Daily Archives: December 11, 2015

solutions, Politics, Sustainability, innovation

Solar, Wind, Hydro Investment Expected to Rise in Coming Years

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, reposted from RenewableEnergyWorld, Dec 10, 2015

During a standing-room-only session on “What’s Next for Large-Scale Renewables in North America,” experts laid out their visions for the solar, wind and hydro markets for the coming years. Not only is there is a rush to build projects right now, but all three technologies are expected to grow in the next five years, despite expiring tax credits, shortages in materials and tough permitting hurdles.

Solar is Booming

Solar development is booming said Julie Ungerleider Senior Vice President of Engineering at Coronal Group during the conference session. She explained that more than 12.6 GW of solar capacity is operating and 24.5 GW are under construction. Top states for solar development are Arizona, California, Florida, North Carolina and Nevada. The reason for the boom is the looming expiration of the solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC), set to drop to 10 percent at the end of 2016 for commercial projects.

The rush to build projects before the end of 2016 is causing a shortage of materials for developers as well, which Ungerleider said means that unless a project is almost “fully baked” right now, it probably won’t be built before the end of 2016.

Ungerleider said that even if the ITC is not extended she doesn’t expect to see a major impact on solar development. Technology costs have come down sharply in the past four years and contractors have become much more efficient in construction of solar. Ungerleider said it used to take months to install a few MWs. “Now you can install 1 MW in a week,” she said.

Wind Investment Growing

Aaron Anderson a renewables engineer with Burns & McDonnell who performs due diligence on wind projects, said that the number of transactions in the wind energy market have steadily increased since 2002. In terms of dollars, Anderson said that more than $170 billion has been invested about 1,000 wind projects over the past two years, which means each wind project has an average transaction cost of almost $170 million. Today there are 70 GW of installed wind capacity online in U.S. with another 13 GW under construction. This represents an almost 800 percent increase in wind projects in 10 years.

Anderson said that he thinks investment in wind will continue because there is enough operating capacity that needs to be maintained, tweaked, bought and sold that investor will leave “no stone unturned” in the wind industry.

Project Upgrades Dominate Hydro Sector

Rocio Uria-Martinez with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory presented on the status of what she called “good old hydro.” With 4 GW of planned hydropower projects, mostly in project upgrades, the hydro sector is not installing new projects at rates as fast as wind and solar but work within the sector to remove policy barriers and shorten permitting times could open the doors for further development. Today there are 80 GW of installed hydro capacity in the U.S. with about half of that in just three states: California, Washington and Oregon. Every state in the nation, however, has at least some hydro, except for Delaware and Mississippi, according to Uria-Martinez.

For those 4 GW of new hydro, the median project size is less than 10 MW and adding generating capacity to non-powered dams dominate the pipeline.

Recent legislation could help the hydro sector as well. Just a week ago, said Uria-Martinez, the U.S. house of representatives approved a bill aimed at shortening the time it takes to permit larger hydro projects. Part of it included a provision that would allow existing environment impact studies to be used for a new project if they have already been conducted in that region.

The grid today needs flexible resources to account for the variable resources — like wind and solar — that are increasing grid instability. Uria-Martinez sees hydro as a key resource to help ease those pains. “We need to keep investing in older hydropower plants to keep them flexible enough to meet the challenges of the 21st century grid,” she said. SOURCE

 

Preventing Ecocide, Politics, Activism, climate science

The critical emissions target missing from the climate debate

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An oil pump jack pumps oil in a field near Calgary on July 21, 2014. (Todd Korol/Reuters)
An oil pump jack pumps oil in a field near Calgary on July 21, 2014. (Todd Korol/Reuters)

By ED WHITTINGHAM AND FRED KRUPP, reposted from the Globe and Mail, Dec 8, 2015

The sweeping new climate protection policy announced recently by Alberta Premier Rachel Notley has been hailed as a game changer by industry and environmentalists alike. Overnight, a province whose bread and butter is oil and gas took a giant step forward on a greenhouse-gas pollution strategy, sending an important signal to the rest of Canada and the world.

Attention has mostly focused on plans to set a price on carbon and replace coal-fired electricity with renewables and natural gas. But there’s also a secret weapon in the policy that can help achieve millions of tonnes of reductions quickly and cost-effectively. That weapon is methane, vast amounts of which are released by the oil-and-gas industry each year through leaks, malfunctions and intentional discharges.

Methane is the main ingredient in natural gas. Unburned, it packs over 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame. Reducing these emissions by cutting needless waste is by far the most important thing we can do to curtail warming right now while longer-term carbon reductions take hold.

Worldwide, about 99 billion cubic metres of methane worth nearly $40-billion escaped from oil and gas operations in 2012, with climate impacts equal to 40 per cent of total global coal combustion, according to the Rhodium Group. Canada is the world’s fourth-largest emitter, behind Russia, Uzbekistan and the United States. The short-term impact of Canada’s emissions is equal to the annual greenhouse emissions of almost 40 million vehicles.

If you haven’t heard much about methane in the climate debate, you’re not alone. But the International Energy Agency ranks cutting oil and gas methane at the same level of effectiveness as increased investment in renewable energy. Ms. Notley says the impact of the planned cuts is “not far from the reductions we will achieve from phasing out coal.”

Alberta’s new climate strategy aims to reduce oil and gas methane emissions by 45 per cent by 2025, a goal that could be achieved for an average of less than a penny per thousand cubic feet of gas produced, according to a study by ICF International.

Real-world results are equally encouraging. In Colorado, which recently enacted the first direct limits on methane in the United States, one major producer reported that its compliance costs were just three-tenths of 1 per cent of its yearly capital budget. What’s more, statewide oil-field employment grew 16 per cent in 2014 – adding nearly 4,000 new jobs.

Of course, goals are only as good as the concrete policies behind them. As Ms. Notley and others move to the implementation phase, it’s important not to let this opportunity get watered down. In particular, officials must follow through on the announcement that they will develop regulations not just for new sources, but also for thousands of existing wells, pipelines and other facilities.

Alberta’s bold stroke also sets the bar for others. The advisory team established by Premier Christy Clark recommended a similar methane goal for British Columbia. And Catherine McKenna, Canada’s first Minister of Environment and Climate Change, could deliver the benefits of methane emission reduction for Canada as a whole by adopting a national methane target.

If Canada were to adopt a 45-per-cent reduction goal like Alberta, coupled with the White House’s 40- to 45-per-cent target for the oil and gas sector, our two countries alone could reduce global oil and gas methane emissions by almost 10 per cent. If every gas-producing country matched those targets, it would have the same 20-year effect as closing 1,000 coal-fired power plants. That’s a pretty significant down payment for global action.

Alberta’s commitment gives Canada’s new federal government something to brag about at the climate talks in Paris. If Ottawa were to announce a national methane reduction target in its first 90 days in power, it would further demonstrate that Canada really has rejoined the rest of the world in the effort to prevent dangerous climate change. SOURCE

Ed Whittingham is executive director of the Pembina Institute. Fred Krupp is president of the (U.S.) Environmental Defense Fund. Ed Whittingham is executive director of the Pembina Institute. Fred Krupp is president of the (U.S.) Environmental Defense Fund.

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Politics, Activism, innovation

The Destination Is 100 Percent Renewable Energy for All

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Raising a Wind Turbine in Durban Photo Credit: Shayne Robinson/Greenpeace

By , reposted from the Huffington Post, Dec 11, 2015

When it comes to prosperity, humans seldom care about the environment. But our planet would not have it and there’s evidence at hand: the ten hottest years on record have all occurred since 1998. The year 2014 keeps the highest mark now and it’s all but guaranteed already that 2015 will claim the infamous title.

Let’s be clear, both people and biodiversity already suffer the negative impacts of climate change, whether in the form of unexpected floods in our communities, stronger hurricanes, or changes on habitat for vegetation and wildlife.

So, when will we start to act? Why do we continue to obtain our energy from non-renewable, dirty sources that only make the problem bigger?

Our largest energy sources — namely fossil fuels — are taking us down on a path that will lead to a global temperature rise way above what our society and economy can bear. Just to exist, the most vulnerable countries can’t even take half of that. Then again, the current rise on temperature averages is already disrupting our lifestyles. This is the gloomy backdrop to the international climate talks in Paris.

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Lausitz Brown Coal Plants in Germany Photo Credit: Paul Langrock/Greenpeace

The world’s leaders are meeting in the French capital precisely to agree on a plan that will hopefully keep global warming from further changing the climate and disrupting our lives. So, the big question is: What needs to be done to put us back on track?

First of all, we need them to agree on a just transition from oil, gas, hazardous coal, and dangerous nukes to 100 percent renewable energy sources by 2050. Not only renewable energy prevents further pollution in the atmosphere, it is inherently safer,cheaper, and accessible to all. This path will provide cleaner air and water and keep temperature rises in the safe zone.

According to a recently published report from Greenpeace, 100% renewable energy for all is both achievable and cost-effective, given the right political decisions. There are signs showing a real momentum right now for stepping out of fossil fuels: The UK has just announced to close all coal-fired power plants by 2025. A new OECD dealwould cut off financing for 85 percent of coal-fired plants. Shell has stopped its drilling for oil in the Arctic — and is pulling out of a tar sands project in Canada. And in October, President Obama took a historic decision by rejecting the Keystone XL oil pipeline, citing the need to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

Ahead of the climate talks in Paris, most countries have submitted their intended contributions to a global climate deal, aiming to accelerate national ambitions on taking action. While those contributions could make a real difference, they are still highly likely to exceed the 2°C global warming limit.

That is not only irresponsible regarding the environment, but also a huge social and economic burden plus a failure on our moral obligation. Therefore, those pledges should only be seen as a starting point and not the final level of action we’ll see. They need to be reviewed and strengthened in 5-years cycles starting right after Paris.

And there’s more that can be done. For example, Costa Rica went on 100 percent renewable electricity for the first 75 days of 2015. Tech giants like Amazon, Google and Facebook, all have laid out road maps that explain how they intend to achieve procurement of 100 percent renewable energy. The solutions are already there, we just have to make use of them.

Since most of us won’t have the chance to actually be negotiating at a conference center in Paris, you might ask yourself: What can I really do?

1. Instead of focusing on producing more energy, let’s save energy by implementing the most energy efficient devices existing today and switching off unused equipment.

2. Let’s push the transition to renewable energy sources by changing our energy supplier or even installing solar panels on our rooftops, investing in wind energy, raising awareness via social media or telling our friends of the benefits of renewable energy.

3. Let’s put pressure on our local governments. In India, petitioners have just taken to the Supreme Court in an effort to reduce emissions and boost air quality. We can all make a difference!

4. Show leadership in taking climate action by organizing marches, festivals, showing banners, and signing petitions or creating your own. Get creative!

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Global Divestment Day in St. Petersburg Photo Credit: Dmitri Sharamov/Greenpeace

When your efforts result in a transition from dirty fuels to renewable energy, lives will be better with improved air quality, money will be spent sustainably, and jobs in the green sector will be created. The climate talks in Paris could be a milestone by providing all of us with a valuable, long-term direction to take on the journey; a journey that will continue until we achieve a world with 100 percent renewable energy for all, in a just transition that leaves no one behind.

Let’s take responsibility for the world we’re living in, for those most affected by the impacts of climate change, and for future generations. Paris is only a stop along the path to a 100% renewable future, not the destination.

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Raising a Wind Turbine in Durban Photo Credit: Shayne Robinson/Greenpeace

This post is part of a “What’s Working: Low-Carbon Economy” series produced by The Huffington Post, in conjunction with the U.N.’s 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris (Nov. 30-Dec. 11), aka the climate-change conference. The series will put a spotlight on solutions to shifting away from fossil fuels to renewables, and how we can best minimize our output of greenhouse-gas emissions. It is part of HuffPost’s What’s Working editorial initiative. To view the entire series, visit here

 

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solutions, Politics, Sustainability, Transportation

Zero emission vehicles, but no plan to get there yet

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A Tesla Roadster Sport 2.5 spotted driving past a wind farm. This model of car is Tesla’s fourth-generation Roadster vehicle (via Wikimedia Commons).

by Fram Dinshaw, reposted from the Vancouver Observer, Dec 10, 2015

The Pembina Institute today welcomed the province’s joining a gobal coalition for emission-free vehicles in Paris but warned that there is still much work to do before that vision is realized in B.C.

Matt Horne, B.C. associate regional director for the Pembina Institute, said that Victoria still had to enact policies to rapidly transition the province from gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles to electric and other zero-emission options.

“Fortunately, such policies are found in the package of recommendations from B.C.’s Climate Leadership Team.Recommendations such as implementing a zero-emission vehicle standard and increasing the carbon tax would ensure British Columbians have affordable zero-emission vehicles they can choose from. Without the policies, the transition will not happen,” said Horne, who is also on the province’s Climate Leadership Team.

Currently, the price tag of a cheaper Tesla electric car is about US$80,000. More advanced models are selling for roughly US$130,000. Under B.C.’s Clean Energy Vehicle Program electric vehicle buyers can access point-of-sale incentives of more than CAD$8,200.

Four years after B.C.’s government first rolled out the CEVP, there are less than 2,000 electric vehicles on the road province-wide.

However, Energy Minister Bill Bennett said that for zero-emissions vehicles to truly take off, Victoria would need to invest in charging stations along the Trans-Canada Highway and every community would also need easy access to one.

Already, B.C. has Canada’s largest public-charging network for electric vehicles at more than 1,000 outlets.

“The goal of having all new passenger vehicles be zero emission by mid-century would represent a very positive transformation,” said Horne.

B.C. is now the 14th member of the International Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Alliance that also includes Germany, Holland, Norway, the United Kingdom, the U.S states of California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and the province of Quebec.

According to the B.C government, all new passenger vehicles in ZEV Alliance jurisdictions will be emissions-free by 2050.

Reaching this goal could reduce the transportation sector’s climate footprint by more than one billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year by mid-century. This will include a global vehicle emissions reduction of about 40 percent.

ZEVs in use today include battery-electric, plug-in hybrid, and fuel cell vehicles.

“Transportation represents over a third of B.C.’s total provincial greenhouse gas emissions, and nearly half the emissions by the average B.C. family. As a member of this international alliance we will work with other governments and partners and at home in British Columbia to increase the adoption of ZEVs and reduce tailpipe emissions, helping us fulfil our international climate action responsibilities,” said Environment Minister Mary Polak in Paris on Dec. 10.

With files from the Canadian Press

SOURCE

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Ford to invest $4.5 billion in EVs, plug-in hybrids

 

solutions, Politics, climate science

Satellite monitoring of greenhouse gases is new space race

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China, which emits pollutants that foul much of the air nationwide, plans to launch its first carbon-monitoring satellites next year. | AP

Reposted from the Japan Times, Dec 11, 2015

PARIS – Scientists from the United States, Japan and China are racing to perfect satellite technology that could one day measure greenhouse gas emissions from space, potentially transforming the winner into the world’s first climate cop.

Monitoring a single country’s net emissions from above could not only become an important tool to establish whether it had met its promises to slow global warming, a point of contention at climate talks in Paris, but also help emitters to pinpoint the sources of greenhouse gases more quickly and cheaply.

“The real success of a deal here fundamentally revolves around whether we can see emissions and their removals,” said John-O Niles, director of the U.S.-based Carbon Institute, which studies methods of carbon dioxide measurement.

“We know satellite technology is evolving so that there is an increasing ability to actually tell whether countries are telling the truth.”

Most estimates of greenhouse gas emissions are now based on calculations of energy use and other proxy data, rather than on-the-ground measurements, leaving a huge margin of error when nations submit their figures to the United Nations.

While space-based measurement is unlikely to be mentioned in any deal agreed by the nearly 200 countries negotiating in Paris, the European Union is leading a push for a universal system of measuring, reporting and verifying emissions data.

European and Japanese satellites have been monitoring overall carbon concentrations in the atmosphere since 2002, but calculating emissions at a national or local level is far harder.

For example, the margin of error for China, presumed to be the world’s top carbon polluter, is greater than the entire carbon footprint of Europe, according to experts.

Earlier this year, new data showed that China had consumed substantially more coal in 2014 than earlier reported, causing big revisions to carbon calculations. An earlier report showed its carbon output between 2000 and 2013 was about 3 billion tons less than previously estimated.

China announced plans ahead of the Paris talks to launch its first emissions-monitoring satellites next year. But it says trade restrictions are hampering cooperation.

“NASA and Japan are sharing the best sensors, but not China,” said Yi Liu, a lead scientist in China’s effort. “This is a problem. We need to work together to make this work.”

NASA launched its first satellite to measure atmospheric CO2 in July last year.

The challenge now is to convert the images — which pick up carbon concentrations in the form of yellow, orange, and red blobs — into emissions data, said Steven Pawson, chief of the Global Modelling and Assimilation Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

“What we can measure right now is the total column of CO2 in the atmosphere,” he said. “The current technology is not strong enough to give absolute values, but if there were a gross misrepresentation (of one country’s emissions), it would be quite possible to see.”

NASA scientist Lesley Ott said that the satellite, named OCO-2, also shows there is potential to zoom into urban areas to record carbon pollution. A new device with that capability, OCO-3, has been developed for use on the International Space Station, but has been delayed by budget constraints, she said.

Scientists are also struggling to measure changes in forests that absorb CO2, a key part of the calculation for net emissions, from space. Trees bind carbon while they are growing, but stop once they are mature.

Masanobu Shimada, a researcher at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, is working on distinguishing between the two on a global scale.

“We can get an idea about biomass from the shading of its images,” he said. But for now, the imagery is too fuzzy for certainty.

Back on Earth, climate activists hope a Paris deal will include helping poor countries to measure their own net carbon emissions on the ground, a process that can be difficult and costly.

Michael Gillenwater, of the not-for-profit Greenhouse Gas Management Institute, said that kind of monitoring is better suited than satellites to pinpointing the source of emissions.

“We need to know where emissions are coming from — which factory, what process,” he said.

But calculating net emissions at a single poultry farm in China, for example, requires a 54-page, U.N.-certified rule book that factors in everything from the amount of methane removed from the chicken manure to local temperatures and animal weight to come up with a figure.

At some point, that kind of detailed analysis may also be possible from space.

A Canadian satellite company called GHGSat has launched a small-scale effort to do exactly that. Its nanosatellite, nicknamed CLAIRE, will launch in April aiming to provide a way for energy producers to measure their carbon footprint. SOURCE

solutions, Politics, Activism, democracy

100 municipal declarations for the right to a healthy environment passed!

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Press Release by the David Suzuki Foundation, Dec 9, 2015

Today, Toronto, Ontario became the 100th community to pass a Blue Dot municipal environmental rights declaration — a significant step towards ensuring that all levels of government recognize your right to breathe fresh air, drink clean water, eat safe food and have a say in the decisions that affect your health and well-being.

As David Suzuki said when we launched Blue Dot in September, 2014: “Things are only impossible until someone decides that they’re not.” One year ago, we couldn’t have imagined nearing the end of 2015 with 100 municipal environmental rights declarations! This major milestone was achieved because ordinary people came together, with passion and enthusiasm, to stand up for the people and places they love.

“I have been astounded and galvanized by the rapidity and breadth of the Blue Dot movement. From Victoria to St. John’s to Yellowknife and Windsor, communities have joined to pledge commitments to the right to a healthy environment. It’s an idea whose time has come.”– David Suzuki

One hundred municipal declarations prove that people like you care about the right to a healthy environment. So we’re now focusing our collective energy on securing federal environmental rights.

This is our moment to unite around a vision that embodies our shared values and regains Canada’s status as a leader in environmental protection. We hope you will stand with us.

Sincerely,

The Blue Dot Team

P.S. Stay tuned for more news on how you can be involved in the next phase of the Blue Dot movement.

SOURCE

Preventing Ecocide, Politics, Activism, Fascism/Corporatism

Does trade trump climate?

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If I were to ask you what are the biggest global problems facing us right now, what would you say?

By Sam Lowe, reposted from Friends of the Earth, Dec 10, 2015

Would ‘barriers to trade’ even figure? Didn’t think so.

Personally, I find it hard to believe it would make anyone’s top 3. Climate change, on the other hand …

Perhaps this explains why I found this recently leaked document so concerning. Bear in mind that it was produced by the people in charge of negotiating the EU’s climate commitments. One paragraph in particular stands out. Let me break it down for you:

As a matter of principle, the [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] UNFCCC is not the appropriate forum to discuss trade measures and to elaborate on additional disciplines. The [World Trade Organisation] WTO is the established international body tasked with this purpose, and any decision regarding the use of trade measures under the UNFCCC would undermine this role.

The WTO is certainly the place to go if you want to talk about further liberalising global trade. But when it comes to discussing whether the international trade regime needs to wind its neck in, then no… probably not. As to whether discussing trade measures under the UNFCCC would undermine the role of the WTO, well yes… but for many that is indeed the point.

The EU argues that the UNFCCC (Article 3(5), which provides that measures taken to combat climate change, including unilateral ones, should not constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on international trade), and the Kyoto Protocol (Article 2(3), which provides that developing countries shall strive to implement policies and measures in such a way as to minimize adverse effects on international trade) already contain the necessary provisions on the trade-climate relationship.”

Here, the Commission’s climate team are effectively arguing that trade should not figure in the climate negotiations because the current provisions are already restrictive enough. This should be understood as them saying, ‘We’re not of the mind to make it even more difficult to do our job’. Fine.

More concerning is the assumption underpinning their argument.

Their framing implies that the only reason anyone would want to discuss the link between climate and trade would be with the aim of tightening the restrictions. Nowhere do they concede that other countries may wish to debate trade policy because the international trading system has, on occasion, made it more difficult for governments to act on climate change.

Action to stave off catastrophic climate change is portrayed as something that must be tempered so as not to undermine the ability of countries to sell goods and services to each other, God forbid. The reverse is not even considered.

Clearly the Commission’s ‘What are the biggest problems facing us right now?’ list reads quite different to mine.

Practically speaking, government action to combat climate change often requires trade-offs between competing interest groups. The approach that proves most palatable within domestic politics may not always endear itself to foreign investors and exporters. This conflict of priorities has already led to renewable energy schemes being challenged and felled by international trade tribunals.

Furthermore, effective climate action will likely require governments to curtail the economic freedom of, and actively discriminate against, certain sectors (I’m looking at you, dirty energy). Theenhanced legal protection afforded to foreign investors via modern-day trade deals threatens to make such action prohibitively expensive.

Knowing this, the Commission’s climate team’s apparent acceptance of the status quo, by which climate obligations must skulk in the formidable shadow of the international trading system, strikes me as remarkably short-sighted. Indeed, in pursuing new trade deals, such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the Commission appears hell-bent on exacerbating the problem further.

Some would say that all of this is exactly the sort of thing that should at the very least be discussed when negotiating multilateral action on climate change. Some would say …

This revelation does not mean action on climate change is doomed to fail. That story is ongoing, and still has (rapidly diminishing) time for a happy ending. However, it does leave me feeling uneasy. Should climate policy really be subservient to trade considerations? Is it right that climate policy has to justify itself on anything other than its own considerable merits?

I think not. How about you?