News editor
The US president’s speech on the US’s carbon emissions has thrown the spotlight on the west’s efforts to reduce fossil fuel usage
Simple souls such as myself are easily blinded by the variables that contribute to climate change debate.
For example, you might feel pleased with yourself for buying an all-electric car but does its carbon footprint compare favourably to that of a similar sized petrol vehicle over the course of its life?
In 2011 LowCVP published details of a report that said 46 per cent of an EV’s total carbon footprint is generated at the factory but will save six tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime compared to a typical medium sized family car.
At the time LowCVP said, ‘Decarbonising both electricity supply, through renewables; and the production of batteries will therefore be essential for electric vehicles to deliver ultra-low carbon lifetime emissions.’
A large degree of clarity was brought to the fossil-fuel variable last week by Prof Myles Allen, head of the Climate Dynamics Group at Oxford University, who appeared to apply the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle when describing the current situation.
‘In a nutshell, we started out with four trillion tonnes of fossil carbon underground,’ he said. ‘It has taken us 250 years to dump half a trillion tonnes into the atmosphere; if we carry on as we are, we’ll dump the next half-trillion in about 35 years; and the half-trillion after that will take us over two degrees.’
Prof Allen was responding to President Obama’s speech last week which set the wheels in motion for a federally endorsed curb on carbon emissions from power plants.
Addressing an audience at Georgetown University President Obama said, ‘About 40 per cent of America’s carbon pollution comes from our power plants…Right now, there are no federal limits to the amount of carbon pollution that those plants can pump into our air.
‘We limit the amount of toxic chemicals like mercury and sulphur and arsenic in our air or our water, but power plants can still dump unlimited amounts of carbon pollution into the air for free. That’s not right, that’s not safe, and it needs to stop.’
President Obama then went onto describe how the USA can take a lead in accelerating renewables, introducing energy efficiency standards in buildings, vehicles and appliances, and the importance the public sector in implementing these standards. The US Department of Defense, for example, will install three gigawatts of renewable power on its bases and federal government will consume 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources within the next seven years.
Bob Ward, policy and communications director, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment cautioned that President Obama’s efforts will amount to nothing without support from Congress.
‘The Republican Party and their supporters in the media have been hoaxing the American people over the past few years by claiming that scientists are divided over the causes and potential consequences of climate change.
‘Scientists across the world, including the United States National Academy of Sciences, are in agreement that the Earth is warming, humans are mainly responsible, and that if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut urgently, hundreds of millions of people will face huge risks from rising sea levels and changes in extreme weather.
‘President Obama is right to accept the advice of scientists and to seek to protect Americans against the threat of climate change.’
Many US states are already ahead of the game – over 25 are said to have set energy efficiency targets and more than 35 have set renewable energy targets – and US Department of Energy laboratory’s consistently publish details about gains made in all areas of energy generation.
President Obama’s federal mandate, with a strong emphasis on engineering an entrepreneurship help create jobs and curb emissions, could lead to investment opportunities around the world and an event taking place today will look at how those can be exploited.
Energy Futures: Towards trans-Atlantic cooperation on low-carbon energy supply acknowledges that Europe and the US are investing millions in low-carbon energy sources to help grow their economies sustainably through 2050 and beyond.
The organisers say, ‘Both want greater cooperation in this endeavour, and are about to begin trade negotiations that could bring that goal within reach. This…event examines possible areas for greater cooperation on energy innovation within the world’s largest trading relationship.’
The UK’s emissions targets are considerable in themselves and today the news broke that Costain, Atkins, and Van Oord have reached agreements to partner with Tidal Lagoon Power Limited to design, build and deliver the world’s first tidal lagoon in Swansea Bay.
It is claimed the proposed 240MW power plant in Swansea Bay – representing an investment of £650m – will produce baseload electricity for up to 16 hours each day, using ebb and flood tides and will save over 200,000 tonnes of CO2per year for its design life of over 100 years.
In a statement issued today Ton Fijen, Technical Director for Tidal Lagoon Power said, ‘We know that there is an available 10,000MW of potential sites in the UK alone that are suitable for tidal lagoon development.
‘The Swansea project will hopefully be the first in a network of lagoons around the UK coastline, driving a critical change in our energy mix with low cost, low carbon electricity sources that are sustainable long-term.’
I’m aways wary when people use the KISS ‘principle’ (?) – as it is basically a way to close down debate (ie those that query the assertion or facts – must be ‘stupid’ if they question or object).
Prof Allen’s facts are probably not in dispute – but by using the term ‘dump’ he portrays humanity as something close to being a bunch of irresponsible fly tippers. In reality all of that ‘dumping’ has allowed for enormous progress with some new problems emerging as a consequence. Future ‘dumping’ will feed and educate millions and they will solve these problems – including issues around climate change – and incidentally not just by cutting back as several articles in The Engineer demonstrate. It will however be harder to attract young people to engineering and science to become problem solvers if all they are told is that everyone else are just feckless ‘dumpers’?
Renewables articles need more”KISS” and less waffle. As regards for example the Swansea lagoon; what on earth does “will produce base load electricity for 16 hours per day” mean? I suggest it is sales-speak for it will produce SOME electricity for 16 hours per day. The average load will be about 50MW and £650,000,000 is a lot of money for that.
Keeping it simple, renewables will indeed reduce emissions. They will do this by draining so much money from the real economy that the economy will crash…so reducing carbon emissions.
A hydrogen economy coupled to renewable energy is the best answer for energy sustainability. Wind has reached grid parity with fossil fuels, and Solar PV is rapidly approaching parity.
Baseload electricity supply & energy storage is now the primary challenge. Wind, solar, tidal are all intermittent and cannot offer baseload power.
Hydrogen generation & storage is the most realistic and sustainable option for applying renewable energy in baseload supply.
Example: Wind electricity creates Hydrogen from water. Hydrogen is stored and/or transported. Hydrogen is then consumed in fuel cells to generate a constant baseload electricity supply.
Although methane (natural gas) is a horrible long/medium term solution to climate change because of the leakage of methane, it can be a “bridge” by helping lay down pipelines/infrastructure for dual & combined use with Hydrogen. Example: A gas turbine using a mixture of Hydrogen/Methane as fuel, a pipeline network, and methane as fuel cell feed. This requires advanced planning because hydrogen gas requires specially treated materials to prevent embrittlement of metals.
£650M seems a small price to pay with the cost of cleaning up Sellafield at over £67 billion so far. Is nuclear really your preferred option, or an even bigger drain on the economy? The cost of renewables will surely fall as more is invested in it. Nuclear had it’s chance to provide us with limitless cheap energy and failed.
Everyone is forgetting about the huge areas of rainforest cut down which would absorb that CO2 produced by us. Also it is always thought that industry and cars etc that produce that CO2. What about the human population; we produce CO2 every time we breath out. That equates to approx 7 Billion litres of CO2 per 15 seconds of every minute of the day. Plus all of the extra animals produced to feed us with their CO2 on top!
The trouble with lines like “the earth is warming and humans are mainly responsible” is that they discount any effects of longer term cycles of the Earth’s axis and the sun. Blaming humans may end up being as short sightedly selfish as saying: “the earth is flat because it looks like it to me” or “the earth is the centre of the solar system because i am here”. So how do we prove once and for all if any temp rises found are the effect of green house gases or the sun’s behaviour? And if it is green house gases, how do we prove if it is CO2 or something else doing the damage? I suggest these questions may take some time to answer, and i also suggest it is wise to lower carbon emissions just in case. So we should keep working to make low carbon options smarter and more attractive to consumers in order to buy more time to answer the above questions to everybody’s satisfaction.
Jason, to your question about the lifetime impact of an EV compared to a petrol car, it would be great for The Engineer to publish the LCA for both. That will settle the question in favor of the EV. And a refresher on the history of automobile would be also great to remind us all that the first cars were electric and we would have all been better off if nobody would have switched us all to petrol engines.
President Obama speech and the US climate change policy proposed by him are excellent. Here is a highlight dedicated to man-made climate change deniers, skeptics, Galileo impersonators et al.:
http://www.bloomberg.com/slideshow/2013-07-03/flat-earth-society-s-2013-agenda.html
And here is some more real science on climate change and its causes:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-03/un-charts-unprecedented-global-warming-since-2000.html
Let’s do something about it, among other things perfect and use electric vehicles not only to feel good, but to do good to civilized life on our planet.