California Drought Report -2014

Comprehensive report (in English, .pdf file) prepared by the University of California at Davis detailing the economic loss to the State of California due a pervasive drought that has caused the greatest ever net loss of water.

Polluted Chinese Waters

Chinese Pollution

Here’s why there’s a vast, untapped market for hydrogen: China needs it to generate electricity, manufacture pure water by aquafacture, and clean up its air. Currently it’s not cost effective to produce hydrogen on that scale because its principal source is fossil fuels, so it’s cheaper and more efficient to use the fuels directly to generate electricity. Plan A compensates for the inefficiency without polluting the environment.

Yellow pollution

Polluted Green Lake

Green Yangtze

Toxic Waste to River

Yangtze River

Yangtze River

Purple river

Purple river

Pink pollution

Pink pollution

Pink pollution & city

Pink pollution & city

Coal plant, steel factory, polluted water

Coal plant, steel factory, polluted water

Death

Death

Chinese & Australian Shale Gas

Chinese & Australian Shale Gas

05/29/2014

China

Although serious obstacles remain, China is finally making progress on tapping its vast shale gas reserves, which hold the promise of a new source of clean energy for the coal smoke-choked country.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, China holds the world’s largest reserves of technically recoverable shale gas in the world, 1,115 trillion cubic feet. That’s about 68 percent more than what the U.S. holds.

A report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance finds that China may actually hit its 2015 shale gas production target, which the central government has mandated. Researchers analyzed the results of well data from the Fuling block in the Sichuan Basin, state-owned firm Sinopec is making substantial progress, and the national target of 6.5 billion cubic meters per year (480 million cubic feet per day) by 2015 could be within reach.

By 2017, China is aiming to lift natural gas consumption to 9 percent of total energy demand, up from 5.2 percent in 2013. China has already made some progress on that front, as natural gas only made up 4 percent of energy demand just two years ago (see chart).

Chinese Energy Consumption

Chinese Energy Consumption

Australia

Australia is building a massive project for new liquefied natural gas (LNG). Already one of the world’s largest exporters of LNG, Australia plans on moving to the top spot over the next 3-4 years, potentially overtaking Qatar. It currently has the capacity to export 23 million tons per annum (mtpa), but it plans to almost quadruple that total by 2017. The 62 mtpa under construction there accounts for almost two-thirds of the total LNG capacity under construction around the world.

The Downside of Liquefied Natural Gas

Report (in English, .pdf file) dated May 29, 2014 from the U.S. Department of Energy showing that liquefied natural gas (LNG), which is mostly methane and 86 to 105 times a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, offers no appreciable climate benefit over coal. The reason: leaks in its production, delivery, and liquefaction process. See page 18 of the report.

Decarbonization Plan for 2050

A 2014 report (external link in English, large .pdf file, 218 pages) prepared by teams of energy experts from the world’s 15 largest economies under the auspices of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), a global initiative for the United Nations, on a pathway to cut carbon emissions by 2050 while maintaining reasonable rates of growth. It will require:

  • A fundamental change on the way energy is used.
  • A huge investment in energy technologies.
  • Enormous compromises and a cooperative attitude among and within governments on how to combat climate change.
  • Acknowledging that replacing coal with natural gas in power plants is insufficient and may even be counterproductive as it would lock a country’s energy infrastructure into a high-carbon path.
  • Assuming that new economically feasible, commercial-scale technologies will be deployed, including second-generation biofuels by 2020, carbon capture and storage by 2024, and hydrogen fuel cells and power storage technology by 2030.
  • Assuming that technologies that appear to be technically and economically feasible at present may in fact turn out to be.
  • Calculating of the cost of the global conversion/effort, who will pay for it, how much, and methods of amortization.
  • Addressing the water connection. Currently it deals only with the energy aspect of the crisis, not water. Both are inextricably linked to each other and cannot be treated as separate issues.

In contrast, Plan A:

  • Pays for itself.
  • Does not require the development and deployment of new technologies.
  • Eliminates the need for nuclear and fossil fuels to generate electricity.
  • Creates a new, truly drought-proof source of pure water anywhere, even in inland areas far from any coastline.

Committed (future) Emissions of Carbon Dioxide, August 2014

The first worldwide report (in English) on future emissions of carbon dioxide, also known as “committed emissions,” prepared by Steve J Davis (Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697) and Robert H Soicolow (Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544), published by IOP Publishing (Open Access) and the journal Environmental Research Letters, August 2014. The study shows that despite international efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, total remaining commitments in the global power sector have not declined in a single year since 1950 and are in fact growing rapidly—by an average of 4 percent per year from 2000 to 2012.

By region, the United States is retiring more plants than it’s building and the European Union is unchanged –about the same number of plants are being built as are being retired. But in China, India, Indonesia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, as much as 4 times as many plants are being built as are being retired. To be sure, since 2010 China has slowed construction of coal-fired power plants, however Southeast Asia has been building more to expand industrial output.

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