Saturday, December 04, 2021

Fossil Fuel’s Downfall Could Be America’s Too

On Dec 3, 20

The United Nations climate change conference (known as COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, was billed as historic. By that measure, the conference didn’t deliver. But it nevertheless marks a moment of transition. Glasgow completed the process begun at the 2015 Paris conference, under which nations progressively raised their national commitments to decarbonization. All the major economies of the world are now notionally committed to reaching net-zero emissions between 2050 and 2070. As a result, Glasgow also marked the moment when climate politics began to focus on the energy transition as a matter of industrial policy. It was symptomatic that a prominent commitment to reduce coal burning was included in the final resolution. It was not enough, but it was a significant first. It was also symptomatic that Britain’s conservative government put the emphasis on businesses. That dismayed many activists, but it was a prompt eagerly seized on by U.S. climate envoy John Kerry.

Kerry finished the conference hailing an impending transformation. Firms that were willing to innovate and gamble on the energy transition would be opening up the “greatest economic opportunity since the Industrial Revolution,” he said. In a Financial Times op-ed published in November, Kerry added: “Like the proverbial cavalry, the first movers [in business] are coming. … Companies should seize this opportunity by propelling the shift—rather than being buffeted in its wake.” Meanwhile, in the New York Times, columnist Thomas Friedman chimed in to declare if we are looking to save the world, “we will get there only when Father Profit and risk-taking entrepreneurs produce transformative technologies that enable ordinary people to have extraordinary impacts on our climate without sacrificing much—by just being good consumers of these new technologies. In short: we need a few more Greta Thunbergs and a lot more Elon Musks.”

One can see this vision’s attraction for the likes of Kerry and Friedman. Rather than the subject of contentious politics, climate policy has become a business opportunity. But is this realistic? There is certainly compelling evidence to believe powerful economic and technological imperatives are beginning to drive the energy transition. But it would be naive to imagine this means the politics is settled. Precisely in the United States, the energy transition threatens to trigger a dysfunctional backlash that could leave the champion of the hydrocarbon age stranded in the 20th century.

Diesel trucks and cars pass windmills on a freeway.

Diesel trucks and cars pass windmills near Banning, California, on Dec. 8, 2009. David McNew/Getty Images

Since the beginning of global climate policy in the 1990s, the United States has been marked by a conflicted position. To explain this, it is easy to point the finger at the Republican Party or former U.S. President Donald Trump’s crude climate denials. But it goes far deeper than that. From the beginning, America’s huge energy consumption made it a target for those demanding immediate action to halt the climate crisis.

It was little wonder Congress resisted any climate agreement that did not enroll the rest of the world on equal footing—and thus rejected the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Whatever the merits of climate justice arguments, they cut little ice with defenders of the American way of life. Meanwhile, the United States’ energy producers stand firm as a recalcitrant defensive lobby. U.S. oil interests were among the leading sponsors of denial. Since the 1980 Carter Doctrine, U.S. geopolitical power has focused on securing control of the Persian Gulf. It was not for nothing that in the early days of climate policy, the United States featured as the great Satan.

Given this underlying balance of interests, the GOP’s position of denial at least has the merit of consistency. Given the United States’ existential entanglement with fossil fuels, it is easier to strike a patriotic pose if you assume away the climate crisis or trust that technology will deliver the solution by itself. It is Democrats who find themselves in a conflicted position, seeking to square the realities of America’s political economy with the climate threat’s urgency.

The Obama administration midwifed the Paris Agreement while, at the same time, permitting the increased export of U.S. oil and gas. Trump was the first U.S. president to actively deny the reality of the climate problem. For him, all that counted was the country’s “energy dominance” be secured by the export of U.S. liquified natural gas—or “molecules of U.S. freedom.” With U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration, cognitive dissonance returned. Biden supports climate leadership and made a constructive contribution to the Glasgow negotiations while licensing oil and gas development and goading OPEC into increasing its production.

One could simply denounce the hypocrisy, but that misses the point. The root of the incoherence lies in political economy: the United States’ dual role as a huge consumer and producer of fossil fuels as well as the policeman of the world’s oil and gas supplies. It is this that gives real significance to Kerry’s vision of change sketched in Glasgow’s wake. If we take Kerry at face value, we may be about to witness the curtain coming down on America’s fossil fuel century, less as a result of political choice than simply the result of technological and industrial transformation.

But it will take more than billionaire Elon Musk and his ilk to concertedly decarbonize the United States. The question of politics cannot be wished away.

An Indian security officer poses for media as he walks over rooftops covered in solar panels at the Solar Photovoltaic Power Plant near Amritsar on May 17, 2016. NARINDER NANU/AFP via Getty Images

A sketch map of the forces shaping the new energy landscape was provided in the weeks prior to COP26 by an ambitious paper in Nature Energy. The multi-author team, led by Jean-Francois Mercure, explored how the development of a variety of technologies and underlying cost conditions in the energy sector might change output, investment, and employment in 43 sectors and 61 regions of economic activity around the globe.

To predict key renewable technologies’ development path, the authors assume they will follow the same pattern of diffusion and adoption exhibited by other major technologies over the last century. This traces an S curve. Technologies begin small before hitting a period of rapid and comprehensive adoption followed by saturation. This is the trajectory followed, for instance, by smart phones since 2008. If we make that assumption, then as far as renewable energy technologies are concerned, we are currently at the slower end of the curve and about to experience takeoff.

“Through a positive feedback of learning-by-doing and diffusion dynamics, solar photovoltaics becomes the lowest-cost energy generation technology by 2025-2030,” the study says. “[Electric vehicles] display a similar type of winner-takes-all phenomenon, although at a later period. Heating technologies evolve as the carbon intensity of households gradually declines.”

For energy consumers, this promises huge windfalls. Given the cost curves and existing policies in place, the Nature Energy authors, like Kerry, see an energy transition as something close to an irresistible force. Their work was completed well before COP26. But, as if to confirm their predictions, one of the more dramatic pieces of news from Glasgow was India’s declaration that it would aim for net-zero by 2070. India did this reluctantly. It has long held the position that due to historic responsibility, rich countries should shoulder the burden. But this climate justice position has been increasingly overshadowed by the force of global economic growth. India itself is now the world’s third largest emitter of carbon dioxide. Although India is heavily dependent on coal for power generation—and though as many as 20 million workers depend on coal for their livelihoods—it is foreseeable that renewables’ plunging costs will create a powerful incentive for India to shift. Furthermore, as in China, the threat of pollution adds powerful impetus. To avoid the worst effects of life-threatening smog, hundreds of millions of people in the Ganges Delta are currently under a form of lockdown.

India follows the European Union, China, Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia, which have all committed to net-zero emissions, to be achieved somewhere between 2050 and 2060. That Eurasian shift creates huge economic and technological momentum. In the early 2000s, interaction between Germany’s renewable energy subsidies and the growth of China’s solar industry demonstrated the potential for unintended synergies. In the decades ahead, similar dynamics could unfold on a far vaster scale.

The transition is not a done deal, of course. Along with its commitment to net-zero at COP26, India also demanded $1 trillion in foreign funding over the next decade. That is only reasonable. India is still poor. Its per capita emissions are a fraction of those in the West. A trillion dollars is a lot of money, but it is well within the range that experts assess would be necessary to fund the country’s energy transition. To supercharge the development of renewable energy infrastructure worldwide, between $2.7 trillion and almost $5 trillion per year are needed. The required amount of net new investment is 2 to 3 percent of India’s global GDP per year. By the standards of historic structural change, that is modest. At least for middle- and higher-income countries, which account for 95 percent of world economic activity and emissions, finance should not be a major obstacle. The giant flow of spending is precisely the honey pot Kerry held…

HYDROCARBON GREENWASHING

Study reveals potential of blue hydrogen to play key role in energy transition

THE KENNEY UCP PLAN

by University of Aberdeen

Study reveals potential of blue hydrogen to play key role in energy transition — Blue hydrogen is produced from natural gas, with the resulting CO2 emissions

The application of modern carbon capture technologies that limit emissions associated with the production of blue hydrogen can play a crucial role in its success as a 'bridging technology' in the energy transition.

Less expensive than carbon-neutral green hydrogen, and therefore better suited to being used at scale in the short term, blue hydrogen is produced from natural gas, with the resulting CO2 emissions captured and stored permanently underground in a process known as carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Recent studies have questioned the value of blue hydrogen in reducing emissions, chiefly because of inefficiencies in the production process causing CO2 to escape.

However, a newly published international study involving researchers from the University of Aberdeen and led by the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland and Heriot-Watt University has identified several key responsible factors in what causes CO2 to escape.

Crucially, the study has also shown that the application of modern carbon capture technologies can play a crucial role in mitigating this risk.

Professor Russell McKenna from the University of Aberdeen's School of Engineering is one of the researchers who have contributed to the study, which has been published in Royal Society of Chemistry's journal Sustainable Energy & Fuels.

He said: "Hydrogen is widely seen as one of the building blocks for a sustainable energy system, and if produced sustainably it represents a highly versatile means of long-term energy storage, with a variety of applications across the economy.

"The ultimate goal is to use green hydrogen, produced from renewable electricity thorough electrolysis, but this is currently prohibitively expensive.

"Blue hydrogen has been identified as a potential bridging technology, until green hydrogen can be scaled up and costs come down, however questions remain over its environmental impact and whether emissions associated with production cancel out any environmental benefit.

"What this study has shown is that the environmental impact of blue hydrogen depends on two key aspects—namely the amount of methane emissions in the natural gas supply chain, for example through gas flaring, and the CO2 capture rate in the plant.

"It identifies that if these parameters are made favorable, for example through the application of technologies that keep methane emissions low and capture rates high, then blue hydrogen can have a favorable environmental impact and offer an attractive bridging technology."'Serious threat' of fugitive emissions with hydrogen plan

More information: Christian Bauer et al, On the climate impacts of blue hydrogen production, Sustainable Energy & Fuels (2021). DOI: 10.1039/D1SE01508G

Provided by University of Aberdeen

Is hydrogen fuel really the clean energy climate change targets need?

Newly published research shows that blue H2 produces “substantial” emissions even with carbon capture.

December 2, 2021 1 By JULIE CAMPBELL

Since COP26, hydrogen news headline s have been hot topics, but according to recently published research, the form most countries are leaning on as their clean energy future actually produces “substantial” emissions.

Blue H2 uses fossil fuels (other than coal) to power its production, followed by CCS.

Despite the positive attention blue hydrogen fuel has been getting from countries that are releasing their H2 strategies, new research shows that it may not be nearly as clean as all the hype suggests. This form of H2 is produced by processes powered by fossil fuels, most commonly natural gas. If the process stopped there, it would be called gray H2. What makes it blue is the carbon capture and storage (CCS) that is meant to keep the greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere.

Blue H2 has been a major focus in the clean energy strategies of countries and regions around the world such as the United States, Canada, the European Union, Australia, and Japan, among others. However, a paper published in the Applied Energy journal suggests that the CCS technology isn’t as good as most of those countries had hoped. The research determined that “substantial” greenhouse gas emissions occur even when efforts are made to capture the carbon dioxide and store it underground before it can be released into the atmosphere.

Blue hydrogen fuel may not offer nearly the emissions reduction offered by green H2.

“Hydrogen made from natural gas leads to more fugitive emissions — methane that is leaked into the environment during the extraction and processing of natural gas — compared to just burning natural gas directly,” said the peer-reviewed paper’s co-author Fiona Beck of the Australian National University. “Including [carbon capture and storage] in the process actually increases fugitive emissions further, as more natural gas is needed to fuel the process.”

Over 100 countries, including the United States committed to a Global Methane Pledge at COP26, the UN climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, which took place earlier this month. The commitment was to slash methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030 when compared to levels recorded in 2020. Methane is an exceptionally potent greenhouse gas, making it an important focus in efforts to reduce the impact of emissions on climate change. For many countries, reaching that goal relies on the use of hydrogen fuel instead of fossil fuels.

Hydrogen fuel made with natural gas may still be highly polluting even with carbon capture and storage.

Though green hydrogen fuel, produced using renewable energy such as wind and solar power, is considered cleaner, it comes with substantial hurdles in its way. This process of splitting water comes with a higher price tag and often requires new electricity generation to be constructed from the ground up instead of using fossil fuel-based power already in place. As a result, it is typically associated with considerably higher prices.

The research examining the emissions from blue H2 follows one published in August by Cornell and Stanford University. They found that blue H2 pollutes 20 percent more greenhouse gas than burning gas or coal for heat. In the new study, researchers from Australian National University compared both the financial cost and the emissions resulting from producing hydrogen fuel using fossil fuels with those made with renewable energy.

Recent studies have been looking into the various technologies employed, commonly assuming that high carbon capture rates are in place. That said, those studies have not assessed the impact of fugitive emissions and lower capture rates on the total emissions released and the costs associated with production, said the researchers.

Green hydrogen fuel may be cheaper than blue within the Australian market.

While producing green hydrogen fuel is associated with higher costs because renewable energy sources such as solar and wind are not yet locally established, that could change, said the researchers. They pointed out that if they invest heavily in clean energy, such as solar that would take advantage of the abundant sunshine in Australia, as well as its powerful winds and vast amounts of land available, the cost of clean H2 could rapidly fall once those power sources are in place.

“Our work highlights that large investment in fossil-fuel-based hydrogen with CCS could be risky, locking in a new fossil fuel industry with significant emissions, and one that is likely to be out-competed by renewable technologies in the future,” said Beck.

About Australian National University

The Australian National University is a public research university that boasts seven teaching and research colleges on top of a number of national institutes and academies.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CCS (plawiuk.blogspot.com)

Renewables Likely Cost Less Than Previously Thought, Study Finds

Paige Bennett

Dec. 02, 2021 01:30PM EST

RENEWABLE ENERGY

A wind energy park near Brandenburg, Germany. Patrick Pleul / picture alliance via Getty Images

As renewable energy technologies scale up, their cost can be hard to estimate. A new report from the University of Oxford’s Institute of New Economic Thinking notes that the cost of renewable energies may be less than previously thought.

According to the study, predicted costs for renewables have likely been overestimated, as evidenced by the true costs of these energies, such as solar power, falling short of early pricing model predictions again and again.

The World Economic Forum explains that renewable price forecasts didn’t account for infrastructure cost improvements. For example, early pricing models estimated that solar power prices would fall about 6% per year from 2010 to 2020. In reality, costs dropped 15% each year.

This is important, because the initial investments of renewable energies are often a sticking point for making the switch from fossil fuels. But as the new report shows, renewable energy prices aren’t as high as anticipated. As the technology improves and scales up, the prices will continue to drop, too.

From 2010 to 2019, solar electricity prices decreased from $378 per MWh to $68 per MWh. In the same time frame, onshore wind costs decreased by 40%, and offshore wind costs decreased by 29%. For coal, the most widely used source of electricity globally, prices fell from $111 to $109 during this time.

“More than half of the renewable capacity added in 2019 achieved lower electricity costs than new coal,” the International Renewable Energy Agency said in a separate report. “New solar and wind projects are undercutting the cheapest of existing coal-fired plants.”

The INET report authors note that rapid expansion of renewables is key to the best cost-savings. Through their research methods, they found that a fast transition to renewable energy could lead to a net savings of trillions of dollars compared to fossil fuels. If renewable energy continues to expand at the current rates for the next 10 years, the authors predict we could reach a near-net-zero-emissions energy system in 25 years.

“In response to our opening question, ‘Is there a path forward that can get us there cheaply and quickly?’ our answer is an emphatic ‘Yes!’” the study says. “The key is to maintain the current high growth rates of rapidly progressing clean energy technologies for the next decade. This is required to build up the industrial capabilities and technical know-how necessary to produce, install and operate these technologies at scale as fast as possible so that we can profit from the resulting cost reductions sooner rather than later.”

Norfolk couple retires, embraces radically sustainable living in self-built $70,000 earthship

LONG READ

By Jeff Tribe Special to The Spectator
Thu., Dec. 2, 2021

Embracing radically sustainable living allowed Craig and Connie Cook to sail into early retirement aboard an earthship, a type of home that offers environmental benefits only paralleled by the savings offered to its residents’ bottom lines.

“We would still be working,” Craig said. “We left at 55 because we have no bills.”

A lack of heating, electrical and water bills for their home, coupled with a lack of ongoing construction and maintenance costs, allowed the Cooks to build what they envision as their forever home for $70,000, and minimize monthly expenditures in the process.

But taking the earthship from the concept of a passive solar house designed for New Mexico by a visionary American architect, to a 100-acre farm in Norfolk County had its fair share of challenges.

Now, the Cooks are using their success in adaptation to help others looking to chart a similar course.

Credit: Video by Jeff Tribe, Special to the Hamilton Spectator

WHAT’S AN EARTHSHIP?

In broad terms, earthships are homes constructed with recycled materials around the capacity to collect, store and recycle their own water, heat themselves, generate their own power, produce food, and handle their own waste.

“And make people happy,” Connie smiled.

Recycled tires pounded full of earth act as construction blocks, finished with a coat of parge mortar and other framing options, under a beam-supported roof. Perpendicularly aligned to the winter solstice with windows angled at 60 degrees to provide maximum sunlight potential during the fewest hours of daylight, heating is achieved via solar absorption into and gradual release from interior thermal mass.

Ken Stock and Paula Martin (centre, left) have laid the foundation for their 2,000-square-foot earthship on their 13-acre Oakland-area farm, inspired and supported by pioneers Craig and Connie Cook (centre, right) who live in their own near Clear Creek.JEFF TRIBE

Temperature consistency is enhanced through insulation, including berming at the structure’s sides and rear. Convection-based air circulation is channeled through a centralized vertical cooling chimney, also adding a measure of temperature control.

The Cooks’ roughly one kilowatt per day electricity requirement is generated through a 7.5-kilowatt solar panel system, powering a high-efficiency fridge and freezer, or for operating their flat-screen TV and computer.

Meals are prepared on a combination wood-propane stove and oven, and while they prefer a clothesline, a propane dryer stands by if required.

Rainwater is captured from the roof, up to a year’s supply stored in a subterranean cistern and filtered for drinking and household use. Grey water recycled through an in-house planter, along with the use of a composting toilet, limits the couple’s total daily household usage to six gallons, a fraction of the Ontario average.

Leading Canadian environmentalists Craig (left) and Connie Cook sailed into early retirement aboard an environmentally-friendly earthship.JEFF TRIBE

WHY AN EARTHSHIP?

The Cooks’ environmentally sustainable journey began over a cup of coffee on their previous Cornell-area property’s porch with a conversation around the feasibility of harnessing the wind’s power. Inspired by Scotsman Hugh Piggott’s experience designing and building homemade wind turbines, the Cooks’ construction of their own led to their website name (windchasers.ca, which documents their journey) and hosting workshops for like-minded individuals.

Against a backdrop of accelerating climate change and growing passion for environmental activism, they sought out a rural property suited for an evolving residential vision embracing solar power for production consistency and comparative ease of installation and maintenance.

Initially, they considered a straw-bale house, but opted for the elevated environmental efficacy of an earthship — along with the potential to do a majority of the work themselves. The Cooks purchased a 100-acre farm near Clear Creek, Norfolk County, late in 2005, receiving building permits for the region’s first earthship in November 2008.

Part of the three-year delay was official unfamiliarity. Earthships are a new concept, Craig concedes. Pushing through certification was a matter of patience, perseverance and, crucially, appropriate architectural and engineering documentation, a process requiring between $8,000 and $10,000 — “and time.”

Subsequent earthship permitting and construction in Norfolk just a kilometre north of the Cooks by someone else went far more smoothly based on their groundbreaking efforts.

“‘It’s just like the Cooks’ house? ... go ahead,’” Craig paraphrased.

Paula Martin and partner Ken Stock (left) are embarking on their own earthship construction journey, supported by environmentalists Craig and Connie Cook (right, rear).JEFF TRIBE

He and Connie began laying out their earthship in 2009, working sporadically, initially on alternate weekends. If the couple has one regret it was the long-distance nature of their earlier construction relationship, a part-time approach helping stretch move-in to pre-Christmas 2012.

There is also unavoidable physical time and work required in construction, beginning with the basis of pounding 1,200 tires full of earth. Craig jokes their 2,800-square-foot home is worth $1 million — $70,000 in materials and $930,000 in he and Connie’s hands-on labour.

“It’s a lot of work,” says Craig. “And a lot of things you’ve never done before.”

Practically speaking, earthship construction represents manual labour that can take years, requiring an extended personal commitment.

And while an earthship may not be for everybody, it is an option open to anybody with the appropriate will, desire and adequate support.

HELPING OTHERS

“There’s a lot of people who want to live that way, but who don’t want to go through the process,” Ken Stock said.

Paula Martin (left) and Ken Stock's view to an environmentally-friendly future passes through the recycled tires which, pounded full of earth, will become primary construction elements in their Brant County-based earthship. JEFF TRIBE

Stock and partner Paula Martin have accepted physical and inspirational support from the Cooks to start on their own earthship journey.

Stock was introduced via a nephew’s connection to wind turbine workshops.

“That led to earthships.”

Courage to “be different, be themselves” led Stock and Martin away from the security of traditional careers to what Stock describes as a “peasant farmer” lifestyle on a 13-acre Oakland-area property in Brant County.

“We raise food and crops for ourselves and sell the excess,” explained Stock, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at birth.

They have persevered through their own pioneering building permit journey with the County of Brant, prepared for a venture Martin is “excited, sometimes a little anxious” to embark upon.

Self-described 'peasant farmers' Paula Martin (left) and Ken Stock were introduced to the earthship concept via wind turbine workshops hosted by Craig and Connie Cook.

JEFF TRIBE

“I thought (Stock) was crazy,” admitted Martin, ultimately embracing their own 2,000-square-foot earthship following a site visit to the Cooks’ unique living space. “The longer we thought about it, the more sense it made.”

Earthship construction is possible given their complementary abilities, projected help from family and friends, and, perhaps most importantly, the Cooks’ presence as mentors, guides, a font of information “and encouragement,” without which they would not have seriously considered it, credits Stock.

“We can do it,” Martin concluded.

EARTHSHIP FOR THE EARTH

The fiscal advantages of the Cooks’ earthship are easily quantifiable, but its esthetic contributions to physical and mental quality of life should not be underestimated.

Stepping inside an architecturally appealing structure brings a sense of open, naturally lit airiness, enhanced by clear-coated tongue-and-groove pine trim.

Connie’s green thumb and its environmental fertility are underlined by a diverse range of flora, including bananas ripening in the planter.

Bottle-highlighted bathroom and bedroom walls and Spanish-inspired southwestern design elements, including bathroom fixtures and faux adobe, pay homage to the New Mexico origins of earthships, while coloured, contoured concrete flooring is both attractive and functional thermal mass.

Joining the Cooks at their rustic live log dining table for a cup of coffee they have grown, dried, ground and brewed on-site brings some small taste of the environmentally friendly calm that has descended upon their previously hectic lives.

Canadian environmentalists Craig and Connie Cook (left) are supporting Ken Stock and Paula Martin's construction of an earthship on their Brant County farm.

JEFF TRIBE

“We sit there and just look at the world,” Connie smiled.

That world view includes consideration that, in a climate emergency, more people could or even should be embracing environmentally friendly design and construction — choices that don’t preclude “normal” life.

“This just proves people can build houses a lot better than they are right now,” says Craig.

FROM NEW MEXICO TO SOUTHERN ONTARIO

American architect Michael Reynolds pioneered the earthship for the deserts of New Mexico. And what he originally designed for that climate isn’t the same as what an earthship needs in Norfolk County.

One crucial dividend from the Cooks’ measured approach to their earthship journey was the “Canadianization” of Reynolds’ original design criteria; elementary modifications reflecting climactic disparities between the founder’s New Mexico home and southern Ontario.

Reynolds recognized earthships would need geographical adaptation, says Craig Cook, which is what he and his wife Connie have done.

“Craig and Connie have done a lot to make things work for here,” said Ken Stock, who is building an earthship with his partner under the tutelage of the Cooks.

Latitude is the most obvious divide between the two locations, an equation including both colder temperatures and less hours of winter sunlight.

In response, the Cooks added thermal mass to their earthship’s interior for additional solar absorption, striving to retain this advantage through upgraded insulation. Because of three-sided berming and the requirement for windows in the front, the effort is concentrated in the second-floor attic.

It’s not more solar capacity overall, Craig explains, “it’s just more in one place.”

Their approach translates into a one-degree temperature swing in October between evening and mornings — 21 C in the day, 20 C first thing in the morning — and in the winter, a two-degree swing.

“We’re striving for a consistent temperature, and we’re getting really close to it,” says Craig.

Their earthship requires no furnace for heat and will sustain itself without assistance, but does feature a small wood stove, traditionally lit by choice on Dec. 25 and a couple of other occasions annually.

“It’s Christmas,” Craig explained. “We light it because we want to.”

The third major modification is increased ventilation responding to increased humidity or moisture in the air, compared to New Mexico’s arid climes.

“You need to keep the air moving,” says Craig, whose design incorporates additional windows with the capacity to open and close.

CLIMATE CHANGE

'It's quite amazing': Eurasian tree sparrow draws crowds to small Quebec town far away from its natural habitat

Luca Caruso-Moro

CTVNewsMontreal.ca

Digital Reporter
Published Thursday, December 2, 2021

Eurasian sparrow spotted near Montreal

The Eurasian tree sparrow is seen perched on a bird feeder in Saint-Barthélemy, Que. (Photo courtesy of Lori Bellerdine).

MONTREAL -- People walking by might not even notice Quebec’s newest feathered visitor.

It’s not as agile as Montreal’s swift scissor-tailed flycatcher, as colourful as Laval’s magnificent mandarin duck, or nearly as stoic as Granby’s flamboyant flamingo. If you see it, you might even think you’ve seen it before.

It takes a trained eye to spot the Eurasian tree sparrow, which has taken the spotlight among Quebec’s birding community in recent days after finding itself across an ocean from its natural habitat.

Birders have raced to its new digs in a residential backyard in Saint-Barthélemy, in Quebec's Lanaudière region, to catch a glimpse of the bird -- which looks quite similar to a common house sparrow.

“It is hard to tell at first,” said Montreal bird watcher and photographer Lori Bellerdine. “But after a while, you get to recognize his black markings on his cheeks, so it’s quite amazing.”

The black, brown, and white bird is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Its wingspan can stretch to about 20 centimetres, or for non-ornithologists, about the length of a banana.

Bellerdine said she first got word about the sparrow’s arrival from an online forum. She had already been out on a mission to snap pictures of snowy owls, but took a detour after she saw a group of photographers crowded near a neighbourhood home.

When she joined them, she said it was tough to get a good look at the bird, which was hidden among the bushes near an exceptionally welcoming family’s home. She was offered coffee.

“We all got to enjoy it together,” said Bellerdine, speaking of the gaggle of photographers.

“I'm not sure why he's here,” speaking of the bird. “But he’s very popular.”

A crowd of bird watchers gathers to snap a picture of the Eurasian tree sparrow, which was spotted in Saint-Barthélemy, Que. (Photo courtesy of Lori Bellerdine)

A LONG WAY FROM HOME

Unsurprisingly, Eurasian tree sparrows are native to Eurasia, and they're quite common across the region.

While it’s possible this one caught an air current from Europe and flew across the Atlantic, or escaped from someone’s private bird collection, it could’ve also arrived from a smaller colony near St. Louis, Mo.

That particular group first arrived in the U.S. in late April of 1870. A flock of 12 Eurasian tree sparrows were shipped from Germany in order to provide a familiar bird species to newly-landed immigrants.

From there, the birds expanded to northeastern Missouri, west-central Illinois, and southeastern Iowa.

While the species covers a lot of territory around the world, it’s unusual to find them in new places.

“This is a species which is very sedentary, they don't move very much. They're not migratory,” said Kyle Elliott, a McGill University ornithologist. “It’s a really rare sighting.”

Eurasian tree sparrows don’t like cities, unlike their house sparrow cousins, and they usually stick together in groups.

Elliot says this one is probably a vagrant — an outlaw — which is a seriously lonely existence for a sparrow.

“In most cases, vagrants don’t last very long, so it’ll likely move on somewhere else and keep searching to find other members of its flock.”

“It must be a stressful event to be so far away and wondering where its mates are,” said Elliott. “Just going to sleep every night by itself must be a lonely event. Especially on a colder Montreal night.”

Even if the bird doesn’t find its way home, there is still hope, Elliott said.

Since Eurasian sparrows are so closely related to house sparrows, it’s possible it could find a new flock here, in its new home; not exactly like living with brothers and sisters, but family, nonetheless.

Bellerdine said she’s seen it hopping around the same area when she returned over several days to snap more pictures.

It was spending time with other sparrows, she said, and they seemed to be getting along just fine.

A small group of sparrows is seen sitting in a tree in Saint-Barthélemy, Que.

(Photo courtesy of Lori Bellerdine)

WHAT’S WITH ALL THESE BIRDS?

Quebec has had its fair share of rare bird sightings in recent months, with the scissor-tailed flycatcher making national headlines after it was spotted near the Dorval Technoparc in November.

Bellerdine said all these birds are keeping her busy.

“There are so many rare birds coming our way,” she said, adding that she’s never seen so many far-away birds arrive “at this frequency.”

Elliott said there are a couple of ways to explain the phenomenon.

First, “birding as a pastime has just exploded during the pandemic,” he said.

“We can't do anything else. We can't go travel, we can't interact with other people, but we can go out and look for birds,” he said. “There have been a ton of people out searching for birds, and so they’re more likely to encounter a vagrant,” like the sparrow in Saint-Barthélemy.

Another reason, unfortunately, is climate change, according to Elliot.

“We hear an awful lot about how the world is changing at the moment,” he said. There have been “floods and fires out west … and then in northern Quebec this year, [we’ve had] record breaking temperatures.”

“With all these changes, it's not surprising that some of these birds are getting a little bit disoriented,” he said.

“They really rely on air currents to be able to migrate and move around. Without those air currents, they're going to have trouble trying to figure out where to go.”

KAPITAL FLIGHT

Hong Kong's departing residents withdrew $334 mln in pension funds in Q3
Reuters

A Star Ferry boat crosses Victoria Harbour in front of a skyline of buildings in Hong Kong, China June 29, 2020. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu//File Photo

HONG KONG, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Hong Kong residents leaving the city for good withdrew a total of HK$2.604 billion ($334 million) from their Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) pension accounts in the third quarter of 2021, up 52.8% from a year earlier, government data showed.

A total of 9,300 claims were made during the third quarter, compared with 8,100 claims taking out HK$1.704 billion during the same period in 2020, data from the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority (MPFA) released on Thursday showed.

The increase in withdrawals is in line with the "continuous inflow of contributions and accumulated investment returns overall," said an MPFA spokesperson.

"Claimants may not be emigrants," the spokesperson also said, adding they could include non-local employees leaving the city at the end of job contracts.

The MPFA also said multiple claims are sometimes made by a single person.

China imposed national security legislation in Hong Kong on June 30 last year, making anything Beijing regards as subversion, secession, terrorism or colluding with foreign forces punishable by up to life in prison.

As China imposed the sweeping law, many Hong Kong citizens and residents left and took tens of billions of dollars out of the Asian financial hub. read more

In the second quarter of this year, HK$2.095 billion was taken out of MPF accounts on 8,000 claims, up from HK$1.931 billion on 7,700 claims in the first quarter.

Permanent departure claims increased to 33,600 in the 12 months to end-September, from 30,100 claims during the corresponding period to end-September 2020.

($1 = 7.7886 Hong Kong dollars)

Climate Experts Say Vacuuming CO2 From the Sky is a Costly Boondoggle. The U.S. Government Just Funded It Anyway

Alejandro de la Garza

TIME
Thu., December 2, 2021

Carbon Engineering's pilot plant in in Squamish, British Columbia, is designed to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere. Credit - Courtesy Carbon Engineering Ltd.

Steve Oldham has had a pretty good past few weeks. He runs a company called Carbon Engineering, which plans to build huge machines to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it underground. And last month, a pair of announcements from the U.S. government may have given his industry the public sector stimulus it’s been awaiting for years.

“‘Awakening’ is a good word,” says Oldham, characterizing the moment. “This is the first time they’re saying ‘the United States needs to do carbon removal on a large scale.’”

On Nov. 5, the U.S. Department of Energy threw its weight behind Oldham’s tiny sector, announcing a new “Earthshot” initiative to find ways to lower the cost of pulling carbon out of the atmosphere. Ten days later, President Biden signed the country’s new $1 trillion infrastructure bill into law, a small portion of which ($3.5 billion) will go towards building four direct-air capture facilities around the country. But for the fledgling direct-air carbon capture sector, that little slice of federal money could be a big boost.

“We’re going from tens of millions of dollars in R&D and earlier stage funding…to there being $3.5 billion,” says Noah Deich, president of Carbon180, a nonprofit that advocates for carbon removal as a method of addressing climate change. “That’s just a huge change in the conversation, and I think will have a really big impact in the real world.”

Most carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies in use and development grab carbon produced by industrial sources like power plants before it enters the atmosphere. These CCS approaches (which also will get funding through Biden’s infrastructure bill) have a much longer track record than direct-air capture, which has long been seen by many experts as an ambitious idea but unlikely to scale to the point where it’d be worth the investment.

The direct-air capture hubs funded by the infrastructure bill would each be able to pull a million tons of CO2 out of the air every year, though the details of who will be building those hubs isn’t clear yet. Those projects will be similar to the scale of privately funded facilities planned by Carbon Engineering in the coming years. To make a dent in climate change, the world would have to be sequestering thousands of times more carbon dioxide than those projects will annually. But for Carbon Engineering, Oldham says the government funding is something of a confirmation that they’re on the right track. “It’s really crystalized for people at the company that what we’re doing here is very significant,” says Oldham. “Getting validation for that is huge.”

An artist rendering of Carbon Engineering's planned direct-air capture plant in Texas, scheduled to begin operating in 2024.Courtesy of Carbon Engineering Ltd.

Not everyone in the climate community is glad to see the government sink public funds into direct-air carbon capture projects. JL Andrepont, a policy analyst at 350.org, says those policies amount to a giveaway to the fossil-fuel industry, which is simply looking for PR that will justify continuing to burn oil, coal and natural gas. The largest current use of captured CO2 is in that industry, with facilities injecting compressed gas into oil wells as a method of extracting more petroleum. “To say that we’re extremely disappointed with the [federal] funds put out for carbon capture would be an understatement,” says Andrepont. “It’s essentially a scam.”

Jake Higdon, manager for U.S. climate policy at the Environmental Defense Fund, notes that the world will likely need to find a way to pull billions of tons of carbon out of the atmosphere in the next 30 years. Direct-air capture is one way to do that; biomass (for instance, planting trees) could be another. “What we don’t know is which approaches are likely to be the most promising,” says Higdon. He is certain, however, that we should not support carbon removal projects that use captured CO2 to help produce more oil.

Oldham, whose company plans to use captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery at a facility in Texas’s Permian Basin, slated to open in 2024, says that oil will be essentially carbon negative, as the facility will capture and store more CO2 than is contained in the oil it extracts (Oil companies Chevron and Occidental Petroleum are substantial investors in Carbon Engineering). But Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and Director of Stanford University’s Atmosphere/Energy program, doesn’t think that Oldham’s climate-friendly oil scenario is possible. “They just make up numbers,” he says. “They’re not atmospheric scientists trying to do this. They’re just people trying to make money, and they’re giving you nonsense.”

Diech of Carbon180 thinks the U.S. should “focus” on direct-air carbon capture that doesn’t involve enhanced oil recovery (one such plant opened in Iceland this year). And experts stress that direct-air carbon capture is by no means going to give humanity a longer runway to phase out fossil fuels—if we want to have a livable climate in the next century. “There may be a place for some level of carbon capture [and] storage in a 1.5°C future,” says Juliette Rooney-Varga, a professor of environmental science at University of Massachusetts, Lowell and director of the school’s Climate Change Initiative. “But there’s so much more that we need to do first.”

Jacobson and other experts say public funds are much more effectively spent expanding clean energy technologies, like wind and solar, rather than building direct-air CCS systems. The logic is that building a wind plant to replace a coal power station, for instance, would negate more net emissions than building that same renewable power alongside carbon capture equipment to try and cancel out emissions retroactively. If those direct-air carbon capture plants are powered by fossil fuels, Jacobson argues, the “total social cost” from the facilities, like air pollution from burning natural gas to run them, means it’s better to have not bothered building them at all.

Deich objects to the characterization that direct-air carbon capture funding would come at the expense of other emissions reduction efforts. “It’s not a fixed pie,” Deich says. “If it were, I would…advocate to spend money deploying the clean energy piece. But it’s not.”

Jacobson calls that characterization “a lie.” “That’s money that’s not going to building new wind farms, solar farms, batteries, electric cars, [and improving] energy efficiency of buildings,” he says. “All these things that are far more efficient than direct-air capture.”

There is funding for some of those points in the infrastructure law, though even those measures account for only a small down payment on the huge investments that will be needed. The law allocates $7.5 billion for EV charging stations, $65 billion in upgrading grids, and $7.5 billion for electric and low-emission buses and ferries. A national EV charging network is likely to cost close to $50 billion, the price tag of a clean grid could be a massive $4.5 trillion and the cost of electrifying even half of the nation’s school buses is $25 billion. A larger set of climate measures is planned in Democrats’ budget reconciliation legislation, which has not yet been passed.

For better or for worse, disagreements over setting aside funding for direct-air CCS may have become moot when President Joe Biden signed the infrastructure bill into law on Nov. 15—at least as far as this legislative cycle goes. At the very least, the results of that funding may give policymakers and citizens more information about the prospects of carbon removal tech going forward. Higdon, of the Environmental Defense Fund, notes that direct-air carbon capture technology has only been used in relatively small-scale demonstrations up to this point. But now with federal money—and the expectation to produce big results that comes with it—those potential solutions for sifting CO2 out of the skies may have reached a moment of truth. “It’s seen as a big test of the technology moving forward,” Higdon says. “We need to be able to show we can do this at large scale.”

New Canadian Facility to Produce Renewable Fuel From Air

Tiffany Duong

Dec. 03, 2021 11:30AM EST

Carbon Engineering's pilot plant in British Columbia. Carbon Engineering

In British Columbia, Canadian clean energy company Huron Clean Energy and its partner Carbon Engineering Ltd. have plans to create a revolutionary fuel for cars, airplanes and ships.

Recently, they’ve begun engineering on a game-changing, large-scale commercial facility in Canada that will produce this usable fuel out of air.

Powered by clean hydroelectricity, the plant will use Carbon Engineering’s breakthrough Direct Air Capture and AIR TO FUELS™ technologies to electrolyze water, splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen, reported CTV News. The hydrogen will then be combined carbon dioxide sequestered from the air to produce hydrocarbons that can be used in place of traditional petroleum-based fuels, the news report explained.

This is “clean fuel,” Huron Clean Energy notes on their website.

Additionally, according to Carbon Engineering, their signature carbon sequestration technology works at the “megaton-scale” to remove carbon dioxide from the air.

“Unlike capturing emissions from industrial flue stacks, our carbon removal technology captures carbon dioxide (CO2) – the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change – directly out of the air around us,” the company website emphasizes. “This can help counteract today’s unavoidable CO2 emissions, and remove the large quantities of CO2 emitted in the past that remains trapped in our atmosphere.”

Their new proposed fuel synthesis facility will have a production capacity of up to 100 million liters of ultra-low carbon fuel each year, Gasworld reported. When burned, this renewable, “near carbon-neutral” energy source will produce up to 90% fewer emissions than conventional hydrocarbons. It will be able to be used as a replacement fuel or as an ingredient in fuel blends. Developers note that it will work as a replacement or blend for traditional gasoline, diesel and even jet fuel, Globe Newswire added. As a blend, it will lower the carbon intensity of current fuels. Critically, the new renewable fuel will work in existing airplanes, ships, trucks and cars without the need to modify the vehicles. That’s why this fuel solution provides "a pathway to significantly reduce transportation emissions," Globe Newswire said.

"If we can make the fuel carbon neutral, our vehicles, our ships, our planes become carbon neutral," said Carbon Engineering CEO Steve Oldham, reported CTV News.

Additionally, because the fuels will provide clean liquid energy for transport sectors that are difficult to electrify, they’ll actually serve as an important complement to electric vehicles rather than as competition, Globe Newswire added.

According to Gasworld, construction is expected to begin in 2023 with operations targeted to commence approximately three years after that. The B.C. government is contributing $2 million in funding towards the preliminary engineering and design of the facility, and preliminary feasibility studies have begun, CTV News reported.

The project is expected to make a significant contribution to the B.C. Government’s CleanBC target of 650 million liters of renewable and low-carbon fuel production by 2030, Globe Newswire added.

“This innovative, world-leading project will support our economy’s shift away from fossil fuels while creating new jobs and opportunities for British Columbians,” The Honourable Bruce Ralston, Minister of Energy, Mines and Low-Carbon Innovation told Gasworld.

According to Carbon Engineering, they and their partners around the world are currently working to deploy Direct Air Capture facilities like the new British Columbia plant to capture more than one million tons of carbon dioxide each year. This is the equivalent work of approximately 40 million trees, the company noted.

“We believe humanity can solve climate change,” Carbon Engineering says on its website. “Getting there is a challenge, but also an imperative.”

Tiffany Duong is a writer, explorer and inspirational speaker. She holds degrees from UCLA and the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. As a contributing reporter at EcoWatch, she gives voice to what's happening in the natural world. Her mission is to inspire meaningful action and lasting change. Follow her on Twitter/Instagram/TikTok @tiffmakeswaves.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CCS (plawiuk.blogspot.com)

CANADA HAS A LARGE TAMIL DIASPORA

UN says contemporary forms of slavery exist in Sri Lanka

UN special rapporteur Obokata said about 1 percent of Sri Lankan children are involved in some type of child labor, most of it considered hazardous.

Women and girls are disproportionately affected by contemporary forms of slavery, with females predominantly filling jobs in demanding sectors such as plantation, garment industry and domestic labour. (Reuters)

A UN expert says contemporary forms of slavery exist in Sri Lanka, with vulnerable groups such as children, women, ethnic minorities and older people particularly affected.

Tomoyo Obokata, the UN special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, said Friday at the end of a mission to Sri Lanka that he hopes to submit a report to the UN Human Rights Council in September next year.

“Girls and boys work in the domestic sector, in hospitality, cleaning in the general service industry. Others are sexually exploited in the tourism sector," he said.

Child labor is particularly severe in areas populated by ethnic minority Tamils, such as in tea and rubber planation regions where children are forced to drop out of school and support their families, he said.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights says contemporary forms of slavery include traditional slavery, forced labor, debt bondage, serfdom, children working in slavery or slavery-like conditions, domestic servitude, sexual slavery and servile forms of marriage.

“I witnessed that in Sri Lanka contemporary forms of slavery have an ethnic dimension," Obokata said. “In particular, Malayaha Tamils, who were brought from India to work in the plantation sector 200 years ago, continue to face multiple forms of discrimination based on their origin.”

READ MORE: Sri Lanka breaks up Tamil memorial of civil war dead

Tamils are in poor conditions

He said the planation Tamils' inability to own land has forced them to live in “line houses” built during colonial times.

"I was frankly very much distressed by the way they are living. Five to 10 people stuffed in tiny spaces. No proper kitchen or toilet or shower facilities, just appalling conditions. I have recommended to the government to do something about this because frankly, I was distraught myself,” Obokata said.

Government officials were not immediately available for comment.

Women and girls are disproportionately affected by contemporary forms of slavery, with females predominantly filling jobs in demanding sectors such as plantation, garment industry and domestic labor, he said.

In the plantation sector, women must meet daily targets to earn the minimum daily wage, Obokata said.

“Similarly, increasingly high targets in the garment sector put continuous pressure on the female workers. As a consequence, some even choose not to go to the bathroom in order to meet the targets," he said.

In some cases, such as in the planation sector, older workers are compelled to regularly perform physically challenging work because younger people choose to be employed outside the sector. They have no access to adequate health care, social protection, or paid sick leave, he said.

READ MORE: Sri Lankan government tortured Tamil political detainees, report says

How Indian women silently suffer the consequences of unpaid work

Sri Lanka opposition supporters block roads over sluggish economy and polls

Sri Lanka president sacks prime minister, appoints strongman

Sri Lanka crisis deepens as president suspends parliament

Sri Lanka parliament speaker refuses to accept Rajapaksa as PM

Grenfell fire: Backlash against Mercedes F1 team over tower insulation firm sponsorship

Mercedes and Kingspan defend their relationship as the F1 team faces criticism of its decision to take financial backing from a firm at the centre of the Grenfell investigation.

James Sillars
Business reporter @SkyNewsBiz
Friday 3 December 2021

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton is cheered by fans at the British Grand Prix in July

The Mercedes Formula One team, which includes Britain's Lewis Hamilton in its driver line-up, is facing a backlash for a sponsorship deal from a company which made some of the insulation used on Grenfell Tower.

Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities, added his voice last night to condemnation from relatives of the 72 people killed in the devastating 2017 fire of the team's decision to add Kingspan to its financial backers.

The survivors' group Grenfell United, in a letter to the Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, demanded the relationship was severed, saying: "Kingspan played a central role in inflicting the pain and suffering that we feel today, and there must be a degree of public censure for Kingspan's recklessness and carelessness for human life."

Mr Gove tweeted: "Deeply disappointed that @MercedesAMGF1 are accepting sponsorship from cladding firm Kingspan while the Grenfell Inquiry is ongoing.

"I will be writing to Mercedes to ask them to reconsider. The Grenfell community deserves better."

Later writing a letter to Mr Wolff, Mr Gove warned that ministers could rewrite the rules on advertising on racing cars if it presses ahead with its sponsorship deal with Kingspan.

"My cabinet colleagues and I will keep this system under constant and close review to ensure that the advertising regime remains fit for purpose and reflects the public interest," he wrote.

"I am conscious that there are very real questions about whether parliament would support a statutory regime that enabled a core participant in a public inquiry in to how 72 people lost their lives to advertise its products publicly to millions of families across the country.

"The achievements of Mercedes and Sir Lewis Hamilton in recent years represent a British success story of which we are all proud. I hope you will reconsider this commercial partnership which threatens to undermine all the good work the company and sport has done."

Mr Gove warned ministers could rewrite the rules on advertising on racing cars if Mercedes presses ahead with its sponsorship deal with Kingspan

The inquiry has raised questions over the safety of Kingspan's plastic foam boards - used in a small quantity on Grenfell's cladding.

It has heard that the composition of the Kooltherm K15 insulation was combustible and not properly tested.

Kingspan told The Guardian newspaper: "Kingspan played no role in the design of the cladding system on Grenfell Tower, where its K15 product constituted approximately 5% of the insulation and was used as a substitute product without Kingspan's knowledge in a system that was not compliant with the building regulations.

"The new partnership with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One team reflects the ambitious sustainability targets of both organisations."

Lewis Hamilton has added his voice to criticism of Saudi Arabia's human rights record while in the country

The row threatens to overshadow Lewis Hamilton's bid for a record 8th World Championship title, which continues this weekend in Saudi Arabia.

The British star, who has campaigned vigorously on issues including racism and LGBTQ+ rights, admitted on Thursday he was uncomfortable about racing in a country with "terrifying" human rights laws.

He has not commented on the Kingspan sponsorship row.

Mercedes has stressed that drivers are not involved in sponsorship decisions.

The team said in a statement: "Our partner Kingspan has supported, and continues to support, the vitally important work of the inquiry to determine what went wrong and why in the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

"Our new partnership announced this week is centred on sustainability, and will support us in achieving our targets in this area."

GRENFELL TOWER FIRE INSULATION FAILED