The Peakist

Ivan Semeniuk reports in New Scientist on the carbon threat from the US coal mountain: “AT THE back of Ernest Moniz’s mind a clock is ticking. Moniz is director of the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His mental countdown marks the narrowing window of time that remains for the US to address a looming environmental disaster fuelled by the burning of mountains of cheap American coal. (more…)

NewScientist.com news service
Rachel Nowak, Melbourne

The largest carbon burial experiment in the world began in earnest on Thursday when the drilling of a 2100-metre well began in the Otway Basin, on the coast of southern Australia. The project promised the most comprehensive monitoring for leaks to date. (more…)

The European commission today unveils an energy blueprint that calls for deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, more use of renewable sources and increased competition.
Commissioners are expected to endorse a plan that calls for all developed countries to cut 1990-level emissions by 30% by 2020. At the same time, the commission is set to propose that the EU set a target to cut its own emissions by 20% during the same period, with the possibility of increasing that target if the international community agrees to a broader cut. Environmentalists criticised the commission for setting an internal target below the one it seeks for the world as a whole. “We think that this is a political and scientific blunder,” said Mahi Sideridou, the climate policy director at Greenpeace in Brussels.  Source

In the 2006 budget the UK Government introduced the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO)- a requirement on transport fuel suppliers to ensure that, by 2010 5% of all road vehicle fuel is supplied from renewable sources, bringing the UK roughly in line with the 2003 EU biofuels directive. In the US, with federal subsidies for bioethanol production, and in the EU with targets to be met, biofuels are big business. A recent study by the Worldwatch Institute concluded that, for Europe to provide for 5% of its transport fuel needs, a wholly unrealistic 36% of its agricultural land would have to be dedicated to biofuels. While currently British Sugar supplies much of the feedstock for UK biofuels, most of it blended with supermarket forecourt petrol, there is no way to meet the modest 2010 biofuel target utilising crops from European land. Instead the targets will be met with imports of biodeisel and ethanol - both of which currently present huge enviornmental problems and to greater or lesser extent displace the CO2 emissions that are the raison d’etre of the RTFO from European tailpipes to the US grain belt and Indonesian palm oil plantations.

Sasha Lilley reports for CorpWatch on the reality of the “green fuel” ethanol:

“The town of Columbus, Nebraska, bills itself as a “City of Power and Progress.” If Archer Daniels Midland gets its way, that power will be partially generated by coal, one of the dirtiest forms of energy. When burned, it emits carcinogenic pollutants and high levels of the greenhouse gases linked to global warming. Ironically this coal will be used to generate ethanol, a plant-based petroleum substitute that has been hyped by both environmentalists and President George Bush as the green fuel of the future. (more…)

By the end of today, the average British person will be responsible for the same amount of carbon emissions as the average person in the world’s poorest countries will produce all year. The startling statement is revealed today in a report by the World Development Movement (WDM), which says that while the least developed countries do not contribute to global warming, the millions who live there are most vulnerable to the consequences of climate change. Eight days into the new year, the average UK citizen will be responsible for the production of 0.21 tonnes of carbon dioxide - the same amount as the annual tally for a person in countries such as Zambia. (more…)

Study finds enough electric capacity to ‘fill up’ plug-in vehicles across much of the nation

If all the cars and light trucks in the nation switched from oil to electrons, idle capacity in the existing electric power system could generate most of the electricity consumed by plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. A new study for the Department of Energy finds that “off-peak” electricity production and transmission capacity could fuel 84 percent of the country’s 220 million vehicles if they were plug-in hybrid electrics. (more…)

Meet the world’s top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George Bush: it is the cow. A United Nations report has identified the world’s rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs. (more…)

Every citizen would be issued with a carbon “credit card” - to be swiped every time they bought petrol, paid an energy utility bill or booked an airline ticket - under a nationwide carbon rationing scheme that could come into operation within five years, according to a feasibility study commissioned by the environment secretary, David Miliband, and published today. In an interview with the Guardian Mr Miliband said the idea of individual carbon allowances had “a simplicity and beauty that would reward carbon thrift”. (more…)

Last month I went to see my MP, Bev Hughes, as part of the Big Ask campaign to lobby the Government to introduce the Climate Change Bill and put into law year on year 3% reductions in UK carbon emissions. After intense lobbying the Bill gained the support of the majority of MPs in the House, the majority of Labour MPS and the became policy of both the Lib Dems and Conservatives. Today in an unprecedented break with protocol the Environment Secretary revealed that a Bill would be included in the Queen’s Speech. This is a victory for the campaign and an important first step - however any legislation must include firm annual targets.

The announcement comes on the day of the publication of Sir Nicolas Stern’s authoritative report on the economics of climate change and mitigation. Stern, we are told, is to be despatched to the US to put the economic argument to the Bush administration, whilst in the UK Al Gore will become an advisor to the Government on climate change. (more…)

Chinese and Russian firms are planning to spend $10bn (£5.4bn) on building power plants in north east China, Beijing media says.

The plants, to be built on the border between the two countries in China’s northeast, will help provide energy needed for China’s economic boom.

The China Daily said that the sites would be fuelled by coal from Siberia.

China’s State Grid Corp and Russia’s Unified Energy systems are behind the project, the report said.

The plant is predicted to generate 60 billion kilowatt hours annually.

China’s shopping centres and factories have been competing for energy supplies with blackouts occurring across the country.

“China’s electricity demand will continue its fast growth in the coming years,” said Bai Jianhua, an analyst at China’s State Power Research Centre.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/business/6043388.stm

Reduce CO2 from electricity generation by 70% by 2050 without nuclear, claims research group

TREC Press Release

A new report, commissioned by the German Government, shows in detail how Europe (including the UK and Ireland) can meet all its needs for electricity, cut emissions of CO2 from electricity generation by 70% by the year 2050, and phase out nuclear power at the same time.

The key to this revolution in electricity supply is the replacement of old polluting power plants that rely on dwindling supplies of fuel with a larger range of non-polluting sources of energy that will be good for thousands of years. (more…)

The New Scientist looks at the carbon footprint of the large scale wind turbines:

“It started with Turbine 68. On 16 October 2003, following excavations for the 49-metre tower’s massive foundations, the peat bog above the village of Derrybrien in county Galway, Ireland, began to move. That night almost half a square kilometre of bog slid 2.5 kilometres down the hillside, engulfing an unoccupied farmhouse and blocking two roads. Journalists dubbed it the “bogalanche”, and speculated about what might have happened had the weather been wet. Two weeks later they found out. Heavy rains washed peat soup into the Abhainn Da Loilioch river, where the sludge killed 50,000 fish and affected 50,000 more. (more…)

Fred Pearce reports: MANY governments, including some that claim to be leading the fight against global warming, are harbouring a dirty little secret. These countries are emitting far more greenhouse gas than they say they are, a fact that threatens to undermine not only the shaky Kyoto protocol but also the new multibillion-dollar market in carbon trading. (more…)

Electricity-generating tidal lagoons located in the Severn Estuary could provide an economically attractive and environmentally acceptable way of supplying up to 7% of England and Wales’s electricity consumption with low-cost, low-carbon electricity.
There are a large range of potential environmental and economic benefits and disbenefits associated with siting lagoons or the proposed Severn Barrage in the Estuary. However, initial comparisons strongly suggest that lagoons could be significantly less extensive and environmentally damaging and more cost effective and powerful than the Barrage. Lagoons would not directly impound the ecologically highly valuable inter-tidal areas of the Estuary. (more…)

The UK will need more gas-fired power stations soon to avert widespread power shortages, a group of MPs has warned.

The Commons Environmental Audit Committee said the UK could not rely solely on plans for a new batch of nuclear power stations. The government’s energy review, due later this year, is expected to recommend more nuclear power.

But the committee said the UK faced a “generation gap” which nuclear power could not bridge.

The first nuclear power plants would not come online until 2017, and the proposed network would not be generating at full capacity until as late as 2030.

The committee’s report also warned of the dangers of terrorist attack on the UK’s nuclear power stations.
(more…)