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Climate change expected to bring more thunder, hail, and tornadoes

by h0di80ju Posted on September 23, 2013

Climate change expected to bring more thunder, hail, and tornadoes

By

Jerry Bowley

Conditions are ripe for more tornadoes.

Hail-spitting, tornado-spawning thunderstorms are likely to occur more frequently in the U.S. as the climate changes.

That’s according to new research that found the two main ingredients needed to produce these intense storms are likely to occur simultaneously with growing frequency as greenhouse-gas levels continue their meteoric rise.

The research could help explain this spring’s remarkably deadly tornado season, though it doesn’t explain the long calm that preceded it.

Severe thunderstorms typically occur when wind speeds high in the sky exceed those nearer the ground, and when there are also fast updrafts. As the climate changes, these two weather conditions will coincide more often, according to the results of modeling published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We’re seeing that global warming produces more days with high [convective available potential energy] and sufficient shear to form severe thunderstorms,” lead researcher Noah Diffenbaugh of Stanford University said in a statement. “We are looking at the conditions that produce severe events, which are relatively rare at present. … The changes during spring represent an increase of about 40 percent over the eastern U.S. by the late 21st century.”

And it’s not just spring thunderstorms that are forecast to occur more frequently; the researchers expect more big storms in every season. Get ready to bunker down.

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.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

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Climate change expected to bring more thunder, hail, and tornadoes

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Fracking study downgrades methane worries, escalates enviro infighting

by Olesiatd1 Posted on September 17, 2013

Fracking study downgrades methane worries, escalates enviro infighting

By

No pies have been thrown yet, but we wouldn’t rule it out.

The latest research on methane emissions at fracking sites is dividing environmentalists.

A study of 190 natural gas fracking sites, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that methane leaks at the sites were notably lower than fracking critics have warned.

The New York Times reports that the study is “the most comprehensive look to date” at the issue of methane leakage during natural gas drilling and production:

The study, conducted by the University of Texas and sponsored by the Environmental Defense Fund and nine petroleum companies, … concluded that while the total amount of escaped methane from shale-gas operations was substantial — more than one million tons annually — it was probably less than the Environmental Protection Agency estimated in 2011.

From the AP:

The findings bolster a big selling point for natural gas, that it’s not as bad for global warming as coal. And they undercut a major environmental argument against fracking, a process that breaks apart deep rock to recover more gas. The study … doesn’t address other fracking concerns about potential air and water pollution.

There’s controversy not only about the study’s findings but about its backers. Alongside oil companies, the Environmental Defense Fund, a New York-based environmental group, was a funder. The group was already being treated as a pariah by some greens for striking an agreement with frackers in March, agreeing on voluntary environmental standards for fracking (instead of pushing for a ban) and jointly establishing the Center for Sustainable Shale Development. With the release of Monday’s paper, howls of anger only grew louder.

Greenpeace USA Executive Director Phil Radford slammed the new study in an opinion piece published by EcoWatch:

[T]he Center for Energy and Environmental Resources released a study funded by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the natural gas industry that stated two things: that the sample size it looked at is “not sufficient” to fully understand the methane pollution from fracking, and that the rates of methane pollution from this sample size are nonetheless 10 to 20 times lower than those calculated from more complete measurements in other peer reviewed studies. This discrepancy may be attributable to the fact that industry chose the locations and times of the wells that were studied.

At best this study will be considered an interesting outlier that calls for further research. At worst, it will be used as PR by the natural gas industry to promote their pollution. …

There’s been even more controversy on the people behind this study. Among others, Steve Horn at De-Smog Blog has long been skeptical of EDF’s position in the industry studies, and he has a studious critique of this study’s funding.

There will be more controversy to come. This study is just the beginning of EDF’s research on the topic. From NPR:

Steve Hamburg, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, says his organization is funding 16 studies to look at the entire natural gas system in the United States. The PNAS study, focusing only on production, is just one part of that.

“Regrettably, we need another year, and then we’ll have all of these pieces together and we really can get a much clearer picture of what’s going on,” Hamburg says.

At stake isn’t simply gas production in the United States. Natural gas is taking off globally. So Hamburg says these measurements offer producers and regulators an opportunity to fix what’s wrong in the U.S. and to spread those best practices around the world.

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.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

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Fracking study downgrades methane worries, escalates enviro infighting

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Blazing tires will no longer power Illinois homes

by RupertxMcmillan Posted on February 26, 2013

Blazing tires will no longer power Illinois homes

By John Upton

ShutterstockTires should not be burned for electricity.

Take a cloud of carbon monoxide. Mix in nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide, and ammonia. Sprinkle it with a heap of soot.

That poisonous recipe is cooked up and released into the air when tires are burned. And it’s what residents of the heavily polluted, low-income, predominantly black community of Ford Heights, Ill., have been breathing, on and off, since a tire-incinerating power plant began operating in their neighborhood in 1995.

But relief has finally arrived: Following a string of air pollution citations and a federal civil rights complaint, Geneva Energy has agreed to stop burning tires to generate electricity at the sprawling Cook County facility.

“This settlement will eliminate the source of almost 200 tons of air pollutants each year, in a community that has historically been disproportionately impacted by environmental contamination,” EPA Regional Administrator Susan Hedman said in a statement on Monday.

The company began operating the incinerator in 2006. By 2010, it had been cited four times by state inspectors for pollution violations at the facility, at which point the EPA stepped in with the civil rights complaint, the Chicago Tribune reports. In 2011, the incinerator was switched off. In Monday’s announcement, the EPA said that it had reached an agreement that prevents the company from switching the incinerator back on.

The power plant’s history is as flavorful as the pollution it produces. From the Tribune article:

Throughout its troubled history, the Ford Heights plant had political patrons in Springfield pushing laws to make it financially viable.

The facility was built in 1995 amid growing debate about a state law that required power companies to buy electricity from incinerators at above-market rates. Lawmakers repealed the subsidies a year later, the original owners of the incinerator went bankrupt and the company defaulted on nearly $80 million in state bonds.

Another group of investors flourished during a Bridgestone/Firestone tire recall in 2000 but filed for bankruptcy after the incinerator’s turbine blew up in 2004.

In 2010, the same year the EPA’s Office of Civil Rights began its investigation, the Illinois House passed a bill that would have added tire burning to the state’s definition of green, renewable energy. The measure would have made the incinerator a player in a growing market for renewable energy in Illinois, where power companies must get at least 10 percent of their electricity from pollution-free sources by 2015 and 25 percent by 2025.

At the time, the incinerator’s owner told the Tribune that green energy subsidies would be “the difference between us making it or not.” The measure later failed in the Illinois Senate.

The closure of the plant is good news for anybody who breathes the air in Cook County, which encompasses most of Chicago. Tires should not be burned to generate electricity: There are eco-friendlier ways of handling the hundreds of millions of tires discarded every year by Americans, such as recycling them into paving and construction materials.

But a similar facility continues to operate in Sterling, Conn. It is now the nation’s only remaining tire-to-energy power plant, although it might soon have some company. A new one is proposed to be built in Pennsylvania, with controversial permit approvals currently tied up in court.

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Blazing tires will no longer power Illinois homes

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