Tag Archives: fossil
Moving Beyond Fossil Fuels Before It’s Too Late
Jul. 23, 2013 Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World 2013 discusses the challenges and opportunities presented by changing the way we produce and use energy Washington, D.C. — Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel energy combustion grew by 34 percent from 2000 to 2010. Leading research institutions estimate that as a consequence, global average surface temperatures will increase by between 1 and 6 degrees Celsius during this century, with the most recent estimates projecting that the high end of this warming range is the most probable if no swift action is taken. In the Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World 2013: Is Sustainability Still Possible?, contributing authors discuss strategies to overcome our dependence on fossil fuels and become strictly sustainable energy consumers. Coal, oil, and gas predominated the 20th century as sources of fuel, and allowed human productivity to increase exponentially. Yet these same resources are now polluting the atmosphere and damaging the environment, on which we depend on for human survival. The transition away from fossil fuels is not one of convenience, but of moral and ecological necessity. As University of Michigan professor Thomas Princen and his co-authors describe in their chapter, “Keep ‘Em In the Ground: Ending the Fossil Fuel Era,” in order to prevent disastrous environmental impacts, it is essential to stop the extraction of the vast majority of fossil fuels, and not just manage emissions, an ultimately futile effort. We should reserve the small portion that we do extract for essential uses and for building a renewable energy infrastructure. Researchers have shown that renewable energy sources are able to fully meet the global energy demand—as is discussed in Chapter 7—but these future power supplies do take significant energy investment upfront to build. As physicist Tom Murphy notes in his chapter, “Beyond Fossil Fuels: Assessing Energy Alternatives,” “If there is to be a transition to a sustainable energy regime, it’s best to begin it now. If society waits until energy scarcity demands an energy transition, it risks falling into an ‘Energy Trap’ in which aggressive use of scarce remaining easily-harnessed energy resources to develop a new energy infrastructure leaves less available to society overall.” “Unlike monetary investments, which can be made on credit and then amortized out of the income stream they produce, the energy investment in energy infrastructure must be made up front out of a portion of the energy used today,” says Eric Zencey, fellow of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont and author of Chapter 7, “Energy as Master Resource.” “Politically, the most acceptable path is to finance the energetic investment not by decreasing energy use for consumption today but by maintaining energy use for consumption while increasing the total energy appropriation of the economy. But ecologically, that most acceptable path will lead to climate catastrophe.” Phillip Saieg, accredited professional of the U.S. Green Building Council, suggests that the quickest and most financially feasible way to lessen the amount of carbon being added to the atmosphere is by “greening” existing buildings to curb their energy demands. By doing this, building owners will save money, jobs will be created, and we will significantly lower the amount of carbon we are contributing to the atmosphere. Whether the movement is one to keep fossil fuels in the ground, to use them much more efficiently, or, realistically, a combination of both, it is now widely accepted that the fossil fuel age must come to an end. The good news is that development of renewable energy systems is under way. “Renewable technologies broke all growth records in recent years,” said Alexander Ochs, Director of Worldwatch’s Climate and Energy program, and contributing author of State of the World 2013. “In 2011, new investments in renewables for the first time in modern history topped those in conventional energy technologies with clean energy investments in developing countries now outpacing those in many industrialized countries. These promising trends need to be accelerated, with action on all political levels. Science tells us that global greenhouse gas emissions have to peak well before 2020 if we want to avoid the danger of major climate disruptions.” Worldwatch’s State of the World 2013, released in April 2013, addresses how “sustainability” should be measured, how we can attain it, and how we can prepare if we fall short. For more information, visit www.sustainabilitypossible.org . Authors of mentioned chapters include: Shakuntala Makhijani, research associate at the Worldwatch Institute and co-author of Chapter 8, “Renewable Energy’s Natural Resource Impact.” Jack P. Manno, professor of environmental studies at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and co-author of Chapter 14, “Keep Them in the Ground: Ending the Fossil Fuel Era.” Pamela Martin, professor of politics at Coastal Carolina University and co-author of Chapter 14, “Keep Them in the Ground: Ending the Fossil Fuel Era.” T.W. Murphy, Jr., associate professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego and author of Chapter 15, “Beyond Fossil Fuels: Assessing the Energy Alternatives.” Alexander Ochs, director of Worldwatch’s Climate and Energy Program and co-author of Chapter 8, “Renewable Energy’s Natural Resource Impact.” Thomas Princen, professor of natural resources and environment at the University of Michigan and co-author of Chapter 14, “Keep Them in the Ground: Ending the Fossil Fuel Era.” Phillip Saieg, accredited professional under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program of the U.S. Green Building Council and author of Chapter 16, “Energy Efficiency in the Built Environment.” Eric Zencey, fellow of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont and author of Chapter 7, “Energy as Master Resource.” About the Worldwatch Institute: Worldwatch is an independent research organization based in Washington, D.C. that works on energy, resource, and environmental issues. The Institute’s State of the World report is published annually in more than a dozen languages. For more information, visit www.worldwatch.org . Continue reading
Silver Linings In The IEA Report On 2012 Fossil Fuel Carbon Emissions
Carbon emissions from fossil fuels reached record levels, but the 2012 rise was relatively small, and there are positive signs China’s energy mix is becoming less carbon intensive. Photograph: Bei Feng/EPA As Fiona Harvey reported for The Guardian, the International Energy Agency (IEA) 2012 World Energy Outlook Report found that annual carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels rose 1.4 percent in 2012 to 31.6 billion tonnes (gigatonnes [Gt]). The bad news is that this is a new record high level of emissions. The good news is that it represents the second-smallest annual increase since 2003, behind only 2009 when global fossil fuel carbon emissions fell due to the global recession. Emissions estimates from 2009–2010 have also been revised downward, so the reported 31.6 Gt 2012 emissions match the reported value from 2011 . American emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels fell by 200 million tonnes (Mt) to levels last seen in the mid-1990s due to a transition from coal power to natural gas and renewable energy . European emissions fell 50 Mt due to economic contraction and renewable energy growth, despite an increase in coal energy use. Perhaps most encouraging, although Chinese emissions grew by 300 Mt in 2012, this was among the country’s smallest annual emissions growth over the past decade. This is a result of China diversifying its energy sources and installing more renewable energy. Chinese CO2 emissions per unit of electricity generation since 2000 The IEA report comes on the heels of an agreement between the presidents of USA and China to reduce emissions of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are potent greenhouse gases. This could potentially lead to the reduction the equivalent of 90 Gt of carbon dioxide by 2050, or nearly three years of current global emissions from fossil fuel use. China is also considering putting a price on its carbon emissions, and their goal is to end the rapid growth of Chinese coal power use . So there are signs that the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters, USA and China are beginning to take serious steps to address the climate problem. The question is whether those steps will be large enough and fast enough to avoid triggering dangerous climate change . At the moment, we our emissions are closest to Scenario A2 from the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. IEA emissions vs. IPCC scenarios Scenario A2 represents 3 to 4°C global surface warming by 2100 as compared to pre-industrial levels. This far exceeds the internationally accepted 2°C “danger limit” , and would put us at serious risk of catastrophic climate change . However, the relatively small emissions increase in 2012 has pushed us in the direction of IPCC scenario A1T, which represents 2 to 3°C warming by 2100. That still exceeds the danger limit, but at least it’s movement in the right direction. More still needs to be done to reduce our fossil fuel consumption. To have a realistic chance of avoiding 2°C warming, emissions need to peak by the year 2020. The earlier they peak, the better chance we have of limiting the impacts of climate change to an adaptable level. This will be challenging, because power plants have lifetimes of many decades, so we’re already “locked in” to a substantial chunk of emissions from those that have already been constructed or are in construction. The IEA report presented four recommendations for limiting global warming to 2°C: 1) Increase energy efficiency in buildings, transportation, and industry. 2) Limit the construction and use of inefficient coal power plants. 3) Minimize methane emissions from oil and gas production. 4) Accelerate the phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies . The positive movement from China and the USA in particular is encouraging, but we still have a lot of work ahead to turn the annual carbon emissions growth into an annual decline in order to limit the climate damage to adaptable levels. Continue reading
Biofuel From Wood: Researchers Look For Best Enzymes
Mark Hoffman First Posted: May 13, 2013 04:18 PM EDT Huge amounts of fossil fuel could be replaced by biofuels if it was possible to extract them from the very plentiful waste product lignocellulose. Importantly, its use in biofuel production does not interfere with the animal or human food chain. Researchers are currently trying to find the best enzymes to make bioethanol production as efficient as possible and elucidating the mechanisms behind the key process of enzymatic hydrolysis. Lignocellulose is the main component of currently poorly used waste materials from agriculture, forestry and wood-based industries, including straw, corn leaves and stalks as well as paper mill waste. Composed of carbohydrate polymers tightly bound to the tough material lignin, enzymatic breakdown and microbial fermentation of the carbohydrates can be used for production of bioethanol, the researchers explained. (Photo : Flickr) On the downside, however, lignocellulose is what makes woody material so indestructible and so difficult to decompose. The EU-funded project DISCO aimed to develop and test more efficient and cost-effective enzymes for breakdown of carbohydrates in lignocellulose for production of bioethanol over the past years. To achieve this goal, DISCO researchers reported that they isolated naturally occurring enzymes from fungi and bacteria in soil samples, culture collections and metagenomic libraries. Altogether, almost 700 lignocellulytic strains were screened, yielding tens of interesting fungi for cellulose and hemicellulase activity. Genome mining from the fungus Myceliphthora thermophila resulted in nearly 20 novel cellulases and hemicellulases and multiple bacterial carbohydrate active enzymes were discovered from soil metagenomic libraries. Knowledge on the mode of enzyme action is crucial to the success of lignocellulose breakdown. Lignocellulose is composed of cellulose fibrils linked together with hemicelluloses, all embedded in lignin. The researchers said that they thus specifically looked for synergy, efficiency and ability to degrade the entire backbone of the hemicellulose molecule. Besides hemicellulose, the inhibiting effect of lignin on cellulases/hemicellulases was also analyzed. Project scientists also investigated the effects of different pre-treatments on chemistry and enzymatic digestibility of agricultural residues. On hydrothermally pre-treated wheat straw, temperature and residence time had a marked effect on enzyme digestibility. Discovery of new recyclable enzymes promises to supply biofuel to supplement other less sustainable forms of energy. Further details and research papers can be found on the DISCO website ( http://www.disco-project.eu ). Continue reading
