A Musing Environment

The part of the Fukushima disaster I find so disheartening are the stories of those forcibly evacuated from their homes. There have been a number of articles warning of long evacuation times, such as this in the Washington Post, saying that it might be decades before all of the 78,000 evacuees could return. The exposure to radioactivity appears to be very low among the public. One worker died of a heart attack or stroke, and one worker may die over the next 70 years from cancer—perhaps still safer than a fossil fuel plant. But not being able to go home, because your town/farm is so radioactive?

reactor at Fukushima Daiichi plant

Evacuation center

There have now been two nuclear accidents, Chernobyl and Fukushima, that have led to evacuations. Here is how they compare.

What happened at Chernobyl?

Unless otherwise indicated, the following comes from World Nuclear Association summary of the Chernobyl accident.

April 26, 1986, an accident was caused by an incompetent director of a poorly designed reactor, lacking basic safety devices such as a containment structure, in a country without a regulatory system. When people ask about worst case, this is it. From World Nuclear Association,

It was a direct consequence of Cold War isolation and the resulting lack of any safety culture.

What was the exposure to radioactivity and its effect on health at Chernobyl and Fukushima?

Among the Chernobyl operators and firemen (those putting out the initial fire), 134 suffered acute radiation poisoning (from an exposure of more than 1,000 mSv), and 28 died, all within weeks or months. 2 – 3 died from other causes on the day of the accident, or soon after. No dose at Fukushima was high enough to cause acute radiation poisoning.

Chernobyl—Unit 4—See article for interviews with victims of accident

The next most exposed group, the liquidators, numbering 200,000 initially, cleaned up the reactor in 1986 – 7. (Another 400,000 came later, but their exposures were fairly small.) Among this group, the average dose equivalent was 100 millisievert. According to UNSCEAR (see Annex J), “It is, however, notable that no increased risk of leukaemia, an entity known to appear within 2- 3 years after exposure, has been identified more than 10 years after the accident.” The model used by National Academy of Sciences in BEIR VII predicts 168 cases of leukemia, and 135 deaths, in this group. (See appendix for more information on normal exposures.)

This includes 20,000 whose dose equivalents from Chernobyl were about 250 mSv, 500 mSv for a few, with highest doses on the first day.

Worker exposure at Fukushima was considerably lower: 107 workers received a dose equivalent between 100 and 200 mSv, for 8 workers it was 200 – 250 mSv, and for 9 workers, more than 250 mSv.

For the general population, there are a number of pathways that lead to exposure.

Since the thyroid is so small, less than 1 ounce (10 – 15 grams), and iodine was the majority of radioactive ions taken up by the body, thyroid cancer, particularly among the very young, became a serious problem, especially in areas where the soil was iodine deficient. By 2002, according to Chernobyl Forum, 4,000 thyroid cancers had been diagnosed among those who were children at the time of the accident, a large fraction of which are attributable to Chernobyl; 15 of these have died. [Chernobyl Forum recommends continued screening of those who were children and adolescents in 1986, but at some point, the danger from invasive procedures on benign lesions will outweigh the benefits. Some of the lesions counted were benign.]

According to Chernobyl Forum,

Apart from the dramatic increase in thyroid cancer incidence among those exposed at a young age, there is no clearly demonstrated increase in the incidence of solid cancers or leukaemia due to radiation in the most affected populations. There was, however, an increase in psychological problems among the affected population, compounded by insufficient communication about radiation effects and by the social disruption and economic depression that followed the break-up of the Soviet Union….

Any traumatic accident or event can cause the incidence of stress symptoms, depression, anxiety (including post-traumatic stress symptoms), and medically unexplained physical symptoms. Such effects have also been reported in Chernobyl exposed populations. Three studies found that exposed populations had anxiety levels that were twice as high as controls, and they were 3–4 times more likely to report multiple unexplained physical symptoms and subjective poor health than were unaffected control groups.

All 2 million people in Fukushima prefecture are being tested for exposure, and all 360,000 who were 17 or younger in at the time of the accident will have their thyroid tested. United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) plans a report in late 2012 on total radioactivity released, and exposure to workers and the public.

Who was evacuated from Chernobyl?

International Atomic Energy Agency, in 25 years, 25 stories, tells us about some of them. See especially Strelichevo teacher, the story of a girl evacuated from outside the evacuation zone—other children worried about catching radioactivity from her. Exclusion Zone Life is the story of an older woman who returned to her village to live out her years. Pictures of Pripyat. Abandoned villages, and those not abandoned. Farmers’ stories.

Unit 3 operated until December 2000

While much of the area was evacuated, 6,000 workers continued at the other three reactors at Chernobyl, until the last ceased operations in December 2000; their exposure was within acceptable limits. (Because the graphite at Chernobyl exploded, much of the radioactivity fell far away. The soil near the other reactors was deep-plowed to bury radioactivity. And the control rooms were fairly clean.) 3,800 workers are still there (see Chernobyl Village).

From World Nuclear Association,

The plant operators’ town of Pripyat was evacuated on 27 April (45,000 residents). By 14 May, some 116,000 people that had been living within a 30 kilometre radius had been evacuated and later relocated. About 1000 of these returned unofficially to live within the contaminated zone. Most of those evacuated received radiation doses of less than 50 mSv, although a few received 100 mSv or more.

In the years following the accident, a further 220,000 people were resettled into less contaminated areas, and the initial 30 km radius exclusion zone (2800 km2) [1100 sq miles] was modified and extended to cover 4300 square kilometres [1660 sq miles]. This resettlement was due to application of a criterion of 350 mSv projected lifetime radiation dose, though in fact radiation in most of the affected area (apart from half a square kilometre) fell rapidly so that average doses were less than 50% above normal background of 2.5 mSv/yr.

Assuming the 350 mSv refers to the extra exposure over 70 years due to Chernobyl, an average of 5 mSv/year, the criterion for evacuation was smaller than the 7.5+ mSv/year increase from moving to Denver (population 2.4 million, compared to 340,000 evacuated from Chernobyl). In the beginning, radioactivity was higher, and short evacuation of some towns made sense (especially of those who received 50 – 100 mSv in a fairly short time, definitely hot spots). However, I don’t understand why evacuation was forced on people whose exposure is less than many choose voluntarily in deciding where to live and visit.

What are returnees to the area around Chernobyl facing?

The radioactive iodine decayed pretty rapidly, with a half-life of 8 days. Cesium constitutes the majority of the radioactivity remaining after the iodine is gone. Quoting myself:

Physical half-life of cesium is 2 years for Cs-134 and 30 years for Cs-137. However, even in the absence of remediation, ecological half-life is less. In real ecosystems, cesium disappears more rapidly, at a rate that depends on soil characteristics. A recent report from the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) found, “a relatively fast decrease with a half-life of between 0.7 and 1.8 years (this dominated for the first 4–6 years after the [Chernobyl] accident, and led to a reduction of concentrations in plants by about an order of magnitude compared with 1987); and (b) a slower decrease with a half-life of between 7 and 60 years.” In some areas, no decline was found after the first 4–6 years. (pp 76-7) At the end of one year, from 37 – 65% of the cesium remains. After 4 – 6 years, from 3 – 20% of the cesium remains.

Radioactivity does vary across the zone, and some food is more radioactive. According to International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP),

Certain areas such as alpine pastures, forests, and upland areas may show longer retention in soils than agricultural areas, and high levels of transfer to particular foods, e.g. berries and mushrooms in forests, may give rise to elevated intakes.

Individual behavior matters: while most average about 0.1 mSv/year exposure above normal from the food they eat, a very small number with “particular dietary habits” may ingest 1+ mSv/year. This is true outside of nuclear accidents; eating shellfish can add 0.5 mSv/year, and 30 – 40 Brazil nuts/week adds 0.2 mSv/year, to a normal intake of 0.27 mSv/year from food.

So the average area in the evacuation zone is a tad more radioactive (<3.75 mSv) than average for the US (3 mSv), <50% as radioactive as Finland, and <40% as radioactive as Denver. Most of us ignore which radon zone we live in, and we ignore the increased radioactivity with altitude. People living in areas near Chernobyl with exposures up to an extra 1 mSv per year, far less than regional variations in the US, even those who will receive as little as 0.1 mSv/year, are seeing protective measures. I also would be neurotic if the government were warning me about such small dangers.

Ukraine’s decision to set a 1 mSv limit wasn’t completely arbitrary. ICRP recommends the “lower part of the 1–20 mSv/year band”. That choice may have been arbitrary, somewhere below where any evidence of health danger has been seen, to meet the ALARA standard, as low as reasonably achievable. Standards for “reasonable” appear to vary, since a good portion of humanity lives willingly in areas that are much more radioactive.

Or work: due to the granite (and marble) at Grand Central Station, workers receive a dose of 1.2 mSv/year.

Yet an evacuation zone remains. Communication about radiation effects doesn’t sound insufficient, but too clear: “You were exposed to dangerous levels and we have to monitor exposures as little as 1 mSv/year or less, because they are dangerous.”

Assuming that the Japanese are aiming for a 20 mSv/year maximum, still safer than air pollution in Tokyo (see here), much of the mandatory evacuation zone is safe now, and almost all of the evacuation zone should be available within 4 – 6 years, assuming the same ecological half life as the area around Chernobyl—the most polluted village, 2 miles from the plant, may be safe as well. Remediation will presumably speed up the process. If the standards are the same as for Chernobyl, where people are not allowed back in unless background radioactivity falls below levels common in the US and elsewhere, the timing of decades makes more sense.

Upcoming post:
• Agriculture after Fukushima

Earth has warmed, and the Arctic has warmed at twice the rate. Ironically, says ScienceNow,

winters in the Northern Hemisphere have grown colder and more extreme in southern Canada, the eastern United States, and much of northern Eurasia, with England’s record-setting cold spell in December 2010 as a case in point.

Now Judah Cohen, et al, may have explained why in a report in Environmental Research Letters:

Siberian airport trapped in snow. Picture credit

First, the strong warming in the Arctic in recent decades, among other factors, has triggered widespread melting of sea ice. More open water in the Arctic Ocean has led to more evaporation, which moisturizes the overlying atmosphere, the researchers say. Previous studies have linked warmer-than-average summer months to increased cloudiness over the ocean during the following autumn. That, in turn, triggers increased snow coverage in Siberia as winter approaches. As it turns out, the researchers found, snow cover in October has the largest effect on climate in subsequent months.

That’s because widespread autumn snow cover in Siberia strengthens a semipermanent high-pressure system called, appropriately enough, the Siberian high, which reinforces a climate phenomenon called the Arctic Oscillation and steers frigid air southward to midlatitude regions throughout the winter…

The team’s analyses suggest that climate cycles such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation can’t explain the regional cooling trends seen in the Northern Hemisphere during the past couple of decades as well as trends in Siberian snow cover do.

Summary: new analysis indicates that the cooling effect of aerosols has been underestimated. Earth will warm as the air clears from lower fossil fuel use, and that warming is likely to be larger than previously estimated.

Aerosols is one of those confusing words that mean one thing in popular parlance (something to do with hair spray) and something different to scientists. To the latter, aerosols are the solid and liquid particles in the air, such as ash, soot, and smoke.

Regulators pay attention to particle size, eg, PM10 (particulate matter <10 microns, one millionth of a meter, in size) and PM2.5 (particulate matter <2.5 microns). Regulators are most concerned about PM2.5 (and China now accepts the obligation to measure PM2.5 after the embarrassment of reporting light pollution on a day when the US embassy recorded PM2.5 levels over 500 microgram per cubic meters, 6 – 10 times the level of the most polluted cities in the world).

As described by NASA,

Climatologists typically use another set of labels that speak to the chemical composition. Key aerosol groups include sulfates, organic carbon, black carbon, nitrates, mineral dust, and sea salt. In practice, many of these terms are imperfect, as aerosols often clump together to form complex mixtures. It’s common, for example, for particles of black carbon from soot or smoke to mix with nitrates and sulfates, or to coat the surfaces of dust, creating hybrid particles.

The bulk of aerosols—about 90 percent by mass—have natural origins. Volcanoes, for example, eject huge columns of ash into the air, as well as sulfur dioxide and other gases, yielding sulfates. Forest fires send partially burned organic carbon aloft. Certain plants produce gases that react with other substances in the air to yield aerosols, such as the “smoke” in the Great Smoky Mountains of the United States. Likewise in the ocean, some types of microalgae produce a sulfurous gas called dimethylsulfide that can be converted into sulfates in the atmosphere.

Sea salt and dust are two of the most abundant aerosols, as sandstorms whip small pieces of mineral dust from deserts into the atmosphere and wind-driven spray from ocean waves flings sea salt aloft. Both tend to be larger particles than their human-made counterparts.

The remaining 10 percent of aerosols are considered anthropogenic, or human-made, and they come from a variety of sources. Though less abundant than natural forms, anthropogenic aerosols can dominate the air downwind of urban and industrial areas.

Fossil fuel combustion produces large amounts of sulfur dioxide, which reacts with water vapor and other gases in the atmosphere to create sulfate aerosols. Biomass burning, a common method of clearing land and consuming farm waste, yields smoke that’s comprised mainly of organic carbon and black carbon.

Air pollution still visible at night

No one wants to keep air pollution aerosols at the current level. Even as smoking rates have remained constant in Beijing, lung cancer rates have gone up 60% in the last decade, presumably from increases in air pollution in the last decades of the 20th century.

What effect are aerosols now having on climate change?
Aerosols are an important part of climate feedback, both direct and indirect. An article in the November 11, 2011 Science looks at the complications (subscription needed).

Aerosol feedbacks The left edge of each box shows the average estimate of the effects of the changes we’re responsible for; the bar shows the range of estimates. There is a 10% chance that the effect is outside the range shown. All numbers are negative—they provide for a net cooling, although there is some reason to think that the second category might be slightly positive, that is, increasing Earth’s temperature. Since aerosols are in the air only a short time, if we stopped adding aerosols, Beijing would be much cleaner within aerosol residence time of days to weeks, and temperatures would begin to rise simultaneously.

The net warming of Earth caused by people is around 1.6 watts per square meter, as if every square meter on Earth had a 1.6 W bulb running 24 hours a day. The actual estimate is 0.6 to 2.4 watts/m2, with a wide range of assumptions about how much variation is normal. (1.6 W/m2 is almost identical with the warming due to carbon dioxide. Other contributions, positive and negative, currently cancel out.) See more numbers at end.*

The upper bar, aerosol direct effects, is the cumulative change from changing reflection (some aerosols reflect more light, some absorb more and heat up), with a mean estimate of -0.5 W/m2.

The indirect aerosol effect on cloud albedo (reflection) is more complicated, and there is a greater range of estimates of its magnitude. Aerosols change precipitation and cloud patterns, in a variety of ways:
• reducing evaporation
• suppressing cloud formation and redistributing droplets
• increasing precipitation (eg, India monsoons)
• altering atmospheric circulation patterns (which could have led to drying in the Sahel)
• creating more small drops

The average estimate for the cloud albedo effect is around -0.7 W/m2.

The third category includes a number of other indirect effects from aerosols, on a longer time scale than days to weeks. Here is the new, and preliminary, analysis presented in the article.

Non-cloud albedo indirect effects include:
• physical changes to the land or ocean which affect the rate that greenhouse gases are taken up or released
• chemical changes, such as nutrients or toxins, that modify biogeochemical cycles.

Aerosols cool Earth, so more of the atmospheric carbon dioxide is taken up. As long as we keep aerosols in the air, carbon dioxide levels remain 1 – 14 parts per million lower. Aerosols with nitrogen (and gaseous nitrogen) fertilize the soil in some areas, so that an extra 0.24 – 0.7 gigatonnes (billion metric tons) is absorbed each year, a decrease of 0.1 – 0.3 ppm CO2/year. Over 135 years, the net effect is to cool Earth, a change of -0.12 to -0.35 W/m2. Aerosols from burning tropical forests provide a source of phosphorous to phosphorous-limited vegetation—this may explain half the carbon dioxide taken up by the Amazon forest, a change of -0.12 W/m2.

Oceans are not nitrogen or phosphorous limited, but in some areas, iron in desert dust may have led to 4 ppm carbon dioxide taken up by oceans, a change of 0 to -0.14 W/m2.

Aerosols can decrease carbon uptake as well. Acidic aerosols, such as sulfates and nitrates—acid rain—can leach nutrients out of the ecosystem. Acid rain increasing ocean acidification, and toxic aerosols, decrease the rate at which carbon is absorbed by the ocean.

The overall magnitude of the indirect effect of biogeochemical cycles appears to be about the same as the direct effects.

If we stopped putting aerosols in the air tomorrow…
Aerosols currently cool Earth directly, through changing clouds, and by enhancing CO2 uptake by both land and the ocean. As fossil fuel burning become cleaner, and as aerosol production drops from reduced use of fossil fuels, temperatures will rise.

To keep atmospheric temperature increases low, decreases in carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases need to be larger than previously estimated. This means that addressing climate change will be much more expensive than previously estimated.

* More numbers
• Atmospheric carbon dioxide has changed from a pre-industrial value of about 280 parts per million to 390 ppm today.
• 2.13 gigatonnes carbon = 7.8 GT CO2 added to the atmosphere = 1 ppm. The world adds about 30 GT/year from fossil fuel burning and cement manufacture (just under 1/5 of this comes from the US), but about half is currently absorbed by the oceans and land.
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on contributions from various forcings (changes, natural and anthropogenic, from pre-industrial times that are forcing changes in the climate). If the analysis on indirect effects other than cloud albedo hold up, IPCC’s chart will look different in the Fifth Assessment Report (4 volumes, scheduled to be released between September 2013 and October 2014).

IPCC Frequently Asked Questions: radiative forcings. You can read more at FAQ 2.1

Drought over North America with a 2.5°C increase. Almost no one lives today in areas that will become wetter.

Analysts at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, found,

[M]odels showed that the normal state for much of the continental United States and Mexico in the mid- to late-21st century would be conditions considered severe to extreme drought by today’s standards. Likewise, even though most of the simulations project precipitation increases in Canada, they show that mild and moderate droughts would also be a normal occurrence.

Even with precipitation increases, evaporation increases will move some areas of North America into drought.

Best guess is that with high emissions, we will reach a 4°C increase by 2070s, possible as early as 2060.

Texas drought information goes back to 1895.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will publish in February 2012 a special report, Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation. The Summary for Policymakers is available now.

The report itself, and the summary, consider a number of topics from reducing vulnerability and exposure to climate change, sharing risks, etc. I will mention only a few.

The text includes lots of caveats, confidence in the statement (and whether it it is limited by problems with models or limited knowledge of some regions of the world), and sections in the final report where more detailed explanations can be found.

• While natural variability has been and will continue to be important, there has been a shift to more extreme events, as has been predicted, and there is a shift in type.

The mean and shape change, shown here for temperature (both mean temperature and variability are increasing). The number of cold events has not decreased as much as hot events have increased. Over time, the effects of increasing temperature will become more important and there will be fewer of what is today considered an extreme cold event.

There has been an increase in droughts in some areas, decrease in others; ditto for heavy precipitation events. Storm tracks outside the tropics appear to have moved poleward.

• [In a lecture on adaptation—living with the changes we do not prevent, the single most important method of adaptation in most areas is to decrease practices that are bad, independent of climate change. Use water for agriculture more judiciously, protect the coral reefs, reduce pollution, don't build on flood plains, etc.]

Increasing exposure of people and economic assets has been the major cause of the long-term increases in economic losses from weather- and climate-related disasters.

Events can do great damage even when they are not extreme, if the population is vulnerable, or if the effects are compounded (heat and low humidity will increase the numbers of forest fires).

In turn, repeated problems arising from climate change and other causes, such as frequent forest fires, interfere with our ability to adapt in the future.

• It’s going to get worse.

A changing climate leads to changes in the frequency, intensity, spatial extent, duration, and timing of extreme weather and climate events, and can result in unprecedented extreme weather and climate events.

• The poor pay more, in human life, and as a percentage of GDP.

Economic, including insured, disaster losses associated with weather, climate, and geophysical events are higher in developed countries. Fatality rates and economic losses expressed as a proportion of GDP are higher in developing countries. During the period from 1970 to 2008, over 95% of deaths from natural disasters occurred in developing countries.

Expenditures range from 0.1% of GDP in high-income countries to 0.3% in low-income countries, as of 2006. In small island states, losses between 1970 and 2010 averaged over 1% in many cases, and 8% in the most extreme case.

• Choices that look good today may not look as good tomorrow.

[D]isaster risk management strategies and policies can reduce risk in the short term, but may increase exposure and vulnerability over the longer term. For instance, dyke systems can reduce flood exposure by offering immediate protection, but also encourage settlement patterns that may increase risk in the long-term.

• Change ahead:

—temperature highs now occurring once every 20 years will occur more frequently mid-century (every 3 – 4 years, where I live, in Western North America) and even more often the last couple decades of this century (from 1.5 – 3 years). North Europe will see less change, with today’s 20-year highs exceeded every 5 – 6 years by mid-century, every 3 – 6 years by the end of the century. Mexico and the Amazon will see more dramatic shifts, with current 20-year highs occurring every 2 years or so by mid-century, and every year+ by the end of the century. Globally, the 20-year extremes will be exceeded every 2 – 3.5 years by mid-century, every year or two by the end of the century.

Extreme precipitation events will also be more common, with today’s 20-year events occurring every 12 – 14 years in western North America by mid-century, every 8 – 11 years by the end of the century. Globally, these numbers are 12 – 14 years mid-century, and 7 – 10 years by the end of the century.

Drought in south Asia

• More floods are expected in some areas. In the same locations, or elsewhere, there will be an increase in consecutive dry days, and

droughts will intensify in the 21st century in some seasons and areas, due to reduced precipitation and/or increased evapotranspiration. This applies to regions including southern Europe and the Mediterranean region, central Europe, central North America, Central America and Mexico, northeast Brazil, and southern Africa.

Coasts are at risk due to sea level rise, but so are higher altitudes:

changes in heat waves, glacial retreat and/or permafrost degradation will affect high mountain phenomena such as slope instabilities, movements of mass, and glacial lake outburst floods.

• Climate change will affect our lives in big ways, but it is not the only reason to change:

Extreme events will have greater impacts on sectors with closer links to climate, such as water, agriculture and food security, forestry, health, and tourism. For example, while it is not currently possible to reliably project specific changes at the catchment scale, there is high confidence that changes in climate have the potential to seriously affect water management systems. However, climate change is in many instances only one of the drivers of future changes, and is not necessarily the most important driver at the local scale…

In many regions, the main drivers for future increases in economic losses due to some climate extremes will be socioeconomic in nature. Climate extremes are only one of the factors that affect risks, but few studies have specifically quantified the effects of changes in population, exposure of people and assets, and vulnerability as determinants of loss. However, the few studies available generally underline the important role of projected changes (increases) in population and capital at risk.

See figures SPM.4A and SPM.4B for changing frequency of temperature and precipitation extremes where you live, and figure SPM.5 for more on droughts.

Scientists may not agree with predictions about tropical cyclones.

The article Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Power in Japan in the August 2011 Friends Journal received a number of comments, including a request to explain why I used International Atomic Energy Agency’s numbers on Chernobyl and ignored a claim that 1 million have died already from Chernobyl. I addressed this (published as a Forum piece in the December 2011 Friends Journal), and then added an appendix in the online version to address all points listed in the comments. It’s sort of long. Go the article page, comment 11.

I was most surprised at how dangers from radioactivity in the areas around the Fukushima plant compared to dangers of air pollution in Tokyo.

The Forum piece asks Friends (Quakers) to look at ourselves (others may wish to do this as well), when so often we see:
• attacking United Nations groups (International Atomic Energy Agency and World Health Organization) and the scientific community that has not found anything to criticize in the results they reached on Chernobyl, and
• clinging to preferred solutions, when climate change requires so much more.

You can leave comments on the Friends Journal page, here, or here.

Mark Helpsmeet has a program Northern Spirit Radio with a number of interesting shows, check them out!

And he interviewed me, asking good questions, Nuclear Sanity? Investigating Nuclear Power

One comment so far is that my talk is a lot more understandable than my writing. Since I wear cochlear implants, it’s not for me, but if you find a difference, I’d be interested in why.

You can leave comments with Mark or/and here.

Moscow was hot in 2010, and there were boucoup forest fires. But was it climate change?

Moscow in July

A new study says a definite “could be”:

We conclude that the 2010 Moscow heat record is, with 80% probability, due to the long-term climatic warming trend.

It wasn’t just Moscow. According to an article in Science Express,

The summer of 2010 was exceptionally warm in eastern Europe and large parts of Russia. We provide evidence that the anomalous 2010 warmth that caused adverse impacts exceeded the amplitude and spatial extent of the previous hottest summer of 2003. “Mega-heatwaves” such as the 2003 and 2010 events broke the 500-year-long seasonal temperature records over approximately 50% of Europe. According to regional multi-model experiments, the probability of a summer experiencing “mega-heatwaves” will increase by a factor of 5 to 10 within the next 40 years. However, the magnitude of the 2010 event was so extreme that despite this increase, the occurrence of an analogue over the same region remains fairly unlikely until the second half of the 21st century.

World Health Organization has issued a new report on the health effects of particulates (the small unburned particles released when fossil fuels and biomass are burned).

Map of air pollution levels in cities with population over 100,000 and capital cities
larger image

WHO says:

• Indoor air pollution is estimated to cause approximately 2 million premature deaths mostly in developing countries. Almost half of these deaths are due to pneumonia in children under 5 years of age.
• Urban outdoor air pollution is estimated to cause 1.3 million deaths worldwide per year. Those living in middle-income countries disproportionately experience this burden.

From the report:

PM10 particles, which are particles of 10 micrometers or less, which can penetrate into the lungs and may enter the bloodstream, can cause heart disease, lung cancer, asthma, and acute lower respiratory infections. The WHO air quality guidelines for PM10 is 20 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m3) as an annual average, but the data released today shows that average PM10 in some cities has reached up to 300 µg/m3.

The 1 1/3 million who died from outdoor air pollution in 2008 is an increase of 200,000 over the 2004 estimate (due to increases in air pollution and numbers living in urban areas, as well as improved data). The recommended level of 20 µg/m3 is better, but not healthy: 250,000 people would have died if particulate pollution everywhere stayed below that level.

In both developed and developing countries, the largest contributors to urban outdoor air pollution include motor transport, small-scale manufacturers and other industries, burning of biomass and coal for cooking and heating, as well as coal-fired power plants. Residential wood and coal burning for space heating is an important contributor to air pollution, especially in rural areas during colder months.

Measurements were made in 2003 – 2010; the majority were from 2008 – 2009.

WHO also discusses other pollutants, such as ozone, NO2 and SO2, but gives mortality in a different format:

Ozone
…
Excessive ozone in the air can have a marked effect on human health. It can cause breathing problems, trigger asthma, reduce lung function and cause lung diseases. In Europe it is currently one of the air pollutants of most concern. Several European studies have reported that the daily mortality rises by 0.3% and that for heart diseases by 0.4 %, per 10 µg/m3 increase in ozone exposure.

Nitrogen Dioxide
…
Epidemiological studies have shown that symptoms of bronchitis in asthmatic children increase in association with long-term exposure to NO2. Reduced lung function growth is also linked to NO2 at concentrations currently measured (or observed) in cities of Europe and North America.

Sulfur Dioxide
…
SO2 can affect the respiratory system and the functions of the lungs, and causes irritation of the eyes. Inflammation of the respiratory tract causes coughing, mucus secretion, aggravation of asthma and chronic bronchitis and makes people more prone to infections of the respiratory tract. Hospital admissions for cardiac disease and mortality increase on days with higher SO2 levels. When SO2 combines with water, it forms sulfuric acid; this is the main component of acid rain which is a cause of deforestation.

The Weather Club, produced by the British Royal Meteorological Society “for a nation completely obsessed by weather”, looks at and explains the weather from an international perspective, works with kids, and provides a magazine scientists and weather nerds enjoy. Or just check out the gallery of beautiful photos.

Some recent articles:
2010: The year of extremes

Record highs

[T]he trend in 2010 has been for record breaking highs, with several countries experiencing their highest ever temperatures: 49.6°C [121.3°F] in Dongola, Sudan (June); 52°C [125.6°F] in Basra, Iraq (June); 44°C [111°F] in Yashkul, Russia (July); 50.4°C [122.7°F] in Doha, Qatar (July); 37.2°C [99°F] in Joensuu, Finland (July) and 53.5°C [128.3°F] in Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan (June), the fourth highest temperature ever recorded. While we expect to see the odd record breaking high each year, this year has been unusual in that we’ve seen record after record broken.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) figures show that the combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for March, April , May and June all reached their highest ever level this year. The June figure continued another trend by being the 304th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average.

Monsoon rains threaten flood disaster
Huge flooding in south Asia, millions affected, and I haven’t seen it covered in my news sources. Date: September 12, 2011

The recent flooding in southern Pakistan is threatening to spiral into another humanitarian disaster as the area prepares to be hit by more rain. Officials are now saying that more than 200 people have died and millions continue to be affected after two weeks of flooding in Pakistan’s southern Sindh region. Pakistan’s disaster management body told reporters that the situation is worsening every day as water levels continue to rise. The UN has begun relief work in the area but more rain has been forecast for the coming days.

Meanwhile, in India’s eastern Orissa state more than one million people have been displaced and 16 killed as floods sweep through the province. About 2,600 villages have been submerged across 19 districts. The army and navy have been called in to help, as many villagers are still stranded and dependent on food drops from helicopters.

After the 2010 Pakistani floods, the report was that climate change had not led to more rain each year in South Asia, but apparently, rain fell in more intense episodes, leading to more floods. I don’t know if this is still true.

Weather balloons used to probe wind farm effects

The project…hopes to improve the ability of the renewable energy industry to accurately forecast winds at the height of the turbine blades.

What caused the mini ice-age?

We all know that hope is crucial to acting—if we’re doomed to failure, only a few of us bother. Yet, too frequent expressions of hope can have their down side. I remember when my aunt was dying, as she wasted away, she expressed her sense each time we met that she was getting better. I never felt like we got a chance to talk honestly.

Here are two examples that bother some about expressed hope. Then I want to hear what you have to say.

• I taught a workshop several times in which I gave people space to respond from their own personal experience, their own heart, about how they feel about climate change, right after showing slides on the facts of climate change, climate change to date, and predictions from scientists—mainstream to worst case—about what changes we could see this century. Go to Public Concern and Scientific Warnings Diverge for sample items on the prediction list (worst case).

Some spoke of grief or sadness, some of feeling a need for a beer. And twice in four years, young people (teens to 20) talked about hope. Once the hope was general, and one year more than one young person said they had hope because people their age would protest climate change and coal power, and so all would be well.

Both years, older adults complained to me about this sharing. One felt reprimanded for feeling grief, and all felt that expressions of hope felt so much like denial that it interfered with listening to and expressing their own feelings. Ultimately what I did is forbid people from expressing hope, likely the only such prohibition in the history of this exercise! People told me that they needed the prohibition to feel safe.

• People I know working on climate change sometimes say how much hope they feel. Eg, young people are taking such and such an action, which may be meaningless in itself, as a desire to respond to climate change. Recently someone became upset when I found little hope from this, instead I find hope when people listen, and respond after listening. I hear her example as people doing what they want to do, and hoping that it somehow addresses climate change. Hoping for a result doesn’t feel like hope to me.

So please help! How do you hear people expressing hope on climate change? What gives you hope on climate change?

My third article on nuclear power in Friends Journal, the August 2011 issue, Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Power in Japan: The Ocean of Light above the Ocean of Darkness, is now posted online. You can leave comments there (keep them polite) or here (polite definitely preferable).

Earlier Friends Journal articles:

• The Nuclear Energy Debate Among Friends: Another Round July 2009
blog discussion
• A Friend’s Path to Nuclear Power October 2008
blog discussion
• Unrelated: Addressing Hearing Loss Among Friends October 2003, Award of Excellence from Associated Church Press for being “The Most Personally Useful Article”

From the Miller Center, Well Within Reach, America’s New Transportation Agenda:

[S]ome 4 million miles of roads, 600,000 highway bridges, 117,000 miles of rail, 11,000 miles of transit lines, 19,000 airports, 300 ports, and 26,000 miles of commercially navigable waterways connect the country’s diverse and far-flung regions to each other and to an increasingly fluid and interdependent global marketplace.

But we aren’t funding transportation adequately.

This shortsightedness and underinvestment—at the planning level and on our nation’s roads, rails, airports and waterways—costs the country dearly. It compromises our productivity and ability to compete internationally; transportation users pay for the system’s inefficiencies in lost time, money and safety. Rural areas are cut off from economic opportunities and even urbanites suffer from inadequate public transportation options. Meanwhile, transportation-related pollution exacts a heavy toll on our environment and public health.

The Miller Center estimates that to bring road and other infrastructure maintenance (more for cars and trucks than for airplanes and trains) will cost $134 – $194 billion per year for more than 25 years to maintain highways, train and air transportation, and up to $264 billion/year to improve. This comes to the equivalent of $1-2/gallon of gasoline for the roads and bridges portion (though some or much of this money should come from weight and miles charges). The increases would be even greater if we shift some of the current funding methods so that vehicle use pays all the costs of infrastructure (currently, even the federal highway system is only 70% funded through gasoline tax, user fees, etc.

A $100/metric tonne cost for greenhouse gas emissions will add $0.90/gallon, and costs for greenhouse gas mitigation rise precipitously with failure to pay the costs today.

While a number of countries use taxes from gasoline for the general fund, much of it does go to paying for infrastructure. Here are a few examples of per gallon costs for gasoline elsewhere:

• UK $8.06
• Germany $8.37
• France $8.63
• Norway $9.84 (better to save the gasoline for export)

A number of countries have very high taxes on cars (in Denmark, registration plus VAT exceeds 200%).

We currently allow many to drive even when many know they are not good drivers, perhaps because they too often drive while under the influence, on the cell phone (it doesn’t matter what kind), distracted, angry, or tired. Per capita costs of US crashes are >$800. Congestion adds additional costs. There would perhaps be more money available for other needs if we begin with an assumption that I, and those I know, will not drive most our lives from age 16 to 106. Americans prize independence, and will find such a discussion a challenge. Yet our population is aging, and some would welcome a discussion of ways to lay down the burden of driving; others of all ages might prefer less social pressure to drive.

From Evolution site at UC, Berkeley

Climate Change

Science Prize for Online Resources in Education (SPORE) winners

Let me know about other sites, and information I should add to the descriptions. And enjoy!

Recent climate change posts from the American Association for the Advancement of Science site (plus one from International Energy Agency, and at the bottom, an unrelated post on bar-headed geese):

• Climate Change Already Hurting Agriculture

Changes in agriculture due to climate change

With any number of factors influencing agricultural productivity, from changes in temperature and precipitation to newer technology and improved farming practices, not to mention year to year variations in weather, teasing out the climate effects is a challenge. The study focused on four foods supplying 75% of our calories (corn, rice, wheat, and soybeans) between 1980 and 2008, with changes in temperature more important than changes in precipitation.

Worldwide… yields of corn and wheat declined by 3.8% and 5.5%, respectively, compared with what they would have been without global warming. Rice and soybean production remained the same.

The US and Canada, where temperature increase was less, saw no decline in productivity.

Meanwhile, Europe is now experiencing drought.

European drought—France, Europe’s largest food exporter, is getting less than half as much rain as 1971-2000 averages.

• Drying Rockies Could Bring More Water Woes to Western U.S.

Snow pack is declining sharply. The big population push in Western states occurred at a time of higher-than-average (over the past few centuries) water availability, so even without climate change water availability would likely become a problem. 60 – 80% of drinking water comes from snow melt.

• Losing Nemo?

clown fish Visit National Geographic for information on 9 more species at risk

Clown fish use smell to avoid predators, but in an acidifying ocean this may not be possible. At 700 parts per million carbon dioxide, a level that may be reached by 2100, clown fish and damsel fish swim towards predators.

• Mount Rainier Has Lost One-Seventh of Its Ice and Snow
The loss was between 1970 and 2008-9.

• U.N. Goal of Limiting Global Warming Is Nearly Impossible, Researchers Say

A more advanced climate model run in Canada indicates that with a peak atmospheric level of 450 parts per million carbon dioxide in 2050, temperature increase would reach 2.3°C. This is difficult, and a 3 – 4°C goal is more achievable. To keep temperature increase to 2°C,

would require that greenhouse emissions “ramp down to zero immediately” and that scientists deploy means, starting in 2050, to actively remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Canadian climate model—we’re currently on the orange trajectory. Note that the different trajectories diverge around 2025, and depend on the decisions we make today (and those we made yesterday).

• Meanwhile, International Energy Agency says that the 450 ppm goal is very difficult. We’re at 390 ppm. Greenhouse gas emissions were 30.6 gigatonnes (billion metric tons = gt) in 2010. The goal of 450 ppm slips away if emissions reach 32 gt by 2020 (it’s cumulative emissions that matter, but a world building coal is unlikely to see a precipitous decline after 2020). 80% of power emissions for 2020 are already locked in, and coal construction is rapid.

In terms of fuels, 44% of the estimated CO2 emissions in 2010 came from coal, 36% from oil, and 20% from natural gas.

Coal expanded 46% in the first decade of the century.

• Threats Sent to Australian Climate Scientists Fuel a Debate
Climate scientists in Australia receive threatening emails; some are moved for their safety. Shadow (opposition) science minister Sophie Mirabella implies this is no big deal and that the information was released to the newspaper for political reasons (Australia is discussing carbon tax).

• Journal Retracts Disputed Network Analysis Paper on Climate
The paper by Edward Wegman, et al, attacking “poor statistical analyses” of mainstream climate scientists, was retracted because of plagiarism. Comments by scientists at the end focus on Wegman’s bad code, bad statistical parameters, and cherry picking the data, as well as his blaming the plagiarism on an anonymous student who was credited after the fact for the plagiarism, but not before as an author.

• Unrelated to climate change: The Most Extreme Migration on Earth?

bar-headed goose

The northbound geese typically made the trip from sea level over mountain passes of up to 6000 meters in just 7 or 8 hours at speeds of 64.5 kilometers per hour. They also logged the highest sustained climbing speed known from any bird species, of just under 1.1 vertical kilometers per hour. (Southbound geese do much less climbing because they start out high up on the Tibetan Plateau, so their trips took 4.5 hours or less.)

Most surprising was that the geese completed most of their journeys not during the day with the uplifting winds at their backs, but during the night or early morning, when headwinds were likely…

Even as cancer rates decline, changing demographics and treatments are expected to dramatically increase costs in the US by 2020. A public discussion will aid the public in determining priorities—absent this discussion, very expensive treatments will be used despite their poor record, just because that’s what doctors do when nothing else has worked for the patient in front of them.

Cancer rates

US cancer rates are changing, for a variety of reasons. From the March 25, 2011 Science, pp 1540-1 (subscription needed):

Lung and bronchus Lung cancer incidence began declining among men in the early 1980s and the death rate decline began in the early 1990s. Deaths for women continue to increase. Mortality rate overall decreasing. The death rate among African-American men is far higher than for white men. The trend lags changes in smoking habits. 2010 estimated deaths: 157,300

Colon and rectum Incidence per 100,000 peaked in mid-80s, while death rate has been declining since at least 1975. Improved diet and colonoscopies are helping; mortality may drop by half by 2020. 2010 estimated deaths: 51,370

Breast (female): Rate dramatically increased in the 1980s due to efforts to detect and treat invasive breast cancer, peaking in 1999 for all races. Death rates have been decreasing steadily since 1989-90. The survival rate is far higher for whites than African-Americans. 2010 estimated deaths: 39,840

Pancreas Incidence and mortality remain constant because detection is difficult. The average patient diagnosed with advanced disease lives only 6 months. 2010 estimated deaths: 36,800

Prostrate The incidence spiked in the early 1990s with the prostrate-specific antigen (PSA) screening test, although most tumors detected by this test are non-lethal. Death rate began declining about the same time. 2010 estimated deaths: 32,050

Leukemia Incidence has remained about constant, but death rates are slowly declining due to treatments combining chemotherapy drugs. Survival rate for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia is now 80%. 2010 estimated deaths: 21,840

Liver The incidence and mortality from liver and bile duct cancers have been rising steadily for decades, due to increases in hepatitis B and C and alcohol abuse. Tumors usually can’t be removed with surgery, so post-diagnosis survival is short. 2010 estimated deaths: 18,910

Brain (included because of concerns about cell phones; information comes from NCI surveillance program) Incidence increased through the late 1980s (because of increased testing?) Incidence began decreasing in the late 1980s and mortality in the early 1990s. Both incidence and mortality are much higher in whites than in African-Americans (greater testing? longer life expectancy since median age at diagnosis is 56?) 2010 estimated deaths: 13,000

Treatment Costs

Can Treatment Costs Be Tamed? (March 25, 2011 Science, subscription needed) addresses the costs of cancer treatment which are increasing much faster than the population.

Over the past 3 decades, total U.S. spending on cancer care has more than quadrupled, reaching $125 billion last year, or 5% of the nation’s medical bill, according to a recent estimate. By 2020, it could grow by as much as 66%, to $207 billion. Multiple forces are driving the spiral: a growing and aging population, more people living longer with cancer, and new “personalized,” or “targeted,” therapies that can come with sticker-shock prices of $50,000 or more per patient.

Outpatient treatments are helping costs per patient decline, but these savings are swamped by the increasing number of older people, more likely to get cancer. Medicare predicts that its rolls will almost double from by 2020, from 40 million to 70 million. If all other costs stay the same, demographic changes will increase national cancer costs by 27%.

Increasing survival rates also pushes up cancer rates: the number receiving “continuing care” for breast and prostrate cancer are expected to increase 41% by 2020, adding $18 billion.

Targeted therapies may be important for society to address. Personalized therapies can be expensive, but some only extend life for a few weeks or months. One treatment for lung cancer extends life a year at a cost of more than $1.2 million. Drug costs are currently less than 15% of treatment costs, but new, costly drugs may increase their share.

Some argue that drugs that cost more/”quality-adjusted life year” than dialysis ($129,090, which would make the US still more generous than the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia) should not be funded by Medicare and insurance, and shouldn’t be funded off-label (for cancers other than originally approved). Others argue that preventing off-label use would

hobble the proven practice of freeing doctors to find promising new uses for existing drugs. And it would stand “in stark contrast with clinical practice.” Studies, for instance, suggest that up to 75% of anticancer drugs are already used off-label. And price controls would, they argue, ultimately cause investors to reduce funding for research into new drugs because they couldn’t be sure of recouping their costs.

Both sides agree on the need for better, more organized studies.

One idea gaining favor is the idea that insurance companies would provide “coverage with evidence development”, provide coverage in order to get the data to compare effectiveness, with the aim of discontinuing coverage if drugs don’t work. “Risk-sharing arrangements” between insurers and manufacturers could link drug prices to performance.

Other topics (subscription needed):
Celebrating an Anniversary
Video: Sequencing Cancer Genomes–Targeted Cancer Therapies
Cancer Research and the $90 Billion Metaphor with Infographic (cancer information on rates)
40 Years of the War on Cancer
Combining Target Drugs to Stop Resistant Tumors
Can Treatment Costs Be Tamed?
A Push to Fight Cancer in the Developing World
Making Her Life an Open Book to Promote Expanded Care
Brothers in Arms Against Cancer (siblings of p53, the tumor-blocking protein)
Exploring the Genomes of Cancer Cells: Progress and Promise
A Perspective on Cancer Cell Metastasis
Cancer Immunoediting: Integrating Immunity’s Roles in Cancer Suppression and Promotion

In 2004, Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala published an article in Science, (subscription needed) introducing the wedge: over 50 years, the savings from currently available technology could be ramped up to save 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases in the last year, saving in total 25 billion metric tonnes of carbon-equivalent (or 92 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent). Using optimistic assumptions about the rate of GHG growth, they calculated that 7 wedges could stabilize GHG by 2055. Of course, more sources of GHG reduction were needed to reduce GHG emissions.

Pictures help.

Socolow Wedge

The authors emphasize paying attention to the big numbers first, the technologies that could lead to 1 billion metric tonnes of reduction in year 50.

The disadvantages in the wedge concept were in how their ideas were received. One was the appeal to so many of solving climate change with only 7 wedges (with perhaps some more to bring reductions down), the appeal of solving climate change with existing technologies, the appeal of getting to choose which solutions we want over the expert community’s more prosaic hopes that there would be enough solutions.

As of the September 10, 2010 Science, Farewell to Fossil Fuels? (subscription required), the estimate is now 25. Socolow and Pacala never said 7 wedges were enough, but the small number did make finding solutions look easier.

Socolow and Pacala encouraged this with the Stabilization Game, giving all of us a chance to vote for what we want, and vote against what we don’t want. Eventually, I rejected the wedge concept as a teaching tool because it was being abused by so many for all those reasons.

Update: It was not an interview. Socolow has posted comments, including more optimistic assumptions than I see elsewhere on the number of wedges needed.

Robert Socolow has reached the same conclusion. In a National Geographic interviewsummary of a Socolow talk, he now says the wedge concept was a mistake:

“With some help from wedges, the world decided that dealing with global warming wasn’t impossible, so it must be easy,” Socolow says. “There was a whole lot of simplification, that this is no big deal.” …[I]nstead of providing motivation, the wedges theory let people relax in the face of enormous challenges, he now says.

“The job went from impossible to easy” in part because of the wedges theory. “I was part of that.”

And from there, he says, a disturbing portion of the population moved to doubt that the problem is even real…

“The intensity of belief that renewables and conservation would do the job approached religious,” Socolow said. But the minimum goals “are not enough,” he said, and “the fossil fuel industry will not be pushed over.”

Who was most likely to abuse the web concept?

Henry Lee, who directs the environment program at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, said many people were optimistic that, by now, the world would be making considerable progress on climate.

“I think we were victimized more by the advocacy community than by science,” Lee said. Using Socolow’s wedges theory and similar arguments, advocates suggested “you could get all of this and pay nothing. I think people feel angry now, that it’s going to cost them.”

Lee agreed Socolow’s ideas were misused, or at least misread. “If you look at the wedges they weren’t a little. There was nothing in the Socolow plan that says this is a slam-dunk and easy to do.”

“The wedge theory still is valuable,” Lee added. “The price tag may be higher, but I think he made an important contribution. If you’re going to do something about climate change, there is not one silver bullet. That’s the point he made at the time, and it’s still valid.”

Hopefully, we can still use some of what they taught (focus on the large, the solutions are silver buckshot). Hopefully we can find ways to help the advocacy community understand that we don’t have so many solutions that we can reject any.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s new report, Special Report Renewable Energy Sources (SRREN), is due out soon. The summary for policymakers (pdf) is available now.

The questions this report addresses are important: how much electricity and other energy can be supplied by renewables? At what cost? This report (more so the full report and technical summary) will help us make sense of conflicting claims today. All policy experts agree that renewables are needed, along with other low-carbon forms of energy, but what is their potential in the coming decades?

How much energy comes from renewables today?
Currently, world primary energy is 492 exajoules (the joule is the metric unit of energy. 1 exajoule = 10^18 joules = 1 billion billion joules = 278 terawatt hours (trillion watt hours or billion kWh).

Renewables supply 12.9% of this energy, of which 60% is traditional biomass, eg, wood, used for cooking and heating. 10.2% of all energy, 80% of all renewables, is biomass of some kind. Of the remaining 2.7%, 2.3% is hydro, 0.4% is other.

The graphs are a little confusing; energy sources are placed on different graphs because there is so much more of some than others. Recent gains in solar are impressive—photovoltaics, solar panels are up by almost a factor of 10 in 4 years, but the absolutely increase in exajoules pales compared to increases in other forms of renewables, from hydro to municipal solid waste. Also, information is often given in capacity, or GW—capacity tells us how much power is produced, at a maximum—rather than in GWh, total energy produced. [For example, German photovoltaics, with their 9.5% capacity factor, produce half as much electricity per GW as do PV in California, where the capacity factor is twice as large. Wind generally does better, but German wind has a capacity factor of less than 20%, while American wind is more than 30%. (To compare, American nuclear power capacity factor is >90%). So 1 GW of German solar produces half as much electricity as 1 GW of CA solar or German wind, and less than 1/3 as much as US wind.]

Most renewables except hydro and geothermal are more expensive than non-renewables. The costs of many are expected to decline.

How much energy can come from renewables by 2030? 2050?
The full report examines 164 scenarios. The use of renewables increases under all scenarios, no surprise. In the most ambitious scenario, renewables supply up to 43% of energy in 2030 and 77% in 2050. Half of scenarios show a contribution of >17% in 2030 and >27% in 2050.

Bioenergy appears to supply half or more of renewables in both Annex I and non-Annex I countries. Here are the median (half are higher, half are lower) estimates for 5 types of renewables (Annex 1/non-Annex 1), read from the graphs:
• bioenergy: 30 EJ/70 EJ
• hydro: 10 EJ/15 EJ
• wind: 10 EJ/15 EJ
• solar: 8 EJ/12 EJ
• geothermal: small
Marine energy is thought to be relatively unimportant in 2050.

The highest estimates assume a combined 430 EJ/year, considerably more than the median. Bioenergy, solar, and wind are much higher than the median in some scenarios.

The cost, depending on how ambitious the goal, would be $1.4 – 5.1 trillion between now and 2020, and $1.5 – 7.2 trillion between 2021 and 2030. For some renewables, there would be savings later because fuel costs are less. Costs of the renewables themselves are uncertain, and there are additional costs:

The costs associated with RE integration, whether for electricity, heating, cooling, gaseous or liquid fuels, are contextual, site-specific and generally difficult to determine. They may include additional costs for network infrastructure investment, system operation and losses, and other adjustments to the existing energy supply systems as needed. The available literature on integration costs is sparse and estimates are often lacking or vary widely.

So costs depend. Also, maintaining system reliability will become more difficult, but having a portfolio of renewables reduces risks and costs of grid integration.

What might interfere with some of the more ambitious plans?
First, hydro and bioenergy availability is less certain in the future:

Climate change will have impacts on the size and geographic distribution of the technical potential for RE [renewable energy] sources, but research into the magnitude of these possible effects is nascent…Because RE sources are, in many cases, dependent on the climate, global climate change will affect the RE resource base, though the precise nature and magnitude of these impacts is uncertain. The future technical potential for bioenergy could be influenced by climate change through impacts on biomass production such as altered soil conditions, precipitation, crop productivity and other factors. The overall impact of a global mean temperature change of below 2°C on the technical potential of bioenergy is expected to be relatively small on a global basis. However, considerable regional differences could be expected and uncertainties are larger and more difficult to assess compared to other RE options due to the large number of feedback mechanisms involved. For solar energy, though climate change is expected to influence the distribution and variability of cloud cover, the impact of these changes on overall technical potential is expected to be small. For hydropower the overall impacts on the global potential is expected to be slightly positive. However, results also indicate the possibility of substantial variations across regions and even within countries. Research to date suggests that climate change is not expected to greatly impact the global technical potential for wind energy development but changes in the regional distribution of the wind energy resource may be expected. Climate change is not anticipated to have significant impacts on the size or geographic distribution of geothermal or ocean energy resources.

[The following were not mentioned in the SPM, though they may be included in the main report:
• A study just published in Science says that the climate already may be affecting worldwide wheat and maize (corn) production.
• There is a likely link between hydro and the Sichuan earthquake which killed 70,000. Worries about earthquakes could reduce the addition of hydro.
• MIT analysis suggests wind turbines could cause temperatures to rise.]

The report emphasizes that the potential for renewable energy is large. However,

Factors such as sustainability concerns, public acceptance, system integration and infrastructure constraints, or economic factors may …limit deployment of renewable energy technologies.

There are some steps between here and there:

A variety of technology-specific challenges (in addition to cost) may need to be addressed to enable RE to significantly upscale its contribution to reducing GHG emissions. For the increased and sustainable use of bioenergy, proper design, implementation and monitoring of sustainability frameworks can minimize negative impacts and maximize benefits with regard to social, economic and environmental issues. For solar energy, regulatory and institutional barriers can impede deployment, as can integration and transmission issues. For geothermal energy, an important challenge would be to prove that enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) can be deployed economically, sustainably and widely. New hydropower projects can have ecological and social impacts that are very site specific, and increased deployment may require improved sustainability assessment tools, and regional and multi-party collaborations to address energy and water needs. The deployment of ocean energy could benefit from testing centres for demonstration projects, and from dedicated policies and regulations that encourage early deployment. For wind energy, technical and institutional solutions to transmission constraints and operational integration concerns may be especially important, as might public acceptance issues relating primarily to landscape impacts.

There can be challenges integrating the renewables into the grid.

The characteristics of different RE sources can influence the scale of the integration challenge. Some RE resources are widely distributed geographically. Others, such as large scale hydropower, can be more centralized but have integration options constrained by geographic location. Some RE resources are variable with limited predictability. Some have lower physical energy densities and different technical specifications from fossil fuels. Such characteristics can constrain ease of integration and invoke additional system costs particularly when reaching higher shares of RE.

Water availability could affect hydropower, bioenergy, and thermal plants (such as solar thermal or biomass).

Modeling GHG emissions from biomass is particularly difficult because of land use change. In order to grow plants for electricity or fuel, the land is converted from another use (such as forest).

And it could be even better
Potentially, the use of biopower with carbon capture and storage may reduce atmospheric carbon. This is because plants take carbon dioxide out of the air, and release it back when burned to make electricity or fuel. CCS could be used when making electricity, so that the carbon dioxide goes into long-term storage.

By 2050, renewables may be more attractive than other low-GHG forms of energy, such as nuclear or carbon capture and storage.

Many combinations of low-carbon energy supply options and energy efficiency improvements can contribute to given low GHG concentration levels, with RE becoming the dominant low-carbon energy supply option by 2050 in the majority of scenarios.

[Note: more will be known in a decade or three on the costs of the various renewable technologies, as well as the costs of nuclear and carbon capture and storage. And more will be known about the pitfalls of all technologies.]

This report is a welcome addition to IPCC policy analysis.

Update: Monbiot finally reads the sources Caldicott recommends, and learns that she quotes unreliable sources and misquotes the reliable ones. Monbiot also links to the Guardian environmental editor who is upset to be put in the science-denial camp, and confirms his position there by warning that “Fukushima’s meltdown may be worse” than Chernobyl and accusing World Health Organization of being part of the Chernobyl cover up.

Monbiot:

Over the last fortnight I’ve made a deeply troubling discovery. The anti-nuclear movement to which I once belonged has misled the world about the impacts of radiation on human health. The claims we have made are ungrounded in science, unsupportable when challenged, and wildly wrong. We have done other people, and ourselves, a terrible disservice.

Monbiot debates Caldicott on Democracy Now.

Transcript

I’m assuming that anyone debating Caldicott has to enter in a very centered space, because she is not one to allow people to finish a sentence where she clearly sees mistakes, and Goodman is not very effective at explaining whose turn it is to speak.

I too find Caldicott’s claim of UN conspiracies to cover up claims that 1 million are already dead from Chernobyl somewhat unlikely, and am interested that a physician seems unaware that most cancers take years to develop. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s Chernobyl Report (pdf), the report accepted as scientific consensus (which means that disagreement from scientists would have appeared in Science and Nature) says there are 50 – 60 dead from Chernobyl, thousands of cancers attributed to the accident (both are true: juvenile thyroid cancer has close to 0 death rate), and more than 4000 deaths may occur in the next 5-6 decades. There are differences between the IAEA assumptions and the greater numbers produced by Caldicott, Greenpeace (pdf), etc.:
• scientists assume that most cancers take years to develop—leukemia and juvenile thyroid cancer are exceptions.
• scientists assume that pre-Chernobyl data in the Ukraine and surrounding areas are unreliable.
• scientists look at a number of explanations for increased mortality.
• scientists find a cause more likely if increased exposure is associated with increased mortality and morbidity.
• scientists compare the results for other known exposures. For example, according to Radiation Effects Research Foundation , there was not a statistically discernible change in birth defects in Hiroshima/Nagasaki (except for women pregnant at the time of the bombings, and this does not appear to have been passed on to succeeding generations).

Here are recent health data from Ukraine. In line with much of the rest of the Soviet Union, the life expectancy of males is very low. Ukraine ranks third in the world in deaths from poisonings (including alcohol?) and heart disease (heart disease is the most important cause of death associated with drinking and smoking, but it’s also the second most important cause of death worldwide, after lower respiratory infections), and 19th for liver disease. Ukrainians rank 5th worldwide in alcohol consumption; data for smoking are not available. Not so high for cancers, HIV/AIDS, or car accidents. Congenital anomalies are high, but alcohol-related birth defects are high there. Men are especially at risk: the male: female ratio goes from 0.92 for ages 15 – 64 to 0.5 for ages 65+. Literacy is high.

Russia shows a similar pattern. Russia ranks 6th worldwide for alcohol consumption and 1st in cigarette smoking. Men die even younger, compared to women, in Russia than in Ukraine. Literacy is high.

From a Wikipedia article, Long-term effects of alcohol:

High levels of alcohol consumption are correlated with an increased risk of developing alcoholism, cardiovascular disease, malabsorption, chronic pancreatitis, alcoholic liver disease, and cancer. Damage to the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system can occur from sustained alcohol consumption. Long-term use of alcohol in excessive quantities is capable of damaging nearly every organ and system in the body. The developing adolescent brain is particularly vulnerable to the toxic effects of alcohol.

Also accidents, as well as car and pedestrian accidents in countries with significant numbers of cars.

Note: both Monbiot and Caldicott make mistakes; however, I especially wonder at Caldicott’s assumption that as a physician, she never makes mistakes. I know people who turned agnostic on nuclear power on January 1, 2000 after hearing Caldicott warn that Y2k would lead to nuclear power plants meltdown.

Update: Brief bios for Monbiot and Caldicott
Helen Caldicott was a doctor until 1980, when she quit medicine to oppose nuclear power and nuclear weapons. She detours into other subjects:

Caldicott’s investigative writings had the distinction of being nominated and subsequently chosen as Project Censored’s #2 story in 1990. Citing the research of Soviet scientists Valery Burdakov and Vyacheslav Fiin, Caldicott argued that NASA’s Space Shuttle program was destroying the Earth’s ozone and that 300 total shuttle flights would be enough to “completely destroy the Earth’s protective ozone shield,” although there is no scientific evidence to back up this claim.

Among anti-nuclear power people I know, Caldicott is the best known activist, and the least respected.

George Monbiot is an environmental and political activist who writes regularly for The Guardian. His Wikipedia biography contains much that is new to me about his travels,

His activities led to his being made persona non grata in several countries and being sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia in Indonesia. In these places, he was also shot at, beaten up by military police, shipwrecked and stung into a poisoned coma by hornets

and his politics (offering a reward to anyone who attempts a citizen’s arrest of former prime minister Tony Blair).

Monbiot began as anti-nuclear, shifted to neutral over the years because of his concern on climate change, and has recently declared himself in favor of nuclear power:

You will not be surprised to hear that the events in Japan have changed my view of nuclear power. You will be surprised to hear how they have changed it. As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology.

A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation.

Contrails contribute to climate change by interfering with long wave (infrared) radiation escape into space. Contrail coverage can reach 6% in eastern North America, and up to 10% in central Europe.

In a 1999 report, Aviation and the Global Atmosphere, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that the net effect of flying on climate change would be 2 – 4 times that from the carbon dioxide emissions alone. One of the larger contributors was the addition of water vapor high enough in the atmosphere that quick turnover could not occur. The effects of nitrogen oxides and aerosols was also important. Uncertainties were enormous.

Now a new analysis suggests that the average contribution of contrails is 31 milliWatts (1 mW = 0.001 W) per square meter, compared to 28 mW for the total contribution of CO2 from airplanes from the beginning of the jet age.

The original article, Global radiative forcing from contrail cirrus, has added information and some figures.

Neither article suggests if the estimates on aerosols or nitrogen oxides has changed. The IPCC report suggests that there is little net effect from aerosols, as black carbon aerosols and sulfate aerosols produce effects of similar magnitude but opposite sign.

Context: The 1997 IPCC Report from Working Group 1 gives a total radiative forcing of 1.6 W/m2 (big error bars). Forcings are human changes that change the net radiation balance of the Earth, and include positive forcings such as carbon dioxide, methane, ground layer ozone, and black carbon on snow, and negative forcings such as land use change (deserts reflect better than forests) and destruction of stratospheric ozone.

The contributions of flying to date from contrails and carbon dioxide add 59 mW/m2, or about 4% of net forcings*.

* Sometimes people compare to net forcings, sometimes to positive forcings or the largest positive forcing, carbon dioxide.