climate crisis

Fusion Power And The Climate Crisis | Earth Wise

January 24, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

In December, the Department of Energy announced that scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California had achieved a breakthrough in nuclear fusion technology. Fusion is the process by which the sun generates energy. If we had the means to produce nuclear fusion in a controlled fashion, it would be an almost limitless source of clean energy.

Scientists have been trying to develop controllable fusion since the advent of the hydrogen bomb in the 1950s. H-Bombs are basically uncontrollable fusion.

There are massive experiments under development around the work seeking the means to create and control fusion. There are multi-billion-dollar projects such as the ITER tokamak project in southern France, that have been ongoing for decades. Colossal equipment is required to produce the temperatures of millions of degrees needed to fuse hydrogen atoms into helium atoms.

The Livermore project uses 192 powerful laser beams to vaporize a tiny pellet and provide the energy required to initiate fusion. The breakthrough is that the experiment released more energy than the lasers put in. This was the first time a fusion experiment produced a net gain of energy.

Is fusion the solution to de-carbonizing the energy system? Perhaps someday it might be. However, even the most optimistic fusion researchers believe it will be at least another decade before even the experimental fusion systems around the world can reliably produce energy and the efforts will cost untold billions of dollars.

The world cannot wait for fusion power to save the day. The focus must remain on currently available renewable energy technologies if we are to achieve the necessary emission reductions in time to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

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Can Fusion Solve the Climate Crisis?

Photo, posted July 29, 2010, courtesy of Steve Jurvetson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Permafrost Thaw | Earth Wise

March 18, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

We’ve talked about permafrost before. It is the frozen soil, rock, or sediment piled up in the Arctic that has been there at least for two years but, for the most part, for millennia or even over a million years. Permafrost holds the carbon-filled remains of vegetation and animals that froze before they could start decomposing. Estimates are that there are nearly 2,000 billion tons of carbon trapped in Arctic permafrost. To put that in perspective, annual global carbon emissions are less than 40 billion tons.

Keeping all that carbon frozen plays a critical role in preventing the planet from rapidly heating. The ongoing warming of the Arctic is causing the subsurface ground to thaw and release long-held carbon to the atmosphere.

Scientists from Europe and the US are working together to better track permafrost carbon dynamics. They are trying to understand the mechanisms that lead to abrupt thaws in the permafrost that have taken place in some locations. These rapid thawing events are not well understood. Researchers are also studying the effects of the increasingly frequent wildfires in the Arctic on the permafrost.

Researchers are using satellites to better understand the effects climate change is having on the Arctic environment and how these changes, in turn, are adding to the climate crisis. Permafrost cannot be directly observed from space, so that its presence has to be inferred from measurements like land-surface temperature and soil moisture readings. Terrestrial observations are also necessary for understanding how greenhouse gases – both CO2 and methane – are being emitted from the Arctic.

Thawing permafrost is a ticking timebomb for the environment that demands the growing attention of the scientific community.

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Permafrost thaw: it’s complicated

Photo, posted January 24, 2014, courtesy of Brandt Meixell / USGS via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Climate Change And Farming Productivity | Earth Wise

May 3, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The future potential impacts of anthropogenic climate change on global agricultural systems has been well studied, but how human-caused climate change has already affected the agricultural sector is not as well understood. But a new study led by researchers at Cornell University and supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the National Science Foundation examined this issue.

Despite important agricultural breakthroughs in technology, fertilizer use and global trade during the past 60 years, it turns out that the climate crisis is already eroding farm productivity. According to the study, which was recently published in the journal Nature Climate Change, global farming productivity is 21% lower than it could have been without climate change. This is the equivalent of losing approximately seven years of farm productivity increases since the 1960s.

The researchers developed a model linking annual changes in weather and productivity with output from the latest climate models over six decades to quantify the effect of anthropogenic climate change on what economists call “total factor productivity.” This measure captures the overall productivity of the agricultural sector.

The research team reviewed 200 variations of the model, but the results remained largely consistent: anthropogenic climate change is already slowing down global food production. The researchers say the historical impacts of climate change have been larger in naturally warmer climates, like in parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Climate change is not some distant problem to solve in the future. It is already having an impact on the planet and it needs to be addressed now.

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Climate change cut global farming productivity 21% since 1960s

Photo, posted October 2, 2013, courtesy of the United Soybean Board via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Renewable Growth During The Pandemic | Earth Wise

December 22, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

According to a new report published by the International Energy Agency, global renewable energy installations will hit a record level in 2020 in sharp contrast with declines in the fossil fuel sectors caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

For the year, almost 90% of all new electricity generation will be renewable, with only 10% powered by gas and coal. This progress puts green power on track to become the largest global electricity source by 2025, displacing coal-powered generation, which has been dominant for the past 50 years. By that year, renewables are expected to supply one-third of the world’s electricity.

Solar power capacity has increased by 18 times since 2010 and wind power by four times. In 2010, hydropower provided 77% of the world’s green power, but its share has fallen to 45% – not because there is less hydropower but because solar and wind have grown so much.

Growing recognition of the need to tackle the global climate crisis has made renewable energy increasingly attractive to investors. According to the IEA report, shares in renewable equipment makers and project developers have outperformed most major stock market indices and the value of shares in solar companies has more than doubled in the past 12 months. Fossil fuels have had a turbulent time in 2020 as the pandemic has caused demand from transport and other sectors to plunge.

While renewables continue to see dramatic growth in electrical generation capacity, electricity represents only about one-fifth of all energy use. The burning of fossil fuels in transport, industry, and heating continues to make up the bulk of energy emissions.

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Renewable energy defies Covid-19 to hit record growth in 2020

Photo, posted October 2, 2020, courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management California via Flickr. Photo credit: Clearway Energy Group.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Danger Of Relying On Future Technology | Earth Wise

May 22, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The need to mitigate the effects of climate change has been a global focus for about 40 years and has seen ever-changing views on what actions are needed. The historical record has been defined by over-reliance on promises of new technology to solve climate change. Looking to future technology to save the environment has been an excuse to postpone necessary action and avoid inconvenient changes in how we do things.

A study at Lancaster University in the UK published in Nature Climate Change exposes how such promises have raised expectations of more effective policy options becoming available in the future and have enabled the continued politics of inadequate action and skirting around the truth.

Even after four decades, rather than acting forcefully to reduce emissions, we are hoping that nuclear fusion power, giant carbon sucking machines, ice-restoration using vast numbers of wind-powered pumps, and spraying particulates into the atmosphere can address the climate crisis rather than dramatic changes in fossil fuel use.

The researchers mapped the history of climate targets in five phases. Early on, the focus was on improved energy efficiency, large-scale enhancement of carbon sinks, and nuclear power. Next, the focus was on cutting emissions with efficiency, fuel switching, and carbon capture and storage. After that, bioenergy was the major focus. Then, global carbon budgeting and potential negative emission technologies. Currently, the focus is on temperature outcomes rather than emission targets.

Each novel promise competes with existing ideas and downplays any sense of urgency. The researchers conclude that putting our hopes on yet more new technologies is unwise. The time to act is now.

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Why relying on new technology won’t save the planet

Photo, posted February 13, 2019, courtesy of Jonathan Cutrer via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The State Of The Climate

September 19, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The federal government has issued the annual State of the Climate report and it is a sobering one. The report states that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose to levels the world has not seen in at least 800,000 years. Global carbon dioxide concentrations reached a record 407.4 parts per million during 2018. That is 2.4 ppm more than 2017.

Other greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide also continued their rapid increase. Taken together, the global warming power of greenhouse gases was 43% stronger than it was in 1990.

Along with greenhouse gases, global sea levels also reached their highest levels on record for the seventh consecutive year. Ocean levels are rising about an inch per decade, but that number may rise if ice melt at the poles continues to accelerate.

Global temperatures had their fourth highest level on record in 2018, slightly lagging 2016, 2015, and 2017 for the highest ever. A La Niña over the Pacific cooled ocean waters for part of 2018, keeping temperatures a bit lower. So far, 2019 is on track to be the warmest year in recorded history.

Global sea temperatures also set a record level in 2018. And glaciers continued to melt at an alarming rate for the 30th consecutive year.

The State of the Climate report is yet another in a series of expert, science-based reports that continue to sound the alarm about the climate crisis. Climate change is affecting our weather, agricultural productivity, water supply, public health and national security. Unfortunately, the facts continue to be drowned out for many people by blogs, pundits, and posts on social media.

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Greenhouse Gases Reach Unprecedented Level

Photo, posted January 13, 2014, courtesy of Ronnie Robertson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.