Creating Political Will.

Checking in from New York City-- I'm here for the People's Climate March.  Tomorrow there are workshops and sessions all over the place.  Sunday, we march!

Drought Maps

I have been showing many people these maps projecting very serious global drought areas by around mid-century.  To see them, click on the "Drought Maps" tab above, or on a smartphone, it may be on a dropdown menu from the "home" bar.  Or, just use this link:
http://getrealgogreen.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_7.html

I've made every effort to show the primary and secondary sources for these two maps.  But in their sources, they are difficult to extract, and if you want to download copies to print, it will be easier to do it from my page.

100% renewable in U.S. is feasible and affordable

A Stanford scientist has proposed that the United States can be 100% free of fossil fuels by 2050.
Here is an excerpt from the Singularity Hub website:
Stanford University researchers led by civil engineer Mark Jacobson have developed detailed plans for each state in the union that to move to 100 percent wind, water and solar power by 2050 using only technology that’s already available. The plan, presented recently at the AAAS conference in Chicago, also forms the basis for The Solutions Project nonprofit.
Link is at:
http://singularityhub.com/2014/03/08/100-renewable-energy-is-feasible-and-affordable-stanford-proposal-says/
This article about the 50-state plan is from the Stanford News website:
The motivation for the 50-state plan, he said, is to address the negative impacts on climate and human health from widespread use of coal, oil and natural gas. Replacing these fossil fuels with clean technologies would significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming and spare the lives of an estimated 59,000 Americans who die from exposure to air pollution annually, he said.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/february/fifty-states-renewables-022414.html
Jacobson does tackle the difficult problems of storing and dispatching renewables on a grand scale in a 2011 journal article.  For the reference and abstract, please see my earlier post (same date as today).

Article: 100% renewable energy is feasible and similar to today's costs

This 2011 article in the Energy Policy journal by Mark. A. Delucchi and Mark Z. Jacobson proposes that that a 100% renewable-energy world (wind, water and solar power) is feasible and that the cost of energy would be similar to the cost today.   
      Jacobson has followed up on this work with a 50-state strategy to convert the U.S. to 100% wind, water and solar power by 2050.  I will put information on that in the next post.
       Meanwhile, this 21-page PDF document is part 2 of 2 parts, and focuses on "reliability, system and transmission costs, and policies."   It is in a dense, scholarly style, but a useful reference.  I haven't worried much about finding Part1, because this part is the one that deals with the most important barriers to renewables-- the issues of reliability, storage, dispatchability and such.   Here is the title and the abstract, followed by the link:

Providing all global energy with wind, water, and solar power, Part II:

Reliability, system and transmission costs, and policies

 Mark A. Delucchi,

       Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California at Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA

Mark Z. Jacobson

       Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4020, USA

 Article history:

Received 3 September 2010

Accepted 22 November 2010 

 abstract

This is Part II of two papers evaluating the feasibility of providing all energy for all purposes (electric power, transportation, and heating/cooling), everywhere in the world, from wind, water, and the sun (WWS). In Part I, we described the prominent renewable energy plans that have been proposed and discussed the characteristics of WWS energy systems, the global demand for and availability of WWS energy, quantities and areas required for WWS infrastructure, and supplies of critical materials. Here, we discuss methods of addressing the variability of WWS energy to ensure that power supply reliably matches demand (including interconnecting geographically dispersed resources, using hydroelectricity, using demand-response management, storing electric power on site, over-sizing peak generation capacity and producing hydrogen with the excess, storing electric power in vehicle batteries, and forecasting weather to project energy supplies), the economics of WWS generation and transmission, the economics of WWS use in transportation, and policy measures needed to enhance the viability of a WWS system. We find that the cost of energy in a 100% WWS will be similar to the cost today. We conclude that barriers to a 100% conversion to WWS power worldwide are primarily social and political, not technological or even economic.

Here is the link: 

 http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/DJEnPolicyPt2.pdf

Solar Power Costs Seem to be Falling Exponentially

I found this article published on Scientific American's website. The article compares the rate of the drop in cost per KWH for photovoltaic power generation to the way computing power has increased exponentially.

The article is titled: "Smaller, Cheaper, Faster:  Does Moore's Law Apply to Solar Cells?" by Ramez Naam, posted 3-16-2011.   Here is the link:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/03/16/smaller-cheaper-faster-does-moores-law-apply-to-solar-cells/

(I should clarify that the article was posted as a “guest blog,”  which is “Commentary invited by editors of Scientific American.”)

As Austin Energy is starting a review process of its Energy Generation plan that goes to 2020, this article could be relevant to its projections of future solar costs.    The author does conclude that the cost is dropping exponentially.  In fact, solar is now priced at about 5 cents (solar utility) or about 11 cents (rooftop) so it is even ahead of this author's projections!

Here is an except--the last two paragraphs of the article.

"We should always be careful of extrapolating trends out, of course. Natural processes have limits. Phenomena that look exponential eventually level off or become linear at a certain point. Yet physicists and engineers in the solar world are optimistic about their roadmaps for the coming decade. The cheapest solar modules, not yet on the market, have manufacturing costs under $1 per watt, making them contenders – when they reach the market – for breaking the 12 cents per Kwh mark.

The exponential trend in solar watts per dollar has been going on for at least 31 years now. If it continues for another 8-10, which looks extremely likely, we’ll have a power source which is as cheap as coal for electricity, with virtually no carbon emissions. If it continues for 20 years, which is also well within the realm of scientific and technical possibility, then we’ll have a green power source which is half the price of coal for electricity."

Climate Change Class Notes have moved.

I have moved my class notes from my online course to my new blog, "Climate Change Studies:  What Science Teaches," at this link:  http://canwecrashtheclimate.blogspot.com/

The course is a "massive open online course," known as a "MOOC" these days, from the University of Exeter, U.K., entitled:   Climate Change:  Challenges and Solutions

INTRO: Why Study Climate Change?

INTRODUCTION: Why Study Climate Change? Are we approaching unacceptable (or catastrophic, or runaway) climate change? 

It is already clear that climate change is underway.  But I have wondered:  Where is the tipping point for unacceptable (or catastrophic, or runaway) climate change? 

A recent article on an alternative news site, Truthdig, got me thinking even more than I already usually do about climate change.  The title was:  "Are We Falling Off the Climate Precipice?" (A link is below).  It was so unsettling that I signed up for an online course from the University of  Exeter, U.K., to build a stronger foundation of scientific knowledge of climate-change processes as I pursue this question.  My class notes are now accumulating on what is now my second blog, "Climate Change Studies:  What Science Teaches," at this link:  http://canwecrashtheclimate.blogspot.com/

 I certainly have previously read alarming arguments in any number of places.  This article and its associated links have brought some of those thoughts into sharp and uncomfortable focus.  Three of them are:  1) The most recent data coming in, including from a purpose-built satellite, shows trends that exceed projections.  2) Even considering the widespread agreement among climate scientists (97% is quoted often these days), scientists tend to want to be conservative and avoid sounding alarmist.  3) If you factor in the lack of political progress on setting and meeting climate-protecting goals, well... 

So there you have it.  Is it time to panic? Despair? Hope?  With this blog I intend to explore further the questions about the urgency and scale of the global climate disruptions that we face.  At the same time I am thinking very hard about what kind of response is needed from me and from all who understand and care.

 Hopefully with more and more of us gaining a deeper knowledge of the subject, it will lend us more effectiveness toward whatever measures each of us undertakes toward dealing with the challenge. 

This is the link to the 12-13-2013 Truthdig article, "Are We Falling Off the Climate Precipice?"

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/are_we_falling_off_the_climate_precipice_20131219/