Category Archives: Energy and Climate Change

News and articles on climate change, vehicle pollution, and renewable energy.

Elon Musk: ‘We need a revolt against the fossil fuel industry’

June 19, 2016Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, Energy Storage, News, Reviews and Comment, TeslaTrevor Larkum

Tesla chief says educating the public on climate issues is essential in countering oil and gas lobby’s influence over big political decisions

Tesla’s chief executive Elon Musk has accused politicians of bowing to the “unrelenting and enormous” lobbying power of the fossil fuel industry, warning that a global “revolt” may be needed to accelerate the transition to more sustainable energy and transport systems.

Speaking at the World Energy Innovation Forum at the Tesla Factory in California on Wednesday, Musk claimed that traditional vehicles and energy sources will continue to hold a competitive edge against greener alternatives due to the vast amounts of subsidies they receive.

The solution to this energy dilemma, Musk says, is to introduce a price on carbon by defining a tax rate on greenhouse gas emissions or the carbon content of fossil fuels.

“The fundamental issue with fossil fuels is that every use comes with a subsidy,” Musk said. “Every gasoline car on the road has a subsidy, and the right way to address that is with a carbon tax.”

“Politicians take the easy path of providing subsidies to electric vehicles, which aren’t equal to the applied subsidies of gasoline vehicles. It weakens the economic forcing function to transition to sustainable transport and energy.”

Nissan Introduces Its Own Powerwall: “xStorage”

June 18, 2016Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, Energy Storage, Leaf, News, Reviews and Comment, NissanTrevor Larkum

Nissan has taken a page out of Tesla Energy’s playbook by introducing its own Home energy storage solution, called the “xStorage” in Europe.

Nissan Debuts xStorage From Nissan Introduces Its Own Powerwall: “xStorage”

Where this differs from several other ESS systems that are now coming to market is that the Nissan solution takes advantage of second hand batteries from Nissan electric vehicles (the LEAF and e-NV200).

For this endeavor Nissan is not going alone, it has signed up power management player Eaton to help with the project.

The company says it is designed to be the “most affordable” complete system on the market today.

The unit is available to pre-order in Europe from September of this year, and Nissan says the “xStorage” solution will give consumers the power to control the how and when they use energy at home.

“Connected to residential power supply or renewable energy sources such as solar panels, the unit can save customers money on their utility bills by charging up when renewable energy is available or energy is cheaper (e.g. during the night) and releasing that stored energy when demand and costs are high.

If a home is equipped with solar technology, this means that consumers can power their homes using clean energy stored in their xStorage system, and be rewarded financially for doing so by avoiding expensive daytime energy tariffs.”

It’s too late to halt climate change and our society is doomed — that’s the good news

June 16, 2016Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and Comment, PollutionTrevor Larkum

“Gasland” director Josh Fox is back with “How to Let Go of the World,” a sprawling chronicle of despair — and hope

Josh Fox in "How to Let Go of the World: and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change" (Image: IFC Films) — Josh Fox in “How to Let Go of the World: and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change” (Image: IFC Films)

It was a full decade ago now that not-quite-president Al Gore and director Davis Guggenheim captured the world’s attention with “An Inconvenient Truth,” a film based on the premise that we still had time to prevent or limit the most devastating effects of climate change if we acted immediately. In case you haven’t noticed, we didn’t. In the United States, the fossil-fuel industry and its Republican lackeys picked away at a handful of loose scientific threads in the film, depicting it as some partisan, puritanical attack on capitalism, consumerism and prosperity. On a global scale, leaders of the major Western nations and the booming economies of Asia could only reach vague and general agreement on targets for reducing carbon emissions, which weren’t binding on anyone and would do little or nothing to slow planetary warming or control climate chaos.

So now we get Josh Fox, the activist-filmmaker behind the grassroots documentary “Gasland” — one of the least likely Oscar nominees of recent memory — making a sprawling, ambitious HBO documentary with exactly the opposite premise. Fox’s “How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change” is an unwieldy movie with an unwieldy title, but once you get past the slightly forced naiveté of his framing device, it’s a fascinating, heartbreaking and ultimately inspiring ride. He begins by accumulating evidence that it’s effectively too late to stop a major warming of the earth’s air and water, with enormous effects on our coastlines, our climate, our relationship to the ecosystem and all of human civilization. One environmental activist tells Fox in the film that he has had to carve out a place in his heart and mind for despair, and carry it with him, while still doing his work aimed at creating some semblance of a better future. In placid times such a weight can be a burden, he says; in turbulent times, it’s an anchor.

It might sound cruel or Malthusian or post-apocalyptic to suggest that the enormous disruption we are beginning to experience is both a crisis and an important opportunity. But there’s no point lying to ourselves, or shutting our eyes: There’s no way we can save all the species that are likely to be extinguished, all the wetlands that will be inundated or all the farmland that will be baked out of existence. We might not be able to save Miami or Kolkata or Shanghai. But in a filmmaking mode that combines YouTube channel, guerrilla newsman and a younger, less prankish and more athletic Michael Moore, Fox suggests that such devastation won’t wipe out the best and strongest aspects of human community, and that those remain our best tools going into a profoundly uncertain future.

Will the oil giants be disrupted?

June 15, 2016Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, Oil, OpinionTrevor Larkum

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. But the oil industry will prove a slippery target for ambitious tech disrupters

In the slick, disruptive world of 21st century business, where we are frequently told change is the only constant, the oil majors are starting to look like they belong in a museum. Indeed, like the crude tehy extract from the ground, there is something Jurassic about their staggering size and great antiquity. Shell, BP, Exxon – these giants have bestrode the industrial landscape for up to a century, seemingly invulnerable to the dramatic turns in technology or the cyclical downturns that occasionally starve them of profits.

We are in one such downturn now – and it’s a bad one – yet still the oil majors dominate lists of the world’s biggest companies, challenged only by the tech giants. If Saudi Aramco floats, as appears likely in a few years’ time, it could be two or three times bigger than Apple.

But can they really be free from the law of business atrophy, that success breeds complacency, which makes it vulnerable to dreaded but much-needed disruptive innovation? Indeed, the oil majors perfectly fit the traditional archetype of a company prone to disruption – vast, ancient and incredibly slow to move.

It’s no secret where the threat will come from. Electric cars threaten the lifeblood of the oil industry, the world’s reliance on petrol and diesel. According to data from Statistica, road transportation accounted for 43% of oil consumption. Though electric cars would still need charging, oil has also lost its place in electricity generation, with only 4.4% of the world’s wattage coming from the black stuff in 2013.

This isn’t just a pipe dream, either. The car giants are without exception investing heavily in electric vehicles, themselves trying to avoid disruption from Tesla. With favourable tax arrangements for clean cars and an ever expanding network of charging points, electric cars will only become more commonplace.

Parliamentary group warns that global fossil fuels could peak in less than 10 years

June 14, 2016Economy, Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and Comment, Peak Oil, Prepping and CollapseTrevor Larkum

British MPs launch landmark report on impending environmental ‘limits’ to economic growth

Severe Flooding, Against a Background of Wind Turbines: November 2012, Tyringham, Bucks. (Image: T. Larkum) — Severe Flooding, Against a Background of Wind Turbines (Image: T. Larkum)

A report commissioned on behalf of a cross-party group of British MPs authored by a former UK government advisor, the first of its kind, says that industrial civilisation is currently on track to experience “an eventual collapse of production and living standards” in the next few decades if business-as-usual continues.

The report published by the new All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Limits to Growth, which launched in the House of Commons on Tuesday evening, reviews the scientific merits of a controversial 1972 model by a team of MIT scientists, which forecasted a possible collapse of civilisation due to resource depletion.

The report launch at the House of Commons was addressed by Anders Wijkman, co-chair of the Club of Rome, which originally commissioned the MIT study.

At the time, the MIT team’s findings had been widely criticised in the media for being alarmist. To this day, it is often believed that the ‘limits to growth’ forecasts were dramatically wrong.

But the new report by the APPG on Limits to Growth, whose members consist of Conservative, Labour, Green and Scottish National Party members of parliament, reviews the scientific literature and finds that the original model remains surprisingly robust.

Authored by Professor Tim Jackson of the University of Surrey, who was Economics Commissioner on the UK government’s Sustainable Development Commission, and former Carbon Brief policy analyst Robin Webster, the report concludes that:

“There is unsettling evidence that society is tracking the ‘standard run’ of the original study — which leads ultimately to collapse. Detailed and recent analyses suggest that production peaks for some key resources may only be decades away.”

Mercedes-Benz Starts Delivery Home Energy Storage To Private Individuals

June 11, 2016Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, Energy Storage, Mercedes, News, Reviews and CommentTrevor Larkum

Tesla Motors isn’t the only game in town when it comes to re-branding automotive fame into the energy storage business.

Mercedes-Benz energy storage units for private homes

Daimler has also announced the start of deliveries for its home energy storage systems produced under the Mercedes-Benz brand by subsidiary Deutsche ACCUMOTIVE.

Initially, Daimler entered into the ESS for business and utility companies; today, private homes is the next logical step in leveraging its advantage from developing battery packs for cars.

In case of Daimler, a ‘single block’ stores 2.5 kWh, and up to eight units and be connected for a total of 20 kWh.

Sales through a nationwide network of sales partners, and partner companies, has begun in Germany and will soon be expanded internationally.

Harald Kröger, Head of Development Electrics/ Electronics and E-Drive Mercedes-Benz Cars said that there is

“tremendous interest in our energy storage units and we have already received numerous orders”.

Most of the private homes customers intends to have ESS with photovoltaic system.

‘Dieselgate’ heralds the age of the electric car

June 9, 2016Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and Comment, Pollution, SalesTrevor Larkum

Every smog cloud has its silver lining. Volkswagen is still on the hook for installing “cheat devices” – software that made its cars appear cleaner than they were – but it’s now emerged that it’s not the only one to play dirty. To one degree or another, it seems a number of car brands have been playing fast and loose with the rules.

Mitsubishi Motors president Tetsuro Aikawa is in the firing line

The car industry won’t be able to forget last week fast enough. We saw the bosses at Japanese car firm Mitsubishi hang their heads in shame. Evidence that they had falsified fuel economy data was uncovered in raid on their factory in Okazaki, central Japan. The government has given them until tomorrow to explain themselves.

Closer to home, French car maker Peugeot Citroen was on the receiving end of an unexpected visit from the authorities. It claims it’s done nothing wrong, echoing Renault which was raided in January.

Also last week, 37 car models in Britain and 56 in Germany were found to exceed EU standards on air quality and pollution when tested.

And at the weekend, the Germans were pointing accusing figures at the Italians after their tests suggested “some Fiat vehicles showed irregular diesel exhaust pollution”, Reuters reported. The Italians have yet to respond.

That’s a lot horn-blowing in the space of just a few days. So what on earth is going on?

Britain’s property market is on the cusp of a crash as household finances reach breaking point

June 8, 2016Economy, Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and Comment, Prepping and CollapseTrevor Larkum

Britain’s property prices are skyrocketing but household earnings and savings can’t keep up.

Couple this with the amount of debt Britons are taking on and it looks like the UK’s property market is heading for a crash.

Why? — Because getting a mortgage is possibly the most debt you’ll take on in one go and rates can’t stay low forever. Eventually they’ll rise and so will monthly payments.

If household wages fail to keep pace as payments rise, they’ll be stretched further and further.

The average price to buy a house in Britain now stands at £291,504, according to the Office for National Statistics. Meanwhile, the average London property price is at a huge £551,00o.

Analysts say that the fundamental supply and demand balanced is so skewed that the only direction houses will go is up.

Research from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, estate agent Savills, the Council of Mortgage Lenders, and bank analysts has said prices will continue to rise over the next five years. Even a study published by Santander showed average house prices across the country will more than double to around £500,000 over the next 15 years.

Technically, this should be correct. There is way too many people looking to buy a home and way too little to go around.

But there are three key charts from the latest note from Citi FX’s strategy note entitled “UK’s increasing dependence and increasing vulnerability” which demonstrate how household finances can be considered being at breaking point.

And if rates do rise soon then more people will fall behind with payments which will trigger a real-estate fire sale and increasing defaults.

Unprecedented global warming as 2016 approaches 1.5 °C mark

June 6, 2016Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and CommentTrevor Larkum

Global surface temperatures could get close to the 1.5 °C-above-preindustrial limit before the Paris climate agreement even comes into effect.

That’s alarming news, considering that the deal aspires to limit global warming to no more than this.

Last week Gavin Schmidt, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, estimated that the average global temperature in 2016 could range from about 1.1 °C above preindustrial to only slightly below 1.5 °C, based on GISS’s temperature record and its definition of pre-industrial (other records and definitions vary).

Schmidt’s rough estimate, which he posted on Twitter, is based on the extraordinary and unprecedented warming over the past 12 months, during which time global surface temperatures have shot past the 1 °C above pre-industrial level. March is the eleventh month in a row to set a record for being the warmest that a specific month has ever been.

Whether or not the calendar year 2016 comes in closer to the top or bottom of Schmidt’s estimate depends on what happens next. The expectation is that the current El Niño will give way to La Niña later this year, and La Niña has a cooling effect. So it depends how long El Niño lingers on.

2017 will be cooler than 2016 if La Niña conditions prevail, but 2016 may not remain the warmest year on record for long (it is already more than 99 per cent certain it will be the warmest, Schmidt calculates).

Some reports have suggested the planet has already approached or even briefly broken the 1.5 °C-above-preindustrial mark, based on the record monthly temperatures for February and March, but these claims are based on a misunderstanding.

The planet overall is around 3 °C cooler during the northern hemisphere winter than during its summer. So even though February was 1.35 °C warmer than the 1951 to 1980 average for February according to the NASA GISS record, the planet was still cooler overall in February than it was during the previous July.

If the northern summer months are as anomalously warm as February, the planet will temporarily rise 1.5 °C above pre-industrial for a month or two. But it is the average annual temperature rather than the monthly temperature that really counts.

The UK Met Office’s forecast for 2016 is more conservative, at between 1 and 1.2 °C above pre-industrial, but this forecast was made back in December, before the record warming for the months of January, February and March.

Source: New Scientist

Study: humans have caused all the global warming since 1950

June 5, 2016Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and CommentTrevor Larkum

Global warming attribution studies consistently find humans are responsible for all global warming over the past six decades.

A new study published in Climate Dynamics has found that humans are responsible for virtually all of the observed global warming since the mid-20th century. It’s not a novel result – in fact, most global warming attribution studies have arrived at the same general result – but this study uses a new approach.

Studies attempting to figure out the global warming contributions of various human and natural sources usually use a statistical approach known as ‘linear regression’. This approach assumes we know the pattern of warming that each source (forcing) will cause, but we don’t know how big the resulting warming will be. For example, we know that greenhouse gases cause more warming over land than water, the most in the Arctic, and more warming in response to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

As an example of this approach, this animated graphic shows what happens when a 2011 study by Foster & Rahmstorf removed the known natural influences from the observed global surface temperature record, leaving behind the human-caused global warming signal.

We have an idea how much warming greenhouse gases will cause, but the range is fairly large (1.5 to 4.5°C in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide). So, the standard approach uses the known patterns from each forcing (greenhouse gases, other human pollutants, the sun, volcanoes, etc.), and without assuming the effectiveness of each, statistically determines how much each pattern has contributed to the observed temperature changes.