By Susan Casey-Lefkowitz via NRDC’s Switchboard

New research confirms what we have heard time and again from the industry itself: the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will be a direct cause of an increase in tar sands oil development. More tar sands oil taken out of the ground means more dangerous pollution that hurts our climate and health. And, this new research also shows that tar sands will cause even more climate pollution than we previously thought due to the impacts of the high carbon byproduct petroleum coke.

This is especially important in a time where our communities are feeling the damage of climate change in violent storms, wildfires, droughts and floods. Just recently a federal advisory panel—established by Congress in 1990 to analyze climate research—released the draft of its third National Climatic Assessment. The report confirmed there is “unambiguous evidence” that the earth is warming.

The Pembina Institute’s analysis, “The climate implications of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline”, shows that pipelines are a key determinant of tar sands expansion, and argues that the increase in greenhouse gas emissions associated with supplying the Keystone XL pipeline with tar sands bitumen represents a significant barrier to Canada meeting its domestic and international climate commitments.

Oil Change International’s new report “Petroleum Coke: The Coal Hiding in the Tar Sands” reveals that current analyses of the impacts of tar sands fail to account for a high-carbon byproduct of the refining process: petroleum coke. Because it is considered a refinery byproduct, petcoke emissions are not included in most assessments of the climate impact of tar sands. Thus, the climate impact of oil production is being consistently undercounted.

This analysis is making headway in Washington. Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman noted:   “The new reports show that TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline is the key that will unlock the tar sands.  If the pipeline is approved, the world will face millions more tons of carbon pollution each year for decades to come.  After Hurricane Sandy, devastating drought, unprecedented wildfires, and the warmest year on record in the United States, we know that climate change is happening now, we have to fight it now, and we must say no to this pollution pipeline now.”

And scientists have been weighing in as well.

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By Tom Kenworthy

Oil and gas development in an area of Colorado that is in the midst of a huge drilling boom is contributing more than half of the chemical pollution that contributes to the formation of ozone, a new study by University of Colorado scientists has found.

The research by scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado may have important implications for the shale oil and shale gas revolution underway in many parts of the U.S. It may have particular relevance to other rural areas of the West – in the Uinta Basin of northeastern Utah and Sublette County, Wyoming south of Jackson — that have been plagued by high ozone alerts in recent winters, sometimes higher than the Los Angeles basin.

Both the Utah and Wyoming regions have intensive oil and gas development and the ozone alerts in those areas have often been described as a puzzle with possibly many contributing factors. A $5 million study is underway in the Uinta Basin to ferret out the likely causes of the region’s ozone problem.  Ozone pollution is a factor in a range of health problems including respiratory illnesses and asthma.

In the Colorado study, published online in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, researchers determined that 55 percent of the airborne volatile organic compounds that contribute to ozone in the town of Erie were coming from oil and gas operations. The scientists were able to make that precise determination using a recently discovered chemical signature that can differentiate between oil and gas emissions and those coming from vehicles and other sources.

“We had a very strong signature from the raw natural gas,” said Jessica Gilman the CIRES study lead author in an interview with the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper.

The town of Erie is located in Weld County, a 4,000 square mile county northeast of Boulder and east of Fort Collins. That county, which overlays a hot new oil and gas play in the Niobrara Formation, has nearly 20,000 oil and gas wells, though it had about 15,000 during the study period.

Recent intensive development of oil and gas that is creeping into urban and suburban areas has prompted widespread concern in some Weld County communities about health and social impacts, with residents complaining about ill effects ranging from nosebleeds and headaches to asthma attacks.  The town has imposed a six-month moratorium on new drilling permits, and another community to the north, Longmont, has voted to exclude drilling within city limits, prompting a suit by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission that regulates drilling.

Tom Kenworthy is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Highlighting the fact that a global switch to renewable energy is not just necessary, but doable, a new report released by the WWF concludes that the solar arrays necessary to meet all the world’s projected energy needs in 2050 would cover under one percent of global land area. Obviously this is a theoretical exercise, and 100 percent of the planet’s electricity needs are not actually going to be filled through solar. But several credible scenarios suggest that solar could provide about 30 percent of global total electricity in 2050, up from the 0.1 percent it provides now.

By going through the numbers, the Solar PV Atlas demonstrates both the practical feasibility of renewable energy, and the possibility of harmonizing solar energy with conservation goals:

The atlas considers electricity demands in seven diverse regions and calculates the area (land or roof) that would be needed for PV to meet these demands. In each of these cases, less than one per cent of the region’s total land cover would be required to host solar PV panels in order to meet one hundred per cent of the region’s projected electricity needs in 2050, taking into account solar resources and predicted electricity consumption and demographic changes. […]

With its selection of diverse areas, the atlas illustrates that PV technology, when well-planned, does not conflict with conservation goals. On a macro level, no country or region must choose between solar PV and space for humans and nature. Quite the opposite. As climate change threatens humans and the environment, it is more important than ever to work for the efficient and wide-scale adoption of well sited, responsibly and effectively operated renewable energy generation facilities. Environmental protection and renewable energy can and must develop in parallel.

In the map of Madagascar above, the small read and blue squares represent the land area needed for solar to meet 100 percent of the country’s projected electricity needs in 2010 and 2050, respectively. They’re drawn to scale relative to the map, in order to provide a straightforward visual comparison.

The Atlas also goes through Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, South Africa, Turkey, and the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh as examples. “The regions represent diverse geographies, demographics, natural environments, economies and political structures,” the Atlas points out. “They receive different average levels of sunshine, and all show vast potential for widespread development of solar PV.”

The Atlas builds on the earlier Energy Report from the WWF, which anticipates a total drop in global energy production by 2050. That’s due to increased efficiency outpacing population growth, thus allowing the same energy needs to be met with less energy. At the same time, it anticipates renewable-based electricity ramping up massively, finally displacing all other forms of electricity by 2050.

Drought-driven water shortages have erupted into lawsuits between Texas and New Mexico officials, and Texas and Oklahoma officials over access to river water. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up the latter dispute. [WSJ]

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed this month to take up a dispute between Texas’ Tarrant Regional Water District, an agency that supplies water to 1.7 million people in north Texas, and Oklahoma, over water that flows into the Red River. So far, lower courts have ruled for Oklahoma.

Drought-plagued Texas also asked the Supreme Court this month to consider a separate lawsuit alleging that New Mexico isn’t giving Texas its allotted share of water from the Rio Grande as spelled out under a 1938 compact. No other court has ruled on that case.

Texas officials maintain they had to take action against New Mexico because farmers and ranchers are illegally siphoning off some of Texas’ share of the river, which provides about half of the drinking water for El Paso. [...]

Legal and political battles over river water are common in Western and Plains states, especially over the water in the Colorado River, which is rationed among seven states and Mexico, and used by more than 30 million people.

But the skirmishes are becoming more serious across the nation because of current drought conditions. Texas was experiencing moderate or greater drought in 84% of its territory as of Jan. 8, according to federal monitors.

China has set a goal to create as much as 10 gigawatts of new solar capacity this year. That would be on top of the 7 gigawatts the country already boasts, and it’s aiming for 21 total gigawatts by 2015. [CleanTechnia]

In 2013, the United States will overtake Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest producer of liquid fuels, according to projections by BP. [Bloomberg]

BP has also published a new study showing oil production will increase substantially, driven almost totally by unconventional and high-carbon oil. This could push carbon dioxide emissions up by a quarter by 2030 — an environmental disaster. [The Guardian]

A new report released today by Advanced Energy Economy shows that advanced energy was a $1.1 trillion global market in 2011, larger than pharmaceutical manufacturing worldwide. It was also a significant part of the U.S. economy, with $157 billion in revenue in 2012. [AEE]

Crop insurance could cost the federal government a record-breaking amount, nearly $16 billion, as droughts across the American midwest have driven down crop yields. The bill is exacerbating the already bitter dispute over government spending, as well as calls for an overhaul of agricultural policy. [NYT]

Paleontologists have found a correlation between temperature and mammals’ body size, leading to projections that as global warming continues horses could shrink in size. [ScienceDaily]

Another great video from master climate de-crocker, Peter Sinclair: