Recently in the Environment Category
Aug 31 2010
The next time you fill your tank at the gas station, think about where the oil you’re consuming came from. Chances are it came from the oil tar sands of northeastern
In 2008, Toronto-based Environmental Defence published a report calling the vast tar sands development “the most destructive project on earth.”
That assessment is now getting some support from a new study in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It finds significant levels of arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury—all toxic inorganic elements—polluting the Athabasca river system from the oil sands development.
Last fall, Schindler and several colleagues documented significant releases of potentially toxic “polycyclic aromatic compounds,” some of which cause cancer or reproductive harm. (See the Centers for Disease Control summary here.)
Oil field developments in Canada's tar sands are notorious among environmentalists for the damage they do. Extracting the thick tar requires strip mining the surface forest or peat bogs, creating slurries with tens of millions of cubic meters of water (more than twice the consumption of the city of Calgary), and using steam heat to extract various petroleum products.
Producing the steam requires burning huge amounts of natural gas, creating CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Canadian oil sands developers will consume an estimated 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day by 2015. As a result, oil from this region has a carbon footprint up to 20 percent higher than other oil, not far below coal.
And what’s left over from the mining are tailing “ponds” filled with toxic chemicals. As Environmental Defence commented in its 2008 report, “To describe them as “ponds” however, is to be guilty of understatement. These masses of toxic soup have now grown so big that they can be seen by the naked eye from space. Indeed, they now include the largest dams on the planet . . .”
Royal Dutch Shell announced recently that it will begin testing new technology to reduce the size of its waste pools and will license the process to its competitors at no cost. The industry reportedly plans to spend a billion dollars next year on reducing its toxic runoff.
But the industry has a long way to go to clean up its act. The Canadian government’s environmental department reported earlier this month that the volume of arsenic and lead dumped into the tailings ponds has grown 26 percent over the past four years.
And according to one news summary of the data, “The companies also released huge amounts of pollutants into the air last year, including 70,658 tonnes of volatile organic compounds, which can damage the function of human organs and nervous systems, and 111,661 tonnes of sulphur dioxide, a key contributor to acid rain.”
Aug 27 2010
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
A new University of Florida study suggests that global warming 55 million years ago caused now-extinct carnivorous mammals to shrink in size. The study, scheduled to be published in the December edition of the Journal of Mammalian Evolution, explains that different species evolved to sizes much smaller than that of their ancestors during this warming period. Researchers say the Earth experienced increased levels of carbon dioxide and a drier environment during this period - but they do not completely understand exactly what caused the mammals to shrink.
A multi-million dollar center where people will learn about climate change and the threat of sea level rise is slated to be built in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans near a floodwall that crumbled during Hurricane Katrina, destroying the neighborhood. The new climate change center, scheduled to open in 2011, will be funded with federal and private dollars. The physical design is still being worked out but a project spokeswoman said it would “serve as a community center and perhaps include job training services.” The area is still largely empty due to the devastation, but near where the center will stand, a number of energy efficient solar-powered homes are being built.
A powdered sugar like material, called "dry water," could provide a new way to absorb and store carbon dioxide, according to British scientists. In addition to trapping greenhouse gases, the powder has the potential to be used in a variety of other applications. It may, for instance, be a greener, more energy-efficient way of jumpstarting the chemical reactions used to make hundreds of pharmaceuticals and food products. Researchers assert dry water could also be used to store methane and may provide a safer way to store and transport potentially harmful industrial materials.
Aug 27 2010
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:
Scientists at Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland, say they have developed a new vehicle biofuel made from Scotch whisky byproducts. The fuel is derived from pot ale liquid from copper stills and spent grains. "While some energy companies are growing crops specifically to generate biofuel, we are investigating excess materials such as whisky byproducts to develop them," Professor Martin Tangey, director of Napier's Biofuel Research Center, told the Financial Times. Tangey says tapping whisky byproducts "is a more environmentally sustainable option and potentially offers new revenue on the back of one of Scotland's biggest industries." Scotch whisky exports were a record $4.85 billion in 2009, or about one quarter of the UK's food and drink exports.
The BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico is attracting new remedial clean-up technologies. They include an oil-separating centrifuge system made by Ocean Therapy Solutions, oil-hungry bacteria grown at Tel Aviv University, and an oil-absorbing robot developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The New York Times Green blog reports. The M.I.T. device is a solar-powered nanofiber conveyor belt said to absorb up to 20 times its weight in oil. Using "swarm" robotics, thousands of the devices could form "teams" to attack a spill. M.I.T. plans to enter the invention in an oil clean-up competition from the X-Prize Foundation with a $1 million prize for collecting and recovering spilled oil.
The San Francisco Bay Area is gearing up to install 5,000 car chargers over five years for an expected surge of electric and plug-in hybrid cars like the Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt and models from Mitsubishi, Toyota, Tesla and other automakers. The nine-county Bay Area currently has about 120 chargers. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District has approved a program for organizations to install chargers in the next five years at homes, apartments, office buildings, parking garages, BART stations and shopping malls. "We're trying to address range anxiety," says Damian Breen, director of grant programs for the air quality district. "We want people not to be worried their electric vehicle is going to run out of juice."
Aug 20 2010
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
Despite the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s claims that global warming is undeniable and extreme weather events happening all over the globe - all six Republican candidates vying for Judd Gregg’s vacated U.S. Senate seat in New Hampshire recently stood together to deny humans are contributing to climate change. Leading climate scientists agree that greenhouse gas pollution from burning fossil fuels is building up in the atmosphere at an increasing rate and recent studies show New England is not only warming, but experiencing a rash of extreme weather, like the 100-year flood events that happened in New Hampshire in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
In a time when wildfires continue to burn in Russia and the eastern seaboard of the U.S. has seen sweltering heat, Pakistan is now dealing with the worst flooding seen in the country in more than a century. The United Nations recently resolved to strengthen emergency relief efforts to the water stricken region and noted that the unprecedented floods reflected "the adverse impact of climate change and the growing vulnerability of countries to climate change." Climate scientists continue to point out there is a very real distinction between extreme weather and climate change but have asserted it is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent as a result of man-made global warming.
Clean energy investors in California are raising funds to do battle to defeat Proposition 23. The investors are raising millions of dollars for advertising that will be in contrast to messages put out by oil refiners who want to delay the state’s new law on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. If the proposition passes, it would delay California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, signed into law by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006, which requires the state to reduce greenhouse gases linked to climate change to their 1990 levels by 2020.
Aug 20 2010
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:
Four teams from Switzerland, Germany, Australia and South Korea this week launched a solar-powered, emissions-free 80-day around-the-world race from Geneva to draw attention to electric vehicles. The 18,000-mile Zero Race will run through Moscow, Shanghai, Vancouver and San Francisco before stopping in Cancun, Mexico, for a United Nations Climate Conference, and then the vehicles will be shipped to Portugal and end the race in Geneva next January. Two vehicles are battery-powered scooters and the other two are custom sedans. The Zero Race is organized by Swiss adventurer Louis Palmer, the first person to go around the world in a solar-powered vehicle.
Iceland to become world leader in electric cars? A Forbes article suggests Iceland could be the first to make electric vehicles the default national transportation. Three quarters of the island nation's 317,000-plus population lives within 37 miles of the capital Reykjavik. Forbes says rural areas could probably be wired with just 15 fast-charging stations. "That, coupled with with the fact that 80 percent of Iceland's energy is cheaply produced renewable (from geothermal and hydro) should give you a good idea why this is the ideal test bed for electric vehicles," the article says. Iceland has an agreement with Mitsubishi to deliver i-MiEV all-electric cars to the island with a claimed range of 80 to 100 miles.
The greenest college in the land is small Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vt., according to a survey by the Sierra Club's Sierra magazine. The college, with 820 undergrads, offers an extensive environmental studies program, burns wood chips and methane from cow manure for heat and electricity, and aims to become carbon neutral. The magazine sent an 11-page questionnaire to 900 colleges and universities to find the greenest institutions and received 162 responses. After Green Mountain, the top 10 colleges based on criteria from energy sources to financial investments included Dickinson College (Pennsylvania), Evergreen State College (Washington), University of Washington, Stanford University (California), University of California-Irvine, Northland College (Wisconsin), Harvard University (Massachusetts), College of the Atlantic (Maine), and Hampshire College (Massachusetts).
Aug 13 2010
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
The World Meteorological Organization reported that this summer's extreme weather events - including record breaking temperatures in Asia, flooding in Pakistan and fires in Russia - fit 2007 projections of "more frequent and more intense extreme weather events due to global warming." The projections came from a report authored by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. While leading climatologists do not maintain that global warming is the only factor in floods, droughts and fires, they do claim that man-made global warming is already stacking the odds for more extreme events in the near future.
Researchers reported a 100-square-mile chunk of ice separated from a glacier in Greenland. It was the most massive ice island to break away in the Arctic in a half-century of observation. Satellite data from the Arctic Ocean shows the ocean area covered by ice last month was the second-lowest ever recorded for July. Changes in the global ice sheet “are happening fast, and we are definitely losing more ice mass than we had anticipated," a NASA scientist said.
A new study shows more than 40 species of fish off the coast of Australia are migrating elsewhere as sea temperatures change. The study, conducted by the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), asserts the species on the go account for roughly 30 percent of the country’s near shore coastal fish. CSIRO has identified south-eastern Australia as a climate change hotspot, with well documented changes already occurring over the last 70 years.
Aug 06 2010
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
Global Warming could be a major contributor to the demise of the rainforest as we know it. A new study in the journal Conservation Letters claims by the year 2100, nearly half of the plant and animal life in rainforests will not be able to exist as they do today because of deforestation and climate change. The study suggests the Amazon Basin alone could see changes in biodiversity for nearly 80 percent of the region. The report consists of studies done in Central and South America, Asia and Africa.
Just about a week after roughly 300 of the world’s top climate scientists revealed that they have all concluded man-made global warming is “undeniable,” the Arctic discovery of a well-preserved British ship has some oil companies looking past shrinking glaciers and other the negative impacts of global warming to see a lucrative silver lining. Canadian parks officials say they were only able to locate the vessel, which sank 155 years ago, because the ocean is almost completely ice free. Shortly after the ship was found, three huge oil companies announced they are joining forces to more efficiently look for oil and natural gas deposits under the sea close to where the boat was located off Canadian shores.
UN climate talks aimed at curbing the threat of global warming seem to be moving in the wrong direction after a week-long session in Germany. Even as evidence mounts that continued warming could yield deadly impacts, negotiators are reporting that chances for a compromise are giving way to finger pointing. Record global temperatures, forest fires in Russia and deadly floods in Pakistan "are all consistent with the kind of changes we could expect from climate change, and they will get worse if we don't act quickly," said the top U.S. negotiator. "Unfortunately, what we have seen is that some countries are walking back from the progress made in Copenhagen.”
Jul 30 2010
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
Global warming is undeniable, according to the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA). NOAA’s annual “State of the Climate” report takes into account data from a variety of climate indicators. Some of the indicators, such as ocean heat content and temperature over land, are increasing. Others, such as sea ice cover and snow cover, are decreasing. The report also suggests that more than 90 percent of that heat trapped by greenhouses gases over the past 50 years has been absorbed into the oceans.
EPA administrator Lisa Jackson effectively told 10 groups challenging regulations based on the science behind global warming... you’re wrong. “Defenders of the status quo will try to slow our efforts to get America running on clean energy,” said Jackson. “A better solution would be to join the vast majority of the American people who want to see more green jobs, more clean energy innovation and an end to the oil addiction that pollutes our planet and jeopardizes our national security.”
A recent report claims big coal companies will dig into more than just mines to protect their business interests, preparing to spend big to defeat political candidates they consider “anti-coal.” New rules allow companies and labor unions not directly coordinated with politicians to set up political non-profit organizations that do not have campaign spending limits. They also do not have to report their political financial activities. One such group in West Virginia has identified three Democrats as “anti-coal” and is sending letters to companies asking for funding to support advertising that would “let their (the coal industry’s) voices be heard.”
The United Kingdom passed a law making it impossible for new coal-fired power plants to be constructed without the use of technology that captures and stores their carbon emissions. The British government also changed rules to encourage the biomass industry and announced that the first nuclear power station is expected to be built by 2018.
Jul 28 2010
As a kid, I used to love poring over world almanacs, with their rich collections of lists, tables and facts on every subject imaginable, from baseball statistics to life expectancy by country.
OK, call me a nerd, but it’s with the same sense of discovery that I greet the publication every year of PG&E’s Corporate Responsibility Report—this year with the words “and Sustainability” added before “Report.”
It’s packed with information on the utility’s renewable energy contracts and investments, energy efficiency achievements, diversity and training programs, corporate governance issues and a host of other details.
Unusually well written (full disclosure: I contributed a few paragraphs, equal to about 0.001% of the total), the report is an invaluable compendium for those like me inside the company who need to lay their hands quickly on verified facts. As anyone who’s worked in a big organization knows, that’s no easy task.
This year’s report breaks new ground by adding a section on sustainability, an important but sometimes tenuous concept that “is more than the sum of caring for our environment, doing right by our employees, serving our customers and communities and delivering for our shareholders,” the report says. “‘Sustainability’ reflects the reality that PG&E’s environmental challenges and business challenges are increasingly intertwined, and that we can optimize our success by developing integrated and balanced solutions to these challenges.”
PG&E enhanced its focus on this issue last year by creating a new position, Chief Sustainability Officer, which reports to the Chairman and CEO of PG&E Corporation. This officer develops, coordinates and helps measure the ultimate success of PG&E’s sustainability strategy and initiatives.
The other big innovation is the incorporation of videos and slideshows into the online report.
The report’s first video features a customer, Eileen Tutt, who has driven a clean, quiet electric vehicle for the past nine years. She takes full advantage of PG&E’s little-known E-9 electric rate, which gives a big price break to those who charge their vehicles at night, when demand is low.
The video also shows the state-of-the-art solar-powered charging station in Vacaville, which was the subject of a previous NEXT100 posting.
Other videos feature PG&E’s energy training center in Stockton, which teaches people the basics of home weatherization and energy efficiency techniques; a discussion of the need for collaboration to achieve California’s renewable energy goals without harming endangered species or sensitive habitat; and a profile of PG&E’s daredevil-looking, but safe, helicopter-assisted maintenance techniques.
The report is not just a PR puff-piece. For example, it reports that although the company caused fewer serious environmental violations resulting in penalties last year, the total number of violations cited jumped from 12 in 2008 to 21 in 2009. The report says the utility “completed a Lean Six Sigma process improvement project” to analyze the root causes and “and apply systematic corrective actions to prevent reoccurrence.” PG&E is shooting this year for a violation rate less than half that of 2009, as one of several ambitious environmental sustainability goals.
Jul 27 2010
"If you care about addressing the climate issue…or about clean air…or putting the country on a path to energy independence…or about reviving investment and job creation…then you have to be revved up about the electric car," said Chris Johns, president of Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) at the outset of today’s Plug-In 2010, an international conference centered on bringing electric vehicles (EVs) to market.
Automakers, electric car component manufacturers, utilities and drivers have converged upon San Jose to discuss all things relevant to electric cars. Industry movers and shakers are sharing information and sizing up the competition before EVs start arriving in American neighborhoods. By the time the conference opens next year, folks owning vehicles like the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf should be quietly pulling into their driveways and garages.
Based on the high adoption rate of hybrid vehicles in the last few years, Johns predicted that the Bay Area alone will see somewhere between 220,000 and 845,000 vehicles "plugging in" over the next decade. That’s both exciting news for an electric utility, and a huge responsibility given that a single EV can suck as much power from the grid as three homes in San Francisco.
"At the end of the day, we’re the entity charged with making sure there’s enough clean, affordable power on the grid," Johns said. ". . . And, in our customers’ eyes, we’re responsible for the quality of their experience when they bring that new vehicle home and plug it in for the first time."
PG&E isn’t new to this challenge. The utility has been working to advance clean transportation for the last 20 years or so. The company currently operates the largest utility fleet of clean vehicles in America. It was the first utility to add a Smith all-electric bucket truck to its fleet, will be the first to add Raser Technologies’ all-electric extended range pickup trucks and is awaiting delivery of nearly a dozen Chevy Volts later this year.
For current EV owners, the utility offers a special pricing plan, which gives customers a steep discount in exchange for charging their cars during off-peak hours. Making sure that new owners charge at night will be critical to avoiding the need to build new power plants to meet their demand, Johns noted.
PG&E just began a pilot project with the Electric Power Research Institute that will allow the utility to better understand the infrastructure necessary to support the future of EVs. The program will allow PG&E to examine how long different vehicles take to charge and their impacts on the electric grid at different times of the day.
"The goal is to prove that this works at scale, that it functions seamlessly for the customer and that it’s secure," Johns said. "The pilot is running this year and next year, and we see it as a critical step that can help commercialize the new technologies needed to serve the mass EV market."
As Johns underscored, "there’s an entire ecosystem that has to develop in order to support electric vehicles." And the electric utility, like the gas station of old, is a critical part of it.
