Month: May 2020

Politics and Policy

The UN announced on Thursday that COP26, originally scheduled for November of this year, will be postponed until 1-12 November of next year.  The summit will take place in Glasgow as previously planned.  The European Commission announced its green recovery plan on Thursday and Damian Carrington of The Guardian wrote that “It sets a high standard for other nations.”  Reuters provided a list of its spending proposals.  Some were not excited about the plan because it relies heavily on borrowing.  Major European electricity groups issued a joint call urging the European Commission to prioritize renewable hydrogen in its pandemic recovery plan.  New research in the journal Environmental Science and Policy by European modelers and social scientists found that President Trump’s reelection would likely cause a significant delay in meeting global carbon emission reductions.  At the New York Times, Somini Sengupta sought to clarify what all of these changes mean for climate change.

At Vox, David Roberts argued that there is a broad alignment forming within the Democratic Party around a climate policy platform that is both ambitious enough to address the problem and politically potent enough to unite all the left’s various interest groups.  In a subsequent post, Roberts said that if former Vice President Joe Biden embraces a bold climate policy he has a good chance of turning out the voters he needs to win.  Two conservative clean energy advocates have said that Congress “should seize this opportunity to modernize the nation’s power system with investments that will pay dividends for the economy and the environment for generations.”  If Biden wins, he may have difficulty persuading Congress to adopt his climate program.  Timothy Cama examined his options in that case.  Twenty-three states sued the Trump administration on Wednesday over its reversal of fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks.  Furthermore, states have challenged virtually every effort by the EPA and other agencies to walk back Obama-era rules and have won 80% of the cases so far.

In an opinion piece in The New York Times (NYT), former Federal Reserve governor and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Sarah Bloom Raskin argued that the Fed should not be directing money to further entrench the carbon economy.  The U.S. Treasury Department released guidance Wednesday that offers onshore wind and solar projects more time to meet tax credit deadlines, an acknowledgment of the challenges brought by the coronavirus lockdown.  On Wednesday, the oil and gas industry lost appeals in two major climate damages cases brought by cities and counties in California.  The Bureau of Land Management abruptly postponed a scheduled auction of the right to drill for oil and gas on 45,000 acres in New Mexico scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday of last week.  The Rocky Mountain Institute published a translation of an op-ed that appeared in Caijing Magazine, an influential Chinese publication that covers social, political, and economic topics.  The op-ed reviewed China’s leadership in clean energy and urged the government to allocate sufficient COVID-19 recovery resources to support China’s transition to clean energy, just as the EU is planning.

The Ohio Power Siting Board ruled Thursday that the Icebreaker windfarm project in Lake Eire could move forward, but only if blades on the demonstration project’s six turbines are turned off every night for eight months of the year, a stipulation that “may well be fatal to the entire project.”  A federal appeals court on Thursday turned down the Trump administration’s request to revive a permit program for new oil and gas pipelines.

Climate and Climate Science

The human fingerprint on the climate is now unmistakable and will become increasingly evident over the coming decades, the UK Met Office has confirmed after 30 years of study.  Planting a trillion trees as a climate change mitigation strategy has gotten a lot of attention, but climate scientists say it’s not that simple.  Mongabay published an article about how indigenous people in the Amazon are experiencing and responding to climate change.  New research published in the journal Science found that rising temperatures, deforestation, development, and climate-induced disasters are causing bigger trees to be lost at alarming rates, making the planet’s forests shorter and younger.

According to new research in Nature Climate Change, the deep ocean will be warming rapidly by 2050 even if dramatic reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions were to happen today.  On May 19^th a Russian liquefied natural gas tanker became the earliest east-bound shipment on the Northern Sea Route ever for this kind of vessel.  Research using autonomous underwater vehicles with high-resolution mapping capability has revealed that around 12,000 years ago some glaciers in Antarctica were retreating at a rate around ten times higher than even the most rapid retreat seen today.

Contrary to previous research, a new paper in Science Advances has concluded that marshes in the Mississippi River Delta have hit a tipping point and will likely drown this century due to sea level rise.

Research, published in journal The Lancet Planetary Health, revealed that over the past 11 years, the number of deaths attributed to excessive natural heat in Australia is at least 50 times greater than is recorded on death certificates there.

With the Siberian Arctic seeing record warm conditions in recent weeks and months, scientists monitoring wildfire trends are becoming more convinced that some of the blazes erupting in the Arctic this spring are actually left over from last summer, having survived by burning in dry underground peat formations.  A study in Nature Communications suggests that rising CO₂ levels in the atmosphere are causing plants to lose less water throughout the Northern Hemisphere, which in turn causes temperatures there to warm even more than they would from climate change alone.  Atmospheric circulation patterns then transport that heat to the Arctic, warming it faster than it would otherwise.

Energy

Japanese scientists have designed a photocatalyst capable of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen gases with almost 100% efficiency when exposed to ultraviolet light.  Their work suggests that it should be possible to design a photocatalyst capable of doing the same thing with visible light, thereby paving the way for much more efficient systems than electrolysis for producing hydrogen from sunlight.  The U.S. Energy Information Administration announced on Thursday that in 2019 the U.S. consumed more energy from renewable sources like solar and wind than from coal.  

A Cessna Caravan, retrofitted with an electric engine, flew for 30 minutes over Washington state on Thursday, in a flawless maiden flight of the largest all-electric commuter aircraft yet.  On the ground, registrations of electric vehicles in Europe doubled during the first months of 2020, while overall passenger car registrations fell by 25.6% compared to the same period last year, according to data by the European Alternative Fuels Observatory.

Power companies have announced plans to close 13 coal-fired power plants this year, according to an E&E News review of federal data and companies’ closure plans.  Two others will be converted to natural gas.  Southern Company, which owns a number of utilities across the South, has joined other major utilities in setting a net-zero carbon target for 2050. 

The Botetourt County (VA) Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to approve the request by Apex Clean Energy to amend its permit for the Rocky Forge Windfarm to allow the construction of fewer, taller wind turbines.  Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy has announced that the 2.64 GW Dominion Energy Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project will utilize its SG 14-222 DD turbine, which has a capacity of 14 MW.  As a result, Siemens Gamesa said that it is considering establishing the first global factory for that turbine somewhere in the U.S.  Atlantic Wind Transfers will provide offshore marine support services for the offshore wind turbines.  The U.S. Coast Guard has concluded that the best way to maintain maritime safety and ease of navigation in the offshore wind development areas south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket is to install turbines in a uniform layout to create predictable navigation corridors.  In Europe, as locations for wind energy fill up onshore and near-shore, companies are deploying floating turbines that can be sited in deep waters, out of view from the coast.  Offshore wind market leader Ørsted will work in and around Copenhagen to decarbonize transport on land, at sea, and in the air by producing hydrogen, from which other fuels can be generated.

Improvements in energy efficiency have slashed carbon emissions from operations at the Empire State Building about 40% in the past 10 years and the owners aim to cut an additional 40% in the decade to come.  Now the owners of the other buildings in the city face the challenge of cutting their energy use.

Potpourri

Are you feeling “Cassandrafreude”?  John Schwartz defined it in the second article of the NYT’s “Climate Fwd:” newsletter.  Heather Grady, Vice President, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, wrote “…2020 can be a super year, not just for nature, but also for people.”  The latest Peter Sinclair video focused on the Florida Keys and whether the communities there can be saved.  Ironically, Sinclair lives in Midland, MI, and wrote about last week’s dam breach there.  On May 5, I included a review of Lydia Millet’s new novel A Children’s Bible.  This week Amy Brady interviewed Millet for “The Chicago Review of Books.”  YouTube has taken down the controversial Michael Moore-produced documentary Planet of the Humans because of a copyright infringement claim by a British environmental photographer.

Closing Thought

Treat yourself to 4½ minutes of stunning photography about “The Beauty of Pollination.”

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.

Politics and Policy

The Economist focused on the links between the coronavirus pandemic and climate change.  It explained how “the pandemic both reveals the size of the challenge ahead and also creates a unique chance to enact government policies that steer the economy away from carbon at a lower financial, social and political cost than might otherwise have been the case.”  Bloomberg reported: “European Commission President Ursula Von Den Leyen is set to transform her Green Deal strategy to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, into a coronavirus economic rescue plan that’ll rapidly drive private investment and create jobs across the continent…”  On a related front, on Wednesday, the European Commission released a proposed biodiversity strategy whereby at least 30% of EU land and seas will be protected by 2030 to halt the decline of plant and animal species and restore carbon sinks to address climate change.  Australia’s government on Thursday released a new plan to tackle climate change, targeting the use of gas, hydrogen, batteries, and carbon capture, while avoiding the contentious issue of setting a carbon price.  On the other hand, a cross-society collection of groups have banded together to warn that Australia’s prosperity depends on eradicating greenhouse gas emissions. 

In the U.S., things are not as forward looking.  For example, the Trump administration is starting to reduce royalty payments and suspend leases for oil companies drilling on federal lands, while at the same time imposing retroactive rent on wind and solar generators.  Democrats are not blameless.  Clean energy companies and advocates are blasting them for neglecting to give the industry any help in the House pandemic relief bills, even as the sector reports hundreds of thousands of job losses.  During last week’s “LEAD on Climate 2020”, organized by the nonprofit Ceres and supported by other sustainability-focused business groups, executives from 333 companies met with 51 Representatives and 37 Senators from both parties in a virtual lobby day.  According to documents shared with The Washington Post, the Trump administration ignored warnings from EPA career staff that its new auto fuel economy rule has serious flaws.  Fuel-economy improvements in U.S. “light-duty” vehicles have saved 17 Gt of CO₂ since 1975, according to a new study in the journal Energy Policy.

Although China had been on track to meet its 2020 carbon emission goals prior to the pandemic, those goals are now in danger because the government is looking to heavy industry and carbon-intensive projects to shore up its coronavirus-stricken economy.

Americans’ positions on climate change have remained largely unshaken by the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis, according to a new national survey that showed acceptance of the reality of global warming at record highs in some categories.  Joe Biden would rescind President Donald Trump’s permit allowing the Keystone XL oil pipeline to cross the border into the U.S., a move that would effectively kill the controversial project.

Climate and Climate Science

According to a new paper in Nature Communications, scientists have completed the first survey of algal blooms on top of the snow on the Antarctic Peninsula, with almost 1,700 blooms of green algae being found.  Studies are planned to determine the algae’s impact on surface albedo.  Rising ocean temperatures will alter the distribution and life cycles of Antarctic krill in the coming decades, according to a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change

A new study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the odds of major tropical cyclones around the world — Category 3, 4 and 5 storms — are increasing because of human-caused global warming.  The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is forecast to be unusually active, according to a seasonal outlook from NOAA.  In Asia, the most powerful cyclone to strike eastern India and Bangladesh in over a decade came ashore with a storm surge of 15 meters, killing at least 82 people, officials said. 

A new study published in Science has found that as long as global warming is limited to 2°C, tropical rainforests will be able to soak up “high levels” of CO₂, provided they are left intact.  However, if temperature increases exceed 2°C, the ability of the forests to store CO₂ will decline rapidly.  Deforestation in Brazil’s section of the Amazon in the first four months of the year was up 55% from a year ago, with the result that Brazil could produce 10-20% more greenhouse gases in 2020, in contrast to the rest of the world, which will drop because of the coronavirus.

According to a new paper in the journal Nature Climate Change, the combination of drought and heat waves that caused the dust bowl in the U.S. in the 1930s, which occurred with a frequency of once every 100 years then, is now likely to occur once every 40 years, or 2.5 times more likely.  Furthermore, the occurrence will become even more likely as global average temperatures rise.

Rising sea levels over the past 120 years are a result of man-made climate change and not variations in the Earth’s orbit, a study in the journal Science Advances has found.

Energy

Scientists with the Global Carbon Project reported that daily emissions of CO₂ dropped by as much as 17% globally in early April as the world responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.  The study also projects that total emissions for 2020 will probably fall between 4 and 7% compared with last year.  New data from the International Energy Agency released Wednesday reaffirms earlier forecasts of lower wind and solar installations globally in 2020 due to coronavirus impacts.  Grist queried five experts on the future of renewable energy in the U.S. in a time of COVID-19.  Modeling by the Finnish energy firm Wartsila found that solar capacity reaching up to 4.3 times peak load in sunny regions, and wind capacity of up to 2.1 times peak load in windy regions, would form the basis of a least-cost all-renewables resource mix in regions across the U.S.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the U.S. has lost 594,300 clean energy jobs, according to a report issued last week by BW Research Partnership.  Of that total, 413,500, or 70% of the losses, were in energy efficiency.  While the COVID-19 pandemic is causing a short-term drop in CO₂ emissions, the economic impacts of the pandemic are likely to cause a delay in or cancelation of capital projects planned to meet long-term CO₂-reduction goals, particularly in the European chemical industry.

Siemens Gamesa on Tuesday launched the largest wind turbine ever publicly announced, a 14 MW model with a 222-meter rotor diameter meant for offshore wind farms.  This puts Siemens Gamesa back in first place in the rankings for the largest offshore turbines on the market.  In order to reduce emissions by 70% from 1990s levels by 2030, Denmark plans to build two “energy islands” totaling 4 GW of offshore wind capacity.  At Greentech Media, Karl-Erik Stromsta brought us up to date on Dominion’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind pilot project.  North Carolina has taken the first step toward establishing an offshore wind industry by issuing a request for proposals to analyze the state’s ports and manufacturing supply chain for their potential suitability.

The switch from coal to gas has driven down U.S. electricity emissions over the last decade. But the opposite has happened in Virginia, where a massive build-out of natural gas power plants has negated CO₂ reductions associated with coal retirements.  In a guest column in the Virginia Mercury, Chris Meyer and John Semmelhack make the case for electrifying Virginia by replacing the use of gas for home heating, cooking, and water heating.

A zinc-air hybrid flow battery can store multiple days’ worth of energy, doesn’t degrade, can’t possibly explode, and is up to five times cheaper than lithium-ion, according to its developer, Zinc8, which is preparing to pilot the technology in New York state.  A new study, published in the journal Applied Energy, shows that used electric vehicle batteries could still have a useful and profitable second life as backup storage for grid-scale solar photovoltaic installations, where they could perform for more than a decade in this less demanding role.

As forests in California and the Western U.S. are hit by rising numbers of fires and disease outbreaks related to climate change, some experts argue that using dead and diseased trees to produce biomass energy will help to restore forests.  Automakers and analysts believe the pandemic will accelerate the move away from automobiles with gas-powered engines, with many more countries switching to electric vehicles around 2023-24.  In its latest effort to revive the U.S.’s nuclear industry, the Department of Energy (DOE) proposes to select and help build two new prototype nuclear reactors within 7 years. The reactors would be the centerpiece of DOE’s new Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.

Potpourri

In his New Yorker column this week, Bill McKibben provided links to an introductory video and a simulation model that you can play with to see the effects different policy options have on future global average temperatures.  Looks like a really interesting simulator.  Kristen Pope brought us up to date on the ice-bound MOSAiC Arctic expedition.  At The Arts Fuse, editor-in-chief Bill Marx asked “Why are America’s stages afraid of dealing with the climate crisis?”  Kendra Pierre-Louis compiled a list with excerpts of “The Hot Ten Climate Songs.”  The Tyee interviewed director Liz Marshall about her new documentary Meat the Future, the subject of which she describes as the “genesis phase of something that could change the world.”  S. David Freeman, who worked in energy policy under three presidents, ran some of the nation’s largest public utilities, and combined a deep understanding of energy issues with a passion for renewable energy and conservation, died on May 12^th in Reston, Va. He was 94.

Closing Thought

Eve Turow-Paul and Sophie Egan founded the Food for Climate League, a new nonprofit organization, to redefine sustainable eating and help businesses, nonprofits, and governments promote food that’s good for both humans and the planet.

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.

Politics and Policy

Former Vice-President Joe Biden has named Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and former Secretary of State John Kerry as co-chairs of his climate task force.  A group of former climate policy staffers for Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) is pushing his comprehensive climate plan with both congressional Democrats and Biden.  A group called Climate Power 2020, a joint effort of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Sierra Club, will focus on bringing the Democrat’s climate message to swing states.  And on the other side of the aisle, a new group called “C3 Solutions” seeks to unleash clean energy innovation.  Those interested in why we have made so little progress in reducing CO₂ emissions will find a guest post at Carbon Brief of interest.  In it the author writes: “[E]ach shift in target framing has opened the door to new hopes of future technological solutions…These promises both respond to, and enable, continued delays in mitigation, yet rarely deliver in practice.  We call them ‘technologies of prevarication’.”  Another researcher calls the hope in future technologies “technological optimism”, with the same outcome – delay in action.

The Trump administration is not planning specific financial aid to oil producers, Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette told Axios Wednesday, but the House coronavirus relief bill neither blocks such aid nor provides aid for renewable energy.  A coalition of oil producing states has asked for stimulus funds to hire laid off energy workers to plug abandoned wells.  The Guardian reported that fossil fuel companies and coal-powered utilities stand to gain from the Federal Reserve’s $750 billion coronavirus bond buyback program.  FERC has rejected a request from several states to pause approvals for new energy infrastructure projects such as natural gas pipelines.  EPA will propose changes to its decades-old methodology for measuring costs and benefits in Clean Air Act rulemakings, which if finalized could stymie efforts by future administrations to combat climate change.  Chief executives and other representatives from more than 330 businesses are calling on federal lawmakers to build a better economy following COVID-19 by including resilient climate solutions.  In an effort to stimulate its economy after the coronavirus shutdown, China will spend almost $1.5 billion to install 200,000 EV chargers throughout the country, 20,000 of which will be public chargers.

Norway’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund is excluding several of the world’s biggest commodities firms from its portfolio for their use and production of coal.  Five years ago, the $1.1 billion Rockefeller Brothers Fund divested from fossil fuels.  Now the fund has outpaced financial benchmarks, defying predictions of money managers.

An article in Nature Climate Change states “A concerning body of evidence already indicates that climate hazards, which are increasing in frequency and intensity under climate change, are likely to intersect with the COVID-19 outbreak and public health response.  These compound risks will exacerbate and be exacerbated by the unfolding economic crisis and long-standing socioeconomic and racial disparities, both within countries and across regions, in ways that will put specific populations at heightened risk and compromise recovery.”

Climate and Climate Science

Daisy Dunne at Carbon Brief prepared a Q&A around the question of whether climate change and biodiversity disturbance could influence the risk of diseases being transmitted from animals to humans.  Logging and mining operations have accelerated the destruction of the Amazon rainforest during the coronavirus pandemic.  A new study in Nature Communications warns that mosquitos carrying diseases such as dengue, Zika, and yellow fever would likely colonize parts of southern Europe by 2030.

NOAA has agreed with the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service that, globally, April was the second warmest April on record, as was January through April the second warmest such period.  An El Niño-like weather system that has been dormant for millennia in the Indian Ocean could be restarted by warming sea-surface temperatures associated with climate change.

A pulse of unusually warm air, one of many observed in recent years, is surging toward the North Pole, paving the way for the Arctic ice melt season to begin.  This is particularly concerning this year because scientists have reported that a landslide in a fjord in Prince William Sound, about 60 miles east of Anchorage, could be triggered by an earthquake, prolonged heavy rain, or a heat wave, thereby causing a massive tsunami.  From 1996 to 2018, the grounding line along the western flank of Denman Glacier in East Antarctica retreated 3.4 miles.  The grounding line is the point at which a glacier last touches the seafloor before it begins to float and its retreat increases the potential for the glacier to undergo rapid and irreversible deterioration.

New research from DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory suggests that by 2050 roughly one-third of the U.S. population could feel the impacts of one or more extreme weather events annually.  During the first decade of this century, the Upper Missouri River Basin was the driest it’s been in 1,200 years because of rising temperatures linked to climate change that reduced the amount of snowfall in the Rocky Mountains in Montana and North Dakota.

According to a new report from the World Resources Institute, while regenerative agriculture can improve soil health and yield some valuable environmental benefits, it is unlikely to achieve large-scale emissions reductions from farming.

Energy

According to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. is on track to produce more electricity this year from renewable power than from coal for the first time on record, even though overall demand is expected to drop.  On Monday, the Department of the Interior announced the approval of the $1 billion Gemini Solar Project in Nevada, a complex set to mix 690 MW of solar PV with a 380 MW/1,400 MWh battery storage component.  Unfortunately, the U.S. clean energy sector has lost 17% of its work force, or nearly 600,000 jobs, because of stay-at-home orders to slow the spread of COVID-19.  Yet, while the pandemic has put some new projects on hold, the underlying strengths of renewables remain strong, and analysts expect their economic advantage over fossil fuels will increase in the long term.

BMW plans are to invest more than $32 billion into research and development for hydrogen fuel-cell technology.  Jack Ewing of The New York Times wrote of what is coming for the auto industry under the headline “The Pandemic Will Permanently Change the Auto Industry”.

The Canadian-based space company GHGSat will set up a center to analyze the emissions of greenhouse gases around the globe, starting with methane, which it is already measuring.  A new analysis by scientists working with the Environmental Defense Fund has found that Pennsylvania’s shale gas industry leaked seven times more methane in 2017 than state reporting for the year indicates.  It also found that the conventional natural gas industry leaked an even larger amount of methane, despite producing a mere 2% of the state’s gas.  An independent analysis of six large European corporations that have pledged to drastically cut CO₂ emissions has found that none are yet aligned with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C.

Cobalt is an important component in lithium-ion batteries, so as demand for them increases, demand for cobalt increases as well.  This raises concerns about the way it is mined and processed.  Late this month Tesla is expected to announce a new battery that will rely on low-cobalt and cobalt-free chemistries, and the use of chemical additives, materials, and coatings that will reduce internal stress and enable them to store more energy for longer periods.  These innovations are expected to allow Teslas to sell profitably at the same or lower prices than gasoline vehicles.  There was an interesting article in The Economist (free if you register) about wireless charging of electric vehicles.  Most applications to date have been for trucks and buses, but cars may not be that far off.

Perovskites are crystalline materials which can have high efficiencies of converting solar energy into electricity.  Unfortunately, they are not yet used in commercial solar cells for a variety of reasons.  Maddie Stone has a really good article in Grist reviewing the promise and status of perovskites in easy to understand language.

In Virginia news, utility regulators are preparing to reopen a popular program that allowed local governments, school systems, and churches to get their energy from non-utility solar developers.  The Botetourt County Planning Commission endorsed a plan Monday for the proposed wind turbines atop North Mountain to be increased in height from 550 ft to a maximum 680 ft, thereby allowing the number of turbines to be decreased.  A federal judge declined to lift his temporary ban on a permitting process for the crossing of streams and wetlands by oil and natural gas pipelines, including the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Potpourri

Climate scientist Kerry Emanuel has been elected as a foreign member of the UK’s Royal Society.  At National Geographic, two social scientists posit that to challenge misguided beliefs about science, you might try satire.  Stephan Lewandowsky and John Cook have a new publication, “The Conspiracy Theory Handbook”.  Ron Charles reviewed Lydia Millet’s cli-fi novel A Children’s Bible for the Washington Post.  At Yale Climate Connections, Michael Svoboda collected twelve books on climate activism.  Science News staff members reviewed several climate change books published this year.  DW surveyed six of the most sustainable meat alternatives.  Chris Mooney of The Washington Post interviewed Shahzeen Attari, an associate professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, who studies the way people perceive their personal energy use and the decisions they make in their daily lives.  In preparation for what will likely be a hot summer, Sara Peach offered advice on “How to spot the symptoms of heat stroke and heat exhaustion.”

Closing Thought

Consider the views of first-year college student Grace Lagan who wrote in The Guardian: “As a young person I’ve come to realize the power of hope in difficult times.”

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.

Politics and Policy

Congressional Republicans are planning to launch a counter pressure campaign against the country’s largest banks after several of them ruled out financial support for oil drilling projects in the Arctic.  Such a campaign may be largely posturing because according to Inside Climate News, the banks’ pledges may be largely symbolic.  In Pennsylvania, Republican lawmakers have called on Democratic Governor Tom Wolf to rescind his executive order including Pennsylvania in the multi-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.  He rejected the idea.  A coalition of public interest, social justice, watchdog and environmental groups are joining forces to hold Duke Energy, the largest investor-owned U.S. electric utility, accountable for its policies. 

A new working paper has found that trade barriers worldwide are generally lower for carbon-intensive goods than cleaner products, creating a large “implicit subsidy to CO₂ emissions” of $550 billion to $800 billion annually.  In a comment published by Climate Home News, three authors of last winter’s “Production Gap Report” argued that to meet climate goals and avoid further market chaos, governments need to plan the decline of coal, oil, and gas production, with support for workers.

Economists: Spending coronavirus recovery money on climate-friendly “green” policy initiatives could not only help shift the world closer to a net-zero emissions pathway, but could also offer the best economic returns for government spending.  Europe is facing a recession and governments are pumping out cash to keep economies afloat, but the EU’s Executive Commission has pledged not to roll back its climate ambitions.  Rather, the EU will use its “Green Deal” to drive the bloc’s economic recovery from the pandemic.  In a letter sent to senators Thursday, the Treasury Department said it is considering ways to let solar, wind, and other alternative energy developers continue to qualify for tax incentives critical for paying for the building of wind turbines and solar panel arrays – even if construction is put on hold.  Ten states and Washington, D.C., are asking FERC to postpone its approvals of any new fossil fuel infrastructure, including natural gas pipelines, amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Writing at Vice, Geoff Dembicki laid out how former Vice President Joe Biden could become an unlikely climate savior.  E&E News examined the climate records of five contenders for the Democratic VP nomination.  Progressive organizations are calling on Biden’s campaign to oust Larry Summers from his advisory role, citing concerns over his stances on environmental issues.  In an interesting opinion piece in Politico, sociology professor Dana R. Fisher wrote: “New results from a survey conducted at the end of April show that the vast majority of climate activists will vote for Biden.  But the data also suggest that they won’t support him blindly—and are prepared to cause trouble if he dismisses their concerns.”  Young conservatives are working to persuade their Republican elders to put forward a climate agenda, without sacrificing traditional GOP principles like market competition and limited government.  As the economy melts down because of the coronavirus, Republicans are testing a political response for this fall: saying Democratic climate policies would bring similar pain.

Climate and Climate Science

The vast majority of humanity has always lived in regions where the average annual temperatures are between 6°C (43°F) and 28°C (82°F), which are ideal for human health and food production.  Now, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found that over the next 50 years, 1 to 3 billion people will live in extreme heat – defined as an average temperature of 29°C (84°F) or above.  Mark Maslin, Prof. of Earth System Science at University College, London, discussed the article at The Conversation.  In addition, an article published in Science Advances reported that a comprehensive evaluation of weather station data showed that some coastal subtropical locations have already reported a wet bulb temperature of 35°C (human’s upper physiological limit) and that extreme humid heat overall has more than doubled in frequency since 1979.  According to research published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, with 2°C of global average warming, the average farm worker will experience 39 days of unsafe heat each year. 

New data, released Tuesday from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, indicated that April was tied with April 2016 as the hottest April on record.  A contorted jet stream is cleaving the U.S. into two seasons this weekend, with record heat in the West and Southwest, and record cold in the Midwest, Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast.

Scientists have been studying the coronaviruses of southern China for years and warning that swift climate and environmental change there — in both loss of biodiversity and encroachment by civilization — was going to help new viruses jump to people.  Taken together over the long term, seasonal allergies present one of the most robust examples of how global warming increases health risks.  Allergies, which are already a major health burden, will become an even larger drain on the economy.  (This article has a good table comparing the symptoms of COVID-19 with allergies, the flu, and the common cold.)

Climate change has been influencing the locations at which tropical cyclones occur, according to new NOAA-led research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  Since 1980, the number of tropical cyclones has been rising in the North Atlantic and Central Pacific, while declining in the western Pacific and the South Indian Ocean.  Sea-level is rising faster than previously believed and could exceed 3 feet by the end of the century unless global emissions are reduced, according to a survey of 106 specialists published in the journal Climate and Atmospheric Science.

The rapid collapse of mountain glaciers can have devastating impacts downslope of them.  Such rapid collapse appears to be increasing in frequency because of a warming climate, but could be due to the greater availability of satellite images.  Shrinking snow caps in the Himalayas are causing the spread of toxic green algae blooms in the Arabian Sea, a new study has found.

Energy

One of the challenges of obtaining all electricity from wind and solar is providing for the seasonal shift, i.e., production is greater in summer and demand is greater in winter.  Technology firm Wärtsilä proposed that the problem be solved by employing power-to-gas technologies by which excess electricity if converted into either hydrogen or methane, which can be stored until needed.  Green hydrogen’s advocates say its time has come.  Shell and Dutch energy company Eneco confirmed that they had submitted a bid in last week’s Dutch offshore wind tender through their new joint venture CrossWind, which plans to develop 759 MW of capacity feeding a 200-MW electrolyzer to produce green hydrogen.  Australia’s energy minister said that the government was setting aside $191 million to jumpstart hydrogen projects as the country aims to build the industry by 2030.

Three of the four biggest U.S. oil and gas producers posted multimillion to multibillion dollar losses in the first quarter of 2020.  About half of Louisiana Oil and Gas Association members expect to file for bankruptcy because of the market collapse.  Insolvent or overly leveraged firms, including oil drillers and oil services firms, won’t be able to tap the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending program, Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Robert Kaplan said Wednesday.  One side effect of the economic problems in the oil and gas market will be an increase in the number of orphan wells when the companies owning them go out of business.

The coronavirus crisis is not only battering the oil and gas industry; it’s hurting businesses trying to move the country toward cleaner sources of energy.  The 2.25 GW Navajo Generating Station shut down in November, leaving unemployment and underutilized electrical transmission infrastructure in its wake.  Now, startup Navajo Power wants to build massive solar power plants while channeling the proceeds into electrification and economic development for Navajo communities.  Wind, solar, and hydroelectricity produced more electricity than coal for 40 straight days in the U.S. this year, topping the previous record of nine consecutive days.  Dominion Virginia’s new integrated resource plan sets a goal of nearly 16 GW of solar, more than 5 GW of offshore wind, and 2.7 GW of energy storage over the next 15 years.  Augusta County (VA) Public Schools will be receiving more solar energy thanks to Secure Futures Solar, which recently signed an agreement with City National Bank to provide an $8 million loan to finance the construction of solar projects in several schools.

Southern California Edison is procuring a 770 MW/3,080 MWh package of battery resources to bolster grid reliability, in what will be one of the largest storage procurements made in the U.S. to date.  Dan Gearino has details.  The levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for battery storage has been falling.  Andy Colthorpe of Energy Storage News took a deep dive into the details of how the LCOE is determined for batteries.  Minnesota utility Great River Energy confirmed that it will pilot Form Energy’s novel super-long-duration energy storage technology.  The 1 MW project will be able to discharge at full power capacity for up to 150 hours, an unprecedented achievement.

The auto industry logic about electric vehicles (EVs) is that transforming the worst gas guzzlers and CO₂ emitters will save more energy than nominal gains for smaller cars that use relatively little gasoline, explaining why most of the new EVs are big SUVs and pickups.  According to a new Wood Mackenzie report, by 2030, there will be 8.6 million EV charging outlets installed in Europe, 9.8 million in China, and 10.8 million in North America.

Potpourri

Climate scientist Michael Mann has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors given to a scientist in the U.S.  MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel has launched a new interactive website entitled “Climate Science, Risk and Solutions: Climate Knowledge for Everyone”.  At Yale Climate Connections, Michael Svoboda presented more than 70 climate fiction films you can choose from for your stay-at-home viewing.  Climate fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson had a wonderful essay on The New Yorker’s website last Friday.  Even though it doesn’t fall within this week, I’ve included it because it is so thought-provoking.  Bill McKibben encourages you to read it.  SueEllen Campbell has a short essay at Yale Climate Connections addressing the question of whether individual or collective action is more important for fighting climate change.  In it she provides links to several articles, including one by Michael Grunwald in Politico, who wrote “while individual change alone can’t fix the climate, the climate can’t be fixed without it.” 

Closing Thought

Congratulations to the staff of The Washington Post who won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in explanatory reporting for its series on climate change, “2°C: Beyond the Limit”.

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.

Politics and Policy

The Trump administration has expanded the Main Street Lending Program to help oil and gas companies struggling from a collapse in prices brought on by Covid-19 and overproduction.  On the other hand, the administration is sitting on about $43 billion in low-interest loans for clean energy projects.  U.S. fossil fuel companies have taken at least $50 million in taxpayer money they probably won’t have to pay back, according to a review by the investigative research group “Documented” and The Guardian.  At Nature, Jeff Tollefson presented five ways the Trump administration is undermining environmental protections under the cover of the coronavirus.  According to The New York Times, President Trump’s COVID-19 response has extended the administration’s longstanding practice of undermining scientific expertise for political purposes.

A probe conducted by the House Oversight and Reform Committee found that in 99.4% of more than a thousand cases over the past 20 years, FERC gave natural gas pipeline companies eminent domain.  The Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University announced that former FERC Commissioner and Chairman Cheryl LaFleur will join the Center as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow.  More than 70 Democratic lawmakers from both chambers joined a suit challenging the Trump administration for rolling back the Obama-era Clean Power Plan.

Rocky Mountain Institute CEO Jules Kortenhorst argued that the coronavirus pandemic is giving us a preview of the kind of disruptions that climate change will bring to the energy transition.  Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said while the company will not totally protect its low-carbon division from spending cuts to weather the coronavirus crisis, those businesses would be shielded from the worst of the reductions.  Germany has shown how renewable energy can replace fossil fuels in a way that draws wide public buy-in.  The steps it took on this journey, and the missteps it made along the way, provide critical lessons for other countries seeking to transform their energy sectors.  At the 30-nation Petersberg Climate Dialogue on Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged governments not to reduce their international contributions to help vulnerable countries tackle climate change.  The Dutch government has announced measures including huge cuts to coal use, garden greening, and limits on livestock herds as part of its plan to lower emissions to comply with a supreme court ruling.

Former Vice-President Joe Biden is honing his campaign message on the environment in the age of the coronavirus.  He also has started his own podcast, called Here’s the Deal.  Larry Summers is purportedly serving as an advisor to Biden’s campaign.  According to Kate Aronoff at The New Republic, this should give cause for concern among those in favor of a strong clean energy policy.  The American Conservation Coalition, a conservative environmental group, has released its answer to the Green New Deal with a plan called the American Climate Contract.  The U.S. could save more than $1 trillion over the long term by removing roughly 1 million homes from flood-prone areas and relocating residents to higher ground.  So why do people live in disaster-prone areas?  According to one Louisiana resident, “That’s home.  That’s where it’s natural to be.”  In Australia, the chief executive of the Consumer Action Law Center said there was a risk home insurance could become unaffordable in the wake of last bushfire season, leaving many uninsured or under-insured.

Climate and Climate Science

Last week I linked to an article about NOAA determining that there was a 75% chance that 2020 will set the record for the warmest year.  This week Gavin Schmidt, the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, gave 2020 a 60% chance, while the UK’s Met Office estimated a 50% likelihood.

NASA’s new ICESat-2 satellite, launched in 2018, is providing much better data for determining the extent of ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica, which will lead to better estimates of sea level rise.  However, they contributed less than half of the melting that occurred globally from 2003 to 2019.  A study, published in the journal Geology, revealed that melting of mountain glaciers can result in the unanticipated instantaneous release of huge quantities of ice and meltwater, with catastrophic effects.

A recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that over the past 30 years, as atmospheric CO₂ concentrations increased, the biomass of native prairie grasses doubled, but their nutrient content declined, with possible negative impacts on plant-consuming insects.  Minnesota is one of the fastest warming states in the U.S., with many counties having warmed more than 2°C since the late 19^th century.  Brady Dennis and colleagues from The Washington Post examined the changes that have occurred and what they portend for the future.

Carbon cycle feedbacks, such as the uptake and release of CO₂ by forests, are very important in determining the levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere.  In the past, such feedbacks resulted in a net removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere, but recent research indicates that many ecosystems are shifting to being net producers of CO₂, with dire ramifications for the climate.  On the subject of forests, a study recently published in Science found that forests are in big trouble if global warming continues at the present pace because most trees alive today will be unable to survive in the future climate.  In addition, there is growing awareness that large-scale tropical deforestation, as in the Amazon, not only brings disastrous consequences for the climate, but releases new diseases like COVID-19 by enabling infections to pass from wild animals to human beings.  This conclusion was also reached by experts associated with the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

As human pressure and the impacts of climate change increase, most of the tropical reef sites around the world will be unable to simultaneously sustain coral reef ecosystems and the livelihoods of the people who depend on them, according to a new study published in the journal Science.  A report, published last week in Nature Communications, found that as the world warms, farmed fish are at increasing risk of disease, prompting fish farmers to use increasing amounts of antimicrobial drugs, raising the risk of antibiotic resistant bacteria impacting human health.

Energy

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the world’s CO₂ emissions are expected to fall by 8% this year as the coronavirus pandemic shuts down much of the global economy, a drop that is six times greater than that during the 2008 financial crisis.  Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, predicted that “the energy industry that emerges from this crisis will be significantly different from the one that came before,” thereby raising important questions.  Looking to a more environmentally-friendly future after the coronavirus, Portugal is preparing to build a solar-powered hydrogen plant near the port of Sines.

Duke Energy said Tuesday that it plans to achieve the goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 by phasing out its use of coal while increasing its use of renewable energy.  Britain went without coal-fired power generation for its longest stretch since the Industrial Revolution, breaking the existing record of 18 consecutive days and still climbing at 20 days and 21 hours when the article was written.

Solar and onshore wind power are the cheapest new sources of electricity for at least two-thirds of the world’s population, according to a new report produced by BloombergNEF.  Abu Dhabi has set a global record-low solar price with a winning bid in a 2 GW tender of 1.35 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour.  A study by the Australian Energy Market Operator, published Thursday, revealed that the country already has the technical capacity to safely run a power grid in which 75% of the electricity comes from wind and solar.  Energy Storage News deputy editor Molly Lempriere looked at some of the microgrids around the world that are transforming the way neighborhoods produce and consume electricity.

Denmark’s Ørsted, the world’s top offshore wind developer, has said that its U.S. offshore wind projects totaling nearly 3 GW may face delays due to the coronavirus crisis and slowed permitting.  The New York Public Service Commission has approved plans for an offshore wind solicitation of at least 1 GW, and possibly 2.5 GW, but the state agency in charge of the solicitation says it won’t press ahead with it this summer.  On the other hand, the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project remains on schedule.

The Environmental Defense Fund surveyed more than 300 sites in the Permian Basin and found that roughly 1 in 10 methane flares was unlit or malfunctioning, allowing the strong greenhouse gas to escape directly to the atmosphere.  Conspicuously absent from the broader European Green Deal agenda are provisions to tackle the leakage of methane, a potent climate pollutant with rising emissions.

Potpourri

An unforeseen pairing of catastrophes, climate change and COVID-19, will inform how Generation Z navigates the world as adults, and what sort of future they create.  Over the past few years, Kim Cobb, a Georgia Tech professor of paleoclimate, has shifted her focus from climate science to solutions and adaptation.  At Yale Climate Connections, Sara Peach addressed the question of what individuals can realistically do about climate change.  Dan Gearino has debunked Michael Moore’s “Planet of the Humans,” which has provoked a furious reaction from scientists and climate activists.  Allegheny College in northwestern Pennsylvania and Dickinson College in central Pennsylvania are now carbon-neutral — joining only a handful of other schools with the same achievement nationwide.  Got a little time on your hands?  Listen to “Survivor Generations 2165: An Original Radio Drama by the Climate Stew Players.”  Greta Thunberg donated $100,000 in prize money she received from the Danish foundation Human Act to UNICEF to help it fight coronavirus, the UN children’s fund said on Thursday.

Closing Thought

A survey from George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication found that Millennial or younger adults (aged 18-38) were more likely than Gen. X (aged 39-54) or Baby Boomer and older (aged 55+) adults to support and/or identify with climate activists who urge elected officials to take action to reduce global warming, among other things.

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.