carbon emissions
Greener Concrete
The battle to reduce carbon emissions is heavily focused on electricity generation, transportation, buildings, and agriculture, which collectively account for more than 75% of the total. However, there are other sources of carbon emissions that cannot be ignored. Among industrial activities, the production of cement is responsible for 7% of industrial energy use and is the second largest industrial emitter of carbon dioxide. Making cement accounts for about 7% of global emissions.
A New Catalyst For Splitting Water
Hydrogen is widely considered to be a desirable source of clean energy. It can be used in fuel cells to power electric motors in cars or can be burned directly in internal combustion engines. If it is compressed or converted to liquid, it can be efficiently stored and transported. Most of all, when it is used as an energy source, the only emission it produces is water.
Bursting The Carbon Bubble
One way or another, the fossil fuel industry seems to be destined to shrink away. A combination of technological advances and climate policies are going to drastically reduce the global demand for fossil fuels over the course of time. New research shows that the demise of the fossil fuel industry will have profound consequences.
Trouble With China And Climate Progress
With the United States backing away from the Paris climate agreement and with Europe taking a less active role in climate negotiations, China has become the bellwether on global climate change. Recent climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany were rather acrimonious as countries accused other countries of not doing their part or keeping their promises.
Climate Change And Biodiversity
According to a new study recently published in the journal Climatic Change, up to half of the plant and animal species in the world’s most naturally-rich areas could face local extinction by the turn of the century due to climate change. This projection, jeopardizing the biodiversity in places like the Amazon and the Galapagos, assumes carbon emissions continue to rise unchecked.
Natural Climate Solutions
The Paris Climate Agreement embodies a commitment to hold the increase in the global average temperature to less than 2 Celsius degrees above preindustrial levels. Most strategies to achieve this goal involve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from human activities such as burning fossil fuels as well as various land use activities. But there are also so-called Natural Climate Solutions, which relate to the storage of carbon and reduction in carbon emissions across global forests, wetlands, grasslands, and agricultural lands.
A Carbon Loophole
Many power plants in Europe and elsewhere are replacing coal with wood. For example, the Drax Power Station in Britain was its largest coal-burning plant and is now using wood pellets shipped from the southern U.S. in its boilers. According to the carbon accounting rules at the EU and elsewhere, the process is considered to be “carbon neutral.” But is it?
The idea is that new trees are being planted in the forests where the trees are cut to be burned in power plants. So, there is carbon neutrality. In principle.
European countries have embarked on a massive effort to switch to generating power from renewable energy. While there has indeed been major growth in wind and solar power in the 28 countries of the European Union, much of the new “green” power has come from burning wood in converted coal power stations.
A group of 200 scientists wrote to the EU last September insisting that bioenergy from forest biomass is not carbon neutral and that there must be tighter rules to protect forests and their carbon. Wood burning has become a loophole in controlling carbon emissions.
There are problems with the claims of carbon neutrality. There is no way to know whether enough new trees are actually being planted to replace those being burned. And then there is the time lag for tree replacement. Trees don’t grow overnight. There are also the carbon emissions associated with harvesting, processing and transporting wood.
There are most certainly ways in which burning biomass can be carbon neutral and can represent real progress over the use of fossil fuels. But caution must be taken to avoid exploiting loopholes in current climate rules that might actually result in increased carbon emissions.
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Carbon Loophole: Why Is Wood Burning Counted as Green Energy?
Photo, posted April 26, 2014, courtesy of Flickr.
‘A Carbon Loophole’ from Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
New Year’s Resolutions
2018 is just around the corner. Popular resolutions for the New Year always seem to include things like improving health, traveling more, spending less money, and so on. But one resolution that isn’t as popular but could collectively have a major impact is committing to living a cleaner and greener life.
CO2 Emissions Stalled
For the third year in a row, global emissions of carbon dioxide have remained unchanged. This indicates that efforts to reduce emissions have had an effect, but that there is much more to be done. It is essential to reduce emissions, not just cap them.
An Internal Price On Carbon
As the world looks to reduce carbon emissions, many companies are dealing with paying for their carbon emissions as part of the cost of doing business. But apart from the situations in which companies already are required to pay for their carbon emissions, a growing number of companies now build carbon pricing into their business plans even if they are not yet directly paying for their emissions. This practice is known as putting an internal price of carbon into their business plan.
Corporate Fleets And Electric Cars
A group of 10 major transnational corporations has launched a new global initiative to slash vehicle emissions by increasing the number of electric vehicles in their corporate fleets. Known as EV100, the initiative commits companies to integrate EVs in their owned or leased fleets and install charging stations for customers and employees.
Air Travel And Global Warming
Air travel is pretty carbon intensive. For those of us who take plane trips, it represents a substantial part of our individual carbon footprints. It isn’t that plane travel is inefficient fuel-wise on a miles-per-gallon-per-passenger basis compared with driving, for example. It is just that we go so much farther on planes. Currently, aviation accounts for only a few percent of overall carbon emissions, but that is changing for two reasons.
An Electric, Autonomous Container Ship
Electric cars are big news these days and so are self-driving cars. But now there is about to be an electric, self-navigating cargo ship. The soon-to-be-finished ship is called the Yara Birkeland, and is being built under a partnership between two Norwegian companies.
New York Steps Up
Now that the Trump administration announced that the United States would cease implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement, various state, local and corporate entities in this country have been stepping up to assume climate leadership.
Could Coral Reefs Be Wiped Out?
A new study warns that coral reefs are in danger of disappearing forever. According to U.N. research, the world’s coral reefs could die out completely by mid-century unless carbon emissions are reduced enough to slow ocean warming.
A Record Drop In Coal Consumption
Global consumption of coal dropped by 1.7% last year. This is a major change considering that it had increased by an average of 1.9% per year from 2005 to 2015. China, which accounts for about half of the coal burned in the world, used 1.6% less in 2016, as compared to an increase of 3.7% per year over the previous 11 years.
Cleaning Britain’s Air
According to a new study by the non-profit group Carbon Brief, carbon dioxide emissions in the United Kingdom are at their lowest levels since the 1920s. Four factors are responsible: a record drop in coal use, the rapid growth of renewable energy, the expansion of energy efficiency programs, and the increased use of natural gas for electricity power plants.
Positive Environmental News
From melting Arctic ice to dying coral reefs to rising sea levels, there was no shortage of grim environmental news in 2016. But the news wasn’t all bad. There were several bright spots for the environment last year as well.
2016 Carbon Progress Report
Last year was a big year for progress in the U.S. power sector. Renewable energy provided nearly 17% of the country’s electricity, up from 13.7% in 2015. The first offshore wind farm in the U.S. opened off the coast of Rhode Island. And most significantly, carbon emissions from the power sector continued to decline and reached the lowest levels in nearly 25 years.