global warming

According to the popular saying—one often bandied about real estate circles; when it comes to deciding where to live there's little else that matters more than location. Soon, however, the criteria for judging the desirability of a particular locale may be getting a little more...specific. We're not just talking about the various and sundry aspirations loosely contained under headings like 'standard of living' or 'quality of life'—in these tough economic times people need to crunch a lot of numbers before making the difficult decision to stay put or uproot. For many, the numbers their local utility companies are coming up with are starting to raise serious concerns. Not only in California (see previous post), but across the country in places like Albuquerque, Central Ohio, West Virginia and Holland, Michigan rates are on the rise. At the rate of 4, 5 and 6 percent, the increases have hardly gone unnoticed. Take, for instance, West Virginia State Treasurer John Perdue's recent speech in which he officially announced his candidacy for Governor of West Virginia:

"Over the past few months, I have listened to many West Virginians about their hopes and dreams," Perdue said. "They want good-paying jobs. They want a better life for their children. They are concerned about skyrocketing utility costs." That's right, for the people of West Virginia utility rates are right up at the top of the priority list alongside the desire for good jobs and good schools. If Perdue is elected, he has promised to "stand up to the utility companies and tell them that their rate increases are crippling both our citizens and our businesses". Easier said than done. West Virginia is the second-largest coal-producing state in the nation—they're also the second-poorest state in the nation. But between the environmental concerns and controversy surrounding mountain-top removal and the looming threat of carbon cap legislature—West Virginians are stuck between a lump of coal and a hard place. This means that state politicians like Perdue may have a much bigger job on their hands than just getting "the fox out of the henhouse".

This week, Chinese news outlet Chinadialogue published an informative article about the future of coal in West Virginia. The article is titled: America's Coal War. To put WV's woes in perspective for the rest of us, the author explains

Three decades after the one-two punch of Three Mile Island (1979) and the Chernobyl disaster (1986) decimated the public image of nuclear power, and the American nuclear industry is still working hard to win back the public's trust. Moreover—and as David Biello points out in Beyond the Light Switch—they’ve actually done pretty well so far. In the American Nuclear Society's own words, "The nuclear industry's commitment to safe packaging and security has produced a safety record that would be difficult to match."

The ANS website goes on to describe their success in further detail, specifically citing their safety record when it comes to the transportation of radioactive materials: "Over the past 40 years, about 3,000 shipments of spent nuclear fuel have navigated more than 1.7 million miles of U.S. roads and railways.  Of all this travel, no radioactive materials have been released resulting from an accident or any other cause.  During this same period, there have been about 98 million kilograms of spent nuclear fuel shipped worldwide, with no record of any release of radioactive material."

And the public has taken notice. Stewart Brand, lifelong environmentalist and creator of the Whole Earth Catalog,  goes on record as a pro-nuclear convert in Beyond the Light Switch. Brand points to the growing threat of climate change as a major factor behind many former nuclear foes' reevaluation of nuclear power’s potential low-carbon benefits. It seems a lot of people are ready to rethink nuclear and—surprise!—the government is on board, too. In this week's State of the Union Address, President Obama singled out the efforts currently being undertaken by Oak Ridge National Laboratory to improve the efficiency of our existing nuclear plants.

Obama's praise of Oak Ridge was followed by the obligatory promise of breaking our nation’s longstanding dependence on foreign oil—check out this clip from The Daily Show for further [read: hilarious] contextualization. But Obama also stressed the importance of redirecting taxpayer dollars toward "tomorrow's" energy resources. This led to the other obligatory energy economy ‘shout-out’: green job creation. In this year's SOTU, President Obama set the new goal of generating 80% of America’s electricity from clean energy sources like wind, solar, and nuclear…by 2035. An ambitious challenge, sure…but building that much nuclear generation isn’t going to be easy. Nuclear may now be considered green, but it’s still expensive to build, and strong federal support is going to be vital.

There's one other big problem standing in the way of a nuclear renaissance; remember how the nuclear industry spent the past 30 years working to try and clean up their tarnished image? 

The story is simple enough: foreign companies (read: countries) are buying up American coalmines and natural gas fields. But what really struck the BTLS braintrust about this story were people’s widely differing reactions to the headline. Some immediately picked up on the sensational energy security angle, while others immediately saw an outrageous hypocrisy in the very notion of "carbon offshoring". Could the United States potentially end up right back where we started in terms of cleaning up the environment? Shouldn’t we be worried about foreign companies taking control of our limited natural resources? Why should we bother with costly carbon capture and sequestration technology if we're just going to end up letting someone else burn our coal somewhere else?

For answers we talked to BTLS host and senior braintrustee-Scientific American's David Biello. David explains that even though we see a lot of stories in the news about countries like China making great strides building clean energy technologies (like solar panels), China’s energy economy is still far from 'green'. Because China’s economy is expanding so rapidly, and because coal is still their primary resource, they need more energy (read: coal) than ever before.

While China may still have a long way to go, keep in mind—so too does the United States. According to David, coal makes up for over 70% of China’s energy mix. In the United States we’re not much better...

Is Global Climate Change to blame? After reading this story about the thawing of the permafrost layer, BTLS was surprised to learn that not only are falling rocks killing more people each year, the thaw is also jeopardizing their economic infrastructure. The rapidly changing geology of the area has been attributed to global climate change for years now, but that information would be much more useful if everyone could first agree on whether climate change is real or not.

Alas, there has been no agreement. So when the BTLS braintrust heard about melting glaciers spelling real trouble for the Swiss Alps, we decided to investigate a little further. Are a few falling rocks and some melting snow really that big of a problem? For answers we talked to BTLS’s resident artist (and Swiss connection), David Hartwell. And David immediately assured us that, yes, a little melting snow is a very big problem in his native land. How big of a problem is it?

Here are just a few of the pre-emptive measures the Swiss have tried so far:

• They've had to redirect natural gas viaducts because of falling rocks caused by the melting permafrost.
• Banks will not lend money to any resorts situated below 1500 meters due to the uncertainties of snowfall.
• They’ve tried covering glaciers with fleece blankets to limit summer UV exposure so that they will not retreat as fast.
• They’re having to redraw their borders with neighboring countries.
• Swiss villagers have even written to the Pope for help.

The Alpen town of Pontresina gained attention as one of the first places to take  precautions against the melting ice (like building a giant dam). Now they're offering nature hikes that promise to let you walk "in the footsteps of climate change". Still, the fact remains: experts estimate Switzerland will lose 70% of their glaciers within the next thirty years. And attracting some of the first GCC ‘disaster tourists’ seems like a pretty lame consolation prize for the Swiss, considering that they’re not one of the region’s big carbon emitters. David Hartwell tells us that the only leverage the Swiss really have is raising fuel and transit taxes to alleviate their growing climate problem. According to Hartwell, the Swiss have all but given up on the idea of making a dent in global carbon emissions—they’re now in the business of “building rafts and making foreign nations pay for them”. But how?

Electric cars are the way of the future. Or so we’ve heard…for the past twenty years.

Limited speed, higher cost, range anxiety—these are some of the issues that have largely shut electric vehicles out of the U.S. market. But that was then. Now, it’s not just green-minded consumer demand that’s ramping up—GM, Daimler and Nissan are all readying their EVs (Electric Vehicles) for mass production. Given the long-standing concerns surrounding this perennially futuristic technology, it’s logical that the idea of American’s ‘making the switch’ to electric cars en masse raises a host of concerns. Near the top of the list: would our existing power grid be able meet demand? Could plugging in that many plug-ins cause a blackout? In order to find out, the BTLS brain trust went to the energy experts on our Board of Advisors and posed the following question:

If the electric car penetration into the market place exceeds all hopes, and we have entire towns or cities plugging in at night, is the current state of our grid able to handle this new load? What if it’s August 12, 100 degrees, and everyone plugs in their cars as soon as they arrive at home?