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The burgeoning love affair between Americans and renewable energy is turning into a love triangle with natural gas.
That’s one of the findings from the U.S. Energy Information Administration recently released annual forecast. The projections, widely used by bureaucrats and business people, show renewables and gas becoming the main source of our electricity and sales of gasoline-burning cars declining. But greenhouse gas emissions aren’t expected to fall much. What gives?
One reason: Even though coal emissions are falling, emissions from natural gas are making up the difference. And the country keeps using more energy. Last year for instance, according to another recent EIA report, U.S. emissions ticked up as more Americans turned up their air conditioners and heaters to stay comfortable in extreme weather.
EIA
It’s an open question whether things will play out this way, of course. The EIA’s predictions have consistently underestimated the growth of renewable energy (more on the caveats below). In 2009, for instance, the EIA expected wind and solar to take 20 years to reach 56 gigawatts of capacity. Instead, thanks to a suite of new policies from President Barack Obama’s administration, the U.S. built 89 GW in just six years. As Mike Grunwald from Politico put it, “Oops.”
Still, this particular crystal ball provides a solid estimate of the country’s current trajectory, because its forecasts are built on recent trends. A quick perusal of the following charts will give you a sense of how much climate progress the country is making.
First, the good news. Renewable energy is poised to grow so robustly that it would easily exceeds states’ carbon-cutting goals.
For the foreseeable future, the United States will be turning to solar panels, wind turbines, and gas plants to generate electricity, according to the forecast, while shuttering nuclear, oil, and coal plants.
All this points to renewables and natural gas pairing up to provide most of our electricity. That makes some sense, because renewables play well with gas. Gas plants are easy to control — they can ramp up and down cheaply. And renewables depend on nature (the rising sun and the gusting wind) so need a partner to fill in the gaps.
Electricity is just one slice of our oh-so-yummy energy pie. But that slice should grow as more people begin to buy electric cars. The EIA projects that cars with internal combustion engines will lose market share in the coming years. But it expects that decline to level off shortly after 2020.
EIA
When you look at the other sources of energy demand, like industry and buildings, the EIA sees something similar happening: Emissions are flat, or slowly falling.
Add it all up and you get per-person emissions declining, but declining pretty darn slowly. Even if oil prices spike, the EIA expects just a 25 percent decline in per-capita emissions by 2050.
There are caveats here. The energy analyst Alex Gilbert, co-founder of the energy-research company SparkLibrary, thinks it’s also unrealistic to expect coal to pull out of its death spiral (the EIA sees that plunge mellowing into a glide), and points out that EIA is predicting that folks will pretty much stop building wind turbines, which seems… unlikely.
What’s more, the EIA’s expectations for a shift away from gas-powered cars lag far behind estimates by others. The EIA has also consistently underestimated the growth of renewable energy, and it may do the same with the growth of electric vehicles.
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Sorry to ruin the party, but a report from the Food Climate Research Network casts doubt on recent suggestions that pasture-raised cattle could sequester massive amounts of carbon in the soil.
By nibbling plants and stimulating new root growth, the old argument goes, cows can encourage deeper root networks, which suck up more carbon. Proponents of grass-fed meat have embraced these findings, saying that pasture-raised livestock could mitigate the impact of meat consumption on the environment.
The new report — cleverly titled “Grazed and Confused?” — acknowledges that pastured cattle can be carbon negative, but this depends on the right soil and weather conditions. In most places, according to the report, grazers produce much more greenhouse gas than they add to the ground. It is an “inconvenient truth,” the authors write, that most studies show grass-fed beef has a bigger carbon footprint than feedlot meat. “Increasing grass-fed ruminant numbers is, therefore, a self-defeating climate strategy,” the report concludes.
Fortunately, grass-fed beef is not the only solution being bandied about: Research shows that a small dose of seaweed in livestock feed could drastically reduce methane emissions. And if you really want to reduce your impact on the climate you could, you know, stop eating meat.
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California plans to reject a controversial natural gas plant, embracing a cleaner future.
Six of the eight U.S. senators from Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas are climate deniers, rejecting the consensus of 99.98 percent of peer-reviewed scientific papers that human activity is causing global warming. The exceptions are South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and Florida’s Bill Nelson — the lone Democrat of the bunch.
Here are some of the lowlights from their comments on the climate change:
-Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who does not understand the difference between climate and weather, arguing against climate action in a presidential debate in March: “As far as a law that we can pass in Washington to change the weather, there’s no such thing.”
-Back in 2011, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr said: “I have no clue [how much of climate change is attributable to human activity], and I don’t think that science can prove it.”
-In 2014, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis claimed that “the liberal agenda, the Obama agenda, the [then Sen.] Kay Hagan agenda, is trying to use [climate change] as a Trojan horse for their energy policy.”
-Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson offered his analysis last year on whether the Greenland ice sheet is melting (it is): “There are mixed reviews on that, and there’s mixed scientific evidence on that.”
-Georgia Sen. David Perdue told Slate in 2014 that “in science, there’s an active debate going on,” about whether carbon emissions are behind climate change.
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For the first time in years, the cost of electricity at home has gone down.
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By Grist staffon Sep 20, 2016Share
Are you an early-career journalist, storyteller, or multimedia wizard who digs what we do? Then Grist wants you!
We are now accepting applications for the spring 2017 class of the Grist Fellowship Program.
This time around we’re looking for all-stars in (count ’em) THREE different areas: editorial, justice, and video. You’ll find deets on all three fellowship opportunities here.
The Grist Fellowship Program is an opportunity to hone your journalistic chops at a national news outlet, deepen your knowledge of environmental issues, and experiment with storytelling. We get to teach you and learn from you and bring your work to our audience. You won’t get rich — but you will get paid. The fellowship lasts six months.
For fellowships that begin in February 2017, please submit applications by Nov. 8, 2016. Full application instructions here.
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Election Guide ★ 2016Making America Green AgainOur experts weigh in on the real issues at stake in this electionGet Grist in your inbox
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Thanks to climate change. Flooding in South Beach after Hurricane Sandy meunierd/Shutterstock A new study says much of Miami-Dade County will see the number of projected floods rise from 45 a year to 80 with a 10-inch rise in sea levels by 2030, and then accelerate to 380 instances of flooding a year by 2045. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) came up with the projections using new data compiled by the Army Corps of Engineers. “In 2045, given normal variations in the tides, while some days would be flood-free, many days would see one or even two flood events—one with each high tide,” UCS said in its report. The findings jibe with another recent report from the University of Miami that since 2006, flooding in Miami Beach has soared 400 percent from high tides and 33 percent from rain. Read the rest at Fusion. View original post here: Study: Miami Can Expect 380 Instances of Flooding a Year by 2045 ; ; ;
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Study: Miami Can Expect 380 Instances of Flooding a Year by 2045
But the oil giant kept funding global warming skeptics. RiverNorthPhotography/iStock ExxonMobil, the world’s biggest oil company, knew as early as 1981 of climate change – seven years before it became a public issue, according to a newly discovered email from one of the firm’s own scientists. Despite this the firm spent millions over the next 27 years to promote climate denial. The email from Exxon’s in-house climate expert provides evidence the company was aware of the connection between fossil fuels and climate change, and the potential for carbon-cutting regulations that could hurt its bottom line, over a generation ago – factoring that knowledge into its decision about an enormous gas field in southeast Asia. The field, off the coast of Indonesia, would have been the single largest source of global warming pollution at the time. “Exxon first got interested in climate change in 1981 because it was seeking to develop the Natuna gas field off Indonesia,” Lenny Bernstein, a 30-year industry veteran and Exxon’s former in-house climate expert, wrote in the email. “This is an immense reserve of natural gas, but it is 70% CO2,” or carbon dioxide, the main driver of climate change. Read the rest at the Guardian. See original: Exxon Knew of Climate Change in 1981, Email Says ; ; ;
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stripping down
12 Sep 2014 3:21 PM
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Faculty joins students in the call for divestment. We’re going streaking!
You may have already heard: Students concerned about climate change are demanding that university endowments divest from fossil fuel companies. A handful of institutions have already committed to divestment, and many others have at least offered compromises.
Now, professors are joining the on-campus divestmentfest. On Sunday, the UC Berkeley Faculty Association urged the committee responsible for managing the University of California’s 10-campus, $91 billion-with-a-B endowment to purge fossil fuels from its portfolio. Also this week Boston University’s faculty circulated a document calling for divestment from oil, coal, and gas corporations; 245 faculty members had put their John Hancock on the petition as of Wednesday, Sept. 10. Academics at Harvard, the University of Washington, and other schools are signing on to the movement as well.
The good news for divestment fans is that these scholars come armed with petitions and academic authority, giving divestment even more cred. It’s also heartening that The Wall Street Journal is taking notice, covering the intensification [paywall] of what it calls the “showdown between activists and schools” centered in California. Still, on-campus divestment haters are gonna hate:
Divestment is “really tricky” for university officers who are under pressure to deliver returns, said Charles Skorina, a San Francisco recruiter for university endowments who is the managing partner of Charles A. Skorina & Co. “Are you going to save the world or screw students that depend on endowment earnings to fund scholarships?”
Look, we’re not saying that stripping students of scholarships is good, either. However, Skorina oversimplifies university divestment as an either-or proposition. Plus, in a world where money rules — for worse or for worse — divestment is an important strategy among many in the struggle for a stable climate. And now that the scholarly community is catching on, the divestment crusade might just score an A.
Source:
UC Berkeley Faculty Association urges divestment from fossil fuel companies
, The Daily Californian.
BU Faculty Petition Urges Divestment from Fossil Fuel Companies
, BU Today.
Fossil Fuels Stir Debate at Endowments [paywall]
, The Wall Street Journal.
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Faculty joins students in the call for divestment. We’re going streaking!
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