In an interesting report, a team of Australian academics created a life-cycle accounting of carbon dioxide emissions from nuclear plants and found them to be higher than previously thought. The main source of the difference is the mining of uranium, which is predicted to become more energy intensive as the high-grade sources diminish. This report is apparently the first to consider the environmental costs throughout the process of creating nuclear power.  It is helpful to have a greater accounting of the impacts of nuclear energy, and this report could be used to further illuminate decisions about new electricity plants. However, I would still imagine that the greenhouse gas emissions of these sources are much lower than any fossil fuel source, even including the transportation and sourcing of the uranium.

Newsweek ran a cover story on the Enviro and Leadership that had some details I wanted to note. It focuses on Hillary, Obama, and McCain (or, if you have followed his blatant abandoning of energy issues by skipping every 2007 vote on energy issues, you might call him McShame).

I am not convinced McCain will be the global climate change legislation champion we would hope him to be. His recent actions have me wondering if his past work with Lieberman on climate change was merely him trying to get center-cred by championing an issue he knew would go nowhere.

I don't know - because I do not follow national politics closely enough. I know he has taken a lot of heat from the right on this and his work has helped us by showing that Republicans are divided on this (kinda) so maybe I am too harsh. The story considers this:

A plausible explanation is that McCain sought to avoid taking a position that would offend either conservative primary voters or the moderate ones he will need in November. A more relevant statistic might be his lifetime LCV rating, which is 26 percent, compared with an average of 16 percent for all Republicans. As recently as 2004, when his rating for the 108th Congress reached 56 percent, the league endorsed him for re-election to the Senate.

I do feel more comfortable criticizing the media because I pay much more attention to their coverage and listen to a number of shows that look at media coverage. Perhaps because the media regards this as being a boring issues among 3 candidates who all acknowledge the massive challenge to deal with climate change, they have refused to ask questions about climate change.

The League of Conservation Voters tracks how often candidates are asked about environmental issues in televised debates and interviews, and the current tally shows that of 3,231 questions by the leading political reporters from five networks, exactly eight concerned global warming.

Newsweek also looks at 10 fixes for global warming - all of them fairly small in the tradition of recognizing it will take a massive patchwork to change our carbon habit. One is massive kites to help pull containers ships across the ocean (so China can keep making all our consumer goods and shipping them to us).

Any idea how far the largest container ships can go on a gallon of fuel? Try 37 feet. That adds up to 2 billion barrels of petroleum a year. "If the shipping industry were a country, it would be No. 7 in carbon emissions," says Michael Hirshfield, chief scientist for Oceana.

Sure, those ships are over 300m long and carry billions of dollars worth of stuff (with the value of the dollar, probably many tens of billions at this point) but 37 feet?? I'm not sure whether to be impressed or not.

Finally, the article alerted me to ClimateCounts.org which offers a scorecard measuring big companies on global warming stuff. I see that Canon is rated highly (Nikon - my camera company of choice, is not ranked) whereas Apple is nearly at the bottom (which made me smile because I hate my MacBook and love my PCs).

Al's updated his slideshow and presented it at TED. Toward the end, he talks about the upcoming election though he hedges quite a bit.

Despite my lack of posts over the past year or so, Ben Kenney invited me to participate in his weekly discussion podcast last week. I enjoyed the show - in which we talked a lot about biofuels and hot topics like Al Gore's $300 million campaign. It is especially interesting to talk with folks outside the U.S. - Canada and England in this case.

Marketplace did a thought-provoking story on "geo-engineering," ways to prevent the Earth from warming too much even if we can't reduce greenhouse gas emissions in time. The ideas sound like they're from science fiction novels, such as a huge space umbrella to filter the sun's rays. However, they are gaining credibility with some scientists, since the cost of addressing GHG is currently astronomical. Were we to go this route, where countries are able to "place their hand on the global thermostat," I think we would need to have a stronger international community/regulating structure to monitor the process and adjudicate among nations who want different things. Check it out.

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NPR did a great story on fact checking the recent State of the Union address. Check out the section on climate change. The basic analysis is that though Bush says he is committed to addressing climate change internationally, he really just wants to create a new agreement that looks for new solutions but does not affect emissions. Internationally, his plan "is seen as a way to doge the mandatory commitments in the U.N. system." Some of the candidates, the Democrats and John McCain, are espousing a mandatory cap & trade system and strengthening international agreements. Congress currently seems unlikely to pass anything ground-breaking.

A federal judge has ordered the Bush Administration to produce two reports on climate change mandated by Congress: one, a research plan guiding federal research, and the second, a national assessment on the effects of climate change on the nation's economy, environment, and public health. The first is supposed to be updated every 3 years, and was last done in 2003. The second is supposed to be done every 4 years, but was last done in 2000 by the Clinton Administration. The environmental groups that initiated the lawsuit are calling this a huge victory.

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 A recent NY Times op-ed pointed out that "eating local" doesn't necessarily yield the smallest carbon footprint. The piece was based on a recent study comparing the carbon footprint of lambs raised in New Zealand to those in Great Britain. The conclusion of the peer-reviewed study was that for UK consumers, the carbon footprint of New Zealand lamb was actually four times lower than British lamb, despite the fact that the NZ lamb must be shipped halfway around the world. The reason has to do with the less favorable climate and growing conditions in GB, which requires farmers to use feed. Similar figures were found for other produce and fruit. The gist of the study is that shipping distance is only one component of the carbon footprint of food. Other factors such as the use of fertilizer, feed, water, and pesticides may be equally or more important. Labeling food with "food miles", as proposed in the European Union, may give consumers misleading information as to the carbon footprint of different foods. A better solution is to use lifecycle analysis and perhaps develop some kind of scoring system. From a practical standpoint, global food networks are not going away. We are always going to want "exotic" spices and food that can't be grown locally. Many areas are simply too arid to be completely self-sufficient. Therefore, we should continue to encourage the growth of local food markets while striving to make our transportation systems more sustainable by increasing efficiencies and using alternative fuels.  

The long awaited ruling from the Minnesota courts concerning the route permitting for transmission lines running from the Twin Cities to the Big Stone II project is out. From the ruling:    

Based upon the foregoing Conclusions, the Administrative Law Judges make the following:

RECOMMENDATION IT IS HEREBY RESPECTFULLY RECOMMENDED that:

16. The Commission GRANT the Applicants’ Petition for a Certificate of Need for the construction and operation of the Transmission Project.

17. The Commission ISSUE Routing Permits for the transmission lines (a 230 kV line from the South Dakota border to the Morris Substation and a 345 kV line from the South Dakota border to the Granite Falls Substation) along the route preferred by the Applicants and authorize construction of the lines, substations, and other associated facilities described in the applications, including a new site for the Canby Substation as described in the record.

18. The Commission consider imposing one or more of the conditions suggested by the Department.

19. The Commission consider requiring the Applicants to purchase a portion of their future energy and capacity needs from the Mesaba Project pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 216B.1694, subd. 2(a)(5).

20. The Commission find that the Final Environmental Impact Statement prepared by the Department is adequate.

Dated: August 15, 2007

_________________________
STEVE M. MIHALCHICK
Administrative Law Judge

_________________________
BARBARA L. NEILSON
Administrative Law Judge

Just saw today that the local Sierra Club chapter (the Northstar Chapter) has rolled out their new global warming website.

Nationally there has been a lot of talk about how California is the standard bearer for global warming and clean energy policy. It appears that when the actual work starts the results are not so rosy. The LA Times reported today the resignation of Catherine Witherspoon, Executive Director of the California Air Resources Board, who left saying that the Schwarzenegger administration "has lost its way on air quality." This comes on the heals of the firing of Richard Sawyer, the board chairman, by Schwarzenegger for aggressively pursuing global warming gas emission reductions.In an interview, Witherspoon said,  

"...there had been a pattern of interference by the governor's top staff in favor of industry lobbyists seeking to weaken or stall air pollution regulations, including the state's landmark global warming law...They were ordering us to find ways to reduce costs and satisfy lobbyists"

She also called out state Democrats for being more focused on playing partisan politics than on making the tough decisions about exactly what industries need to do what. Schwarzenegger has advocated for a statewide cap-and-trade system while Democrats have called for mandatory limits. Witherspoon says, "both approaches were needed."Gov. Schwarzenegger's staff counters that,

"What's important for the administration is to make sure the right leadership is put in place at [the air resources board] and that this state is able to aggressively meet its AB 32 commitment and clean its air," said Adam Mendelsohn, the governor's deputy chief of communications, who dismissed Witherspoon's charges as the comments of a disgruntled employee.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, author of the landmark AB32, is calling for hearings into the loss of members of the team working on implementing California's global warming legislation, saying that

"I don't want this issue to impact our fight on global warming," he said. "The spotlight is on California, and I don't want people in other states to say, 'Oh, look at California. AB 32 is falling apart, so we're not going to do anything either.' "

Witherspoon's 27 year career on the CARB ends with the parting shot,

"I'm happy to be going out with a roar and not a whimper. My objective is to make sure people understand what is going on so it can be straightened out."

The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (MNP) announced this week that according to preliminary estimates for 2006 China topped the list of CO2 emitting countries, surpassing the USA by an estimated 8%. To evaluate the implications of these rising emissions in China and other countries in the context of the climate policy issue, other aspects must be taken into account, such as economic development, per capita emissions, historical contribution to the current global warming and the fact that China manufactures many goods for export.http://www.mnp.nl/en/service/pressreleases/2007/20070622ChineseCO2emissionsinperspective.html

For those who are concerned that policies will not allow us to meet climate change goals, please check out the game, Climate Challenge, hosted by the BBC.  It's a fun lil flash game that allows you, the leader of the European Union, to choose the policies to bring you from 2000 to 2100 and meet climate change goals.  Your policy options include national, trade, industry, local, and household.  You have an ear to public approval, and  you are told how much each policy will cost, in terms of euros, electricity, food, water, and carbon dioxide emissions.  It's up to YOU to stop climate change.  Power to the people.

GreenJobs reports that Chairman Nick Rahall (D-WV) (hmm, I'm sure it's just coincidence that he's from coal-laden West Virginia) of the House Natural Resources Committee has introduced a new bill that is extremely hostile towards new and existing wind projects. The bill would require a cumbersome certification process by the Fish and Wildlife Service that would (in the words of the American Wind Energy Association):

Bar any new wind power project until new Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) rules are issued – a process likely to take years – and require FWS certification of every turbine * Require all existing turbines, even small residential units, to cease operating 6 months after issuance of new FWS rules until they are “certified,” an unwieldy bureaucratic process applying to many thousands of turbines that, again, will take years * Make it a crime, punishable by a $50,000 fine or a year in jail, to construct or generate electricity from an unapproved turbine, even for home use * Undermine state and federal efforts to promote renewable electricity generation and subvert the growing movement to reduce global warming pollution * Create an unworkable bureaucracy that will delay clean, emissions-free wind energy projects throughout the U.S.

Hopefully, this bill won't go anywhere, especially in light of promises to fight global warming by the House leadership.Meanwhile, the NY Times reports there is bipartisan support for federal subsidies for coal-to-liquid fuel plants. Dick Gephardt has even been signed on as a lobbyist for Peabody Energy, a major coal producer.

MSNBC has a reuters story on the increasing world carbon emissions.

World emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide increased three times faster after 2000 than in the 1990s, putting them at the high end of a range of forecasts by an international climate change panel, scientists reported on Monday.

At the same time, a trend toward cutting Earth's energy intensity — the ratio of how much energy is needed to produce a unit of gross domestic product — appears to have stalled or even reversed in recent years, the researchers reported.