Transcript ClimateSolutions_finalDEC102014

Climate Change:

Pragmatic Solutions
Bill Haaf, December 2014
“We Cannot Risk Our Kids’ Futures On the

False Hope That the Vast Majority of
Scientists Are Wrong.”
–BICEP Businesses
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How to Prevent Catastrophe?
Climate science is settled “enough”

• Slides at end
Today: Grim reality
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Why it will get hot
Risks and harsh metrics
Take home message
Six pragmatic steps
“Hail Mary”: Technology overview
How you can help
Your feedback and ideas
Supplemental slides: References; science; geo engineering
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Status & Today’s Message
800 pound
Fossil Fuel Industry
Cheap coal/Nat gas
Pathforward ???
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Science “Enough”
References:

• Consensus groups; Peer-reviewed publications;
Reputable scientists actually working in this field
It is a RISK issue: Believe science
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Do not need 100%
Science is more than “Enough”
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Why it Will Get Hotter

IPCC: Keep carbon emissions below 3.6˚F

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“not exceeding “Dangerous”.. But
Still a work in progress; Unknown feedback emissions (Permafrost; clouds; plant
and ocean absorption/emit back?; Short lived gases?, etc.
480 billion tons left to emit, then ZERO
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Others: 250- 350 billion tons; depends on percent risk and halting deforestation;
plant new forests; methane?
London Financial Group: Carbon Tracker
“Can only burn 20% of total reserves of coal, oil & natural gas.”
So, 15-30 years to reach CO2 levels that cause a 3.6˚F increase
- UNEP: 2055 -70
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35 billion tons of CO2/year; Hot even if..
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Will a China/USA Trade Agreement Save Us?

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hina: Emissions peak in 2030 & NonFF rise to 20%
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USA: Cut 27% below 2005 by 2025 (needs coal reductions)

New Congress will attack EPA & CAAct on coal

• Even if all implemented, NOT ENOUGH REDUCTIONS
Value:

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akes away the argument that China won’t reduce
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Helps shape future policy and other nations
Includes major CCS coal plant in China (& potable water)
Funding for clean energy technology partnership–
University & Res. institutions & industry
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CCS= carbon capture & seq
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Risk is Real

“
We are on track for a 7ᵒ F hotter world* marked by extreme heat
waves, declining global food stocks, loss of ecosystems and
biodiversity, and a life-threatening sea level rise.”
CEO, World Bank (1.8 F so far)
“7ᵒF is incompatible with an organized global community, is
likely to be beyond adaptation, is devastating to the majority of
ecosystems...”
Price Waterhouse Coopers
“The coldest year by 2047 will be hotter
than the hottest year 1860-2005”
Mora C., Nature 2013
Hurricane Haiyan = 194 mph wind. A preview?
*Earth’s temperature was 7ᵒ lower during last ice age, with a mile of ice above us.
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Risk Drives Everything

IPCC 2013/14: International Panel Climate Scientists:
“Warming is unequivocal… atmosphere & oceans have warmed, snow and ice
diminished, sea level has risen as GHG has increased”
“Over the last 20 years Greenland & Antarctic ice sheets have lost mass;
worldwide glaciers shrinking; Arctic Sea ice & Northern Hemisphere spring
snow cover continue to decrease”
“Ocean acidification up 26%”
“Human influence extremely likely as dominant cause…”

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Risk Drives Everything

National Climate Assessment 2014:

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Temperatures rise; Extreme storms; Prolonged droughts in the Southwest
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Large forest fires; Insect-borne diseases; Pine Beetle

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Sea level rise & storm surges!

USDA, 2 reports 2013:

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American agriculture and forests threatened
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Crop yields decline fast with temperatures > 88ºF
2ºF increase = wheat > 20% loss
Melting ice in Greenland = 500 cubic kilometer per year;
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csr.utexas.edu/personal/chen/publication.html
90% of the world’s glaciers are retreating, see slides
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Harsh Metrics #1 : CO2

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China = 30% global CO2 emission
• USA = 15 % (leader for 150 yrs; highest per capita)
• EU6 = 10 %
• India = 7.1
• Russia = 5.3
• Japan = 5
• Cheap coal emits 43% of the world’s CO2 and
consumption is growing
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Harsh Metrics #2: Focus on Electricity Gen
China burns 50% of the world’s coal
India has cheap large coal reserves

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59% of India’s electricity coal; 4 new mega coal power sites = 10%

USA = 37% of electric power from coal
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Average* American coal utility emits 10,000,000 tons CO2 per year
(= 2250 wind turbines – 2 Mw)
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It would take 260,000 wind turbines to replace 50% of electricity
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All solar PV in America displaced 1.3 coal utilities
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Average of top 100 coal utilities; 7000 in America (carma.org); 72,000 wind turbines in 2013
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SA = 6.5 billion tons CO2/yr; World = 35 billion tons CO2/yr
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Harsh Metrics #2: Focus on Electricity Gen
•2001-2010 Global Elect. by coal increased ;
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2700 terawatt vs 1300 TW All RE & N
• Proj. American Elec. 2013-40
( EIA):
• - 73% Nat gas; 24 % RE; 3 % Nuc
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World’s Largest solar PV :
290 MW= 625,000. mw-hr
•#50 COAL UTILITY =10 to 13,00,000. MW-hr (60-85% )
- RE starting from much lower base
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Harsh Metrics #3
lectricity Generation
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USA = 67% fossil fuel
Germany = 56% fossil fuel
As Germany
phases out
nuclear, use of
coal increases &
GHG’s go up!
Pennsylvania:
• 69% FF
• 21% nuclear
• 3% wind
• 0.4% solar
• 5% hydro
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Transition to Low Carbon Takes Many Decades
• CHINA: By 2040 – coal drops 15% to 52%
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Wind up 7%
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Nuclear up 6%; More?
• More low carbon energy than all of Europe
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Take Home: All solutions must include FFI
CAN NOT WORK AROUND!
• American 
Oil & gas industry = $1.1 trillion
• Massive infrastructure, political power, and many jobs
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• THUS the FF Industry Must help lead on climate
stewardship
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Progressive FF corporations
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Concern : State Rep. Att. Gen. & Oil Companies
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FFI: Their Solution is Carbon Capture & Sequester


“Fossil Fuels are not disappearing soon – it seems inconceivable
that we can do this without substantial carbon capture &
sequestration.”
- J. Thompson, director of Fossil Fuel Transition Project – Clean Air Task Force
“Even if we were given free renewable energy, it would be
economically unthinkable for nations or corporations to abandon
the enormous investments they have made in the fossil fuel system
– from coal mines to oil wells, gas pipelines and refineries to
millions of local filling stations. Infrastructure equals $20 trillion.”
- Vaclav Smil, Czech-Canadian scientist and policy analyst. He is a Distinguished Professor
Emeritus University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada
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No Easy Path Forward for Low Carbon Energy

Not going to happen…

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Coal, natural gas and oil are too cheap
TRUE: Unfair subsidies lead to increase in death of miners, black lung,
spills, air pollution (Hg), health impacts, etc.
* Jobs and the Economy TRUMP !
Society does not seem to care; Nor vote to change
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Step #1 FFI: This is a KEY STEP


Make Their climate science Risk Assessments
public
- Simple yet powerful tool
- FFI must be good Product Stewards
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Force Congress, public, & FFI to discuss solutions
• FFI have in-house expertise & climate risk assessments!
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Not “Why we need energy”
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Step #2 FFI: Low Cost and Easy

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ndustry must lead by setting goals to reduce and
maintain “background” CH4 emissions
• EPA proposed rules
• Monitoring data highly variable
• Need 3rd party assessment which is made public
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Stewardship Example: ACC - Responsible Care Code; Alaskan Pollock Industry; Forestry;
Green Bldgs
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Steps #3, 4, and 5: ALL STALLED
UNTIL ECONOMIC IMPACTS ARE LINKED TO HEAT
“GOAL: Power plants can use any fuel or technology to generate electricity as long as all
emissions & GHGs meet steadily increasing standards.
Let the most cost-effective clean technology win
Means Govt Policy*:
• STEP 3: 
All Utilities Must use Carbon Cap & Seq
• $$ & needs R&D; 100 X pipelines
• E.OilR. & Deep storage
• Govt - Need $ub CC& S
SEE:
http://cmi.princeton.edu/wedges/calculations.php (Yes- Eng eff, And..)
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Steps # 4, & 5: Let the most cost-effective clean
technology win.”
Needs Policy :
• STEP 4: Massive crash program for
- New Gen nuclear;
& Subsidize 
offshore wind
& R&D for solar
• STEP 5: 
Carbon tax
• Helpful; Slow; Not sufficient
*All policies must resolve the FFI 800-pound gorilla –
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STEP 6: “Hail Mary” of Cheap Energy

Google RE < $ Coal project
Learning’s:
“… that reversing the trend would require both radical technological
advances in cheap zero-carbon energy, as well as a method of
extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and sequestering the carbon.”
“ .. reliable zero-carbon energy sources so cheap that the operators
of power plants and industrial facilities alike have an economic
rationale for switching over soon—say, within the next 40 years. ”
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What is Needed: Google

• The owner would have to factor in the capital investment for construction
and continued costs of operation and maintenance—and still make a profit
while generating electricity for less than $0.04/kWh to $0.06/kWh. Energy
so cheap utilities and corporations switch over in 40 years.
• Across the board, we need solutions that don’t require subsidies or
government regulations that penalize fossil fuel usage…
• So rather than depend on politicians’ high ideals to drive
change, it’s a safer bet to rely on businesses’ self interest: in
other words, the bottom line.”
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Resources for R&D: Google

• Incremental improvements are not enough
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Adopt 70-20-10 R&D strategy
70% existing low carbon–build to help reduce impact
20%–cutting-edge technology on the path to economic viability
10%–wild and crazy and disruptive
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Will Some be “Hail Mary”?

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“Free” night wind energy to make H2 for fuel
cells(currently into methane)
• Biomass to H2
• South Korea – Jeju Island’s $200 million smart grid test
• Segway inventor Dean Kamen: New Stirling Engine fuel
cell
• Need low cost and more efficient solar – thanks China!
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EG: perovskite; etc; Scale up cost issues!
• Experience needed on Off shore wind (harsh)
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More Technology

• Convert CO2 (from CCS) to EG, methanol, synthetic gas, …
• Siluria tech: CH4 to fuels
• Net Power Company: No-emissions power plant
• Scaling up
• Low-cost Energy storage: German Regelenergie, Aquion,
many others
• New generation nuclear :
• SMR- NuScale, Thorium
• China, Saudi Arabia and Russia
• Conceptual studies on low carbon energy plus HVDC
• M. Jacobson OR… Sandy MacDonald
• German 80% RE; Solar 100% America
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ONCEPT:
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Inject CO2 in
hot brine from
deep Gulf,
use geoheat =
sequestration
plus cost
effectiveness
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CO2 Capture: Rice University – Needs Scale-Up

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Fusion: China or Lockheed Martin?

he potential is amazing… No radiation
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Lockheed Martin: “10 years to a small fusion reactor”
Skeptical ?
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What Must All Companies do?

Set

Public goals:
• Reduce absolute CO2-e Emissions every year
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Not Indexed
• Count both internal and external energy
• Annual public reports
• Lobby Congress on climate risks
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What Can You Do?

Send email to (see list):

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Express your concern and fear for children and grandkids
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sk CEOs of oil and natural gas companies and utilities for their
climate risk assessments.
Dear Company : I am very concerned about the risks of
climate change to my children and grandchildren. What is
your opinion of the science? What are you doing to reduce
the carbon emissions of your products? Thank you…
Dear Congressman: I am very concerned about the risks of
climate change to my children and grandchildren. Please
send me your opinion of the science and risks.
Thank
you..
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Feedback

What are your ideas/ questions ?
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Supplement Slides

• Science and data
• Geo-engineering
• Resiliency
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Harsh Metrics

• NATURAL GAS: Energy for 90 years

• OIL SHALE: Competing with OPEC; Russia’s 3000-mile pipeline to China
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U Texas challenge Ngas Forecasts
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REF: Climate Science “Enough”
A Climate Overview from the Royal Society and the US National
Academy of Sciences 2014:
dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/exec-office-other/climate-change-full.pdf
American Association for the Advancement of Science: 2014:
whatweknow.aaas.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/AAAS-What-We-Know.pdf
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
ipcc.ch/
NOAA:
climate.gov/teaching
National Snow & Ice Data Center:
nsidc.org/
eg: Nov 2014: Worldwide retreat of glaciers confirmed in unprecedented detail
2014 National Climate Assessment:
globalchange.gov/ncadac
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REF II: Science “Enough”
Reuters
reuters.com/investigates/special-report/waters-edge-the-crisis-of-rising-sea-levels/
NASA
climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus
Skeptical Science
skepticalscience.com/
Google work on energy
spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climatechange (Ross Koningstein and David Fork)
World Meteorlogical Organization (WMO)
wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/factsheet/documents/Climate-Change-Info-Sheet136_fr.pdf
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REF III: Science “Enough”
 Crack in the Natural-Gas Bridge:
A
ature; 514, 436–437, (Oct. 2014); Steven J. Davis & Christine Shearer
N
Climate Science is Settled Enough: 
slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/10/the_wall_street_journal_and_ste
ve_koonin_the_new_face_of_climate_change.html
By Raymond T. Pierrehumber

Four Top Climate Scientists - Letter on Nuclear Power:
cnn.com/2013/11/03/world/nuclear-energy-climate-change-scientists-letter

4 Former EPA Heads Under Republican President Testify on Climate:
usnews.com/news/articles/2014/06/17/former-epa-chiefs-under-reagan-bush-to-testify
on-need-to-address-climate-change
15 Stabilization Wedges http://cmi.princeton.edu/wedges/
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Emergency: Geo-engineering

Remove CO2 from the atmosphere:
• Not easy; still ocean impacts
• Biochar?
• Block sunlight?
• Olivine rocks in ocean surf?
• Iron in ocean?
• Capture CO2 from Air?
• Presentation to 4CP ?
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When it Gets Hot: Adapt

Verizon flood barrier

on Edison’s Risk Assessment for climate risks to its
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power grid… NYC
Move away from ocean, drought areas
Farmers move north
Survival techniques:
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What will your family do?
Water, food, power
Varies with time period
Separate presentation–not today
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Planet has Been Liveable…

Earth = 55˚F warmer
from CO2. H2o vapor
goes with temp.
- 8 F = Mile of ice
+7 F = Mile of heat?
280 to 400 ppm in 125 years
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NOTE: Land
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Global Sea-Land Anomaly 1880-2013
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Global Surface Air Temp = 3-6 ft Above Land or Water

World = 34 billion tons CO2/yr; USA = 5.5 B (Electricity = 3 B); China = 8.7 B)

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Global Ocean Heat Content

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Ocean Temperatures: 2000-2013
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PCC: Virtually certain (o-700m) warmed 1971-2010;
Likely warmed 700m-2000m -1957-2009; & 3000 m to bottom 1992-2005.
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From 2000-2013 the global ocean surface temperature rise paused, in spite of
increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. Called Global Warming Hiatus.
However, as of April 2014 ocean warming has picked up speed again.
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“The 2014 global ocean warming is mostly due to the North Pacific, which has
warmed far beyond any recorded value & has shifted hurricane tracks, weakened
trade winds, and produced coral bleaching in the Hawaiian Islands.”
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Ocean Temperatures:
• Gulf of Maine (Atlantic), Cape cod to Nova Scotia, warming faster
than 99% of the oceans
• Impacts on fisheries, lobsters? Species are changing…
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High Latitudes Warming 2X…

Causes jet stream to wobble & move. Weather systems get stuck.

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Antarctic & Greenland
Satellite data shows ice
sheets of Greenland
and Antarctica are
declining at record
speed. The annual loss
of ice has doubled in
the case of Greenland
(left) and tripled in the
West Antarctic
compared to figures
from 2009.
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n 21 years,the West
Antarctica Ice Sheet
has lost the equivalent
of a Mt. Everest in ice
every 2 years.
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Antarctica

ea ice surrounding the Antarctic reached its maximum
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extent = 7.76 million sq miles; 595,000 sq miles above the
1981 to 2010 average; well above average
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Might be caused by changing wind patterns or recent ice sheet
melt from warmer, deep ocean water reaching the coastline. The
melt water freshens and cools the deep ocean layer.
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Huge section of west Antarctic ice sheet has reached a irreversible
collapse point = 3 ft sea level rise.
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More Scary Data
• Amazon Basin Rainforest: In dry years the basin loses carbon.
Climate-caused droughts will change to a net emitter
• Of 588 birds studied, 314 will lose the majority of their current range
(National Audubon Society)
• Soils store more carbon than plants and atmosphere combined:
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Impact of more CO2? Higher temps?
Impacts microbes & plant enzymes in unexpected ways
• Permafrost: Ground temps have increased in most regions; Northern Russia
and Europe has most degradation; permafrost boundary of discontinuous
moved 80 km and continuous moved 50 km.
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note 2X C that is in atmosphere
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More Scary Data II

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Sea Level: 1901-2010, global mean rose 0.19 meter. The rate of sea
level rise since 1950 has been larger than the rate during the last
200 yrs (IPCC).
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Impact of ocean acidity and rising temperatures on corals, fish,
shellfish, jellyfish?
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Pine bark beetles live through warmer winters, millions of trees
dead
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Climate Corp: Predicts Weather for Farmers
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he company tries to factor every important climatic condition into its
algorithm, including carbon-dioxide levels, ocean temperatures, and the
oscillations of El Niño and La Niña.
• “The Corn Belt is moving north, absolutely and rapidly. You can
see it most clearly in North Dakota.” Richland and Cass Counties (the
latter includes Fargo) used to be the only places in the state where corn grew
successfully.
• “Now they are growing it all the way up to Manitoba,” Seifert
said. “That had been canola territory, but canola has retreated
even farther north. Eventually, we will hit the Canadian
Shield”—a vast stretch of Precambrian rock covered by a thin layer of soil—
“and that will be the end.” For the first time, farmers in North Dakota are
having trouble getting their corn to market: there is just too much of it to be
moved on the existing system of roads and rails.
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Climate Corp: Weather Prediction, Continued
• “
by 2050 wheat could be planted rarely in Kansas
but widely in Alaska. “This is not so much about
global warming as it is about the frequency of
severe weather…”
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Cumulative Emissions
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