The plant at Ferrybridge, an SSE coal station, will capture only some of the fumes: 5 MW worth from 2,000.
Solarcentury
The company I founded in 1998 to design and supply solar energy solutions for the built environment. Solarcentury
Solar Aid
The charity I founded in 2006, with a 5% contribution of Solarcentury profits, to help deliver solar lighting to Africa. Solar Aid
Archive for the ‘Climate’ Category
US blocks flagship climate fund.
November 24, 2011 ClimateAhead of the Durban climate summit next week, the US, backed by Saudi Arabia, has still not agreed to adopt a blueprint for the Green Climate Fund. Proposed at the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, the fund channels “a significant portion” of the $100bn a year developed countries have promised to mobilise by 2020 to help developing countries fight climate change.
“Rich nations ‘give up’ on climate treaty until 2020″.
November 20, 2011 ClimateThe Guardian: “Ahead of critical talks starting next week, most of the world’s leading economies now privately admit that no new global climate agreement will be reached before 2016 at the earliest, and that even if it were negotiated by then, they would stipulate it could not come into force until 2020.”
IPCC’s first special report on extreme weather: much worse to come.
November 18, 2011 ClimateChris Field, co-chair of the IPCC working group that produced the report: the message is clear – extreme weather events were more likely. “Some important extremes have changed and will change more in the future. There is clear and solid evidence [of this]. We also know much more about the causes of disaster losses.” Damian Carrington in the Guardian: “the new (report) highlights that 95% of deaths from such disasters occur in the developing world, while most of the economic losses occur in the developed world. We lose stuff, they lose their lives.”
SSE and Shell announce a CCS project at Peterhead.
November 9, 2011 Climate, GasThe SSE-owned Peterhead gas-fired power station is owned by SSE, and the CO2 would be pumped to Shell’s Goldeneye gas field. A small BP pilot project there aiming to make hydrogen and pump the CO2 into North Sea seabed was scrapped because of a lack of UK government support.
IEA World Energy Outlook: Just 5 years to avoid irreversible climate change.
November 9, 2011 Clean Energy, Climate, OilIn the WEO’s central New Policies Scenario, renewables increase from 13% of the mix today to 18% in 2035, underpinned by subsidies that rise from $64 billion in 2010 to $250 billion in 2035. By contrast, subsidies for fossil fuels amounted to $409 billion in 2010. “Oil demand rises from 87 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2010 to 99 mb/d in 2035. The WEO presents a 450 Scenario, which traces an energy path consistent with meeting the globally agreed goal of limiting the temperature rise to 2°C. Four-fifths of the total energy-related CO2 emissions permitted to 2035 in the 450 Scenario are already locked-in by existing capital stock, including power stations, buildings and factories. Without further action by 2017, the energy-related infrastructure then in place would generate all the CO2 emissions allowed in the 450 Scenario up to 2035. Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.” “The door is closing,” Fatih Birol says. “I am very worried – if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever.”
Australia passes landmark carbon price legislation.
November 8, 2011 ClimateCanberra’s setting of a price on carbon emissions iinjects new impetus into December’s global climate talks in South Africa. “Today Australia has a price on carbon as the law of our land. This comes after a quarter of a century of scientific warnings, 37 parliamentary inquiries, and years of bitter debate and division,” PM Julia Gillard tells reporters. The scheme sets a fixed carbon tax of A$23 ($23.78) a tonne on the top 500 polluters from July 2012, then moves to an emissions trading scheme from July 2015. Australia’s carbon market is forecast to be worth as much as A$15 billion ($15.5 billion) by 2015. The global carbon market was worth about $142 billion in 2010, with the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme accounting for 97 percent of trade, accordin to the World Bank.
Greenhouse gas levels worse than IPCC worst case.
November 4, 2011 ClimateThey are higher now then any scenario in the last IPCC study four years ago. The US DoE reports that the world pumped about 564m more tons (512m metric tons) of carbon into the atmosphere in 2010 than it did in 2009, an increase of 6%.
IPCC scientists predict grim future of ruinous weather extremes.
November 1, 2011 ClimateSome areas will become increasingly marginal places to live, their latest report, leaked to the Washington Post, says. Heatwaves likely to peak 5 degrees higher by mid century and 9 by end century.
Huge independent scientific study confounds climate sceptics.
October 20, 2011 ClimateThe Berkeley Earth project compiled more than a billion temperature records dating back to the 1800s from 15 sources around the world. Result: the average global land temperature has risen by around 1C since the mid-1950s.
Virgin unveils jetfuel from industrial gas that would otherwise have been release as CO2.
October 11, 2011 Climate, OilVirgin Atlantic aims to be using a “green aviation fuel” on its aircraft within three years claiming what Richard Branson calls “one of the most exciting developments of our lifetime and a major breakthrough in the war on carbon”. They aim to convert waste gases from industrial steel production into a jet propulsion that could ultimately account for nearly a fifth of the present annual global consumption of aviation fuel. A demonstration flight is planned within 12-18 months.
Scottish Power shelves flagship UK CCS project.
October 6, 2011 Climate, CoalThe £1bn price tag wasn’t enough to make the Longannet project in Scotland project economically tenable, the Guardian reports. Yet more public funding would be needed.
Six months of low rain leaves Pacific islands without fresh water.
October 4, 2011 ClimateTuvalu and Tokelau are down to bottled water. The problem is exacerbated by salination of the freshwater lens, attributable to climate change.
Tar sands oil imports effectively banned under new EU Directive.
October 4, 2011 Climate, Gas, OilThe European Commission has decided to back a new directive on fuel quality setting minimum environmental standards for a range of fuels, including tar sands, coal converted to liquid and oil from shale rock. Member states now have to vote. The UK could vote against.
Osborne says UK will do no more than any other EU country on green agenda.
October 3, 2011 Clean Energy, ClimateAt the Tory conference in Manchester George Osborne for the first time publicly attacks green laws and regulation as “piling costs on to energy bills.” He appears to abandon earlier aspirations for the UK in the low-carbon economy.
CCS falling by wayside, IEA tells energy ministers.
September 22, 2011 Climate, CoalThe financial crisis and weakening political will means global momentum has been lost on CCS, the IEA says at a CCS review meeting in Beijing. The IEA estimates the 2C goal requires 1,500 large-scale CCS projects around the world by 2035 (20% of the roadmap to 2C). Only 74 have been announced. China should have 270 by 2035. It has six at the planning stage. Xie Zhenhua, vice-chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, says CCS is a “last resort” for China.
“Climate-denying candidates make more Americans believe in global warming”.
September 16, 2011 ClimateThe latest Reuters/Ipsos poll shows 83% of Americans now believe that climate change is happening. That’s up from 75% last year. Grist: “At least one political scientist says that GOP candidates may have helped cause the increase with their increasingly over-the-top blowhard denialism.”
Arctic ice melts to a low almost certainly not seen for 8,000 years.
September 11, 2011 ClimateThe Arctic could be ice free in summer within 30 years, on this trend: 40 years earlier than the estimate in the last IPCC report. Ice volume is plunging faster than this time last year, when the record was set.
7 out of 8 US insurers are still ignoring soaring climate risks.
September 5, 2011 Climate, FinanceSo a Ceres report surveying 88 companies shows. The cumulative total for damages from floods, tornadoes and heat waves has topped $35bn this year. Plus insurers are increasingly facing legal risks associated with climate change, with more than 120 law suits filed in 2010. On top of all this, the report warns that climate impacts threaten to undermine the performance of the sector’s $23tn global investment portfolio.
NASA climate scientist arrested at tar sands pipeline protest.
August 30, 2011 ClimateJim Hansen on the President’s forthcoming decision about the Keystone XL pipeline: “If he chooses the dirty needle it is game over [for the earth's climate] because it will confirm that Obama was just greenwashing, like the other well-oiled coal-fired politicians with no real intention of solving the addiction. Canada is going to sell its dope, if it can find a buyer. So if the United States is buying the dirtiest stuff, it also surely will be going after oil in the deepest ocean, the Arctic, and shale deposits; and harvesting coal via mountaintop removal and long-wall mining. Obama will have decided he is a hopeless addict.”
Warning to Asian investors: carbon asset bubble is being ignored.
October 2, 2011 Climate, Commentaries, FinanceTags: Carbon targets