Zero Emission Europe

Hydrogen Projects form Iceland to Italy
Worldwide development of hydrogen as the transport fuel of the future is growing exponentially, with Europe a dynamic center of hydrogen activity. At the end of September, energy companies Shell Hydrogen and Total France announced a joint venture with automakers like BMW, Ford, General Motors Europe and Volkswagen to facilitate the first wave of hydrogen-powered vehicles and fuelling stations. “Now is the time to move forward… to pave the way for the introduction of hydrogen-based mobility in Europe,” they said in a statement.

Formed in 2000, the European Hydrogen Association has pulled together experts from seven countries to find and promote hydrogen technology across Europe, and its website, h2euro.org, is a clearinghouse for information—from the latest fuel cell vehicles in Shanghai to the first hydrogen filling station in Norway.

One pilot scheme currently underway is the Hydrogen Bus Initiative, a real-time testing of vehicles in nine European cities, including Amsterdam, Barcelona, London and Stuttgart. In Iceland, at a cost of seven million euros ($8.7 million), three state-of-the-art buses are operating on some of Reykjavik’s busiest routes. The Citaro buses, manufactured by DaimlerChrysler, use a stacked fuel cell arrangement to propel silent running electric motors with a total power output of 250 kilowatts (kW).

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Cars Put Demand on Grains

Investment in fuel ethanol distilleries has soared since the late-2005 oil price hikes, but data collection in this fast-changing sector has fallen behind. Because of inadequate data collection on the number of new plants under construction, the quantity of grain that will be needed for fuel ethanol distilleries has been vastly understated. Farmers, feeders, food processors, ethanol investors, and grain-importing countries are basing decisions on incomplete data.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) projects that distilleries will require only 60 million tons of corn from the 2008 harvest. But at the Earth Policy Institute (EPI), they estimate that distilleries will need 139 million tons -- more than twice as much. If the EPI estimate is at all close to the mark, the emerging competition between cars and people for grain will likely drive world grain prices to levels never seen before. The key questions are: How high will grain prices rise? When will the crunch come? And what will be the worldwide effect of rising food prices?
This unprecedented diversion of the world's leading grain crop to the production of fuel will affect food prices everywhere. As the world corn price rises, so too do those of wheat and rice, both because of consumer substitution among grains and because the crops compete for land. Both corn and wheat futures were already trading at 10-year highs in late 2006. The U.S. corn crop, accounting for 40% of the global harvest and supplying 70% of the world's corn exports, looms large in the world food economy. Annual U.S. corn exports of some 55 million tons account for nearly 25% of world grain exports. The corn harvest of Iowa alone, which edges out Illinois as the leading producer, exceeds the entire grain harvest of Canada. Substantially reducing this export flow would send shock waves throughout the world economy.

Robert Wisner, Iowa State University economist, reports that Iowa's demand for corn from processing plants that were online, expanding, under construction, or being planned as of late 2006 totaled 2.7 billion bushels. Yet even in a good year the state harvests only 2.2 billion bushels. As distilleries compete with feeders for grain, Iowa could become a corn importer.

With corn supplies tightening fast, rising prices will affect not only products made directly from corn, such as breakfast cereals, but also those produced using corn, including milk, eggs, cheese, butter, poultry, pork, beef, yogurt, and ice cream. The risk is that soaring food prices could generate a consumer backlash against the fuel ethanol industry.

There are alternatives to creating a crop-based automotive fuel economy. The equivalent of the 2 percent of U.S. automotive fuel supplies now coming from ethanol could be achieved several times over, and at a fraction of the cost, by raising auto fuel efficiency standards by 20 percent.

If we shift to gas-electric hybrid plug-in cars over the next decade, we could be doing short-distance driving, such as the daily commute or grocery shopping, with electricity. If we then invested in thousands of wind farms to feed cheap electricity into the grid, U.S. cars could run primarily on wind energy -- and at the gasoline equivalent of less than $1 a gallon. The stage is set for a crash program to help Detroit switch to gas-electric hybrid plug-in cars. Let's hope so.

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California Solar Initiative

Under the new California Solar Initiative, the state's goal to install 3,000 megawatts of solar capacity by 2017 brings together expertise from the current programs of the California Energy Commission (Emerging Renewables Program) and the California Public Utilities Commission (Self-Generation Incentive Program) to move California toward a cleaner energy future through new program offerings.

For more information on the new CSI program log on to: http://www.gosolarcalifornia.ca.gov/news/program_updates/index.html

Exxon Meets Green Groups as Climate Focus Surges

We can hardly believe it! Exxon Mobil Corp., a longtime opponent of mandatory regulations to combat climate change, met with U.S. environmental groups last month to discuss how the oil behemoth might respond to global warming.

This move was the latest hint that the world's biggest public company could be open to shifting its position of opposing mandatory caps on emissions of heat-trapping gases.

Exxon organized an exclusive meeting with representatives from groups, including Washington environmental research group Worldwatch Institute and New York-based the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, at meetings in Virginia to discuss climate change and human rights.

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California to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

As Landscape Architects & Contractors, we applaude Governor Schwarzenegger who marked the beginning of his second term as Governor of California, on January 9 by calling for reduced greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicle fuels and to help curb global warming. The plan would direct regulators to require the state’s petroleum refiners and gasoline sellers to cut by 10 percent the emissions of heat-trapping gases associated with the production and use of their products.

"I propose that California be the first in the world to develop a low-carbon fuel standard that leads us away from fossil fuels," Schwarzenegger said in his address. "Our cars have been running on dirty fuel for too long," he said. "California has the muscle to bring about such change. I say use it."

The plan gives the gasoline and diesel fuel producers discretion in how they reach the target. They can either reformulate their fuel or increase use of alternative fuels such as ethanol, natural gas, and hydrogen.

In the absence of action at the federal level, states and some localities have begun to take the lead. Schwarzenegger’s proposal represents one of the first examples of a state or a national government regulating fuel as part of a strategy to reduce emissions that contribute to climate change as well as dependence on foreign oil. Due to the sheer size of California’s economy (ranking between 6th and 10th in the world, depending on the source) the Governor’s proposal could become a model for other states to follow.

Science behind the January Heatwave

(From January 4, 2007 Christian Science Monitor)

The article says a climate pattern called the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is probably the most immediate cause of the balmy weather:
The phenomenon swings between two states. When the NAO is positive, a large region of high pressure appears over the central Atlantic, while a large area of low pressure settles over southern Greenland. Each of these features are stronger than usual, leading to more-severe Atlantic storms that travel on a more northerly track than usual. This leads to wet, mild winters in the Eastern U.S. and northern Europe. When the NAO goes negative, the high and low pressure areas weaken and shift south. Storms are weaker and travel more directly west to east.

The NAO can have wide-ranging ecological effects—from changes to the location, frequency, and intensity of storms and wildfires to shifts in crop and fisheries yields. And it can have a profound effect on energy demand. Energy analysts note that crude oil and natural gas prices have eased, partly because of the mild winter so far.

The next question to ask is whether global warming is exacerbating the NAO—and that’s where scientists are less sure. Part of the problem is that unlike other well-known climate patterns (like El Niño), NAO is hard to predict and track. So NAO is something of a mystery—for now.

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Diverse native grassess edge out crops as biofuel

Mixtures of plants native to prairies can give a better energy return as biofuel than corn and soybeans do, a newstudy finds. Biofuel production from grassland plants would also result in lower emissions of carbon dioxide and reduced pollution from agricultural chemicals.

Corn-grain ethanol and soybean biodiesel are starting to replace some gasoline and petrodiesel (SN: 7/15/06, p. 36: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060715/fob4.asp). However, corn and soy crops need large amounts of pesticides, water, and fertilizers.

Ecologist David Tilman of the University of Minnesota in St. Paul and his colleagues determined the resources required for and energy gained from biofuels made from perennial grassland plants. These species wouldn't require regular herbicide treatments, irrigation, or fertilization and could be grown on agriculturally abandoned land. Grassland plants aren't yet used in biofuels.

In 1994, the researchers planted 152 plots of agriculturally degraded land with different numbers of perennial grassland species, such as legumes, grasses, and herbs. They monitored and sampled the plots from 1996 to 2005.

The researchers found that the most diverse plots — those with 16 different species — were also the most productive,with the potential to generate more than three times as much energy as plots that bore only one species. The prairie-grass mixtures would give a net energy return that's more than 17 times that of corn-grain ethanol, Tilman says.

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ExxonMobil funds global warming disinformation campaign

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a Massachussets-based think-tank, has confirmed to the world that US oil company ExxonMobil deliberately set out to confuse and muddy the science of global warming.

"ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer," said Alden Meyer, the Union's Director of Strategy & Policy.

The report says that Exxon, who have handed out $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 organisations prepared to challenge climate change theory, have:

• raised doubts about even the most indisputable scientific evidence
• funded an array of front organizations to create the appearance of a broad platform for a tight-knit group of vocal climate change contrarians who misrepresent peer-reviewed scientific findings
• attempted to portray its opposition to action as a positive quest for "sound science" rather than business self-interest
• used its access to the Bush administration to block federal policies and shape government communications on global warming.

A spokesman for Exxon said that the report was:
"an attempt to connect unrelated facts, draw inaccurate conclusions and mislead the audience with a fiction about ExxonMobil's true positions."

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Climate Change & Gross Domestic Product

Sir Nicholas Stern told the world in his report that it would take only 1 percent of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to tackle climate change. What he didn't say was how GDP would vary across the world as climate change progresses.

A startling new map (view Yale's map) produced by Yale University in the US shows how many economies will suffer as a result of climate change, while a handful may ironically become richer through migration and altered global trading markets. Looking at nations' energy resources, agricultural production, forests and water resources, the scientists behind the project have developed a map which predicts how world economies will change from 2010 until the end of the century.

2007 Global Forecast

World Meteorological Organization - 2006 Climate Report

Court Reverses EPA's Weakening of Smog Laws

A coalition of environmental groups and individual states cheered last week when a federal appeals court overturned a decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to weaken limits on smog pollution generated by large power plants and factories in urban areas across the country. Besides fouling the air and decreasing visibility, high levels of smog—consisting of a mix of pollutants, including ground-level ozone—have been shown to aggravate human respiratory and cardiovascular problems and lead to more hospitalizations.

The nonprofit Earthjustice filed the successful court challenge on behalf of the American Lung Association, Environmental Defense, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Clean Air Task Force, Louisiana Environmental Network and South Coast Air Quality Management District. The states of Massachusetts, Delaware, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia also signed on as supporters of the challenge.
The coalition initiated the challenge following a 2004 decision by EPA to weaken pollution control requirements in areas where it had previously required stronger protections according to health standards set forth as part of the 1997 amendments to the congressionally-mandated Clean Air Act.

“This decision is a victory for clean air,” says David Baron, an attorney with Earthjustice. “The air in some cities is sometimes so dirty that kids can’t safely play outside. Health experts say we need stronger, not weaker, limits on smog.”

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