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Solar-powered sedan hits Dutch streets

by Adan Baird Posted on July 5, 2013

Solar-powered sedan hits Dutch streets

By John Upton

Bart van OverbeekeThis solar-powered car, Stella, was unveiled Thursday.

Plug-in electric car? That’s so 2013.

The electric sedans of the future will also generate their own photovoltaic power.

That’s the philosophy behind a new class of competition in this year’s World Solar Challenge.

Since 1987, the challenge has had solar-powered cars racing across the parched Australian outback every couple years. But the solar-powered vehicles that have competed in the challenge, while exciting and innovative, have been anything but consumer-friendly. They have typically carried only an uncomfortable driver in a craft shaped like a sheet of aluminum foil precariously perched over three wheels.

This year’s challenge, scheduled for October, will push teams to go even further. The new Michelin cruiser class has been created for vehicles that could conceivably be marketed as family sedans. Ten teams have entered, and they will compete against each other for points awarded based on such criteria as practicality, attractiveness, and energy consumption.

On Thursday, one of the those teams unveiled its entry, taking a car it dubbed Stella to cordoned-off Dutch streets to strut its photovoltaic stuff. And it’s pretty as a pug. Watch:

The team of 22 Eindhoven University of Technology students behind Stella has vowed to register the car for on-road use, helping to demonstrate its potential commercial viability. From a press release:

‘Stella’ is the first ‘energy-positive car’ with room for four people, a trunk, intuitive steering and a range of 600 kilometers.

By combining aerodynamic design with lightweight materials like carbon and aluminum, a very fuel-efficient car has been designed, which also has ingenious applications like a LED strip and touchscreen that make all the buttons and knobs we know today superfluous. Intuitive driving is enabled by a steering wheel that expands or contracts when you are driving too fast or too slowly. STE will have the car officially certified for road use to prove that this really is a fully-fledged car.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Solar-powered sedan hits Dutch streets

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Climate change could be leading to more El Ninos

by Aale Harry Posted on July 3, 2013

Climate change could be leading to more El Ninos

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Peruvian fishermen came up with the name El Niño, Spanish for “Christ child,” because it normally arrived around Christmas.

El Niño is one of Earth’s most influential climatic phenomena. Its occasional arrival, heralded by warming in parts of the eastern Pacific Ocean, can be a harbinger of floods in Peru, droughts in Australia, harsh winters in Europe, and hurricanes in the Caribbean. Yet we know precious little about it.

But this week, two separate scientific studies chipped away at the mystery.

One study reveals that the El Niño phenomenon has been occurring more frequently as the globe has warmed. The other paper promises to dramatically improve our ability to foretell the weather pattern’s arrival.

A team of scientists reported Tuesday in the journal Nature Climate Change on the increased frequency of El Niños over the past half century. From The Christian Science Monitor:

Scientists compiled some 2,222 tree-ring chronologies of the past seven centuries from both the mid-latitudes in both hemispheres and the tropics. Tree rings can provide an accurate record of historical climate pattern, packing in their width and color information about the precipitation, wind, and temperature conditions at the time at which the tree was growing.

Scientists found that the tree ring patterns in the 20th century suggested that El Niño had been more active then than during the last seven centuries, meaning that long-term El Niño patterns have dovetailed with the global warming that characterized that century.

“This suggests that many models underestimate the sensitivity to radiative perturbations in greenhouse gases,” said Shang-Ping Xie, co-author and meteorology professor at the International Pacific Research Center. “Our results now provide a guide to improve the accuracy of climate models and their projections of future [El Niño–Southern Oscillation] activity.”

“If this trend of increasing ENSO activity continues, we expect to see more weather extremes such as floods and droughts,” she said.

A study by a separate team published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences proposes a new method for predicting El Niño’s arrival. That could be especially useful for farmers who want to know which varieties of crops they should plant each year. From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

The forecasting algorithm is based on the interactions between sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific and the rest of the ocean, and appears to warn of an El Nino event one year in advance instead of the current six months.

The German scientists analysed more than 200 measurement points in the Pacific dating back to the 1950s. The interactions between distant points helped predict whether the El Niño warming would come about in the eastern equatorial Pacific.

They used the model in 2011 to correctly predict the absence of an El Niño event last year, while conventional forecasts wrongly said there would be significant warming well into 2012.

Too good to be true? Time will tell. From the same news report:

“At the moment they’ve found a pattern, but they’re not really explaining where that pattern comes from,” [Alex Sen Gupta, senior lecturer at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales,] says.

He says the model needs to be tested further against standard models to assess if the findings are physically based, not just a correlation.

“I think give it another two or three El Niños and if it predicts those correctly more than a year in advance you’d start to think we’re on to something.”

Aw, c’mon Mr. Science Man — do we really have to wait that long? Oh well, at least those two or three more El Niños can be expected to come more quickly than they used to.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Climate change could be leading to more El Ninos

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Australia Urged to Formally Recognise Climate Change Refugee Status

by Myrna Posted on April 16, 2013

Refugee Council says new category would protect those fleeing the effects of global warming and warns Australian government to prepare for thousands forced from low-lying Pacific islands. Building beach barriers on Kiribati. Global Environment Facility (GEF)/Flickr Australia, a close neighbour of small, low-lying South Pacific states at the frontline of climate change, should be the first country to formally recognise climate change refugees, the country’s main refugee advisory body has said. The Refugee Council of Australia has told the Australian government that it should create a new refugee category for those fleeing the effects of climate change so that they can be offered protection similar to those escaping war or persecution. The key legal document that defines refugees, the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, defines a refugee as a person who has a well-founded fear of persecution in their homeland because of their race, religion, nationality of membership of a particular group. To keep reading, click here. Read More:  Australia Urged to Formally Recognise Climate Change Refugee Status Related ArticlesScientists Map Swirling Ocean Eddies for Clues to Climate ChangeCHARTS: ‘Messy’ US Climate Policy is Kinda WorkingCHART: How Climate Change and Your Wine Habit Threaten Endangered Pandas

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Australia Urged to Formally Recognise Climate Change Refugee Status

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Climate skeptic could run Down Under

by AlvinaiTyler Posted on April 5, 2013

Climate skeptic could run Down Under

By John Upton

Shutterstock /

Phillip Minnis

Tony Abbott.

Australians endured devastating bushfires, floods, and record-breaking heat waves during this year’s Southern Hemisphere summer. Per capita, Australia is one of the world’s biggest contributors to global warming — and it has also been among those hardest hit by its effects. But in recent years, the country has been doing more than most to rein in emissions and brace for climate change disaster.

Australians head to the polls this year, and unfortunately for them (and everyone), the main opposition candidate vying to defeat Julia Gillard in the race for prime minister happens to be a mug who reckons all this climate change talk is just a bunch of bull dust and whingeing. (The candidates are tied in early polls.)

Tony Abbott leads the Liberal Party, the opposition party which — because Australia is politically as well as geographically upside down — is actually the country’s conservative party. If elected, Abbott has pledged to kill a carbon tax that Gillard introduced despite angry handwringing by the resource-extraction-dominated business sector. Abbott now says that he would also sack the officials charged with preparing the nation for changes in the weather. And he recently went even further, saying he may kill a renewable energy target introduced back when über-conservative Liberal Party leader John Howard was prime minister.

From The Australian:

The Opposition Leader, who vows to remove the carbon tax if elected in September, said there would be no further need for the bureaucracy that supports it.

“When the carbon tax goes all of those bureaucracies will go and I think you’ll find that [Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery] will go with them,” Mr Abbott said.

Mr Abbott will consider dumping the Howard government’s renewable energy target, which he says is “significantly increasing the cost of power”.

Speaking to Sky News last night, he equivocated on his previous support for the scheme, which aims to ensure 20 per cent of electricity comes from renewable sources by 2020.

Not the sharpest tool in the shed, Abbott went on that recent tirade at the same time as the publication of a new report that predicts worse days ahead for extreme-weather-weary Australians. From the Daily Telegraph:

The report from the Climate Commission says climate change is already increasing the intensity and frequency of extreme weather like heatwaves, fires, cyclones, heavy rainfall and drought.

The report entitled Critical Decade: Extreme Weather, released on Wednesday, says the global climate system is warmer and moister than 50 years ago, with the extra heat making extreme weather events more frequent and severe.

In response to the report, the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council warned that while they had experience combating extreme weather events, people cannot expect emergency crews to protect their communities from increasingly intense fires and floods.

Lucky for him, Abbott is a notorious vacillator. If smarter minds within his party prevail, maybe they can convince him to flip-flop on his imbecilic (and increasingly unfashionable) climate skepticism. Do Oz and everybody else a favor.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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blogs about ecology

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johnupton@gmail.com

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Chevron reports record profits — and will spend some of them undermining California pollution standards

by 2KeaheySchoeffler461 Posted on February 1, 2013

Chevron reports record profits — and will spend some of them undermining California pollution standards

By Philip Bump

Another day, another oil company reporting massive quarterly and annual profits. Today: Chevron.

From the Associated Press:

Chevron Corp. posted a 41 percent gain in net income for the fourth quarter as the company produced more oil and gas, improved the performance of its refinery business and realized a gain from swapping assets in an Australian natural gas field.

Chevron Corp. posted net income of $7.2 billion for the quarter on revenue of $60.6 billion. That’s up from $5.1 billion on revenue of $60 billion a year ago.

It was the biggest fourth quarter profit in the company’s history.

Emphasis added, so that you can marvel.

And what will Chevron do with its gobs and gobs of money? One million dollars of it will go to pay a fine levied by the state of California. And some will go to undermining that state’s carbon-reduction rules.

From the Contra Costa Times:

San Ramon-based Chevron is leading an aggressive campaign to delay implementation of California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, a cornerstone of the state’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The fuel standard requires the oil industry to gradually reduce the “carbon intensity” of transportation fuels like diesel and gasoline by at least 10 percent by 2020. Chevron and its allies, including the Western States Petroleum Association, are trying to undermine the standard by rallying opposition, financing critical studies and lobbying the Democratic-controlled Legislature, state agencies and Gov. Jerry Brown. …

Chevron and the Western States Petroleum Association argue that the 2020 timeline can’t be met without severe economic impacts, including a huge spike in gasoline prices.

Ironically, higher gasoline prices are also what helped propel Chevron to its all-time best quarter. Don’t pretend you don’t like it, Chevron.

As we did yesterday with Shell, we’ve broken Chevron’s quarterly profits down: $80 million a day. $3.3 million an hour. $926 every second. And so, Chevron would have earned:

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Could clones save California’s endangered redwoods — in Oregon?

by Myrna Posted on December 8, 2012

Could clones save California’s endangered redwoods — in Oregon?

By Susie Cagle

True story: My grandmother built her California house entirely from redwood. It’s a really nice house! But it makes me pretty uncomfortable to be inside the place with its massive beams made of ancient, dead trees when we’ve got only 5 percent of old-growth redwood forest left standing today. And as the climate keeps heating up, those trees will be subject to new dangers — and new potential for rebirth further north.

friendshipgoodtimes

According to new research published in the journal Science, the California redwoods, American pines, Australian mountain ash trees and other living giants are in danger of being lost forever if we don’t change how we treat them.

Just as large-bodied animals such as elephants, tigers, and cetaceans have declined drastically in many parts of the world, a growing body of evidence suggests that large old trees could be equally imperiled.

From The Bangkok Post:

The study showed that trees were not only dying en masse in forest fires, but were also perishing at 10 times the normal rate in non-fire years. The study said it appeared to be down to a combination of rapid climate change causing drought and high temperatures, as well as rampant logging and agricultural land clearing.

“It is a very, very disturbing trend,” said Bill Laurance of James Cook University.

“We are talking about the loss of the biggest living organisms on the planet, of the largest flowering plants on the planet, of organisms that play a key role in regulating and enriching our world.”

Large old trees play critical ecological roles, providing nesting or sheltering cavities for up to 30 percent of all birds and animals in some ecosystems.

Some people are now taking action to save the remaining redwoods and repopulate West Coast forests with new-old trees. In Santa Cruz, activists are trying to raise millions to purchase a section of old-growth forest. And this week in Oregon, the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive began planting 250 clones from 28 of California’s biggest, oldest redwoods and sequoias on the southern Oregon coast. From the Associated Press:

David Milarch, co-founder of the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive and the Champion Tree Project, hopes the small plantation south of Port Orford, Ore., will give the ancient giants a leg up on moving north to cooler climes as the climate changes and be the start of a campaign to plant some of the world’s fastest-growing trees all around the globe …

The clones will be planted on Terry Mock’s 150-acre Ocean Mountain Ranch. Mock is a former director of the Champion Tree Project and is turning the ranch into a demonstration of sustainable development. They will go into the ground on the sheltered north slope of a ridge about a mile from the coast near Humbug Mountain. The site is about 40 miles north of the northern tip of the coast redwood’s range, and about 700 miles north of the sequoias in California’s southern Sierra Nevada.

“As things get hotter and drier, redwoods and sequoias should migrate north,” Mock said. “This is a logical spot.”

Another little bit of good news? Until we act like short-sighted jerks and cut them down, it turns out those individual massive trees are still growing. Researchers just found the world’s number 2 biggest tree has actually been dwarfed by its number 3 rival, dispelling the notion that big trees grow more slowly as they age.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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