Towards a Green Future

Fun on a bun!

"While the nation debates the cost of climate change -- whether the price of electricity and gasoline should increase because of their greenhouse gas emissions -- the problem already has a price tag on the Chesapeake Bay.

Sea levels are rising almost twice as fast in the Chesapeake region as in most of the world, and waterside communities are spending millions to keep the water from eroding yards, marshes and sandy beaches."

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And our politicians fiddle while Rome burns....

The Obama administration proposes a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, which is a good start. This type of system worked well for reducing acid-rain causing emissions for much less cost than was expected. However, given the threat this poses to the fossil fuel lobby, the opposition to any legislation (no matter how watered down) will be enormous.

I am in serious doubt about the President's ability to pass significant legislation in this arena - even if the economy was prosperous, this would be a task that requires a level of political capital that neither party has ever possessed, or been willing to spend without regard to servicing their corporate donors.
 

And the winner is natural gas! Hopefully. Apparently the two main competing plans for the ethanol refinery in Des Moines are a coal fired plant or a natural gas fired plant. NEWS FLASH: burning coal emits a whole lot more CO2 than natural gas!!!!!! Since the debate on global warming is over (except for the reality-impaired wing of the Repubican Party), the no-brainer choice is natural gas.

Of course, the long term solution would be to switch away from hydrocarbon based fuels altogether, but you have to walk before you can run.

The public meeting is 12-04 for residents to express their opinion - natural gas=less bad. Coal=really bad.

Here is the link to the article.

Nuclear energy is currently being touted as a potential cure for global warming. While nuclear energy does not generate any CO2, it is not without issues, the least of which is what to do with all the waste that will be harmfully radioactive for decades or hundreds or thousands of years.


Another issue, brought up by the Christian Science Monitor, is the massive amounts of water needed to cool the reactor.  Regarding the heat wave in Europe "The extended heat wave in July aggravated drought conditions across much of Europe, lowering water levels in the lakes and rivers that many nuclear plants depend on to cool their reactors.

As a result, utility companies in France, Spain, and Germany were forced to take some plants offline and reduce operations at others. Across Western Europe, nuclear plants also had to secure exemptions from regulations in order to discharge overheated water into the environment.Even with an exemption to environmental rules this summer, the French electric company, Electricité de France (EDF), normally an energy exporter, had to buy electricity on European spot market, a way to meet electricity demand."

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Ouch! Sound like nuclear energy is not the cure-all the CON (coal, oil, nuclear) supporters make it out to be.

"Older-generation nuclear plants require somewhat more water for cooling, however, so nuclear-dependent countries like France are right to start worrying. It's the second hot summer after 2003, he adds. If they have more, they will have a problem.

Anti-nuclear campaigners say that this summer's problems at European reactors are here to stay. Even if you have one new plant that supposedly is better, says Mr. Lhomme, you still have 58 others [in France] that make the same problems."

Not to mention the 110 nuclear power plants here in the US! You know what doesn't need massive amounts of water to cool it? Wind turbines!

 

 

Much thanks to my father, who pointed out this important article in the Christian Science Monitor!

The long and short of the article is that more and more ethanol refineries are switching to burning coal to power their ethanol producing activities. The reason being is that natural gas prices have been skyrocketing, thus raising the cost of production, and giving an economic/profit incentive to switch to cheaper coal. The downside, according to the CS Monitor article:

"Yet even the nearly clear vapor from the refinery contains as much as double the carbon emissions of a refinery using natural gas, climate experts say. So if coal-fired ethanol catches on, is it still the "clean, renewable fuel" the state's favorite son, Sen. Tom Harkin likes to call it?"

Environmentalists have known that the debate over global warming was over a long time ago: it's real, it's happening, and human activity is causing a significant acceleration of said trend. Even Time magazine is featuring this problem. We, as a state, nation, and planet, cannot afford our reckless emission of carbon dioxide any more. So, to hear that poor choices for fueling ethanol plants are going to cause an even greater emission of greenhouse gasses was unpleasant to hear about. Various solutions were cited in the CS Monitor article, including: putting ethanol plants next to existing coal fired electricity generating facilities and use the waste heat, link ethanol plants to pig farms and use the methane gas given off by pig waste, etc. All of these are ideas with at least some merit, but they clearly show how tragically bound we are to the fossil fuel/hydrocarbon system of energy generation.

While I applaud ethanol producers for bring at least a partially renewable fuel to market, we need something better- a complete energy policy that transitions away from fossil fuels and vast emissions of carbon dioxide. The short and mid term focus should be on conservation measures and improving efficiency in existing fossil fuel technologies. Simultaneously, R&D into zero-emission energy sources should be jump started. The US used to be the leader in solar and wind technological development - we have to regain that and more, if only for the survival of our species. For the long term solutions, the options are open: wind, solar, hydrogen fuel cell, etc. At this point, I may even be willing to re-consider the nuclear power option. It seems to me that the problem of safely storing nuclear waste may actually be easier to solve than our problem of global warming spiraling out of control.....