Twenty four hours to save the Arctic Refuge! 16 March 05

Maybe I am pessimistic about this, or realistic. I am not sure, but I feel that if there is oil, no matter how precious its location, that oil will be retrieved, & pumped to our cities to be used.

The economics of getting the oil out of the Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge now make it viable. I doubt much can now stop drilling.

In such circumstances, should the debate evolve into how to mitigate environmental impacts in the refuge? Anyway, stopping the oil being used, will have minimal impact in stopping GW. I admit I am not familiar with the proposals, but shouldn`t lobbying now focus on clauses that guarantee clean up and remediation, and minimise the impact from installations?

I believe that stopping individual oil projects wont prevent GW. Changing energy sources/usage will only do that. I dont want to see an unspoilt wilderness spoiled, but feel the increasing global oil demand, and unprecedentedly high oil prices will steer all decision making in the short term.

I do still support the citizens roll call, but see it as something of a local skirmish, worthy but perhaps doomed!

regards

One thing I think has been good about “green consciousness” and energy conservation and lowering GHG’s is that it forces the users of energy to find newer ways to save, conserve and use responsibly and more effectively. However, in this case I disagree that the whole of ANWR is doomed because of some drilling sites.

Alaska is a very big state. ANWR is a small area in relation and the drilling sites are even smaller. http://www.state.ak.us/local/facts.shtml

Alaska has about 640,000 residents occupying 570,374 square miles, or 365,039,104 acres of land. Alaska is the largest state, about 2.3 times the size of Texas and about one-fifth the size of the Lower 48 states.

Frankly, a lot of the residents of Alaska like the oil producers there. Their economy is intimately tied to oil production. An Alaskan resident gets a yearly supplement from the Oil royalties. It was set up as the Alaska Pipeline neared completion and allows permanent resident to share in royalties. The fund has varied from around 350 per year per resident to as much as close to 2000 per resident. Adding the oil from the artic refuge would increase the amount of the royalties paid to Alaskans. The majority want the drilling.

http://juneauempire.com/anwr/oilandgas.shtml

I think they should allow the drilling. It is only going to effect around 2000 or the 19,000,000 acres in the refuge.

The pipeline was also touted as a nemisis for nature and yet has shown that nature has thrived around the pipeline areas.

Caribou herd quintupled since Prudhoe bay

http://www.anwr.org/features/caribouhigh.htm http://fairbanks-alaska.com/pipelinedefence.htm

Denali fault earthquake effects on pipeline – no damage done!

http://www.alyeska-pipe.com/Inthenews/techpapers/2-TAPS%20Fault%20Crossing%20Denali%20EQ.pdf

The drilling will be a win-win for the citzens of the US and will also benefit Alaskans! Drilling technology will be much less invasive here in the US and will be closely monitored by however many special interest groups.

Where are all the protests about drilling in the pristine deserts and sands of Saudi? Where were all the protests when Hussein lit all the well fires and basically trashed Kuwait’s and Iraq’s environment? He filled open ditches with oil around Baghdad! Crazy…

I was at a local Sierra Club meeting not too long ago and our speaker works directly with the indigenous people affected by the proposed drilling. We screened a documentary called “Oil on Ice” which portrayed how the lives of these indigenous people will be affected and drilling will not be in their best interests.

We had a discussion later. Other than the main point of affecting the local population, the focus shifted to the fact that the oil would most likely be going to Japan since international oil companies would make more money exporting most of it there.

The main point there was if the oil will not go directly to the USA, then why drill to begin with since it would not benefit Americans. They hoped that this would be selling point to convince legislators to go against drilling.

Also, the oil recovered from the area would not be substantial in the large scheme of things which was their final point in that it is not enough oil to make a significant difference world-wide.

At the time, I could see all their points and concerns and can agree with them but, on later reflection, I went back to the points that reflect what you just posted, Brendon.

Being pragmatic, I think we have many battles to fight but we cannot win them all and winning the war may be more important in the end. Using this militaristic analogy, the war I am talking about is preventing catastrophic climate change. Let me elaborate.

First, the argument for the indigenous people will not work in my opinion because they are a small minority of people and a politician will be more concerned about the vast majority of Americans and their votes.

Regardless of a petition of citizens, many may see securing oil from this region as vital to our national interests.

Second, the idea of exporting oil or that the oil is not enough to matter may fall on deaf ears. I say that because even if the oil goes to say a country like Japan, more oil is available world-wide and this would tend to keep overall oil prices down.

Third, a point mentioned in the documentary concerned the Trans Alaska Pipeline System which actually made a better case for the other side promoting the drilling.

The 800-mile-long Trans Alaska Pipeline System is one of the largest pipeline systems in the world from Prudhoe Bay through rugged terrain to the ice-free port of Valdez. This pipeline was built with a large capital investment. If more oil is drilled in the northern regions, then this pipeline can be better utilized and therefore the capital investment will go much further.

Finally, if oil prices continue to climb, then I see saving the refuge even more difficult to persuade politicians on environmental grounds. I have not researched this, but I am sure that the oil companies would make their case that their environmental impact would be minimal in terms of oil spills.

The Oil for Ice documentary said just the mere presence of the facility from the noise and the outside lighting affected the indigenous people by changing the patterns of local wildlife. I do not think that will be sufficient to persuade the politicians.

In the documentary, they showed a facility flaring natural gas from oil wells and it was an ugly sight to me. That flaring during the night would scare any wildlife away in addition to wasting a source of useable fuel.

Getting back to the main topic, I do think that when industry makes large costly environmental mistakes that they will do a better job in preventing these mistakes from occurring again and environmentalists pushing these issues will insure better controls.

In Mark’s book, High Tide, Mark mentioned that the indigenous people are employed by the oil companies and they have a natural concern for the local environment where they live so I am reassured that they will be prudent not to be careless and be very responsible in their jobs when extracting oil.

I did remember from High Tide that the local people only wanted to drill on land because an oil spill that occurs in a body of water under the ice would pose a difficult clean-up problem. Maybe this is something that could be addressed.

In looking at the big picture (the war) versus the battles (all environmental issues), I think the environmental groups need to have a plan B and push hard to insure that the drilling will be done in a prudent way to have the least environmental impact and use that as a bargaining chip for other issues.

Also, I have my own perspective on the subject. The impact of our emissions on Alaska from melting their ice, melting thir permafrost, and destroying their ecosystems may have more of an impact than safe drilling would. With that in mind, we should focus more on reducing the need for oil as our first priority.

I say that because if we reduced our need for oil, then we reduce our need for drilling. If we reduce our use of oil, then we reduce emissions which are more important to winning the war in the big scheme of things.

For me, I would like to see the Sierra Club and all other environmental groups focus on their own energy use and set a personal example on reducing it and documenting their collective reductions plus the decrease in carbon.

If these groups demonstrated by personal example oil reduction from reduced consumption at levels equivalent to the oil being drilled for, then their case is strengthened not only by example but by providing an alternative approach to decrease our dependency on oil simply by using less.

In my local group, many were against building new power plants, but many did not know about compact fluorescent light bulbs which decrease the need for electricity. I sold 36 bulbs to them after a short 5-minute presentation.

Also, the members mostly drive their cars individually without forming a car pool. I suggested how they could do that and that I would help document the savings of miles, fuel, and carbon. If I can encourage this, then later I may introduce the idea of tying this with more global issues.

I have noticed from being involved on Mark’s blog site, that in the UK at least, people understand better their own role in global emissions.

Over here, some people may be cause oriented and be concerned about climate change but may not embrace ideas whereby we can reduce as individuals and or as a group. The reason for this is quite simple in that, currently, the oil products over here are still relatively inexpensive compared to the UK.

Economics is a driving force and is important when talking about viable solutions. Economics has a motivation effect on people and is the common ground to reach them in the end.

I would say 99 percent of the time that the economic savings of the compact florescent bulbs motivated people to buy them rather than concerns about global climate change.

Anymore, I only mention that at the very end only because I do want them to know that it helps to prevent climate change even though it was not their reason at all for buying the bulbs to begin with. Sad but true!

Brendon, I appreciate your thoughts and they allowed me to more easily share mine. I think that we have to prioritize better and realize that we will not win all battles. Trying to do that definitely will create great anxiety. A way of alleviating that anxiety can be summed in the Serenity Prayer below:

God grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

By your thoughtful comments, Brendon, I think you are already applying that simple formula.

I hope my analysis of this situation added additional light to what you already posted on this subject.

Best Regards, Dan

Maybe after 100 years of studying the problem in extreme detail, we might be able to come up with an acceptable analysis about whether or not we can drill without harming the place. Even then, I don’t know . . .

Let’s face it, the science isn’t really there, and there’s so much scientific controversy & uncertainty . . .

They really need to reach 99.99% certainty before drilling, maybe even 101% certainty that no harm will happen.

It’s interesting that Paul Roberts in his book “The End of Oil” describes the ANWR as a political bargaining chip by the Republicans (see page 299). There is an insignificant amount of oil in the ANWR compared to what the US needs.

According to Roberts, this is a political game to deflect political pressures against the CAFE standards on automotive fuel standards.

If Roberts is right in his analysis, the ANWR will be protected, but US cars will not be obliged to increase their fuel efficiency.

Peter,

With no drilling, we get to have less oil, so we can burn more oil from lower fuel efficiency

But with drilling, we would get more oil, so we can burn less oil from higher fuel efficiency.

Somehow that deal does not seem logical; however, I am just an engineer and not a politician or lobbyist.

Dan

I think it is to with there being one green vote a year. By creating this issue, and then not proceeding on environmental reasons, the politicians can say that they are being green – but avoiding commitments on fuel efficiency standards (which would benefit Japanese/European car manufactures at the expense of Detroit). BTW, I am just reporting on Roberts, I have no idea if this is true.

When it comes to politics, chips do not always add up to any form of logic.

Based on that, I would have to assume that USA politicians must really be so stupid as to be beyond all hope. In that regard, Roberts may be totally correct in anything he says.

With regard to Japanese/European car manufacturers making more fuel efficient cars while we do not raise our fuel efficiency standards, then I must say that our car manufacturers are even more stupid than our politicians.

I say this because the Japanese hybrid cars are currently in demand and people are on a waiting list to get them.

Once peak oil hits and our energy prices soar, then Americans will do a paradigm shift like they did in the past and buy more fuel efficient vehicles. Why would not everybody want a more fuel efficient vehicle anyway?

So, in the end, the politicians will be wrong AGAIN, and the USA car manufacturers will be wrong AGAIN!

I am not disagreeing with Roberts’s assessment. I can believe just as easily that people who run our government and our corporations are missing a few brain cells.

As for the European and Japanese car manufacturers, I say go for it. At least they understand the American people better than our politicians and our manufactures do.

Dan

US consumers are shying away from large SUV’s because of higher gas prices. GM’s earning outlook is bleak and the stock was downgraded because of falling SUV sales in North America.

Americans are turning to smaller vehicles to try to save $$ on fuel.

when I told a person in the auto industry that it seemed to me the U.S. auto industry was in cahoots with the oil industry. He said, “You don’t understand. The oil industry owns the auto industry.”

And what does it take for politicians to get elected? Money. And where does that money come from? A lot comes from the oil & fossil fuel related & dependent industries. Putting it another way, our U.S. political “representatives” are bought & paid for employees of oil & related industries. They represent oil, not us.

Did you know that during the Clinton-Bush Sr. election in 1992 the oil industry contributed roughly the same amount of money to both candidates. They don’t care about pro-life/pro-choice issues, etc. They’re just buying a door into the oval office, no matter who wins.

Now as for the media. Who pays for the media? What kind of commericals do you see? Many are car/truck/SUV commercials (driving along a wilderness area).

Ever wonder why you rarely, if ever, hear anything about GW on TV these days (now that the science is indisputably in)? The old tactic was to present it in the pro-con format. Nightline had a pro-con debate about global warming in 1995 (right after 95% certainty of GW had been established), making it look like half the scientists were skeptical about it. It was on the topic, “Is Science for Sale?” with the implication-conclusion that the skeptic scientists had not been bought by the fossil fuel industries. Texaco was the sponsor for that program. Well, maybe the 3 climate skeptics in the world aren’t for sale – maybe they just have personality disorders – but the media sure are for sale.

I’ve figured out the media’s new tactic: Simply don’t mention GW at all. And it really works. People in my area (if at all they know or think about GW) think it’s been disproven, because they never ever hear about GW anymore. Not one of my upper division college students and very few faculty here know what the Kyoto Protocol is. Luckily a couple of students know Kyoto is a city in Japan (I think they belong to the Japanese Animation Club on campus). Only a handful understand that GW is thought to be caused by GHGs (though they figure it’s been disproven). A few others confuse it with the ozone hole. And the rest don’t know & don’t really care.

I think it’ll be hard in Britain to go from knowledge/concern about GW to action on a massive scale. The knowledge/concern-behavior/action correlation on environmental issues is pretty weak, according to studies I’ve seen. But the situation here in the U.S. seems utterly hopeless, when knowledge about GW is almost completely lacking.

(You can see I’m a bit depressed today.)

<a href= “http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N16714898.htm> Study says ravens thriving in Alaska oil fields

If the ravens are thriving in the oil fields, so are the creatures they predate.

Maybe the oil fields are doing the Alaskan wildlife a favour.

Just a thought!

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N16714898.htm Study says ravens thriving in Alaska oil fields

If the ravens are thriving in the oil fields, so are the creatures they predate.

Maybe the oil fields are doing the Alaskan wildlife a favour.

Just a thought!

...not that I have any real hopes that it will change the outcome, but because I really DO oppose drilling there, and want to be on the record saying so….

It’s depressing knowing that even if this action worked, and there was no drilling, the flora and fauna there are probably doomed, anyway. Global warming’s melting the permafrost atop the tundra. Permafrost gone, the ecosystem/climate/weather is bound to change. Already, polar bears are on the fast track to extinction. How long before the caribou, seals, fish and plant life follow?

Perhaps the only positive thing one can say in the (possible) eulogy for the human race is that not ALL of us just stood by and let it happen. We spoke up. We acted. We demanded. Heck, at times we even begged!

Anyway, I hope lots more people sign this thing. To break a million signatures would sure get even the Bushies’ and O&G bigwigs’ attention!

Right after I read your post, I signed it immediately!

I didn’t before because I thought it to be a lost cause for reasons mentioned in a previous post.

Politicians care about money and votes and numbers imply votes. They do care about that! It does send a message and you are correct about that.

It will stick in their minds when something else comes up where they feel the “need” to concede something to the environmentalists.

You go Vicki!

Dan

Wake up and smell the oil. We live in a dem-oil-cracy. A country of the oil, by the oil, and for the oil. And the American people, we’re not free. We’ve sold our souls to the Dev-oil, the Great Oil-garch, who was prophesied ages ago as the one who would come into this world and destroy it. And we are now dev-oil-ties of him, thanking and worshiping him for all the oil-dependent goodies he has temporarily bestowed on us. In exchange we gladly give up our freedom and public lands, knowing full well we’ll end up in Oil-Hell – and you know those grease fires they burn a lot hotter than, well, GW or even regular Hell fires. Some like it hot, I guess. And all this red state rhetoric about right to life. Just a facade and diversion for the real pro-death agenda. Let those babies be born. We have other ways of killing ‘em, and ultimately all life on earth. Those Dev-oils are really jumpin’ for joil in Oil-Hell over their great victories.

Check out GREEN MOUNTAIN ENERGY (www.greenmountain.com) if you live in any of these states.

The following offer 100% pollution-free electricity: NEW YORK, OREGON, PENNSYLVANIA, TEXAS (in Texas we are paying $1 more per month for our 100% wind generated electicity; some states it may be $5 more)

The following offer 70% cleaner energy: NEW JERSEY, OHIO

In CALIFORNIA they only offer clean energy to businesses.

As I am English, would I be allowed to sign? And if I signed would it have a negative impact, as americans might see it as foreign interferance, something that (unless you are a saudi!!) americans do not take kindly to?

(McCain-Lieberman) is coming up soon. This is a chance for American citizens to contact their senators (Climate Stewardship Act, S. 342) and representative (H.R. 759) and tell them that this is the most important piece of legislation perhaps in U.S. history, perhaps in world history, and if they fail to support it, there may not be a world left after some time. Tell them scientists say we are very close to the point of no return on global warming, etc., etc.

I think written letters (on reused or recycled paper) might work best, but should be done very soon. You can now also email them. Either one works better than a phone call, but you might also want to call & give your opinion.

And they do respond. They do listen. Each letter or email counts, they say, as 300, because they figure at least 300 others feel the same way you do, but do not take the time to write. Be assured the anti-CSA people will be writing in, and may come down to which pile of letters is bigger.

Brendon,

With regards to signing this petition, I would not have a problem at all. It may depend on the how the petition was constructed. They do ask for an email address and a zip code which is a 5 digit code used over here for mail delivery. This zip code also stands for a particular geographical location. Unless you have a similar 5 digit location code, then it may seem that this petition is only meant for us to sign.

I do think that a distinction should be made in regard to what Americans think and what foreigners may think. This is understandable because Americans can vote and foreigners cannot.

If the UK found oil in your Lakes District that would disrupt the beauty of the area, then your people would want a distinctive voice so it would not help if all the opinions of the world were combined with yours. There would have to be a distinction made to clarify how your society feels and what world opinion is. In that case, we may need a separate petition based on world opinion.

With regard to the Saudis, it was their people who caused our 911. Most people here understand that. Sometimes we make the mistake and look at a government as representative of the people.

This is not always the case and even those who voted for Bush do not agree with everything he says. Many over here are not aware of the Bush-Saudi connection simply because they are indifferent to politics and focus only on their own personal lives. Our main media here is more focused on selling products than educating the public on politics, energy, climate, or economics.

I do appreciate your concern for the Alaska Refuge. Honestly for me, I believe that if we do not get a handle on these greenhouse gas emissions, then Alaska will be ruined with or without the drilling from the melting ice and melting permafrost.

That main point is why I may have been mostly indifferent to the drilling. Also, without a solution to reducing our need for oil, I see it hopeless for us to prevent drilling in this area.

However, I changed my mind after reading Vicki’s post. I then realized that a protest by petition still has merit even if it will not affect the final outcome.

I also admire her attitude of defiance in the face of discouragement and found that very compelling and attractive. So, I signed it!

Best Regards, Dan

Lynn,

I remember we talked about this before and I need to at least remind you and others important aspects about this bill. The best way to compare this Act is to compare it with the Kyoto Protocol.

This Act uses the year 2000 as the base year as opposed to 1990 which Kyoto uses. The significance here is that if the USA embraced the Kyoto Protocol, then we would reduce our emissions to 7 percent below our 1990 levels.

This would amount to a 24 percent reduction of our total emissions from current emissions. This total reduction would take place somewhere between 2008 and 2012 if the USA embraced Kyoto. We all know that the USA rejected Kyoto.

Our solution called the Climate Stewardship Act in its original form had intentions similar to the Kyoto Protocol with two phases. In the first phase of this bill, we would cap all USA emissions to 2000 levels by the year 2010. The second phase of this bill would cap emissions to the 1990 level of emissions by the year 2016.

So, in essence, the Second Phase of the original bill would promote a 16 percent reduction from current levels as opposed to a 24 percent reduction from current levels by Kyoto and with a delay of 6 years.

So, the “original” Climate Stewardship Act is more or less close to a half-way point in meeting the more progressive Kyoto Agreement. Much better than nothing!

Now, the current version of our Climate Stewardship Act eliminated phase 2 from the original bill in a failed attempt to get it passed in our Congress. What this means is that we would only maintain our emission rate at the 2000 level.

Now, this is much closer to nothing than even going half way to meeting the Kyoto Protocol as it would have applied to the USA.

Let me explain. Instead of eventually decreasing our emissions by 16 percent below current emissions, the current version would now allow us to permanently INCREASE our emissions above current levels and still satisfy the requirements of this bill!

Now, how did I know that? I looked at our greenhouse gas inventories! The emission rate for the year 2000 was 2.4 percent higher than the emission rate of 2001 and 1.6 percent higher than our emission rate of 2002. In fact, for the year 2002, we would have to INCREASE our emissions by 1.6 percent to be at the year 2000 level!

Therefore, the only thing that the current Climate Stewardship Act might do if passed is to keep our emission rates from increasing further in the future due to population growth and immigration.

I have noticed a few financial studies exploring the benefits of this current bill on the Internet. They seem to indicate that our emission rate would soar over time if the Climate Stewardship Bill is not passed. I tend to disagree with this.

Looking at the current emission growth rates from 2000 to 2002, I find that we would not begin to increase our emission rate higher than the 2000 levels until 2006. By 2010, assuming a linear growth rate, we would only be 4.5 percent over the year 2000 emission levels in 2010.

Intuitively, I do not believe our emissions would continue to grow at the rate previously calculated. I believe that our expense of energy will increase enough over the next 5 years that we would continue to naturally decrease our collective energy consumption to at least stay at par at the 2000 level.

I believe this will happen as Americans will be using more fuel efficient vehicles (mostly from foreign manufacturers) and this will be sufficient to keep our emissions from growing much further.

So, what does the Climate Stewardship Act accomplish? It could never accomplish enough for us to help prevent climate change (in my opinion) so it has little value there!

It may serve a feel good measure to show that the USA passed a bill that indicates we are actually doing something in name only to address the climate change issue.

This may benefit a positive public relations effort at least and get the politicians off the hook! It would become a smokescreen so the USA could appease environmentalist groups and still not address the issue of climate change in a meaningful way. This is my opinion and why I do not like this bill.

I do think it important to let the Congressmen know that YOU KNOW what this bill actually represents and that it will not be sufficient to address the climate problem and it is far below the standards of the international Kyoto Protocol.

I would also include, in any letter, information regarding our high per capita emission rates as compared to other industrialized countries which make our excuses less valid from an economic argument.

For the record, I share these figures and comparisons below. We are 3rd on a per capita emission basis with Australia and Canada higher. Canada did sign the Kyoto Protocol so I wonder how they managed to do that and not complain.

1 Australia citizen = 1.31 the emissions of 1 American

1 Canada citizen = 1.04 the emissions of 1 American

1 USA citizen = 1.00 the emissions of 1 American (baseline)

1 Germany citizen = 0.56 the emissions of 1 American

1 UK citizen = 0.54 the emissions of 1 American

1 European Union citizen = 0.49 the emissions of 1 American

1 Japan citizen = 0.48 the emissions of 1 American

1 France citizen = 0.39 the emissions of 1 American

So based on the per capita emission rates of these countries, the USA has room for improvement. If the USA were to cut emissions to that of the UK (based on the 1998 numbers from above), we would reduce our emissions by 45 percent! This 45 percent reduction is much more than what Kyoto would require of the USA!

In other terms, if the USA were equivalent to the UK right now in per capita emissions, then it would have the same effect as if the entire European Union reduced all their emissions by 68 percent!

Lynn, I do appreciate your enthusiasm for this bill but you may want to consider the information I presented in this post when making your decision on want you want to do in supporting this bill.

I do encourage you to check up on any facts I presented here for your own satisfaction. The EPA website provides greenhouse gas inventory information. You can do a Google on per capita emission rates, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Climate Stewardship Act. If you discover any significant recent changes then let us all know since I posted this same information many months ago.

Personally, I have found that many environmentalists like the Climate Stewardship Act but they may no nothing about it or that it was revised. Even our Virginia state lobbyist for the Sierra Club did not know about this bill and I was the only one who knew this level of detail at one of our local group meetings.

Best Regards, Dan

I had simply thought the CSA was a bit less stringent than the Kyoto Protocol. What a bummer. We don’t really have much on the plate at all. Where’s Superman when we need him.

I had written earlier to my reps, & was planning to do so again this week, but now I’ll let them know this is a bad bill, though they still should sign it.

I think it’s possible to have another bill later that is more stringent, that could override this one.

I do, however, understand we (& Canada & Australia) have problems Europe does not have. Our societies, esp. the Western half of the U.S., grew up around the car culture, and everyone is dispersed. It’ll just take a lot more effort & infrastructural change & change of habit & heart to get this big ship America turned around in the right direction. On top of that our physical distance has fed into an individualistic ethos. We don’t want to listen to anyone, and we want our own car, etc.

I agree with Mark and Viccis sentiments too. I would also sign the petition if appropriate. i would not want to offend americans, make them feel others were interfering in there own business etc etc.

I agree that protest, while not always imediately successful, often, over time, like a boomerang, can come back with good effect.

Politicians dont like to admit they were forced/persuaded to change their policies because of public protest. we in the UK have seen public protest be successful many times, even though the politicians refused to concede they were affected by those protests.

Good luck to all who aim high & want to stop the drilling in the refuge. Power to the people!

As you point out though; lets not forget that it is designing & implementing a carbon neutral economy that will really help change things.

regards Brendon

Hi Brendon,

on your point about a carbon-neutral economy, there is potentially a new kind of PV collector at the design stage which could deliver up to 80% efficiency. A kind blogger at Realclimate posted this link for me.. Now this is getting really interesting.

http://www.physics.bc.edu/news/antenna.shtml

Perhaps it’s time to open the sweepstake on what price Brent crude is going to be at Christmas: $70, $80, $90 a barrel?

cheers

Colin

Thank you Colin. It is so exciting to see the research that is presently underway, in all energy fields. Please look at these exciting developments from an increasingly important Canadian company.

http://www.ballard.com/be_informed/about_ballard/news/2005/02/16/04_Technology%20Hat%20Trick

I am prone to get overly optimistic, particularly with the potential for clean energy. I have a hunch that ultimately our ability to harness the suns energy could be our salvation. But I am not well informed about solar developments, but did hear something about new techniques also being developed by spanish researchers (maybe a year ago or so), that also sounded very promising.

The link I have included concerns hydrogen fuel cells. The book by V Vaitheeswaran – Power to the people, has lots of uptodate juicy info on this stuff, and its possible applications, (right down to powering mobile phones).

Please update me on any other developments that you may know of, if you could, as I think that these could be more important than Kyoto/carbon trading/political developments, in combating CC.

best regards

Brendon

Hello Brendon, thanks for the Ballard link: encouraging progress on fuel cells. This rate of improvement in capacity/durability is important to maintain as there is a big issue about the emount of energy that can be retained in a cell, the efficiency of transfer and the amount of platinum required. I think I read somewhere recently that a group is trying to replace platinum with Iron (Fe) as the catalytic element. That would solve the resource problem, but it could be another ‘cold fusion’ false hope. The limiting factor is the source energy to produce the Hydrogen and if Solar PV’s can get above 50% efficient, then there is real hope of establishing a renewable energy capture system that can produce enough liquid/gaseous fuel to enable us to make the transition from our present plant/equipment inventory to a more sophisticated one without massive obsolescence.

On a more sombre note, I read in Money Week magazine today about the plight of China’s environment, with the huge demands on agriculture from the massive move to an idustrialsed economy causing increased desertification, and growing chronic shortages of fresh water. China’s current national water usage exceeds rainfall by 30% and growing. It cannot be long before we see catastrophic drought & famines there that will kill millions.

best wishes

Colin

Once these technologies bear fruit, then they need to be marketed to the people and all this activity should stimulate a growing economy.

Higher oil prices may in the end save us and I am actually happy to see the oil prices rise. Whatever temporary discomfort there is in this will be more than offset by the stimulus needed to promote what we need to be doing anyway in redeveloping our energy infrastructure.

Hydrogen from solar cells could power a hydrogen-electric hybrid vehicle and the solar cells could either recharge batteries overnight or help create hydrogen fuel instead.

The current hybrids offer a bridge to the later hydrogen hybrid vehicle. Remember that the hybrid concept would boost the efficiency of using hydrogen fuel over a conventional internal combustion engine.

If fuel cell problems can be solved, then this would more than double the efficiency of a hydrogen vehicle replacing the internal combustion engine.

It may be possible that a hybrid-cell-fuel combination could be employed replacing conventional batteries or reducing their size. This may be possible for operation at low speeds but the internal combustion engine would kick in at higher speeds. Anything is possible as long as it does not violate the laws of physics.

If solar-electricity is connected with existing electric grids, it could help balance loads from an integrated management system making conventional electric generation more efficient.

Every home and workplace can contribute to the grid with roof mounted solar cells. No more new power plants would have to be built if hydrogen is created and stored on sunny days to power generators or fuel cells for electricity on cloudy days.

I like the idea of diversifying and decentralizing energy production at some level. We do not have to totally replace centralized power sources but if there is a blackout, at least we should have energy to keep lights and refrigerators working plus computers and the Internet.

New energy sources would still benefit from improved efficiency of appliances and lighting plus extracting waste heat from drain water, and air conditioner condensing units to increase the efficiency of the hot water supply.

Best, Dan