Leaked documents purportedly from the nonprofit Heartland Institute include efforts to cast doubt on climate science. The site DeSmog Blog received the documents from an anonymous informant calling himself “Heartland Insider.”
The Heartland Institute gave mixed responses to the documents, calling them both “stolen” and “fake,” but only specifically calling one document, titled “2012 Heartland Climate Strategy” a “total fake.”
Nonetheless Think Progress confirmed that two of the main projects mentioned in the documents are real, including an effort to develop curricula for K-12 education that would cast doubt on climate science.
New York Times blogger Andrew Revkin said the Heritage Institute is using a double standard in being outraged about this leak, while celebrating the “Climategate” leak of emails from researchers.
Climate researcher Judith Curry of Georgia Tech—who has been branded a “heretic” by her colleagues for raising questions such whether there’s actually a consensus on climate change—said one of the most interesting things about the Heartland Institute is that it has been “so effective with so little funds.”
Last month, the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, directed by well-known climate skeptic Bjørn Lomborg, announced it will shut because the Danish government cut its funding.
New Budget to Boost “Clean Sources” of Energy
With the announcement of the Obama administration’s proposed 2013 budget, the President called again for an end to $40 billion in tax breaks for oil and gas companies over the next decade. However The Hill said this is “largely a political statement” because Congress is unlikely to support the end of these tax breaks.
The budget request calls for doubling the share of electricity from “clean sources.” It would increase funding for renewable energy, nuclear power, and technologies to reduce emissions from coal, including a 29 percent increase for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, bringing its budget to $2.33 billion.
Meanwhile, U.S. regulators approved plans for a new nuclear power plant for the first time in 30 years, to be built in Georgia. Work is proceeding, with hopes of having the reactors—a new type never used in the U.S.—running by 2016, but the plant is encountering opposition.
No Guarantees
The proposed U.S. budget includes no money for the U.S. Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program, which gave funding to now-bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra.
Despite the uproar about Solyndra, an audit of the loan guarantee program found that the investments were actually safer than Congress had expected. Nonetheless, the audit recommended changes to loan guarantees to improve management and oversight.
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu warned more recipients of loan guarantees may go bust, but that they have always known there are “inherent risks in backing innovative technologies.”
Feed-In Tariffs’ Fate
Feed-in tariffs and other subsidies for renewable energy are in turmoil as countries rearrange their systems. The U.K. is changing to a dynamic tariff that adjusts as the cost of solar panels falls, to avoid a bubble in installations and ballooning costs for the program.
Germany is expected to cut its solar feed-in tariff—and some analysts said the cuts could be deeper than expected. Two different proposals from the Ministry of the Environment could both hurt the industry; in retaliation, three German states reportedly said they’d block these measures.
Taiwan is also lowering its solar feed-in tariff, and the U.K. is proposing to do the same for small wind turbines.
The United States has lagged behind Europe and East Asia in implementing feed-in tariffs, but two new places in the U.S. are considering starting such programs: the state of Iowa and the city of Palo Alto, in California’s Silicon Valley.
Weather Trumps Turbines
A headline about a new study in the U.K.’s Daily Mail reading “Wind farms can actually INCREASE climate change…” received a lot of attention, but the Guardian argued the claim has now grown into a myth.
The research did show that wind farms could affect microclimates, and there are reasons to think they could have beneficial effects on crops.
But even if turbines can affect microclimates, a new study suggested powerful hurricanes could topple offshore wind farms planned along the United States’ Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
Maldives leader Mohamed Nasheed, called the “world’s most environmentally outspoken president” because of his calls for drastically cutting greenhouse gas emissions, was forced to resign—at gunpoint, he claimed. He had used stunts such as an underwater cabinet meeting to highlight his island nation’s vulnerability to sea-level rise.
His resignation followed weeks of protests and was apparently motivated by internal politics unrelated to his environmental views.
Global Warming behind Europe’s Winter
Global warming could be behind the Arctic blast that recently hit Europe, killing more than 200. The unusually small ice cover over the Kara and Barents Seas has changed wind patterns, pushing frigid air into Europe.
Meanwhile, most of the U.S. has been enjoying an especially mild winter—although Alaska has had one of the coldest and snowiest on record, and the Bering Sea’s ice grew to its second-highest on record in January.
Meteorologist Jeffrey Masters said it’s not clear if global warming is the culprit behind the U.S. weather, but “… over the last couple of years, it’s really not the atmosphere I know anymore.”
When the Los Angeles Times reported on the warm winter without mentioning the possible influence of global warming, climate scientist Michael Mann called it “journalistic malpractice.”
However, the media is too often the scapegoat, with politicians and the economy having a bigger influence on public opinion about climate change, according to a new study.
“Fracking” Study Raises Greenhouse Gas Worries
A new study, which sampled the air around sites where hydraulic fracturing is being used to extract natural gas from shale, revealed more gases—mainly methane—escape into the air than previously thought. Although natural gas is usually touted as being better for the climate than other fossil fuels, the study indicated these leaks could erase much of that benefit.
Geoengineering Gets More Scrutiny
Tycoons including Bill Gates and Richard Branson have funded research and reports on geoengineering—proposed planetary-scale projects to fight climate change—raising concerns about the power of vested interests.
Research into geoengineering is a small but fast-growing field. One recent study found that sunlight-blocking particles could cool the planet, but would change regional climate patterns, so would not be able to keep the climate as it is now. Another recent study found that such geoengineering could help food production by limiting heat stress, while retaining the boost in growth from higher CO2 levels.
Wind Power Struggles Ahead
Wind turbine installations in 2011 were up 6 percent over the year before, a slight increase compared with the rapid growth before the 2008 recession. Less than half of the installations were in Europe or North America, and Asia led the growth.
The world’s largest turbine manufacturer, Denmark-based Vestas Wind Systems, has been flagging: it lost $220 million in 2011—four times more than expected—and a number of senior officers left, most recently the chairman.
In the U.S., wind-power advocates have been fighting for offshore turbines along the Atlantic for decades, and now the federal government is aiming to speed permits after a positive environmental review. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said, “We’ll have those leases issued by the end of 2012.”
Hair, No—But Grass, Yes
Reports from a few years ago that Nepalese teenagers made a solar panel from hair was apparently a hoax, but now MIT researchers have done something that seems equally unlikely: making solar panels from grass clippings. The new study described how to fairly cheaply isolate a key part of the molecular machinery behind photosynthesis, and then apply it to a metal or glass surface to create a photovoltaic panel. The researchers are trying to make it simple enough that anyone can hack together a solar panel using grass clippings and a bag of cheap chemical powder.
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.