Climate Progress: An insider's view of climate science, politics, and solutions

While wind and solar get the media attention of a sexy starlet, good old geothermal power is treated like an aging character actor.

But geothermal energy is, in fact, sizzling hot these days. Big-time investors from Warren Buffet to Goldman Sachs to Morgan Stanley to Google have begun investing:

In 2007, private equity firms invested more than $400 million in geothermal energy, which is derived from hot water under the Earth’s surface and can be used for space heating or generating electricity

Why the interest in a form of energy that President Bush repeatedly tried to zero out of the Department of Energy Budget? One reason is the soaring cost of conventional power, like coal and nuclear. Another is the growing awareness of just how much is zero-carbon electricity will need in coming decades.

But perhaps most important for this reemerging technology, in the 2005 energy bill, Congress finally extended the renewable energy tax credit to geothermal “which at 2 cents per kilowatt hour for the first ten years, can account for a third of the cost of a project” — and which will expire in December unless Congress gets its act together (see here)!

The U.S. currently has 3 gigaWatts (3000 megaWatts) of geothermal, one third of the world’s capacity, generating $1.8 billion electricity sales. What is the ultimate potential?

The US Geological Survey estimates the US could generate 150,000 megawatts.

A major 2007 study by MIT on Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) found that it could be a provider of substantial baseload (24/7) power:

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The list of very knowledgeable folk who still are pushing no-till farming as a greenhouse gas mitigation strategy even though science passed them by a while ago include:

• Sen. John McCain (see “Relying on offsets = Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic)
• Princeton University*
• The Chicago Climate Exchange
• The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions

I buried the science in the McCain post, but it deserves higher visibility. As a major review article from Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, “Tillage and soil carbon sequestration–What do we really know?” concluded:

In essentially all cases where conservation tillage was found to sequester C[arbon], soils were only sampled to a depth of 30 cm or less, even though crop roots often extend much deeper. In the few studies where sampling extended deeper than 30 cm, conservation tillage has shown no consistent accrual of SOC [soil organic carbon], instead showing a difference in the distribution of SOC, with higher concentrations near the surface in conservation tillage and higher concentrations in deeper layers under conventional tillage.… Long-term, continuous gas exchange measurements have also been unable to detect C gain due to reduced tillage. Though there are other good reasons to use conservation tillage, evidence that it promotes C sequestration is not compelling.

[Conservation tillage is "broadly defined as any tillage method that leaves sufficient crop residue in place to cover at least 30% of the soil surface after planting.]

This is actually not especially new research. The review article went online in June 2006, and, of course, as a review article, it was based on even earlier research — including a 1981 (!) study that came to the same exact conclusion:

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The best thing about the Prius is that it achieves its high fuel economy without sacrificing size or performance and, most importantly for global warming, without being a diesel. There seems to be a lot of confusion on this point in the comments section of Part One, so let me elaborate.

Bottom Line: If you care about global warming, don’t buy a diesel car (certainly not in this country), and if you must buy a diesel, only get a new one with a very good particle trap. [Does this mean that Europe's massive switch to diesel was not good for the climate? In a word,"probably."]

First, diesel fuel has a considerably higher carbon content than gasoline, so burning a gallon of diesel emits 22.2 pounds of CO2 vs. 19.4 for gasoline (see here). A diesel car with the same mpg as a gasoline car would have considerably higher carbon dioxide emissions per mile. [This is offset one third by the fact that diesel has fewer upstream emissions, which, if I did the math right, takes total life-cycle CO2 emissions from a gallon of diesel to 25.8 pounds vs. 24.2 for gasoline (see here).]

Second, and more importantly, we have known for a number of years that black carbon (BC) or small soot particles are a major greenhouse gas — and that diesel engines are a major source of BC. A March 2008 review article published in Nature Geoscience, (subs. req’d, abstract below), “Global and regional climate changes due to black carbon,” found that BC may be as much as 55% as potent in total greenhouse warming as CO2.

In October, the House held “a hearing to examine the climate change and other impacts of black carbon emissions” (testimony and transcript here). Dr. Mark Jacobson, Co-founder and Director of the Atmospheric Energy Program at Stanford University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, testified directly on how BC emissions significantly reduce the climate benefits from diesel cars (here):

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Wind power is a key climate solution. It is one of the few zero-carbon supply options that can plausibly provide more than one of the 14 or so “wedges” we need to stabilize below 450 ppm of CO2 (see “Is 450 ppm politically possible? Part 2: The Solution“). I plan to go through all of the major solutions this year on the blog.

The stunning new Bush administration report, 20% Wind Energy by 2030 (discussed here), convinced me it was time to write a long piece, which has just been published in Salon. The article–”Winds of change: The U.S. can greatly boost clean wind power for 2 cents a day. Now all we need is a president who won’t blow the chance.“– explains the more than 2,000-year history of wind power, how conservatives cost America the chance to be the world wind leader, and why the global industry is so successful in spite of our government’s relative apathy:

From 2000 to 2007, the industry increased fivefold in size. Last year, $36 billion in wind investments were made around the world, with $9 billion invested in U.S.-based projects. In 10 years, it is expected to nearly quadruple in size.

Yes, I know, most of the media attention goes to a few high-visibility debates about putting wind in places like the waters off Cape Cod. But most installations are a welcome source of revenue to farmers and landowners. In fact, because the new wind turbines are tall, and don’t interfere significantly with grazing or farming, they have become popular in the central U.S., where the wind resource is best in the country. Some ranchers make half a million dollars a year by leasing only a fraction of their land for turbines.

Surprisingly, the top state for wind farms is no longer California as of 2006:

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The Toyota Prius is “the world’s first mass-produced petrol-electric hybrid car to hit 1 million in sales.” More than half of those were sold in North America. Toyota’s goal is to sell more than one million per year.

I own one and must say it is a terrific car. I get about 45 miles per gallon combined city and highway — double the mpg of my old Saturn, which was not as big.

I think the comments from the Wired blog bear repeating, considering how GM (and others) mocked Toyota for pushing what they claimed was a money-losing vehicle:

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