Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:50:01 GMT | 1 comment
In a previous post, I discussed some of the problems with carbon credits. Here is another example of a project that doesn’t seem like it is really reducing CO2.
The Garcia River Forest project is a certified carbon offset project that PG&E is sponsoring and protects trees that would otherwise be harvested. This seems like a good thing – leaving forests standing rather than cutting them down seems like it would reduce CO2. Right?
However, there is a problem. A growing forest sequesters a lot more carbon than a mature one. Of course, if the forest was cleared by burning, that would be bad because it would release a lot of CO2. But, if the forest was responsibly and sustainably harvested to make lumber, the CO2 would effectively be sequestered and then the young forest would soak up additional CO2.
So for maximum CO2 sequestration, it would actually be better to harvest as many forests as possible for lumber and re-plant them! Of course forests offer a lot of other benefits besides just CO2 sequestration, so we would never want to cut them all down.
But the point is, if we really want to make a dent in CO2, we have to look carefully at all the effects of our efforts and not just make quick assumptions.
Posted in Global Warming
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:10:44 GMT | no comments
The Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) held its fourth annual energy research symposium at the beginning of October.
GCEP is an interesting group based at Stanford University that seeks new solutions to one of the grand challenges of this century: supplying energy to meet the changing needs of a growing world population in a way that protects the environment. With funding of $225 million from Exxon, GE, Schlumberger and Toyota, GCEP supports a lot of diverse high-risk and high-reward projects in areas such as solar energy, batteries, cellulosic ethanol, hydrogen, CO2 capture and storage, advanced combustion and more
This was a fantastic symposium where researchers from Stanford and around the world discussed GCEP’s projects. Some of the highlights for me were:
- Burning coal in super-critical water to capture all CO2 and other emissions
- The benefits of using miscanthus for cellulosic ethanol (which is better than switchgrass)
- Using nano structures to improve photovoltaics
- Using biological organisms to split hydrogen
- Various techniques to make fermenting cellulosic ethanol a reality
- Improvements in lithium-ion battery cathodes
For more information, see my notes of the symposium presentations..
Posted in Global Warming, Peak Oil, Sustainable Energy
Posted by Max Dunn
Sat, 23 Aug 2008 04:19:44 GMT | 1 comment
So how much does it cost to clean the CO2 from a coal-fired electricity power plant? The numbers of FutureGen’s clean-coal project at the 275 MW Matoon Illinois plant gives an indication. The DOE pulled back on the project last December over the concerns of cost overruns that would likely propel FutureGen’s $1.5 billion cost estimate to $1.8 billion or higher.
Let’s look at the numbers here to see how much this carbon capture would cost. Over a 30 year lifetime, if the plant was operating 80% of the time, it would log 210,000 hours (24 * 365 * 30 * 0.8). So the 275 MW (megawatt) plant would produce 58 billion kWh of electricity over this time. (275,000 * 210,000). So the $1.8 billion cost would add about $0.03 to each kWh of electricity produced (1.8 / 58). Since a coal power plant produces electricity at about $0.03 to $0.04 per kWh, this would effectively double the cost of the electricity it produces. And this doesn’t take into account any ongoing costs of sequestering the carbon.
So with all this talk about clean-coal, we have yet to see an implementation of it at a utility scale power plant and it appears that the cost of carbon capture at a coal-fired power plant using today’s technology would make it uneconomical.
Posted in Global Warming
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:45:42 GMT | no comments
There are many ways to distort the truth. One of them is to suggest something as a possibility and then let uncritical minds repeat it as a fact. This is what is happening with Al Gore’s look at a 20 foot sea level rise.
Read more...
Posted in Global Warming
Posted by Max Dunn
Sat, 07 Jun 2008 02:06:37 GMT | no comments
ZOOM: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future
by Vijay Vaitheeswaran
I wanted to like this book – I really did. With a name like "Zoom" and the promise to show the car of the future, I was excited to read it. But in the end, the book turned out to be at best a dud, and at worst misleading and harmful to the future of transportation.
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Posted in Electric Vehicles, Global Warming
Posted by Max Dunn
Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:24:48 GMT | 3 comments
Sometimes you will hear that electric vehicles produce more CO2 than gas vehicles, however, this isn’t true. Let’s look at an easy CO2 calculation to see why.
Burning a gallon of gas creates 20 lbs of CO2. So a car that gets an average of 20 MPG produces 1 lb of CO2 per mile. Ok so far?
Electric cars get an average of 3 miles per kWh and 1 kWh creates an average of 1.3 lbs of CO2. So an electric car produces about 0.4 lbs of CO2 per mile. So electric cars produce only about 40% as much CO2 as gas cars. Easy, right?
Read more...
Posted in Electric Vehicles, Global Warming
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 01 May 2008 15:51:51 GMT | no comments
Thomas Friedman, author of ‘The World is Flat just wrote a very intelligent op-ed piece for the New York Times titled: ‘Dumb as We Wanna Be’. Here are some edited excerpts:
Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy – this is money laundering. The idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away.
Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering.
The McCain-Clinton proposal is a reminder to me that the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious — the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way. We are in the midst of a national political brownout.
Posted in Global Warming, Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:05:49 GMT | no comments
China has overtaken the U.S. as the world’s biggest contributor to CO2 emissions, and a new study shows it growing much faster than expected.
Previously, experts put growth at 2.5% to 5% per year, but the real rate may be 11%, according to a new study. If this is the case, then between 2000 and 2010, the increase in China’s CO2 emissions will be more than 5 times greater than all the reductions that were expected under the Kyoto Protocol.
(From BusinessWeek, March 24, 2008)
Posted in Global Warming
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:11:04 GMT | 1 comment
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the scientific body that researches climate change for the United Nations (UN) and released their Fourth Assesment Report (AR4) in 2007. There are numerous experts participating in the IPCC, and a lot of good science is contained in these reports.
However, there is a big problem with the summary that is included with the IPCC report – the Summary For Policymakers (SPM). This summary is not written by the scientists themselves but by unnamed bureaucratic delegates from the participating countries. As such, they tend to oversimplify and bias the actual results contained in the full report.
So I found that the Independent Summary For Policymakers to be more balanced and representative of the actual report than the SPM itself. The ISPM was prepared by qualified experts, but who were not themselves IPCC chapter authors. The ISPM was subject to expert review and the reviewer’s responses are tabulated so there is a clear record to the extent that the reviewers agreed or disagreed with the ISPM.
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Posted in Global Warming
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:32:09 GMT | 2 comments
I should ride my bike more. It is good exercise and saves the environment. However, I don’t like to ride my bike on everyday errands.
I was reminded of this today when I got new tires for our car. Like usual, I threw my bike in the back and rode home after dropping off the car. It isn’t far, about 2.5 miles, but I was hot and sweaty when I got home. I was smart this time and brought a piece of string to wrap around my pant leg. Usually I forget this and wind up getting chain oil on my pant leg.
When the car was ready, I rode back to the shop to pick it up, and I was a bit tired.
So it certainly worked out fine to ride my bike, but it isn’t something that I would normally do. Also, for the same reasons, I don’t think we can expect many Americans to forgo their cars and start doing a lot more bike riding either. Good thing I have my electric scooter to scoot around on!
Posted in Random Thoughts, Electric Vehicles, Global Warming, Peak Oil