How much CO2 reduction, how much does it cost, and what’s it worth? A Detailed Primer We have been moving towards the answers to these questions forever it seems, so here goes: Immediately below is my summary. Further down are thoughts on how I arrived at these numbers. These costs assume that we can do…
The folks at Carbon Engineering in Squamish, British Columbia have been working on their process since 2009. Normally, this type of proprietary process remains concealed because of the vast possibility of massive revenue generation. In a bold move, Carbon Engineering has released their process in the journal Joule in a paper lead by David Keith…
The 45Q Carbon Sequestration Tax Credits: First Steps or Moral Hazard? Summary: The new enhancements to Obama’s 45Q carbon dioxide sequestration tax credits are widely seen as a boon to the oil industry. A deeper look reveals they could be the incentive that allows us to actually reverse warming, something that most people understand…
Rag Radio 2018-07-06 – Rag Radio Environmental Reporter Bruce Melton from Yosemite Park Live by Rag Radio with Thorne Dreyer Podcast – https://archive.org/details/RagRadio2018-07-06-BruceMelton Climate change researcher and Rag Radio environmental reporter Bruce Melton is Thorne Dreyer‘s guest on Rag Radio, joining us live from Yosemite National Park (actually from Fresno, where he could get cell phone service). Melton is…
New Evaluation of Climate Models Reveals Abrupt Changes Ahead of Schedule It’s not the averages that will mess up your hair, it’s the gusts. This work on modeling the unmodelable (Drijfhout 2015) is a couple of years old now, but it gives enormous insight into why it is that “ice cube melt climate science” is…
Beach Report: King Tide October 2017 October 20, 2017 The King Tide was on. King tides, spring tides, perigean spring tides (all different names for the same thing) happen in October and April when the sun and moon both align to raise the normal high tide by several feet sometimes. The extra high tides come in…
Alaskan Permafrost Flipped from Carbon Sink to Carbon Source Because of Permafrost Melt Climate Change is here. Alaskan permafrost is now emitting more greenhouse gases than it is storing according to work from Harvard, the Dublin Institute of Technology, Universities of Alaska, Colorado at Boulder, California at Irvine, NOAA and others in this powerhouse paper….
Simple Solution to Climate Pollution A must read: “Lackner and Jospe, Climate Change is a Waste Management Problem, Issues in Science and Technology, June 2017.” Times have changed. Delay has created a new climate that requires new strategies. The following is a summary of this must read article. Summary of “Climate Change is a Waste Management…
Batteries, Wind, Solar, The Paris Path Arrives – Excel Energy Across Central U.S. Xcel Energy, the dominant electricity and natural gas supplier in eight states from Wisconsin through the Dakotas to Texas, with $11 billion in 2017 revenues, and 3.3 million electric and 1.8 million gas customers, is proving that wind and solar energy…
Are We Really at Battery Parity Already? Let’s make an assumption. I do not believe it is valid based on the work of Mark Jacobson and team at Stanford and The Solutions Project, but for this discussion, let’s say it is. Climate reform culture says we can’t go beyond about 40 percent alternative energy penetration…
Yes, We Can Get 100 Percent of our Energy From Renewable Resources A comprehensive review of hundreds of studies on the feasibility of 100 percent alternative energy. In March 2017, Heard et al., published a study of 24 works on the feasibility of 100 percent renewable energy. Their findings were not favorable. But on April…
Are We Really On Track To Meet Paris Energy Generation Commitments Without Carbon Regulations? Paris commitments are generally about 80 percent emissions reductions by 2050 and net zero, or 100 percent emissions reductions by 2080. Because of the dramatic fall in costs of alternative energy construction, one could validly say that today we are…
Battery Storage Costs Plummet Lazard was founded in 1848 and is a financial advisory and asset management firm that caters primarily to institutional clients. They began preparing a global evaluation of the levelized cost of energy for new energy generation installations in 2009, and for energy storage in 2015. “Levelized costs of energy (LCOE)” are…
Most of us think a healthy climate will result from emissions reductions. Time and again however, the science says this is not so. The reason? Emissions reduction strategies are about 30 years old and we have emitted as much climate pollution in about the last 30 years as we emitted in the previous 200 years….
Global Environmental Sustainability and a Healthy Climate: Climate Policy 2.0 We all want a healthy climate and assume that emissions reductions will give us this healthy climate, but emissions reductions alone allow triple to quintuple the warming we have already seen. Today, the public and policy makers –almost completely– believe emissions reductions strategies can…
Trump’s Climate Science: EPA’s Latest Muzzle The latest is this memo (below) to the EPA requiring them to deliberately confuse the scientific position on climate change. It was supposedly written by Joel D. Scheraga, EPA Senior Adviser for Climate Adaptation. Scheraga was on the team that produced President Obama’s 2013 Climate Action Plan and was a Lead…
Sing Delay, Delay, Delay When serious discussions about global warming gases and fossil fuels began in the 1980s, all that was needed to prevent what would become labeled as dangerous climate change was a reduction of the emissions of global warming gases. Since that time, we have emitted as much CO2 as we emitted in…
Emissions: We have the Technology From the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Nature Outlook An article review by Bruce Melton First published in the Austin Sierran in March 2018 Atmospheric carbon capture is not yet a mainstream topic in climate policy, but to meet even the goals of the Paris Agreement, it is something that…
