Earth Wise

A look at our changing environment.

You are here: Home / Archives for United States

United States

More Dam Failures Likely | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Two dams in Central Michigan were breached by rain-swollen floodwaters in May and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents and prompted officials to warn of life-threatening danger from a flooded chemical complex and a toxic waste cleanup site.  Engineers say that most dams in the U.S. were designed many decades ago – in some cases, a century ago – and are not suited to a warming world with ever stronger storms.

The dams in Michigan gave way for the same reason behind most dam failures:  they were overwhelmed by water, in this case by five inches of rain falling over two days after earlier storms had saturated the ground and swollen rivers.

It can’t be proven whether this specific set of events was triggered by climate change, but global warming is definitely causing some regions to become wetter and is increasing the frequency of extreme storms.  And these trends are expected to continue as the world continues to warm.

All of this puts more of the 91,500 dams in the U.S. at greater risk of failing.  The American Society of Civil Engineers, in its latest report card on infrastructure issued in 2017, gave the nation’s dams a “D” grade.

Historically, dams have been designed based on past weather history to predict the magnitude of the maximum potential flood that a dam would have to withstand.  There was no expectation that future weather patterns might be very different.  Infrastructure designers will clearly need to change their practices.

For existing dams, operational changes might be called for, such as reducing water levels in anticipation of more extreme storms.  Upgrades might include changing spillway designs to accommodate larger water volumes over a longer time period.

**********

Web Links

‘Expect More’: Climate Change Raises Risk of Dam Failures

Photo courtesy of Eye in the Sky/Youtube.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Animals And Social Distancing | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

As the spread of COVID-19 continues throughout the U.S. and around the world, health officials continue to ask people to keep physical space between themselves and others outside their homes.  It’s an important and effective way to slow down and prevent the spread of disease. 

But it’s not just humans who can benefit from social distancing.  It turns out that animals can, too.

Microorganisms living on or inside our bodies are important for both our health and for the development of disease.  Researchers from the University of Texas at San Antonio have found evidence for the importance of social distancing to minimize the spread of microbes among individuals.   The researchers studied wild monkeys to find out what role diet, genetics, social groupings, and distance in a social network play when it comes to the microbes found inside the gut.  The gut microbiome refers to all the microorganisms living in the digestive tract. 

The research team studied the fecal matter of 45 female colobus monkeys that congregated in eight different social groups in a small forest in Ghana.  The researchers observed major differences in gut microbiomes between the eight social groups.  But individual monkeys from different groups that were more closely connected to the population’s social network had more similar gut microbiomes.  The findings, recently published in the journal Animal Behaviour, indicate that microbes may be transmitted between monkeys during occasional encounters with other monkeys from different social groups.

Learning how microorganisms pass among monkeys can help researchers understand how diseases spread.  Understanding how diseases spread can help guide decision making during this pandemic and any future disease outbreaks. 

**********

Web Links

Even animals benefit from social distance to prevent disease, research shows

Photo, posted January 10, 2007, courtesy of Silke Baron via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Keeping Charleston Dry | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Charleston, South Carolina is visited by millions of tourists each year.  The town is a glimpse into the past, showcasing antebellum mansions, row houses, historic African American churches and scenic harbor views from a Civil War-era promenade.

Charleston is also visited more and more by water from rising seas and increasingly powerful storms.  The city is essentially drowning in slow motion and may soon face an existential threat to its survival.

Charleston has a harbor and three rivers and water from all these sources leaks in at every bend and curve, fills streets, disrupts businesses, and rushes into homes during storms.  Million-dollar antebellum mansions, built on spongy marsh and old tidal creeks, flood repeatedly.

City officials have endorsed a plan by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to wall off the historic downtown with an 8-mile-long seawall that would cost nearly $2 billion.  The proposed barricade is just one of many proposed projects to build seawalls, surge gates, levees, and other barriers to defend U.S. coastal cities in an era of rising seas and climate-fueled floods and storms.  A proposed flood wall in Miami would cost federal taxpayers $8 billion.

Researchers generally agree that sea levels are likely to rise by at least 3 feet by the end of the century.  Some experts believe the rise will be much greater.  So, a key question is whether these barriers will actually keep out the water.  Critics of many of the proposed solutions contend that they are doomed to fail.

Flooding has caused nearly $1 trillion worth of damage along the East and Gulf coasts over the past 40 years.  And things are almost certain to get worse in Charleston and other coastal cities.

**********

Web Links

Fortress Charleston: Will Walling Off the City Hold Back the Waters?

Photo, posted October 7, 2015, courtesy of Jeff Turner via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Concrete Production And Diminishing Coal Burning | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Coal burning is still one of the primary means of generating electricity in the United States, but its use is diminishing and doing so fairly rapidly.  The coal burning process produces residual, incombustible materials.  One of them is fly ash, which is composed of fine, glassy, rounded particles rich in silicon, aluminum, calcium, and iron oxides.  Fly ash is captured from coal plant flue gas by precipitators and bag filters. It turns out that two-thirds of this fly ash is not dumped into landfills or impoundments, but rather is put to use.

Because of its chemical and physical characteristics, fly ash can substitute for a portion of portland cement in concrete.  Using this byproduct material in making cement actually reduces its cost. Beyond cost, the addition of fly ash as a so-called supplementary cementitious material or SCM improves concrete’s long-term strength and reduces porosity and permeability.  It reduces the risk of thermal cracking and provides good long-term mechanical properties.

The amount of fly ash used in concrete products increased by 5% between 2011 and 2017 while the amount produced dropped by 36%.  Concrete production continues to increase steadily while fly ash production is steadily dropping.

Therefore, the concrete industry is looking for alternative sources of SCM.  The most obvious is the approximately 1/3 of fly ash that hasn’t been used to make concrete.  Much of that is landfilled or ponded onsite at power plants.  So, opportunities exist for excavating or dredging and recovering these materials.

As coal burning goes away, concrete manufacturing needs to make some changes.

**********

Web Links

What Does the Changing Face of Electricity Production Mean for Concrete?

Photo, posted February 16, 2017, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Environmental Injustice And the Coronavirus | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Cities and towns across the United States continue to wrestle with the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and none have been hit harder than low-income and minority communities.  Places like Detroit, Chicago, and St. James Parish in Louisiana have suffered from decades of economic inequality and pollution in their poorest neighborhoods and many of these same places have experienced some of the highest mortality rates from the virus.

Recent studies have shown a link between high levels of pollution and the risk of death from COVID-19.  Pollution of various kinds are higher in low-income communities and communities of color.  Such communities don’t have a strong political voice so that laws and environmental regulations are not enforced like there are in white, higher-income communities.  Thus, these communities have highways, landfills, factories, chemical facilities, paper mills, and other pollution sources that communities with economic power – and therefore political power – manage to avoid.

People living in low-income communities and communities of color tend to have higher rates of underlying health conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and asthma.  They have less healthy diets – more fast food and fewer grocery stores.  Part of the reason these communities have a higher risk of mortality from COVID-19 infection is that many people have reduced lung capacity as a result of exposure to pollutants.

The Trump administration has been suspending enforcement of environmental regulations during the pandemic.  Communities already affected by environmental injustice will bear the brunt of this decision.  Groups like nursing home populations, meat packers, prisoners and the poor are suddenly highly visible.  COVID-19 is exposing the real differences between the Haves and the Have-Nots in this country.

**********

Web Links

Connecting the Dots Between Environmental Injustice and the Coronavirus

Photo, posted May 2, 2006, courtesy of Sean Benham via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Largest U.S. Solar Project | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

The largest solar project to date in the U.S. has received final approval from the Department of the Interior.   A $1 billion, 690-megawatt solar array will be built on federal land in the Mojave Desert in Nevada.   The project includes battery energy storage and is expected to produce enough electricity to power more than a quarter million homes.  It will also offset the greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to about 83,000 cars a year.

The current largest U.S. installation, the Solar Star Farm in Southern California, completed in 2015, generates 579 megawatts of power.

Construction of the Gemini Solar Array is expected to start sometime this year and be completed by 2022 or 2023.  The first phase of the project will cover 11 square miles of desert land about 30 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

Some conservation groups have fought against the project, saying that it will destroy thousands of acres of habitat for endangered desert tortoises as well as other rare plant and animal species.  The groups agree that solar energy is a good thing but are convinced that the location selected is the wrong one. 

Interior Department representatives note that the Gemini Project will provide jobs and economic growth at a time when many Americans in general and Nevada citizens in particular are struggling with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The project is projected to generate $713 million in economic activity and employ about 2,000 people during construction.  However, once it is up and running, it will employ just 19 full-time workers.

**********

Web Links

The Largest Solar Project in the U.S. Gets Green Light

Photo, posted January 26, 2014, courtesy of Jannes Glas via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Victory For Clean Water | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Many of the nation’s environmental laws are under siege from the current administration, but a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court has solidified the Clean Water Act’s place as one of the country’s most effective environmental laws.

The case in question was about whether a wastewater treatment plant in Maui has been violating the Clean Water Act by polluting the ocean indirectly through groundwater.  Since the 1980s, the Lahaina wastewater treatment facility has been discharging millions of gallons of treated sewage each day into groundwater that reaches the waters off of Kahekili Beach, which is a popular snorkeling spot.   Groundwater, like any water beneath the land’s surface, can flow into major waterways such as rivers, streams, and, in this case, the ocean. 

In 2012, the nonprofit Earthjustice sued Maui county on behalf of four Maui community groups. Over the years, the Hawaii district court and the 9th Circuit appeals court ruled in favor of Earthjustice.  Last year, Maui County successfully petitioned the U.S. Supreme court to hear the case, which could have endangered the Clean Water Act.

On April 23, by a 6-3 vote, the court ruled that point source discharges to navigable waters through groundwater are regulated by the Clean Water Act when the addition of pollutants through groundwater is the functional equivalent of a direct discharge into navigable waters.

With this ruling, the Court rejected the Trump administration’s polluter-friendly position in the clearest of terms.  According to the opinion, written by Justice Breyer, the Court could not see how Congress could have intended to create such a large and obvious loophole in one of the key innovations of the Clean Water Act.  This is a victory for clean water.

**********

Web Links

The Clean Water Case of the Century

Photo, posted June 30, 2018, courtesy of Kirt Edblom via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

American Robins And Climate Change | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

American robins are migratory songbirds that can be found throughout much of North America.  Named after European robins because of their reddish-orange breast, American robins are often found hopping across lawns and nesting on porches.  Their rich caroling is among the first pre-dawn bird songs heard in spring and summer.  

While some overwinter in northern parts of the United States and southern Canada, most American robins migrate south to overwinter in places like Florida and the Gulf Coast, as well as central Mexico and the Pacific Coast.  They typically head south by the end of August and return north sometime between February and March to their breeding grounds in Canada and Alaska.  They spend their short time there trying to find a mate, build a nest, raise a family, and consume enough food to sustain themselves on their long return journey south.

But climate change is making these seasonal rhythms less predictable.  According to a new study recently published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, American robin migration is kicking off earlier by about five days each decade.  The birds now migrate 12 days earlier than they did in 1994.  

For 25 years, researchers at Canada’s Slave Lake have been recording the timing of American robin spring migration.  They attached GPS devices to 55 robins, tracking their movements from April through June. The researchers linked the birds’ movement with weather data, including air temperature, snow depth, wind speed, and precipitation.  The results showed that robins start migrating north earlier when winters are warm and dry. 

Understanding the influence over the timing of migratory events is important because the timing of migration can influence reproductive success.

**********

Web Links

A Migration Mystery

American robins now migrate 12 days earlier than in 1994

Photo, posted January 1, 2020, courtesy of Becky Matsubara via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Recycling Coal Plants | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Over 300 coal-fired power plants in the US have stopping burning coal over the past decade.  Only about 224 plants still produce power by burning coal.  As a result, a new sort of recycling industry is taking shape:  repurposing of coal plants.

Across the country, utilities are finding ways to redevelop these facilities.  Some are industrial in nature and others a far cry from their original purpose.

In January, Beloit College in Wisconsin opened a student union and recreation center in what used to be an Alliant Energy coal-fired power plant.  On the southern coast of Massachusetts, a shuttered 1,600 MW coal plant is being demolished to make way for a logistical port and support center for a planned wind farm 35 miles off shore.

In Independence, Missouri, the city is considering competing plans to recycle the Blue Valley Power plant.  It may become a 50 MW battery storage facility, or possibly a biofuel plant.

Another popular reuse strategy is data centers.  Data centers use tremendous amounts of power and therefore can make use of the former coal plants’ capacity to handle large amounts of electricity.

Retired coal-fired plants have built-in infrastructure and components that can be repurposed for new industry.  The plants typically have access to rail, ports and waterways, as well as proximity to good highway transportation.  The electrical grids to which they are connected can be reused for solar or wind farms at the site.

Given that coal plants are continuing to close, the potential to redevelop them in various ways continues to grow as well.   There is a surge in interest in coal plant redevelopment because these facilities are assets of value.

**********

Web Links

Coal-fired power plants finding new uses as data centers, clean energy hubs

Photo, posted January 10, 2017, courtesy of Rusty Clark via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Birdseed And Weeds | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

More than 55 million adult Americans feed wild birds and along the way spend more than three billion dollars a year on bird food as well as nearly a billion on bird feeders, bird baths, bird houses and other bird feeding accessories.  Feeding birds is a very popular hobby in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

Researchers at the University of Missouri in Columbia Missouri investigated the content of 98 commercially available bird feed mixes.  They uncovered several significant things.

The various mixes contained seeds from 29 weed species and almost all of the mixes contained seeds for pigweed, which can be a significant threat to agriculture.  One in ten of the mixes contained Palmer amaranth or waterhemp seeds that demonstrated a resistance to glyphosphate.   Other common weed species found in many of the mixes were kochia, common ragweed, foxtail species, and wild buckweed.

The overall collection of seed mixes contained an average of 363 amaranthus seeds in each kilogram of bird feed.  Based on this, it is possible that 105 million amaranthus seeds are transported in bird feed mixes each year.

According to the researchers, it is difficult to estimate the exact role that commercial bird seed plays in spreading troublesome weed species into new regions, but it is clear that the widespread use of these seed mixes is a contributing factor to the spread of weeds.

The researchers recommend careful weed management in crop fields designated for bird feed, as well as sieving during packaging to reduce weed seed contamination.  They also noted that regulatory measures adopted in Europe to limit weed seed content in bird seed have proven to be effective.

**********

Web Links

Examination of commercially available bird feed for weed seed contaminants

Photo, posted August 18, 2013, courtesy of Emma Craig via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Shutting Down Pollution | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

With much of the country shut down as the coronavirus forces people to stay at home, there has naturally been a drastic reduction of traffic on roads and highways.   And with that decrease, there has been a dramatic reduction in pollution as well.

A satellite that detects emissions in the atmosphere linked to cars and trucks has observed huge declines in pollution in major metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, Chicago, and Atlanta.

Los Angeles is infamous for its rush-hour traffic but that has pretty much ceased to exist. Similar changes can be seen in the San Francisco Bay Area, where nearly 7 million residents have been ordered to shelter in place.  New York City is less dependent on car travel than in other metro areas, but the shutdown of office buildings, schools, and restaurants has nonetheless resulted in a substantial reduction of traffic on the streets of the city.

While this sudden decline in air pollution over U.S. cities has some near-term health benefits, those benefits are likely to be fairly minor in the big picture.  When the coronavirus outbreak subsides and people are allowed to leave their homes and go back to their normal lives, air pollution will most certainly rebound to previous levels.  In any event, studies have shown that long-term exposure to air pollution has a larger impact on public health than any transient events.

Having much cleaner air for a while is certainly a good thing, but this shutdown is not a sustainable way to reduce air pollution and the long-term effects of the coronavirus crisis will certainly not be positive.

**********

Web Links

Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down for Coronavirus

Photo, posted March 15, 2020, courtesy of Tom Collins via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

An Incentive For Carbon Capture | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Convincing industries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions has not been easy.  Many approaches have been debated, including carbon taxes, carbon tax-and-trade schemes, and passing a giant Green New Deal.  Most economists agree that putting a price on carbon is likely to be the most effective approach.

But there is already in place an adjustment to the US tax code that is more of a carrot than a stick.  It is a tax credit that is designed to make capturing CO2 a financial winner for a number of high-emitting industries.  The credit, called 45Q, was enacted in February 2018.

The 45Q credit earns industrial manufacturers $50 per metric ton of CO2 stored permanently or $35 per ton if the CO2 is put to use.  An earlier credit for capturing carbon dioxide was limited to only $20 per metric ton and was capped at 75 million tons.  Some large fossil fuel companies did make use of the earlier credit.

The new version does not have a cap, but to qualify, companies need to start constructing carbon-capture facilities within 7 years and have 12 years to claim their money.

Companies with emission-intensive operations are busy figuring out how to take advantage of the credit.  These include cement makers, steel and power plants, corn ethanol producers, and ammonia plants.

Because the credit mandates that companies start constructing their carbon-capture facilities within seven years, most companies will tend to rely on mature technologies.  But the tax credit should also drive demand for next-generation carbon-capture technologies, of which there are many under development.  Saving lots of money on taxes is likely to lure US companies to capture carbon dioxide.

**********

Web Links

45Q, the tax credit that’s luring US companies to capture CO2

Photo, posted October 2, 2014, courtesy of Sask Power via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Cost Of Air Pollution | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

The environmental consequences of burning fossil fuels are a dominant topic.  The increasing changes in the climate have far-reaching effects across the globe and are a growing geopolitical crisis.  But the climate effects of fossil fuel emissions are by no means the only problem they cause.  

A new report by the Center for Research on Energy and Clear Air has, for the first time, attempted to quantify the global economic and health impacts of fossil fuel-caused air pollution.  In total, the estimate is that the economic and health costs of air pollution from burning fossil fuels totaled $2.9 trillion in 2018, calculated in the form of work absences, years of life lost, and premature deaths. The cost represents 3.3 percent of global GDP, or about $8 billion per day. 

The study focused on the health impacts of three specific types of pollutants:  nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and fine particulate matter, which has the greater impact.  Collectively, these pollutants cause about 1.8 billion days of missed work due to disease and $2.2 trillion in air pollution costs every year. Together, air pollution from these three pollutants is responsible for 4.5 million premature deaths around the world each year.

According to the report, the most premature deaths from fossil fuel-related air pollution in 2018 were in mainland China (1.8 million), India (1 million), and the United States (230,000). As a result, those three countries also faced the highest annual costs: $900 billion in China, $600 billion in the U.S., and $150 billion in India. 

**********

Web Links

Toxic Air: The Price of Fossil Fuels (Full Report)

Photo, posted November 17, 2019, courtesy of Kristoffer Trolle via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

American Households and Food Waste | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Food waste is a big problem.  According to the United Nations, approximately one-third of the food produced globally – more than 1.4 billion tons – goes to waste.  If food waste was a country adding carbon to the atmosphere, it would be the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases – behind only the U.S. and China.  All of this food waste takes place in a world where 815 million people – more than 10% of the people on the planet – are chronically undernourished.

A new study recently published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics has analyzed the level of food waste for individual American households. It found that American households waste, on average, nearly one-third of all the food they acquire.  This wasted food has an estimated aggregate value of $240 billion annually.  Divided by the number of U.S. households, this food waste could be costing the average household about $1,866 per year. 

According to researchers, the households with higher household incomes generate more food waste.  Those with healthier diets, which include more perishable fruits and vegetables, also waste more food.  

Meanwhile, households with greater food insecurity, especially those that participate in the federal SNAP food assistance program, as well as those households with a larger number of members, were associated with less food waste.  Households that use shopping lists and those that travel further to reach the grocery store were also associated with lower levels of food waste. 

When food is wasted, the resources used to produce food, including land, energy, water and labor, are wasted as well.  We have to do better. 

**********

Web Links

SAVE FOOD: Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction

US households waste nearly a third of the food they acquire

Photo, posted March 22, 2009, courtesy of Nick Saltmarsh via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Plan For New England Offshore Wind | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Last December, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management auctioned off lease rights for developing offshore wind in the New England Wind Energy Area.  The auction brought in hundreds of millions of dollars.

Recently, the five New England offshore wind leaseholders – Equinor, Mayflower Wind, Ørsted, Eversource, and Vineyard Wind – jointly submitted a uniform turbine layout proposal to the U.S. Coast Guard.

The five developers joined forces to respond to feedback from key stakeholders in the region including the fisheries industry, the Coast Guard, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and coastal communities.

The proposed layout specifies that wind turbines will be spaced one nautical mile apart, arranged in east-west rows an north-south columns, and the rows and columns will be continuous across all New England lease area.  Independent expert analysis confirmed that this uniform layout would provide for robust navigational safety and search-and-rescue capability by providing hundreds of transit corridors to accommodate the region’s vessel traffic.

Vessels up to 400 feet in length can safely operate within the proposed turbine layout and will allow the region’s many fishing vessels to follow a wide range of transit paths as they come from many different ports and head to a variety of fishing grounds.

The New England Wind Energy Area is expected to be able to provide as much as 8 GW of electricity generation for the states in the region.  Getting approval for this planned layout is one of multiple steps required before the offshore wind complex becomes a reality.  Overall, states along the U.S. East Coast are seeking to procure more than 19,300 MW of offshore wind capacity through 2035

**********

Web Links

New England offshore wind developers submit uniform layout proposal to the U.S. Coast Guard

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Reducing Air Pollution With Plants | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

New research by Ohio State University suggests that adding plants and trees to the landscapes near factories and other pollution sources could reduce air pollution by an average of 27%.  In addition, the study indicates that, in many cases, plants may be a cheaper option for cleaning the air than more technological approaches.

The study looked at public data on air pollution and vegetation on a county-by-county basis across the lower 48 states. It then calculated what adding additional trees and plants might cost.  The calculations included the capacity of current vegetation to mitigate air pollution as well as the effects that restorative planting might have on pollution levels.

In 75% of the counties analyzed, it was cheaper to use plants to mitigate air pollution rather than add technological interventions such as smokestack scrubbers to the sources of pollution.  The results varied according to the pollution source.  For example, technology is cheaper at cleaning the air near industrial boilers than ecosystem approaches.  For the broad manufacturing industry, one approach or the other was favorable, depending on the type of factory.

Adding trees or other plants generally can lower air pollution levels in both urban and rural areas, although success rates depend on a variety of factors including how much land is available to grow new plants and current air quality.

Reducing air pollution is critical to public health.  An estimated 4 in 10 people in the U.S. live in areas with poor air quality, leading to health issues including asthma, lung cancer, and heart disease.  The study shows that nature should be part of the planning process for industry to deal with air pollution.

**********

Web Links

Nature might be better than tech at reducing air pollution

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Problem Of Gas Flaring | Earth Wise

By Leave a Comment

Gas flaring is the burning off of flammable gas released by pressure relief values during over-pressuring of plant equipment at petroleum refineries, chemical plants, natural gas processing plants, and a variety of oil and gas production plants.  Flaring is also used during plant startups and shutdowns.

A new study by Rice University concludes that reducing gas flaring would benefit both the environment and the economy. Flaring and venting of gas in West Texas’s Permian Basin and certain other parts of the U.S. have reached levels that the intended result of burning gas to allow oil extraction now looks more like wasting one resource to produce another.

At current rates, enough gas is flared in the Permian Basin to yield nearly 5 million metric tons of exportable liquid natural gas if it was captured and liquified.  At these rates, the wasted gas could fill the largest sized LNG carrier every ten days.  If that liquified natural gas was exported to China and used in a power plant, it would displace 440,000 metric tons of coal burned to generate electricity.

Burning natural gas to heat homes, power industrial processes, or generate electricity all emit carbon dioxide, but at least these things also perform valuable functions. Flaring gas produces CO2 as well as other combustion products but doesn’t even do anything useful.  The venting of unburned gas, which also takes place with some frequency, is even worse since it is dumping methane directly into the atmosphere.

Across the U.S., some 14.1 billion cubic meters of natural gas was flared in 2018, equivalent to nearly 9 million metric tons per year of LNG.  In energy terms, that is equivalent to more than one-third of the total LNG volume U.S. firms actually exported that year.

**********

Web Links

Reducing gas flaring will benefit economy and environment, says Baker Institute expert

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

More Solar And Wind Power In The U.S.

By Leave a Comment

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, both wind and solar power are contributing more and more to total electrical generation in the United States.  For the first 8 months of 2019, the combination of wind and solar power accounted for almost 10% of U.S. electrical generation.

Solar, including small-scale PV systems on home rooftops, grew by almost 14% compared to the first eight months of 2018 and accounted for more than 2.7% of total electrical output.  In fact, small-scale solar generation increased by 19% and provided nearly a third of all the solar power in the country. 

Wind energy in the U.S. increased by 4.4%, accounting for almost 7% of the country’s electricity.

Overall, renewable energy sources – which include biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, and wind – accounted for 18.49% of net domestic electrical generation during the first 8 months of 2019.  The non-hydro renewable sources actually accounted for over 11% of total electricity production and saw a year-over-year growth of 6%. 

Outside of renewables, nuclear-generated electricity declined by 0.6% and coal power dropped by almost 14%.  Much of the coal generation was replaced by natural gas, which grew by 6.5% compared to the previous year.

Renewables now accounting for nearly 20% of overall electricity generation in the US represents significant progress.  But the variations by state continue to be substantial.  For example, while Vermont gets 99% of its power from renewables, Ohio gets only 2%. 

**********

Web Links

Solar and wind energy provide almost 10 percent of total generation in the US in 2019

Photo, posted April 8, 2019, courtesy of City of St. Pete via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Potential For Offshore Wind

By Leave a Comment

According to a new report from the International Energy Agency, offshore wind technology has vast potential for meeting our energy needs.  In total, offshore wind has the potential to generate more than 420,000 terawatt-hours of electricity each year, which is more than 18 times the global electricity demand that exists today.

Based on current policy targets and plummeting technology costs, offshore wind could increase 15-fold by 2040, becoming a $1 trillion industry and eliminating 5 to 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

Offshore wind today generates just 0.3% of the world’s electricity, but its’ use is growing rapidly.  The industry has grown nearly 30% a year since 2010, and 150 new offshore projects are currently in development around the world.  The leading countries are in Europe – especially in the UK, Germany, and Denmark – but China is greatly expanding its offshore capacity and the US, India, Korea, Japan, and Canada are also expected to make large investments in offshore wind going forward.

Offshore wind is in a category of its own because it is considered a variable baseload power generation technology.  This is because the hourly variability of offshore wind is much lower than solar power or onshore wind.  Offshore wind typically fluctuates far less from hour-to-hour than the other variable energy sources.

Technology improvements and industry growth are driving steep cost reductions for offshore wind.  The cost of offshore wind is expected to be cut in half in the next five years, dropping to $60 per megawatt-hour, which is on par with solar and onshore wind and cheaper than new natural gas-fired capacity in Europe.

**********

Web Links

Offshore Wind Has the Potential to Fulfill Global Electricity Demand 18 Times Over

Photo, posted August 9, 2016, courtesy of Lars Plougmann via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Air Quality In The U.S.

By Leave a Comment

Globally, poor air is a serious problem.  According to the World Health Organization, exposure to air pollution is linked to the premature deaths of an estimated 7 million people every year.  In fact, 91% of the people on the planet live in places where air pollution exceeds WHO guideline limits. 

In the United States, air pollution has dramatically improved over the last four decades due in large part to federal regulations put in place under the Clean Air Act of 1970.  Fine particulate matter (known as PM2.5) and other pollution, including ozone, sulphur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide, have all decreased during this time span. 

But according to recent research, this trend has unfortunately done an about-face.  New data reveals that air pollution has increased nationally since 2016.  An analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that, on average, fine particulate pollution increased 5.5% across the country between 2016 and 2018. 

This increase in fine particulate pollution was associated with nearly 10,000 additional premature deaths in the United States during that time period. 

According to researchers, there are several factors likely causing this uptick in unhealthy air, including increases in both driving and the burning of natural gas.  Wildfires out west are also thought to be a major contributor. 

The researchers also suggest that a decrease in enforcement of the Clean Air Act may also be playing a role.  The law put in place strict air pollution standards for vehicles, factories, power plants, and other sources, and is credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives.

It’s time for clean air to be recognized as a basic human right.

***********

Web Links

America’s Air Quality Worsens, Ending Years of Gains, Study Says

Photo, posted April 6, 2007, courtesy of Brett Weinstein 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...)