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Climate Researcher Lied to Get Documents, Triggering Ethics Debate

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

A top climate researcher—Peter Gleick, head of the Pacific Institute—admitted he lied to obtain documents from the Heartland Institute, which he then leaked to media and revealed the organization’s plans to challenge the scientific consensus on climate change.

Gleick resigned from the board of the National Center on Science Education, and stepped down as chairman of the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) taskforce on scientific ethics.

His admission has triggered an ethics debate in the climate community, with ethics expert Dale Jamieson calling Gleick’s actions “unethical” but adding, “relative to what has been going on on the climate denial side, this is a fairly small breach of ethics.”

Cognitive scientist Stephan Lewandowsky argued that “revealing to the public the active, vicious, and well-funded campaign of denial … likely constitutes a classic public good,” against which the ethics of Gleick’s deception have to be weighed.

The president of the AGU said the organization was disappointed with Gleick, whose actions were “inconsistent with our organization’s values.” NASA climate researcher Gavin Schmidt said “Gleick’s actions were completely irresponsible.” Bryan Walsh of Time argued Gleick’s actions “have hurt … the cause of climate science.”

In the U.K., a freedom of information act request for details on the funder of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a climate change skeptic group, was denied by a court on the grounds the foundation is not influential enough.

PTC Could Equal Permanent Tax Credit

The Production Tax Credit (PTC) that aids wind energy is set to expire at the end of 2012, but some legislators are fighting to save it, with Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado arguing that “every minute counts” in trying to forge a deal.

To avoid such struggles over regular renewals of the PTC, President Obama proposed a new corporate taxation plan that would make the subsidies permanent, as well as make permanent a research-and-experimentation tax credit that expired Jan. 1.

High Oil Prices a Drag

Since the start of the year, oil prices have been on the rise, putting a drag on economic recovery in the U.S., pushing up consumer prices and causing overall inflation—risking a repeat of early 2011, when high oil prices nearly pushed the country back into recession.

President Obama was scheduled to speak about the issue Thursday, and White House spokesman Jay Carney said that the rise in prices—despite a drop in domestic consumption and rise in production—“tells you that there are other things beyond our control.”

The threat high oil prices pose to economies across developed countries could trigger the International Energy Agency to release more oil from strategic reserves, as was done in spring 2011, argued Reuters analyst John Kemp.

The rising oil prices have U.S. consumers wondering why. The prices, experts said, have stayed high because of rising consumption in emerging markets, as well as the threat that Iran’s oil exports may be cut off. An International Energy Agency official said that other countries would be able to make up for a loss of Iran’s exports, which had been 2.2 million barrels a day, and to boost production, Saudi Arabia may restart its oldest oil field.

In response to the European Union’s decision to embargo Iranian oil, Iran halted oil shipments to Britain and France, and possibly other European countries. Major shipping countries are refusing to pick up Iranian oil, with one shipping executive saying it would be like “getting leprosy.”

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said he would get gasoline down to $2.50 a gallon. However Bryan Walsh said no president can deliver that—at least without making the U.S. economy tank.

Tar Sands Tussle

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would require approval of the Keystone XL pipeline that would carry diluted tar sands from Canada to Texas, which President Obama had earlier nixed.

The European Union held a vote on whether to ban imports of oil made from Canadian tar sands, but it ended in a deadlock.

The amount of tar sands is small compared with the amount of natural gas and coal in the world, so the tar sands alone don’t pose a major threat to the climate, argued a study in Nature Climate Change.

Some took this to mean that Canada’s tar sands are “not so dirty after all.” However, study leader Andrew Weaver—a climate modeler at the University of Victoria in Canada—argued that use of tar sands is “a symptom of the bigger problem of our dependence on fossil fuels,” and policy makers should avoid commitments to infrastructure supporting fossil fuel dependence.

Meanwhile, another study of tar sands sites found levels of air pollution—in particular nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide—were comparable to air above a large power plant.

Small Feet, Large Footprint

A new report on the carbon footprint of a diminutive creature—shrimp—shows they’re worse than cattle, at least when raised in aquaculture. When coastal mangrove forests are cleared to create shrimp farms, it’s the “the equivalent of slash-and-burn agriculture,” said study leader Boone Kauffman.

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.

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Maldives President and Climate Advocate Forced at Gunpoint to Step Down

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

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.

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Australia’s Wild Weather May Have Helped Push Carbon Tax

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

Although Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard had promised before to not enact a carbon tax, floods, bush fires, heat waves, and drought reawakened discussion about putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions.

This week, Australia’s House of Representatives narrowly passed a carbon tax, sending the bill to the country’s Senate, where observers say it is almost certain to pass. Supporters say Australia’s setup would have several advantages over Europe’s carbon-trading system, including a fixed price for the first three years while the fledgling system gets going, which could allow Australia to claim it is the world leader on climate legislation.

However, Australia is currently one of the biggest emitters per capita, with 80 percent of the country’s electricity coming from coal. Australia is also the world’s biggest coal exporter, and as such has the coal industry reacting fiercely to the proposed law.

Buying Sunshine

Debt-wracked Greece is launching a plan—with Germany’s help—to attempt to boost its economy out of recession by building huge solar power installations. “Project Helios,” named after the Greek god of the sun, is designed to attract 20 billion euros in foreign investment—and a large portion of the electricity produced may leave the country, headed to Germany.

However, the plan for exporting the electricity has some snags, critics say—including the need for billions of euros of investment in Greece’s power grid. Nonetheless, the president of the Hellenic Association of Photovoltaic Companies said the plan is more realistic than Desertec, a proposal to supply Europe with electricity from huge solar power farms in North Africa.

Energy for All

In preparation for 2012—which the United Nations has named the Year of Sustainable Energy for All—the International Energy Agency released its first assessment of the cost of ending energy poverty. The price tag: $48 billion a year—about 3 percent of the yearly global energy investment, and about five times as much as is spent now trying to bring energy to the world’s poor.

Expanding electricity to about 1.5 billion people who lack it now would add less than 1 percent to the world’s emissions, the report estimated, and the spread could be driven by the private sector, with the proper incentives from governments, said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Pipeline Proceedings

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry diluted tar sands from Canada to Texas, faced raucous opposition at a public hearing in Washington, D.C. Protests against the project outside the White House dwindled in September, but the project remains a political headache for the Obama Administration.

Nonetheless, many industry insiders surveyed by National Journal, as well as Canada’s natural resources minister, said the administration is likely to approve the pipeline.

More Nuclear Zones

Notwithstanding the retreat from nuclear power in Germany, Switzerland, and perhaps Japan, the world is still headed for a nuclear renaissance, said a report by Britain’s Royal Society. However, the report argued there should be more emphasis on controlling proliferation of nuclear materials and better storage of spent fuel to avoid accidents like that at Fukushima.

A new bill in Berkeley, California, is questioning the city’s long-time stance as a “nuclear free zone,” which uses no nuclear power and lets no nuclear weapons pass through it. But one of  its city council members says the 1986 law causes more problems than it is worth and should be repealed.

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.

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“Crony Capitalism” Alleged Behind Tar Sands Pipeline Review

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which could carry a diluted form of tar sands from Canada to Texas, has attracted the ire of many environmentalists, including Bill McKibben, who spearheaded protests in front of the White House last month.

This week, McKibben argued the Obama administration is practicing “crony capitalism” and that e-mails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request imply the State Department—charged with evaluating the pipeline—may have worked closely with TransCanada, the company building the pipeline, to help the plan win approval.

The State Department rejected the accusations of bias. In response, the heads of a more than a dozen major environmental groups and other nonprofits called for President Obama to strip the State Department of its authority over the pipeline. Environmental groups also sued to stop the pipeline, saying TransCanada had unlawfully begun preparations in Nebraska for the pipeline, although it is still awaiting approval.

The opposition went more mainstream when a New York Times editorial called for the United States to “Say No to the Keystone XL,” arguing it would not do much to help energy security because much of the oil appears slated for export, and the best bet for long-term job creation is through renewable and alternative energy, rather than building more pipelines.

The European Union appears likely to stymie imports of fuels made from tar sands, through a new fuel quality directive.

Haunting Visit

The Obama administration also came under fire because the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) had hired top campaign supporters to help direct loan guarantees and other support for cleantech companies, including $535 million for now-bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra.

Obama was warned before his May 2010 visit to Solyndra, the trip may come back to haunt him because the company was already looking shaky, according to newly released e-mails.

Before a major loan guarantee program ended, the DOE completed $4.75 billion in loan guarantees for four large solar projects, on top of $11.4 billion in loans backed by the program before.

Solar Decline

It’s not just solar companies such as Solyndra that have struggled. Sales of solar panels may drop in 2012, according to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst and two large solar companies. This runs counter to 15 years of double-digit growth rates, and would be the first time, at least since 1975, that annual installations have fallen.

The U.S. solar industry is headed for a “solar coaster” as key federal subsidies are set to expire.

In Germany, consumers are rushing to install more panels in anticipation of a scheduled drop in the country’s solar subsidies. Chancellor Angela Merkel also said the government may cut the subsidies further.

With a surplus of panels on the market and prices falling, Germany’s plan to shut its nuclear plants may cost the country less than expected, taking away some of the bite of this transition.

Subsidy Backfire

In 2010, the world spent $409 billion subsidizing fossil fuels, up 36 percent from the year before, since policies remained largely unchanged while fossil fuels prices rose, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

In industrialized countries, subsidies tend to go to fuel producers, while in developing countries the price to consumers is subsidized as a way to help the poor. However, the vast majority of fossil fuel subsidies go to middle and upper classes, the report found. It also argued the subsidies encourage waste and make prices more volatile, thus backfiring by creating hardship for the poor.

The countries with the biggest subsidies are major oil and gas producers that rely heavily on oil revenue—mostly members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), plus Russia. In 2010, about half the subsidies went toward oil, a quarter toward natural gas, and the remaining quarter toward coal. “The time of cheap energy is over,” said the Executive Director of the IEA, Maria van der Hoeven.

Fighting Denial

Many of the leading Republican candidates for the presidency have, while on the campaign trail, questioned whether climate change is real, or whether people are causing it.

Some Republicans who supported policies to cut emissions in the past have been quiet about this issue recently. But National Journal reports that, behind the scenes, former Republican officials and other insiders are trying to shift the GOP’s focus back to acknowledging climate change is real.

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.

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Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies May Be the Way to Jumpstart Climate Finance

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

A leaked World Bank document, due to be presented at the G20 meeting in November, proposes that rich countries eliminate their fossil fuel subsidies and instead contribute the money to climate aid for poor countries to help with green energy and adaptation measures. The paper also said donor countries are unlikely to come up with the money they had pledged to give during 2011 and 2012.

Just five years ago, climate change adaptation was a taboo subject among many environmentalists—as a feature in Earth Island Journal recounts—but things have changed a lot in recent years. Now the Global Adaptation Institute has released a new ranking of how prepared countries are, weighing the likely impacts of climate change in a country against its ability to adapt.

In general, wealthier countries came out on top, with Europe, North America and Australia occupying most of the top 20 spots, and at the bottom were many of the poorest countries that receive the bulk of the world’s development and aid money. Overall, the countries to be hardest hit are also the least able to adapt.

For new adaptation spending, there is a “sweet spot in the middle” for getting the most bang for the buck, investing in countries that are not very wealthy, but also don’t get international aid, said Ian Noble, chief scientist at the Global Adaptation Institute’s council of scientific advisers.

Some countries are already receiving aid for climate change adaptation and emission cuts—but donor countries are not being transparent about their contributions, said a new report from the International Institute for Environment and Development. Norway ranked the highest in transparency, whereas the U.S. was in the middle of the pack, and New Zealand got the lowest score. Of major concern is that donors may be redirecting funds from other development efforts, rather than giving additional aid for climate efforts.

In response to such concerns, the World Bank has launched an Open Data Initiative to allow easier access to more information.

Earlier this month, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also called for transparency on the part of climate aid recipients—in particular, small island nations.

Grim Energy Forecast

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released what may be its final International Energy Outlook, a report it has published annually, but that was canceled after the EIA’s budget was slashed 14 percent this year.

Some of its highlights include the projection in its reference scenario that global energy use will rise about 50 percent over the coming quarter-century, with half the increase coming from China and India.

The reference scenario also projects renewables (including hydroelectricity) will be the fastest-growing energy source, growing close to 3 percent a year and more than doubling in production over 25 years. But natural gas, coal, and oil all register significant increases as well in this scenario, and the world’s fossil fuel mix shifts increasingly toward coal.

As Time‘s Bryan Walsh comments on the EIA’s scenario, “If you care about climate change, that’s a pretty grim forecast.”

In the near term, debt crises around the world may slow the growth of economies and energy use—including in India and China—said Harold Gruenspecht, acting administrator of the EIA.

China’s Environmental Movement

As a reminder that not every aspect of cleantech is necessarily clean, in China hundreds of protesters camped outside a solar panel factory they accused of polluting a river. After protesters broke into the facility and destroyed offices and overturned cars, the factory closed. Following the protests, the company, JinkoSolar, did pledge to clean up its operations.

Last month, a mass demonstration about a chemical plant in northeast China led the government to close it and promise to relocate it. An increase in such protests in recent years, said an Agence France-Presse article, marks a rising environmental awareness in China.

Sensor Genius

The Macarthur Foundation announced this year’s batch of “Genius awards.” The youngest winner was 29-year-old Shwetak Patel, an assistant professor in computer science at the University of Washington. He won for work on sensor systems that can allow people to track, among other things, energy and water use from individual appliances. He invented a device that plugs into a socket and, by measuring noise in a house’s circuits, figures out when a fridge is running or a TV is on, and, over time, tracks the consumption from each product.

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.

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Libya’s Revolution Could Provide Stimulus through Cheaper Oil

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

After rebel forces swept into Libya’s capital, Tripoli, the country may be able to start to ramp oil production and exports again, which many analysts hope will bring down oil prices.

Libya claims Africa’s largest proven oil reserves, and was producing about 1.6 million barrels a day when the production suddenly dropped to near zero in February. Many analysts said it will take two to three years for Libya’s oil production to recover to previous levels, and by year’s end they may only be producing a quarter to a third as much as before.

Even before rebels had taken over Moammar Gadhafi’s compound, oil companies were preparing to return to the country, which they left months before.

So far, though, the price has been up and down, in part because of anticipation of the outcome of a summit this week, which may result in a new round of quantitative easing, which would likely drive down the value of the dollar.

Trading Leaks

To try to understand how much speculators are driving oil prices, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has been looking into “excessive speculation.” Earlier this year, five traders were charged with making $50 million off speculation.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, a long-time critic of oil speculation, became frustrated with the pace of investigations and leaked the records of many trades.

Unconventional Contention

While dozens were in jail in Washington, D.C., after protests to oppose the construction of another pipeline carrying tar sands products from Canada to the U.S., a New York Times editorial argued against the pipeline because of high greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands operations. Canadian officials, meanwhile, stepped up lobbying on its behalf.

Producing natural gas from shale deposits using hydraulic fracturing has also been under scrutiny for its greenhouse gas emissions, and now a new study argues Marcellus Shale natural gas has slightly higher emissions than conventional natural gas, but fewer emissions than coal.

West Virginia issued emergency rules to regulate horizontal drilling, which the governor hoped was a first step to more permanent regulations for this drilling.

Dark Days in America, Brighter Elsewhere

With budget woes, spending cuts, and more spending cuts scheduled to be made over the coming years, it appears renewable energy in the U.S. is entering “dark days,” reported GreenBiz.

But renewables are gaining increasing traction elsewhere. In Brazil, in a large power auction, wind emerged as the cheapest source of electricity, beating out natural gas and hydroelectric power. The contracts could lead to the construction of 1.9 gigawatts of new wind farms.

Japan is expected to pass a renewable energy bill that would introduce a feed-in tariff to make renewables more attractive, and set down in law the government’s target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent (compared with 1990 levels) by 2020. To cope with the Fukushima disaster, though, Japan has boosted its use of fossil fuels in the short term.

Germany’s national rail company, which is the country’s biggest electricity consumer, is also moving toward renewables, planning to quit fossil fuels by 2050.

The Billionth Car

The future is bright for electric cars, according to a forecast from Pike Research, which said worldwide sales are likely to grow to 5.2 million by 2017, more than 50 times this year’s estimated sales.

However, even then electric cars would make up a tiny fraction of all cars, with more than one billion on the road as of 2010, a new study said. About half of the recent growth in cars has been in China, which has higher efficiency standards than the U.S., but the country is showing little interest in hybrids and electric cars.

Scientists Scrutinized 

Scientists working on climate change have been under scrutiny, with a polar bear researcher being suspended from his job for the U.S. government.

Another researcher came under fire after the “Climategate” leak of e-mails. He was cleared earlier this year in an investigation by his university, and now has been cleared in a second investigation by the National Science Foundation.

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.

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Scrambling to Head Off Power Outages Caused by Heat Waves, Rapid Growth, and Disaster

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

Texas has suffered through the worst drought and one of the worst heat waves on record, pushing electricity use to a record high in an attempt to cope.

Texas is the state with the largest installed wind capacity, and recently installed wind farms came through to boost the state’s electricity generation just in time. However, even this jump was not enough to meet demand, and four mothballed natural-gas plants will be fired back up. Thermostats that power companies can automatically adjust also helped ease demand.

The state suffered through blackouts earlier this year, and the mere threat of more outages recently has boosted home energy audits and efficiency measures, as well as calls for more renewable energy.

Texas may also beat Massachusetts to the punch, installing America’s first offshore wind farm before the long-delayed (but finally approved) Cape Wind project. The 600-turbine, 3-gigawatt project may have its first turbine up and spinning by year’s end.

Shortages Boost Fossil Fuels

China also had to ration electricity earlier this year, and is facing a power crunch over the next few years as it struggles to keep up with fast-growing demand.

To meet the demand, China’s coal use is soaring, and the country became a net importer of coal in 2009. In July, the country’s coal imports broke a new record, possibly driven by worries of outages, and by the government’s decision to allow power companies to charge more.

Earlier this month, it was reported that China is planning to create a national cap on energy use as part of a plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

China is not the only one boosting coal imports. The U.K. is buying increasing amounts of coal from the U.S., and the European Union’s demand for coal may increase.

Likewise, Japan has coped with a drop-off in nuclear power mainly by using more liquefied natural gas, but was able to boost its total electricity generation higher than last year, before the Fukushima disaster.

The increased cost of energy in Japan, said some experts, risks pushing the country into a third “lost decade” of economic stagnation.

Making Fracking Friendlier

The push to produce more natural gas through fracking needs further examination to reduce any environmental risks it could be causing in the U.S., according to a task force organized by U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. Companies are failing to follow best practices, and the explosive growth of fracking has left regulators behind, the task force said, prompting the need for stronger regulations. However, the panel made few specific recommendations of how to improve the situation, focusing mainly on collecting more data on the effects of fracking and sharing the data publicly.

While there are state regulations on fracking practices, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed earlier this month its first air pollution standards aimed at cutting smog and greenhouse gas emissions from these wells.

Renewables’ Attraction

While many economies are struggling, large investors are finding renewable energy looks more favorable, with insurance giants such as Allianz and Munich Re putting billions into wind and solar and  big banks funding large installations.

The world’s biggest solar power plant, to be built in California, will use photovoltaics rather than concentrated solar, its developer announced, because of the drop in solar panel prices.

Although U.S. residential solar power has not grown as quickly as in some other countries, such as Germany, do-it-yourself kits and innovative installations are making the investment more attractive.

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.

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Japan, Germany Struggle With Nuclear Power Slowdown

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

With a large share of their nuclear power plants down at the moment, both Japan and Germany are scrambling to meet energy demand and figure out how to get by without nuclear in the future.

Two-thirds of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors are currently down, most of them for maintenance and testing. To cope with the power shortfall, Japan’s central government asked consumers to cut back on electricity use. But by spring of next year, all reactors currently running in the country would need to shut down to go through scheduled check-ups. If they fail, or if local opposition prevents them from restarting, it could lead to “a once unthinkable scenario,” the Japan Times reports, with the country losing all its nuclear power generation.

After Japan’s nuclear disaster, Germany temporarily shut down seven of its oldest nuclear reactors, and later decided to keep them shut. Not long after, the country’s parliament voted to phase out all of the country’s nuclear power plants by 2022. But Germany’s Federal Network Agency said last week one of the old reactors may need to be restarted to meet energy demand.

Less Nuclear Means More Coal, Gas

While Germany has voted for an “energy revolution” based on renewables, the country is slated to boost its reliance on fossil fuels in the short run. Germany plans to build new coal and natural gas power plants, subsidized by revenues from selling emissions credits—money previously slated for energy efficiency efforts.

Germany also signed a deal with Russia to boost cooperation between the countries. Germany is already Russia’s biggest natural gas customer, and their purchases will likely increase once a new pipeline under the Baltic Sea opens in October.

In Japan, if all the nuclear plants did go offline, in the short term the country would be unable to fill the gap with fossil fuels, according to a study by the Japan Center for Economic Research. Nonetheless, Japan will boost its use of fossil fuels this year, raising its greenhouse gas emissions significantly, which could potentially throw the country off its targets under the Kyoto Protocol. Morgan Stanley estimated Japan would use more coal, liquefied natural gas, and oil—including, in the worst-case scenario, an additional 540,000 barrels a day for the rest of the year.

Oil Addiction Leaves Few Options

If terrorists were to attack the world’s largest oil production facility in Saudi Arabia, the U.S. would have few options to deal with the resulting massive oil shortfall, according to a “war game” run by Securing America’s Future Energy, a coalition of retired military leaders and business officials.

Global oil markets are well-enough supplied for the moment, concluded the International Energy Agency in a 30-day review of its release of emergency oil stocks in June, so it will not coordinate release of more stocks right now. The agency is still waiting to see the effects of its release of 60 million barrels—less than one day’s worth of global consumption—which is still in process.

One reason for the agency outlook is some members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries have boosted production—in particular Saudi Arabia. That country’s own oil consumption has reached a record high, and is set to continue rising—meaning in the longer term their exports will probably dive.

Green Helmets

The United Nations Security Council heard arguments for the creation of a peacekeeping force to deal with climate change-related conflicts. The President of Nauru, a small island nation in the Pacific, pushed for the new force, and also wrote an editorial for the New York Times, arguing his own country’s unsustainable reliance on phosphate deposits, now largely depleted, is a cautionary tale about ecological limits and the threat of climate change.

However, the U.N. failed to agree on whether climate change poses a security threat.

Carmageddon’s Unforeseen Benefit

Americans are willing to avoid gridlock traffic, at least for a few days, as Los Angeles found. The city closed its most heavily used freeway for roadwork to add a carpool lane. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa warned residents to “stay home. Or go on vacation. Walk. Go on a bike. But do not get in your car … It’s going to be a mess.” The feared traffic jams were quickly dubbed “carmageddon.”

What actually happened was anti-climactic, as people heeded the warnings and stayed off the roads, leading to a dramatic drop in smog levels. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said locals “turned Carmageddon into Carmaheaven.” He added, “Why can’t we take some chunk of L.A. and shut it down to traffic on certain days or weekends, as they do in Italy?”

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.

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OPEC Discord May Be “the Beginning of the End” of the Oil Cartel

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

With oil prices high, the International Energy Agency (IEA) last month made a rare plea for the world to produce more oil. So the latest meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), where they set their production quotas, was closely watched. After a rancorous meeting, most member countries refused to raise quotas.

Before the OPEC meeting, the chief economist of the IEA, Fatih Birol, told the New York Times: “Oil prices are hurting the economy.” He added, “I hope to see more oil in the markets soon.”

Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi declared it “one of the worst meetings we ever had,” with opposing views from the “haves” and “have-nots”—in terms of spare production capacity.

Saudi Arabia had been pushing to boost production by more than 1.5 million barrels per day, above current levels. Already OPEC members have gone beyond their quotas, producing an estimated 28.8 million barrels per day, compared to the current overall quota of 24.8 million barrels per day. “Everybody in OPEC is cheating and everyone knows that,” an oil analyst told the New York Times.

The Saudi oil minister suggested his country would decide on its own production levels, telling Platts, “let the buyers come and we will supply them with what they want, whatever they need.” The Wall Street Journal quoted one Gulf-state delegate as saying it’s “the end of the quota system,” and the Guardian reports some analysts say the split could mark the beginning of the end for the cartel.

Some analysts argued OPEC doesn’t matter, and Russia is the big winner, since they have added more to exports in the past few years than Saudi Arabia, and have the ability to boost their production further.

Is Increasing the Gas Tax the Answer?

The head of General Motors’ North American unit predicted gasoline prices will continue to climb in coming years. While, General Motors’ CEO, Dan Akerson, called for higher gas taxes to push people to buy more efficient cars. “We ought to just slap a 50-cent or a dollar tax on a gallon of gas,” Akerson said.

Meanwhile, the Liveable Communities Taskforce in the U.S. House of Representatives issued a report titled “Freedom From Oil.” “Providing a range of transportation choices can help break auto dependence,” the report said, and it encouraged a range of measures from more efficient cars, to better city planning, to “pay-as-you-drive” auto insurance.

Clean Energy Trade Wars

Subsidies for clean energy and emissions trading schemes were also a source of discord, within countries and internationally. China agreed to end subsidies that favored wind power firms using domestic parts, after the U.S. complained it was protectionism that broke World Trade Organization rules.

Starting next year, the European Union plans to include flights in and out of Europe in its greenhouse gas emissions trading system. But China may threaten a trade war over this issue, following on U.S. carriers, who have already started a legal battle to fight European Union levies on flights.

In several countries, feed-in tariffs that subsidize renewable energy are on the chopping block. The United Kingdom is considering slashing its subsidy by 40 to 70 percent for installations producing more than 50 kilowatts, but the solar industry pleaded for a re-think, saying the move would “decapitate” the industry. The chief policy director of the Confederation of British Industry said “business confidence has clearly been bruised by sudden and unexpected policy shifts,” including the reversal of these tariffs.

Climate Talks Stumble, Coal Rises

A few countries are starting to oppose an extension of the Kyoto Protocol. The climate treaty expires in 2012, and countries have been trying to negotiate a successor, but with limited success. At the latest round of talks in Bonn, Germany, one of Canada’s delegates said their country would not take on any emissions targets under an extension of the treaty. Russia and Japan also took a similar stance. The European Union’s lead negotiator said it may take until 2014 or 2015 to create a full successor treaty.

To help cut emissions and cope with a decline of nuclear power, the world could create a “golden age of gas,” according to a new IEA report. However, renewable energy such as wind and solar is often competing with natural gas—so the rise of natural gas could “muscle out” renewables, delaying their deployment.

Only six months ago, the IEA was warning about a gas glut, but that is already beginning to dissipate as gas demand has surged. In part this is due to increased imports by Japan of liquefied natural gas, after shutting another of its nuclear power plants.

The world may be moving increasingly toward coal, according to numbers published in the latest BP Statistical Review. Coal consumption  rose to 29.6 percent of the world’s energy—its highest share of the energy mix since 1970—with China’s use growing 10 percent in 2010, but richer countries also consuming 5 percent more in 2010. To reflect the rise of renewables, BP added them to their report for the first time, reporting that in 2010, solar grew 73 percent and wind close to 25 percent.

A New Kind of Crude

Instead of relying one kind of black goop—crude oil—to power cars, researchers at MIT developed another liquid they call “Cambridge crude.” The conductive liquid can store electrical charge, so that the battery could be slowly charged by plugging it in, or could be quickly “refueled” by draining the liquid and pumping in a new, pre-charged batch—giving electric cars the flexibility of fuel cars.

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.

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After Fukushima, Japan Vows to Boost Renewables

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

In the wake of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan pledged to boost renewable energy to at least 20 percent of its consumption in the next decade. This would double the share of renewable electricity in Japan, which gets most of its electricity from nuclear, coal, and oil. Nuclear power had supplied 30 percent of Japan’s electricity, and before the nuclear disaster, the country had planned to build more nuclear plants to boost that share to 50 percent.

“We will do everything we can to make renewable energy our base form of power, overcoming hurdles of technology and cost,” Kan said at a G8 meeting in France. In another speech in France, to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Kan also questioned ongoing growth of energy consumption: “we must ask ourselves … whether it is appropriate for society to increase energy consumption without any limits.”

Kan was expected to announce a new “Sunrise Plan” that would make it compulsory by 2030 for all new buildings to include solar panels. Japan’s richest man, telecoms mogul Masayoshi Son, also threw his weight behind renewables, announcing plans to build 10 large solar power plants and a partnership with local officials from around the country to launch a “Natural Energy Council.”

Alternative Federal Fleet

The federal government’s vehicle fleet should be cleaned up, a memorandum from President Obama ordered. The memo directs federal agencies to switch to purchasing only “alternative fueled” passenger cars and light-duty trucks by 2015. The “alternative fuel” category would include electric vehicles and hybrids, as well as those powered by biofuels or compressed natural gas. To kickstart the switch, a pilot project is purchasing more than 100 electric vehicles.

To help consumers understand their cars’ fuel costs and environmental impacts, fuel efficiency labels have gotten an overhaul. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) called the change “the most dramatic overhaul to fuel economy labels since the program began more than 30 years ago.” The new labels are not as simple as those proposed last year by the EPA and the U.S. Department of Transportation, which would have given letter grades to cars.

Meanwhile, richer countries—such as the U.S., Germany and Japan—have reached “peak travel,” according to a new study, with miles traveled per person flattening off in recent years.

China’s Blackouts

In China, now the world’s biggest consumer of electricity, power companies are cutting their production. They are balking at government regulations that are raising the price of coal, while keeping the price of electricity down—policies that the companies say are threatening to push them into bankruptcy. The State Grid, the country’s largest electricity distributor, warned that this summer blackouts could be the worst since the early 1990s.

With power shortages already, Chinese stocks fell on concerns the country would not be able to keep up its high rates of growth. Nonetheless, China widened its lead as the most attractive place to invest in renewable energy, according to consultancy Ernst & Young LLC.

Globally, more money is pouring into renewable energy—but according to a new survey, some investors fear a green bubble may be forming.

Shale Gas Redemption?

A study last month by Cornell University researchers estimated power plants burning natural gas from fracking shale formations cause more global warming than burning coal.  A new assessment from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory rebuts the Cornell study, finding that, watt for watt, such “unconventional” natural gas contributes only about half as much to global warming as does coal.

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.