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Climate Change and Sea Level Rise

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From a Yahoo News Article:

Worldwide sea levels may rise by about 2.6 to 6.6 feet by 2100 thanks to global warming, but dire predictions of larger increases seem unrealistic, U.S. scientists said on Thursday.

They examined scenarios for loss of ice from Greenland, Antarctica and the world’s smaller glaciers and ice caps into the world’s oceans, as well as ocean expansion simply due to rising water temperatures.

Their calculations yielded estimates for global sea level increases by the end of the century that are lower than many existing projections, but alarming nonetheless.

“If you look at the actual mechanics of how glaciers work, there doesn’t seem to be a realistic way that we know about to get more than about 2 meters of sea level rise in the next century,” Tad Pfeffer of the University of Colorado’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, whose study was published in the journal Science, said in a telephone interview.

The Article:

http://news.yahoo.com/story//nm/20080904/sc_nm/climate_oceans_dc

Energy Vulnerabilities

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From an article by the Rocky Mountain Institute:

Though less fierce than expected, Hurricane Gustav highlighted once again the vulnerabilities presented by our centralized energy systems.

Within the Gulf of Mexico, 98 percent of the oil and natural gas production facilities were shut down ahead of the storm. More than 10 refineries were also closed, while numerous others were running at a reduced rate. Combined, this halted at least 18 percent of the U.S. capacity to turn crude oil into gasoline and other petroleum products.

The storm passed directly over the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, a facility that unloads tankers and accounts for 10 percent of U.S. oil imports. Transmission lines gave way to the wind and knocked 35 substations out of service, leaving more than one million customers without power.

Back in 1982, Amory Lovins — Chief Scientist and founder of Rocky Mountain Institute — warned the U.S. Department of Defense that a handful of people could cut off three-quarters of the Eastern states’ oil and gas supplies in one evening without leaving Louisiana.

Had we heeded and acted on Lovins’ warning and subsequent advice, Hurricanes Katrina and Gustav may not have presented such challenges for our energy infrastructure and security.

According to Lovins, true security measures — led by energy efficiency and distributed, renewable resources — can make us feel safe in ways that work better and cost less.

What does a secure energy system look like?

To begin with, it is geographically dispersed, comprised of redundant smaller modules that can back each other up, is located close to end-users to minimize transmission lengths, and is heavily interconnected so that if one part fails, other components continue to work seamlessly.

As Lovins indicated to the U.S. Senate in 2006, both energy independence and its purpose, energy security, rest on three pillars:

1. Making domestic energy infrastructure, notably electric and gas grids, resilient through efficiency, diversity, and distributed systems.

2. Phasing out, not expanding, vulnerable facilities and unreliable fuel sources.

3. Ultimately eliminating reliance on oil from any source.

Square Watermelons to Eco-Rigs

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I recently posted about the Japanese growing square watermelons….well here is another initiative….and this one looks to solve energy and food problems.

Battered by soaring energy costs and aghast at dwindling fish stocks, Japanese scientists think they have found the answer: filling the seas with giant “eco-rigs” as powerful as nuclear power stations.

The project, which could result in village-sized platforms peppering the Japanese coastline within a decade, reflects a growing panic in the country over how it will meet its future resource needs.

The floating eco-rig generators which measure 1.2 miles by 0.5 miles (2km by 800m) are intended to harness the energy of the Sun and wind. They are each expected to produce about 300 megawatt hours of power.

The Story:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4648732.ece

Why oil won’t fall below $100 a barrel

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Many analysts say oil is unlikely to go much lower than $100 a barrel, and it has to do with the rising cost of production.

The overall cost to produce oil has gone up, especially oil from tough to reach places like Canada’s tar sands and the deep water Gulf of Mexico.

These areas require massive investment and materials to produce oil and that expense has risen as the price of commodities surge. And while they represent a small fraction of total worldwide production, they’re important because some analysts believe prices won’t fall below the cost of the most expensive barrel of oil.

Oil from Canada’s tar sands, currently producing about 1.2 million barrels a day, is arguably the most expensive oil in world, and is getting even more expensive.

Last year analysts estimated it cost around $60 a barrel to produce light oil from here. The most recent estimate from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) now puts that number at $75 to $90. Comparatively, Saudi Arabian crude is said to cost around $1 a barrel.

For the entire article:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/21/news/economy/oil_price_floor/index.htm

American Presidential Politics

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Last night I listened to parts of the Democratic National Convention – including the speeches of Al Gore and Barack Obama. I find Mr. Obama a good orator, and he and his wife appear understandable and sincere.

There is something about the whole Convention that troubles me (and I would guess that I will have the same trouble with the Republican National Convention). The Convention gives the Party a national stage (I watched on CNN so do not know how much the other networks carried). Here is an enormous opportunity to lay out your case before the American people.

They use their time, however, to have hundreds of speakers say the same thing!

Al Gore, who knows a great deal about the environment and energy, could lay out a Democratic vision, platform, and program…he does not (other than to repeat a series of dire statistics). Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island could lay out a vision, platform, and program on the military and international affairs…he does not.

I believe the American people want to know the ‘nuts and bolts’ of what would be proposed if Barack Obama was elected president….and they want to hear it from the horse’s mouth. Mr. Obama spent a few minutes on those issues, and, for me, it was the most compelling part of his speech. Given his wonderful ability to speak, he crafted a few skillful platform issues. It was great! I’ve got a sense of what he would attempt.

Now on to the Republican Convention.

Bioplanning

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Ms. Beresford-Kroeger, 63, is a native of Ireland who has bachelor’s degrees in medical biochemistry and botany, and has worked as a Ph.D.-level researcher at the University of Ottawa school of medicine, where she published several papers on the chemistry of artificial blood. She calls herself a renegade scientist, however, because she tries to bring together aboriginal healing, Western medicine and botany to advocate an unusual role for trees.

She favors what she terms a bioplan, reforesting cities and rural areas with trees according to the medicinal, environmental, nutritional, pesticidal and herbicidal properties she claims for them, which she calls ecofunctions.

For the enitre article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/science/12prof.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin

An Interesting Discussion

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Over the past couple of days I’ve had several discussions with Rhode Island USDA NRCS about their development of a Rapid Watershed Assessment (RWA). The RWA gives NRCS, farmers, and conservation organizations the ability to prioritize conservation actions, determine the best economies for those conservation actions, and adaptively manage conservation and farm systems.

Part of the discussion involved a desire by NRCS to integrate the many different conservation and environmental plans/databases/information systems….and the difficulty with realizing that goal. I think part of the problem with any of these cooperative visions for information and data is the unknown cost of such complex tasks. Most conservation organizations and governmental departments have few funds for this kind of complex development…and it is expensive.

One of the opportunities that arise from ecosystem service markets, and the financial assets they create, is the potential for cash to finance these assessment, valuation, and monitoring systems. Within a bit of forethought, we can develop planning and assessment tools that allow for valuation, monitoring, and brokering of ecosystem services.