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After the defeat Bryan Walker Jul 31

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“Sometimes dead really is dead — and for this Congress, barring a miracle, climate action is finished. With an ugly election looming in November, it may be years before we get another chance to debate a bill that prices carbon.”

That’s Eric Pooley writing this week in Yale e360. He’s the author of The Climate War, reviewed here a month ago. His e360 article recognises a defeat. But not the war’s end.

“Some will argue that this latest setback is proof that the U.S. will never cap carbon. I reject that view. All we can say for sure is that the U.S. will never cap or price carbon until the politics of the issue change — so the first order of business must be to begin improving the political atmosphere.”

He looks at the main culprits of the current defeat and suggests how strategy might be improved for the future

The Professional Deniers. Their disinformation, amplified via the Internet, helped poison the debate. To counter the deniers’ campaign, President Obama needs to speak out forcefully, and champions of the clean energy economy must point to how effective it is proving.

Senate Republicans. It’s hard to forge centrist solutions when an entire party is denying there’s a problem and vilifying the solutions. A scaled-back approach, one that can be sold as a modest, incremental step and not a new industrial revolution, might fare better.

Senate Democrats. A dozen or more centrist Democrats — from states that either mine coal or produce much of their electricity from it — were dug in against the bill. It is impossible to tell if the senators were truly concerned about what the cap would do to their state economies — nonpartisan studies suggest its impact would be minimal — or just worried about what attack ads would do to them. Again, a more modest first step could change the dynamic.

The Green Group. The Green Group (an unofficial association of the leaders of the big U.S. environmental organisations) held out for an economy-wide bill even after it became clear, in late 2009, that it was unachievable in the Senate. Only recently, and too late, did they try to negotiate a compromise cap on electric power plants, which account for 40 percent of U.S. emissions.

The Power Barons. They sought too much by way of free carbon allowances and regulation easing.  The pleasure some of them took in the demise of the bill may be short-lived as the battle to reduce emissions moves to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the courts. There was only one player with the clout to cut a fair deal with the power barons and he was missing in action.

The President. He chose not to lead on this issue. He never threw himself behind a particular climate bill. He left it to the Senate, the Green Group, and the power bosses — all of whom were sorely in need of adult supervision. To the bitter end, the White House pursued what his aides called a “stealth strategy” that deployed the president only sparingly. It was a colossal failure of nerve, and a decision that likely destroyed any chance of achieving climate action in Obama’s first term.

It may take time to get another shot at legislation, but in the meantime Pooley points to important work to be done. Greenhouse gas emissions have been dropping in the US, and not just because of the recession. Many clean energy projects are under way across the country that save money, create jobs and reduce emissions. Existing regulatory authority can enhance that trend. It won’t be sufficient, but it will provide evidence to voters that cuts are both technologically feasible and economically sustainable.

Until the next legislative opportunity comes the climate war will be waged by cities, states, regional cap-and-trade programmes, and, above all, the EPA. It will be the sort of costly, protracted, plant-by-plant trench warfare the cap was intended to avoid. Since the utilities and the manufacturers weren’t willing to cut a deal, this is what they get. The fragile period of compromise and cooperation between environmentalists and big business may now be coming to an end.

There will be an attempt to strip the EPA of its authority over carbon. That is a fight Obama can’t possibly duck because “it is our last line of defence”.

I welcomed those early bold words of Obama on climate change: “The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all.” Not all the blame for this defeat can be laid at his door, but he has hardly displayed the upfront leadership his words indicated we might expect.

Not that leading from the front would necessarily have produced a different outcome.  Those opposing forces which Pooley identifies are very powerful in American society and Pooley, critical though he is of the President, doesn’t suggest that a head-on collision would have produced a better result. In fact he seems to be suggesting that a more incremental strategy may be the best way to counter the implacability of the bill’s political opponents.

Incidentally, Joe Romm notices that Eric Pooley omits the press from his “Murderers’ Row” listing for the bill’s homicide.  It’s an omission he finds surprising given that in his book Pooley takes the press to task. Romm himself would certainly add them. He even posits that if Obama hadn’t wimped out and had delivered strong public messages the media might well have destroyed the impact by “balancing” it with bad economics and scientific disinformation.

Pooley has followed the climate war closely over a period of three years, as he details in his book. He didn’t predict a successful Senate outcome. Indeed he concluded the book with a picture of campaigners shaking off their blues, throwing back their shoulders, and marching back to the sound of the guns. What else can they do?

Postscript: The kind of pressure the EPA is likely to experience and the robustness of its response can be seen in its recent rejection of petitions challenging its 2009 determination that climate change is real, is occurring due to emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities, and threatens human health and the environment.

Obama’s failed climate strategy Bryan Walker Jul 30

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Obama must take a different tack, says economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, writing in the Guardian. The President has been pursuing a failed strategy of negotiating with senators and key industries to try to forge an agreement, making no headway in the back rooms of the White House and Congress. What he should have done, and still should do, is to present a coherent plan to the American people.

“He should propose a sound strategy over the next 20 years for reducing America’s dependence on fossil fuels, converting to electric vehicles, and expanding non-carbon energy sources such as solar and wind power. He could then present an estimated price tag for phasing in these changes over time, and demonstrate that the costs would be modest compared to the enormous benefits.”

The candidate of change has not presented real plans of action for change. Sachs charges that the administration is in the paralysing grip of special-interest groups. He’s not sure whether this is an intended outcome to secure large campaign donations or just the result of poor decision-making, or maybe a bit of both.

Sachs has several things to say leading up to his urging a presidential plan. He opens with a blunt statement. “All signs suggest that the planet is still hurtling headlong toward climatic disaster.” Yet we still fail to act.

He identifies three major challenges which make action difficult.  First, energy and agriculture (including deforestation to create new farmland) are the two principal sources of emissions, and they are two economic sectors which stand at the centre of the global economy and involve the whole world’s population. It’s no small matter to change those systems.

The second challenge is the complexity of the science, involving many thousands of scientists in all parts of the world. Uncertainties attend the precise magnitude, timing, and dangers of climate change. The general public has difficulty grappling with this complexity and uncertainty, especially as changes occur over a timetable of decades and centuries rather than months and years, and are intermixed with natural variations.

The third problem arises from a combination of the economic implications and the uncertainties of the science. It is the “brutal, destructive campaign” against climate science by powerful vested interests and ideologues, aimed at creating an atmosphere of ignorance and confusion. Major oil companies and other corporates have financed disreputable PR campaigns, exaggerating the uncertainties and absurdly charging that climate scientists are engaged in some kind of conspiracy to frighten the public.

Sachs attacks the Wall Street Journal’s aggressive editorial campaign against climate science, which has been running for decades:

“The individuals involved in this campaign are not only scientifically uninformed, but show absolutely no interest in becoming better informed. They have turned down repeated offers by climate scientists to meet and conduct serious discussions about the issues.”

There is a fourth over-arching problem — the unwillingness or inability of US politicians to formulate a sensible climate-change policy, despite America’s central role in global emissions. When Obama was elected he clearly wanted to move forward on this issue, but will not be able to do so on the path so far chosen.

Sachs’ comment seemed to me to say all the important things with clarity and precision. And he’s in no doubt about what is at stake. We are courting disaster.

“Nature doesn’t care about our political machinations. And nature is telling us that our current economic model is dangerous and self-defeating. Unless we find some real global leadership in the next few years, we will learn that lesson in the hardest ways possible.”

Sachs is no intellectual lightweight. His books The End of Poverty and Common Wealth have been widely read.  He has twice been named as one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” in 2004 and 2005. The clear perception he displays of the central issues of climate change for the US must surely represent a substantial body of educated American opinion. Alas, not yet substantial enough. For the present the babble of denial and delay prevails.

Count to ten Gareth Renowden Jul 29

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This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video.

Heidi Cullen at Climate Central covers the highlights of NOAA’s State of the Climate: 2009 report, released yesterday (NOAA press release here). Key message: ten of the most important climate indicators, with multiple datasets for each, show that the planet is warming.

warmingindicators.jpg

It’s worth digging around at the NOAA site linked above — there are animated graphics of all the key datasets (such as sea surface temperature), and NOAA’s new ClimateWatch site also has some nifty graphics — a climate data dashboard — to play with.

The full report is a 110MB download (here) and covers 2009′s climate and weather events in detail, but there’s a 10 page summary for the impatient here. More coverage at Skeptical Science and the Guardian.

[Dusty]

No energy for change Gareth Renowden Jul 28

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Gerry Brownlee’s draft energy strategy for New Zealand is an interesting read, but not perhaps in the way the government intended. As Bryan discussed in his comment on the strategy, Brownlee puts mining and drilling up front and centre, and relegates environmental and carbon issues to a definite second place in government priorities. You might infer from the document that this is a “strategy” that has been designed to fit with what the government wants to do, rather than what is actually necessary. But what struck me most forcefully was the apparent lack of any well-thought out or detailed context for the strategy. Let’s see if we can supply some, and see where that leads us…

The draft document pays little more than lip service to reducing carbon emissions. This is all the document supplies as context (p4):

Over the next 40 years, New Zealand’s energy mix is expected to change. The international economy will reward efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to address climate change. Energy-related greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand will reduce in the longer term.

The “longer term” appears to be the government’s inadequate “50 by 50″ target, and the only means of achieving it an aspirational commitment to 90% renewable electricity generation by by 2025, plus carbon pricing through the watered-down ETS.

What happens to the world in the “longer term” depends on three things:

  • how the climate system reacts to the amount of carbon currently in the atmosphere,
  • how much carbon we add in coming decades,
  • and how the international community decides to act on both.

There’s a lot of uncertainty attached to all three factors, but uncertainty in this context is not our friend — it cannot be an excuse for doing nothing.

The current level of atmospheric carbon is important because the climate commitment means that we are “locked in” to discovering its impact. If we could freeze atmospheric greenhouse gas amounts at today’s levels, we would still be committed to at least another 20 years plus of warming “in the pipeline”. In other words, there is nothing we can do to stop the changes that are likely to happen in the near term — we can only hope to minimise the future impacts of further emissions.

So what’s likely to happen over the next 20 years? On the face of it, not too much. About 0.4ºC increase in the global average temperature, if the current rate of warming persists. Sounds like gentle warming that we can just adapt to, doesn’t it? But there is a real possibility that the climate system may spring a few surprises. One example: Arctic sea ice is melting well ahead of schedule — a growing body of expert opinion suggests that the Arctic Ocean might be seasonally ice-free within the next decade or soon after, and that has important consequences for northern hemisphere climate. There is a real (non-negligible) possibility that large parts of the planet might find climate changing significantly (and perhaps dramatically) on that sort of timescale.

All anyone can do to plan for this sort of event is to design policy that encourages resilience — the ability to cope with and recover from sudden shocks and disruptions. The possible international reaction to a climate “surprise” is impossible to gauge. Being a cynic, I might suppose that if the impact was being felt in North America, Europe or China then the international community might be goaded into urgent action to respond — and to reduce future emissions. A warm Arctic or starvation in Africa might not be enough on its own…

Barring surprises, how likely is it that the international community will take action to reduce emissions? A year ago, I would have said the chances were good, but post Copenhagen and with the US signally failing to address the issue, the prospects of a major international deal seem more distant. Meanwhile, the reasons why we need to act now are becoming more and more evident. Here’s a table I’ve snipped from the recent US National Research Council report, Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts Over Decades to Millennia (full pdf, reg req’d, exec summary):

NASwarming.gif

Given that we’re around 450 ppm CO2e at the moment (aerosol cooling is doing us a favour by reducing that to an effective CO2e of about 390 ppm), it’s obvious that we’re heading for more than 2ºC — unless we start actively removing carbon from the air. The NRC report also looks at the impacts to be expected, by degree Celsius of warming. Some examples:

  • 5 percent to 10 percent less total rain in southwest North America, the Mediterranean, and southern Africa.
  • 5 percent to 10 percent less streamflow in some river basins, including the Arkansas and Rio Grande.
  • 5 percent to 15 percent lower yields of some crops, including U.S. and African corn and Indian wheat.

Do we act now, at modest cost, in order to limit warming to 2ºC and crop yield reductions to 10-20%, or do we wait a while and see what happens, risking 30% losses and severe droughts in the southwest USA? Fancy gambling with those stakes? Not very attractive odds, either.

From a policy-making perspective, one thing is obvious — the risks are not evenly balanced around some sensible and safe middle course. We are almost certainly committed to 2 degrees — that’s our least bad outcome. The risk that the world will do nothing to restrict emissions is effectively zero (either because of a climate “surprise”, or — we hope — pre-emptive rational behaviour), but there’s no guarantee that we will do enough, at least at first. The question really is when and by how much emissions will be cut, and how best to position policy to respond. It is therefore essential that policy should be flexible, and capable of being tightened over relatively short periods.

The realpolitik of international negotiations means that current commitments to emissions reductions (the Copenhagen Accord numbers) will put the world on target for an increase of 3ºC or higher. At some point the powers that be will realise that they’re steering the ship towards a reef and will attempt to change course. They will have a few options: speed up the pace of emissions reductions, plump for geoengineering, or try both. We will have to hope that it’s not too late to make the turn.

So where does this leave NZ, and Gerry’s energy policy? According to the draft strategy, carbon cost is something for the “longer term”, to be considered only after drilling for oil and mining coal and trying to boost economic growth (it’s the last two pages in the strategy document). There’s no sign that the government has thought through the risk environment for either climatic shocks or resource shortages (though you could argue that drilling for oil makes sense if you expect peak oil sometime soon). They seem to assume that the future will be benign, and that flies in the face of the evidence. I would suggest that a strategy that doesn’t put emissions reductions front and centre isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Steep emissions reductions are going to be required sooner or later (the later they come, the steeper and more expensive they’ll be), so it makes sense to prepare the ground for them now.

An aggressive campaign to cut energy emissions would give New Zealand Ltd a competitive advantage in a carbon-constrained world. Sadly, there’s no sign of that sort of thinking from Brownlee and the government. And that’s a missed opportunity for us all.

PS: I’ve just discovered, courtesy of the Independent, that the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (note the message in the name) has a web-based calculator (a David Mackay idea) that allows you to play with energy policy and emissions, to find out what meeting an 80% cut by 2050 (the UK target, National please note) involves. The equivalent for NZ would be a wonderful tool…

Brownlee’s energy strategy: dig and burn Bryan Walker Jul 26

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The newly released Draft NZ Energy Strategy (PDF, web) is a winding back of the clock from the substantial statement released under the previous government only three years ago. When announcing early in his term as Minister that a new strategy was required Gerry Brownlee complained of the old one:

“You need only read the foreword of the NZES…‘Sustainability’ and ‘sustainable’ are mentioned thirteen times, ‘greenhouse gas’ is mentioned four times, and ‘climate change’ is mentioned three times. That is all very good, but security of supply rates only one mention. Affordability is not touched on at all. Nor is economic growth.”

In his foreword to the new document that has all been put right. ‘Renewable’ is admittedly mentioned twice and ‘environmental responsibility’ once, but where David Parker diluted the economic message by waffling on about sustainability, Brownlee cuts to the chase in his first sentences:

“The overarching goal of the Government is to grow the New Zealand economy to deliver greater prosperity, security and opportunities for all New Zealanders.

“New Zealand is blessed with extraordinary energy resources, which have the potential to make a significant contribution to our prosperity and our economic development.”

Most of us know, he grants, that we have an abundance of renewable resources. Geothermal, hydro, wind, waves, tides, sun. But he has further news for us, and this is where the foreword really comes to life:

“What is less well known is that along with our renewable resources, we also have an abundance of petroleum and mineral resources. More than 1.2 million square kilometres of our exclusive economic zone are likely to be underlain by sedimentary basins thick enough to generate petroleum. Recent reports put New Zealand’s mineral and coal endowment in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

“For too long now we have not made the most of the wealth hidden in our hills, under the ground, and in our oceans. It is a priority of this government to responsibly develop those resources”.

Forget sustainability and all that idealistic carbon-neutral stuff. “The Government’s goal is for the energy sector to maximise its contribution to economic growth.” Which is not to say there isn’t a place for environmental responsibility of course, in fact he puts it down as a fourth priority, after developing resources, promoting energy security and affordability, and achieving efficient use of energy.

The themes set out in the foreword are carried through into the document itself where developing petroleum and mineral fuel resources takes pride of place, ahead of developing renewable energy resources and embracing new energy technologies. The government will help petroleum exploration along by funding seismic studies in prospective basins and also developing a pathway to “realise the potential of New Zealand’s gas hydrates endowment.” New Zealand’s extensive coal resources currently contribute to electricity supply security. Coal is also utilised by industry and is exported. Coal could potentially contribute to the economy in other ways, such as through the production of liquid fossil fuels, methanol or fertiliser such as urea.

A slight recognition that there could be a hitch to coal development: “This potential is more likely to be fully realised if an economic way to reduce high levels of greenhouse gas emissions is found.” But there’s a likely solution: “Carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) will potentially be an effective way of utilising resources while reducing CO2 emissions.”

What does one say to a government who at this stage of awareness of the perils of climate change puts oil, gas and coal at the top of its plans for energy development?  The document allows a place for renewable energy development but gives no indication that government support will compare with what is being put into easing the path to fossil fuel extraction. At the head of the areas to which government research funding will be directed, for example, is “research to improve petroleum and mineral extraction”.

If this is the Minister’s idea of preparing us for a prosperous future one has to wonder what kind of intellectual world he is inhabiting. Certainly not one that has much room for climate science or takes seriously the urgent imperative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Nor is there much sign that he sees any economic potential in the development of renewable energy that can compare with what he’s convinced still lies with fossil fuels.

Yet much of the document has sensible enough things to say about the prospects for renewable energy generation and deployment.  And we can perhaps be thankful that the government is retaining the “aspirational but achievable” target of 90% of electricity generation being from renewable sources by 2025, albeit hedging it with a number of caveats. (Though having read the 2006 report of the Royal Society Panel on Sustainable Energy I fail to see why the target should not be 100% renewable generation by 2020).

In fact the draft document looks a bit like a splice job.  One wonders whether the Minister has insisted on his outdated views being there even if they are in contradiction to more environmentally aware thinking. No contradiction, he will no doubt reply. Look at the words:

  • the economy grows, powered by secure, competitively-priced energy and increasing energy exports (presumably oil and coal), and
  • the environment is recognised for its importance to our New Zealand way of life.

There it is in a nutshell.  Government policy.  Economic development first. Environmental responsibility next.  It’s the wrong order where as enormous a threat as  climate change is concerned, which  incidentally impacts on a good deal more than “our New Zealand way of life” — it can’t be comfortably domesticated like that.

The document is a draft. Public submissions are sought. Gerry Brownlee says he looks forward to your feedback.  Make sure you get some to him by 2 September.

The Carbon Challenge Bryan Walker Jul 25

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The Carbon Challenge: New Zealand's Emissions Trading SchemeEmpty rhetoric.  That’s the verdict on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS ) from Geoff Bertram of the Institute of Policy Studies and Simon Terry, Executive Director of the Sustainability Council, in their searching book The Carbon Challenge: New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme.

They present a picture of governmental processes captured by powerful groups pursuing their own interests at the expense of the rest of the community. Large industry and agriculture have won for themselves exemptions and delays of such an order as to make significant emissions reduction impossible in the first commitment period (CP1) of the Kyoto Protocol. At the same time the costs have been loaded disproportionately on to households and small industry. Those responsible for 30% of emissions will carry 90% of the cost. Agriculture with 49% of emissions will pay 3% of the costs.

The authors don’t accept the claim of the agricultural sector that there are few options open to them to reduce emissions. In fact they claim agriculture offers by far the biggest set of low-cost abatement opportunities. There are a number of options that are not only commercially available but profitable to undertake. They instance means for reducing nitrous oxide emissions – nitrification inhibitors, stand-off pads, new grasses, supplementary maize feed, improved soil drainage.  Selective breeding offers the possibility in due course of some reduction of methane as does the supplementary feeding of various plant matter. The processing of casual effluent from milking sheds through bio-digesters cuts both carbon dioxide and methane. Improved carbon storage in soils through pasture management appears possible as does sequestration through biochar burial. Meanwhile agriculture’s exemption from the ETS bolsters higher land prices. Nice for landowners, but subsidised by the community at large.

In the longer run the ETS exemption is against farmers’ own best interests. It is shielding them from likely winds of change in world markets. The authors instance large companies in other countries seeking low-emissions milk, as Cadbury is doing in the UK,  and point to the likelihood that New Zealand will surrender first-mover advantage to such countries if we continue with our present dogged denial.

There is self-defeat for large industry, also, in the favoured position they have gained for themselves. The ETS opens the possibility of production subsidies for high-emission industries by focusing on the intensity rather than the overall quantity of emissions. It is likely, for example, that Solid Energy would be entitled to subsidies for the manufacture of urea from South Island lignite, even though it would be the country’s biggest single industrial emitter of greenhouse gases after the Huntly power station. By this provision New Zealand could provide a welcoming environment for industries relocating from other Annex I countries, via ‘carbon leakage’ from those economies. Such production subsidies will invite tariff retaliation from other countries and could shut New Zealand exports out of key markets.

New Zealand will emerge from CP1 with a level of emissions considerably higher than the 1990 benchmark to which we are expected to have returned. The role of forestry as a carbon sink to offset the country’s emissions is the subject of close investigation in the book, which warns of the reckoning which must be faced when the trees are cut down. Potentially enormous costs could be faced by the next generation when the final accounting is made. Indeed, the costs may be so high as to raise questions about the country’s ability to meet them. This prospect may see other nations disallowing the plantation forest offsetting practice in successor arrangements after CP1. Permanent forests are a different matter, and the authors see these as a real key to balancing the country’s future carbon budgets. They lament the uncertainties and potential retrospective taxation the forestry sector faces by comparison with the government response to demands from large industrial operations.

The book’s discussion of forestry, as of many other aspects of the ETS, is complex and demanding for the general reader. But the ETS itself is highly complex and often difficult to follow. I can well understand the authors’ claim that it’s a reasonable guess that no more than a handful of MPs understood the detail of what they were voting on in 2008 and 2009. I often found myself struggling to get a proper hold on the ramifications of the various processes the book explores, even though the authors have been exemplary in the patience and thoroughness of their explanations.

It is the exhaustive care they bring to their task which makes the reader respectful of the summary statements which emerge from time to time in the course of their discussion, such as this one:

“The ETS has not been designed to promote economically efficient abatement.  It has been designed firstly to protect and promote the position of vested interests that are unwilling to shoulder asset write-downs required to recognise a price on carbon, and secondly to transfer the costs of this to future generations.”

However there are countervailing forces at work against the formidable clout wielded by agricultural and other major emitter lobbies. The authors nominate three domestic factors which could upset the current political equilibrium. One is the possibility that the lack of trust in the forestry regulatory regime may deter new planting in general and permanent afforestation in particular; this would increase pressure for reform of the ETS.  The second is that sections of the population and the economy will become more concerned about climate change and the lack of any effective action at home to reduce emissions. The third is that the recognition of the size of the carbon debt we are passing to future generations by using forest credits to cover excess emissions may become a moral issue.

They also point to international factors which will put our ETS under pressure. One is the pressure we will come under if international emissions targets move towards being set more on a per capita basis. It would be very risky for us to go forward with gross emissions far above any we could hope to defend in a global commons debate.  Another is the possibility mentioned above of changes to the rules relating to forestry in a CP2 period. A third is the risk of border taxes and other adjustments we could well face from other governments and from private-sector firms if our climate change policy is shown to be incapable of matching the climate change objectives it espouses.

In the ETS we have shied away from the present costs involved in serious action to reduce emissions. But in doing so we have laid up for ourselves the far greater costs which will be the result of doing nothing now. That is the basic warning of the book. New Zealand is part of the developed world and will not be able to escape its fair share of responsibilities as we appear set on trying to do.

Technology advances, politicians hold back Bryan Walker Jul 23

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In the face of the utterly depressing final confirmation that the proposed energy bill has been abandoned in the US Senate in the face of Republican opposition, and the realisation that Obama has let the opportunity die without a fight, as Joe Romm puts it, I cast around for something cheering this morning.  I found it in an interesting article on Chris Goodall’s website Carbon Commentary. The article describes the world’s first molten salts Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant. It’s not the first to use molten salts, in that many of the newer CSP plants use molten salts storage to extend the plant’s daily operating hours, but it is the first to use molten salts not just to store heat but also to collect it from the sun in the first place. Normally, pressurised oil which heats up to around 390 degrees is used to collect the heat.

Molten salts can operate at higher temperatures than oils, up to 550 degrees, thus increasing the efficiency and power output of a plant. With the higher-temperature heat storage allowed by the direct use of salts, the plant can also extend its operating hours longer than an oil-operated CSP plant with molten salt storage, working, the article claims, 24 hours a day for several days even in the absence of sun or during rainy days.

This feature also enables a simplified plant design, as it avoids the need for oil-to-salts heat exchangers, and eliminates the safety and environmental concerns related to the use of oils.

Significantly, the higher temperatures reached by the molten salts enable the use of steam turbines at the standard pressure/temperature parameters as used in most common gas-cycle fossil power plants. This means that conventional power plants can be integrated – or, in perspective, replaced – with this technology without expensive retrofits to the existing assets. The first plant, a small one of 5 MW, located in Priolo Gargallo (Sicily), is fully integrated to an existing combined-cycle gas power plant.

A small comfort, perhaps. However the writer describes it as a top-notch world’s first, expensive at around 60 million euros but with overwhelming scope for a massive roll-out of the new technology at utility scale in sunny regions like Northern Africa, the Middle East, Australia, the US.

Solar power is certain to play a large part globally in a future of renewable energy, if we don’t destroy that future before it arrives, and the constant improvements in harnessing the power of the sun are highly encouraging.

Meanwhile back in New Zealand the government has today released a draft of its proposed new energy strategy, which Gerry Brownlee announced the need for shortly after becoming Minister of Energy because the previous one  was just “an idealistic vision document for carbon neutrality”.  I’ve only had a cursory look so far, but it certainly looks like the great step backwards that he signalled. In the section headed Areas of Focus the leading item is “Develop petroleum and mineral fuel resources.” This is what it means:

“The country already benefits substantially from the revenue gathered from the development and sale of petroleum and coal resources, and both are significant export earners.

“Further commercialisation of petroleum and mineral fuel resources has the potential to produce a step change in economic growth for the country.”

The document does move on to renewables:

“The Government retains the aspirational, but achievable, target that 90 percent of electricity generation be from renewable sources by 2025 (in an average hydrological year) providing this does not affect security of supply.”

But we’re not going to get carried away with aspiration:

“Achieving this target must not be at the expense of the security and reliability of our electricity supply. For the foreseeable future some fossil fuel generation will be required to support supply security.”

There is some useful stuff on renewables and on new technologies, but the minister is obviously unwilling to face the reality of what continuing to produce and burn petroleum and coal actually means for the climate. It means hell and high water, to use Joe Romm’s words in his book of that title. In that book Romm also said that the global warming problem is a now only a problem of politics and political will. Technologies advance, but politicians lag.

Four seasons in three days Gareth Renowden Jul 23

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Changes in climate extremes — the heavy weather — are where society will take “the big hits” of climate change, as I discussed last month. I will therefore need to arrange to be in Wellington (no stranger to weather extremes, it has to be said) for the joint MetSoc (Meteorological Society of NZ) and AMOS (Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society) conference, Extreme Weather 2011 at Te Papa from February 9 – 11. The meeting will include six special sessions each with a keynote address:

  • Extreme weather in the Australasian region – from floods to droughts
  • Impact and meteorology of the main climate drivers (ENSO, SAM, Monsoon)
  • Using high resolution models to understand local meteorology
  • Oceanography of the Australasian region
  • Climate change in the Australasian region
  • Riskscape – Impact of weather on disaster planning in the Australasian region

A good excuse to visit the capital in summer, perhaps? It’ll be windy…

[Disclosure: I'm the least-qualified member of the MetSoc committee.]

[Any excuse for the House]

Climate Conflict Bryan Walker Jul 22

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Climate Conflict: How Global Warming Threatens Security and What to Do About it (Adelphi Series)“How long can these people go on talking about the future as if climate change isn’t going to be part of it, let alone a determining factor?“  That is a question I often enough exasperatedly mutter to myself when listening to politicians or a variety of policy experts discussing the shape of the future with never a mention of the impacts of climate change.

Behind the scenes it may not be as bad as it looks. Gwynne Dyer wrote his book Climate Wars partly because he discovered that climate-change scenarios were playing a large and increasing role in military planning processes.  Chatham House associate fellow Cleo Paskal discussed the need for forward planning for the geopolitical impacts of climate change in her recent book Global Warring. Now the International Institute for Strategic Studies has produced a book by research fellow Jeffrey Mazo, Climate Conflict: How global warming threatens security and what to do about it. I notice incidentally that in his acknowledgements he thanks Cleo Paskal for discussions on climate and security.

He also thanks climatologist Michael Mann for comments on his first chapter. It included an up-to-date summary of the science, depending on the IPCC AR4 reports but also acknowledging that, if anything, their projections underestimated the amount, rate and impact of anthropogenic climate change. Although the book is largely directed to the likely impacts of climate change in the medium term, Mazo has no doubt that, without early and severe reductions in emissions, climate change will be disastrous for the global community in the second half of this century. Such a recognition strikes me as a necessary basis for serious engagement with policy questions.

However, although he hopes effective mitigation policies will be undertaken quickly, it is on the unavoidable effects in the next two to four decades that Mazo’s discussion centres.  In particular he focuses on state failure and internal conflict.

A brief historical survey looks at how climate has been implicated in the collapse of many previous cultures. It’s a complex matter isolating the relative effects of climate change from other stresses undergone by societies in danger of collapse, but he detects it as a common contributing factor in many cases. He includes interesting reflections on the way in which adaptation can be part of the cultural toolkit of societies which value mobility and flexibility. On the other hand some cultural values can work to make societies reluctant to abandon unsustainable lifestyles and prevail against rationality. He also notes that increased complexity in societies means increased fragility when systems finally fail, as in Easter Island and the Mayans, among others. In our own time the wealthier industrial nations are much more resilient to climate shocks than less developed countries, but he posits that if they do reach the breaking point the collapse will be further and faster.

Darfur provides the first modern climate-change conflict. Mazo examines this proposition carefully, paying attention to the variety of analyses that have been offered. He does not think it can be said that the conflict was caused by climate change, if ‘cause’ is meant as both a necessary and sufficient condition. His approach is rather to ask whether climate change has acted as an exacerbating factor or threat multiplier. Following through the various threads contributing to the conflict, many of them environmental, but also economic and governmental, he concludes that if one doesn’t take  a simplistic, reductionist view of causality it becomes apparent that anthropogenic climate change is a critical factor underlying the violence in Darfur.

From the Darfur model the book moves to a wider range of countries where climate change has the potential to affect stability and contribute to state failure. Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Sahel region in particular, is where the greatest number of already fragile states are also among the most vulnerable to climate change. Many other less fragile African countries are highly vulnerable but better placed for adaptation measures. The prospect is for increased volatility as a result of climate change for the most fragile states, and increased risk for more stable ones. Mazo also nominates and discusses some countries outside Africa which are particularly vulnerable to climate change and the deleterious effects it might have on the stability of the state, among them North Korea, Myanmar, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He notes the efforts Bangladesh has already made to reduce its vulnerability through a policy of deliberate protection of coastal mangrove forests, bucking the global trend of deforestation. Selected for closer attention are two less fragile states which have emerged from instability in recent years but are likely to be challenged again by climate change effects.  Colombia faces a high probability of the disappearance of its glaciers by 2035. Projected temperature increases and changes in precipitation could disrupt water and power supplies to large segments of the population, reversing the country’s progress and making a return to violence more likely. Indonesia’s food security is at risk, with agricultural production under threat from likely increased flooding and drought. If the country remains relatively stable it should, with support, be able to adapt to climate change over the medium term. But other stresses within the nation may be heightened by the effects of climate change and lead to a reversal of Indonesia’s progress.

Climate change presents policymakers in the developed world with two different questions. One is how to respond  to acute crises with new or increased military or humanitarian interventions. The other is how to prevent chronic problems caused or exacerbated by climate change through adaptation funds and other forms of aid or support.

The strategic implications are difficult to assess. Climate change is a threat multiplier, but not necessarily more so than the other causes or contributors to instability. However Mazo is clear that it is a new variable which must be taken into account in strategic assessments. And it is a very significant variable – strongly directional, accelerating and  irreversible on the time scales that current planning deals with. Among the points he discusses is the likely part to be played by militaries, not in fighting but in responding to humanitarian crises. He observes that militaries are often the only institutions with the capacity to deploy rapidly in such responses and sees them facing increased demands as such crises intensify and multiply with the increase in frequency and severity of extreme weather events, aggravated by sea level rise. He warns that cutbacks in this role will not only increase humanitarian problems but also result in a loss of prestige and soft power and even a negative reaction to a perceived uncaring West.

The book issues no clarion calls. But there’s no mistaking the underlying message of its careful and seemingly rather abstract low-key discussion. In effect it says to policymakers “You must take climate change seriously and integrate it fully into your understanding of what is happening in the world and into your planning to address global problems.”  About time too, one might add.

[Buy via Fishpond (NZ), Amazon.com (US), Book Depository (UK) and help cover Hot Topic's costs.]

Stephen Schneider 1945-2010 Gareth Renowden Jul 20

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Stephen Schneider, one of the world’s most highly regarded and influential climate scientists, died today aged 65. The climate science community has responded with some heartfelt tributes. Real Climate carries a eulogy from Ben Santer which expresses the feelings of Schneider’s colleagues and the recognition he deserves for his understanding, his courage and his concern for our life on this planet. NZ’s Jim Salinger, at present in Brazil, forwarded his personal response to me earlier today:

My friendship with a great human being Stephen Schneider goes back to 1979. Others have written very eloquently and with feeling about him. As I write this I am numb at this loss of this friend of science, people and life on this planet. Steve was an extremely caring person to his friends as well to all life on earth. We both shared the ‘same page’ about the planet way back in 1979 when we first met. Since then, and as his friend Paul Ehrlich said even then he needed younger folk to follow him to keep reminding politicians and people about our responsibilities to people and the planet. Steve certainly did this and more. As a friend he was always there to help you, as a scientist he had a huge intellect but took pains to explain details on climate science in appropriate language, by using analogies suited to the audience and people he was addressing. He will be sorely missed by all of us, and planet earth has been a better place for his life on this world. My soulmate Carolyn and I had the pleasure of spending time with him only last month, on one evening singing Bob Dylan and other songs as he strummed his 12-string guitar. It was a privilege to know and share time with such a great man. And as Steve and I say in our culture at this time we wish Terry, Becca, Adam and family ‘Long Life’.

Here’s Schneider in 1979, when Jim first met him. 30 years on, Schneider’s careful presentation of the facts looks remarkably apropos [h/t Michael Tobis]:

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Bryan Walker adds: It’s worth recalling some of the things he wrote in Science as a Contact Sport, which I recently reviewed for Hot Topic. Tim Flannery provided the introduction, in which he recalled first meeting Schneider at a conference in Japan a decade ago.

“His words on the danger of a changing climate to biodiversity hit like a thunderbolt, and from then on I was convinced of the truly dire nature of the threat that climate change is to our planet. His presentation was clear, packed with information, and funny. It was the last thing I expected from a great man addressing a serious topic, but I soon learned that one of Steve’s greatest assets is to bring humour to overly serious debates.”

On modelling, of which he was an early exponent:

“If you don’t model, you don’t know anything about the future.”

On the IPCC, in which he was a leading figure:

“IPCC represented the culture of community. We can’t asses complex systems science individually, nor can we solve the global policy problem without coalitions and communities with a common concern.”

In response to Senator James Inhofe when around 2007 he read a statement into the Congressional Record saying Schneider was the father of the greatest environmental hoax:

“I recall sending some email to his office thanking the senator for the honour, but respectfully declining as I have a thousand equally deserving colleagues.”

On the impact of climate change on indigenous peoples:

“No community should be forced from their home or their culture – whether a tropical reef island or a once frozen tundra.”

In response to a NZ reporter on the sacking of Jim Salinger from NIWA:

“Managers are a dime a dozen, world-class scientists very rare. Maybe the wrong guy at NIWA got sacked.”

On the attempts his students sometimes make to comfort him:

“You can at least say ‘I told you so’!”  “Nah,” I reply, “an ‘I told you so’ is really an ‘I failed you so’ – we just didn’t get it done.”

He worried over how many decent people are still taken in by the political chicanery of ideologists and special interests:

“What keeps me awake at night is a disquieting thought; ‘Can democracy survive complexity?’”

His concluding paragraph:

“But most important, for me, as grandparent, parent, and teacher, is to hum in your head often the lines of the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song from decades ago.  The advice is still the most important thing any of us can do as individuals: ‘Teach your children well.’”

Schneider continued actively engaged right up to the time of his death.  It’s only a few weeks since we reported publication of the article he co-authored which investigated the relative credibility of climate researchers and contrarians.  Climate Science Watch interviewed him about the article.  A video clip of some of the interview, well worth watching, is included along with a full transcript.

He felt the full force of American right-wing fringe fury in recent times. He reported recently that he had received hundreds of violently abusive emails since last November, with the number picking up again following publication of  the recent article. He said he had observed an immediate, noticeable rise in emails whenever climate scientists were attacked by prominent right-wing US commentators, such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

Earlier this year his name appeared on a “death list” on a neo-Nazi website alongside other climate scientists with apparent Jewish ancestry.

“The effect on me has been tremendous,” he said. “Some of these people are mentally imbalanced. They are invariably gun-toting rightwingers…I have now had extra alarms fitted at my home and my address is unlisted. I get scared that we’re now in a new Weimar republic where people are prepared to listen to what amounts to Hitlerian lies about climate scientists.”

Sadly climate scientists have to endure many such attacks. But Schneider didn’t shrink from representing fairly and squarely the risks of climate change and the urgency of our need to face up to them. Vilified by a few, he will be honoured by many.

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