Perpetual Innovation

Category: Energy efficiency

  • A frosty G20 puts global warming on ice – Comment – Voices – The Independent

    A frosty G20 puts global warming on ice – Comment – Voices – The Independent:

    Great article. Like many such meetings, the major part of the the G20 meeting gets diverted to North Korea or Egypt or Syria. Too bad, there’s a lot the the G20 can do, besides putter with the politics that’s taken over the news today.

    Surprisingly, there was movement on making progress on the very best places to push hard related to our impact on the environment, greenhouse gases (GHGs) and global warming.

    Most people who don’t focus on sustainability don’t realize what a wicked impact hydro fluorocarbons (HFCs) have on the (atmosphere) environment. Most HFCs are released into the atmosphere from Freon, the gas that has an ugly impact on the Ozone layer in the atmosphere. But the other problem with florine-based gasses is that they last in the atmosphere for centuries, not decades. Look at the global warming potential of various gases here: GWP at INTCCC and wikipedia GHGs.

    So continuing to use Freon is a gift for the future that keeps on giving, and giving, and giving.

    The approach to CFCs is one of the great success stories of our time. Starting with the Montreal Protocol in 1987 the international community has banded together to address and reduce CFCs. Most countries, that is. Progress has been especially strong because of the progress in alternative refrigerants that are still cheap and efficient. Not so much so, the progress in other greenhouse gases.

    As you can see, the GHGs of carbon dioxide and the noxious oxides are increasing in the atmosphere unabated. Methane seems to be slowing down a little. Remember that these increased levels are above and beyond the levels that the atmosphere has become accustom to. Longer duration graphs are equally as telling.

    But as you can see, CFC emissions have plateaued, but not necessarily reduced. The problem is that several countries, apparently, have not bothered to make the leap to replacement FREON  refrigerants, namely India and Brazil. One of the best, easiest, cheapest and greatest-impact methods to address GHG issues is to pressure those rogue countries to join the rest of the world on HFC reduction.

    Turns out the G20 meeting, lead by China and USA, are looking to “encourage” these rogue countries to pick up the pace on HFCs.

    Making progress on the most important things first, is a great approach to sustainability. HFCs is a great place to push. Even the G20, and the UN that don’t agree on much, have taking this approach.

    EE is probably the greatest place to focus, however. Energy efficiency (EE) and similar types of inefficiencies are the great untapped places to save money, energy and the environment. Everybody wins, except, maybe the power companies. But that’s the focus of other books and blog posts.

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  • Why the World Bank Is Taking On Climate Change – NationalJournal.com

    Why the World Bank Is Taking On Climate Change – NationalJournal.com: “w­w­w.K­E­P­2.c­o­m”

    Caral Davenport of the National Journal spoke with Rachel Kyte, the World Bank’s vice president of sustainable development, about the economic impact of climate change.

     The world bank is taking some rather aggressive action. 
    (Also watch the debate on global warming that follows. Hmmm?.)

     Some of us would argue, that if you don’t want governments to take more active roles in sustainability, then we all should start to be more sustainable ourselves. We have to eventually, right? 

     Why not start now, and start with the “low lying fruit”: energy efficiency, telecommuting, etc.  Those initiatives not only pay for themselves, but can be implemented immediately.

     Or we can continue to debate if there really is global warming, is it primarily man-made, etc. 

     For the latest info on the science and the concepts of sustainability visit: www.TinyURL.com/SharedStuffZ/
    The intro document there provides the outline of the WikiBook with hyperlinks to the live pages in Wikipedia. If you think that Wikipedia is wrong, please offer corrections and provide sources and links to the proof. But, before you offer corrections, read some of the section, especially read the nexus of energy, water, and food.

     Even if there were no global warming, we all should start to take aggressive action now, today, ahora. The global warming issue simply adds a level of urgency to our steps.

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  • US energy use dropped in 2012 as renewables, natural gas rose | Ars Technica

    US energy use dropped in 2012 as renewables, natural gas rose | Ars Technica:

    Yes, the US has backed off a little with energy use during the recession, especially.

    That would be a good thing if not for the emissions from China and India.

    This is an AMAZING chart of the energy in and the energy out within the USofA. This has been an interesting chart to watch over the years.

    ~95.1 Quads

    That is Quadrillion BTUs. (British Thermal Unit). If you think a Quadrillion is a LOT, you are right.

    Double interesting in this picture is the the “rejected energy”. That is 58.1, estimated to be the same as that used. Therefore the right side is about 116.2 (58.1 + 58.1). I guess the left side is the 95.1

    It takes some time to fully understand this diag, over time it is very interesting.

    Note the drop in Coal in the US. Nat gas is so clean and cheap it is likely to put coal out of business. In the USA anyway.

    We’ll send it to China? By now China must have exceeded half of the worlds coal consumption.

    Want to look at forecasts of the future, go to US Energy Information Administration Annual Energy Outlook 2013.

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  • Pres Obama steps out to wave down the run-a-way climate train!

    It was a little bit of a surprise that Obama stepped up as forcefully about taking on climate change as he did.

    Check out this post by Peterman at Huffington:
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-peterman/state-of-the-union_b_2674448.html

    Many environmentalists are going to complain that this is not enough, but it really is better to start late than even much much later.

    As Peterman shows, it looks like we are aiming for 6+ degrees C, not the 2+C that many people were hoping to achieve. At that rate, sea-level rise would be measured in yards, not feet.

    Not much on details. Federal government can take some action for government buildings and transportation,

    Reduce energy consumption by 50% in 20 years should be, surprisingly, far easier than most people think. 25-30% could be achieved in buildings within a couple years, with a payback of months… And a gigantic Return on investment.

    Easier said then done, though.

    But to continue doing “business as usual” would be, well, irresponsible.

  • “Humans Are Almost Entirely The Cause Of Climate Change” Richard Muller Former Climate Change Denier – YouTube

    “Humans Are Almost Entirely The Cause Of Climate Change” Richard Muller Former Climate Change Denier – YouTube:

    This is a very interesting video/news from MoxNews.

    The Exxon Valdez has an oil spill, has a name change, has a name change, has a shipwreck, has a name change, and is now being dismantled/retired. The wreck, by any other name, is still Valdez.

    NatGas +/-  . . . Not so sure about the Frac’ng story… But hang in there til the end. It is well worth the wait. If it has equal likes and dislikes, then it is probably pretty good!

    Richard A. Muller, the last hold out of global warming, has now come out with a book. Once you remove the noise, the level of CO2 matches perfectly with global warming. It is important to know that humans are the cause, probably the primary cause, of global warming. This is good, kind of. “If we cause it, then there’s something we can do about it.” He didn’t think solar variations, volcanic eruptions, el nino, etc., had longer term impacts. “The carbon dioxide curve was right on.”

    Muller won the MacArthur Genius Grant 30 years ago. He was the last major skeptic on Global Warming. He just completed major research on global warming funded by the Koch Foundation, a ?conservative? group by the Charles G. Koch family, the oil billionair family. Anyone knowing about the funding source, would have been surprised about the results.

    He found last year that Global Warming is real.

    He now has determined that human activity seems to be the predominant cause. The rise in CO2 matches perfectly with the rise in temperatures. Correlation is not causation, but the correlation is very strong.

    Global economic shock to cut back on CO2 emissions? Energy efficiency. And switch away from coal. He suggests NatGas as immediate switch away from coal. NatGas produces 1/3 the level of CO2 as coal. (I’m not so sure about 1/3, I think it is 33% less CO2 than coal per energy equivolent.)

    The big thing is that the controversy of Global warming is dead. It’s a fact. It appears to be perfectly correlated with human factors that generate greenhouse gases (eCO2). So the next debate (or controversy, maybe) is what are we gonna do about it.???

    New version of his book:

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