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Renewables Will Overtake Coal | Earth Wise

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According to a recent report by the International Energy Agency, worldwide growth in renewable power capacity is set to double in the next five years.  In fact, by 2027, the world will add as much renewable power as it did over the previous 20 years.

Of particular significance is that renewables are going to overtake coal as the largest source of electricity generation by early 2025.

The global energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine has had multiple effects on the evolution of the energy system.  While the war has driven a resurgence in fossil fuel consumption in Europe in order to replace gas from Russia, that resurgence is expected to be short-lived.  Instead, the current energy crisis may turn out to be an historic turning point toward a cleaner and more secure energy system.

Soaring fossil-fuel prices triggered by the war have caused many countries to respond by embracing wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear power plants, hydrogen fuels, electric vehicles, and electric heat pumps.  In the US, Congress approved more than $370 billion in spending for clean energy technologies as part of the Inflation Reduction Act.  China, India, South Korea, and Japan have all increased their national targets for renewable power.   However, heating and cooling buildings with renewable power remains a sector needing larger improvement, according to the energy agency.

Overall, the expansion of renewable power over the next five years is now projected to happen much faster than what was projected just one year ago. The new IEA report revised last year’s forecast for renewables growth by 30% as a result of the introduction of new policies by many of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters.

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Renewables Will Overtake Coal by Early 2025, Energy Agency Says

Photo, posted March 8, 2021, courtesy of Stanze via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Are Companies Really Reducing Emissions? | Earth Wise

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Many companies around the world are declaring tremendous progress in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.  Sometimes these claims are the result of actions that really do  reduce emissions but other times they are the result of something called “market-based accounting”. Businesses buy credits from clean energy providers that allows them to say they are running on green power when they actually are not.

The market analysis firm Bloomberg Green analyzed almost 6,000 climate reports filed by corporations last year and found that over 1,300 of them employed market-based accounting to erase over 120 million tons of emissions from their records.

Some clean energy contracts do have major climate benefits.  For example, companies like Amazon, Nestle, and Target have signed long-term power purchase agreements that ultimately help renewable developers finance new energy projects.

On the other hand, renewable energy credits are often short-term transactions with existing facilities and do little to stimulate investment or otherwise lead to greater use of green power.  They simply shift around ownership of existing renewable energy without doing anything new for the climate.

Some companies have made meaningful cuts to their pollution by putting solar panels on their roofs, upgrading their lighting and air conditioning equipment, and so on.  But many are reluctant to spend their capital in this way, even if it eventually saves money through lower electric bills.

Customers and shareholders want to see corporations do their part in reducing emissions.  But too many are making grandiose claims enabled by market-based accounting while doing far too little to help the environment.  Dubious claims of climate progress are not harmless; it is essential for the world’s companies to really do their share.

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What Really Happens When Emissions Vanish

Photo, posted July 16, 2014, courtesy of Mike Mozart via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

A Solar-Powered Target Store | Earth Wise

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Many companies have made sustainability commitments of various types. Environmental organizations have urged big-box and grocery stores to install solar panels on their rooftops and parking lots thereby reducing their energy usage and expanding the country’s supply of renewable energy.  These places occupy large areas and therefore are capable of supporting large solar arrays.

According to a report by two environmental advocacy groups, rooftop solar panels on retail stores could generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of nearly 8 million U.S. homes.

Target Stores are one of the retailers that has been making an effort to be a greener company.  Target has installed solar panels on about 25% of its approximately 1,900 stores.  The Target store in Vista, California, about 40 miles north of San Diego, is the company’s most sustainable store.  It already had solar panels on its rooftop, powering a portion of the store.

But now it has installed massive carports topped with solar panels high above its parking lot.  With these panels, this Target can now produce enough renewable energy to power the entire store, from its refrigeration to its heating and air conditioning. Adding in some of the other energy-saving features of the store, Target expects to produce 10% more energy than the store needs, which it will return to the local power grid.  This is Target’s first net-zero energy store.

Target is not the only big retailer going solar.   Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Walmart all have been installing solar panels on some of their rooftops.  Even some restaurants are trying to reach sustainability goals with solar panels.  This is a trend that hopefully will continue to grow.

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Target looks to massive solar panels in a California parking lot as a green model to power its stores

Photo, posted June 30, 2014, courtesy of Mike Mozart via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Reducing Emissions From Cement Manufacturing | Earth Wise

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Cement is the basic ingredient of concrete, which is the most widely used construction material in the world.  About 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions are associated with cement production.

More than half of these emissions come from making clinker, which is a major component of cement produced by heating ground limestone and clay to a temperature of over 2500 degrees Fahrenheit.  Some of the emissions come from burning fossil fuels to heat the materials, but much of them come from the chemical reaction that creates the clinker.

The Portland Cement Association, which represents 92% of US cement manufacturing capacity, has recently released its “Roadmap to Carbon Neutrality”, which lays out a plan to reach carbon net zero across the cement and concrete value chain by 2050.

The plan includes the greater use of alternative fuels to reduce emissions from energy use.  It also involves the adoption of newer versions of cement such as Portland limestone cement, which reduces CO2 levels.  The industry has already reduced emissions by some shifting to Portland limestone cement, but it still only represents a small fraction of cement production.

The most significant strategy would be the adoption of carbon capture, utilization, and storage (or CCUS) technologies.  The idea is to capture the CO2 generated in the production of clinker and inject it into the fresh concrete.  It would actually be permanently sequestered in the concrete and would not be released even if a structure is demolished in the future.

It will take a combination of technologies and initiatives for the cement industry to reduce its emissions.  Fortunately, the industry appears to be committed to that goal.

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US cement manufacturers release their road map to carbon neutrality by 2050

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

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Coastal Northeast Is A Hotspot | Earth Wise

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Global warming is, obviously, a world-wide phenomenon.  When the concept of a 2 degrees Celsius temperature rise is discussed, it refers to the average global temperature and the effects that would have on such things as sea level rise and weather patterns.  But the effects of the changing climate are not homogeneous.  Very different things can happen and are happening in different places.

One such place is the coastal northeastern United States, which is a global warming hotspot.  The region is heating faster than most regions of North America and, indeed, 2 degrees of summer warming has already happened in the Northeast.

New research led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst has determined that this heating is linked to significant alterations in the ocean and atmospheric conditions over the North Atlantic.

Several studies have found that the Atlantic Meridional Circulation is slowing down.  The AMOC conveys warm, salty water from the tropics north towards Greenland, where it cools and sinks.  The cooled water than flows back south as deep-water currents.  As the warming climate melts glaciers in Greenland, the circulation slows down, less cooled water arrives in the south, and there is more heating of the ocean off the Northeastern coast.

At the same time, the North Atlantic Oscillation, a weather phenomenon that governs the strength and position of the winds that blow from the U.S. over the Atlantic, has tended to settle into a pattern that enhances the influence of ocean air on the eastern seaboard climate.  Warmer ocean air being blown over the region has led to rising temperatures in Boston, New York, and Providence, Rhode Island.

As the average temperature of the world rises, some places will warm more quickly and others more slowly.

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The Coastal Northeastern U.S. Is A Global Warming Hotspot

Photo, posted August 8, 2010, courtesy of Doug Kerr via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Renewable Growth During The Pandemic | Earth Wise

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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.

A New Super-Enzyme For Breaking Down Plastic | Earth Wise

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The problems caused by plastic waste continue to grow.  Plastic pollution is everywhere, from the Arctic to the depths of the ocean.  We consume microplastics in our food and breathe them in the air.  It is very difficult to break down plastic bottles into their chemical constituents in order to make new ones from old ones. Therefore, we continue to produce billions of single-use plastic bottles, creating more and more new plastic from oil each year. 

Scientists at the University of Portsmouth in the UK have developed a new super-enzyme that degrades plastic bottles six times faster than before.  They believe that the new enzyme could be used for plastic recycling within a year or two.

The super-enzyme was derived from bacteria that naturally have the ability to eat plastic.  The researchers engineered it by linking two separate enzymes, both of which were found in a plastic-eating bug discovered in a Japanese waste site in 2016.  They revealed an engineered version of the first enzyme in 2018, which started breaking down plastic in a few days.  They had the idea that connecting two enzymes together would speed up the breakdown of plastic.  Such linkage could not happen naturally in a bacterium. 

Carbios, a French company, announced a different enzyme in April that can degrade plastic bottles within 10 hours but requires heating above 160 degrees Fahrenheit.  The new super-enzyme works at room temperature.

The team is now examining how the enzymes can be tweaked to make them work even faster.  Meanwhile, they plan to work in partnership with companies like Carbios, to bring super-enzymes for breaking down plastics into commercial use.

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New Super-Enzyme Can Break Down Plastic at Rapid Pace

Photo, posted March 24, 2017, courtesy of the USFWS – Pacific Region via Flickr. Photo credit: Holly Richards/USFWS.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Renewable Natural Gas

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Small-scale biogas systems have collected methane from landfills, sewage plants, and farms for decades.  Here in the US, biogas is finally catching up with modern techniques with the advent of third-party operators introducing more sophisticated technology to capture methane and pump it directly into pipelines.

Renewable methane or natural gas represents a significant mostly unexploited source of energy.  Examples include the vast amounts methane generated by manure from some of the 2,300 hog farms in eastern North Carolina, biodigesters that can turn clusters of large California dairy farms into energy hubs, as well as diverting food waste from landfills and transforming it into vehicle and heating fuels.

According to a 2014 EPA study, the U.S. could support at least 13,000 biogas facilities, fed by manure, landfill gas, and biosolids from sewage treatment plants.  Those facilities could produce over 650 billion cubic feet of biogas per year – enough renewable energy to power 3 million homes.

A study by the World Resources Institute estimated that the 50 million tons of organic waste sent to landfills or incinerated every year in the U.S. has the energy content of 6 billion gallons of diesel fuel, amounting to 15% of all diesel consumed by heavy-duty trucks and buses.

Utilizing all that biogas could help lower greenhouse gas emissions from some of the most difficult sectors to decarbonize – transportation, industry, and heating buildings.  In addition, ramped up renewable gas could keep organic waste out of landfills and prevent manure runoff into rivers and water supplies.

Renewable natural gas could be the next big thing in green energy.

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Could Renewable Natural Gas Be the Next Big Thing in Green Energy?

Photo, posted June 19, 2013, courtesy of Alan Levine via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Climate Change And Energy Demand

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Human beings are utterly dependent upon energy both for our well-being and for societal development.  Our energy use is highly dependent upon climate since so much energy is expended either keeping us warm in winter or cool in summer.  As the climate changes, it is important to understand how energy demand is likely to be affected.

A new study published in Nature Communications by researchers in Austria, Italy and the United States explored this topic.  The study is a global analysis using temperature projections from 21 climate models, and population and economy projections for five socioeconomic scenarios.  The purpose was to determine how energy demand would shift relative to today’s climate under modest and high-warming scenarios by the year 2050.

The findings indicate that, compared to scenarios in which energy demand is driven only by population and income growth, climate change will increase the global demand for energy by 11-27% by the year 2050 under a modest warming scenario.  With vigorous climate warming, energy demand would increase by 25-58%.  (Large areas of the tropics, as well as southern Europe, China, and the US are likely to experience the highest increases).

These findings are important because if energy use rises and leads to additional emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, it will be increasingly difficult to mitigate future climate warming.  Quantifying this risk provides even more incentive for reducing greenhouse gas emissions before these effects upon demand are realized and it becomes even more difficult to prevent further impacts.

Policymakers need to be aware that even moderate levels of climate change will lead to increases in energy demand that will make it increasingly difficult to minimize the harmful effects on their societies.

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More energy needed to cope with climate change

Photo, posted December 15, 2008, courtesy of Matt Hintsa via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Another Problem For Coral Reefs

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Coral reefs around the world have been suffering in recent years from warming ocean temperatures as well as from increasing ocean acidification.  Corals are very sensitive organisms that can only tolerate relatively slight changes in their environment.  Thus, the majority of reef-building corals are found in tropical and subtropical waters with favorable conditions.

New research has confirmed that drastic changes in ocean salinity from, for example, severe freshwater flooding, provoke similar stress responses in corals as the heating that has resulted in freshwater bleaching and, eventually, coral death.

The coast of northeast Queensland in Australia has experienced abnormal monsoon-related freshwater flooding that caused extreme and sudden changes in the ocean salt concentration.  In places, nearshore reefs were exposed to water with only half the normal ocean salinity.  The result has been a shock response in corals that prevents normal cell function.  Unlike their response to heat stress, corals exposed to reduced salinity experience a complete collapse of their internal cellular protein balance.

The central Great Barrier Reef has actually been relatively free from mass thermal bleaching events this Australian summer, but many coastal reefs instead have been battling dramatic changes in water conditions as a result of massive plumes of floodwater.

The wild weather in Australia is undoubtedly associated with the changing climate and this new research shows that it is leading to yet another threat to the world’s coral reefs.  With the frequency and severity of heavy rainfall and runoff events predicted to continue to increase over the next few decades, proactive measures to increase the resiliency of coral reefs are needed more than ever.

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Reduced salinity of seawater wreaks havoc on coral chemistry

Photo, posted December 12, 2010, courtesy of Gareth Williams via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

More Power From The Sun’s Heat

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When we think of solar power, we usually are talking about the panels that generate electricity using the photovoltaic effect.  These panels are on millions of rooftops around the world and in utility-scale solar farms.   There are also solar water heating systems that use the sun’s heat to provide hot water for homes and businesses.

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Air Pollution Shortens Lives

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Globally, an estimated 4.5 billion people are exposed to particulate air pollution levels that are at least twice that of what the World Health Organization considers safe.  But the impact that sustained exposure to air pollution has on a person’s life expectancy has remained a frustratingly unanswered question.  That is until now.

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A Microgrid in New York’s Capital

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New York State has been encouraging its communities to install microgrids for quite a while.  Now the state has committed to build a 16-megawatt microgrid to power the Empire State Plaza in downtown Albany.  The microgrid will use combined heat and power to supply 90% of the electricity as well as heating and cooling for the 10 buildings where 11,000 state employees work.

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Geothermal Heating

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Geothermal heat pumps use the heat stored in the earth’s surface to heat homes and buildings.  Even in the dead of winter, the temperature not very far below ground remains at a temperature typically in the 50s.  Geothermal systems tap into this immense thermal resource.  Conversely, this same temperature sink can be used to provide cooling during the summer.  It takes electricity to run the heat pumps, but is vastly more efficient than using electricity directly to produce heat or to cool air.

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