Month: January 2017

As might be expected, much of the news related to climate and energy this week has focused on the Executive Branch and the often contradictory signals about what the Trump Administration (TA) will/won’t do to/about government climate science and related activities.  Since there is so much confusion and press about what is happening, I will limit the number of items I include on this subject.  One example of contradictory signals had to do with climate change information on EPA’s website.  As reported by Robin Bravender and Hannah Hess for E&E News (and reprinted by Science), at first EPA employees were told to scrub all such information from the website, but then were told not to do so.  The Washington Post also covered the story, with a little more historical perspective.  On Wednesday, the lawyers for the 21 children suing the federal government, the fossil fuel industry, and related trade associations hit them with a legal preservation notice.  If a judge agrees, they would all be prohibited from deleting files, taking down websites, etc. without archiving them first.  One development that is in line with the worst fears of anyone concerned about the climate is that computer scientist David Gelernter, a Yale University professor, is being considered for the role of science adviser in the TA.  For this, and other reasons, some leaders of U.S. scientific societies are concerned about the policies of the TA and the keepers of the Doomsday Clock have advanced it forward 30 seconds, making it the closest it has been to midnight since 1953.  There has also been much speculation about what the TA can do about environmental regulations issued by the Obama Administration.  Coral Davenport of The New York Times interviewed several lawyers and legal scholars about this question and has a good summary.  Also, a new tool launched by the Columbia Law School is tracking every step the TA takes to roll back or eliminate existing federal rules on climate change and energy.

In response to the policies of the TA, a new People’s Climate March is being planned for Washington DC by a steering committee of more than two dozen organizations.  Bill McKibben recently wrote about the march in Rolling Stone magazine.

In December there was an interesting infographic online about the reliability of news sources that I missed, but which you will probably find interesting.  While I take some comfort in fact that many of my sources come from the center and upper center, I also must note one of the comments: “The definition of irony: Getting info on what news to trust from an image sharing site…”  The source of the infographic is here.

Climate

A new report by the European Environment Agency (EEA), Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe, has found that extreme weather cost Europe more than $378 billion and ended the lives of 85,000 people over the last three decades.  Furthermore, during the 1980s, the damages averaged about $8.2 billion a year, but by the 2000s the figure had risen to $14.7 billion a year.  While the EEA expressed caution about how much of this could be attributed to climate change, it warned that weather was likely to get worse as the global temperature continues to rise.  In particular, it stated that Europe’s Atlantic-facing countries will suffer heavier rainfalls, greater flood risk, more severe storm damage, and an increase in “multiple climatic hazards.”

Scientists in Sweden have discovered a complex chain of events that increases the level of methylmercury in estuaries and oceans as global temperatures rise in response to climate change.  The increased levels of methylmercury, in turn, increase the level of mercury in fish, thereby elevating human exposure to mercury.  The research was published in the journal Science Advances.

A new study published in Global Challenges: Climate Change has found that “inoculation” may provide the key to effectively debunking misinformation.  The study provides a key message for those fighting against the growing “post-truth”, “alternative facts” culture: facts by themselves are insufficient, but explaining the flaws underpinning associated misinformation can help weaken its effect and increase public acceptance of the facts.

NOAA has released a new technical report on projected sea level rise written by scientists at NOAA, USGS, EPA, and Rutgers University.  The purpose of the report is to update sea level rise projections used by coastal planners in the U.S.  Since the last report in 2012, the increased understanding of sea level rise suggests that under a worst-case scenario, climate change could raise the oceans an average of more than 8 feet by 2100, about 20 inches more than the previous estimate.  Tom Avril reports on what this might mean for the Jersey Shore.

Most articles I link to about Arctic ice are rather coldly analytical (no pun intended).  But in a beautifully written piece for Hakai Magazine, Eli Kintisch describes what changes in the shoreline ice in northern Canada mean to the 1400 residents of Nain, the largest community in Newfoundland and Labrador’s self-governing Nunatsiavut territory.

Energy

Ivy Main has a new post on Power for the People VA about the renewable energy bills that are still alive in the Virginia General Assembly.  The major foci of the two bills in the Senate are on community solar and small agricultural generators.  Bills in the House will be heard by the energy subcommittee on Tuesday afternoon.

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe’s office has announced that Pennsylvania-based Community Solar Energy will build a 100 MW solar energy facility in Southampton County.  Amazon Web Services will purchase power from the new facility.  Speaking of solar energy, in early 2011 U.S. utility fixed-tilt system pricing was close to $4.00/watt.  In early 2017 it is below $1.00/watt, thanks in part to the DOE loan program, which has a loss ratio of 2.33% on $32 billion in commitments.

In contrast to other projections, BP’s Energy Outlook for 2017 predicted that in spite of growth in electric cars and renewable energy, oil demand will still be rising in 2035 because of rising prosperity in emerging Asia.  In addition, the report predicted that global energy demand will grow nearly a third by 2035 and that fossil fuels will still account for 75% of the energy mix, although renewables will be the fastest-growing energy source in coming years.  Carbon Brief had an analysis of how BP’s Energy Outlook has changed over the years.

Just 27% of Americans surveyed this month by the Pew Research Center said they thought the U.S. should prioritize expanding the coal, oil, and gas industries, while 65% thought alternatives like wind and solar should be the priority.  However, adding more renewable energy sources to the grid presents significant challenges, as this article about the Midwest illustrates.  Unfortunately, instead of trying to solve those challenges, some politicians in Indiana appear to be trying to kill rooftop solar.  A new bill in the Indiana legislature would not only eliminate net metering, it would mandate a “buy all, sell all” solar model, in which homeowners with solar panels must sell all the electricity they generate to their power provider at wholesale price and then buy all the electricity they use at retail cost.  Since such a model doesn’t recognize any of the benefits provided to utilities by resident-owned solar panels, let’s hope it gets shot down.

The Long Island Power Authority approved the nation’s largest off-shore wind farm on Wednesday.  It will be between the eastern tip of Long Island and Martha’s Vineyard, although it will not be visible from the former and barely visible from the latter.  The initial phase of the project will have only 15 turbines, but the site contains sufficient space for 200.  Speaking of off-shore wind energy, MHI Vestas Offshore Wind has unveiled its new 9 MW wind turbine, which broke the energy generation record over a 24 hour period.  Meanwhile, in the Midwest, the proximity of regional transmission lines appears to be a big factor in the siting of new wind farms.

Although the findings are primarily associative, an increasing number of scientific studies is suggesting that exposure to ultra-small particles of air pollution from automobiles and other combustion sources can increase the risk of dementia.  This, in turn, suggests that there might be additional benefits associated with moving away from fossil fuels.

On Tuesday, President Trump invited TransCanada to reapply for a permit to build the Keystone XL pipeline and on Thursday they did so.  At the same time, President Trump signed an executive order instructing the Army Corps of Engineers to “review and approve in an expedited manner” the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).  The Standing Rock Sioux chairman David Archambault II warned the TA that the legal issues around the DAPL are not subject to change “simply by the president’s whim,” and that the executive order shows a “disregard for tribal diplomatic relations and the potential for national repercussions.”  Bill McKibben had an op-ed piece in The New York Times on President Trump’s actions.

The DOE has released its 2017 U.S. Energy and Employment Report.  Unfortunately, the news reports that I’ve seen so far appear to have misinterpreted some of the numbers relative to renewable energy, so I haven’t linked to them.  On a related topic, Paul McDivitt at Ensia has an interesting opinion piece asserting that many news articles tend to inflate the contribution of renewables to total electricity generation.  It is a cautionary tale worth reading.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

On Wednesday President-Elect Trump’s nominee to head EPA, Scott Pruitt, appeared before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, while on Thursday his nominee to head DOE, Rick Perry, appeared before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.  As was done last week, Science magazine had reporters following the hearings and they have prepared a summary of major points covered in the Pruitt and Perry hearings, as well as others in which science policy was discussed.  Science staff also compiled a list of ten questions scientists might like Perry to answer.  As pointed out by Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney at The Washington Post, there was a remarkable degree of consistency among the nominees regarding climate change.  Indeed, Zack Colman and Amanda Paulson at The Christian Science Monitor argued that the nominees are amplifying small disagreements among model projections to sow doubt about the widely-held conclusion that humans are driving emissions higher and raising temperatures, mainly from burning fossil fuels.  In a recent issue of Nature Climate Change, climate modelers Ben Sanderson and Reto Knutto wrote that if the Trump administration caused 4 to 8 years of U.S. inaction on climate change, it would set back climate efforts by 15 to 25 years.  Science writer Dan Grossman interviewed Sanderson and the transcript was posted on Yale Climate Connections.  Finally, at The New Yorker, Madeline Ostrander interviewed William Ruckelshaus, the first administrator of EPA, to learn about EPA’s history and powers, and science writer Elizabeth Kolbert presented her views on the Pruitt hearing.

Our Children’s Trust issued a press release announcing that the U.S. Department of Justice had filed its answers to the youth plaintiffs’ complaint in Juliana v. United States, the lawsuit being brought by a group of young people alleging that governmental action against climate change is insufficient to protect their future rights.  In the press release they listed several allegations admitted by the defendants.  Climate Home had a post about this development.

Climate

NASA, NOAA, and the UK Met Office/University of East Anglia all confirmed that 2016 was the hottest year on record globally, making it the third year in a row to set a record.  As Chris Mooney of The Washington Post explained, NASA and NOAA disagree on the global average temperature in 2016, primarily because of differences in the way they handle temperatures in the Arctic, with NASA posting a slightly higher temperature.  Roz Pidcock at Carbon Brief offered more details about the year, along with an interview with Gavin Schmidt of NASA.  Schmidt had a post on RealClimate about the new record and James Hansen’s team at Columbia University provided a deeper analysis.  The New York Times provided an interesting interactive showing the daily temperature range from AccuWeather during 2016 for more than 5,000 cities worldwide.

NOAA and Princeton University scientists produced the first global analysis of how climate change may affect the frequency and location of mild weather. The scientists defined “mild” weather as temperatures between 64°F and 86°F, with less than a half inch of rain and dew points below 68°F, indicative of low humidity.  The research, published in the journal Climatic Change, projects that by the end of the century the tropics will lose milder days while the U.S., Canada, and northern Europe will gain them.

A new paper in Nature Communications examined the impact of business-as-usual CO₂ emissions on the yields of corn, wheat, and soybeans at the end of this century in the U.S.  The study found that under rain-fed conditions the yields will fall 49%, 22%, and 40% for the three crops, respectively, compared to yields today.  The expected boost from the extra CO₂ in the atmosphere did little to reduce the loss.  Irrigation, on the other hand, largely eliminated the loss in yield, suggesting that it was primarily due to water stress associated with the elevated temperatures.

A new study published in the journal Science compiled estimates of sea surface temperatures during the last interglacial period, which lasted from about 129,000 to 116,000 years ago.  The global annual mean temperatures were indistinguishable from the 1995–2014 mean.  This is a sobering point, because sea levels during the last interglacial period were 20 to 30 ft higher than they are now.  It should be noted that it would take centuries for sea level to come to equilibrium with temperature.

Global sea ice is now the smallest it has been since measurement began in 1978.  This is due to declines in both the Arctic and the Antarctic.  In the Arctic, sea ice extent is running well below last year, as well as below the expected range observed from 1981-2010.  Sea ice growth is being hampered by a surge of warm air and stormy weather.  Unfortunately, as sea ice melts, more open water is exposed to solar radiation, allowing it to absorb heat, reinforcing Arctic warming.  A new study published in the journal Earth’s Future found that to offset the warming associated with a full month free of Arctic sea ice, global CO₂ emissions would need to reach zero levels 5–15 years earlier and the carbon budget would need to be reduced by 20%–51%, depending on what happened to sea ice thereafter.

A new survey from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication taken after the election has revealed several important findings relative to climate change.  Sixty-one percent of Americans describe themselves as ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ worried about climate change, with 19% being very worried.  Furthermore, 55% understand that climate change is mostly caused by human activity.  Sixty-nine percent of registered voters think the U.S. should participate in the Paris Climate Agreement and 70% support proposals to set strict CO₂ emission limits on existing coal-fired power plants.

A study of the rings of Picea balfouriana trees, a type of spruce that can live for more than 300 years, revealed that climate change started impacting the Tibetan Plateau as early as the 1870s, at the start of the industrial revolution.  The results were published in the journal Nature Communications.

Energy

According to Greenpeace, China has suspended work on 104 coal-fired power plants with a total capacity of 120 GW that were being planned or were under construction.  A follow-up story provides a map of the locations of the suspended projects as well as more background on the suspensions.  However, coal is still a powerful industry in China and this has hampered full use of the many large wind farms being built.

A group of 13 companies, called the Hydrogen Council, is pledging to invest more than $10 billion during the next five years to accelerate infrastructure-construction and technology advancements to support hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.  The group says that hydrogen “can play an important role in the transition to a clean, low-carbon, energy system.”  Nevertheless, Europe and China are still moving forward with battery-electric vehicles, even though sales have slumped in the U.S.

Within an hour of President Trump’s swearing-in, an “America First Energy Plan” was posted on the White House website and all reference to climate change was removed.  Although written before that posting, Julia Pyper at GreenTech Media reminded us that the U.S. is losing the race on clean energy innovation and examined courses of action that might be taken to develop a truly innovative energy plan.  Meanwhile, even some states led by Republican governors are considering strengthening their renewable energy portfolio standards as a way of stimulating job growth.

According to Jeff St. John at GreenTech Media: “Last summer, First Solar and California grid operator CAISO ran a set of tests to show that utility-scale solar PV, instead of being a disruptive influence on the power grid, could actually help stabilize it.··· All told, the data from CAISO, First Solar and the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) indicates that a utility-scale solar farm, equipped with standard inverters and software controls, can serve to smooth out grid fluctuations from the solar itself or from other sources.”

Energy storage with batteries is beginning to see more application, on both large and small scale.  On the large side are the utility scale installations in California that are being made in reaction to the large natural gas leak in the fall of 2015.  On the small side is the installation at Sierra Nevada brewery, which is being used to reduce peak energy charges, thereby reducing cost.

Small modular nuclear reactors were in the news this week.  TVA has submitted an early site permit application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for the site to be approved and ready if such plants are ultimately developed and TVA decides to pursue them.  Meanwhile, NuScale Power, based in Portland, Ore., has submitted a design for a small modular nuclear power plant to the NRC for approval.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

During the Christmas break Jeff Goodell had an interview in Rolling Stone with climate scientist James Hansen, but I missed it.  Even though it didn’t come out this week, I thought you might find it of interest.

Last week I provided a link to an article about the eco-right and how they are working to combat climate change.  On Tuesday Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D, RI) had an opinion piece in The Washington Post entitled “Republicans want to fight climate change, but fossil-fuel bullies won’t let them.”  Of course, as indicated by last week’s link, not all businesses are opposed to action to combat climate change.  For example, more than 530 companies and 100 investors are calling on the Trump administration and the new Congress to support policies to accelerate a low-carbon future.  Furthermore, on Monday, President Obama had an article published in Science in which he asserted that the clean-energy revolution is irreversible and highlighted the economic benefits of cutting carbon emissions and investing in renewable energy.

On Tuesday the National Academy of Sciences issued a report entitled “Valuing Climate Damages: Updating Estimation of the Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide.”  The social cost of carbon dioxide is an important metric used in doing cost/benefit analyses required when promulgating federal regulations.  It also will be central to any discussion of a carbon tax.  Andrew Revkin examines this important parameter and its possible future during the Trump administration.  Chelsea Harvey also has an excellent discussion of the metric.

Climate

In a report released Thursday, the World Economic Forum summarized the opinions of 750 experts on what the most likely and most impactful risks facing humanity are in 2017.  Extreme weather ranked as the most likely and the second-most impactful risk.  Several other factors also influenced by climate change ranked high on the risk matrix.

Late in the day last Friday (Jan. 6), climate reporter Eric Holthaus took to Twitter to share his despair about climate change and how he is dealing with it.  Then on Wednesday of this week, Andrew Freedman, a climate reporter to whom I frequently link, devoted his column on Mashable to the emotional toll of covering climate change.  Members of the Education and Events committee of CAAV are currently developing plans for providing a space where people in the Harrisonburg area can have open discussions about climate change, including how it is making them feel.  Look for an announcement soon about the first meeting.

The extent of sea ice globally took major hits during 2016, according to an analysis released January 6 by the National Snow and Ice Data Center.  At both poles, “new record lows were set for both daily and monthly extent,” according to the analysis.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a plan to save the threatened polar bear.  Unfortunately, it identified the rapid decline of sea ice as “the primary threat to polar bears” and said “the single most important achievement for polar bear conservation is decisive action to address Arctic warming,” something it has no control over.

A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has reported that short-lived greenhouse gases (such as methane) contribute to sea level rise due to thermal expansion of the ocean over much longer time scales than their atmospheric lifetimes.  In addition, the paper reported that the longer the world waits to reduce methane emissions, the longer seas will stay elevated.

A report from the Japanese environment ministry said that around 90% of the coral in Okinawa Prefecture’s Sekisei lagoon had suffered bleaching because of high water temperatures and that 70% had died.  The lagoon covers an area of approximately 150 square miles and had been a popular dive destination.

A week of powerful storms has significantly eased California’s water shortage, pulling nearly all of Northern California out of drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.  However, much of Central and Southern California, are still locked in what officials classify as “extreme drought” — or worse.

A new report updating the plan for climate-related research at 13 federal agencies until 2021 was submitted to Congress this week by the U.S. Global Change Research Program.  For the first time it calls for research into geoengineering, specifically CO₂ removal from the atmosphere and reflection of infrared energy from the sun.

Energy

Ivy Main has a new blog post in which she summarizes the energy-related bills before the Virginia General Assembly this session.

The Department of the Interior released a report on Wednesday calling for major changes to the federal program by which the U.S. manages the leasing of publicly-owned land to companies for exploration and production of coal.  The report proposes a series of changes to the current program, including charging a higher royalty rate, factoring in the climate impact of the coal by imposing an additional charge, and setting an overall carbon budget for the nation’s coal leasing program.  Speaking of coal, NRG Energy Inc said on Tuesday it had begun operations at a $1.04 billion carbon capture facility at a Texas coal-fired power plant.  This is the largest carbon capture project of its kind in the world.

New investment in clean energy worldwide fell to $287.5 billion in 2016, down 18% from a record high of $348.5 billion in 2015, according to new research from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.  The primary cause of the investment drop was a slowdown in China and Japan.  In spite of that, clean energy investment in China is outpacing investment in the U.S., causing Joel Jaeger and coauthors at the World Resources Institute to state: “China is poised to leap ahead of the United States on clean energy to become the most important player in the global market.”  Still, questions remain about China’s CO₂ emissions.  In a “Memo from China” to The New York Times, Edward Wong examines the factors influencing China’s ability to accurately measure and report those emissions.

A new study by Abt Associates finds that the nine member states of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) (the six New England states plus New York, Delaware, and Maryland) have cut emissions two and a half times more than non-RGGI states while reaping $5.7 billion in benefits due to savings in health care costs and restored productivity.  On a related note, a new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory examined states’ renewable energy goals and found that, while renewables add costs, they more than make up for it in the health and environmental benefits they provide.

Automakers, both here and abroad, are working to bring to market a new generation of fuel-saving vehicles.  Those efforts are summarized by Jason Mathers of the Environmental Defense Fund.  Despite that, most of automakers’ advertising is for cars with traditional internal combustion engines.  Ariel Wittenberg looks at this practice on E&E News.  Finally, the EPA has rejected a request from the auto industry to weaken fuel efficiency standards for model years 2022 through 2025.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

As we near the start of the Trump administration, Kate Aronoff of The Atlantic provides a rundown of the “eco-right” and how it might combat climate change.  Then for a reality check, you might want to read the article by Jennifer Dlouhy in Bloomberg Politics about the Institute for Energy Research and the associated American Energy Alliance, which appear to have Trump’s ear on energy matters, at least during the transition.

Climate

In a new paper, climate economist William Nordhaus has added his voice to the chorus pointing out the difficulty of holding global warming below 2°C.  After incorporating the newest information into his economic model, known as DICE, he concluded: “The international target for climate change with a limit of 2°C appears to be infeasible with reasonably accessible technologies – and this is the case even with very stringent and unrealistically ambitious abatement strategies.”

You may recall that in the summer of 2015 NOAA scientists became the target of Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Committee on Science, when they published a paper updating global temperature data by reconciling old and new techniques for estimating sea surface temperature.  The apparent problem was that the new record wiped out the “hiatus” in global warming and Smith thought the findings were politically motivated.  Now a new (and totally independent) study has shown that the NOAA scientists were correct.  John Abraham at The Guardian reports on the study while Robert McSweeney at Carbon Brief takes a deeper dive into the data analysis.  Also in The Guardian, Dana Nuccitelli explores the presumed “hiatus” and warns against its resurrection with 2016 as the starting point.  Finally, in his column, Abraham mentions Judith Curry, a climate scientist at Georgia Tech who has been a vocal critic of “climate alarmists.”  She has just announced her retirement because of the “craziness” in the field.  Scott Waldman at E&E News reports on an interview of her.

On Sunday, there was a fascinating article by Chris Mooney on the front page of The Washington Post about the efforts of two scientists to retrieve data from their instruments on the Petermann Ice Shelf on Greenland.  The electronic version contains an equally fascinating video.  A wonderful combination of human interest, science, and beautiful scenery; a must-see.  Scientists at World Weather Attribution have turned their attention to the Arctic warming that has occurred this fall and have concluded that it is both unprecedented and likely caused by climate change.  Although the study has not been peer-reviewed, other scientists contacted by Chris Mooney at The Washington Post agreed with its conclusions.  At the other pole, scientists watching the growing rift across the Larsen C ice shelf warn that at some point soon the ice shelf will shed an iceberg the size of Delaware.  This will have no impact on sea level, however, because the ice shelf is already floating, but it could well speed up the flow of the glacier toward the sea.

A new study published in the journal Nature suggests that when climatic conditions in the tropical Atlantic are conducive to the formation of hurricanes, they also create a buffer zone that weakens the storms as they approach the U.S. coast.  Conversely, during periods of low hurricane activity, those storms that do form are likely to become stronger as they approach the U.S. coast.

The ocean current known as the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) transfers a lot of heat from the south to the north Atlantic Ocean, thereby modulating temperatures in Europe.  Because there is concern about how accurately the AMOC is handled in climate models, a group of scientists has compared models with greater and lesser sensitivity to the AMOC to determine how important the AMOC is to future warming.  The results, published in the journal Science Advances suggests that climate models need to better represent the AMOC if they are to accurately predict changes hundreds of years from now.  A second study published in Geophysical Research Letters sought to determine the impact of meltwater from Greenland and determined that AMOC collapse could be avoided by CO₂ mitigation.

In addition to likely being the hottest year on record globally (the final tally hasn’t yet been released), 2016 was also a record year in the U.S. for several categories.  For example, 98% of weather stations had a warmer than normal year, the largest percentage in 95 years of record keeping, and 85% of extreme temperature records were of the hot variety.  In addition, 19 separate floods occurred, the largest number since records began in 1980.  Furthermore, according to a new paper in Geophysical Research Letters, this trend is likely to continue, at least in the northeastern U.S.

One impact of warming global temperatures is on bird migration.  A new study, published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, which looked at hundreds of species across five continents, found that birds are reaching their summer breeding grounds on average about one day earlier per degree of increasing global temperature.  That may not seem like much, but arriving early can cause birds to miss out on valuable food sources, with dire effects.  In fact, this is thought to be one of the problems facing red knots, one of the Arctic breeding shore birds that are in decline.

Energy

Two reports projecting future energy use were released this week.  The U.S. Energy Information Administration released its Annual Energy Outlook on Thursday in which it projected that the amount of energy Americans use and the pollution from it are not likely to change radically over the next 30 years.  The most surprising finding was that the fate of the Clean Power Plan will have little impact on energy-related CO₂ emissions through 2040.  The other report was the annual Outlook for Energy from ExxonMobil, which also looked out to 2040.  The company believes global energy demand will increase by 25%, but CO₂ emissions will rise by only 10%, peaking in the 2030s and then declining, because of improvements in the efficiency of buildings, transport, industry, and power generation.

China’s National Energy Administration has announced its plan for the period 2016-2020.  During that period, they expect to invest $360 billion in new renewable power generation.

John Schwartz has an interesting article in The New York Times about two new carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities in Texas and the potential fate of the technology during the Trump presidency.  Instead of CCS, Tuticorin Alkali Chemicals in India is practicing carbon capture and utilization (CCU).  Using a process developed by Carbon Clean Solutions they capture CO₂ from a coal-fired boiler and convert it to baking soda, which can be sold.  While the market for baking soda is too small to have a significant impact on global CO₂ emissions, the application is still important because it serves as an example of the use of the new technology from Carbon Clean Solutions, which I reported on in the Weekly Roundup of October 14, 2016.  The article is here.

On Wednesday, Tesla and its partner, Panasonic, announced the start of mass production of lithium-ion battery cells at Tesla’s giant Nevada battery factory.

The question of whether wood pellets are a carbon-neutral fuel for power plants is still unanswered, although the answer has strong implications for the future of forests in the southeastern U.S.  In its cover article, the journal Science explores the status of the question and what may lie ahead.  In addition, while many European countries have embraced waste-to-energy technology, in which trash is burned to generate electricity, the U.S. has not.  Writing in Salon, Diane Stopyra explores this controversial technology.

As the new year opened, 104 wind turbines scattered across 22,000 acres of farmland near Elizabeth City, North Carolina began producing electricity for Amazon Web Services.  This is the first large wind farm in the southeastern U.S.  The big question is, will others follow?

According to Bloomberg, solar power is cheaper than coal in some parts of the world, and in less than a decade, it’s likely to be the lowest-cost option almost everywhere.  However, others disagree, pointing out that the need for back-up systems during prolonged cloudy periods alters the economics.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.