A Musing Environment

Can someone explain this?

RealClimate has posted 5 discussions in the last two weeks on British journalistic handling of climate change, e.g.,

Daily Mangle It begins:

Yesterday, the Daily Mail of the UK published a predictably inaccurate article entitled “Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995?.

The Guardian Disappoints It begins

Over the last few weeks or so the UK Guardian (who occasionally reprint our posts) has published a 12-part series about the stolen CRU emails by Fred Pearce that are well below the normal Guardian standards of reporting. We delineate some of the errors and misrepresentations below. While this has to be seen on a backdrop of an almost complete collapse in reporting standards across the UK media on the issue of climate change, it can’t be excused on the basis that the Mail or the Times is just as bad.

Whatevergate It begins:

It won’t have escaped many of our readers’ notice that there has been what can only be described as a media frenzy (mostly in the UK) with regards to climate change in recent weeks. The coverage has contained more bad reporting, misrepresentation and confusion on the subject than we have seen in such a short time anywhere. While the UK newspaper scene is uniquely competitive (especially compared to the US with over half a dozen national dailies selling in the same market), and historically there have been equally frenzied bouts of mis-reporting in the past on topics as diverse as pit bulls, vaccines and child abductions, there is something new in this mess that is worth discussing.

Contrast that with the treatment of Simon Singh, a science writer with a PhD in physics, author of Fermat’s Last Theorem and Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe.

Simon Singh is in the midst of a libel suit he is expected to lose. His crime is a science book, Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial.

From a NY Times blog (with links):

He wrote, “The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.”

The BCA asked for a retraction and an apology. Singh refused. The Guardian offered the BCA the opportunity to print a clarification and write a response, so they could lay out evidence supporting their claims. The BCA refused. The libel case is the result. (Note that the case is peculiar in that it has been brought against Singh personally, not against the newspaper that published the article, as is more usual.)

Dr. Simon Singh

Singh is being sued for writing a book on the inadequate justification for some medical treatments. If the climatologists, and groups like IPCC, being maligned by the British media had jillions of dollars and unlimited time, could they also sue? If libel laws are so draconian in the UK (and in many parts of the US, laws are being passed to protect Americans from British law), why do journalists there engage in smear campaigns?

Greg Craven in What’s the worst that could happen? explains how he decides which sources he depends on. I am offering my own explanation after sending someone a list of some of the sources I depend on. He said, yes, he relied on the same sources, and then forwarded a report from a group of a very different kind. So, it’s an interesting question. My criteria differ from Craven’s, and yours differ from both of ours. How do you decide which sources you trust, and why?

First, some definitions:
• Sources are the original reports of data, analysis, or meta-analysis (combining data from multiple sources, as in the uber-reports from groups like IPCC)
• Peer-review is the process of review by elites in the same field (hence, “peers” of the researcher or theorist submitting the report.) In the science or policy community, peer-review is the first step toward publication or use of the data. These communities are usually careful to avoid relying on or citing data that has not been subjected to peer review.
• Channels pass on information. I aspire to be a channel, try to avoid being a source, i.e., adding mistakes. The NY Times is another example of a channel.

Besides peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed work, there is a category called gray literature, described in RealClimate’s IPCC errors: facts and spin. This category includes major organizations such as International Energy Agency, World Bank, United Nations Environmental Programme, government statistics offices, and more. Groups like World Wildlife Fund are also included, but their information needs to be even more carefully checked. Generally, it is more useful to cite the original source WWF depends on and avoid citing WWF.

So my criteria for passing along information on scientific and policy topics: Is it
• peer-reviewed, e.g., published in peer-reviewed journals
• respected by the scientific or policy expert community, as shown by its inclusion in major reports such as National Academy of Sciences of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• accepted over time, surviving or correcting any criticism that may arise (e.g., no disagreement appears in Science or Nature magazines).

I’m pretty conservative, and rarely use information/analysis in my presentations before it reaches major report status.

Everything I’ve described depends on writing rather than personal statements. People can be respected or not in their field of expertise, but few speak for the science community. Election to head American Association for the Advancement of Science is one of the ways scientists communicate that the person is trusted to report scientific understanding, including nuance.

I have heard a number of people and organizations willing to accept the reports of IPCC on science and impacts, but ignore IPCC’s policy analysis. If this describes you, perhaps you can explain how you choose your sources. Whatever your answers, please share!

Addendum The reason I use this method is because when I started looking into energy and environmental issues, I discovered I had misunderstandings both in facts and interpretation. Scientists and policy makers make mistake—those errors on Himalayan glaciers made it into my presentation. But the number of errors has declined markedly in recent years.

This group was first discussed here, now some more details.

We will meet bi-monthly from the end of March to early June, resuming in the fall. Some of us will meet in person while others will participate through videoconferencing. Two different kinds of meetings will occur each month: one, a class on concepts and practices of effective climate activism; the other, a time to plan, revise and carry out individual or group projects. For the activist portion, we will apply three “vital behaviors” addressed in the class sessions. Leave a comment (saying “do not publish”) to sign up for the group.

A tentative list of topics offers a starting point for discussion, revisable as we go along:
• Sources of information Which sources can I count on, and why? How do I choose between conflicting sources? Which communicate to people like me/different from me? What do IPCC and the sources they rely on say that makes me uncomfortable? How do I respond to this discomfort?

• Education Which facts and images are most likely to push the public to consider changing behavior (e.g., polar bears, changes in precipitation, higher temperature, health effects)? Experiences may be more persuasive than data, but data matter. How can we combine these to communicate effectively?

• Communication strategies Some work, some don’t. How do I tailor messages to people like myself vs. people who are different; what about cultural barriers; resistance to/distrust of data?

• Confusions about solutions What makes a real difference? How can we shift focus from small-impact solutions (eg, recycling and avoiding hair spray) to large-impact solutions aimed primarily at climate change? How do we evaluate and explain to others which solutions are worth working on?

• Handling emotions How do we help people perceive the urgency of the problem, then prevent despair once they do? What are the emotions (e.g., denial, fear) that lie behind refusal to talk about climate change, insistence that it isn’t happening, or insistence on certain solutions? How do we balance our ideals with desires for “the good life”?

• Envisioning the future Our message is not about how things are going to get better—because they won’t. Suppose the best we can do is to get worse less fast? How can we use thinking about the future to galvanize action rather than mire us in defeat?

• Targeting influencers Given the limits of our own personal influence, whom can we reach to change their message? (e.g., politicians, environmental groups, news media, on-line groups.)

• Burning Issues What are the current policy debates an activist should prepare for? E.g., do we have technology today to address climate change or do we need to invest in future technologies? Cap and trade vs tax – both or which, and why? Aid for green solutions in other nations? Revised codes for architecture? Other laws?

Muir Woods—We all have pictures in our mind of the beauty of Earth. What are yours?

NOAA has set up a new site:

Climate Watch magazine, includes Arctic Air Ushers in Chilly December and January too, it’s due to Arctic Oscillation, with the Arctic currently at higher than average air pressure. The Arctic is much warmer than usual.

Data and Services, including Climate and You

Understanding Climate, including Annual State of the Climate report.

Videos, including Climate Forecasts Improve Humanitarian Decision Making in West Africa

Education, including Teaching Resources

Climate trends available at climate.gov—doesn’t look like temperatures have stabilized to me.

The new group will meet over 6 months, beginning in late March. Some will meet together in person, others to participate through videoconferencing.

The Forecast: Climatologists are warning that the temperature increase over pre-industrial times could reach 4°C (>7°F) by 2060. Many more areas would see decreased precipitation; others with increased precipitation would still have drier soil, causing floods and famine; the hottest day of the year in northeastern North America could be 18-22°F hotter than ever before. Yet the numbers of Americans seeing climate change as serious, or caused by what we do, declined significantly in the last year and a half.

The Invitation: Become a Climate Change Activist. Join the support and learning group described below to give your activism focus and impact. For instance, an effective climate change activist engages in a few vital behaviors:

• Teaching climate change science and impacts to others and hold them emotionally during the process. Those who don’t take climate change seriously are often in emotional denial. Denial is also seen in the solutions people choose.

• Reducing your own greenhouse gas emissions in the coming year, and working with others to reduce theirs. This gives the activist a realistic sense of what helps and what blocks voluntary behavior change, which is a necessary part of the solution.

• Finding a solution that Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says is necessary and important, ideally one that makes you uncomfortable. Learn why policy analysts say it’s necessary, and advocate for it. The goal is to move away from choosing solutions we want, to working for solutions that are recognized as essential.

• Accessing the spiritual wellsprings that support and nurture us in selfless activism. We will keep a process log or journal that includes reflections on where and how we seek guidance and draw strength for the struggle, as well as honestly naming our doubts, concerns and questions about what is being asked of us.

The Format for Group Support and Study: meet twice monthly for six months.
• one session/month to study what is known about teaching and working on climate change, update our current information and evaluate sources.
• one session/month to work on vital behaviors above, and evaluate impact of your actions. The group may unite to work on one project, or support one another on a range of projects.

Prerequisites: Besides commitment to the group and its aims, a general agreement on sources (IPCC and the sources IPCC sees as valid) is important. There are sources that tell us that IPCC is wrong, but they are rarely peer-reviewed (a minimum requirement) and feed into our prejudices rather than provide a much-needed guide to what’s real.

I’ve heard this question so many times: what can I do that will be effective? Perhaps this group can help you answer that question.

photo credit

Leave a comment (with a “do not publish”) if you are interested in joining this group. We’ll begin in late March, and take a summer vacation. Young people also welcome. The hope is to meet together in Berkeley and online at the same time.

This addendum adds details.

Share with others who might be interested.

When I taught science, I learned that some students believe scientists are white men.

Many are, of course, but there are a large number of exceptions, many quite prominent. Shirley Jackson, past president of American Association for the Advancement of Science, physicist, etc, etc.

Shirley Jackson

David Blackwell, mathematician, etc (check out video interviews, including his experience in elementary school, Howard, and Berkeley).

David Blackwell

And many, many more.

From the new National Academies African American History Program site, a partial list of African Americans who have made significant contributions to science, engineering, and medicine.

REDD, Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, has been described as one of the few accomplishments at Copenhagen, an agreement by the rich world to pay people in the forested world to care for the land.

Scientists don’t find this a slam-dunk solution—problems include reversibility (land owners changing their mind, or forest fire), additionality (is another forest being cut down?), etc.

Now a new report, Will the $3.5 billion forest fund work?, asks whether it makes sense in the absence of very clear rules to throw $3.5 billion at parts of the world that haven’t done so well with these problems and this kind of money in the past.

Two examples from the report:

The Surui have been involved in a dispute over land ownership. Here teens show off the solar panels.

India forest rights laws: do they protect the poor and the forests? Many don’t feel that these are the actual government objectives.

From a study at UC, Berkeley: Trees invading warming Arctic will cause warming over entire region, study shows:

As the Arctic warms, shrubs and other plants are moving in, making the area more amenable to trees. One way they do this is through local warming: snow, and the bare ground replacing the snow, both have higher albedo, that is they reflect more sunlight, than do the darker plants moving in. Now another cause of Arctic warming has been found. Trees add water vapor to the Arctic air.

“Broad-leaved deciduous trees are not as dark as evergreen trees and so are generally assumed to be less important. But broad-leaved trees transpire a lot more water through their leaves and are actually able to change the water vapor content and increase the greenhouse effect. As the air warms, it can hold more water vapor, and the greenhouse effect increases further,” [UC Berkeley graduate student Abigail L.] Swann said. “So, broad-leaved trees end up warming the entire Arctic.”

More importantly, the researchers’ model predicts that the increased water vapor would melt more sea ice, resulting in more absorption of sunlight by the open ocean and dumping more water vapor into the atmosphere. This positive feedback will warm the land even more and encourage faster, more efficient tree growth and perhaps a faster expansion of trees into the Arctic.

All told, the model predicts an additional 1 degree Celsius increase in temperature over the Arctic as a result of this effect. Global warming already is predicted to increase temperatures in the Arctic between 5 and 7 degrees Celsius within the next 100 years.

Dr. Robert DuPont got a phone call one day to ask him about nuclear power. His specialty is phobias, people whose behavior is restricted by all the what ifs in their lives. A journalist persuaded him to watch 11 years of media coverage on US nuclear power, coverage dominated by what ifs. From a PBS interview:

[F]ear is very important, because danger is around the corner. And fear is a way of signaling that there might be a problem ahead. It’s a reaction to the possibility of a predator lurking behind that bush when you’re out walking. So I think being able to anticipate dangers is very important.

Yet nuclear power’s safety record is excellent. So what accounts for public perception? After all, fear of what ifs doesn’t do us much good.

Well, there are a number of factors. One is that the threat is concentrated. It’s the fear like Three Mile Island. A reporter said off the record that if the public only knew, the East Coast of the United States was almost destroyed. Well, of course, nothing like that happened, but that was in his mind. And he thought about that. So it’s a cataclysmic event that really gets people going. It’s a risk people don’t control. People accept tremendous risk if they control it. But if it’s controlled by somebody else, they can’t accept it. If it’s perceived as needed, people will accepted it; whereas if it’s not perceived as needed, they will dismiss it. The problem of familiarity is probably the most important. And that is when we’re familiar with something, we don’t fear it. But when it’s alien, when it’s unfamiliar, we fear it more.

And on all four counts, nuclear power generates fear. It’s a cataclysmic accident that people are concerned about, some desperate kind of thing. It’s controlled by “them”, the utilities or the government, the scientists, or whoever it is, that is perceived as being the bad guys. It’s unfamiliar to most people. And most people feel they don’t really need nuclear power; that they can get their power from coal or oil or windmills or some other basis. They don’t really need the nuclear power.

photo credit

photo credit DuPont’s work antedates driving while texting.

In contrast to the what ifs toward nuclear power, often our reaction to fear is insufficient. I hear this frequently as, “Well, we have to die of something” when people talk about cigarettes, alcohol, and coal use (direct pollution from coal still kills more people yearly than climate change). DuPont says,

The capacity of human fear to be eroded by repetition, by familiarity, is unlimited. It is just an amazing thing, that no matter what the risk is, if the thing is repeated over and over again, there’s no fear. There’s no protection from the fear. People will continue to do something over and over again, even if it has a terrible probability of a disaster.

And the single best example of that is cigarette smoking. Everybody knows cigarette smoking is lethal. There is no question about that. It’s not debated. It’s known that it’s lethal. And we have 55 million people who not only voluntarily smoke, but who pay billions of dollars, $40 billion a year, for the privilege of killing themselves with this known lethal agent. Now, if fear were really protecting us, you couldn’t have any smokers. It would be impossible. So you realize that fear is a very imperfect shield against health risks….

So simply getting rid of fear is not a health-promoting goal. What’s important in both cases is to have the fear be realistic; that the fear fits the facts of the risk. And from my point of view, the contrast is very clear. With respect to drug abuse, we want more fear; and with respect to nuclear power, we want less fear in terms of a public health or the public interest goals.

So what can we do?

It’s quite remarkable to me, the number of Americans who hold anti-nuclear views. For them it’s like motherhood and apple pie. I mean, they don’t even get to the point of asking a question of what it is that’s going on. It’s just taken for granted.

Perhaps the first step for anti-nuclear power people is to ask a question. “What about nuclear waste?” is a statement, what are your questions?

Nuclear phobia–phobic thinking about nuclear power: A discussion with Robert L. DuPont was published in 1980, and is now out of print.

image credit. China is more dangerous than the US, where National Academy of Science estimates 10,000 die from coal power pollution each year. Chernobyl (pdf) has killed 50 – 60 so far, with up to 4,000 more deaths possible over the next 6 decades from that initial exposure.

scary? image showing water vapor, from an anti-nuclear site

Sometimes people tell me that they are also opposed to people dying from coal power. But nationwide, is there is much fascination with the sins of coal power? Texting while driving gets surprisingly little attention among the public compared to concerns about brain cancer from cell phone radiation, even though brain cancer rates have declined since 1987.

I’m interested in how people challenge this tendency in ourselves and others to apply worry disproportionate to actual risk.

Gary Braasch’s site now has a new feature: Climate Photo of the Week.

New photos posted on Mondays.

Nature Reports Climate Change takes a look at the need for regulations for geoengineering, and their complexity, in Planning for plan B.

There is strong concern about rapidly increasing temperatures, perhaps as much as 4°C within 5 decades, and the paths are mitigation, geoengineering, or catastrophe. Re the 2nd path (which is likely to include overlap with the 3rd):

the legislative situation — hazy and full of holes — means that any nation or company, or even an individual with the will and financial means to do so, could start to interfere with the climate.

There are concerns about commercial interests:

the possibility of profit from carbon credits has led to fears that the cash incentive could push geoengineering ahead too fast, or in the wrong directions. Already, evidence exists that the profit motive can lure unscrupulous companies into the market. In November, the US Securities and Exchange Commission charged a Pennsylvania-based company, the Mantria Corporation, with operating what regulators called “a $30 million dollar Ponzi scheme”, saying it used exaggerated claims and aggressive marketing to con people into investing in biochar sequestration.

And governments:

Suppose, says [Granger] Morgan, [an engineer and director of Carnegie Mellon’s Climate Decision Making Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania], “a major state finds that because of climate change it can’t feed its people and starts doing [geoengineering], or decides it’s a lot cheaper than mitigation”. Then the world could face tough decisions about whether to condone geoengineering or try to stop it. “If we haven’t done the research,” Morgan says, “the international community has to fall back on a moral argument, as opposed to a science-based argument.”

While most climatologists feel mitigation is less risky and cheaper, now there is “real concern that mitigation is simply not going to be effective enough to halt catastrophic effects of climate change”, according to Phil Willis, chair of the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee.

Simulating volcanos can create other problems. And it isn’t cheap.

Mitigation is better. Perhaps our governments will see that. Perhaps people who elect the governments (in countries where that is an option) will make clear to legislators that we want a strong mitigation response to climate change. But the widespread belief in the climate community is that geoengineering will look increasingly attractive as governments and the world’s population fail.

“Geoengineering is the most serious governance concern that we’re going to be facing in the next couple of decades,” argues Maria Ivanova, director of Yale University’s Global Environmental Governance Project. “It’s really about planetary survival.”

SceinceInsider, put out by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has a series on The Climate in the Senate. While 60 Senate votes are needed for climate change legislation, 67 are needed for a treaty. No one finds that scenario likely.

There are a number of bloggers reporting on the annual American Geophysical Union meeting. One, at Nature’s Climate Feedback, includes an interview with climatologist Steve Schneider (OK, that’s Copenhagen), and a report that whatever is happening with the Greenland glaciers, speeding glacier loss, it’s not all that increased meltwater lubricating the bases. Time to change my slides.

The AGU blog roll is here. There’s one on contrails,

In 2005, aviation represented 3.5 percent of anthropogenic radiative forcing, up to 4.9 percent if you include cloudiness caused by the contrails. Future contrail impacts could be two to three times higher by 2050, a 20 percent increase per decade.

one on What Does More Atmospheric Carbon Mean for Plants? discussing the complex interplay between nitrogen deposition and carbon sequestration.

one on sea level rise in the SF Bay Area

plus discussions of a number of other geophysical topics, including earthquakes, volcanos and Mars. One, Would Finding ET Collapse Religions?, discusses a challenge that may face Earthlings soon, as astronomers improve their ability to find smaller planets.

Are you young? Are you any age, but looking for a few explanations with big print and lots of pictures? Are you a teacher looking for help? Check out NASA’s new site, Climate Kids.

For those living in areas that haven’t seen much climate change over the last decade or 3, check out Climate Time Machine.

Update: Climate Time Machine shows the history of temperature, effects of sea level rise on New Orleans, etc. With sea level rise expected to be between 3 and 6 feet this century, what are we going to do for the people there?

How much food do we waste in the US? The old numbers are shocking, but new research using a different methodology produces scary numbers: “Nearly 40% of the food supply in the United States goes to waste.”

According to the ScienceNow post,

Food waste is usually estimated through consumer interviews or garbage inspections. The former method is inaccurate, and the latter isn’t geographically comprehensive. [Kevin] Hall [a quantitative physiologist at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) in Bethesda, Maryland] and his colleagues tried another approach: modeling human metabolism. They analyzed average body weight in the United States from 1974 to 2003 and figured out how much food people were eating during this period. Hall and Chow assumed that levels of physical activity haven’t changed; some researchers think that activity has decreased, but Hall and Chow say their assumption is conservative. Then they compared that amount with estimates of the food available for U.S. consumers, as reported by the U.S. government to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

The difference between calories available and calories consumed, they say, is food wasted. “We called it the missing mass of American food,” says co-author Carson Chow, a mathematician at NIDDK. In 2003, some 3750 calories were available daily per capita; 2300 were consumed, so 1450 were wasted, comprising 39% of the available food supply, the team reports in the November issue of PLoS ONE. This figure exceeds the 27% estimated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) from interviews with consumers and producers.

Much of the waste is probably happening at home, say experts. A study published earlier this year by Jeffery Sobal, a sociologist at Cornell University, and colleagues examined food waste in Tompkins County, New York, through interviews. They found that production accounted for 20% of waste, distribution for about another 20%, and consumers for the remaining 60%. “Food waste used to be a cultural sin,” Sobal says.

Food Waste picture credit

For those wanting the report, The Progressive Increase of Food Waste in America and Its Environmental Impact begins

Food waste contributes to excess consumption of freshwater and fossil fuels which, along with methane and CO2 emissions from decomposing food, impacts global climate change. Here, we calculate the energy content of nationwide food waste from the difference between the US food supply and the food consumed by the population. The latter was estimated using a validated mathematical model of metabolism relating body weight to the amount of food eaten. We found that US per capita food waste has progressively increased by ~50% since 1974 reaching more than 1400 kcal per person per day or 150 trillion kcal per year. Food waste now accounts for more than one quarter of the total freshwater consumption and ~300 million barrels of oil per year.

Teachers and scientists now have a web site to connect to each other. From the press release:

National Lab Day will promote hands-on learning throughout the year and culminate each year with special events the first week of May. Volunteer science and technology professionals and educators will work together with students to improve America’s science labs and offer inquiry-based STEM experiences in classrooms, learning labs, and after-school programs.

“We wouldn’t teach football from a textbook,” said John P. Holdren, President Obama’s science advisor. “It is even more important that America’s youth have the opportunity to learn math and science by doing. The President and I strongly support efforts to raise the level of project-based learning, to help cultivate the next generation of doers and makers.”

The website – www.NationalLabDay.org – was launched in November

to invite volunteer science and technology professionals as well as educators and others to sign up to participate. The website will automatically match volunteers to requests from educators to participate on the basis of geography and interests. The website also provides resources and ideas for hands-on learning experiments and invites the public to suggest new materials.

Three prominent US scientists were recently named by Secretary Clinton as special envoys to assess potential for assessing potential for scientific partnerships with Muslim-majority countries, according to an article in the November 13, 2009 Science (subscription needed).

picture credit Ahmed H. Zewail, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry at Cal Tech, whose early degrees come from Egypt’s Alexandria University, plans to travel to the Middle East next month.

picture credit Elias Zerhouni, radiologist, former direction of the National Institutes of Health. Zerhouni graduated from Algiers Medical School.

picture credit Bruce Alberts, former president of the US National Academy of Sciences and current editor-in-chief of Science. As NAS president, Alberts helped create and co-chaired InterAcademy Council.

Obama in June promised to establish at least three “centers of excellence” in the Middle East, North Africa, and Muslim-majority regions in Africa. There are 57 Muslim-majority countries.

Even more encouraging, the State Department has a goal of increasing science capacity in the department and at embassies, providing science and technology capable diplomats around the world.

Read more here.

November 8, 2009, at 5:50 AM, on a Sunday, Spain’s windmills supplied 53% of its electricity, and over half between 3 and 8:30 AM. OK, not the biggest demand portion of the week, but certainly an indication of Spanish trust in wind to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Wind produced 11% of Spain’s electricity in 2008, and this year is expected to provide even more. According to an article in MIT’s Technology Review, “If Spain meets its goal of generating 30 percent of its electricity needs from renewable power by 2010, with half of that amount coming from wind power, it will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 77 million tons”.

How much actual emissions reductions results when intermittent sources of electricity, solar and wind, use fossil fuel backup? The operating assumption has been that if wind supplies 10% of the power, greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas decline 10%.

An analysis in Environ. Sci. Technology, Air Emissions Due To Wind And Solar Power, examines this assumption.

Utilities match demand with supply. Demand varies during the day with work hours, temperature, etc. Power plants are turned on and off, ramped up and down, to accommodate shifting demand. Using intermittents complicates things, as now utilities must also follow sun or wind, sometimes quickly. Note: this study assumes natural gas backup, but some utilities use hydro as backup, and others use coal.

If a generator produces 2 tons of CO2 per MWh, averaging 10% solar plus wind over the year has been expected to cut emissions by 0.2 ton. If the reduction is only 0.1 ton, this is only 50% of expected reductions.

The use of solar and wind with natural gas backup was found to achieve 76-79% of expected GHG reductions, and 20-45% of expected NOx reductions at best (day time only, obviously for the solar). In some instances, NOx production of intermittent plus natural gas backup exceeded that of natural gas alone, because the natural gas was more often run at less than optimal power levels. The poor results for NOx indicate that relying on wind to help meet clean air requirements may be unsuccessful.

Running natural gas generators at suboptimal levels increases maintenance costs as well.

This natural gas generator is used to provide peak power, rather than to run all the time. The report examines the effect of backing up intermittents on both efficient and peak natural gas generators.

How complicated is it to integrate intermittents into the grid?

A report from North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), Accommodating High Levels of Variable Generation (pdf), discusses this issue at some length. One problem is that wind declines during heat waves, down to 5 – 10% of nameplate capacity during a recent California heat wave (compared to capacity factors averaging over 30% in the US).

While error in forecasting demand is normally 3% and unlikely to be more than 10%, wind forecast could readily be 20%, or as much as 100%. Experience in Texas shows that wind output can decline dramatically in 1 – 2 hours.

Because wind is stronger during hours of low demand, the use of wind requires a more rapid ramping of non-wind sources. In one example, without wind, conventional sources need to ramp from a low of 9,600 MW to a high of 14,100 MW, or 4,500 MW. Wind lowers nighttime use of conventional sources to 7,000 MW. To increase to 13,600 MW (plus some wind power) requires 6,600 MW ramping capability.

While solar power is greater when wind tends to be low, under some weather conditions, photovoltaics (solar panels) can change output by ± 70% in 2 – 10 minutes, several times each day.

Future analysis, or technology change, may alter these results. For now, wind and solar perhaps should be credited with only 75-80% of expected greenhouse gas reductions based on capacity factor.

Chewang Norphel ran away at age 10 to attend secondary school 250 miles away. He paid for lessons by cooking and cleaning. He then studied at the university in Lucknow, and brought his knowledge home, to build roads, culverts, bridges, and schools. Subsistence farmers had no money, but volunteered their labor. Materials were still a challenge, but creativity solved problems where money could not: canals were built without cement, instead using roots from planted weeds to plug gaps.

Over time, needs changed. Ladakhi farmers in the trans-Himalayan region of India, 2.5 miles high, depend on glacier melt. So do more than one in six people worldwide, more than one billion people. In Ladakh, rainfall is only 2 inches per year, comparable to the Saharas. Melting glaciers once provided substantial water.

According to the October 30, 2009 Science (subscription needed),

global warming has hit this region particularly hard. The tree line has risen more than 150 meters during Norphel’s lifetime, and glaciers have retreated by as much as 10 kilometers.

Nearby glaciers were gone, and more distant glaciers did not supply meltwater until May or June. So Norphel found a way to build artificial glaciers, channeling winter water flow into stone embankments that allow it to spread and trickle into a depression, and freeze. His glacier melted from late March to late April, after which natural glaciers provide meltwater. The crops watered by the artificial glacier feed 4 villages, 1,500 people.

“Before the artificial glacier, we really struggled to get any barley,” says Tashi Tundop, a 76-year-old farmer from Stakmo village. “But now we can grow many crops, even potatoes, which need to be planted earlier in the spring, but sell for much more money. I get three times more income than I used to.”

This Christian Science Monitor article has a video.

Norphel has built glaciers for other areas, though not every site has the necessary altitude, water flow, and surface area temperature. An early rain in 2006 devastated one glacier. Help with analysis, design, and money are all needed.

Norphel’s brilliant method to help this region adapt to climate change may not survive continuing climate change. Winter snowfall is down, and September rain, which ruins harvests, has increased. But for now, glacier man has made a large difference in the lives of the local people.

Information from October 30, 2009 Science (subscription needed).

The question frequently arises: what can I change in my own life? I want a short, easy to implement list. Your question is now answered in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences report, Household actions can provide a behavioral wedge to rapidly reduce U.S. carbon emissions. They estimate we can reduce direct household greenhouse gas emissions by 1/5, and national emissions by 7.4%, “with little or no reduction in household well-being.”

Suggestions are grouped into 5 categories:

W (home weatherization and upgrades of heating and cooling equipment), particularly attic insulation, sealing drafts, installing high-efficiency windows, and replacing inefficient home heating, ventilating, and central air conditioning (HVAC) equipment. This group requires one-time investments. [In some areas, high-efficiency windows are expensive compared to the energy savings.]

By supplementing financial incentives with program elements such as energy audits, convenience, and quality assurance, the most effective programs significantly reduce nonfinancial costs of action as well as financial ones.

E (more efficient vehicles and nonheating and cooling home equipment), in a different category because the assumption is that consumers will do this at the end of the useful life of the current equipment.

M (equipment maintenance) are infrequent, low-cost or no-cost actions, but we need to develop good habits: maintaining cars and cleaning filters.

A (equipment adjustments) are infrequent, money-saving, and automatic once you’ve done them: reduce laundry temperatures, reset temperatures on water heaters).

D (daily use behaviors) require changing our habits and choices consciously, sometimes repeatedly: eliminate standby electricity, thermostat setbacks (change the setting at night or when no one is home), solar drying (clothes lines), more efficient driving, carpooling, and trip chaining).

How many will your vehicle hold?

Many of feel that using muscles and public transportation doesn’t reduce household well-being, consider adding these to the list.

How to get there from here?

The most effective interventions typically (i) combine several policy tools (e.g., information, persuasive appeals, and incentives) to address multiple barriers to behavior change; (ii) use strong social marketing, often featuring a combination of mass media appeals and participatory, community-based approaches that rely on social networks and can alter community social norms; and (iii) address multiple targets (e.g., individuals, communities, and businesses). Single policy tools have been notably ineffective in reducing household energy consumption. Mass media appeals and informational programs can change attitudes and increase knowledge, but they normally fail to change behavior because they do not make the desired actions any easier or more financially attractive. Financial incentives alone typically fall far short of producing cost minimizing behavior—a phenomenon commonly known as the energy efficiency gap. However, interventions that combine appeals, information, financial incentives, informal social influences, and efforts to reduce the transaction costs of taking the desired actions have demonstrated synergistic effects beyond the additive effects of single policy tools. The most effective package of interventions and the strongest demonstrated effects vary with the category of action targeted.

Steven Chu was one of many people who benefited from and benefited Bell Labs, the premiere private research institution until the dismantling of AT&T. The underlying principle was to put a large number of really smart people in one space, and really good work will result. I’ve heard Chu talk a number of times, and the need to recreate a new Bell Labs is a frequent theme. There are more ideas than the group can use, so no one has to worry about their idea being stolen, and useful conversations abound. The majority of pathways lead to failure, but this is because the questions are the hard ones. Wikipedia lists 7 Nobel Prizes for work at Bell Labs, including Chu’s own.

Now Secretary of Energy Chu is overseeing Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). Chu didn’t get funding for the hubs he hoped for, but DoE is funding a number of potential energy paths. Some of the projects getting funding:

• molten metal to store energy as part of the energy grid
• jet engine experts working on small scale wind turbines
• transgenic plants for cellulosic biofuels
• low cost crystals for LED lighting

No surprise: the biggies are solar, bioenergy, energy storage, carbon capture and storage, and vehicles. Also represented are building efficiency, waste heat capture, wind, geothermal, and desalination.

Chu says that he expects some projects to fail. So DoE is looking for big ideas.

Chu talking about Bell Labs