Tag Archives: emissions

Climate Solutions, Earth and Ecology, Sustainable Energy

Electrifying homes to slow climate change: 4 essential reads

The latest reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that to avoid massive losses and damage from global warming, nations must act quickly to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The good news is that experts believe it’s possible to cut global greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 through steps such as using energy more efficiently, slowing deforestation and speeding up the adoption of renewable energy.

Many of those strategies require new laws, regulations or funding to move forward at the speed and scale that’s needed. But one strategy that’s increasingly feasible for many consumers is powering their homes and devices with electricity from clean sources. These four articles from our archives explain why electrifying homes is an important climate strategy and how consumers can get started.

1. Why go electric?

As of 2020, home energy use accounted for about one-sixth of total U.S. energy consumption. Nearly half (47%) of this energy came from electricity, followed by natural gas (42%), oil (8%) and renewable energy (7%). By far the largest home energy use is for heating and air conditioning, followed by lighting, refrigerators and other appliances.

The most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from home energy consumption is to substitute electricity generated from low- and zero-carbon sources for oil and natural gas. And the power sector is rapidly moving that way: As a 2021 report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory showed, power producers have reduced their carbon emissions by 50% from what energy experts predicted in 2005.

“This drop happened thanks to policy, market and technology drivers,” a team of Lawrence Berkeley lab analysts concluded. Wind and solar power have scaled up and cut their costs, so utilities are using more of them. Cheap natural gas has replaced generation from dirtier coal. And public policies have encouraged the use of energy-efficient technologies like LED light bulbs. These converging trends make electric power an increasingly climate-friendly energy choice.

The U.S. is using much more low-carbon and carbon-free electricity today than projected in 2005. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, CC BY-ND

2. Heat pumps for cold and hot days

Since heating and cooling use so much energy, switching from an oil- or gas-powered furnace to a heat pump can greatly reduce a home’s carbon footprint. As University of Dayton sustainability expert Robert Brecha explains, heat pumps work by moving heat in and out of buildings, not by burning fossil fuel.

“Extremely cold fluid circulates through coils of tubing in the heat pump’s outdoor unit,” Brecha writes. “That fluid absorbs energy in the form of heat from the surrounding air, which is warmer than the fluid. The fluid vaporizes and then circulates into a compressor. Compressing any gas heats it up, so this process generates heat. Then the vapor moves through coils of tubing in the indoor unit of the heat pump, heating the building.”

In summer, the process reverses: Heat pumps take energy from indoors and move that heat outdoors, just as a refrigerator removes heat from the chamber where it stores food and expels it into the air in the room where it sits.

Another option is a geothermal heat pump, which collects warmth from the earth and uses the same process as air source heat pumps to move it into buildings. These systems cost more, since installing them involves excavation to bury tubing below ground, but they also reduce electricity use.

3. Cooking without gas – or heat

For people who like to cook, the biggest sticking point of going electric is the prospect of using an electric stove. Many home chefs see gas flames as more responsive and precise than electric burners.

But magnetic induction, which cooks food by generating a magnetic field under the pot, eliminates the need to fire up a burner altogether.

“Instead of conventional burners, the cooking spots on induction cooktops are called hobs, and consist of wire coils embedded in the cooktop’s surface,” writes Binghamton University electrical engineering professor Kenneth McLeod.

Moving an electric charge through those wires creates a magnetic field, which in turn creates an electric field in the bottom of the cookware. “Because of resistance, the pan will heat up, even though the hob does not,” McLeod explains.

Induction cooktops warm up and cool down very quickly and offer highly accurate temperature control. They also are easy to clean, since they are made of glass, and safer than electric stoves since the hobs don’t stay hot when pans are lifted off them. Many utilities are offering rebates to cover the higher cost of induction cooktops.

4. Electric cars as backup power sources

Electrifying systems like home heating and cooking made residents even more vulnerable to power outages. Soon, however, a new backup system could become available: powering your home from your electric vehicle.

With interest in electric cars and light trucks rising in the U.S., auto makers are introducing many new EV models and designs. Some of these new rides will offer bidirectional charging – the ability to charge a car battery at home, then move that power back into the house, and eventually, into the grid.

[Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world. Sign up today.]

Only a few models offer this capacity now, and it requires special equipment that can add several thousand dollars to the price of an EV. But Penn State energy expert Seth Blumsack sees value in this emerging technology.

“Enabling homeowners to use their vehicles as backup when the power goes down would reduce the social impacts of large-scale blackouts. It also would give utilities more time to restore service – especially when there is substantial damage to power poles and wires,” Blumsack explains. “Bidirectional charging is also an integral part of a broader vision for a next-generation electric grid in which millions of EVs are constantly taking power from the grid and giving it back – a key element of an electrified future.”

Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

Jennifer Weeks, Senior Environment + Energy Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Check out Lynxotic on YouTube

Find books on Music, Movies & Entertainment and many other topics at Bookshop.org

Lynxotic may receive a small commission based on any purchases made by following links from this page

Climate Solutions, News, Observation

How fast can we stop Earth from warming?

The ocean retains heat for much longer than land does. photo / adobe stock / lynxotic

Richard B. (Ricky) Rood, University of Michigan

Global warming doesn’t stop on a dime. If people everywhere stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow, stored heat would still continue to warm the atmosphere.

Picture how a radiator heats a home. Water is heated by a boiler, and the hot water circulates through pipes and radiators in the house. The radiators warm up and heat the air in the room. Even after the boiler is turned off, the already heated water is still circulating through the system, heating the house. The radiators are, in fact, cooling down, but their stored heat is still warming the air in the room.

This is known as committed warming. Earth similarly has ways of storing and releasing heat.

Emerging research is refining scientists’ understanding of how Earth’s committed warming will affect the climate. Where we once thought it would take 40 years or longer for global surface air temperature to peak once humans stopped heating up the planet, research now suggests temperature could peak in closer to 10 years.

But that doesn’t mean the planet returns to its preindustrial climate or that we avoid disruptive effects such as sea level rise.

I am a professor of climate science, and my research and teaching focus on the usability of climate knowledge by practitioners such as urban planners, public health professionals and policymakers. Let’s take a look at the bigger picture.

How understanding of peak warming has changed

Historically, the first climate models represented only the atmosphere and were greatly simplified. Over the years, scientists added oceans, land, ice sheets, chemistry and biology.

Today’s models can more explicitly represent the behavior of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. That allows scientists to better separate heating due to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the role of heat stored in the ocean. https://www.youtube.com/embed/_WUNMzC98jI?wmode=transparent&start=0 Why global warming is ocean warming.

Thinking about our radiator analogy, increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere keep the boiler on – holding energy near the surface and raising the temperature. Heat accumulates and is stored, mostly in the oceans, which take on the role of the radiators. The heat is distributed around the world through weather and oceanic currents.

The current understanding is that if all of the additional heating to the planet caused by humans was eliminated, a plausible outcome is that Earth would reach a global surface air temperature peak in closer to 10 years than 40. The previous estimate of 40 or more years has been widely used over the years, including by me.

It is important to note that this is only the peak, when the temperature starts to stabilize – not the onset of rapid cooling or a reversal of climate change.

I believe there is enough uncertainty to justify caution about exaggerating the significance of the new research’s results. The authors applied the concept of peak warming to global surface air temperature. Global surface air temperature is, metaphorically, the temperature in the “room,” and is not the best measure of climate change. The concept of instantly cutting off human-caused heating is also idealized and entirely unrealistic – doing that would involve much more than just ending fossil fuel use, including widespread changes to agriculture – and it only helps illustrate how parts of the climate might behave.

Even if the air temperature were to peak and stabilize, “committed ice melting,” “committed sea level rise” and numerous other land and biological trends would continue to evolve from the accumulated heat. Some of these could, in fact, cause a release of carbon dioxide and methane, especially from the Arctic and other high-latitude reservoirs that are currently frozen.

For these reasons and others, it is important to consider the how far into the future studies like this one look.

Oceans in the future

Oceans will continue to store heat and exchange it with the atmosphere. Even if emissions stopped, the excess heat that has been accumulating in the ocean since preindustrial times would influence the climate for another 100 years or more.

Because the ocean is dynamic, it has currents, and it will not simply diffuse its excess heat back into the atmosphere. There will be ups and downs as the temperature adjusts.

The oceans also influence the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, because carbon dioxide is both absorbed and emitted by the oceans. Paleoclimate studies show large changes in carbon dioxide and temperature in the past, with the oceans playing an important role.

The chart shows how excess heat – thermal energy – has built up in ocean, land, ice and atmosphere since 1960 and moved to greater ocean depths with time. TOA CERES refers to the top of the atmosphere. Karina von Schuckman, LiJing Cheng, Matthew D. Palmer, James Hansen, Caterina Tassone, et al., CC BY-SA

Countries aren’t close to ending fossil fuel use

The possibility that a policy intervention might have measurable impacts in 10 years rather than several decades could motivate more aggressive efforts to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It would be very satisfying to see policy interventions having present rather than notional future benefits.

[Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world. Sign up today.]

However, today, countries aren’t anywhere close to ending their fossil fuel use. Instead, all of the evidence points to humanity experiencing rapid global warming in the coming decades.

Our most robust finding is that the less carbon dioxide humans release, the better off humanity will be. Committed warming and human behavior point to a need to accelerate efforts both to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to this warming planet now, rather than simply talking about how much needs to happen in the future.

Richard B. (Ricky) Rood, Professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, University of Michigan

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Related Articles:

Check out Lynxotic on YouTube

Find books on Music, Movies & Entertainment and many other topics at Bookshop.org

Lynxotic may receive a small commission based on any purchases made by following links from this page

Climate Solutions, News, Observation, Politics

‘Addiction to Fossil Fuels Is Mutually Assured Destruction,’ Warns UN Chief

Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Adobe Stock

“Instead of hitting the brakes on the decarbonization of the global economy” amid Russia’s war on Ukraine, “now is the time to put the pedal to the metal towards a renewable energy future,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

“The 1.5-degree goal is on life support. It is in intensive care.”

So said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday, as he stressed that a swift and just transition to clean energy is necessary to meet the Paris agreement’s objective of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels—and warned against using Russia’s deadly assault on Ukraine as an excuse to ramp up fossil fuel production worldwide.

“We are sleepwalking to climate catastrophe.”

“The science is clear. So is the math,” the U.N. leader said during a speech delivered at a Sustainability Summit hosted by The Economist. “Keeping 1.5 alive requires a 45% reduction in global emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by mid-century.” And yet, “according to present national commitments, global emissions are set to increase by almost 14% in the 2020s.”

“We are sleepwalking to climate catastrophe,” Guterres continued. “Our planet has already warmed by as much as 1.2 degrees—and we see the devastating consequences everywhere. In 2020, climate disasters forced 30 million people to flee their homes—three times more than those displaced by war and violence.”

Just this past weekend, scientists conveyed shock and alarm in response to reports that temperatures at both of Earth’s poles reached more than 50°F above average last week. Peer-reviewed research published on Friday foundthat increasingly frequent and intense wildfires around the globe are exacerbating Arctic warming, which is worsening the conditions that make future blazes more likely.

“Two weeks ago,” said Guterres, citing part two of the U.N.’s landmark climate assessment, “the IPCC confirmed that half of humanity is already living in the danger zone. Small island nations, least developed countries, and poor and vulnerable people everywhere are one climate shock away from doomsday. In our globally connected world, no country and no corporation can insulate itself from these levels of chaos.”

“If we continue with more of the same, we can kiss 1.5 goodbye,” he added. “Even 2 degrees may be out of reach. And that would be catastrophe.”

Making matters worse, said Guterres, “the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine risks upending global food and energy markets—with major implications for the global climate agenda.”

“As major economies pursue an ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy to replace Russian fossil fuels, short-term measures might create long-term fossil fuel dependence.”

The United States, United Kingdom, and European Union have moved to restrict imports of Russian fossil fuels in response to Moscow’s military offensive. Although progressives have emphasized that the ongoing invasion should lead to an intensification of efforts to move awayfrom dirty energy, profit-hungry proponents of oil, gas, and coal have seized on surging prices to push for boosting extraction and exports.

Guterres warned that “as major economies pursue an ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy to replace Russian fossil fuels, short-term measures might create long-term fossil fuel dependence and close the window to 1.5 degrees.”

Think like a Monk

“Countries could become so consumed by the immediate fossil fuel supply gap that they neglect or knee-cap policies to cut fossil fuel use,” he said. “This is madness. Addiction to fossil fuels is mutually assured destruction.”

“As current events make all too clear, our continued reliance on fossil fuels puts the global economy and energy security at the mercy of geopolitical shocks and crises,” added Guterres. “We need to fix the broken global energy mix.”

Noting that “the timeline to cut emissions by 45% is extremely tight,” the U.N. leader stressed that “instead of hitting the brakes on the decarbonization of the global economy, now is the time to put the pedal to the metal towards a renewable energy future.”

His remarks came just hours before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) kicked off a two-week meeting to validate part three of its report, which focuses on the need to drastically slash carbon pollution to avoid the most disastrous outcomes.

Guterres argued that cooperation between the developed and emerging economies of the G20—responsible for 80% of global emissions—is essential to addressing the planetary emergency.

“Accelerating the phase-out of coal and all fossil fuels and implementing a rapid, just, and sustainable energy transition,” he said, is “the only true pathway to energy security.”

Originally published on Common Dreams by KENNY STANCIL and republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Related Articles:

Check out Lynxotic on YouTube

Find books on Music, Movies & Entertainment and many other topics at Bookshop.org

Lynxotic may receive a small commission based on any purchases made by following links from this page

Climate Solutions, News, Observation

Humanity ‘Way Off Track’: WMO Says Atmospheric Carbon at Level Unseen in 3 Million Years

Above: Photo / Adobe Stock

The new report has “a stark, scientific message for climate change negotiators at COP 26,” said the head of the World Meteorological Organization.

Carbon dioxide concentrations reached a new record high in 2020, with comparable levels not seen for roughly 3 million years, the United Nations weather agency said Monday.

“There is no time to lose.”

The findings came in the latest edition of the World Meteorological Organization’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, released a week before COP 26—the U.N. climate summit—kicks off in Glasgow.

According to WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas, the report holds “a stark, scientific message for climate change negotiators” headed to the summit. 

The bulletin said globally averaged levels of CO2, as well as two other potent greenhouse gases—methane and nitrous oxide—were all up from the previous year.

CO2 reached 413.2 parts per million (ppm) in 2020—149% of the pre-industrial level. The increase from 2019 levels came despite pandemic-triggered lockdowns triggering an approximately 5.6% drop in fossil fuel CO2.

Methane stood at 262% and nitrous oxide at 123% of pre-industrial levels, the report said.

“At the current rate of increase in greenhouse gas concentrations, we will see a temperature increase by the end of this century far in excess of the Paris Agreement targets of 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels,” he said in a statement, warning, “We are way off track.”

“The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere breached the milestone of 400 parts per million in 2015. And just five years later, it exceeded 413 ppm,” Taalas added. “This is more than just a chemical formula and figures on a graph. It has major negative repercussions for our daily lives and well-being, for the state of our planet, and for the future of our children and grandchildren.”

“Carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for centuries and in the ocean for even longer,” said Taalas. “The last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years ago, when the temperature was 2-3°C warmer and sea level was 10-20 meters higher than now.”

The report also warned that land and oceans’ ability to continue serving as carbon sinks, sucking up about half of CO2 emissions, could be negatively affected by climate crisis-related changes such as wildfires.

Urging countries to turn “commitment into action,” Taalas said, “There is no time to lose.”

Dave Reay, a professor at the University of Edinburgh and director of the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, also tied the bulletin’s findings to the upcoming U.N climate summit.

“The true success, or failure, of COP 26 will be written in our skies in the form of greenhouse gas concentrations,” he said in a statement.  “This new report from the WMO provides a brutally frank assessment of what’s been written there to date.”

“So far,” he said, “it’s an epic fail.”

“Will this 26th COP find success where the previous 25 have fallen short?” Reay asked. “Our atmosphere will bear witness.”

Originally published on Common Dreams by ANDREA GERMANOS and republished under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Related Articles:

Check out Lynxotic on YouTube

Find books on Sustainable Energy Solutions and Climate Science and many other topics at our sister site: Cherrybooks on Bookshop.org

Enjoy Lynxotic at Apple News on your iPhone, iPad or Mac.

Lynxotic may receive a small commission based on any purchases made by following links from this page

Climate Solutions, News, Observation

To Avert ‘Uncontrollable Climate Chaos,’ Scientists Tell Biden to Stop Backing Fossil Fuels

Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic

“When scientists across the U.S. are imploring the president to get the country off fossil fuels, it’s time to listen.”

With an open letter expressing “the utmost alarm about the state of our climate system,” over 330 scientists on Thursday urged President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency and swiftly put an end to a fossil fuel-based energy system.

“When scientists across the U.S. are imploring the president to get the country off fossil fuels,” said Dr. Shaye Wolf, climate science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, “it’s time to listen.”

The letter—an effort organized by biologist Dr. Sandra Steingraber and climate scientist Dr. Peter Kalmus along with advocacy groups Center for Biological Diversity and Food & Water Watch—frames the current moment as a “time of peril” that must be met with “emergency action.”

Other initial signatories include Dr. Robert Bullard, known as the father of environmental justice, and climate scientist Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University.

A three-step action plan is presented in the letter, beginning with a full ban on any new fossil fuel leasing and extraction on public lands and waters; no future permits for related infrastructure; and ending fossil fuel exports and subsidies.

Biden must also declare a climate emergency, the letter says, through which a chunk of the nation’s vast military spending would instead be directed to fund renewable energy projects and the crude oil export ban would be reinstated.

As a third key step, the president needs to reject fossil fuel industry schemes, such as carbon capture and storage, that the scientists frame as “delay tactics” that ultimately “impede the rapid transition to renewable energy.”

The first two in the trio of demands mirror those set out by the People Vs. Fossil Fuels mobilization, which is set to kick off next week.

“U.S. scientists are done speaking calmly in the face of inaction,” Steingraber said in a statement in which she expressed solidarity with the upcoming mobilization.

She also urged the president to follow through on a key campaign vow that his support for pipelines like the Dakota Access and Line 3 has betrayed.

“President Biden,” said Steingraber, “listening to science means acting on science. It means stopping new fossil fuel projects, opposing industry delay tactics, and declaring a national climate emergency.”

The scientists warned that “our chances for avoiding irreversible and uncontrollable climate chaos diminish daily.”

“We implore you, on behalf of and for the love of all life on Earth,” they added, “to respond to the greatest threat ever to face our species and lead the transition away from fossil fuels that humanity desperately needs.”

Originally published on Common Dreams by ANDREA GERMANOS and republished under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Related Articles:

Find books on Sustainable Energy Solutions and Climate Science and many other topics at our sister site: Cherrybooks on Bookshop.org

Enjoy Lynxotic at Apple News on your iPhone, iPad or Mac.

Lynxotic may receive a small commission based on any purchases made by following links from this page

Hot-Lynx

‘Rapid’ reduction in greenhouse gas emissions needed to curb climate change, U.N. chief says

Image by Sumanley xulx from Pixabay

The head of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres warned governments, calling out for “immediate, rapid and large-scale” cuts to greenhouse gas emissions in order to curb impacts already negatively affecting the climate.

As reported by PBS News, U.N. Chief said that global warming and climate change is happening on a much faster pace than predicted. The long-lasting effects from already released emissions into the atmosphere are inevitable.

“These changes are just the beginning of worse to come,” Guterres said, with hopes the dire message will appeal to governments to meet the goals that were originally created at the Paris Climate Accord back in 2015.

Read at:

PBS NEWS

Related Articles:

Find books on Music, Movies & Entertainment and many other topics at our sister site: Cherrybooks on Bookshop.org

Enjoy Lynxotic at Apple News on your iPhone, iPad or Mac.

Lynxotic may receive a small commission based on any purchases made by following links from this page