11 November 2015, Other Words, Who Can Follow This Climate Leader? President Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline while backing increased oil, gas, and coal production. Remember that scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy hits a fork in the Yellow Brick Road? As she stands there stumped, a friendly character who will accompany her to the Emerald Palace pipes up. “Pardon me, that way is a very nice way,” the Scarecrow advises as he points in one direction. “It’s pleasant down that way too,” he adds, now pointing in the other. Then the Scarecrow crosses his straw-stuffed arms and unhelpfully declares, “Of course people do go both ways.” President Barack Obama’s climate leadership is as hard to follow as the Scarecrow’s directions. After seven years of waffling, Obama finally rejected the Keystone XL pipeline. If completed, this conduit would have moved more than 800,000 barrels a day of filthy oil mined from the Canadian tar sands through Nebraska and five other states to refineries along the Gulf Coast. Rejecting the $8 billion pipeline early in his first term would have been bold. But Obama dallied. He only stopped it once the thing made no financial sense because of low oil prices and similar infrastructure that rendered the project unnecessary. Making this move now, on the eve of global climate talks in Paris, was merely expedient. He made his choice sound like a bigger deal than it was anyway. “America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change,” he asserted. “And frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership.” So, what’s the state of that leadership? On the one hand, the Obama administration has taken steps to reduce the nation’s reliance on oil, gas, and coal. Its Clean Power Plan will step up the ongoing retirement of coal-fired power plants as it cuts carbon pollution. The federal government is also phasing in higher fuel-efficiency standards while throwing some weight behind renewable-energy initiatives. All the while, this White House has also leased a growing amount of federal land to coal-mining companies and encouraged the nation’s spiking oil and natural gas production. Obama’s inherently contradictory “all-of-the-above” energy policy supports the dangerous practice of hydraulic fracturing — commonly known as fracking — that pumps vast amounts of toxic chemicals underground, imperiling drinking water. Read More here
Tag Archives: coal
4 November 2015, Renew Economy, Graph of the Day: Watch US electricity grid evolve before your eyes. We talk a lot about the changing shape of the electricity grid, but what does it look like? We first came across this rather hypnotic GIF via the Union of Concerned Scientists blog, The Equation, who borrowed it from Pat Knight at Synapse Energy Economics. It shows, in animated graph form, how the electricity mix has changed in each state of America over the past 15 years. And as UCS senior energy analyst John Rogers notes, the only constant in the “mesmerising” GIF is change.
The really interesting changes come from about 2009 onwards. But Rogers sees five trends in the graph’s “undulating bars” and outlines what’s behind them:
- Coal waning – The most visible change in recent years, says Rogers, is shown in the shrinkage of the dark section on the left of the GIF. “Coal provided fully half of (the US’s) electricity as recently as 2006. Now it’s down to below 40 percent, as the eroding economics of coal have asserted themselves,” he writes.
- Natural gas growing – For the US, a big part of the decline of coal (and the rise of concerns about natural gas overreliance).
- Renewables surging – Another reason King Coal is falling, says Rogers: “the result of smart policies in a lot of forward-thinking states, and great cost reductions. Synapse’s Knight offers this great statistic: ‘In 2014, 11 states produced 10 percent or more generation from renewables (compared to zero states in 2005)’.”
- Renewables surging (wind) – Wind, the technology to beat in many US locations, now accounts for more than 10 per cent of generation in nine states, says Rogers, and more than 25 percent in two (Iowa and South Dakota).
- Renewables surging (solar) – At the end of the GIF’s journey, solar starts to make its presence felt, says Rogers – and it’s only just beginning to claim its share of the spotlight, with rapidly increasing scale and rapidly dropping costs. See Hawaii. Read More here
28 October 2015, Climate Home, Australia PM Turnbull stands by coal amid moratorium calls. Recently annointed prime minister is defending mine expansion plans, to the ire of Pacific neighbours and climate campaigners. When Malcolm Turnbull ousted Tony Abbott as prime minister last month, climate watchers were hopeful he would reverse Australia’s coal-friendly stance. There was some sign of that this week, as newly appointed chief science advisor Alan Finkelenvisioned a world free of fossil fuels. Yet it has been business as usual for the country’s bullish mine expansion plans, which threaten international climate goals. That is despite 61 prominent Australians, from rugby player David Pocock to Nobel laureate Peter Doherty, backing Pacific islanders’ calls for a moratorium. Dismissing the idea, Turnbull told national journalists: “Coal is a very important part, a very large part, the largest single part in fact, of the global energy mix… and likely to remain that way for a very long time.” He variously argued that coal-fired power would reduce poverty in developing countries and that if Australia stopped exporting the black stuff, others would. “It would make not the blindest bit of difference to global emissions,” the Guardian reported him saying. Read More here
15 October 2015, Carbon Pulse, Australia reapproves gigantic Adani coal mine, Indian CO2 emissions to soar. Environment Minister Greg Hunt on Thursday reapproved the construction of Adani’s Carmichael coal mine in Queensland, Australia’s biggest ever which will see around 60 million tonnes of coal exported to India annually. Hunt first approved the mine last year, but a court annulled the approval earlier this year as the government had failed to take into account the mine’s impact on two threatened species. There has also been strong public opposition against the project amid suspicions it would damage the Great Barrier Reef. The minister said on Thursday the mine had now been “approved in accordance with national environment law subject to 36 of the strictest conditions in Australian history”. Coal from the mine will cause annual CO2 emissions of around 128 million tonnes – roughly similar to the combined GHG emissions of Norway and Sweden – although those emissions will take place in India, where the coal will be exported to. Indian owner Adani has estimated coal from the mine will create 3 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions over its 60-year lifespan. “With regard to the impacts of the emissions caused by the use of the coal from the mine, recipient nations will need to meet their obligations under the United Nations Convention on Climate Change,” Australia’s Environment Ministry said. Read More here