Who Does the Government Support?

The global push towards a decrease in fossil fuel reliance and an increase in alternative energy production is creating a stir between governments and big oil industries.  As the public becomes more aware and educated of the problems associated with petroleum extraction and use, as well as the long-term positive effects of alternative energy sources, such as wind or solar power, governments are also under greater scrutiny. In this article, they discuss that while the government in the UK has been publicly supporting and subsidizing alternative wind power, the tax breaks that it gives to oil companies far exceed the aforementioned subsidies.

No Quick Fix to Low Carbon Technologies

A recent study found that the rapid deployment of low-greenhouse-gas-emitting technologies (LGEs) will initially increase emissions as they will require a large amount of energy to construct and install. These cumulative emissions will remain in the atmosphere for extended periods due to the long lifetime of CO2, meaning that global mean surface temperatures will increase to a level greater than if we continued to use conventional coal-fired plants. However, delaying the rollout of the technologies is not an option because the risks of environmental harm will be much greater in the second half of the century and beyond if we continue to rely on coal-based technologies. Will there every be a way to reduce greenhouse gases safely and efficiently?  

.

Here's a pretty amazing visual summary of the global sources of greenhouse gases, broken down by source and by gas.  If you were to break the data down by country and just look at the U.S., we'd have a much bigger slice due to transportation.  After spring break, we'll analyze San Diego County in a similar way.

You can see that reducing greenhouse gas emissions affects a lot of different activities.

Global Warming Not Driven By The Sun...?

While aerosols in the atmosphere, such as carbon black or sulfate particles, can absorb heat from solar radiation that can lead to the warming of the Earth, they also have a net cooling effect by reflecting incoming sunlight. Thus, they add to the Earth's average albedo (reflection of incoming sunlight) and decrease the amount of solar radiation contributing to global warming. In this article, NASA researchers discuss how matching of solar radiation levels and Earth's average temperature levels have led to the support of the hypothesis that the sun is not the main contributor in global climate change. While it is an important factor, they argue that the cooling effect of aerosols in the atmosphere have been significantly underestimated, with respect to global climate change and global warming in particular.

Sources of Local GHG's

The EPA just released an interactive tool which provides the public the opportunity to search and locate greenhouse gas emitters based on facility, type of factory, amount and type of greenhouse gas, along with the facility location, plant name, and other locations. Found under the EPA's Toxic Release Inventory, which compiles information from thousands of companies, including emissions to air, land, and water of more than 650 toxic chemicals. The tool, while still in it's early stages of development, provides data through 2010 and is intended to educate both the local communities, as well as factory owners and operators, of the emissions and hopefully encourage reduction.

Being curious as to what sources of emissions could be found in and around San Diego County, I performed a search and was surprised by the results. The second largest source of GHG emissions, (263,932) was the West Miramar Sanitary Landfill, all of which were related to methane generation. Having toured the facility and listened to the manager boast of how they were considered a 'five star landfill,' particularly due to their methane harnessing abilities, I automatically assumed that they were harnessing all of the methane gas that the landfill was generating. To my surprise however, the statistics showed that a little over 1/3 of the methane gas emitted was unable to be harnessed, and is in fact emitted into the atmosphere.

Cleaning Up After Big Businesses

In today's reading the text discusses management of CO2 emissions and how it will affect our climate in the future.  A common sentiment among big corporations is, "Yes we want to reduce our CO2 emissions, but now is not a good time." This hesitancy to make changes at the source of the problem means we must look for other solutions.  At an American Association for the Advancement of Science convention specialists developed a method of capturing and storing CO2 emissions before they can be introduced into the atmosphere.  CO2 is captured from smokestacks and injected into porous rocks underground.  While this should cut emissions by 25% over the next 100 years, it is an expensive process, and can only be used for a finite amount of time.  It's too bad that this expensive and ultimately short-term solution is necessary when big businesses have the tools at their disposal to significantly reduce the problem at its origin.

Cement-making method discovered to cut down CO2 emissions due to cement production by 97%

Cement production is increasing alongside industrialization all over the world. At present, the creation of cement is responsible for 5% of all human-induced CO2 emissions. Portland cement, which currently accounts for most of the cement used worldwide for construction, is made by putting a mixture of ingredients in a kiln and firing it. The result of using the kiln is a high level of CO2 emissions during production.

Engineers at Drexel University have found a way to cut down those CO2 emissions by 97%. At a cost that is 40% cheaper.

The method is inspired by the cement used in ancient Roman structures and the Egyptian pyramids. While the engineers cannot know for certain the longevity of their newly discovered cement, they hope that its chemical similarity to such long-standing architectural wonders will speak for it.

Their cement is made of around 68% unfired limestone, commercial alkali chemical and iron slag byproduct. Not only is limestone lower in CO2 than many of the ingredients in Portland cement, but it is cheaper and more available, too.

When Increasing Fuel Economy Goes Wrong...

Increasing the fuel economy of all vehicles on the road is a seemingly positive way to decrease carbon emissions and energy consumption worldwide, but is it always so? In South Africa, where the primary source of energy comes from coal-fired power plants, they are making a push for electric vehicles to cut down on their carbon footprint. However, this article explains how the infrastructure and planning behind this big push is leading South Africa's energy dependence down a dark road.

Tackling Cows' Methane Problem

One greenhouse gas that has a biological origin is methane gas. Cows are well known for their methane production. An interesting article on HowStuffWorks.com talks about the methane production in cows. One idea on reducing cows' methane output is to engineer cows to produce less methane. The article also talked about how in 2003 a flatulence tax was proposed in New Zealand to try and account for the methane gas produced by cows. (It was never passed.)

Apple Goes Green

Apple was awarded LEED Platinum Certification due to its plan to build a solar farm in North Carolina. Apple has decided to build the solar farm in order to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, which have increased in recent years due to product popularity. The solar farm will be the largest user-owned solar farm in the United States.

The Effect Aerosols Have on the Climate

Aerosols have such a bad effect on the climate for many reasons, one of them being that aerosols reinforce the effect that greenhouse gases have on the environment. This article talks about the multiple ways that aerosol is harmful to the environment and the ways that the amount of aerosols in the air is being monitored.

Global Warming & Climate Change

There was some hope before that one of the few positive side effects of the global recession would be a possible trend of less pollutants. However, records show that our continual use of fossil-fuels for energy, such as coal and natural gas, has pumped a half-billion extra tons of carbon into our skies in 2010. According to an article in the New York Times, carbon emissions showed the biggest jump ever recorded in 2010. This is definitely not the path for sustainable development or clean energy implementation. Since then, many steps have been taken worldwide to respond to this complicated issue. Some of these steps are summarized here. 

Six countries team up with UNEP to reduce short-lived climate pollutants.

The goal is to reduce certain pollutants that don't stay in the atmosphere for as long as pollutants like Greenhouse gases usually are, but are comparably harmful. These pollutants are black carbon, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and methane.

UNEP's initial research suggests drastic results from their proposed emissions reductions. These measures would "reduce future global warming by 0.5˚C and avoid 2.4 million premature deaths every year. The measures would be especially effective in Arctic regions, where they could reduce warming by about two-thirds over the next 30 years."

Methods mentioned would be to cut down on ineffectual appliances in order to replace them with newer, more environmentally-friendly appliances that don't result in the emission of as much of the SLCPs that they're targeting.

See why Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Mexico, Sweden, and the US have decided to pool their resources...

The fossil fuel industry claims that we can "bury" CO2 to slow down climate change.

CSS is the method of Capture and Sequestration of CO2, developed in response to questions on how to stabilize the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in order to slow down climate change. One proposed way to diminish the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been to store it, because CO2 can be stored in geologic formations.
There has been a lot of doubt about this method, though, and numerous scientists and engineers from top-tier schools have called attention to the fact that in order for this to be even remotely effective, we'd have to built an industry around it comparable to the world's gasoline industry.  And some say that it often doesn't work. Oil formations depend on impenetrable cap rock, which makes them singularly appropriate for this method, but even then the enormous job of isolating so much CO2 under enormous pressure, and then keeping it there for 10,000 years is unbelievable.
Do you think CSS is a viable option?

[image source]

Greenhouse Effect

The greenhouse effect is natural, and it is what makes earth warm enough to not be always covered in ice. A while ago, BBC News posted an interactive graphic that you can click through to better understand greenhouse effect and how it warms the earth's surface.

Humans can increase or enhance the greenhouse effect by introducing more carbon dioxide into the air causing more heat to be trapped in the earth's atmosphere. To try and reduce the human impact on the global climate change, the EPA is regulating the emissions of greenhouse gases by companies.

Now the EPA is releasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emission data reported directly from large facilities and suppliers across the country. There is the hope that providing this data to the public can serve as a tool to initiate change and reduction of GHG emissions.

The Ocean: a sink for Carbon Dioxide?

In the past, the ocean has been considered a good sink for carbon dioxide. An article published three years ago discusses how climate change from increased carbon dioxide has caused the ocean to become a less effective sink. The climate change has lead to an increase in winds over the Southern Indian Ocean. The increase in winds has led to an increase in the mixing of the ocean. Because the ocean's waters are mixing more, the carbon dioxide is prevented from being able to settle in the deep ocean and is brought back to the surface. This leads the carbon dioxide to be released from the ocean and emitted back into the air, thus causing more climate change and a continuous cycle.

EPA Cracks Down on Careless Companies

Pound per pound, methane is much more effective at raising the air temperature than carbon dioxide.  However, CO2 is present at such high concentrations in our atmosphere that it is still the most important greenhouse gas today.  Thankfully efforts are being made worldwide to stop slow the production of CO2, and environmental protection agencies give incentive for companies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

This is was made clear in Scotland recently when the Scottish environmental protection agency (Sepa) fined ExxonMobil £2.8m after a factory in Scotland owned by the company failed to correctly report 37,000 (US) tons.  Though it is accepted that the company made a genuine mistake, Sepa is not hesitating to set an example.  Hopefully such an pricey consequence will prompt other companies to be  cautious.
article

Missing Sink for Free Radicals?

In August 2010, an article was published in Nature that reported that there may be a missing sink for free radicals in our atmosphere. After taking measurements of a suite of atmospheric compounds over Alaska, northern Canada, Greenland and the North Pole, a research team found that widely used atmospheric-chemistry models tend to underestimate OH concentrations in the lowermost region of the atmosphere but overestimates OH concentrations in the upper troposphere. The authors propose that multiphase reactions on aerosol particles could be the missing sink of HO_x radicals. If correct, this could imply that that HO₂ uptake on aerosols may also be an important factor for the cold upper troposphere at lower latitudes, and not just in Arctic regions.

Seasonal Variations of Greenhouse Gases: Methane

The greenhouse gas methane is an important contributor to global climate change, yet until the early 1980's little effort had been made to quantitatively measure methane levels in the atmosphere and only recently has methane variation been measured continuously via satellite.  In China scientists have used Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) to determine that mid-upper tropospheric methane undergoes seasonal variations due to mixing, much like that of ozone in the stratosphere.  The data suggests that not only does increased industrialization result in higher methane concentrations, its effects on global warming can greatly vary depending on seasonal variations.    Article

Intermediate Holds the Key to Understanding Ozone Reactions

In a recent article published by Science magazine it was found that certain intermediates called Criegee intermediates are critical in understanding the reactions of ozone in which secondary aerosols are produced. These secondary aerosols are to blame for low visibility and health issues that are caused by photochemical smog.

Photochemical Smog

I was browsing the internet and found this article which is a very good summary of our class discussion on Monday. It talks about the effects of VOCs and PM on human health and how death rates are thought to increase within Los Angeles in the coming years. It also touches on the idea that although air quality has significantly improved in Los Angeles, each year brings new research showing just how dangerous photochemical smog and other air pollution is, causing a need to increase the restriction of emissions.
This article lays out the material covered in Chapter 5 in a very understandable way. It shows how NO released from cars reacts with other chemicals in the air to produce photochemical smog using written equations and diagrams.

Acid Rain- a Real Conundrum

The following article, published yesterday in Chemical & Engineering News, explains recent discoveries made regarding acid rain, and it's relation to mercury levels in fish. Released from a study conducted in Norway, the reduction of acid rain is contributing to the rise of pH levels in lakes, which has been linked to increased mercury levels in fish living in those lakes. As pH becomes less acidic (due to the decrease in acid rain), organic material from soil surrounding the lakes becomes more soluble (read more about this here), including dissolved organic carbon. Further studies have shown that dissolved organic carbon can react with relatively inert forms of mercury, to produce methylmercury. Fish in aforementioned lakes are then consuming this metal, and subsequently through the process of bioaccumulation, methylmercury is ingested by humans.  While acid rain presents many harmful implications on both the environment and humans alike, this study shows that acid rain may in fact be a good thing in terms of helping to keep the pH of lakes at a higher acidity, and thus prevent the production and ingestion of methylmercury, the most toxic form of mercury. I think this presents a conundrum of sorts, however I still do believe that the implications acid rain poses to us, outweigh the 'benefits,' if you can call them that.

The War on Asbestos

Many companies use asbestos materials in construction due to its unique qualities, such as its strength and resistance to heat (as mentioned in the reading), but primarily due to its low cost. However, from its airborne fibrous nature, it has been evaluated as a known carcinogen linked to rare types of cancer, such as mesothelioma. This article reports on a recent court judgment against a Swiss construction company, who failed to prevent the containment of asbestos fibers that killed or injured up to 6,300 people in Casale Monferrato. This ruling is the first of its kind in Italy and is being seen as "truly historic". For the people of Casale Monferrato, justice has been served in the War on Asbestos.

Solutions for a Nitrogen-Soaked World

Nitrogen oxides are readily released into the air mostly from chemical fertilizer and manure runoff, as well as fossil fuel emissions. This has lead to an excess of nitrogen oxides to be present in our environment, which serves as both a benefit and a hazard. In this article from Science Daily, researchers examine ways to reduce nitrogen pollution, whether through voluntary reduction efforts or the setting of standards. One interesting concern in this article is how to reduce the amount of nitrogen used to produce certain foods.

Developing Nations to Get Clean-Burning Stoves

Nearly three billion people in the developing world cook their meals on primitive indoor stoves fueled by crop waste, wood, coal and dung. Every year, smoke from these stoves kills 1.9 million people, mostly women and children, from lung and heart diseases and low birth weight.  This indoor air pollution is the fourth greatest health risk factor in developing countries, after clean water, unsafe sex, and undernourishment.  The stoves also contribute to global warming as a result of the millions of tons of soot they spew into the atmosphere and the deforestation caused by cutting down trees to fuel them.


In September of 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced her commitment to a group working to address the problem, with a goal of providing 100 million clean-burning stoves to villages in Africa, Asia and South America by 2020. The United States is providing about $50 million in seed money over five years for the project, known as the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.


I believe that this project could create an entrepreneurial framework in which small, local companies take into consideration local fuel choices, food consumption patters, and methods of cooking before investing in the efficient stoves.  The project could not only provide business opportunities for women, but also reduce women and children's need to forage for fuels, which keeps millions of children out of school.  This issue affects health, women's status, and the environment: I'm glad something is being done to alleviate pressure in all three of these areas of international concern! Like Ms. Clinton said, "Something had to be done."


The original New York Times article can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/science/earth/21stove.html

Clean Air Act and acid rain improvement

 Acid rain is currently one of the most concerning environmental problems today, due to both its ecological effects and impacts on human health.  Although measures have been taken to reduce nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions, years of power plants releasing these chemicals have left permanent damage to our forests and aquatic environments.  However, improvements have been measured in the US since the enactment of the 1990 Clean Air Act.  With the transient nature of acid precipitation, lets hope that this improvement will spread to other parts of the world.
 

E.P.A. sued Friday

On Friday, eleven U.S. states joined forces to sue the E.P.A. due in large to the agency's failures to tighten air quality standards involving fine particulate matter. New York City, one of the eleven states, is blaming the pollution for increasing the risk of early death, heart attacks, and emergency room visits, especially those of whom suffer from asthma. The E.P.A., who originally postponed revising the AQ standards last fall, claims they are still "continuing to work" on proposing new standards. As of today, it has been six years since the standards have been revised, and as present levels of air pollutants including particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and ozone, to list a few, are on the rise, I feel it is crucial those standards be revised. For this reason, I am in support of the legal matters which are being taken, however I fear the strong opposition from the Republican party (whom fear that stricter AQ regulations will only serve to drive up energy costs and thus hurt economic growth), might complicate the process. In contrast to the Republican party, I think this revision is absolutely necessary, especially as public health is at risk. If AQ standards remain the same, and human health continues to suffer, I think it can only be expected that the government will find more and more people seeking medical help, and thus putting a damper on economic growth. 

To view this article, click here.

2011 Dinosaur of the Year: the Cruise Ship Industry

Every year, the Nature and Biodiversity Conversation Union awards a "Dinosaur of the Year" award to highlight the "most ridiculous statement or anachronistic decision in connection with Nature and the Environment."
It is estimated that the "15 largest cruise ships emit as much sulfur dioxide pollution annually as all 760 million cars in the world".

Sulfur dioxide also comes from volcanic eruptions and is converted to sulfuric acid. This then converts in the stratosphere to create sulfate aerosols. These reflect the radiation of the sun, but also absorb heat from Earth, which warms the stratosphere.


Dino of the Year article
More info on sulfur aerosols

Pollution from Hurricane Ike

Hurricane Ike had a tremendous impact on the United States and other places in the world.  Many houses and buildings were destroyed and a large amount of damage was done by this natural disaster.  That is the main thing that was talked about after this tragedy occurred.  The one thing that is not focused as much on after a natural disaster is the damage that occurs in the form of pollution.  This article gives a description of some of the pollution incidents that occurred after Hurricane Ike.  It also describes the team that is in place to clean up these pollution incidents.  It is incredible how quickly the team assesses the issues in the surrounding ports and attempts to clean up the pollution quickly and efficiently.

Los Angeles Pollution

I am from Los Angeles, and after reading this Chapter and seeing how many times the city's name was used I decided to do research. An article in the Huffington Post talks about the most dangerous U.S. cities in regards to air pollution. Many of the cities listed, Los Angeles included, were located in California. Despite the efforts to improve air quality in Los Angeles, it had the most ozone pollution in the country in 2009.

Beijing Air Pollution

As a non-cigarette smoker, I was curious to see what the health effects were, with regards to respiratory problems, of cities with current air pollution problems.  Air pollution within the United States has been regulated, and measures have been taken to decrease air pollution levels to relatively healthy levels.  However, while measures are being taken globally, not all countries have the same standards as the United States.  In a city like Beijing, which has taken measures to cut down their air pollution, due to the 2008 Olympic Games, current levels of air pollution are still detrimental to the average citizen.  This article discusses how the particulate matter in the air pollution in Beijing is comparable to smoking 1/6 of a cigarette for every day spent doing normal activities in the city. For smokers and non-smokers alike, extra particulate matter in one's respiratory system is never a good thing, unless you're pro-respiratory problems.

Air Pollution Around the World

The book talks about different places around the world that try to limit the amount of smog that is released into the air. This article talks about the air pollution in Beijing and how they tried to improve the quality of air there in a short period of time before the Olympics back in 2008.

States Oppose New Pollution Reduction Rules

On Monday, ENews Park Forest reported that sixteen largely polluting states filed a lawsuit to prevent new smog rules from being enacted. Much of their desire to do so was to save big utilities and coal companies that gave an estimated $5 million in contributions to governors and attorneys general who supported them. Personally, I find it appalling that these states would put money ahead of environmental protection and public health. How do you feel about this?

Air pollution and a reluctancy to make changes

Last year the EPA finalized the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule in an effort to reduce air pollution.  Recently 16 states have sued the EPA in opposition to this new law (article).  Not coincidentally, many of these states have the highest rates of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions in the country.
These current issues in the US bring to mind the environmental issues other parts of the world are facing.  Pollution in China has gotten so extreme that gas-masks are now commonplace in Beijing and iPhone applications have been made so that its citizens can track the pollution hourly.  Let's hope that here in the US we can take preventative measures now so that we don't have to buy gas-masks later.

London Smog

The chapter discusses the perfect environment for Smog. First, there needs to be enough traffic to produce emissions. There must also be enough warmth and sunlight for the reactions to proceed. Lastly, there cannot be much air movement. For these reasons London is a city with perfect smog conditions. This article talks about some of the worst smog conditions experienced in London over last year's Easter weekend.

Skeptics and the Ozone

An interesting article discusses the original opposition scientists faced from skeptics when the ozone hole was discovered. It lays out the different approaches skeptics took to try and disprove the ozone hole and prevent the banning of CFC's. The article talks about the dramatic effects skeptics thought banning CFC's would have on the economy and other areas of life, and what actually occurred over the past 20 years.

Finding an ozone friendly alternative to HFCs

After discovering the adverse effects CFCs on the ozone hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) were largely employed as a replacement.  However outside of North America alternatives to HFCs have already been investigated.  Hydrocarbons can be utilized as coolants for manufactured goods without contributing to global warming.  In December the United States EPA just approved the use of three hydrocarbon refrigerants as substitutes to HFCs, which have an atmospheric lifetime of decades.  A switch to hydrocarbons is estimated to reduce greenhouse gas emission by 600,000 metric tons by 2020.

Arctic Ozone Hole

We've known about the hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic for a few decades. An article on Live Science back in October of 2011 talked about the first time there was a significant enough loss of ozone over the Arctic to be considered a hole. Due to the seasonal conditions that cause the the hole in the Antarctic, it usually appears in early spring. The Arctic's hole followed the same pattern and appeared last March. Will we see a hole appearing above the Arctic this spring, too?

Ozone Layer Helping Global Warming?

In 2010, an interesting article was published by National Geographic magazine about the possibility of the ozone layer actually helping global warming. Saving the ozone layer has become a major priority over the years, but interestingly enough the hole in the ozone may actually be helping to prevent global warming from occurring at a faster rate in parts of the southern hemisphere.