The Harper chill factor

Byoliveridley

The crisis over who will be in charge in Ottawa in the new year is making waves at the United Nations climate change conference in Poznan, Poland, with many delegates expressing hope that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be ousted, a Montreal observer said at the conference.

“I've had delegates from all over the world coming up to me and asking what is happening in Canada, and frankly, in the vast majority of cases, they are saying they wish the government would fall. The Harper government is not popular here,” said Steven Guilbeault, a representative of Montreal-based Équiterre and one of about 9,000 participants in the 14th annual Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

via The Harper chill factor.

As Canada takes a timeout on installing a more representative government, a quick reminder that Harper’s conservative government is a climate dissembler, denier and liar.

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  • Pothole power for cars

    Byoliveridley

    Via the TNR E&E blog comes this story of capturing some of the energy wasted when a vehicle moves over bumps and potholes on the road. Indian drivers are waiting with bated breath for this prototype to become a reality! The takeaway messages are that most of the mechanical devices we use today have many points where waste energy can be captured and put to use.

    A team of MIT undergraduate students has invented a shock absorber that harnesses energy from small bumps in the road, generating electricity while it smoothes the ride more effectively than conventional shocks. The students hope to initially find customers among companies that operate large fleets of heavy vehicles. They have already drawn interest from the U.S. military and several truck manufacturers.

  • Tar Sands Don't Fit in the Clean Energy Economy

    Byoliveridley

    On February 19 President Obama will visit Canada. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has asked to discuss a North American agreement on global warming and energy, and it has been widely reported that under such a deal he will seek to shelter the tar sands in Alberta from the same greenhouse gas cuts that other polluters must make.

    We can not be on be on the path to fight global warming and build a clean energy future by ignoring the facts. The tar sands are one of the most destructive projects on earth. They produce oil that has three times the carbon impact per barrel in the production process as regular oil while leaving a long term legacy of toxic tailings lakes and Boreal forest destruction.

    There is a better way. Both the U.S. and Canada have tremendous economic potential in new energy industries and energy efficiency. The tar sands industry must do its fair share in reducing emissions as we make the transition to a new energy economy in North America.

    Tell President Obama that he needs to stay on course to a clean energy future.

    via Obama2Canada

    This is a new cross-border effort by a whole host of Canadian and US environmental big guns including Greenpeace, Environment Defence, the Dogwood Initiative, etc. aimed at lobbying Obama on the Oil (Tar) sands of Alberta.

    A few years ago, only 4% of all Americans knew that Canada was the their largest supplier of oil. So, any efforts aimed at educating Americans on where their oil comes from and the dirtiness of the process involved is welcome.

    Once again, I will say that the future of the Oil Sands is not in Canadian hands, but in American hands. No Canadian government will turn off the tap, not now in this recession, not 3 years from now when we are on our next boom. It is going to take American pressure and the institution of a robust climate change mitigation program in the US. We shall see what happens in 2-3 years time.

    I do not believe this campaign will make any difference whatsoever, Obama is in Canada for something like 3 hours, and presumably will have other things to talk about.

  • Huge Potential Breakthrough for Solar Energy

    Byoliveridley

    The utilization of solar energy on a large scale requires its storage. In natural photosynthesis, energy from sunlight is used to rearrange the bonds of water to O2 and H2-equivalents. The realization of artificial systems that perform similar “water splitting” requires catalysts that produce O2 from water without the need for excessive driving potentials. Here, we report such a catalyst that forms upon the oxidative polarization of an inert indium tin oxide electrode in phosphate-buffered water containing Co2+. A variety of analytical techniques indicates the presence of phosphate in an approximate 1:2 ratio with cobalt in this material. The pH dependence of the catalytic activity also implicates HPO42– as the proton acceptor in the O2-producing reaction. This catalyst not only forms in situ from earth-abundant materials but also operates in neutral water under ambient conditions.

    In Situ Formation of an Oxygen-Evolving Catalyst in Neutral Water Containing Phosphate and Co2+ — Kanan and Nocera, 10.1126/science.1162018 — Science

    Don’t you just love the title of the paper? I would have titled the paper “Splitting Water for Cheap”. The author is interviewed here. This catalyst can split water into H2 and O2 using the energy from a solar cell. Then, when you need electricity, you recombine them in a fuel cell to make water and electricity. So, a closed loop with the only external input being the solar energy. Solar energy can now be stored almost painlessly.

    It is so simple. I am listening to the interview and the author says this can be replicated in a chemistry lab as it only needs a phosphate buffer, cobalt electrode and a conducting glass.

    Wonderful. Now, please stop building coal plants.

    Tags: ,

  • Corn Can't Solve Our Problem – washingtonpost.com

    Byoliveridley

    A must read for anyone who likes articulate scientists writing very approachable articles about important subjects!
    Corn Can’t Solve Our Problem – washingtonpost.com

    If every one of the 70 million acres on which corn was grown in 2006 was used for ethanol, the amount produced would displace only 12 percent of the U.S. gasoline market. Moreover, the “new” (non-fossil) energy gained would be very small — just 2.4 percent of the market. Car tune-ups and proper tire air pressure would save more energy.

    Proper tire pressure is not sexy, and does not lead to billions of dollars of profits!

    The net effect is that ethanol from corn grown in the Corn Belt does increase atmospheric greenhouse gases, and this increase is only about 15 percent less than the increase caused by an equivalent amount of gasoline

    Corn is such a boondongle, it’s amazing what the ADMs and Monsantos of the world can do.

    This means that when tropical woodland is cleared to produce sugar cane for ethanol, the greenhouse gas released is about 50 percent greater than what occurs from the production and use of the same amount of gasoline. And that statistic holds for at least two decades.

    Brazil will not solve all your problems (unless they’re samba related!). Increased demand for ethanol from Brazil could lead to clearcutting of the rain forest/other fallow grassland.

    Across the full process of growing high-diversity prairie hay, converting it into an energy source and using that energy, we found a net removal and storage of about a ton and a half of atmospheric carbon dioxide per acre. The net effect is that ethanol or synthetic gasoline produced from this grass on degraded land can provide energy that actually reduces atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.

    It’s a very well written article.

  • A Bounty on the IPCC Global Warming Report

    Byoliveridley

    Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited

    Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world’s largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today. Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

    Well, that speaks for itself, no comment required.

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    Sea Turtle News o' the day – Global warming edition

    Byoliveridley

    ScienceDaily: Scientists Warn Of Climate Change Risk To Marine Turtles

    North American marine turtles are at risk if global warming occurs at predicted levels, according to scientists from the University of Exeter. An increase in temperatures of just one degree Celsius could completely eliminate the birth of male turtles from some beaches. A rise of three degrees Celsius would lead to extreme levels of infant mortality and declines in nesting beaches across the USA.

    Here’s the paper.

    Like a lot of other reptiles, the sex of the hatchling is dependent on nest temperature. Warmer temperatures make female turtles (my mnemonic was hot females!), and even warmer temperatures just kill the eggs. But, I wonder if the turtles would adapt by nesting a little earlier. I don’t think it is yet clear when turtles decide to nest. If it is based on sea temperature, then they would eventually figure it out. This paper from 2004 appears to conclude that loggerheads in Florida do nest earlier than before, so there is hope.

    John F. Weishampel, Dean A. Bagley, Llewellyn M. Ehrhart (2004) Earlier nesting by loggerhead sea turtles following sea surface warming Global Change Biology 10 (8), 1424–1427

    The onset of spring, noted by the timing of wildlife migratory and breeding behaviors, has been occurring earlier over the past few decades. Here, we examine 15 years of loggerhead sea turtle, Caretta caretta, nesting patterns along a 40.5 km beach on Florida’s Atlantic coast. This small section of beach is considered to be the most important nesting area for this threatened species in the western hemisphere. From 1989 to 2003, the annual number of nests fluctuated between 13 000 and 25 000 without a conspicuous trend; however, based on a regression analysis, the median nesting date became earlier by roughly 10 days. The Julian day of median nesting was significantly correlated with near-shore, May sea surface temperatures that warmed an average of 0.8°C over this period. This marine example from warm temperate/subtropical waters represents another response of nature to recent climate trends.

    So the truth lies somewhere between easy adaptation and giant swarms of frustrated female turtles!