The Green Journey Starts at Home ™

This past week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a report linking climate change to some of the extreme weather events of 2011, like the devastating drought in Texas and record high temperatures in Britain.

None of this bodes well for the future, but there is a glimmer of hope. It turns out that U.S. carbon emissions are down nearly 8 percent since 2006.

Much of that has to do with the weak economy — people are consuming less electricity. But another part could be related to the decline of coal and the rise of cleaner-burning natural gas. This boom in natural gas has been killing the Appalachian coal industry, but it also has environmental impacts both good and bad.

Extreme Weather

Philip Mote is the director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University and one of the authors of the NOAA report. He and a team looked at last year’s drought in Texas and compared what happened there with climate models going back five decades.

They wanted to figure out the odds that the drought was indeed related to climate change, and he tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz that it was an extreme event that was beyond anything that had happened before, but is likely to happen again.

“Certain types of extreme weather events, it’s pretty clear, are increasing and will increase as the climate changes,” Mote says. Extreme heat events being one, he says, as well as extreme rainfall. There have been some extreme cold events, however, but he says they shouldn’t be mistaken for evidence against global warming.

“One incorrect conclusion is that global warming is not happening,” he says. “Another incorrect conclusion is that global warming is making our weather more extreme in every respect. The correct conclusion is probably that that cold event happened despite global warming.”

Mote’s hope is that this report gives us a better understanding of what’s happening in the world. In this case, he says, we’re talking about events that are part of a larger portrait of how we’re changing the climate.

“Even without climate change, in some respects, the ever-growing human race is very unprepared for extreme events,” he says. “But we should certainly be prepared for those events we think of as unlikely and they’re actually getting more likely.”

Worth The Risk

The question now is whether human behavior can halt the pace of climate change. President Obama has set a goal of reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent by the end of this decade.

Another study suggests that goal might actually be feasible. Not because of tough new regulations or even legislation, but because of the increasing use of natural gas to generate electricity.

Gas is one of the cheapest sources of electricity generation, now half the price of coal. Much of this a recent development, the result of advances in hydraulic fracturing or fracking, the controversial process by which gas is extracted from deep under rock formations. Fracking now produces a third of all U.S. natural gas.

Lawrence Cathles, a professor at Cornell University who wrote that study, took a close look at natural gas usage and he found that replacing coal with natural gas would cut about 40 percent of carbon emissions linked to global warming.

“When you burn natural gas it’s a cleaner burning fuel,” Cathles tells Raz. “But the more significant thing … natural gas can generate electricity with almost twice the efficiency in terms of conversion of energy content of fuel.”

Natural gas is made up largely of methane, and some of it can leak as the gas is extracted and transported. Cathles says leakage of gas from well site to customer through pipes and compressors is about 1.5 percent of total production of gas.

“So we are losing gas, but it’s not significant from a climate point of view,” he says.

Even with that 1.5 percent or even 2 percent leakage — which Cathles does think is too much — he says if natural gas replaces coal, greenhouse gas emissions would decrease by up to 40 percent.

As far as the danger to water supplies, which critics cite as one of the issues with fracking, Cathles disagrees.

“You can’t smell, you can’t taste [methane]; you really don’t know it’s there [and] it’s not harmful to you,” Cathles says. Methane does pose an explosion danger in higher concentrations, however.

The risk of methane escape, Cathles says, is in tapping out a shallow gas pocket, something that would happen even if you drilled a water well. He says that risk is worth it.

“[If] we can get 40 percent of the distance we need to by accepting new availability of natural gas … I think it makes just good sense to do it,” he says.

Slowing Climate Change

Even with the reduction in U.S. carbon emissions in recent years, is it enough to slow down climate change? David Victor, a fossil fuel expert at the University of California, San Diego, says the jury is still out.

“While there’s been a big reduction in U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide because of this shift to natural gas,” Victor says, “it hasn’t led to the kind of reductions you need to stop global warming, which is a 50 percent to 80 percent reduction.”

Victor agrees that the gas revolution is not all roses, and that the U.S. needs to be vigilant about the environmental side affects, including small earthquakes from wells and the potential dangers to local water supplies.

“If the best practices aren’t used on the well then some [waste]water can leak into ground water and be spilled on the surface and so on,” he says. “There are air pollution concerns associated with fracking as well, so we need to find ways to address those.”

Continued monitoring of natural gas production methods is important, Victor says, in order to make sure that we aren’t accidentally making the problem worse by shifting to fracking and natural gas. At its best, he says, natural gas is a bridge to a future where we have lower emissions.

“It’s better to have a bridge than nothing,” he says.

For now, natural gas is on a rapid ascent. Last month, for the first time in U.S history, gas generated as much electricity as coal, now one-third of all our power. [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]

Embodied energy is the amount of energy that goes into the manufacture and shipping of various building materials.  Cellulose insulation is amazing in that it has the lowest embodied energy of all other major insulation and building materials.  Cellulose has only 3002 BTU’s / cubic foot, whereas fiberglass consumes 9 times the energy to make (26996 BTU’s/cubic foot).

Synthetic carpeting….holy cow!  It takes 2.3 million BTU’s/cubic foot.  Aluminum is 13 million BTU’s /cubic foot.   It is no wonder why aluminum smelters are located where electrical energy is cheaper, like Columbia River or Iceland.

Reading about embodied energy in cellulose makes me pleased that this is what we have been recommending to most of our clients.  Not only is cellulose great for sealing air leaks, its healthier than other insulation and the lower energy required to make it lowers our carbon footprint.

I am listening to Rick Santorum, GOP candidate, talk about energy conservation. He is trying to make the argument that there is a direct correlation between energy consumption and a societies standard of living. He says that we do not need to worry about energy conservation and that global warming is a hoax. He implies that energy consumption is good, since this correlates to economic progress.

Seriously? Do people really believe this drivel?

Santorum is misguided and fails to grasp the global significance and importance of becoming a leader in energy conservation and alternative energy. This is a rapidly emerging market that we will fail to have a major part of if we don’t actively engage and take some ownership in. If we don’t create and own this market, you can sure bet the Chinese will with their current billion dollar investments in alternative energy.

Santorum’s argument that there is a correlation between economic progress and energy consumption, was how things were early in our countries history as our economy evolved from agrarian to industrial. US consumption of energy per capita was high during the smoke stack days of the industrial revolution.

We’ve evolved out of this economic era, although it is abundantly clear Rick Santorum’s thinking hasn’t.

WikiLeaks cables: Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices –
US diplomat convinced by Saudi expert that reserves of world’s biggest oil exporter have been overstated by nearly 40%.

Sadad al-Husseini, a senior geologist and former head of exploration at the Saudi oil monopoly Aramco believes that Saudi officials overstate capabilities in the interest of spurring foreign investment. He is also critical of international expectations. He stated that the IEA’s (International Energy Agency) expectation that Saudi Arabia and the Middle East will lead the market in reaching global output levels of over 100 million barrels/day is unrealistic. He says that political leaders must begin to understand and prepare for this “inconvenient truth.” Al-Husseini was clear that he considers himself optimistic about the future of energy, but pragmatic with regards to what resources are available and what level of production is possible. While he fundamentally contradicts the Aramco company line, al-Husseini is no doomsday theorist.

This article in the UK Guardian of Aramco overstating their reserves is consistent to the research of Matt Simmons in his book Twilight in the Desert. Since 1982, the Saudis have withheld their well data and any detailed data on their reserves, giving outside experts no way to verify Saudi claims regarding the overall size of their reserves and output. This has caused some to question the current state of their oil fields. Simmons analyzed 200 technical papers on Saudi reserves by the Society of Petroleum Engineers to reach the conclusion that Saudi Arabia’s oil production faces near term decline, and that it will not be able to consistently produce more than 2004 levels. Simmons also argues that the Saudis may have irretrievably damaged their large oil fields by over-pumping salt water into the fields in an effort to maintain the fields’ pressure and boost short term oil extraction amounts.

John Hess the CEO of the Hess Oil Company addressed the Oil and Money Conference in late 2009. In this presentation he identifies our energy and environmental challenges ahead. He anticipates a massive energy shock that he believes will devastate economic recovery. Global demand for energy is growing at a phenomenal rate as the non-developed countries come on-line. While he argues there are plenty of oil reserves there is not the production capacity to meet the huge demand. There is a large lead time to build the capacity.

It is refreshing for an oil company leader to argue for the need for better conservation in our buildings (40% of our energy consumption) and for new mileage standards (50 mpg). He acknowledges the huge impact the United States has on hydrocarbon emissions (4% of population yet 26% of CO2 emissions). He believes we should tax gas heavily, like Europe, to encourage conservation.

It is a short article, worth reading.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/50502

David J. O’Reilly
Chairman & CEO
Chevron Corporation

Energy will be one of the defining issues of this century. One thing is clear: the era of easy oil is over. What we all do next will determine How well we meet the energy needs of the entire world in this century and beyond.

Demand is soaring like never before. As populations grow and economies take off, millions in the developing world are enjoying the benefits of a lifestyle that requires increasing amounts of energy. In fact, some say that in 20 years the world will consume 40% more oil than it does today. At the same time, many of the world’s oil and gas fields are maturing. And new energy discoveries are mainly occurring in places where resources are difficult to extract, physically, economically and even politically. When growing demand meets tighter supplies, the result is more competition for the same resources.

We can wait until a crisis forces us to do something. Or we can commit to working together, and start by asking the tough questions: How do we meet the energy needs of the developing world and those of industrialized nations? What role will renewables and alternative energies play? What is the best way to protect our environment? How do we accelerate our conservation efforts? Whatever actions we take, we must look not just to next year, but to the next 50 years.

At Chevron, we believe that innovation, collaboration and conservation are the cornerstones on which to build this new world. We cannot do this alone. Corporations, governments and every citizen of this planet must be part of the solution as surely as they are part of the problem. We call upon scientists and educators, politicians and policy-makers, environmentalists, leaders of industry and each one of you to be part of reshaping the next era Of energy.

Signed,

Dave

The clean tech race is on. While the Chinese are investing heavily in clean technologies and in the process creating jobs….what are we doing? We are overturning environmental initiatives. We have groups such as the Tea Party who are well financed by the oil companies trying to overturn environmental regulations in states like California. They claim it is about protecting jobs, when in fact it is about protecting oil company profits. And meanwhile the Chinese have clearly defined strategic goals to make clean tech a pillar of their society.

The arguments that environmental protection hurts job creation reminds me of India after the British were kicked out. India closed their borders from foreign trade and taxed heavily any imports. This was about protecting jobs and foreign intervention. Many of the jobs within India were in protected industries. Over the years India fell increasingly behind the rest of the world. Inefficiency and poor quality became the norm.

The parallel here is that China is progressing ambitiously towards a Green future. And what are we doing? We have groups that are protecting the interests of the oil companies and in so doing, we’ll stand the risk of increasingly falling behind in clean technologies.

See Thomas Friedman in the NYTimes

The future of fossil fuels look problematic. People keep discussing proven reserves and whether peak oil already has arrived or not. What is most important is the fact that – no matter how much additional oil we can still retrieve – future barrels will be much more difficult to extract relative to the past.

This is expected to result in a rapid increase in oil prices from a decline in the availability of cheap and easily accessible oil sources. Our prices today are artificially constrained by the global recession. When the recession passes, prices of oil can be expected to soar.

Loyd’s of London, the world’s leading insurance market, recently published a report stating that businesses are underestimating the catastrophic consequences of declining oil.

Ron Oxburgh, a former chairman of Shell, wrote that “It is pretty clear that there is not much chance of finding any significant quantity of new cheap oil. Any new or unconventional oil is going to be expensive.” He went on to quote King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia commenting on a new oil find: “Leave it in the ground…our children need it.”

Loyd’s of London warned of “catastrophic consequences” for businesses that fail to prepare for a world of increasing oil scarcity and a lower carbon economy.

The Guardian paper wrote “The Lloyd’s insurance market and the highly regarded Royal Institute of International Affairs, known as Chatham House, says Britain needs to be ready for “peak oil” and disrupted energy supplies at a time of soaring fuel demand in China and India, constraints on production caused by the BP oil spill and political moves to cut CO2 to halt global warming.”

A similar warning was written in an earlier piece by the Wall Street Journal.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jul/11/peak-oil-energy-disruption

The greatest barrier to adoption of “green” retrofits is arguably the cost. Homeowners want proof that their investment will return a high yield in the future. Cash for caulkers will hopefully be the impetus for change…

Passed just last month by the House of Representatives, the “cash for caulkers” bill provisions $6 billion for energy-efficient or “green” retrofits. It is expected to fund renovations for 3 million families, create 168,000 new jobs and save consumers $9.2 billion on energy bills over the next 10 years.

In order to cash in on upcoming rebates, homeowners and contractors will need to do their homework.. There are 13 types of retrofits eligible for funding. Each retrofit has unique eligibility requirements and set rebate amounts.

Software Advice, a website that reviews software for mechanical/HVAC contractors, recently put together a thorough report on cash for caulkers. Their post includes an easy-to-read table that outlines the 13 retrofits, along with their requirements and rebate amounts. To learn more, visit: Cash for Caulkers – The Definitive Guide To The Home Star Energy Retrofit Act of 2010

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday that the planet’s average temperature for April was 58.1 degrees Fahrenheit, the hottest for any April on record. The more we keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the more we expose ourselves to a sudden, unpredictable climate disruption. The more we blithely remain addicted to oil, and not face up to all its negative geopolitical and environmental consequences, the more we invite sudden catastrophes like the gulf spill.

–from the NY Times.