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Clean energy 2030
"Right now the U.S. has a very real opportunity to transform our economy from one running on fossil fuels to one largely based on clean energy. We are developing the technologies and know-how to accomplish this. We can build whole new industries and create millions of new jobs. We can reduce energy costs, both at the gas pump and at home. We can improve our national security. And we can put a big dent in climate change. With strong leadership we could be moving forward on an aggressive but realistic timeline and an approach that balances costs with real economic gains.
The energy team at Google has been crunching the numbers to see how we could greatly reduce fossil fuel use by 2030. Our analysis, led by Jeffery Greenblatt, suggests a potential path to weaning the U.S. off of coal and oil for electricity generation by 2030 (with some remaining use of natural gas as well as nuclear), and cutting oil use for cars by 40%. Al Gore has issued a challenge that is even more ambitious, getting us to carbon-free electricity even sooner. We hope the American public pushes our leaders to embrace it. T. Boone Pickens has weighed in with an interesting plan of his own to massively deploy wind energy, among other things. Other plans have also been developed in recent years that merit attention.
Our goal in presenting this first iteration of the Clean Energy 2030 proposal is to stimulate debate and we invite you to take a look and comment -- or offer an alternative approach if you disagree. With a new Administration and Congress -- and multiple energy-related imperatives -- this is an opportune, perhaps unprecedented, moment to move from plan to action.
Over 22 years this plan could generate billions of dollars in savings and help create millions of green jobs. Many of these high quality, good-paying jobs will be in today's coal and oil producing states.
To get there we need to move immediately on three fronts:
(1) Reduce demand by doing more with less...
(2) Develop renewable energy that is cheaper than coal (RE<C)...
(3) Electrify transportation and re-invent our electric grid...
We see a huge opportunity for the nation to confront our energy challenges. In the process we will stimulate investment, create jobs, empower consumers and, by the way, help address climate change."
Check out the link for the full entry:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/clean-energy-203... "Right now the U.S. has a very real opportunity to transform our economy from one running on fossil fuels to one largely based on... more -
VIDEO: Algae to Power Jets?
Research is underway to develop bio-fuel, plastics and livestock feed from algae.
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"Chemical Equator" Divides Earth's Hemispheres
Matt Kaplan
for National Geographic News
October 2, 2008
A worldwide weather "barrier" that can block air pollution from traveling southward, has been discovered, a new study says.
Called a "chemical equator," the 31-mile-(50-kilometer) wide boundary separates the Northern Hemisphere's dirty air from that of the less polluted Southern Hemisphere.
Carbon monoxide, a toxic gas generated by forest fires and internal combustion engines, increased from 40 parts per billion south of the boundary to 160 parts per billion north of it, scientists found.
Aerosol particles, produced by the burning of fossil fuels, also shot up dramatically.
The finding is reported in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres.
Serendipitous Discovery
The chemical equator has long been thought to exist. But scientists expected to find it within the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a band of thunderstorms and clouds circling the globe near Earth's actual Equator.
Instead, the line was found in clear skies 621 miles (1,000 kilometers) north of the zone, showing that the chemical and meteorological divide between the hemispheres is not the same.
"One would expect to see some chemical isolation, but not to this degree and closer to the zone," said Peter May, an atmospheric scientist at the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research in Melbourne, Australia. He assisted with the logistics behind the research but was not involved in the study itself.
The group of climatologists who found the chemical equator didn't set out with that goal.
The team were studying how storms transported chemicals in Darwin, on the northern coast of Australia, when the weather suddenly became clear and windy. Matt Kaplan for National Geographic News October 2, 2008 ... more -
Greenhouse gas emissions shock scientists
The world pumped up emissions of the chief human-produced global warming gas last year, setting a course that could push beyond leading scientists' projected worst-case scenario, international researchers said Thursday.
The new numbers, which some scientists called "scary," were a surprise because experts thought an economic downturn would slow energy use. Instead, carbon dioxide output rose 3% from 2006 to 2007.
That amount exceeds the most dire outlook for emissions from burning coal and oil and related activities as projected by a Nobel Prize-winning group of international scientists in 2007.
Meanwhile, forests and oceans, which suck up carbon dioxide, are doing so at lower rates, scientists said. If those trends continue, the world will be on track for the highest predicted rises in temperature and sea level.
The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that an increase of between 3.2 and 9.7 degrees Fahrenheit could trigger massive environmental changes, including melting of the Greenland ice sheet, the Himalayan-Tibetan glaciers and summer sea ice in the Arctic.
Corinne Le Quere, professor of environmental sciences at the University of East Anglia and the British Antarctic Survey, said the prediction that current emissions put the planet on track for a temperature rise of more than 11 degrees means the world could face a dangerous rise in sea level as well as other drastic changes.
Richard Moss, vice president and managing director for climate change at the World Wildlife Fund, said the new carbon figures and research showed that "we're already locked into more warming than we thought."
"We should be worried -- really worried," Moss told the Washington Post. "This is happening in the context of trying to reduce emissions."
The new data also shows that forests and oceans, which naturally take up much of the carbon dioxide humans emit, are having less impact. These "natural sinks" have absorbed 54% of carbon dioxide emissions released since 2000, a drop of 3 percentage points compared with the period between 1959 and 2000.
The pollution leader was China, followed by the United States, which past data show is the leader in emissions per person in carbon dioxide output. And although several developed countries slightly reduced output in 2007, the U.S. churned out more.
Still, it was large increases from China, India and other developing countries that spurred the growth of carbon dioxide pollution to a record high of 9.34 billion tons of carbon. Figures released by science agencies in the U.S., Great Britain and Australia show that China's added emissions accounted for more than half of the worldwide increase. China passed the U.S. as the No. 1 carbon dioxide polluter in 2006.
Emissions in the U.S. rose nearly 2% in 2007, after declining the previous year. The U.S. produced 1.75 billion tons of carbon.
"Things are happening very, very fast," Le Quere told the Associated Press. "It's scary."
Gregg Marland, a senior staff scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, said he was surprised at the results because he thought world emissions would drop because of the economic downturn. That didn't happen.
"If we're going to do something [about reducing emissions], it's got to be different than what we're doing," he said.
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Very disappointing. This should be a wake up call to industry and politicians.
The status quo must go. Time to put on more pressure. The world pumped up emissions of the chief human-produced global warming gas last year, setting a course that could push beyond leadin... more -
Greenland: roar of melting glacier sounds climate change alarm
When are we going to hear the roar of the American people demanding Washington Dc wake the hell up and stop touting some bogus 80% by 2050 emissions reduction line when it is obvious that will be too late? However, the price of gas is supposedly going down now so conveniently before 'election' day and with the current global financial crisis so conveniently placed where it is I suppose dealing with climate change will now be an afterthought to governments that really weren't going to do much about it anyway.
To me this all seems surreal. It is like slowing down to watch a car wreck and then speeding up once you get by to continue on your way because the thrill of seeing it is gone because you really didn't care if anyone was hurt, it was just exciting to look at. 'Oh my, the Greenland ice caps are melting... how terrible... look at that video... oh boy, something to talk about today...then... nothing to see here, move on... let's look at pictures of Jamie Lynn Spears breastfeeding instead.' The Earth is speaking to us, crying out to us. The signs are everywhere. And we continue driving down the road turning our radios up so as not to be bothered, thinking someone will take care of that; or, it won't melt enough in my lifetime to make any difference; or, it is all natural or the will of God so why fight it. I just do not know what else can be said anymore.
We need to be scaling more chimneys and unfurling more banners, and standing around more fossil fuel plants, and shouting even louder, and writing relentlessly to newspapers and media and badgering representatives in Dc and elsewhere, and we need to be telling ALL presidential candidates that "clean coal' is not the answer. We need to pull over and get out of the car and do something besides gawking at the tragedy unfolding before our eyes.
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From the article:
Flying low over the vast, white expanse of Greenland's Ilulissat glacier, one of the biggest and most active in the world, the effects of global warming in the Arctic are painfully visible as the ice melts at an alarming rate.
The helicopter lands on a granite cliff overlooking the Ilulissat ice fjord, or Kangia in Greenlandic, offering a magnificent, panoramic view of elaborate ice formations as they float towards the sea at a rate of two meters (yards) an hour, spilling massive icebergs into the open water.
Off in the distance, huge boulders of ice break off of the imposing Ilulissat glacier, more commonly known by its Greenlandic name Sermeq Kujalleq, creating a thunderous roar as the glacier recedes in one of the planet's most striking examples of global warming.
"The ice in some places on the coast is now melting four times faster than before," says Abbas Khan, a Dane who studies the movements of Greenland's glaciers at the Danish Space Centre.
The Ilulissat glacier and icefjord have been on UNESCO's world heritage list since 2004 and is the most visited site in Greenland, its ice and pools of emerald-blue water admired by tourists and studied by scientists and politicians around the world.
The glacier is the most active in the northern hemisphere, producing 10 percent of Greenland's icebergs, or some 20 million tonnes of ice per day.
But the glacier is in bad shape, experts warn.
Recent estimates by US scientists who study NASA's satellite images daily show that it is rapidly disintegrating.
It has shrunk more than 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) in the past five years, and is now smaller than it has ever been in the 150 years of observation and topographical data.
According to professor Jason Box and his team from the department of geography at Ohio State University, the Ilulissat glacier may not have been this small in 6,000 years.
more at the link
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Photo credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielheaf/1343411263/ When are we going to hear the roar of the American people demanding Washington Dc wake the hell up and stop touting some bogus 80% by ... more -
The World Spends $300 Billion Subsidizing Fossil Fuels
The Cost of Eliminating Fossil Fuels? Maybe No More than the Cost of Burning Them.
The world is spending $300 billion every year to subsidize fossil fuels that pollute the air, wreck the climate ... and run the world's economy.
So what if we, as taxpayers, stopped spending $300 billion on coal, oil and natural gas, and started spending it instead on wind, sun and water?
That's the question at the heart of a new report from the United Nations Environment Program, which concludes that eliminating fuel subsidies would not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but might just inspire new economic growth. (Further, it concludes that fossil fuels subsidies sold as a way to help the poor keep the lights on actually do more to help the rich.)
“In the final analysis many fossil fuel subsidies are introduced for political reasons but are simply propping up and perpetuating inefficiencies in the global economy – they are thus part of the market failure that is climate change,” UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said.
The world spends about 0.7% of GDP on fossil fuel subsidies. The cost of curtailing carbon emissions to meet scientific goals by 2050 has been estimated at 1% of GDP. (The cost of not curtailing carbon emissions, measured in weather calamities, mass migrations and the like, could be 5-10% of GDP.)
The problem, of course, is that most nations are not willing to give up fossil fuels, their subsidies, or their profits. We focus on ourselves, and the addiction to oil we all admit to. But think about Russia, fat on oil wealth, and willing to thumb its nose at the international community. Can we reasonably expect that Russia will join in the latest United Nations talks, ongoing this week in Ghana, and agree to slash its carbon emissions?
Russian fossil fuel subsidies, at $40 billion annually, are the largest on the planet, according to the U.N. report. Others that top the list: Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, India, Indonesia, Ukraine and Egypt.
Wiping out oil subsidies, unfortunately, is akin to telling countries -- many of them unwilling to listen to international opinion in the first place -- not to act in their own national interest.
Still, the U.N. report is telling: The cost of transforming an economy to run on renewable fuels always seems daunting, so ingrained are our dependencies on fossil fuels. But if you consider how much is spent to make those fossil fuels affordable in the first place, the price tag doesn't look so daunting. The Cost of Eliminating Fossil Fuels? Maybe No More than the Cost of Burning Them. ... more -
Carbon Capture & Storage
My blog post on the first CCS power plant (in the world, I think) that goes into operation near Berlin, Germany, next week.
Pros and cons of course to this new technology, but certainly worth consideration.
Really good collection of media at the BBC that helps explain the process: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7584151.stm My blog post on the first CCS power plant (in the world, I think) that goes into operation near Berlin, Germany, next week. ... more -
The Cost of Eliminating Fossil Fuels? Maybe No More than the Cost of Burning Them
The world is spending $300 billion every year to subsidize fossil fuels that pollute the air, wreck the climate ... and run the world's economy.
So what if we, as taxpayers, stopped spending $300 billion on coal, oil and natural gas, and started spending it instead on wind, sun and water?
That's the question at the heart of a new report from the United Nations Environment Program, which concludes that eliminating fuel subsidies would not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but might just inspire new economic growth. (Further, it concludes that fossil fuels subsidies sold as a way to help the poor keep the lights on actually do more to help the rich.)
“In the final analysis many fossil fuel subsidies are introduced for political reasons but are simply propping up and perpetuating inefficiencies in the global economy – they are thus part of the market failure that is climate change,” UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said.
Isn't it remarkable how subversive the U.N. can be?
The world spends about 0.7% of GDP on fossil fuel subsidies. The cost of curtailing carbon emissions to meet scientific goals by 2050 has been estimated at 1% of GDP. (The cost of not curtailing carbon emissions, measured in weather calamities, mass migrations and the like, could be 5-10% of GDP.)
The problem, of course, is that most nations are not willing to give up fossil fuels, their subsidies, or their profits. We focus on ourselves, and the addiction to oil we all admit to. But think about Russia, fat on oil wealth, and willing to thumb its nose at the international community. Can we reasonably expect that Russia will join in the latest United Nations talks, ongoing this week in Ghana, and agree to slash its carbon emissions?
Russian fossil fuel subsidies, at $40 billion annually, are the largest on the planet, according to the U.N. report. Others that top the list: Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, India, Indonesia, Ukraine and Egypt.
Wiping out oil subsidies, unfortunately, is akin to telling countries -- many of them unwilling to listen to international opinion in the first place -- not to act in their own national interest.
Still, the U.N. report is telling: The cost of transforming an economy to run on renewable fuels always seems daunting, so ingrained are our dependencies on fossil fuels. But if you consider how much is spent to make those fossil fuels affordable in the first place, the price tag doesn't look so daunting. The world is spending $300 billion every year to subsidize fossil fuels that pollute the air, wreck the climate ... and run the world&... more -
EPA warns Bush: Adaptation to climate change may not be possible.
The EPA has issued its "Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.6; Analyses of Effects of Global Climate Change on Welfare and Human Systems"
which anticipates a wide range of negative impacts on human health over the coming decades, including "increased mortality"
This excerpt, which I found on page 94, states the following:
"there is no guarantee that future changes in climate will not present a threshold that poses technological or physical limits to which adaptation is not possible."
The Bush administration has rejected proposals to cap C02 or impose carbon taxes to limit global warming. The EPA has issued its "Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.6; Analyses of Effects of Global Climate Change on Welfare and Human S... more -
Australian, U.S. Scientists Copy Nature to Produce Hydrogen
Australian and U.S. scientists said they have copied a process found in plants that uses sunlight to make hydrogen from water, potentially a cleaner and lower-cost method of making the gas for use in fuel cells.
By replicating aspects of photosynthesis, the breakthrough could ``revolutionize the renewable energy industry by making hydrogen, touted as the clean, green fuel of the future, cheaper and easier to produce on a commercial scale,'' Melbourne-based Monash University said in an e-mailed statement today.
Fuel cells currently used as alternatives to gasoline-powered engines in vehicles run on hydrogen that is mostly produced from refining fossil fuels. The new process would rely on renewable sources, rather than oil or natural gas, and use no electricity, said the scientists.
``Hydrogen has long been considered the ideal clean green fuel, energy-rich and carbon neutral,'' Leone Spiccia, one of the scientists from Monash University, said in the statement. ``The production of hydrogen using nothing but water and sunlight offers the possibility of an abundant renewable, green source of energy for the future.''
The method developed by the scientists uses a catalyst system with a coating that can be impregnated with a form of manganese, a chemical essential to sustaining photosynthesis in plant life, said Monash University.
Testing showed the catalyst system was still active after three days of continuous use, producing oxygen and hydrogen in the presence of water, electric energy and light, it said. Australian and U.S. scientists said they have copied a process found in plants that uses sunlight to make hydrogen from water, potenti... more -
Did you hear that Alaska has more oil than the Middle East?
Petroleum may be in short supply these days, but the United States does have a related surplus: myths of oil abundance.
You don't have to drill deep into our political discourse to find suspect stories about oil, with politicians peddling the flagrantly false notion that China is producing oil off the coast of Florida, while right-wing activist Jerome Corsi claims oil is not a fossil fuel but "a natural product the Earth generates constantly."
Such declarations serve a political purpose: to make oil drilling seem like an easy solution to our current energy crisis, to marginalize warnings that we are running short on oil, and to stymie efforts at conservation or developing alternatives to fossil fuels.
Along with these high-profile claims, an array of books, Internet forums and YouTube videos constitute a subterranean layer of storytelling, creating a narrative of perpetually cheap domestic oil being denied to us by a dictatorial government. These stories may be working: Offshore oil drilling is now favored by 63 percent of the electorate. But there's another side to them: They reveal our inability to accept that the United States is not always a land of plenty.
"In America, we're a frontier nation, and so the idea is that just beyond the next ridge is the perfect farmland, a giant oil field or an abundant supply of timber," says Robert Kaufmann, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Boston University. "People don't like the idea that the frontier is now closed and we've got to live within limits."
These narratives also require spectacularly limited scientific literacy about oil: what it is, how we find it, how much remains.
The evidence for oil's organic origins is robust and diverse. Briefly, it includes biomarkers, or chemical compounds found in both ancient organisms and petroleum formed at the same time; geochemical evidence allowing scientists to match types of oil with their source rocks; lab experiments mimicking oil formation; and literally a world of geological data helping us find oil today.
Thunder Horse, a drilling area that BP operates in the Gulf of Mexico:
Moreover, Thunder Horse also defies "fossil-fuel" oil theorists who like to argue that oil comes from dead dinosaurs and decaying ancient forests. With the water depth of nearly 2 miles, Thunder Horse is truly an ultra-deep project. From the floor of the Gulf, BP has drilled down another 6 miles to hit oil. What evidence is there that any ancient dinosaur ever walked on land that is now 8 miles down? Moreover, geologists identify the deposits in which BP has found oil in the Thunder Horse Field as Miocene, a period that occurred in the Cenozoic Era, some 24,000 years ago. Dinosaurs by then were long gone, having disappeared at the end of the Mesozoic Era, some 65 million years ago.
Corsi makes multiple scientific mistakes here. Scientists never argue that oil comes from "dead dinosaurs and decaying ancient forests." Again, oil derives from fossilized marine microorganisms. The Miocene was not a point in time "24,000 years ago." It lasted from about 5 million years ago to 23 million years ago. In geological language, it's an epoch, not a period, and according to BP, the rocks at Thunder Horse appear to be 5 to 11 million years old. Moreover, oil tends to seep upward over time, so we typically extract it from rocks that are younger than those in which it was formed anyway.
Finally, while dinosaur references are irrelevant to oil, basic geological concepts -- erosion, plate tectonics -- explain how any creature might walk on land that later becomes deeply submerged. The National Research Council suggests students should know these concepts by the eighth grade. Petroleum may be in short supply these days, but the United States does have a related surplus: myths of oil abundance. ... more -
Making solar cells without using fossil fuels
Solar energy is touted by some as the solution to the world's energy woes. But the process of making the various components requires fossil fuels, both for power and for the components themselves, some of which are based on petroleum.
A new company, BioSolar, aims to kick petroleum to the curb, at least in the realm of building solar photovoltaics, cells of crystalline silicon that turn sunlight into electricity. Such photovoltaic cells rely on conventional plastic polymers to provide a protective backing, also known as backsheets. Those plastics are made from—you guessed it—petroleum.
"It's renewable and you don't use any petroleum," says electrical engineer David Lee, president and CEO of the California-based company about the new product. "The real merit is that we can actually reduce the cost of the backsheet compared to conventional petroleum-based backsheet." Lee claims their backsheets will cost 25 percent less than conventional backsheets, which cost between $0.70 and $1 per square foot.
Already, such backsheets are rising in price, thanks to the recent run-up in world oil costs, at a time when the solar industry is trying to bring down costs to make their technology more competitive with other forms of power generation, such as cheap, plentiful and extremely polluting coal.
BioSolar starts with used cotton rags and turns them into a film of cellulose, a natural fiber. They then blend this film with a type of nylon made from castor beans by Philadephia-based Arkema, Inc. to make the so-called BioBacksheet. Initial testing by the company at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory shows that this flexible plastic backsheet lasts as long or longer than conventional ones, and keeps out just as much moisture.
In addition to keeping away from petroleum plastics, BioSolar also claims not to be using any genetically modified crops in its product—a further boost to its green credibility. But nearly 90 percent of the U.S. cotton crop is so altered, either to resist insects, herbicides or both, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And cotton cultivation still requires tons of pesticides and fertilizers, both of which are derived, in part, from petroleum.
Regardless, if the cotton and castor-based backsheet proves cheaper than the petroleum version it may help remove a bit more fossil sunshine from the new solar energy. "Our goal is to replace all the petroleum plastic out of the solar cells with this bio-based one," Lee says. Solar energy is touted by some as the solution to the world's energy woes. But the process of making the various components requi... more -
Colorado creating US’s first fossil fuel-free community
The United States’ first net-zero community is coming soon to Arvada Colorado! Dubbed Geos, the development will employ a sterling roster of alternative energy strategies to cut its consumption fossil fuels and become completely self-sustainable. Lately we’ve seen a slew of similar communities springing up around the world, from Canada to India to Estonia and we couldn’t be happier, since it’s future-forward communities such as these that are paving the pathway to a brighter future.
Geos is an innovative net-zero community that will harness energy from the Earth and the Sun to completely eliminate its consumption of fossil fuels. The community will be situated on an area of 25 acres, bordered on the West by the Croke Canal, and on the South by Ralston Creek. It will comprise 250 planned homes ranging from 850 to 3500+ square feet, and four distinct neighborhoods: Entry mixed-Use, Beachfront mixed-use, Garden Community and Checkerboard Blocks. The community will be interlaced with a network of plazas, parks, and trails, and will connect a diverse community of people and lifestyles.
The community plans to employ both active and passive solar energy collection measures to meet daytime heating and electrical energy needs. Homes will be constructed to maximize solar gain and will feature checkerboard placements for complete access to sunlight, east-to-west floorplans to maximize exposure to the Sun, strategic placement of doors and windows, and scientifically engineered awnings. Rooftops will be outfitted with photovoltaic solar panels that will send their excess power to the grid for storage.
For days when the sun doesn’t shine, geothermal energy will be used to meet the energy needs of the community. An underground geothermal exchange system will utilize the Earth’s energy to provide hot water and heating during Winters, while helping to cool buildings during the Summer.
An energy monitoring system will inform Geos homeowners of their energy usage. With this excellent array of features Geos is set to create a remarkable precedent for living an entirely self-sustainable lifestyle.
Designed by Michael Tavel Architects and David Kahn Studio, the community has been conferred the 2006 Colorado AIA Citation Award, the 2006 Denver AIA Honor Award, and the 2006 Denver AIA Sustainability Award. Groundbreaking is scheduled for the fall of 2008, and first homes will be ready by the 2nd quarter of 2009. The United States’ first net-zero community is coming soon to Arvada Colorado! Dubbed Geos, the development will employ a sterling ros... more -
Offshore Drilling = Snake Oil
Beware! The GOP is using this tactic to drive a wedge between the public! They claim that Democrats, and Obama are causing gas prices to rise, due to their opposition to off shore drilling. FACT: We would not profit from, or see fuel prices drop due to off-shore drilling for 10-20 years, if at all!
Don't buy this. It's a lie, and one that the short-sighted GOP hopes the American public will fall for! Beware! The GOP is using this tactic to drive a wedge between the public! They claim that Democrats, and Obama are causing gas prices ... more -
Gore: US should abandon fossil fuels by 2018
And then where would we be? Doesn't Al Gore know it's much better for the US to rely on Big Oil and their vision for the world? If we had to rely on renewable energies we might have to build an industry and then we'd have to hire new people and accept new investment money. Gosh, then the world would want to buy our technology because we might become leaders in this field. Man, he just doesn't get it, does he?
Former Vice President Al Gore said on Thursday that Americans must abandon fossil fuels within a decade and rely on the sun, the winds and other environmentally friendly sources of electric power, or risk losing their national security as well as their creature comforts.
“The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,” Mr. Gore said in a speech to an energy conference here. “The future of human civilization is at stake.”
Mr. Gore called for the kind of concerted national effort that enabled Americans to walk on the moon 39 years ago this month, just eight years after President John F. Kennedy famously embraced that goal. He said the goal of producing all of the nation’s electricity from “renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources” within 10 years is not some farfetched vision, although he said it would require fundamental changes in political thinking and personal expectations.
“This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative,” Mr. Gore said in remarks prepared for the conference. “It represents a challenge to all Americans, in every walk of life — to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen.” And then where would we be? Doesn't Al Gore know it's much better for the US to rely on Big Oil and their vision for the wor... more -
Gore ends fossil fuels for electricity by 2018
The former vice-president credited with rejuvenating America's environmental movement today issued a challenge to its people: End the use of fossil fuels for electricity within 10 years.
Al Gore's call to end the burning of carbon for power, delivered before an adoring audience in Washington, was clearly aimed at vaulting renewable energy to the top of the presidential candidates' agenda.
"Our dangerous reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all these problems – economic, environmental, national security," Gore said. "The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels."
The Nobel prizewinner likened his clean power challenge to John F Kennedy's 1961 vow to put a man on the moon within 10 years. The young president was mocked at the time, Gore observed, but the US achieved its spacewalk eight years later.
Gore also delivered a withering jab at Republicans and Democrats alike for debating whether to expand coastal oil drilling rather than how to diminish the country's unsustainable reliance on oil. The US Congress is opening debate this week on expanding domestic oil leases.
"Even those who reap the profits of the carbon age have to recognise the inevitability of its demise," Gore said, repeating former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Yamani's famous quip: "The Stone Age didn't end because of a shortage of stones."
Despite winning the popular vote against George Bush in the 2000 presidential election, Gore has displayed no interest in returning to politics. His speech today was sponsored by the Alliance for Climate Protection, a non-profit group that serves as a home base for his environmental advocacy.
He shied away from specifics during the speech, not mentioning the trillion-dollar price tag of ending carbon-based electricity. Instead, Gore urged the US to institute a carbon tax that could be offset by reducing the payroll tax on employers.
"We should tax what we burn, not what we earn," he said.
Underpinning Gore's remarks, however, was a finely tuned sense of the economic anxiety that dominates American life 13 weeks before the next presidential election. He observed that the environmental, fiscal, and national-security dangers facing the country would be eliminated by a conversion to clean energy.
"We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet," Gore said to wild applause. "Every bit of that has got to change."
John McCain and Barack Obama - whom Gore has endorsed for president - were not mentioned by name. But Gore did give kudos to Bob Barr, the former Republican congressman running for president on the Libertarian party ticket, who attended the speech.
Though Obama was not in the audience, he released a statement hailing Gore's reminder that "we cannot drill our way to energy independence, but must fast-track investments in renewable sources of energy like solar power, wind power and advanced biofuels".
"Those are the investments I will make as president," Obama added. "It's a strategy that will create millions of new jobs that pay well and cannot be outsourced, and one that will leave our children a world that is cleaner and safer." The former vice-president credited with rejuvenating America's environmental movement today issued a challenge to its people: End... more -
Gore calls for carbon-free electric power
Former Vice President Al Gore said on Thursday that Americans must abandon electricity generated by fossil fuels within a decade and rely on the sun, the winds and other environmentally friendly sources of power, or risk losing their national security as well as their creature comforts.
“The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,” Mr. Gore said in a speech to an energy conference here. “The future of human civilization is at stake.”
Mr. Gore called for the kind of concerted national effort that enabled Americans to walk on the moon 39 years ago this month, just eight years after President John F. Kennedy famously embraced that goal. He said the goal of producing all of the nation’s electricity from “renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources” within 10 years is not some farfetched vision, although he said it would require fundamental changes in political thinking and personal expectations.
“This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative,” Mr. Gore said in his remarks at the conference. “It represents a challenge to all Americans, in every walk of life — to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen.”
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Click on the link for the full article. Former Vice President Al Gore said on Thursday that Americans must abandon electricity generated by fossil fuels within a decade and r... more -
NASA: the ocean's carbon balance
"For eons, the world’s oceans have been sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and releasing it again in a steady inhale and exhale. The ocean takes up carbon dioxide through photosynthesis by plant-like organisms (phytoplankton), as well as by simple chemistry: carbon dioxide dissolves in water. It reacts with seawater, creating carbonic acid. Carbonic acid releases hydrogen ions, which combine with carbonate in seawater to form bicarbonate, a form of carbon that doesn’t escape the ocean easily.
Crew members aboard the R/V Roger Revelle retrieve a CTD rosette from the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean. As the device is lowered into the ocean, electronic instruments measure salinity, temperature, and depth. Each of the white bottles collects seawater at different depths for detailed analysis. (Photograph ©2008 Brett longworth.)
As we burn fossil fuels and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels go up, the ocean absorbs more carbon dioxide to stay in balance. But this absorption has a price: these reactions lower the water’s pH, meaning it’s more acidic. And the ocean has its limits. As temperatures rise, carbon dioxide leaks out of the ocean like a glass of root beer going flat on a warm day. Carbonate gets used up and has to be re-stocked by upwelling of deeper waters, which are rich in carbonate dissolved from limestone and other rocks.
In the center of the ocean, wind-driven currents bring cool waters and fresh carbonate to the surface. The new water takes up yet more carbon to match the atmosphere, while the old water carries the carbon it has captured into the ocean.
The warmer the surface water becomes, the harder it is for winds to mix the surface layers with the deeper layers. The ocean settles into layers, or stratifies. Without an infusion of fresh carbonate-rich water from below, the surface water saturates with carbon dioxide. The stagnant water also supports fewer phytoplankton, and carbon dioxide uptake from photosynthesis slows. In short, stratification cuts down the amount of carbon the ocean can take up."
Good article about the scientific research that goes into determining the natural and human factors behind Co2 absorption and balance in our oceans. And as this article illustrates, humans will have to mitigate their emissions of Co2 in order for our oceans to continue to be able to balance Co2 in a way that sustains them, our planet, and all species that depend on them for life. "For eons, the world’s oceans have been sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and releasing it again in a steady inhale an... more -
Most Experts Foresee a Repeat of 2007Arctic Ice Loss
Fourteen research teams studying the impacts of warming on the Arctic Ocean have issued independent projections of how the sea ice will behave this summer, and 11 of them foresee an ice retreat at least as extraordinary as last year’s or even more dramatic. The other three groups that issued a numerical estimate see the ice extent heading back toward, but not equaling, the average minimum for summers since satellites began tracking the comings and goings of Arctic sea ice in 1979. Five other groups chose not to issue a numerical estimate.
The ice assessments, and explanations, can be found on the Web site of the ongoing Study of Environmental Arctic Change, or SEARCH. The initiative was begun following a workshop on Arctic ice trends in March that was triggered by the “drastic and unexpected sea ice decline witnessed in 2007,” according to the report posted online.
This short animation, from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio, puts 2007 in perspective:
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Ice melt is the harbinger of climate change. I also think that even more important than observing what melts is what refreezes. Fourteen research teams studying the impacts of warming on the Arctic Ocean have issued independent projections of how the sea ice wil... more -
Big Oil defend huge profits before Senate
It was the second time this year that the executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., BP America Inc., ConocoPhillips Co. and Shell Oil Co. had been summoned to testify before Congress. When they came in early April oil cost about $98 a barrel. On Wednesday, it bounded past $134 a barrel for a time and gasoline cost a national average of $3.80 a gallon.
Since regular people are scrimping to pay for gasoline to go to work, Sen. Patrick Leahy wanted to make it personal for the men of Big Oil.
The executives, whose companies reported $36 billion in profits during the first three months of the year, wanted to talk about tight supplies and growing global demand. They said that while the companies made billions of dollars, they also spent billions to find and produce more oil.
But senators complained the executives were trying to come across as “hapless victims” while raking in record profits. They wanted to press the executives about public anguish over paying $60 or more to fill up a car’s gas tank. It was the second time this year that the executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., BP America Inc., ConocoPhillips Co. and Shel... more
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