Climate Progress

Fresh from its Olympic-record in denier debunking, the National Snow and Ice Data Center has released a new update:

Sea ice extent is declining at a fairly brisk and steady pace. Surface melt has mostly ended, but the decline will continue for two to three more weeks because of melt from the bottom and sides of the ice. Amundsen’s Northwest Passage is now navigable; the wider, deeper Northwest Passage through Parry Channel may also open in a matter of days. The Northern Sea Route along the Eurasian coast is clear.

NSIDC has put together a nice animation (click on figure):

More details below:

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U.S. Lab Claims Solar Conversion Efficiency Record - EE Times. A 40.8 percent efficiency! It is prime time for world records… See the release at NREL’s webiste, here.

More use of CHP could dramatically improve energy efficiency, says report - Energy Efficiency News. Combined heat and power (CHP) is a proven, reliable, efficient and cost-effective technology — but is not being made full use of by all countries, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). Full report here.

Making a Solar Cell Component without Using Fossil Fuels - Scientific American. Cleaner than clean energy: BioSolar creates new plastic backing for photovoltaic cells out of cotton and castor beans rather than petroleum products

Two Large Solar Plants Planned in California - New York Times.
Two California companies said Thursday that they would each build solar power plants that were 10 times bigger than the largest now in service, creating the first true utility-scale use of a technology now mostly confined to rooftop supplements to conventional power supplies.

Southern California Edison Signs 900MW Wind Deal - Earth2Tech
Southern California Edison announced it has signed a 20-year contract for 909 megawatts of wind power from DCE, an affiliate of Caithness Energy.

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An old friend of mine used to say that at a certain stage in political campaigns, dead cats start flying through the air. I’ve never understood what he meant by that, but I think the cat-flinging has begun.

Both candidates are doing their share, but one exchange deserves special analysis: The attack against Barack Obama’s comment about tire gauges. Responding to a question, Obama made the point that acts of conservation by individual Americans can have an impact on rising oil prices. He used tire pressure maintenance as an example.

The GOP has had a field day with that one, suggesting that it’s the most substantive answer Obama has offered to deal with the oil crises. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a prospective GOP running mate, joined in the fun, using a tire gauge as a prop at a campaign event. In facetious recognition of Obama’s 47th birthday, GOPers staff passed out tire pressure gauges, then announced it would sell “Obama Energy Plan” gauges for $25 each. Now, you can get them on E-Bay.

But if conservatives thinks he’s putting pressure on Obama, he’d be wise to gauge the risk. His joke could go flat.

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No, hell hasn’t frozen over — indeed, thanks to global warming, eventually nothing will freeze over, but I digress.

Cato’s online magazine, Cato Unbound, is actually running a series/debate on what to do about global warming — okay, maybe hell is experiencing a little ice age for one month, just like the rest of the planet did in January (see “The Great Ice Age of 2008 is finally over — next stop Venus!“).

Anyway, you can read my article, “A small cost will avoid catastrophe,” here. And no it doesn’t look like they are online magazine takes comments, so you’ll have to put your thoughts on my article and the others below.

I am technically on vacation for two weeks. That probably means I’ll only be blogging about half as much.

Other Climate Progress news: My brother who lives in Minneapolis has a press pass the GOP convention. He is very good at interviewing, and we’re planning to have him do a bunch of podcast interviews of the delegates on energy and climate issues.

If you have any suggested questions, I’d love to hear them.

Here is a very good article on “Parsing Opinion Polls … and Politics … In Covering Offshore Drilling Campaign Issue.” And I’m not just saying that because the author, environmental journalist John Whibey, cites this blog in his analysis, although I suppose that has influenced my decision to repost this article in its entirety. On the blogosphere, as in life, flattery will get you most everywhere. The piece was published on the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media:

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*if the nuke meets government regulations — a big if, as we’ve seen.

The effect of radiation is not a subject I blog on a great deal, although it is a subject I have studied a great deal. Indeed, my uncle, a former nuclear physics professor at MIT, started our family Radon testing business, which was sold off years ago.

I asserted that people should be worried about low doses of radiation, especially cumulatively over time. Charles Barton of The Nuclear Green Revolution commented, “Your low doses over time assertion has been repeatedly falsified by empirical studies.” Quite the reverse is true. As the National Research Council’s Committee to Assess Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation (!) reported definitively three years ago:

A preponderance of scientific evidence shows that even low doses of ionizing radiation, such as gamma rays and X-rays, are likely to pose some risk of adverse health effects, says a new report from the National Academies’ National Research Council…..

“The scientific research base shows that there is no threshold of exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial,” said committee chair Richard R. Monson, associate dean for professional education and professor of epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston. “The health risks — particularly the development of solid cancers in organs — rise proportionally with exposure. At low doses of radiation, the risk of inducing solid cancers is very small. As the overall lifetime exposure increases, so does the risk.”

The research is in fact based on empirical data. You can read the whole NRC report, the seventh in a series on this subject dating back decades, here.

Now to be other interesting question: From a radiation perspective, is it worse to live near a coal plant or a nuclear?

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How much oil can be found in Americans’ car — through more efficient driving and better vehicle maintenance? Using current numbers from the Bush DOE and EPA , the answer appears to be some 2.5 to 3 million barrels a day — 20 times what could be found if we ended the congressional moratorium on offshore drilling (see “The cruel offshore-drilling hoax“) and three times the oil we are likely to find in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (see “Opening ANWR cuts gas prices TWO cents in 2025“).

And these savings would quickly lower Americans’ annual fuel bills perhaps $700 a year , whereas drilling might save them about $12 a year in 20 years.

But let me begin at the beginning. Obama, as everyone knows, has presented detailed national strategies to reduce oil consumption as part of his climate plan months ago (see “Obama’s excellent energy and climate plan“). Now the right wing is all agog at some remarks Obama made yesterday about what individuals can do:

“We could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling if everybody was just inflating their tires and getting regular tune-ups. You could save just as much.”

Limbaugh said:

This is unbelievable! My friends, this is laughable of course, but it’s stupid! It is stupid! … Avoid jackrabbit starts, keep your tires properly inflated, there’s a list of about ten or twelve these things. I said if I follow each one of these things I’ll have to stop the car every five miles, siphon some fuel out, for all the fuel I’m going to be saving. This is ridiculous…. Who has filled his head with this stuff?

Actually, it is probably the Bush administration’s own Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency that has filled him with that stuff. Let’s do the math.

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Fivetime Climate Progress blogger (and former Time magazine reporter) Eric Roston has just published The Carbon Age: How Life’s Core Element Has Become Civilization’s Greatest Threat.

He will be appearing on The Colbert Report tonight at 11:30. I hope he fares better than the Sierra club’s Carl Pope.

If Time magazine can call it “engaging” with a “powerful conclusion,” then I can certainly testify it is the definitive book on the most vital — and most dangerous — element in the universe. Publisher’s Weekly says:

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Solar baseload is, of course, concentrated solar thermal electric (with a few hours of storage), a core climate solution. Earth Policy Institute has a useful update with lots of data,”Solar Thermal Power Coming to a Boil” (reprinted below). Key factoid:

With concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) capacity expected to double every 16 months over the next five years, worldwide installed CSP capacity will reach 6,400 megawatts in 2012–14 times the current capacity.

You can find the existing large solar baseload plants and the 50 or so currently proposed solar baseload plants here.

EPI has an astonishing goal of “cutting carbon emissions 80% by 2020,” with a goal of 200,000 MW of solar baseload worldwide. I think the solar baseload goal is doable, but the carbon goal makes me a techno-pessimist — heck, it makes Al Gore a techno-pessimist. Here is the update by Jonathan G. Dorn:

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