasons detailed in this Sandia report.

For 15 years, no commercial solar thermal plants have been built until the Spanish system pictured here. Technology Review has published as an advertising supplement one of the longest and most informative pieces I have seen on solar thermal, also called concentrated solar power (CSP).

California utilities are also beginning to contract for new CSP plants — “the resurrection of thermal solar arrays,” as the New York Times puts it. In July, Pacific Gas & Electric announced a plan to buy 550 megawatts of CSP in the Mojave Desert

If you want to read more about this re-emerging form of solar power, the National Renewable Energy Lab has a website with publications on the technology and potential market.

Liquid Coal Hearing Update: It looks like this will be a good hearing for those who want to hear both sides of the liquid coal debate. I will post the link to the video next week. I now know of 4 other witness:

• Someone from Rentech, a liquid coal company. You can read previous testimony by Rentech here.
• Someone from Headwaters, “America’s leading provider of technology and reagant products for coal-based synfuel.”
• David Hawkins from NRDC (not a fan of liquid coal). You can read previous testimony from Hawkins here.
• I think someone from RAND as a GOP witness.

Thoughts are welcome, especially if there is anyone particularly knowledgeable on the water implications of liquid coal.

MacCready is best known for designing the Gossamer Condor, which “made the first sustained, controlled flight powered solely by a human.” But electric vehicle enthusiasts know him for his work on the GM EV1. You won’t see this in most obits, but if you want to know the scoop on his EV work, here is a good remembrance.

He was a great man, and I was fortunate to meet him once — he actually was in the audience for a talk I gave dissing hydrogen cars and praising plug-in hybrids. I was honored that he stayed for the talk and then was kind enough to say he agreed with my analysis. He will be missed.

Now you can read in full the IPPC’s report from Working Group II on Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Find it here.

The report’s release coincides with eerie hints of our future in resource management. The water level of the Great Lakes — the largest freshwater reservoir in the world — has been unusually low recently. This is not entirely due to climate change, but is very likely exacerbated by it.

If you go to page 628 of the full report (page 12 of the North American chapter), you’ll be treated to a terrific chart on the interconnected impacts of increasingly low water levels in the Great Lakes (reprinted below). Impacts include decreased potential for hydropower, loss of habitat and species, difficult navigation, and issues with water quality and water access.

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G. Gordon Liddy’s daughter repeated a standard denyer line in our debate: Humans are very adaptable — we’ve adapted to climate changes in the past and will do so in the future.

I think Hurricane Katrina gives the lie to that myth. No, I’m not saying humans are not adaptable. Nor am I saying global warming caused Hurricane Katrina, although warming probably did make it a more intense. But on the two-year anniversary of Katrina — and the one year anniversary of Climate Progress’s initial launch — I’m saying Katrina showed the limitations of adaptation as a response to climate change, for several reasons.

First, the citizens of New Orleans “adapted” to Hurricane Katrina, but I’m certain that every last one of them wishes we had prevented the disaster with stronger levees. The multiple catastrophes — extreme drought, extreme flooding, extreme weather, extreme temperatures — that global warming will bring can be suffered through, but I wouldn’t call it adaptation.

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This week is the one-year anniversary of Climate Progress, so I’ve been looking at CP’s place in the blogosphere. I wanted an objective ranking, so I decided to use Technorati, which ranks all blogs by “authority” (the number of blogs linking to it). The lower the rank the better.

I have listed only blogs whose primary focus is climate, which excluded favorites like The Intersection. But if I included that one, I’d have to include general environmental blogs like Gristmill and lots of energy-centric blogs, resulting in a not-very-useful list for global warming junkies. I have also omitted the (very few) top-ranked Denyer blogs (sorry Steve McIntrye) — the Denyers get far more attention than they deserve already.

Here goes (recent Technorati rank in parentheses):

10. Accuweather Climate Blog (39,249) — “Global warming news, science, myths, articles.” A good general interest climate blog.

9. Climate Feedback (34,124) — “An informal forum for debate and commentary on climate science.” A useful new blog, sponsored by Nature magazine. On the downside, you’ll have to endure posts by Roger Pielke, Jr.

8. Climate of Our Future (24,327) — “A discussion on climate change.” Another good general interest climate blog.

7. It’s Getting Hot In Here (20,428) — “Dispatches from the youth climate movement.” There is hope for the next generation after all!

6. Climate Progress (16,087) — “An insider’s view of climate science, politics, and solutions.” A fast-rising (relative) newbie.

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A new study by NOAA’s Earth System Research Lab finds:

Greenhouse gases likely accounted for more than half of the widespread warmth across the continental United States last year…. [T]he probability of U.S. temperatures breaking a record in 2006 had increased 15-fold compared to pre-industrial times because of greenhouse gas increases in Earth’s atmosphere.

How did they come to this conclusion?

[T]he NOAA team analyzed 42 simulations of Earth’s climate from 18 climate models provided for the latest assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change… The results of the analysis showed that greenhouse gases produced warmth over the entire United States in the model projections, much like the warming pattern that was observed last year across the country.

The warming pattern did not match that of El Ni±o, which the study found typically cools the country slightly:

For a final check, the scientists compared the observed 2006 pattern of abnormal surface temperatures to the projected effects of greenhouse-gas warming and El Ni±o temperature responses. The U.S. temperature pattern of widespread warming was completely inconsistent with the pattern expected from El Ni±o, but it closely matched the expected effects of greenhouse warming.

When even NOAA scientists attribute recent warming to greenhouse gases, you know it’s time to take action. Let’s see if the media give this important study the same attention they gave to the recent trivial revision in NASA’s U.S. land-based temperature data record.

about global warming Denyers from Nexus 6. Hat tip to Deltoid.

The House Committee on Science and Technology, Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, will hold a hearing entitled “The benefits and challenges of producing liquid fuel from coal: The role for federal research,” on Wednesday September 5 at 10 a.m. in Rayburn 2318. It will be webcast.

This beats a one-sided debate any day. Testifying is one of my favorite activities, and this is one of my favorite committees — since they care about science and technology. And liquid coal is one of my favorite subjects, as readers of this blog know.

I’d love your thoughts on what I should say. Here are some of my posts on the subject:

Some Thoughts on Coal to Diesel

Congress should say NO to coal-to-diesel

Plug-in Hybrids Beat Coal-to-Liquids (Duh!)

And here is one of the best recent charts:

Hopefully that means they will upload the video later.

Climate Progress is happy to introduce Bracken Hendricks. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP). He has a forthcoming book on climate solutions with Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) — Apollo’s Fire: Igniting America’s Clean Energy Economy. You can read his full bio here. I first met Bracken when I was at DOE, and he was a Special Assistant to Al Gore. Then we were both on the Energy Efficiency panel of the Energy Future Coalition. Now we are both Senior Fellows at CAP. He brings a unique perspective to the energy/climate debate. Welcome, Bracken!

As we approach the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, it is time to begin the work of ensuring that there will be no more climate refugees. “Forecast: Storm Warning,” a report released today by the Center for American Progress, does just that.

Reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are the first line of defense against fiercer hurricanes from global warming, but as the real-world impacts of climate change begin to materialize, it’s time to prepare our communities to be more disaster resilient — to reduce future damages and costs of severe storms from global warming. This will take strong federal leadership and public support.

Readers of this blog know that there is an emerging consensus among climate scientists that global warming is increasing the ferocity of hurricanes, as shown in the work of Michael Mann and Kerry Emanuel, linking increased sea surface temperatures to more severe storms. A 2006 study in Science goes even further, strongly indicating that warming may even be increasing the frequency of Category 4 and 5 storms. Many more studies are here.

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I will post a link to the video of the Independent Women’s Forum debate if C-SPAN gets around to uploading it. It was me against 3 or 4 disbelievers, so I had only a limited ability to reply to the endless stream of misinformation.

One thing is clear — the Denyers just keep repeating the same myths over and over again. I promised on air I would post debunkings. The following aren’t exact quotes.

“The same scientists who are screaming about global warming today were screaming about global cooling two or three decades ago.” NOT. Like Dracula, this myth can’t be killed, but if you want some good rebuttals, try this RealClimate overview post and this one too, as well as this excellent post on “Was an imminent Ice Age predicted in the ’70′s by scientists, in scientific journals?”

“17,000 scientists signed the Oregon petition saying climate change isn’t happening.” Another vampire-like myth. A good rebuttal is at Deltoid and Mediamatters.

And, of course, the newest baby vampire, “NASA was recently forced to revise its temperature data proving the 1930s were warmer than today.” That one’s so new, even Climate Progress has debunked it.

Where is Buffy when we really need her?

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A study came out recently claiming to prove a Hummer has lower lifecycle energy use than a Prius. Because the result was so obviously bogus — and in sharp contradiction with every other major lifecycle analysis ever done — I didn’t spend time debunking it.

But it has made it into the comments of this blog and continues to echo around the internet and the authors keep updating and defending it. A couple of good debunking studies — by the Pacific Institute and by Rocky Mountain Institute — haven’t gotten much attention according to Technorati, so let me throw in my two cents.

The study’s title is revealing: Dust to Dust: The Energy Cost of New Vehicles From Concept to Disposal, The non-technical report, from CNW Marketing Research, Inc. Yes, although life-cycle energy use is probably the most complicated kind of energy analysis you can do, this 458 report is “non-technical” and by a market research company to boot.

Their website says the report “does not include issues of gigajuelles [sic!], kW hours or other unfriendly (to consumers) terms. Perhaps, in time, we will release our data in such technical terms. First, however, we will only look at the energy consumption cost.”

Wouldn’t want to confuse consumers with unfriendly technical stuff such as kilowatt-hours like those annoying electric utilities do every month. No. Let’s put everything in dollar terms so no one can reproduce our results. When you misspell gigajoules on your website — and have for a long time (try googling “gigajuelles”), you aren’t the most technical bunch.

I am mocking this report because it is the most contrived and mistake-filled study I have ever seen — by far (and that’s saying a lot since I worked for the federal government for five years). I am not certain there is an accurate calculation in the entire report. I say this without fear of contradiction because this is also the most opaque study I have ever seen — by far. I defy anyone to figure out what their methodology was.

In this post I’m just going to highlight the most inane claims — and again, they can only be treated as claims because the report omits all the underlying calculations.

Let me first give one rule of thumb. U.S. energy costs have been about 7% to 8% of GDP for most of the last two decades, but were a bit higher during the energy shocks as well as the last couple of years. The Energy Information Administration projects energy costs will be 5.3% of GDP in 2030. As a rough estimate, then, you can figure the dollar value of energy embedded in most products as 5% to 10% of their cost — and that includes all the energy consumed in the product life-cycle, such as manufacturing and shipping .

The CNW study makes the astonishing claim that the Prius has life-cycle energy costs of $3.25 per mile (of which its on-road gasoline consumption is only $0.075 [yes, 7.5 cents] , whereas a Hummer H3 has an energy cost per mile of $1.95 (of which $0.187 is direct fuel consumption). I kid you not.

In direct contradiction with essentially every other life-cycle study ever done, in which direct fuel consumption is typically 70% to 90% of a vehicle’s life-cycle energy use (see here), CNW finds it comprises about 2% to 10%!

This range of energy costs per mile leads to one obvious question about CNW’s results, which many people have raised. Let me quote one Roy W. Spencer — yes, the global warming denyer — from the Report’s Appendix:

Question: I was wondering, how can a car that costs the consumer, say, $20,000 new and uses around $15,000 in fuel over a 100,000 mile lifetime end up having a total energy cost of, say, $250,000 ($2.50 per mile)? (Since this is way more than the consumer has paid, …which is more like $35,000.) If $250,000 really was the true energy cost, wouldn’’t a car be much more expensive to the buyer than it is now?

Duh! Or maybe, Doh! Indeed, since, as noted, embedded life-cycle energy costs are typically 5% to 10% of a product’s total life-cycle costs, CNW’s study implies that the total ownership cost of a family car is, roughly, $2.5 to $5.0 million — or about $400,000 to $800,000 a year! You never knew you were so rich.

How could CNW possibly come up with such absurd results? I can’t say for sure since the report omits any methodology, but CNW’s unbelievable answer to Spencer contains some clues:

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… if their website is to be believed. I’ll be debating (sort of) G. Gordon Liddy’s daughter on a panel moderated by John Stossel. Well, it’s not like the moderater has picked sides on global warming. Anyway, details on the program are here, though I confess I’m not 100% certain of the exact format with 8 panelists and Stossel dividing up 90 minutes plus audience questions.

In my first post, I promised to offer some new rules for climate action. But that promise was swept away this past week by the Great Floods of 2007.

Apocalyptic storms have been slamming Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin, dislodging homes from foundations and flooding entire communities. Along the Kickapoo River in southwestern Wisconsin, where I published a weekly newspaper 30 years ago, all the villages are under water. Except for one community called Soldiers Grove.

In the 1970s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (more recently known for its flawless protection of New Orleans) proposed building a $3.5 million levee around Soldiers Grove. I cranked up my printing press and wrote a counterproposal: We’d take the money and move the town to higher ground. Rather than re-engineering the river, we’d relocate the people, never to be flooded or to require federal disaster relief again.

The Corps didn’t buy it, but we found other state and federal agencies willing to help, kicked in our own money and moved the town between 1979 and 1983. Fresh from the second Arab Oil embargo of the 1970s, we decided to make Soldiers Grove the nation’s “first solar village.” With unanimous support, the Village Board passed the nation’s only ordinance requiring that all new buildings receive at least half their heat from sunlight.

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Doubters who are new to the site often question whether I am green, presumably trying to show me up as a hypocrite, as someone who doesn’t practice what I preach. Here’s a typical recent comment:

People who really are worried about AGW [anthropogenic global warming] should go beyond indulgences (sorry, offsets) – that is – they should buy offsets, but also make some real sacrifices – painful ones, like cut down their air-traveling, cut down their electricity consumption, and their consumerism, in general.

Dr. Romm – would you care to tell us what you’ve been doing along these lines ? Would you like to mention the “sincere attempts to reduce your carbon footprint” that you have made, and their results ? Would you care to publish your carbon footprint, and the multidecadal trend in it (up or down) ?

I tend to think the question is largely irrelevant. I worry about AGW a great deal, but I don’t advocate individual sacrifice, since it won’t solve the problem — nor is it necessary. For instance, you don’t need to cut down on your electricity consumption if you purchase renewable power (although efficiency will be good for your pocketbook).

We need collective action at a national level and then at a global level. That is the focus of this blog. I don’t preach sacrifice so I don’t practice it. That’s one reason I’m not as big an advocate of offsets as some.

Still, Problogger says you should tell readers about where you are coming from. So — without implying others need to do the same — here is a list of the things I have done to lower my carbon footprint:

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The Chinese link their recent record flooding to global warming.

China’s coal use has made it the world’s top CO2 polluter.

“Flooding set off by torrential rains trapped 172 men deep underground in a coal mine in eastern China.”

‘Nuff said.