I like this video because its a look at new technology, and a great music break as well. Historically, small turbine technology has had a tough go – but with continued efforts like this, who knows?
Although it’s getting increasingly common to see solar panels on the roofs of homes, household wind turbines are still a fairly rare sight. If Rotterdam-based tech firm The Archimedes has its way, however, that will soon change. Today the company officially introduced its Liam F1 Urban Wind Turbine, which is said to have an energy yield that is “80 percent of the maximum that is theoretically feasible.” That’s quite the assertion, given that most conventional wind turbines average around 25 to 50 percent.
The 75-kg (165-lb) 1.5-meter (5-ft)-wide Liam obviously doesn’t look much like a typical turbine. It draws on the form of the nautilus shell, and the screw pump invented by ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse.
That form factor reportedly results in minimal mechanical resistance, allowing it to spin very freely and to operate quietly – blade noise is one of the common complaints regarding rooftop wind turbines. Additionally, the design is claimed to keep it always pointing into the wind for maximum yield.
The Environmental Protection Agency today will announce new climate-change rules clamping down on emissions from electricity plants. The usual lobbyists and politicians are already braying about Barack Obama’s “war on coal” — liberal, Harvard, lacks-chest-hair/isn’t-a-real-American stuff emanating from a Washington every bit as gaseous as the one portrayed in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” now in heavy rotation on cable.
But the war on coal already happened — coal lost. And for a reason that should make conservatives happy: They drilled, baby, and it worked, beginning years before Sarah Palin popularized “drill baby drill” in 2008. Massive new exploration of shale formations after 2002 produced a 65% drop in natural-gas prices since 2005 that, with or without Obama’s caps on utilities’ carbon emissions, is wiping out coal’s few remaining growth prospects.
To understand the economics of U.S. climate and coal policy, begin with three facts. About 85% of U.S. coal goes into electricity, according to Moody’s Investors Service. Electricity demand is expected to grow just 0.9% annually through 2040, according to the Energy Information Administration. And the falling price of gas, coupled with existing rules to limit power plants’ mercury emissions, mean coal will be more expensive than gas as well as dirtier. And that’s before new carbon limits raise coal’s effective price again.
A new landmark study, published yesterday in Science, has found that the current rate of species extinctions is more than 1,000 times greater than their natural rate, calculated from the fossil record and genetic data spanning millions of years, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
The primary cause of this dramatic rise in loss of species is human population growth, habitat loss and increased consumption, as well as uncertainties in predicting future extinctions from the spread of invasive species, diseases and climate change.
“This important study confirms that species are going extinct at a pace not seen in tens of millions of years, and unlike past extinction events, the cause is us,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The loss of species has drastic consequences for us all by degrading ecosystems that clean our air and water and are a source of food and medicine, and by making our world less interesting and a more lonely place. This study underscores the importance of laws like the Endangered Species Act and the need for swift action to reverse the disturbing trend of extinction.”
The study is one of the most comprehensive assessment on species extinction rates. Data on species distribution and impending threats were used to estimate the extinction rate, which is actually considered conservative because of the large number of species still unknown to science.
I hope to be talking to Dr. Aradhna Tripati again sometime soon. In recently contacting her, I decided to review our interview from American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco this past December.
In light of recent news from the Antarctic, there is much chew on here.
Aradhna Tripati, PhD is Assistant Professor (UCLA), and Visiting Researcher (Caltech) running the Tripati Lab Carbon & Carbon Cycle Group. They are currently researching: Clumped Isotope Geochemistry – Marine Geochemistry – Climate Change – Ocean Acidification – and Astrobiology.
Bars show the difference between each decade’s average temperature and the overall average for 1901 to 2000. The far right bar includes data for 2001-2012. Source: U.S. National Climate Assessment
The reality of climate change – worldwide and in the United States – is a well-established scientific fact. The first finding in the recently released 2014 National Climate Assessment (written and reviewed by hundreds of climate experts over the past 4 years), for example, concluded: “Global climate is changing and this is apparent across the United States in a wide range of observations.”
Our most recent survey, conducted in April, 2014, finds that by more than a three-to-one margin, more Americans think global warming is happening than think it is not. Currently, 64% of Americans think global is happening, a number that has been relatively stable over the past three years.
The most recent “This is Not Cool” video, out this week, explains the newest research into the rapid loss of Antarctic ice. It’s been praised for being accurate, and damned for being a major buzzkill.
Only downer for me – well, besides global catastrophe – they embed my piece in their system, so I can’t capture the number of views this may generate for the video. No matter. Those are quality views.
First, EPA apparently chose the utilities’ preferred baseline year, 2005 against which to measure a 30 percent emissions cut of existing power plant emissions by 2030. Indeed the Wall Street Journal argued several days ago that all of the action was in the baseline year chosen. Utilities wanted 2005 because emissions were especially high in the years immediately preceding the recession so that a 30 percent cut from 2005 levels would be far easier to achieve than a 30 percent cut from 2012. Not only did slower economic growth from 2008-2012 result in lower emissions but so did a dramatic drop in natural gas prices, leading to a big shift in electricity generated from natural gas rather than coal. Natural gas emits only about half the emissions as coal when combusted. The 2005 base year is a big victory for industry. In fact, the total reductions the new proposed rules will achieve are actually lower than what the President committed to in international talks in Copenhagen in 2009. For this reason, Grist isreportingthat the rules will fall short of what the environmental community wanted.
Second, several of the reduction measures allowed under the proposed rules are remarkably cost-effective. Reducing emissions by installing energy efficiency measures, for example, is significantly cheaper than installing plant by plant control technologies. Similarly, some renewable energy sources, including wind and solar, are quickly approaching the cost of conventional fuels. And measures to reduce demand through innovations like price incentives and time-of-day pricing can, again, be extraordinarily cost-effective (Joel Eisen explains a recent demand response case in detail here).
The President is often presented, by his supporters, as a shrewd Spock playing 3-dimensional chess while his opponents are playing checkers.
In fact, the President’s real love is poker. The bet being made is that the board is currently being reset on the climate change issue – a reset that will almost certainly favor climate as an issue in the 2016 Presidential year. The gamble is, whether the sea change is broad enough, deep enough, and fast enough, to save the Democrats Senate majority in 2014. The President is betting that the tide is turning strongly – and there are signs that climate deniers in congress are feeling the heat.
Seven in 10 Americans see global warming as a serious problem facing the country, enough to fuel broad support for federal efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions – even if it raises their own energy costs, a new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds.
The poll, conducted in advance of the Obama administration’s announcement today of planned regulations to cut such pollution, finds 70 percent support for limiting emissions from existing power plants, and, more generally, for requiring states to cut the production of greenhouse gases within their borders.
Notably, indicating public concern about the issue, 63 percent of Americans say they’d support a regulatory effort that significantly lowered greenhouse gases even if it raised their own energy expenses by $20 per month. (The figure is hypothetical, meant to test attitudes about the possible cost of new regulations. Actual cost impacts, if any, are a subject of sharp debate.)
Support for new regulations is linked closely to concern about the issue. Sixty-nine percent of Americans in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, see global warming as a serious problem; among them, eight in 10 favor new regulations, and three-quarters are willing to pay higher energy bills if it means significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions. Among those who don’t see a serious problem, by contrast, fewer than half favor cutting emissions, and just 36 percent back regulations that would raise their energy costs.
Further, among those who do see global warming – also known as climate change – as a serious problem, the vast majority, 83 percent, say it’s “very” serious.
Breaking from party orthodoxy, a majority of Republican voters now accept climate change, sparking a drive inside the GOP to find a middle ground to help candidates finesse the issue without sounding out of touch or in the tank for President Obama and Al Gore.
“There is a middle way where we can talk about this,” said GOP pollster Alex Lundry of TargetPoint Consulting. “Republicans are a lot more open to this than you might think.”
He recently completed a poll on energy issues for Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions that found 51 percent of Republicans believe climate change is happening, will happen shortly or will occur in their lifetime. Just 24 percent deny it. The shift is particularly pronounced among younger party members.
A number of lawmakers are testing out climate change themes acceptable to both GOP voters and independents who are even more sensitive to environmental issues.
More examples of the ways climate change is effecting our national security, and will continue to do so in the future, from the former NATO Commander Wesley Clark.
If you’re reading this, you like and use the internet, and you value the leveling effect of equal access for everyone.
There is a move afoot to take that away.
