Burnt Out

George Monbiot, March 18, The Guardian

The government’s plans for clean coal are another great green scam.

“Coal is so clean and fresh that the prime minister brushes his teeth with it, Downing Street said last night. Mr Brown said advances in coal technology meant it was now one of the cleanest substances on Earth, and an unrivalled remover of stains and scaling.” So says the satirical website the Daily Mash(1). The real claims are scarcely battier.

Ministers are about to decide whether to approve a new coal burning power station at Kingsnorth in Kent. This would be the first such plant built in Britain since the monster at Drax was finished in 1986. As well as coal, it will burn up the government’s targets, policies and promises on climate change.

John Hutton, the secretary of state in charge of energy, has started justifying the decision he says he hasn’t made. “For critics,” he argued last week, “there’s a belief that coal fired power stations undermine the UK’s leadership position on climate change. In fact the opposite is true.”(2) Quite so: if we don’t burn this stuff the Chinese might get their hands on it. Or could he be a true believer? Does he really think there’s such a thing as clean coal?

Clean coal’s definition changes according to whom the industry is lobbying. Sometimes it means more efficient power stations (which still produce almost twice as much carbon dioxide as gas plants). Sometimes it means removing sulphur dioxide from the smoke (which boosts the CO2(3)). Sometimes it means carbon capture and storage: stripping the carbon out of the exhaust gases, piping it away and burying it in geological formations. None of these equate to clean coal, as you will see if you visit an opencast mine. But they create a marvellous amount of confusion in the public mind, which gives the government a chance to excuse the inexcusable.

In principle, carbon capture and storage (CCS) could reduce emissions from power stations by 80-90%. While the whole process has not yet been demonstrated, the individual steps are all deployed commercially today: it looks feasible. The government has launched a competition for companies to build the first demonstration plant, which should be burying CO2 by 2014.

Unfortunately, despite Hutton’s repeated assurances, this has nothing to do with Kingsnorth or the other new coal plants he wants to approve. If Kingsnorth goes ahead, it will be operating by 2012, two years before the CCS experiment has even begun. The government says that the demonstration project will take “at least 15 years” to assess(4). It will take many more years for the technology to be retrofitted to existing power stations, by which time it’s all over. On this schedule, carbon capture and storage, if it is deployed at all, will come too late to prevent runaway climate change.

Kingsnorth will produce around 4.5 million tonnes of CO2 every year(5); if all eight of the proposed coal plants are built, they will account for 46% of the emissions Britain can produce by 2050, assuming the government sticks to Brown’s new proposed target of an 80% cut(6). Aviation, using the government’s own figures, will account for another 184% (7)(these figures are explained on my website). Even if we stopped breathing, eating, driving and heating our homes, the new runways and coal burners the government envisages would more than double our national greenhouse gas quota.

The government seeks to bamboozle us by arguing that the new power stations will be “CCS ready”, meaning that one day, in theory, they could be retrofitted with the necessary equipment. But even this turns out to be untrue. In January, Greenpeace obtained an exchange of emails between EO.N - the company hoping the build the new plant (yes the same EO.N that broadcasts footage of fluttering sycamore keys, suggesting that its dirty old habits have gone with the wind) - and Gary Mohammed, the civil servant drawing up the planning conditions(8). Mohammed begins by sending an email of such snivelling obsequiousness that you can almost smell the fear on it. “Drafting the conditions for Kingsnorth. If possible I would like to cover CCS … I admit this suggested condition could be without justification and premature but no harm in trying to gauge your opinion.” (This “suggested condition” was actually government policy. Who’s running this country?) EO.N replied by claiming that the secretary of state “has no right to withhold approval for conventional plant” (in fact he has every right). All it would allow the government to specify was that the potential for CCS “will be investigated.” Mr Mohammed wrestled with his conscience for all of six minutes before replying. “Thanks. I won’t include. Hope to get the set of draft conditions out today or tomorrow.”

This exchange took place in mid-January, a few days before the European Commission published a proposed directive specifying that all new coal-fired power stations must be CCS ready(9). Mr Mohammed must have known that he was helping EO.N to win approval for the plant before the directive comes into force next year.

You might by now be beginning the derive the impression that carbon capture and storage is not the green panacea that ministers have suggested. But you haven’t heard the half of it. Even if it does become a viable means of disposing of carbon dioxide, new figures suggest that it’s likely to enhance rather than reduce our total emissions.

For the companies which will bid to bury the gas, one technique is more attractive than the others. This is to pump it into declining oil fields. The gas dissolves into the remaining oil, reducing its viscosity and pushing it into the production wells. It’s called enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The oil the companies sell offsets some of the costs of carbon storage.

A few weeks ago, the green thinker Jim Bliss roughly calculated the environmental costs of this technique. He used as his case study the scheme BP proposed (but abandoned last year) for pumping CO2 into the Miller Field off the coast of Scotland. It would have buried 1.3m tonnes of CO2 and extracted 40 million barrels of oil(10). Taking into account only the four major fuel products, Bliss worked out that the total carbon emissions would outweigh the savings by between seven and fifteen times(11)*.

So has the government ruled out enhanced oil recovery? Not a bit of it. Its memo about the demonstration project says that Mr Hutton’s department “will want to ensure that the treatment of EOR and non-EOR projects are dealt with on a level playing field basis.”(12) Another document suggests it favours this technique: enhanced oil recovery will lead to “increased energy security, domestic revenue and employment”(13). But, the government notes, this will have to happen before the North Sea’s oil infrastructure is dismantled. “Now is the perfect opportunity to realise the significant opportunities offered by CCS.”(14)

Like biofuels and micro wind turbines, carbon capture and storage turns out to be another great green scam. It will come too late to prevent runaway climate change, the government has no intention of enforcing it and even if it had the technique is likely to boost our carbon emissions. This is what John Hutton calls “meeting our international obligations”(15). Heaven knows what breaking them might look like.

www.monbiot.com

*Jim Bliss has now been in touch to say that he was misled by the wording of BP’s press release. The scheme would in fact have stored 1.3m tonnes of CO2 per annum, which means that it would have resulted in a net CO2 saving (of around 50%). My apologies for this mistake.

References:

1. http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=782&Itemid=59

2. John Hutton, 10th March 2008. The Future of Utilities. Speech to the Adam Smith Institute. http://www.berr.gov.uk/about/ministerial-team/page45211.html

3. The commonest technique for flue gas desulphurisation is the limestone gypsum process. As well as making the power station slightly less efficient, the chemical reaction produces CO2. The two key reactions are:

CaCO3 + SO2 = CaSO3 + CO2

and

CaSO3 + _O2 + 2H2O = CaSO42H2O

See: Dept of Trade and Industry, March 2003. Flue Gas Desulphurisation (Fgd)
Technologies For Coal-Fired Combustion Plant. http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file20875.pdf

4. BERR, 19th November 2007. Competition for a Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage
Demonstration Project. Project Information Memorandum. http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file42478.pdf

5. Greenpeace, 2007. Letter to Alistair Darling. http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/pdfs/climate/kingsnorth_objection.pdf

6. Here’s how Greenpeace makes this calculation:
“In December 2007, Gordon Brown said he aspired to an 80% cut in emissions by 2050.
That would give us a carbon budget of 117.8mt/CO2/per year. The new coal plants
currently proposed – 10.6 GW of capacity - would emit more than 54 million tonnes of
carbon dioxide which represents almost half of that quota. (10.6 GW x 7884 hours of
generation per year, assuming 90% operational = 83.57 TWH/y. 83.57 TWH/y x 0.65 = 54
mt/CO2/y).”

7. This is 80% of the 1990 level, namely 161.5MtC (please note that this weight refers to elemental C, not CO2). That leaves 32.3MtC.

The Dept for Transport’s conservative figures suggest aviation emissions will rise to 15.7 MtC by 2050. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that net radiative forcing from aircraft emissions is 2.7 times that of the CO2 alone, which gives a nominal carbon equivalent of 42.4MtC. The government’s figures systematically underestimate the UK’s contribution, by assuming that British people are responsible for 50% of the seats on flights leaving or arriving in the UK. The true figure is 70%, which means the total equivalent figure is 59.35MtC.

8. You can read these emails here: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/pdfs/climate/FOI-1.pdf

9. Commission Of The European Communities, 23rd January 2008. Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the geological storage of carbon dioxide and amending Council Directives 85/337/EEC, 96/61/EC, Directives 2000/60/EC, 2001/80/EC, 2004/35/EC, 2006/12/EC and Regulation (EC) No 1013/2006. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2008:0018:FIN:EN:PDF

10. BP, 30th June 2005. BP’s plan to generate electricity from hydrogen and capture carbon dioxide could set a new standard for cleaner energy. Press release. http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=97&contentId=7006978

11. Jim Bliss, 17th January 2008. Oil companies and Climate Change. http://numero57.net/?p=224
Jim Bliss was asked to do this by the environmental writer Merrick Godhaven.

12. BERR, 19th November 2007, ibid.

13. The North Sea Basin Task Force, June 2007. Storing CO2 under the North Sea Basin – a key solution for combating climate change, p9. http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file40159.pdf

14. ibid, p9.

100,000: The Number of New Wells Needed to Store America's Carbon Underground

Stacy Feldman, March 25, Solve Climate

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) would take coal out of the ground, burn it for energy in coal plants and put the leftover gas back in the Earth where it came from.

It’s an idea whose time may never come, and here’s another reason why, from a new article in the Energy Tribune, Carbon Sequestration: Injecting Realities: The number of new wells needed to store the CO2 at large scales is likely to be huge and unrealistic.

As many as 100,000, in fact, depending on geological factors.

The writer of the analysis is Dr. Xina Xie, a research engineer out of the University of Wyoming. She took a hard look at the petroleum industry which has been shooting the Earth full of carbon dioxide for 30 years already to see what can be expected.

If the Kyoto Protocol emission standard (5 percent below the 1990 emission level) is executed, or if emissions are kept at the 2005 level, enormous amounts of carbon dioxide will have to be injected, requiring thousands of wells to be drilled.

The industry uses a process called enhanced oil recovery (EOR) to do the job, and it works like this:

EOR injects CO2 into depleted oil wells where expands and forces oil that was once impossible to obtain to the surface, essentially prolonging the lifespan of the well. So Dr. Xie looked at the option of injecting the carbon dioxide that's captured from CCS straight into existing oil reserves. Makes sense, right?

The reserves have already been proven suitable for sequestration. And, instead of just burying a coal plant's CO2 into the Earth with nothing to do, it would give the CO2 a purpose: to produce more oil or natural gas.

However, in a CCS nation, those tens of thousands of wells couldn’t do the storage job. Not even close. Not if the goal is wide-scale deployment of the technology.

Dr. Xie found that up to 100,800 new wells would be needed by 2030 in America if Washington commits to meeting the Kyoto Protocol emission requirement and keeping total carbon emissions at 2005 levels. Daunting, if not totally impossible. Business-as-usual would require far more.

In sum, if today’s existing wells were to be deployed for large-scale CO2 storage, they would quickly run out. And thousands and thousands and thousands of new ones would have to built.

Big chunk of Antarctic ice shelf falling apart

AFP, March 26

Antarctica's massive Wilkins Ice Shelf has begun disintegrating under the effects of global warming, satellite images by the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center showed.

The collapse of a substantial section of the shelf was triggered February 28 when an iceberg measuring 41 by 2.4 kilometers (25.5 by 1.5 miles) broke off its southwestern front. That movement led to disintegration of the shelf's interior, of which 414 square kilometers (160 square miles) have already disappeared, scientists say.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf is a broad plate of permanent floating ice 1,609 kilometers (1,000 miles) south of South America, on the southwest Antarctic Peninsula.

Now, as a result of recent losses, a large part of the 12,950-square-kilometer (5,000-square-mile) shelf is supported by a narrow 5.6-kilometer (3.5-mile) strip of ice between two islands, scientists said.

"If there is a little bit more retreat, this last 'ice buttress' could collapse and we'd likely lose about half the total ice shelf area in the next few years," NSIDC lead scientist Ted Scambos said in a statement.

"Wilkins is the largest ice shelf on West Antarctica yet to be threatened. This shelf is hanging by a thread," echoed David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey, which contributed data on the break-up.

Jim Elliott, who was onboard a British Antarctic Survey Twin Otter aircraft sent to video the extent of the damage, said the scene looked like a bomb site.

"I've never seen anything like this before -- it was awesome," he said in a BAS statement.

"We flew along the main crack and observed the sheer scale of movement from the breakage.

"Big hefty chunks of ice, the size of small houses, look as though they've been thrown around like rubble -- it's like an explosion."

Antarctica has suffered unprecedented warming in the last 50 years -- with several ice shelves retreating and six of them collapsing since the 1970s.

"Climate warming in the Antarctic Peninsula has pushed the limit of viability for ice shelves further south, setting some of them that used to be stable on a course of retreat and eventual loss," Vaughan said.

Vaughan said the Wilkins breakout would not affect sea levels because it was already floating when it broke off.

"But it is another indication of the impact that climate change is having on the region."

Over the past half century, the western Antarctic Peninsula has experienced the steepest temperature increase on Earth, 0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 Farenheit) per decade.

"We believe the Wilkins has been in place for at least a few hundred years, but warm air and exposure to ocean waves are causing a breakup," said Scambos, who first spotted the disintegration in March.

With the Antarctic summer drawing to a close, scientists do not expect the ice shelf to further disintegrate in the next several months.

"This unusual show is over for this season," said Scambos. "But come January, we'll be watching to see if the Wilkins continues to fall apart."

Ultimately, ice shelf breakup in the Antarctic -- more than 13,000 square kilometers (5,000 square miles) have been lost over the past 50 years -- could significantly increase ocean levels around the world.

In 1995 the Larsen A Ice Shelf -- 75 kilometers (47 miles) long and 35 kilometers (22 miles) wide -- disintegrated, fragmenting into icebergs in the Weddell Sea.

In March 2002, a NASA satellite captured the collapse of Larsen B, which had a surface area of 3,850 square kilometers (1,486 square miles), was 200 meters (656 feet) high, and packed in 720 billion tonnes of ice. It took just 30 days to break apart.

According to some calculations based on the present sea level rise of three millimeters per year (0.11 inches), ocean levels could rise by 1.4 meters (4.6 feet) by the end of the century.

The Qollasuyo Declaration: Indigenous Peoples Demand Full Participation in Climate Talks and Decisions

Climate and Capitalism, March 19

The statement below was issued on March 19, at the conclusion of a conference held in the Qollasuyo district of the province of La Paz, Bolivia, on “The Role of Indigenous Peoples in the Protection of Bio-Cultural Diversity: The Effect of Deforestation and Gas Emissions on Climate Change.”

According to a report in the Chilean newspaper El Rancahuaso, the meeting was sponsored by six groups:

• Coordinating Body of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin;
• Andean Coordinating Committee of Indigenous Organizations;
• Indigenous Council of Central America;
• United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues;
• Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Issues;
• Fund for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The conference recommendations will be submitted to Seventh Session of the Permanent UN Forum on Indigenous Issues, which will be held from April 21 to May 2 in New York City. The theme of that session will be “Climate Change, Bio-Cultural Diversity and Livelihoods: The Stewardship Role of Indigenous Peoples, and New Challenges.”

The Qollasuyo Declaration on Climate Change

The Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala [the Americas] have gathered in the International Conference on “The Role of Indigenous Peoples in the Protection of Bio-Cultural Diversity: The Effect of Deforestation and Gas Emissions on Climate Change.”

With great respect for our ancestors and our Mother Earth, we declare that:

The Indigenous Peoples, who inhabit the most fragile ecosystems on the planet, including tropical rain forests, deserts, moors, mountains and islands, are the most vulnerable to the effects of global warming. The impact of climate change endangers our Mother Earth, our culture, our environment and our livelihood.

These changes are the result of the Western model of development, which is based on a rapacious capitalism that does not respect Mother Earth. In this century it is estimated that the average temperature will rise 1.8°C to 4.0°C, accelerating the impact of climate change on Indigenous Peoples. We insist that industrialized countries are solely responsible for the changes that are profoundly affecting Mother Earth, and we reject any suggestion that indigenous peoples have any responsibility for them.

The catastrophic effect of these changes can already be perceived in our territories: chaotic climatic problems including prolonged rainfall, flooding and droughts, deglaciation, rising sea levels, the expansion of endemic diseases, fires in the tropical rain forest, changes in the growing season. They are breaking the chain of life, threatening the survival of our peoples, and inducing high rates of extreme poverty. Indigenous women are particularly affected.

Even though we suffer disproportionately from climate change today, change caused mainly by excessive exploitation of natural resources, we are marginalized when attention turns to the development of policies and programs to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Multilateral agencies, the private sector, international NGOs and governments, etc. are proposing mitigation and adaptation policies that, although advanced as “solutions,” affect the exercise of our rights and outrageously assault our way of life. These supposed “solutions” include development of monoculture farming, production of biofuels, carbon sequestration, reduced emissions through avoiding deforestation and creating protected areas.

Historically, as different environmental pressures have affected our surroundings, Indigenous Peoples have been able to use our traditional knowledge to adapt. Because we still have that ability, we can propose alternative approaches to adaptation and mitigation.

It is time for Indigenous Peoples to be full participants in the national and international processes, discussions and actions related to climate change, biodiversity, protected areas etc.

Therefore we demand:

1. Full and effective participation in the processes of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the conventions on Biological Diversity and Protected Areas, and others.

2. Establishment of an indigenous expert group on climate change and traditional knowledge within the UNFCCC.

3. Coordination with agencies and specialized agencies of the United Nations such as the CBD, UNFCCC, UNESCO, FAO, UNICEF, GEF, UNPFII, UNDP and others that are involved in implementing actions and policies on climate change that affect Indigenous Peoples.

4. That the Permanent Forum [on Indigenous Peoples] recommend that a Special Rapporteur from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights produce a report on the impact of Climate Change on Indigenous Peoples.

5. Projects and programs related to climate change and adaptation should:

a. Fully respect the collective rights of Indigenous Peoples.

b. Consult effectively in advance, to obtain free and informed consent.

c. Be subject to the requirements of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Convention 169 of the ILO, and other relevant national and international agreements.

d. Respond to the needs, priorities and real experiences of Indigenous Peoples.

6. The implementation of UNFCCC policies should be subject to the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

7. Financial mechanisms to ensure that Indigenous Peoples have access to funds for adaptation, capability development, technology transfer, etc. should be expanded and made more flexible.

8. Programs and strategies specific to the climate change mitigation and adaptation needs of Indigenous People should be recognized and supported.

Adopted in Qollasuyo, La Paz, Bolivia, March 2008

Wind power breaks records in Spain

AFP, March 26

MADRID (AFP) — Wind power is breaking new records in Spain, accounting for just over 40 percent of all electricity consumed during a brief period last weekend, the country's wind power association said Tuesday.

As heavy winds lashed Spain on Saturday evening wind parks generated 9,862 megawatts of power which translated to 40.8 percent of total consumption due to low demand during the Easter holiday weekend, AEE said.

Between Friday and Sunday wind power accounted for an average of 28 percent of all electricity demand in Spain, which is a leading world producer of such energy, a statement from the association said.

The record for power generated by Spain's wind parks was set on March 4 at 10,032 megawatts, but as it was a regular working day this accounted for less percentage demand.

Spain's wind power generation equalled that of hydropower for the first time in 2007.

In July the government approved legislation that will allow offshore wind parks to be set up along the nation's vast coastline in an effort to boost the use of renewable energy sources.

While more expensive than land-based wind farms, offshore wind parks can take advantage of stronger, steadier coastal breezes.

Spain, which along with Germany and Denmark, is among the three biggest producers of wind power in the 27-nation European Union, is aiming to triple the amount of energy it derives from renewable sources by 2020.

Cuba's ecological future faces uncertainty

Cornelia Dean, March 21, New York Times

Once Castro era, U.S. embargo end, experts worry about exploitation of country's resources

Through accidents of geography and history, Cuba is a priceless ecological resource. That is why many scientists are so worried about what will become of it after Fidel Castro and his associates leave power and, as is widely anticipated, the American government relaxes or ends its trade embargo.

Cuba, by far the region's largest island, sits at the confluence of the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. Its mountains, forests, swamps, coasts and marine areas are rich in plants and animals, some seen nowhere else. And since the imposition of the embargo in 1962, and especially with the collapse in 1991 of the Soviet Union, its major economic patron, Cuba's economy has stagnated.

Cuba has not been free of development, including Soviet-style top-down agricultural and mining operations and, in recent years, an expansion of tourism. But it also has an abundance of landscapes that elsewhere in the region have been ripped up, paved over or otherwise destroyed in the decades since the Cuban revolution, when development has been most intense. Once the embargo ends, the island could face a flood of investors from the United States and elsewhere, eager to exploit those landscapes.

Conservationists, environmental lawyers and other experts, from Cuba and elsewhere, met last month in Cancun, Mexico, to discuss the island's resources and how to continue to protect them.

Cuba has done "what we should have done -- identify your hot spots of biodiversity and set them aside," said Oliver Houck, a professor of environmental law at Tulane University Law School, who attended the conference.

In the late 1990s, Houck was involved in an effort, financed in part by the MacArthur Foundation, to advise Cuban officials writing new environmental laws.

But, he said in an interview, "an invasion of U.S. consumerism, a U.S.-dominated future, could roll over it like a bulldozer" when the embargo ends.By some estimates, tourism in Cuba is increasing by 10 percent annually. At a minimum, Orlando Rey Santos, the Cuban lawyer who led the law writing effort, said in an interview at the conference, "we can guess that tourism is going to increase in a very fast way" when the embargo ends.

About 700 miles long and about 100 miles wide at its widest, Cuba runs from Haiti west almost to the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. It offers crucial habitat for birds, like Bicknell's thrush, whose summer home is in the mountains of New England and Canada, and the North American warblers that stop in Cuba on their way south for the winter.

Zapata Swamp, on the island's southern coast, is known for its fish, amphibians, birds and other creatures. Among them is the Cuban crocodile, which has retreated to Cuba from a range that once ran from the Cayman Islands to the Bahamas.

Cuba has the most biologically diverse populations of freshwater fish in the region. Its relatively large underwater coastal shelves are crucial for numerous marine species, including some whose larvae can be carried by currents into waters of the United States, said Ken Lindeman, a marine biologist at Florida Institute of Technology.

Fossil Fools Day 2008