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The Blue Acceleration | Earth Wise

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The oil and gas sector is the largest ocean industry.  It’s responsible for about one third of the value of the ocean economy.  Sand and gravel, destined for the construction industry, are the most mined minerals in the ocean.  And during the past 50 years, approximately 16,000 desalination plants have popped up around the world to help supply people with an increasingly scarce commodity: freshwater. 

As a result of these and other human pressures, the world’s oceans have suffered a lot over time.  But according to a comprehensive new analysis on the state of the ocean, human pressure on the world’s oceans, driven by a combination of technological progress and declining land-based resources, sharply accelerated at the start of the 21st century.  Scientists have dubbed this dramatic increase, which shows no signs of slowing down, the “Blue Acceleration.”

A  research team from Stockholm University analyzed 50 years of data from aquaculture, bioprospecting, shipping, drilling, deep-sea mining, and more.  Their findings were recently published in the journal One Earth.

While claiming ocean resources and space is not new, lead author Jean-Baptiste Jouffray from the Stockholm Resilience Centre says “the extent, intensity, and diversity of today’s aspirations are unprecedented.”

The researchers also highlight how not all human impacts on the ocean are negative.  For example, offshore wind farm technology has reached commercial viability allowing the world to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

But how can the Blue Acceleration be slowed?  Since only a handful of multinational companies dominate sectors like the seafood industry, oil and gas exploitation, and bioprospecting, one idea is to have banks and other investors adopt more stringent sustainability criteria for making ocean investments. 

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Human pressure on world’s ocean shows no sign of slowing

Photo, posted October 29, 2008, courtesy of Silke Baron via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Storing CO2 Underground | Earth Wise

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Capturing the carbon dioxide emitted from power plants and factories and safely storing it so it can’t enter the atmosphere has long been an attractive and desirable goal.  Even though the use of renewable energy sources has been expanding rapidly, it will still be a long time before fossil fuel plants go away entirely.

The most widely considered method of carbon capture and storage is underground storage.  The idea is to send the carbon dioxide through a pipeline to a place where underground rock formations can store it safely and permanently.  Typically, it would be pumped deep underground – often more than half a mile down – and the site would be monitored to make sure the CO2 doesn’t leak back up to the atmosphere or into the water table.

A new study looked at how much carbon dioxide the suitable geological formations on Earth can store.  The conclusion of the study is that drilling about 12,000 carbon storage wells globally could provide enough capacity to store 6 to 7 billion tons of CO2 a year by 2050.  That is about 13% of global emissions.

Drilling 12,000 wells is equivalent to the amount of oil and gas drilling that has taken place just in the Gulf of Mexico over the last 70 years.  The study identified locations worldwide that could handle the pressures associated with storing injected carbon dioxide.

So far, less than two dozen projects exist that capture and store carbon dioxide from fossil fuel plants.  In total, these plants can capture about 36 million tons a year, which is far less than what is needed.  But the new study at least shows that finding places to put captured carbon is not a problem.

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Ample Geological Capacity Exists to Store Large Quantities of Captured CO2

Photo courtesy of Equinor.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Minerals And Metals For A Low-Carbon Future | Earth Wise

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For the past century, economies and geopolitics have largely been driven by our insatiable appetite for oil and fossil fuels in general.  As we gradually make the transition to a low-carbon energy future, the focus on oil will shift to sustainable supplies of essential minerals and elements.

The use of solar panels, batteries, electric vehicle motors, wind turbines, and fuel cells is growing rapidly around the world.  These technologies make use of cobalt, copper, lithium, cadmium, and various rare earth elements.  The need for any one of these things may diminish if alternatives are found, but there will continue to be a growing reliance on multiple substances whose physical and chemical properties are essential to the function of modern devices and technologies.

In some cases, global supplies of particular minerals and elements are dominated by a particular country, are facing social and environmental conflicts, or face other market issues.  Shortages of any of them could create economic problems and derail progress much as the oil-related energy crises of the past have.

The world faces challenges in managing the demand for low-carbon technology minerals as well as limiting the environmental and public health damage that might be associated with their extraction and processing.  Expanded use of recycling and reuse of rare minerals will be essential.

As the relatively easy sources of these materials become exhausted, other resources will become more attractive.  These include various valuable ecosystems, oceanic deposits, and even space-based reserves.

Ushering in the low-carbon future is not a simple matter and will require responsible actions by the world’s governments and industries. In undoing the damage from the oil age, we must avoid new damage from the low-carbon age.

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Sustainable supply of minerals and metals key to a low-carbon energy future

Photo, posted March 13, 2015, courtesy of Joyce Cory via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Conspicuous Consumption

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Human civilization consumes vast amounts of material.   The Circle Economy think tank actually puts some numbers on it.  According to their latest report, the amount of material consumed by humanity has passed 100 billion tons every year.  So, on average, every person on Earth uses more than 13 tons of materials per year.

That number has quadrupled since 1970, which is far faster than the population, which has only doubled during that time.  In the past two years alone, consumption has jumped by more than 8%.  While this has been going on, the proportion being recycled has been falling.

Of the 100 billion tons of materials, half of the total is sand, clay, gravel, and cement used for building, along with other minerals used for fertilizer.  Coal, oil and gas make up 15% and metal ores 10%. The final quarter are plants and trees used for food and fuel.  About 40% of all materials are turned into housing.  A third of the annual materials consumed remain in use, such as in buildings or vehicles.  But 15% is emitted into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases and a third is treated as waste.

The global emergencies of climate change and disappearing wildlife have been driven by the unsustainable extraction of fossil fuels, metals, building materials, and trees.  The authors of the report warn that if we continue to treat the world’s resources as limitless, we are heading for a global disaster.

The Circle Economy think tank promotes the idea of a circular economy in which renewable energy supports systems where waste and pollution are reduced to zero.  Some nations are taking steps towards circular economies, while others are not.  This is a problem we can’t allow to be unaddressed.

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World Consumes 100 Billion Tons of Materials Every Year, Report Finds

Photo, posted March 13, 2015, courtesy of Joyce Cory via Flickr.

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Extreme Heat From Solar Power | Earth Wise

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Renewable sources are playing a growing role in meeting our energy needs, but one place where they have continued to fall short is in industrial processes that require extreme heat.  These include the cement, steel, and glass industries, among others.  These industries account for a significant amount of CO2 emissions because the most effective way to reach the necessary temperatures continues to be combustion of fossil fuels.  The cement industry alone accounts for 7% of global emissions and the need for cement continues to grow.

A previously stealthy startup company backed by Bill Gates and fellow billionaire Soon-Shiong has made a breakthrough in the area of using solar energy to achieve high temperatures.  The company, called Heliogen, has created a solar oven that is capable of generating heat above 1800 degrees Fahrenheit, which is enough for high-temperature industrial processes.

The Heliogen technology uses concentrated solar power to generate heat.  Concentrated solar power uses arrays of mirrors to reflect sunlight and focus it to a single point.  That technology is not new;  there are systems that use it to produce electricity and, to some extent, heat for industry.  But it could not achieve high enough temperatures for producing cement or steel.

The new system uses computer vision software, automatic edge detection and other sophisticated technologies to focus the sun’s rays far more finely than ever before and thereby generate far higher temperatures at the focal point.

Heliogen is now focused on demonstrating how the technology can be used in a large-scale application, such as cement-making.  The selling points to industry are that not only will there be no emissions generated, but that the fuel needed to obtain their extreme heat will be free.

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Secretive energy startup backed by Bill Gates achieves solar breakthrough

Photo courtesy of Heliogen.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Converting A Toxin Into An Industrial Chemical | Earth Wise

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Nitrogen dioxide is a prominent air pollutant produced by internal combustion engines burning fossil fuels as well as by a variety of industrial processes.  It is a toxic material associated with a number of respiratory illnesses. 

Researchers at the University of Manchester in the UK along with an international team of scientists have developed a new advanced material that can convert nitrogen dioxide from an exhaust gas stream into useful industrial chemical using only water and air.

The material is a metal-organic framework (or MOF) that provides a selective, fully reversible, and repeatable capability to capture nitrogen dioxide.  MOFs are tiny three-dimensional structures that are porous and can trap gases inside as though there were tiny cages.  MOFs have enormous amounts of surface area for their size.  One gram of material can have a surface area as large as a football field.

The material, named MOF-520, can capture nitrogen dioxide at ambient temperatures and pressures and even at low concentration and during flow in the presence of moisture, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide.  Such conditions are typical of the exhaust of internal combustion engines. In fact, the process works best at the typical temperature of automobile exhausts.

Once the nitrogen oxide is absorbed, treating the material with water in air converts it into nitric acid and restores the MOF for additional use.  Nitric acid is the basis of a multi-billion dollar industry with uses including agricultural fertilizers, rocket propellant, and nylon.  Thus, there is great potential for recouping the costs of using the MOF technology and even profiting from it.

It would be great to convert a toxic pollutant into valuable industrial chemicals.

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Clean air research converts toxic air pollutant into industrial chemical

Photo courtesy of the University of Manchester.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Another Greenhouse Gas Record

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According to the World Meteorological Organization, levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached yet another new record high.  Globally averaged concentrations of carbon dioxide reached 407.8 parts per million in 2018, up from 405.5 parts per million in 2017.

The increase year-over-year was similar to that from 2016 to 2017, and remains a little over the average for the last decade.  Global CO2 levels crossed the 400 parts per million threshold in 2015.

Concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide also increased by higher amounts than the average for the past decade, based on observations from the Global Atmosphere Watch network with stations all over the globe.

Since 1990, there has been a 43% increase in total radiative forcing – which is the warming effect on the climate from long-lived greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide accounts for about 80% of this.  The report notes that the last time the Earth experienced this high a level of CO2 was 3 to 5 million years ago. At that time, global temperatures were 2 to 3 Celsius degrees higher and sea levels were 30 to 60 feet higher than now.

The report includes data on the isotopic analysis of the CO2 in the atmosphere.  CO2 produced by fossil fuel combustion comes from plant material from millions of years ago and does not contain radiocarbon, that is, carbon-14.  CO2 from natural sources contains radiocarbon produced by cosmic rays.  The increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere contain decreasing levels of radiocarbon, indicating that the overall increase is largely due to human activities.

Overall, global efforts to date to reduce emissions have not been very successful, and this is borne out by the growing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

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Greenhouse gas concentrations in atmosphere reach yet another high

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Carbon Capture As Big Business

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Removing greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere is an essential part of the overall effort to achieve zero net carbon emissions and stabilize the climate.  Since we have not been able to reduce emissions fast enough to do the job, it is important to find ways to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

There are many ways to do it, but they tend to be rather expensive and, so far, the need to mitigate climate change does not seem to provide sufficient incentive. A new study by researchers at UCLA, the University of Oxford, and five other institutions, analyzed the possibility of creating a large global industry based on capturing carbon dioxide and turning it into commercial products.

The study investigated the potential future scale and cost of 10 different ways to use carbon dioxide, including in fuels and chemicals, plastics, building materials, soil management, and forestry.  The study looked at processes using carbon dioxide captured from waste products that are produced by burning fossil fuels as well as by simply capturing it directly from the atmosphere.  The study also looked at processes that use carbon dioxide captured biologically by photosynthesis.

The conclusions of the study were that on average each of the ten utilization pathways could use about half a billion tons of carbon dioxide that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere.  Thus, theoretically, these various pathways could take more than five billion tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere.   Currently, fossil fuel combustion emits about 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide.

The authors of the study stress that there is no silver bullet in the fight against climate change.  It will require multiple approaches – including CO2 removal for industrial use – to make real progress

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Carbon dioxide capture and use could become big business

Photo, posted September 18, 2015, courtesy of Tony Webster via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Detecting Methane

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Natural gas has become a huge industry in the United States, increasingly replacing coal in power plants, and otherwise contributing to energy independence.  Unfortunately, it also contributes to climate change.  Methane – the primary component of natural gas – is a powerful greenhouse gas that is estimated to be responsible for as much as a quarter of atmospheric warming.

Not all of the emissions from natural gas come from its use.  In the United States, so-called fugitive emissions from the oil and gas industry total an estimated 13 million metric tons per year.  These emissions basically consist of leakage of various types from the extraction, transportation, and processing of natural gas and cost the industry $2 billion in lost revenue each year.  Globally, that figure is estimated to be $30 billion.

Research labs and startup companies are working on developing and deploying novel technologies to address the growing issue of methane leaks across the fossil fuel supply chain.

One company called LongPath Technologies – a spinout from the University of Colorado – uses frequency comb laser technology that can pinpoint a leak to about a 50 square-foot area from half a mile away.  Other companies use different variations on laser absorption technology to be able to measure methane concentrations from a distance. 

Methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but it stays in the atmosphere for much less time.  As a result, reducing methane emissions can pay off much more quickly than reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

The current EPA is trying to eliminate emissions regulations on the natural gas industry, but it is in the industry’s economic interest to curb those emissions even if they were unconcerned about the environment.

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Methane Detectives: Can a Wave of New Technology Slash Natural Gas Leaks?

Photo, posted October 22, 2016, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Arctic As A Carbon Source

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According to a new NASA-funded study, the Arctic may now be a source for carbon in the atmosphere rather than being the sink for it that is has been for tens of thousands of years.

The study, published in Nature Climate Change, warns that carbon dioxide loss from the world’s permafrost regions could increase by more than 40% over the next century if human-caused greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current pace.  Worse yet, carbon emitted from thawing permafrost has not even been included in most climate models.

Permafrost is the carbon-rich frozen soil and organic matter that covers nearly a quarter of Northern Hemisphere land area, mostly in Alaska, Canada, Siberia, and Greenland.  Permafrost holds more carbon than has ever been released by humans from fossil fuel burning, but it has been safely locked away by ice for tens of thousands of years.

As global temperatures rise, the permafrost is starting to thaw and release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The recent findings indicate that the loss of carbon dioxide during the winter in the Arctic may already be offsetting carbon uptake during the growing season.  The researchers compiled on-the-ground observations of carbon dioxide emissions across many sites and combined these with remote sensing data and modeling.  They estimate that the permafrost region is now losing 1.7 billion metric tons of carbon during the winter season but taking up only 1 billion during the growing season.

The major concern is that as the Arctic continues to warm, more carbon will be released into the atmosphere from the permafrost region, which will further the warming.  Climate modeling teams across the globe are trying to incorporate these findings into their projections.

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Arctic Shifts to a Carbon Source due to Winter Soil Emissions

Photo, posted July 27, 2015, courtesy of Gary Bembridge via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Emissions-Free Cement

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The production of cement – which is the world’s leading construction material – is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for about 8% of global man-made emissions. 

Cement production produces carbon dioxide in two ways:  from a key chemical process and from burning fuel to produce the cement.  The process of making “clinker” – the key constituent of cement – emits the largest amount of CO2.  Raw materials, mainly limestone and clay – are fed into huge kilns and heated to over 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, requiring lots of fossil fuel.  This calcination process splits the material into calcium oxide and CO2.  The so-called clinker is then mixed with gypsum and limestone to produce cement.

A team of researchers at MIT has come up with a new way of manufacturing cement that greatly reduces the carbon emissions.  The new process makes use of an electrolyzer, where a battery is hooked up to two electrodes in water producing oxygen at one electrode and hydrogen at the other.  The oxygen-evolving electrode produces acid and the hydrogen-evolving electrode produces a base.  In the new process, pulverized limestone is dissolved in the acid at one electrode and calcium hydroxide precipitates out as a solid at the other.

High-purity carbon dioxide is released at the acid electrode, but it can be easily captured for further use such as the production of liquid fuels or even in carbonated beverages and dry ice.  The new approach could eliminate the use of fossil fuels in the heating process, substituting electricity generated from renewable sources. 

The process looks to be scalable and represents a possible approach to greatly reducing one of the perhaps lesser known but nevertheless very significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

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New approach suggests path to emissions-free cement

Photo, posted March 26, 2014, courtesy of Michael Coghlan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Floating Solar Fuel Farms

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Limiting global warming will require a massive reduction in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning.  Renewable energy sources are playing a growing role in the power grid and electric cars are becoming increasingly popular.  Despite all this, carbon-based liquid fuels will continue to dominate our energy use for the foreseeable future.

Researchers in Norway and Switzerland have described a potential scheme that would help remove CO2 from the atmosphere and produce a valuable liquid fuel.

The idea is to create floating islands containing large numbers of solar panels that convert carbon dioxide in seawater into methanol, which can fuel airplanes and trucks.

A combination of largely existing technologies would be the basis of these floating islands, which would be similar to present-day floating fish farms.  The researchers envision clusters each composed of 70 circular solar panels that in total cover an area of roughly half a square mile.  The solar panels would produce electricity, which would split water molecules and isolate hydrogen.  The hydrogen would then react with carbon dioxide pulled from seawater to produce usable methanol.

The technology already exists to build the floating methanol islands on a large scale in areas of the ocean free from large waves and extreme weather.  Suitable locations are off the coasts of South America, North Australia, the Arabian Gulf, and Southeast Asia.

A single floating solar farm could produce more than 15,000 tons of methanol a year – enough to fuel a Boeing 737 airliner for more than 300 round-trip flights across the country.  Floating energy islands would not be a magic bullet for limiting the effects of climate change, but they could well be an important part of an overall strategy.

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Giant Floating Solar Farms Could Make Fuel and Help Solve the Climate Crisis, Says Study

Photo courtesy of PNAS.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Falling U.S. Carbon Emissions

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Reducing carbon emissions is a goal embraced by nearly every country in the world, but actually accomplishing it isn’t easy. It is true that renewable energy sources are playing a growing role in energy systems, but counterbalancing that trend is growing energy demand, especially in developing countries.

Here in the US, energy-related CO2 emissions actually went up nearly 3% in 2018 compared with 2017.  But the US Energy Information Administration is now forecasting a 2% drop in emissions this year.

The main reason energy-related emissions are headed lower at this point is coal-fired power plant retirements.  More than 90% of the coal used in the US goes toward electric power and utilities are increasingly turning away from coal.

The rapid shift away from coal has mostly been due to the increasing use of natural gas.  Natural gas is not actually a clean and green fuel, but it is definitely less carbon-intensive than coal.  Overall, the total installed capacity of renewable sources – hydropower, wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass – has now actually surpassed the capacity of coal plants.  Given that renewables have in many places become the cheapest power option, there is little chance that coal has much of a future, despite efforts by the current administration.

The electric power sector is gradually moving away from all carbon-emitting sources – a trend that is being reinforced by legislation in many states.  The real CO2 emissions leader is petroleum, which accounts for nearly half of the total.  We have a long way to go to reduce emissions from the use of petroleum.  There are over 250 million cars and trucks on US roads and only a little over a million of them don’t burn fossil fuels.

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US energy-related CO2 emissions expected to fall this year, almost solely due to a drop in coal use

Photo, posted November 6, 2017, courtesy of Cindy Shebley via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Booming Electric Car Sales

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Electric cars are becoming more and more commonplace over time.  There is no place in the world where this is more evident than in Norway.  This year, about half the new cars sold in Norway have been electric.  This compares to only 25% just last year.  In March alone, nearly 60% of vehicle purchases in Norway were plug-in cars, outselling gas and diesel cars for the first time ever.

Norway has encouraged the switch to electric transportation by making battery-powered cars tax exempt as well as offering various other incentives.  This is all part of the country’s plan to end the sale of fossil fuel cars entirely by 2025.

Although Norway leads the world in electric car sales on a per capita basis, there are many other places seeing rapid growth.  In Maryland, for example, so many electric cars were sold in the past year that the state’s tax credit program, which has a $3 million annual budget, ran out of money seven months before the end of the fiscal year.  Between 2017 and 2018, the number of EVs registered in Maryland doubled to over 18,000.

New York has also seen robust growth in electric vehicles.  There are now more than 40,000 plug-in cars registered in New York State.  About a third of those are Tesla models, with the increasingly popular Tesla Model 3 rapidly becoming the dominant plug-in car in the state.  In fact, this year the Tesla Model 3 has accounted for about 60% of all plug-in car sales in the United States.

Not only are electric car sales going up, so are the options for car buyers.  Within the next year or two, there will be numerous new electric car choices available from multiple manufacturers appealing to the tastes of a growing range of car buyers.

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EVs Make Up Half of New Car Sales in Norway So Far This Year

Photo, posted May 16, 2019, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Meeting Climate Goals With Current Energy Infrastructure

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The Paris Climate Agreement set forth a goal to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius as well as a more optimistic (and preferable) goal of keeping the temperature rise to less than 1.5 degrees.  Reaching either of these goals requires getting to net-zero emissions by the middle of the century.

A new paper, published in Nature, looks at the issue of whether existing power plants and other fossil-fuel-burning equipment (including vehicles) can continue to operate until they age out of functionality, or whether they need to be retired early.

The results of the study are that future emissions from existing facilities would take up the entire carbon budget needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and almost 2/3 of the budget needed to keep warming below 2 degrees over the next 30 years.

So, the good news is that we can still avoid a 2-degree rise without having to shut down all the existing power plants early.  But we would definitely have to stop building new things with smokestacks and tailpipes that dump CO2 into the atmosphere. 

That good news is tempered by the fact that the number of fossil fuel-burning power plants and vehicles in the world has increased dramatically over the past decade, spurred by rapid economic and industrial development in China and India.  In fact, China is predicted to produce more than 40% of all the carbon emissions over the next 30 years.

The 2-degree climate goal is not at all the most desirable result.  The 1.5-degree target would be far better for the climate.  But if the world is to achieve it, there will be dramatic changes needed in the existing infrastructure – either shutting it down or retrofitting it to drastically reduce emissions.

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Two-Degree Climate Goal Attainable Without Early Infrastructure Retirement

Photo, posted March 5, 2010, courtesy of Tennessee Valley Authority via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Record European Heatwave

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Sahara Desert winds blasted Europe in June, especially during a five-day heatwave that set many records.  Between that and weather elsewhere, June was not only one of the hottest ever for that continent, but also for the world as a whole.

In Europe, the average temperature was about 5 degrees Fahrenheit above the June average of a century ago.  The global temperature was nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit higher.

The European heatwave broke temperature records in France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Spain.  A temperature above 114 degrees was recorded near the French city of Nîmes.

The intense heat lead to wildfires in Spain and Germany, and widespread disruption across Europe.  Undoubtedly, the heatwave has caused many premature deaths, but it will take some time to compile those statistics.  The European heatwave of 2003 caused more than 70,000 premature deaths.


According to calculations by climate scientists, the record-breaking heatwave in June was made at least 5 and as much as 100 times more likely by climate change.  Global heating caused by the carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels and other human activities means that heatwaves are becoming more probable and severe.  So-called attribution studies estimate how much more likely and severe such events are.

The researchers used temperature records stretching back to 1901 to assess the probability of a heatwave last month and in the past.  They also examined climate change models to assess the impact of global heating.  More than 230 attribution studies to date around the world have found that 95% of heatwaves were made more likely or worse by climate change.

It was the hottest June on record in Europe by a country mile and there are likely to be more months like it in the future.

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Climate Change Made Last Month’s European Heatwave At Least Five Times More Likely

Photo, posted February 13, 2018, courtesy of Guilhem Vellut via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Largest Offshore Wind Farm

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The world’s largest offshore wind farm recently began operations in the North Sea, a notoriously gusty stretch of open water that has become home to multiple large wind farms.  The new Hornsea One wind farm is located 75 miles off the east coast of Yorkshire in the United Kingdom.

The first 50 turbines are now in operation and are generating electricity for up to 287,000 homes.  When the farm is completed sometime next year, it will have 174 turbines with a total capacity of 1.2 gigawatts, enough to power a million homes.  The farm will send electricity to the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Scandinavia.  The Hornsea One farm will have more than twice the capacity of the current largest offshore operation, which is also in the UK.

Because the farm is so far from shore, teams of workers will live at sea for two to four weeks at a time maintaining it.  Such operations are unprecedented and required new ways of operating to overcome the logistical and technical challenges of operating a massive power station far from land.

The UK has the largest offshore wind generating capacity in Europe, now more than 8.2 gigawatts and accounting for 44% of Europe’s offshore wind capacity.  All that capacity is one of the big reasons that the UK has been successfully weaning itself off of coal for increasingly long periods of time.

Meanwhile, the US continues to lag far behind in offshore wind with a grand total of 0.03 gigawatts of installed capacity.  That situation may be changing after the federal government auctioned off 3 major tracts of ocean late last year that potentially could generate over 4 gigawatts of power if fully developed.

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The World’s Largest Offshore Wind Farm Just Came Online

Photo credit: Hornsea Project One.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Desalination On The Rise

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Desalination has been regarded for decades as a solution for providing fresh water to places where it is scarce.  With drought becoming more common around the world – sometimes even in places where water supplies were thought to be ample – there is increasing pressure to bring new desalination plants online.

San Diego gets only 12 inches of rain a year and has no groundwater.  It gets half its water from the distant Colorado River, and that source is becoming increasingly unreliable.  Thus, it is no surprise that America’s largest desalination plant is in Carlsbad, about 30 miles north of San Diego.  That plant provides about 10% of the fresh water needs of the region’s 3.1 million people.

There are 11 desalination plants in California, and 10 more are proposed. Desalination is huge in Saudi Arabia, Australia and Israel.  Globally, more than 300 million people get their water from desalination.

But there are problems.  Desalination is expensive and energy-intensive.  If the process is powered by fossil fuels, it contributes to global warming.  There are ecological impacts as well since it takes two gallons of sea water to make a gallon of fresh water, and the gallon left behind is extremely briny and potentially harmful to dump back into the sea.  The intake systems of desalination plants are also harmful to fish and other aquatic creatures.

The cost of desalination has dropped by more than half over the last 30 years but water from it still costs about twice as much as that from other main sources.  The technology is getting better and cheaper, but the industry must confront and solve serious environmental and economic problems in order for desalination to be able to meet the needs of an increasingly thirsty world.

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As Water Scarcity Increases, Desalination Plants Are on the Rise

Photo, posted January 12, 2011, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

100% Renewables Does Not Necessarily Mean Carbon-Free

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Hundreds of companies around the world have committed to use 100% renewable energy in order to fight climate change.  But a new study from Stanford University points out that 100% renewable energy does not necessarily mean 100% carbon-free energy.

The problem is that the carbon content of electricity can vary a lot over the course of a day in many locations.  Using yearly averages can overstate the carbon reductions associated with a particular power source, in some cases by significant amounts.

Suppose a California company purchases or generates enough solar power to match 100% or more of their electricity use over the course of the year.  In reality, it may generate far more electricity than it uses during the afternoon and sell the excess.  Then, at nighttime, it purchases power from the grid, which would be far more carbon-intensive if it involves the burning of fossil fuels.

But in Britain, for example, the situation is very different.  With a high reliance on wind power, grid carbon intensity is actually lower at night.  So very different consumption patterns over the course of a day would be less carbon-intensive.

If sufficient energy storage capacity can be implemented into the grid as well as suitable long-range transmission, these time-based fluctuations in the electricity supply could be ironed out.  Until such time, electricity consumers need to evaluate the environmental benefits of their renewable strategies on an hourly basis rather than using averages.  And the best strategies are entirely dependent upon the characteristics of the specific grid they interact with.  The need for this kind of analysis will only grow as renewable generation expands.  Transparent, precise and meaningful carbon accounting is necessary.

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100% renewables doesn’t equal zero-carbon energy, and the difference is growing

Photo, posted January 29, 2013, courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The U.S. Military And Climate Change

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According to new research by scientists from Durham University and Lancaster University, the United States military is one of the largest climate polluters.  The U.S. military consumes more liquid fuels and emits more greenhouse gases than most countries.  

The study, published in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, finds that if the U.S. military were a country, it would be the 47th largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, falling between Peru and Portugal.  And this only takes into account the emissions from its liquid fuel consumption.  For this study, the U.S. military’s 2015 consumption was compared with the 2014 World Bank country liquid fuel consumption. 

In 2017, the U.S. military purchased more than 269,000 barrels of oil a day, emitting more than 25,000 kt- CO2e by burning those fuels.  The Air Force accounted for $4.9 billion worth of this fuel, followed by the Navy at $2.8 billion, the Army at $947 million, and the Marines at $36 million. 

The Air Force and the Navy are not only the U.S. military’s largest purchasers of fuel, they also use the most polluting types of fuel.  The Air Force is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases at more than 13,000 kt CO2e, nearly double that of the Navy’s 7,800 kt CO2e. 

Despite this study’s findings and a general uptick in awareness, it’s unlikely that the U.S. military’s dependence on fossil fuels will change.  That’s because the military continues to pursue open-ended operations around the globe, and the lifecycle of its existing military equipment insures dependence on hydrocarbons for many years to come. 

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U.S. military consumes more hydrocarbons than most countries — massive hidden impact on climate

Photo, posted July 8, 2016, courtesy of Alan Wilson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

WAMC Northeast Public Radio

WAMC/Northeast Public Radio is a regional public radio network serving parts of seven northeastern states (more...)