Climate Progress

The Center for American Progress has a terrific new report on “Global Warming and the Future of Coal,” by Ken Berlin and Robert Sussman.

The report explores what to do about the explosive growth in coal plant construction projected for the coming quarter century — 1,400 gigawatts of electricity by 2030, with more than 10% in the U.S. alone.

In the absence of emission controls, these new plants will increase worldwide annual emissions of carbon dioxide by approximately 7.6 billion metric tons by 2030. These emissions would equal roughly 50 percent of all fossil fuel emissions over the past 250 years.

So we must have emissions controls on the vast majority of those plants. The report looks at a variety of policy measures that might achieve that goal and recommends

Requiring all new coal power plants to meet an “emission performance” standard that limits CO2 emissions to levels achievable with CCS systems.

That is the best way to maintain coal’s viability in a carbon-constrained world.

Watch Bob Sussman discuss the report (YouTube)

Watch Ken Berlin discuss the report (YouTube)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A polar bear walks into a bar and says, “When are you going to take action on global warming?”

The bartender, President Bush, says, “If you wait until the very end of my term, maybe we’ll set a goal for 2050. By the way, we don’t get many polar bears in here.”

The bear says, “And with these policies, you won’t be getting many more!” [Ba-dum-bum-CHING! Rimshot — okay, technically a “sting” for all you Wikipedia nerds!]

Seriously, though, the president who invented the double-U turn on climate — who has been blocking real international goal-setting — said today,

So my proposal is this: By the end of next year [translation, when I am almost outta here], America and other nations will set a long-term [translation, when we are all long dead] global goal for reducing greenhouse gases.

(more…)

at 10:45 a.m. unless I get bumped by breaking news.

The subject is not global warming but what this hurricane season may do to oil prices. I will post a video when it’s available.

Yes, the guy in charge of our manned space missions, in charge of our Earth observation, heck, even in charge of our our top climate scientist, James Hansen, is a global warming denier, a Luddite.

NASA administrator Michael Griffin gave his amazing views about climate change on NPR today:

To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t change. First of all, I don’t think it’s within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown. And second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.

So it is arrogant to want to preserve the climate that gave us human civilization, to avoid 80 feet of sea level rise, mass desertification, and the like. He really needs to talk to one of his employees about just what dangerous climate change means for this planet.

Note to self–do not fly on any space shuttles while this guy is in charge of making sure all the sophisticated technology works as planned.

The Best of The Top Songs About Global Warming:

• Another One Burns to Dust
• Surfin’ East L.A.
• I Want to Scald Your Land
• All My Exes Emit Greenhouse Gasses
• Hot’rnhell California
• Big Girls Don’t Fry
• We Didn’t Start the Fire, Because There Is No Fire; Well, Maybe There Is a Fire, but We’re Not Fueling It — It Was Always Burning While the World Was Turning; OK, We Are Fueling It, But We Won’t Put It Out Because It’s Not Profitable to Do So (Yet)
• Ice, Ice, Maybe
• Dry Me a River
• (I Can’t Get No) ‘Fridgeration
  and the Number 1 Song About Global Warming…
• You Can Cool Me, Al

Go to the Schlumberger Excellence in Educational Development website, and click on “The Climate Challenge” in the upper right hand corner.

It was only a matter of time before Planet Gore got around to the most famous bit of disinformation.

The big lie is to tout the fact that the air has gotten cleaner in recent decades while conveniently ignoring the fact that the reason for this achievement is environmental activism leading to tough air pollution standards. Progressives must push back hard on this big lie (something John Kerry failed to do with George Bush in the second Presidential debate).

Planet Gore proclaims proudly today:

Imagine this headline on page A1 today: “The environment is getting cleaner.”

Given the daily state of fear in America’s media, that would be news to most Americans. But as Joel M. Schwartz reveals in a National Center for Policy Analysis study “pollutants have been reducing steadily for the past several decades.”

The post goes on to cite the sharp reduction in lead, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and fine particulates–and then marvels: “All this improvement has come at a time of increased motor vehicle use, energy production and economic growth.”

Needless to say, PG does not go on to thank environmentalists or the EPA for this impressive achievement. No, for PG, it was all magic. The final paragraph is the height of chutzpah:

Of course, enviro-activists and their press allies will tell you none of this as their power relies on keeping the public spooked. But it also explains why Greens are trying to get carbon dioxide classified as a pollutant — because real pollutants are getting scarcer and scarcer.

Have they no shame? Real pollutants are getting scarcer thanks to clean air regulations. That’s why we need to set greenhouse gas emissions standards — so we can achieve the same “magical” reductions in climate-destroying pollutants. Note the other clever disinformation–The Supreme Court has already decided carbon dioxide classified as a pollutant. The Greenies have won that round, thankfully

Progressives must push back on this Big Lie whenever it comes up. And we must speak up for the environmental standards that have given us the clean air that everyone, including the dirty dozen at PG, are so thankful for.

It depends on the fuel used to drive the conversion process — acording to a new study:

In particular, greenhouse gas emission impacts can vary significantly–from a 3% increase if coal is the process fuel to a 52% reduction if wood chips are used.

These results come from the energy life-cycle wizards of Argonne Lab who have published a new study, “Life-cycle energy and greenhouse gas emission impacts of different corn ethanol plant types,” in the open-access Environmental Research Letters.

Here is a figure showing “Well-to-wheels greenhouse gas emission changes by fuel ethanol relative to gasoline.”

The greenhouse gas benefit from most corn ethanol is modest at best unless the energy source is biomass such as wood chips. And other studies have found no climate benefit from corn ethanol.

Thus, corn ethanol should not be viewed as a major climate solution because its ultimate supply is limited and its climate benefit small or non-existent. Its main role should be as a transition fuel to the Holy Grail of biofuels — cellulosic ethanol, which reduces total greenhouse gas emissions a whopping 86% relative to gasoline and which is potentially available in abundance.

Lurking in the shadows of U.S. and Chinese emissions is India:

India Says Emissions Will Fall by 25 Pct by 2020 - Reuters. The author of this article is confused, or perhaps was simply misled by Ghosh, India’s environment secretary, who is quoted saying, “Our modelling approaches show the effect of many of our policies taken together that the year 2020 will result in a more than a 25 percent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions.”

Ghosh has almost certainly neglected to add “relative to projected growth” (or possibly in Bush-esque fashion the single word “intensity“ was omitted by Ghosh or the reporter). India’s emissions in 2020 will certainly be considerably higher than they are today (assuming they continue rejecting mandatory targets), as they are growing rapidly and relying heavily on their abundant coal resources.

Report: India to reject proposal at G-8 summit to cut greenhouse gases - International Herald Tribune. This second story confirms the first one is wrong. Ghosh is quoted here opposing greenhouse gas limits: “Legally mandated measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions are likely to have significant adverse impacts on GDP growth of developing countries, including India.” Obviously, if India were going to achieve a 25% reduction in absolute emissions by 2020, they would not oppose mandated emissions targets.

The tragedy of India’s intransigence is that, as Ghosh says in the first article, “Climate change impacts will largely affect the poor and their livelihoods and lives will be at risk.”

General Motors is apparently serious about introducing a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, which I have repeatedly argued is the car of the future. The race is now on between Toyota and GM as to who will be the first to introduce this game-changing vehicle.

The Chevy Volt is to be the “legacy” of Robert Lutz, GM’s vice chair of product development, according to Business Week’s “Auto Beat” column. The Volt will go about 40 miles on an electric charge before reverting to be a regular gasoline-powered hybrid.

Given that the vast majority of trips are under 20 miles round trip, the Volt will consume very little gasoline most of the time. And the per mile cost of running a car on electricity is under one third that of running on gasoline, plugs ins are indeed more than a game-changer.

Business Week shares our enthusiasm for plug ins:

I can’t help thinking that this technology will make the current crop of hybrids like the Toyota Prius and Ford Escape look like Ford Excursions… The technology would create viable vehicles that get the equivalent of more than 100 miles per gallon of gasoline.

Even game changer isn’t strong enough: “Make that a world changer.”

If they are serious about plug ins and beat Toyota to market, they will have reasserted their leadership in electric drivetrain technology, which they abandoned so short-sightedly several years ago.