New Geography

Tag: GHG

  • Can Wind Power be a Reliable Long Term Source of British Power?

    The wind of change is blowing, but for once, that change might be affecting the wind.

    Wind, often championed as a viable alternative-energy source in the United Kingdom, might not be as energy efficient as it was once thought to be. Independent reports of the wind-energy efforts in the UK “have consistently revealed an industry plagued by high construction and maintenance costs, highly volatile reliability and a voracious appetite for taxpayer subsidies.”

    The cost for the energy alternative is sizable. Over the course of fiscal year 2007-2008, UK electricity customers paid a total of over $1 billion to the owners of wind turbines. That number is only expected to rise by 2020 to $6 billion a year as the government builds a national infrastructure of 25 gigawatts of wind capacity.

    Currently, wind produces only 1.3 percent of the U.K.’s energy needs while a 2008 report from Cambridge Energy Research Associates warns that over-reliance on offshore wind farms would only further create supply problems and drive up investor costs.

    Additionally, the average load factor for wind turbines in the UK was about 27.4 percent, meaning a typical 2-megawatt turbine only produced 0.54 megawatt of power on average. Dismissing the fact that low wind days would produce even less, all figures seem to point to poor return on investment.

    Some have suggested the building of cheaper wind farms, but ultimately higher maintenance costs and spare gas turbines to replace broken ones would cancel out any perceived benefits, as gas for the turbines would only add to carbon dioxide emissions.

    At this point, the outlook for wind to be a major source of UK electricity seems grim. Much like the wind itself, the problem just might be uncontrollable.

  • GHG Emissions by Type of Geography

    The suburbs, generally a haven for luxury SUVs, regimented lawn sprinkling, and keep-up-with-the-Jones purchases, are not often considered the front-runner in environmentally friendly living.

    However, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s 2007 Consumption Atlas published controversial research that suggested that “dense inner-city zones unleash more greenhouse emissions than car-loving fringe suburbs.” Suddenly, car use is not the prime factor in measuring efficient living, nor can incomes tell the whole story. ()

    While it has been generally accepted that high human consumption is worse for the planet than lower consumption, the study’s main controversy is the fact that the ACF gave the problem a specific geography.

    The quote:

    Rural and regional areas tend to have noticeably lower levels of consumption . . . Higher incomes in the inner cities are associated with higher levels of consumption across the board.

    The ACF has not only pointed their finger at their main supporters (inner-city professionals) but have also invited comments from a variety of sources. The Australian study questions the data used in the past to measure where the worst violators are located.

    American consultant Wendell Cox—long an advocate of suburban development—found that the data suggested that “lower GHG emissions were associated with long distance from the (urban) core, detached housing, more automobile use and lower population density.”

    A team from Queensland’s Griffith University Urban Research Program drew an altogether different conclusion that put simply is, “correlation does not establish causality.”

    GHG emissions are a function of overall consumption and consumption based on low-density housing “doesn’t figure prominently in the composition of aggregate consumption.”

    Urban sprawl cannot be used as an argument or attempt to point fingers at the Hummer drivers. Lowering greenhouse gas emissions will require a commitment by city dwellers and suburbanites alike if we are to alter our future carbon footprint.

    While the study itself has prompted much discussion and debate, if the object is to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, singling out suburbia might not be the first order of business. Spurious data and indeterminate causality make for an argument destined to fail for the lack of a supportable conclusion – unless we wish to overturn logic entirely, which some seem determined to do in furtherance of their long-held anti-suburban agenda.

  • Generating Gasoline From CO2 Emissions

    For some time it has been assumed that reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will require a shift to cars that do not use petroleum and to power plants that do not use coal, because of the emissions from these sources. All of this may be a false alarm.

    Two recent articles indicate that there may be no need to reduce petroleum use in cars to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). The first story from USA Today describes a new process for producing gasoline from CO2. If implemented, this could materially reduce GHG emissions from coal fired electricity plants – a principal source of GHG emissions in the United States and in many other nations, including China and India. Another story in The New York Times, indicates the potential of technology that could capture CO2 emissions from cars, to be later refined into gasoline. All of this is further evidence that technology is the answer with respect to reducing GHG emissions.

  • Finally… A Rational Approach to GHG Emissions Reduction

    Nicholas Stern, a former World Bank economist and author of the seminal “Stern Report,” injected a rare bit of reason into the discussions about global climate change in Cape Town recently. Stern said that if nations acted responsibly they would achieve zero-carbon electricity production and zero-carbon road transport by 2050 – by replacing coal power plants with wind, solar or other energy sources that emit no carbon dioxide, and fossil fuel-burning vehicles with cars running on electric or other clean energy.

    What a welcome vision. No hint of social engineering, no litany of activities and lifestyles to be abandoned, but rather a clear implication that technology offers the solution. (And, by the way, it does.). So let’s put an end to all of this talk about behavior modification and instead set about developing the technology that allows people to live as they prefer.