Posted under Express 86

Saltwater in Osmosis Energy Mix

Sydneysiders have another opportunity to view the energy innovations in “The Future Makers” next month, but that doesn’t include this unique saltwater power.  Norway ‘s Crown Princess Mette-Marit opened the world’s first osmotic plant this week, which produces emissions-free electricity by mixing fresh water and sea water through a special membrane.

The Future Makers documentary

“An exciting snapshot of the emerging sustainable energy industry in Australia” – Sara Phillips, G Magazine.

With recent attention on global warming, there’s been a big focus on the problem, but what about the solutions?

THE FUTURE MAKERS tells the story of eminent scientists in Australia who are leading the way on the world stage in renewable energy. This Australian documentary explores the visions of these leaders and follows them as their projects unfold.

Directed by Maryella Hatfield, and co-produced with Lisa Duff and Krissoula Syrmis, THE FUTURE MAKERS had its world television premiere on Discovery Channel’s Planet Green programming block.

People creating solutions that won’t cost the earth.

Watch the film at the Randwick Ritz, Sydney on 9 December 2009.

Q and A panel will follow with UNSW solar PV scientist and Eureka Prize winner Nicole Kuepper,
UNSW solar thermal expert Professor Graham Morrison, GoGet Car’s Bruce Jeffreys, Randwick Council members and The Future Makers’ director Maryella Hatfield.

Source: www.thefuturemakers.com.au

Norway ‘s Crown Princess Mette-Marit opened the world’s first osmotic power plant this week, which produces emissions-free electricity by mixing fresh water and sea water through a special membrane.
Wojciech Moskwa for Reuters, World Environment News (25 November 2009):

TOFTE – Norway ‘s Crown Princess Mette-Marit opened the world’s first osmotic power plant this week, which produces emissions-free electricity by mixing fresh water and sea water through a special membrane.

State-owned utility Statkraft’s prototype plant, which for now will produce a tiny 2-4 kilowatts of power or enough to run a coffee machine, will enable Statkraft to test and develop the technology needed to drive down production costs.

The plant is driven by osmosis that naturally draws fresh water across a membrane and toward the seawater side. This creates higher pressure on the sea water side, driving a turbine and producing electricity.

“While salt might not save the world alone, we believe osmotic power will be an interesting part of the renewable energy mix of the future,” Statkraft Chief Executive Baard Mikkelsen told reporters.

Statkraft, Europe’s largest producer of renewable energy with experience in hydropower that provides nearly all of Norway’s electricity, aims to begin building commercial osmotic power plants by 2015.

The main issue is to improve the efficiency of the membrane from around 1 watt per square meter now to some 5 watts, which Statkraft says would make osmotic power costs comparable to those from other renewable sources.

The prototype, on the Oslo fjord and about 60 km (40 miles) south of the Norwegian capital, has about 2,000 square meters of membrane.

Future full-scale plants producing 25 MW of electricity, enough to provide power for 30,000 European households, would be as large as a football stadium and require some 5 million square meters of membrane, Statkraft said.

Once new membrane “architecture” is solved, Statkraft believes the global production capacity for osmotic energy could amount to 1,600-1,700 TWh annually, or about half of the European Union’s total electricity demand.

Europe’s osmotic power potential is seen at 180 TWh, or about 5 percent of total consumption — which could help the bloc reach renewable energy goals set to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases and limit global warming.

Osmotic power, which can be located anywhere where clean fresh water runs into the sea, is seen as more reliable than more variable wind or solar energy.

A summit in Copenhagen next month is due to agree on a U.N. pact to combat climate change by promoting clean energies and a shift from fossil fuels that a U.N. scientific panel blames for stoking heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising seas.

Source: www.planetark.org

Posted under Express 86

Doctors Diagnose Climate Ills

Reducing greenhouse gases not only helps save the planet in the long term, but it’s going to improve our health virtually immediately. So senior doctors around the world have got together to set up the International Climate and Health Council in advance of the Copenhagen conference.

Senior doctors launch global movement to tackle climate change

Senior doctors from across the globe have come together to form the International Climate and Health Council. Their aim is to mobilise health professionals across the world to help tackle the health effects of climate change.

The Council was officially launched on 25 November 2009 to coincide with a series of papers being published by the Lancet on the public health impact of strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

Founding members include Professor Ian Gilmore, President of the Royal College of Physicians, Sir Muir Gray, Director of the Campaign for Greener Health Care, Dr Hamish Meldrum, Chairman of Council at the British Medical Association, Dr Fiona Godlee, Editor in Chief of the British Medical Journal and Lancet Editor, Dr Richard Horton.

Together with colleagues from Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, they are calling for urgent government-led international action to reduce carbon emissions and promote the universal adoption of low carbon sustainable lifestyles.

Failure to agree radical reductions in emissions spells a global health catastrophe, they say.

“Climate change is already causing major health problems,” say Professor Mike Gill and Dr Robin Stott, co-chairs of the UK Climate and Health Council. “This is the first step towards a global network of health professionals which by speaking out has the potential to protect and improve the health of people in both rich and poor worlds.”

“The public places trust in health professionals, and will listen to those who play their part in protecting human health from climate change,” they add. “This is why health professionals must put their case forcefully now and after Copenhagen. We must give the world’s politicians and policy makers no room for doubt on what action they need to take.”

“Politicians may be scared to push for radical reductions in emissions because some of the necessary changes to the way we live won’t please voters,” says Dr Fiona Godlee, Editor in Chief of the BMJ. “Doctors are under no such constraint. On the contrary we have a responsibility as health professionals to warn people how bad things are likely to get if we don’t act now. The good news is that we have a positive message – that what is good for the climate is good for health.”

Source: www.eurekalert.org

Slashing carbon dioxide emissions could save millions of lives, mostly by reducing preventable deaths from heart and lung diseases, the studies show. They are published in a special issue of The Lancet British medical journal, released Wednesday.

The calculations of lives saved are based on computer models that looks at pollution-caused illnesses in certain cities. The figures are also based on the world making dramatic changes in daily life that may at first seem too hard and costly to do, researchers concedes.

Cutting carbon dioxide emissions will also reduce other types of air pollution, especially tiny particles that lodge in the lungs and cause direct health damage, doctors says. Other benefits can come from encouraging more exercise and less meat consumption, to improve heart health, researchers says.

“Reducing greenhouse gases not only helps save the planet in the long term, but it’s going to improve our health virtually immediately,” says Christopher Portier, associate director of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. “It’s not 50 years from now, it’s now,” Portier says.

Instead of looking at the health ills causes by future global warming, as past studies have done, this research looks at the immediate benefits of doing something about the problem.

And for places like the United States, those advantages of reduced heart and lung diseases are bigger than the specific future health damage from worsening warming, Portier says.

Outside scientists praise the studies and says the research is sound.

“The science is really excellent; the modeling is quite good,” says Dr. Paul Epstein of the Harvard School of Medicine’s Center for Health and the Global Environment. “It really takes the whole field a step farther.”

Source: www.en.cop15.dk

Posted under Express 86

 

The Global CCS Institute has received overwhelming support from its members for its strategy to accelerate the deployment of commercial-scale CCS projects around the world, while CO2CRC will host Australia’s leading carbon capture and storage research symposium from 1 to 3 December.

This year CO2CRC will host Australia’s leading carbon capture and storage research symposium at the Hyatt Regency Coolum, Sunshine Coast, Queensland from 1 to 3 December.

Attendees can expect a comprehensive overview of current national and international research on carbon dioxide capture and storage technologies as well as demonstration projects covering CO2 capture and storage.

Source: www.sym09.co2crc.com.au

Global CCS Institute To Push Ahead with Members Support

 

The Global CCS Institute has received overwhelming support from its members for its strategy to accelerate the deployment of commercial-scale CCS projects around the world, it announced earlier in the month.

 

More than 160 delegates representing ten national governments, and over 150 leading corporations, non-government bodies and research organisations attended the Global CCS Institute’s members’ meeting over the past two days in Paris.

 

Members provided feedback and critique towards a strategy focused on both the support for specific projects, and the sharing of knowledge at this the first members’ meeting since the company was formed.

 

The strategy will see the Global CCS Institute move quickly to provide targeted support to projects that are in advanced stages of development but are facing barriers preventing progress. The organisation will now finalise a process to invite external bodies to apply for funding that will assist in moving specific projects into bankable form.

 

The Global CCS Institute will also work directly with projects in earlier stages of development and through strategic partnerships with organisations including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, the Clinton Climate Initiative and The Climate Group. This two-pronged approach is expected to assist in increasing both the number and diversity of projects that are kick-started.

 

CEO of Global CCS Institute Nick Otter said “I am greatly encouraged by the constructive feedback we have received from our members over the past two days. In less than five months since we were incorporated the Global CCS Institute is now in a position to take rapid action to tackle the real problems facing the industry.”

 

The Global CCS Institute is an initiative to accelerate the worldwide commercial deployment of at-scale CCS, whereby CO2 is captured, transported and then injected deep underground for secure, long-term storage.

 

Source: www.globalccsinstitute.com

 

Some Carbon and Capture Storage News from around the world:

China has over 100 years of carbon dioxide (CO2) storage potential, according to a study summary release by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), one of the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) national laboratories.

The study, involving scientists from the DOE and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, concluded that China has enough onshore geological CO2 storage potential for 2,300 GtCO2 (billion tonnes of CO2), and a further 780 GtCO2 capacity in offshore sites. This is enough to store over 100 years of China’s CO2 emissions.

The study also mapped the largest point sources of CO2 in China, such as coal-fired power stations, chemical refineries, cement plants and steel mills, and found that more than 90 per cent of these are within 100 miles of potential storage sites. This means there would be little need to build expensive long distance pipelines, helping to minimise the cost of CO2 transportation.

“For the first time ever, we have quantified the potential for future large-scale carbon capture and storage deployment within China,” said Bob Dahowski of the PNNL. “Our work suggests that CO2 capture and storage can provide a key element of China’s portfolio of options for cost effectively reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

Source: www.pnl.gov and www.newgencoal.com.au

American Electric Power (AEP) have begun capturing and storing carbon dioxide (CO2) at the Mountaineer coal-fired power plant in West Virginia. The project marks a significant step forward as it is the first to apply the entire carbon capture and storage (CCS) process to an electric power plant.

In partnership with Alstom, who have fitted their chilled ammonia post-combustion capture technology, AEP will capture and store 100,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. The project will run for between two and five years and will provide valuable information that will enable the technology to be scaled up to a commercial level.

The captured CO2 will be injected and permanently stored in deep saline formations 8,000 feet beneath the power plant, where it will be carefully monitored to assess how the CO2 behaves in the storage site and ensure permanent and safe storage.

Alstom and AEP are optimistic that the technology will be ready for commercial operation by 2015. The next stage will be a full-scale facility at Mountaineer capable of capturing and sequestering 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year.

Federal and state government officials today joined executives from American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP) and Alstom at AEP’s Mountaineer Plant to formally commission the world’s first project to both capture and store carbon dioxide (CO2) from a coal-fired power plant. The officials hailed the project as a significant milestone in the effort to reduce CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels.

The Mountaineer CCS demonstration project, which began capturing CO2 Sept. 1 and storing it Oct. 2, is designed to capture at least 100,000 metric tonnes of CO2 annually.

“Commercialization of carbon capture and storage technology is an essential part of a successful strategy to address climate change, not only for the United States, which relies on coal-fired generation for about half of its electricity supply, but also for coal-dependent nations around the world,” said Michael G. Morris, AEP chairman, president and chief executive officer. “Coal is a low-cost, abundant fuel source, but its use is a significant source of carbon dioxide emissions. We are pleased to be working with Alstom and our other partners on a project that plays a significant role in the advancement of a technology that will allow us to continue to depend on coal for electricity generation with reduced environmental impact.”

Alstom Power President Philippe Joubert said, “We are proud to partner with American Electric Power to demonstrate the technology of capturing CO2 for coal-fired power plants. Mountaineer, which is at the leading edge of all our demonstration projects worldwide, demonstrates the integration of all three stages of the process—capture, transport, and storage. We reaffirm our commitment to making commercial carbon capture offerings by 2015.”

AEP’s Mountaineer Plant is a 1,300-megawatt electrical (MWe) coal-fired unit that was retrofitted earlier this year with Alstom’s patented chilled ammonia CO2 capture technology on a 20-MWe portion, or “slipstream,” of the plant’s exhaust “flue gas.” The slipstream of flue gas is chilled and combined with a solution of ammonium carbonate, which absorbs the CO2 to create ammonium bicarbonate. The ammonium bicarbonate solution is then pressurized and heated in a separate process to safely and efficiently produce a high-purity stream of CO2. The CO2 will be compressed and piped for storage into deep geologic formations, roughly 1.5 miles beneath the plant surface. Approximately 90 percent of the CO2 from the 20-MWe slipstream will be captured and permanently stored.

AEP has applied for federal stimulus funding to scale up the Alstom chilled ammonia technology to 235 MWe at Mountaineer Plant. The proposed commercial-scale demonstration will capture and geologically store approximately 1.5 million metric tonnes of CO2 per year.

Source: www.aep.com

Posted under Express 86

Melting Glaciers & Floating Icebergs

New Zealand’s glaciers are melting away. Scientists are seeing about a 50% decrease in the ice volume of the Southern Alps. While a flotilla of hundreds of icebergs that split off Antarctic ice shelves is drifting toward New Zealand and could pose a risk to ships in the south Pacific Ocean.

By Lachlan Forsyth for 3 News New Zealand (23 November 2009):

On the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit, New Zealanders have been presented with dramatic evidence that we are not immune to climate change.

The country’s glaciers are melting away. According to a National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) report they have lost half of their snow and ice in the last century.

Scientists are warning the big glacier melt will continue.

It has long been known that the Tasman Glacier – the country’s longest – is shrinking. But the latest information from Niwa shows virtually every other glacier in the country is doing likewise.

“We’ve seen about a 50 percent decrease in the ice volume of the Southern Alps,” says Jordy Hendrikx, snow and ice scientist. “So if you were considering a health status, they’ve lost half of their health already.”

Niwa says glacier length is misleading because total volume can be decreasing even while length is increasing. Their concerns surround the glaciers’ mass balance – the snowfall required to replace the snow melt, and thereby maintain a glacier’s size.

Since 1997, less snow has been falling and more ice has been melting. And since 2000, the southern glaciers have been below their tipping point – meaning that, apart from a small spike earlier this decade, the mass balance has declined sharply.

“That’s a very slight warming over that time, and we’re looking in the future that we’re going to see continued warming and therefore continued ice loss,” says Mr Hendrikx.

Worldwide it’s not much better, the number of glaciers retreating now far outnumber those advancing – a huge turnaround since the late 1970s when advancing glaciers were the norm.

“The ends of our glaciers are just snapping off like chocolate and melting very rapidly, so we are losing a lot of ice mass very quickly,” says climate scientist Jim Salinger.

Prime Minister John Key says he takes the demise of our glaciers seriously, just not seriously enough to attend Copenhagen himself.

“No, it doesn’t prompt me to go to Copenhagen but it does show we need to take climate change seriously,” he says.

Despite this, sceptics will claim there is still no evidence that climate change is caused by human activity.

“The physics of climate change are bloody obvious, which is if you put more greenhouse gases in the planet, it will warm,” says Mr Salinger.

“Over the long period of time there’s a clear trend that we’re seeing a reduction in ice,” says Mr Hendrikx. “It’s undeniable that we have altered the atmosphere.”

Man-made threat or not, there is no denying our famed glaciers may soon be in short supply.

Source: www.3news.co.nz

Wednesday November 25, 2009

A flotilla of hundreds of icebergs that split off Antarctic ice shelves is drifting toward New Zealand and could pose a risk to ships in the south Pacific Ocean, officials say.

The nearest one, measuring about 30 yards (metres) tall, was 160 miles (260 kilometres) southeast of New Zealand’s Stewart Island, Australian glaciologist Neal Young said. He couldn’t say how many icebergs in total were drifting the Pacific, but he counted 130 in one satellite image alone and 100 in another.

Large numbers of icebergs last floated close to New Zealand in 2006, when some were visible from the coastline – the first such sighting since 1931.

Maritime officials have issued navigation warnings for the area south of the country.

‘It’s an alert to shipping to be aware these potential hazards are around and to be on the lookout for them,’ Maritime New Zealand spokeswoman Sophie Hazelhurst said.

No major shipping lanes or substantial fishing grounds are in the area but most ships there have little hull protection if they collide with an iceberg – which typically has 90 per cent of its mass under water.

Very few adventure sailors would be in the waters in November, when it is still the southern hemisphere’s spring.

Maritime New Zealand safety services general manager Nigel Clifford said as the icebergs drift closer ‘the more the potential risks grow of them posing a hazard to shipping’ as they break up and float lower in – or just under – the ocean surface.

The agency was ‘keeping a close eye on the increasing risk … it’s tracking iceberg positions and has begun initial planning for any incident,’ he told The AP.

He noted the area is not a major shipping lane, with commercial fishing vessels and a limited number of passenger cruise ships passing through and reporting positions for the drifting ice.

New Zealand oceanographer Mike Williams said the icebergs are drifting at a speed of about 25 kilometres (16 miles) a day and he expects most won’t reach New Zealand, as happened during the last major flotilla in 2006 when ‘a lot of them went out east (carried by ocean currents and wind) away from New Zealand.’

Williams, a scientist with the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, said he was ‘pretty sure these icebergs came from the break up of the Ross Sea Ice Shelf in 2000′ – an ice shelf the size of France and the origin of the 2006 flotilla of icebergs.

Icebergs are routinely sloughed off as part of the natural development of ice shelves but Young said the rate appeared to be increasing as a result of regional warming in Antarctica.

‘Whole ice shelves have broken up,’ he said, as temperatures have risen in Antarctica, where they are up as much as 5 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) in the past 60 years.

But he cautioned against linking the appearance of the bergs in New Zealand waters to global warming: The phenomenon depends as much on weather patterns and ocean currents as on the rate at which icebergs are calving off Antarctic ice shelves.

In the current case, a cold snap around southern New Zealand and favourable ocean currents conspired to push the towering visitors, which have drifted around Antarctica for the past nine years, to the region intact.

‘Icebergs this far north (near New Zealand) are not that unusual,’ said New Zealand glaciologist Dr. Wendy Lawson Lawson, noting that an iceberg’s reach was determined by its size.

‘If an iceberg starts off large, it will last longer in the sea. Its movement and where it ends up is determined by the weather, wind, ocean currents and the temperature,’ Lawson, head of the department of geography at Canterbury University, told The Associated Press.

On Monday, Rodney Russ, expedition leader on the tourist ship Spirit of Enderby, spotted a 500-foot-long (150-metre-long) iceberg about 60 miles (100 kilometres) northeast of Macquarie Island and heading north – about 500 miles (800 kilometres) south of New Zealand.

Australian scientists reported another mass of 20 icebergs drifting north past Macquarie Island two weeks ago.

Young said satellite images showed the group of icebergs, spread over a sea area of 600 miles by 440 miles (1,000 kilometres by 700 kilometres), moving on ocean currents away from Antarctica.

Icebergs are formed as the ice shelf develops. Snow falls on the ice sheet and forms more ice, which flows to the edges of the floating ice shelves. Eventually, pieces around the edge break off.

Source: www.skynews.com.au

Posted under Express 86

Science Fiction or Science Fact?

There was a surreal feel about the week just past. A political thriller, combined with some pages from the latest novel in the trilogy by Steig Larsson. Computer hackers. Politicians in denial and damage control. Scientists pleading their case to save the world from a certain dismal fate. Ken Hickson takes his considered look at another week that was.

 

And we had businesses, like Oliver Twist, asking for more (concessions). We had a country’s climate policies in freefall and a world getting ready for the decade’s most important summit on climate.

It was a week which saw the Australian Government fail (once again) to pass into law its Carbon Pollution Reduction scheme and when the leader of the opposition effectively nailed his demise on his climate change stance. We also saw that the hacking into a UK climate research centre gave climate skeptics more ammunition in their co-ordinated campaign to discredit climate change advocates.  All this in the lead up to the major Copenhagen climate summit starting December

So let me go over some of the things we came across in the week – in media read/watched, as well in conversations with people who matter.

This article by Michael Brooks in New Scientist (27 November 2009) grabbed my attention:

CARBON is a dirty word. We burn too much of it, producing billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide that threatens to wreck our planet’s climate for generations to come. Before that it was the villain of the piece in the guise of the soot that poured from factory chimneys and turned cities black. It has a lot to live down.

Now our long-time enemy could be on the brink of becoming our high-tech best friend. As we learn to shape carbon on the nanoscale – into tubes and sheets, balls and ribbons – entirely new and unexpected vistas are opening up. The carbon atoms that were forged in the furnace of the universe’s stars can be woven together into materials that may help gather energy from our own star. Similar materials promise to make our electronic world run with unprecedented efficiency, and may even hold the secret to eking out precious reserves of oil.

As we learn to shape carbon on the nanoscale, new and unexpected vistas are opening up

Carbon’s potential stems from the fact that it is multitalented. Collections of carbon atoms will happily assemble themselves into a multitude of structures, from diamond to graphite, but these familiar forms are just the beginning. In the past few decades we have learned about the soccer-ball-shaped spheres called buckyballs, soon followed by the microscopic rolls of chicken wire we know as carbon nanotubes. Now they have been joined by graphene, sheets of carbon that are just one atom thick.

Of these many intriguing structures, graphene is causing the biggest stir. This is partly because of its unusual combination of properties: its two-dimensional honeycomb lattice of carbon atoms combines fantastic electrical conductivity with a strength tens of times that of steel in a material that is transparent to visible light. Best of all, we have finally learned how to make it.

www.newscientist.com

Which sounds very like something I put in my book “The ABC of Carbon”, where I called for the acknowledgement of the Age of Carbon:

 

What becomes apparent when exploring climate change is the enormous and central role played by carbon in the past and well into the future. It is like discovering gold. Suddenly, everyone is talking about it, discovering what carbon dioxide is all about, and measuring and reducing their carbon footprints.

 

So much has carbon come into vogue and into the world’s vocabulary that it warrants recognition. This century could well be acknowledged as nothing less than the ‘Age of Carbon’, just as we have acknowledged in the past the Iron Age and the Space Age. There is no other time in history when carbon was so important. Carbon has been always present — it is essential for life — but now it’s on the loose and out of control, with the potential to damage the earth for all time.

 

We are talking about carbon as a product and as a fuel, as well as carbon dioxide, the gas, which is in over-abundance in our atmosphere. To be aware of its power — carbon’s contribution to global warming and consequential climate change — is to wake up to how we can better manage the resources that we have at our disposal. Human activity — our misuse of available energy, resulting in excessive carbon dioxide emissions — has undoubtedly changed our climate and damaged our environment.

 

But there is hope. However, it is the responsibility of all of us to grasp the opportunities we have to change things for the better — and to do it now. Carbon can be our friend.

 

It is good to hear/see that the Government is prepared to acknowledge both the importance of voluntary action by households (and businesses) to cut their emissions. This, along with a revised and sensible new National Carbon Offsets Standard, will be enshrined in new laws. We can’t wait!

 

Voluntary Action: The Government will ensure the CPRS takes into account voluntary action by households.  Voluntary action by households will now allow Australia to go beyond our 2020 emissions reduction target. In addition, the CPRS will be amended to ensure that all existing and future purchases of GreenPower will be counted, and allow Australia to go beyond our 2020 national targets.

The National Carbon Offset Standard provides guidance on what constitutes a genuine, additional voluntary offset in the context of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.  It sets minimum requirements for the verification and retirement of voluntary carbon credits and provides guidance for calculating the carbon footprint of an organisation or product for the purpose of achieving ‘carbon neutrality’. 

The National Carbon Offset Standard provides Australian businesses, particularly farmers, with the opportunity to develop offset credits for voluntary carbon markets.  These opportunities include offsets from increased soil carbon and from other land-based emissions sources.The National Carbon Offset Standard also provides a voluntary standard for businesses to use in becoming carbon neutral or developing carbon neutral products. 

A logo will be made available so that consumers can have confidence that organisations and products bearing the logo have achieved carbon neutrality in a way that complements the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and achieves genuine emissions reductions. The National Carbon Offset Standard applies to the voluntary carbon market, which is complementary to, but operates outside of, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

24 November 2009

Source: www.climatechange.gov.au

The Lowy Institute has launched three publications – two relating to China and the third and potentially the most far-reaching – “Comprehending Copenhagen: A Guide to the International Climate Change Negotiations”

In this Lowy Institute Analysis, Dr Greg Picker and Fergus Green aim to demystify the negotiations and deepen public understanding of this important process. 

Source: www.lowyinstitute.org

And news from Brisbane consulting engineer, David Hood, who is adamant that the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 15) in Copenhagen next week should set the world on a strong course to reduce global carbon emissions.

David, also an Adjunct Professor at QUT, was trained in 2007 by former US vice president Al Gore as a Climate Project Ambassador, and assisted Mr Gore train an additional 200 international presenters at the Asia Pacific Summit in Melbourne last July.   David now wants Australia to play a leadership role in securing strong global climate change outcomes at Copenhagen.

David, who will be attending the Copenhagen talks, says COP15 presents the best possible chance to keep the impact of global warming below a 2ºC rise threshold – the widely accepted level at which to prevent unbearable climate impacts.

Source: www.acfonline.org.au/climateproject

This article by Michael Brooks in New Scientist (27 November 2009) grabbed our attention:

CARBON is a dirty word. We burn too much of it, producing billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide that threatens to wreck our planet’s climate for generations to come. Before that it was the villain of the piece in the guise of the soot that poured from factory chimneys and turned cities black. It has a lot to live down.

Now our long-time enemy could be on the brink of becoming our high-tech best friend. As we learn to shape carbon on the nanoscale – into tubes and sheets, balls and ribbons – entirely new and unexpected vistas are opening up. The carbon atoms that were forged in the furnace of the universe’s stars can be woven together into materials that may help gather energy from our own star. Similar materials promise to make our electronic world run with unprecedented efficiency, and may even hold the secret to eking out precious reserves of oil.

As we learn to shape carbon on the nanoscale, new and unexpected vistas are opening up

Carbon’s potential stems from the fact that it is multitalented. Collections of carbon atoms will happily assemble themselves into a multitude of structures, from diamond to graphite, but these familiar forms are just the beginning. In the past few decades we have learned about the soccer-ball-shaped spheres called buckyballs, soon followed by the microscopic rolls of chicken wire we know as carbon nanotubes. Now they have been joined by graphene, sheets of carbon that are just one atom thick.

Of these many intriguing structures, graphene is causing the biggest stir. This is partly because of its unusual combination of properties: its two-dimensional honeycomb lattice of carbon atoms combines fantastic electrical conductivity with a strength tens of times that of steel in a material that is transparent to visible light. Best of all, we have finally learned how to make it.

www.newscientist.com

Which sounds very like something I put in my book “The ABC of Carbon” where I called for the acknowledgement of the Age of Carbon:

What becomes apparent when exploring climate change is the enormous and central role played by carbon in the past and well into the future. It is like discovering gold. Suddenly, everyone is talking about it, discovering what carbon dioxide is all about, and measuring and reducing their carbon footprints.

So much has carbon come into vogue and into the world’s vocabulary that it warrants recognition. This century could well be acknowledged as nothing less than the ‘Age of Carbon’, just as we have acknowledged in the past the Iron Age and the Space Age. There is no other time in history when carbon was so important. Carbon has been always present — it is essential for life — but now it’s on the loose and out of control, with the potential to damage the earth for all time.

We are talking about carbon as a product and as a fuel, as well as carbon dioxide, the gas, which is in over-abundance in our atmosphere. To be aware of its power — carbon’s contribution to global warming and consequential climate change — is to wake up to how we can better manage the resources that we have at our disposal. Human activity — our misuse of available energy, resulting in excessive carbon dioxide emissions — has undoubtedly changed our climate and damaged our environment.

But there is hope. However, it is the responsibility of all of us to grasp the opportunities we have to change things for the better — and to do it now. Carbon can be our friend.

We came across what law firm Norton Rose (formerly Deacons) has come up with. They produced the results of a new survey analysing the perceived consequences to business from the UNFCCC (COP 15) negotiations in Copenhagen: 

The main startling outcome: An unsuccessful outcome at Copenhagen will have a detrimental impact on business.

 Over three quarters of business respondents involved in aspects of environmental, sustainability and climate change issues believe if Copenhagen fails it will have a detrimental impact on their business

Success or failure

·     79% think an unsuccessful outcome at Copenhagen will have a detrimental impact on business

·     70% believe the US government’s position on negotiations is the most significant barrier to an agreement being successfully negotiated at Copenhagen

·     72% believe the negotiations will be a ‘compromised success’

Source: www.nortonrose.com

And what about some TV stars of the week:

On the Kerri Anne Kennelly show this week with ace skeptic Ian Plimer, was Ben McNeill, author of The Clean Revolution. He acquitted himself well, even though Professor Plimer had equipped Kerri Anne with a marked and underlined copy of the report which she proceeded to draw on in Plimer’s favour. A bit of a stacked show, but Ben took it gracefully.

The most skeptical of skeptics also threw into the discussion his delight at having email ammunition from the hacked computers. He wasn’t asked how it came into his hands, or who paid for the hacking!

Ben McNeil, for those who don’t know, is a senior research fellow at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. Dr McNeil holds a Master of Economics and a PhD in climate science and is on the executive of the prestigious Federation of Australasian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS).

In 2007, he was chosen as an expert reviewer for the United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, and was invited to present his research to the Prime Minister and Cabinet. He speaks regularly at corporate and scientific events and to media. Ben lives in Sydney.

Source: www.thecleanrevolution.com.au

On another TV show – Sunrise on Seven – climate expert Nick Rowley clearly and concisely answered viewers’ queries on climate change issues of note, asked by Koch and Mel.

A regular at conferences and media, Nick specialises in advising on new policy and practice to achieve emissions reduction for business and government. He has a deep knowledge of the policy and other drivers required to achieve low emissions growth. Over the past twelve years he has worked at the centre of government on sustainability, climate change and broader policy and political strategy in Australia and the UK.

From March 2004 to January 2006, Nick worked at 10 Downing Street as an advisor to Tony Blair. In this role he was part of a small team advising the Prime Minister on climate change prior to the G8 Summit at Gleneagles in July 2005 and worked closely with the likes of Nicholas Stern and the Prime Minister’s Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir David King. From 1995 to 2004 Nick was advisor to Bob Carr, Premier of NSW, working primarily on policy on the environment, urban development and medical research.

Nick is also Strategic Director to the Copenhagen Climate Council working with senior global business CEOs and climate experts to help achieve a new global climate treaty at the crucial UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen in December 2009. He is a regular commentator on climate issues in the Australian and international media, and is a Fellow of the Australian New Zealand School of Government.

Source: www.kinesis.net.au

Received a message this week from ace photographer and friend Trevor Thrum. He’s thinking – and it must be obvious – that my newsletter does lean quite heavily in favour of climate change science and the predominant view of how things are panning out. He did ask politely:

“Perhaps Ken, you could put this link into your newsletter in order to ’air’ both sides of the debate.”

So who am I to refuse. See and hear for yourselves. 

http://2gb.com/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=5268

Which brings me to the final and very relevant conversation for the week. Don Norton and I were chewing the fat on Friday. Of course, we discussed the political upheavals and the difficulty the Government is having to bring an emission trading scheme to the table.

We also realised that a lot of people listen to the skeptics, deniers and doubters on the subject of climate change. And admittedly such alternative viewpoints seem to be gathering a lot of interest and support. Maybe because the messengers are doing a better job than some others, namely Government.

We did agree that the powers that be seemed to have failed miserably to explain what CPRS is all about and – for that matter – have not effectively communicated climate change and its impacts on Australia.

Maybe what’s needed – the two of us suspected – is an “independent” agency, peopled by effective communicators who can put out the facts and figures of climate change and who can explain the impact for householders and business.

It could also provide reliable information on what’s offering from local, state and Federal Government on energy efficiency, renewable energy and ways to reduce our respective carbon footprints. We’re very conscious of the fact that there’s a lot of duplication of effort involved in what the three levels of Government are saying and offering, leading to a lot of confusion in the marketplace.

Maybe what we’re proposing is something like a Choice for the climate.

What do other people think?

Let me know.

Ken Hickson

Source: www.abccarbon.com