In November, Syria joined the Paris Climate Accord. As a result, the United States is now the only country in the world that has rejected the global pact. Despite this embarrassing news, there is reason for optimism in the effort to stave off the worst impacts of climate change. In particular, 7 major trends provide hope that things could move in the right direction.
Germany has a reputation as one of the greenest countries on earth. They have comprehensive recycling programs, they treasure their forests, and in recent decades, they have been aggressively working to replace both nuclear and coal-fired power plants with renewable energy sources. They have been an early world leader in solar power. And their national Energiewende or “energy turn” initiative demonstrates a strong commitment to the environment.
It is now commonplace to see solar panels on the rooftops of homes and businesses. There are more than a million solar homes in the US alone. But a new generation of see-through solar technology has the potential to also turn the windows of buildings and cars, as well as other glass-coated objects, into electricity generators.
There has been a spate of announcements from major car manufacturers in recent times detailing their plans to electrify their future vehicles. General Motors recently announced its “path to zero emissions” plan which includes the introduction of at least 20 electric vehicles by 2023. They are joining Volvo, Volkswagen, Toyota and others in making such an announcement.
Vertical farming is a method for producing crops in vertically stacked layers or surfaces typically in a skyscraper, used warehouse, or shipping container. Modern vertical farming uses indoor farming techniques and controlled-environment agriculture technology.
The British discount airline EasyJet recently announced a partnership with American company Wright Electric to develop an all-electric commercial airplane that they said could be flying within 10 years. The goal of the partnership is to develop aircraft with a maximum range of 335 miles, which is long enough for many of the European routes that EasyJet flies from its hub in England.
Firebricks, which are bricks designed to withstand high heat, have been around for more than 3000 years. The Hittites used them to line iron-smelting kilns. They are simply bricks made from clays that can withstand much higher temperatures than ordinary bricks.
The Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology or OIST has been working on ways to generate electricity from the ocean for five years. Their initial project, known as “Sea Horse” uses submerged turbines anchored to the sea floor that convert the kinetic energy of sustained natural currents into useful electricity, which is then delivered by cables to the land. The project has been successful and OIST is now planning the next phase.
Solar panels are on more than a million rooftops in the United States, so they are getting to be a pretty common sight. We also see them along our highways powering lights and signs and emergency call boxes. As it gets cheaper and more common, solar technology is starting to show up in more unusual ways.
In a trial taking place in Denmark, some electric car owners are earning more than $1,500 a year just by parking their cars and feeding excess power back into the grid.
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.
Offshore wind farms are becoming increasingly important around the world. Europe has thousands of wind turbines off its coasts generating more and more of its power. The first offshore wind farm in the U.S. opened for business last year and more are on the way.
Most gas stations in the U.S. sell a blend of 90% gasoline and 10% ethanol. Mandated by legislation, the 14 billion gallons of ethanol consumed annually by American drivers is mostly made from fermented corn. Producing this ethanol requires millions of acres of farmland.
There is no question that solar power has been growing by leaps and bounds in recent years, but whenever one really looked at the numbers, it seemed to still be only a tiny fraction of the country’s power generation – until quite recently, less than one percent.
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.
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.
The Paris Climate Agreement seeks to reduce global carbon emissions. The nearly 200 countries who signed it have pledged to reduce their own emissions within their borders. And therein lies the rub: the agreement says nothing about the impact their products have across the world. For some countries, the problem is not so much the emissions they produce; it is those they export.
The world’s largest floating solar power plant is now operational and connected to the electric grid in China. It is a 40-megawatt facility and floats in water 13 to 30 feet deep in a lake that was created by a former mining operation.
Last December, the first commercial offshore wind farm in the United States started operation off the coast of Rhode Island. The Fisherman’s Energy Atlantic City Windfarm off the coast of New Jersey is under construction. With the lengthy logjam finally broken, there is increasing activity in the emerging U.S. offshore wind sector.
