With the passage of strict new auto emission and air pollution standards, California has again demonstrated its role as the U.S.’s environmental pacesetter. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, explains how her state is helping drive a clean-car revolution.

How likely is it that your next vehicle might be an electric car? California just increased the odds. On Jan. 27, the California Air Resources Board, a powerful state agency with a history of setting first-in-the-nation clean air and climate regulations, voted 9-0 on a package of sweeping “clean car” rules that are expected to help reshape the U.S. auto industry.

The chairman of the board, Mary Nichols, oversaw the enactment of these new rules, which require that 15 percent of all new cars sold in California by 2025 emit little or no pollution and that the state reduce emissions of smog-forming pollutants by 75 percent. The rules are expected to result in 1.4 million zero- and low-emission vehicles — electric, plug-in hybrid, and hydrogen fuel cell — reaching California auto showrooms over the next dozen years, compared to roughly 10,000 on the road there today. And it’s a near certainty that once built, those models won’t just be sold in California, but in the other 49 states, as well.

In an interview with Yale Environment 360 contributor Paul Rogers, Nichols — who has headed the board since 2007 — explains why California has consistently led the U.S. in passing the toughest air pollution and vehicle mileage standards, why Detroit automakers have decided to endorse California’s new rules, and why U.S. and international car makers are on the verge of a clean-car revolution. “Auto manufacturers have finally come to the conclusion that their future lies in very efficient, very clean vehicles,” says Nichols.

We’ve concluded that we’re going to need a fleet of vehicles that is not primarily running on conventional fuels.”

Yale Environment 360: Why did California pass these rules?

Mary Nichols: California has been working on these rules for decades. Really, this is just the latest version of a program that has been in effect since the 1960s, which began because we were the first place to discover smog and to begin to take action to deal with the problem of pollution caused by motor vehicles. But this most recent round of standards is one that reflects a real change in viewpoint about what the future of our transportation system is going to look like. Basically we have concluded that when you look at the rates of growth in travel and the even greater problems of energy use, dependence on imported petroleum, as well as global warming and our contribution to it, we’re going to need a fleet of vehicles that is not primarily running on conventional fuels. And so we’re looking for ways to help speed up the transition to a fleet of vehicles that are extremely clean and efficient. And we’re setting standards for their design that help use the power of the California marketplace to do that.

e360: And what impact do you think these rules will have on the entire auto industry in the United States?

Nichols: Well, California buys about 10 percent of all the new cars that are sold every year. But we have even more influence than that over the design of future vehicles because every car manufacturer from the largest to the most innovative start-ups uses us as a design laboratory because they know that Californians know cars and they really like them. The term “love affair with the car” might be an exaggeration, but not too much.

e360: So you see these rules as changing the way all Americans drive, not just Californians?

Nichols: Yes, clearly cars that are manufactured for the California marketplace also get sold outside of California. But we also have 13 states that followed California’s lead automatically. They’ve signed up for the California car program. Those states include all the states in the Northeast plus Oregon and New Mexico. They are going to be requiring that all the cars sold in their states meet California’s standards.

We are prepared to provide direct incentives toward the initial cost of some of these vehicles.”

e360: The standards that the air board passed are pretty far reaching. They require 15 percent of all new vehicles by 2025 to have zero emissions, which as a practical matter means all electrical, hydrogen fuel cell, or plug-in electric. Why do you think the auto industry generally supported them, when in the past it has filed lawsuits to block laws California has previously passed?

Nichols: I think that the auto manufacturers have finally — maybe a bit belatedly — come to the conclusion that their future lies in very efficient, very clean vehicles. If they are going to be able to continue to provide cars for places where the demand is really growing, like Asia and other developing parts of the world, they’re going to have to compete in an arena where gasoline is extremely expensive and, in some cases, almost impossible to obtain. They’ve also got to recognize that gasoline prices are going up and that there is a need for extremely clean fuels that can meet other demands, as well, in some of the most polluted areas on the planet, including India and China.

Alternative fuel vehicles are going to be hot sellers as soon as there are enough cars available and the fuel suppliers come along and fill the demand for whatever the future fuel is going to be. The demand in the parts of the world where people are becoming more prosperous is almost insatiable for vehicles. The first thing that people buy when they get to the point where they have a little disposable income — people want mobility. First, electric bicycles, then motorcycles, then a car — that seems to be an almost iron rule at this point. The car companies are going to have to have cars that meet that customer demand.

The political will to require cleaner cars in California goes back to the discovery of smog.”

e360: In terms of the American consumer, what would you say to critics who say that government can force suppliers to make a certain amount of vehicles, like electric vehicles, but it can’t force the public to buy them? That they might all be left sitting on lots.

Nichols: Well, we agree that there’s more to be done than simply to mandate the vehicles. We view our mandate program as giving a floor so that the manufacturers know that this is the minimum that we are going to be asking of them. But we are predicting that these cars are going to do much better than the minimum. The only way we are going to achieve that is through government taking responsibility that the changeover to new kinds of fuels is as simple as possible for the consumer — that is, making sure that there is easy access to electric charging or other ultra clean fuels. We are also prepared — as we already are doing — to provide direct incentives toward the initial cost of some of these vehicles. We know that until we’ve gotten the demand up and the volumes of production in place, that the initial cost of the new vehicles is going to be a deterrent to some. We want to be sure these cars are widely available, that people see them in the showrooms, and that they want to buy them.

e360: Sounds like the incentives you are talking about are tax credits and access to carpool lanes, things like that?

Nichols: Yes, exactly. Actually, we offer direct rebate funding thanks to a program in California called AB 118, which is a surcharge on vehicle registration fees. Some of that money goes into consumer rebates for purchasing zero-emission vehicles.

e360: How will a showroom in California or the United States look differently 10 years from now because of this rule?

Nichols: We expect that at least one out of every seven cars in that showroom is going to be a plug-in vehicle.

e360: In a wider sense, California has also passed some groundbreaking legislation on climate change with AB 32. Can you talk a little bit about how this clean car package of rules fits in with AB 32?

Nichols: AB 32, which is the state’s global warming law, was actually founded on the basis of our vehicle emissions rules for greenhouse gases. In 2002 the legislature ordered the resources board to start treating greenhouse gases as air pollutants and to set emissions standards for them. The standards were actually set in 2004. They weren’t implemented until after Obama came into office because the Bush administration held up the waiver that California needed to enforce our standards. We were already planning on addressing the problem of the contribution that our motor vehicles make to the overall problem of global warming. In California, [vehicles] are our largest contributor. In passing AB 32, the legislature told us to adopt a plan that would meet the standards of the Kyoto treaty and bring our overall emissions as a state back to 1990 levels by 2020, which meant they [included] our electricity system and our other major industrial sources of pollution, such as oil refineries. But the first step was to look at cars and see what we could do there.

e360: Finally California has a 50-year history of passing tougher air pollution regulations than the rest of the country. Can you talk a little about why that’s the case and what the effects have been?

Nichols: I think the political will to require cleaner cars in California goes back to the discovery of smog, no question about that. But that will is backed up by the fact that people are well aware that we really are breathing a lot of pollution that’s created by our desire and our need for mobility. They are willing to support the notion that we may pay a little more for a brand new car, but in return for that we get the satisfaction of knowing we are helping to move the auto industry in the direction of producing cleaner cars for everybody.

e360: So everything from the catalytic converter to unleaded gasoline and now to these electric vehicle mandates originates in California and spreads to the rest of the country after that?

Nichols: Well, that has been the history, and certainly we’re proud to have played that role as the pioneer. But we wouldn’t have been able to continue doing it if we hadn’t built up a kind of technical expertise, knowledge of what the industry actually could do and what technology might be available with enough of a push to make it happen. Year in and year out, we’ve seen the companies, after some initial fuss, competing with each other to produce very attractive, desirable vehicles that also pollute less. That gives us the confidence to keep on moving forward.

Article by Paul Rogers, appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

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It must be pretty damaging for any industry’s reputation to be labeled Dinosaur of the Year. And that’s what the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) has called the cruise ship industry. NABU, which is based in Germany, singled out cruise lines AIDA and TUI to get their yearly trophy, which goes to people or companies with “the most ridiculous statement or anachronistic decision in connection with Nature and the Environment.”

According to NABU, cruise ships emit particle pollution that equals the amount released by five million cars driving the same distance as the cruise ship tears through the ocean. The organization said the luxury cruise ship industry has made no investments to move away from heavy fossil fuel oil or to install filters to reduce the pollution they dump into the oceans. It added that the 15 largest cruise ships emit as much sulfur dioxide pollution annually as all 760 million cars in the world. Not much glamour or luxury in that, is there?

Figures revealed by environmental NGO Friends of the Earth are alarming. A large cruise ship on a one week voyage is estimated to generate:

210,000 gallons of human sewage,
1 million gallons of gray water (water from sinks, baths, showers, laundry, and galleys),
25,000 gallons of oily bilge water,
Up to 11,550 gallons of sewage sludge, and
More than 130 gallons of hazardous wastes.

The NGO says most of this waste is dumped directly into the ocean, treated or not. Luxury liners also spew a range of pollutants into the air that can lead to acid rain and contribute to global warming. On top of all that, they can spread invasive species by dumping untreated ballast water in coastal zones.

To add to the problem, as more people pursue traveling as a leisure activity, the number of cruise ships in U.S. waters, as well as across the seven seas, has triggered a cruise ship pollution crisis. FoE says environmental laws have not kept pace with the industry’s growth, which reaches pristine waters, leaving a rotten track in its trail.

Back in 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agreed to respond to a petition filed by 53 groups and issued a draft report assessing discharges from cruise ships. “Now that EPA has finally agreed to release this report, the public must submit comments compelling the EPA to regulate these floating cities and protect the very places people are paying to visit,” Teri Shore of Friends of the Earth said at the time.

The EPA draft report found that cruise ship discharges contain concentrations of bacteria, chlorine, nutrients, metals and other pollutants that often far exceed federal effluent and water quality standards and are harmful to human health and the marine environment. The report estimated that cruise ships produce an average of 21,000 gallons per day of sewage and 170,000 gallons per day of raw graywater that can contain as much bacteria as sewage. Large volumes of highly concentrated sewage sludge are also routinely dumped overboard. The report found that even the Advanced Wastewater Treatment systems required in Alaska were far from perfect.

At a time when the health of our oceans is seriously threatened, it is distressing to see an industry turning its back on sustainability. Consumers have a role to play by refusing to participate in this vandalization of the oceans.

Article by Antonio Pasolini, appearing courtesy Justmeans and 3BL Media.

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Did you find a lot of neat little gadgets underneath the Christmas tree this week? While they present exciting new ways to stay connected, the need to keep these devices charged can create special challenges for their owners and a big drain on the energy grid.

Rather than wait until the local energy company decides to switch to solar, wind, or geothermal power, a Berlin-based company has created the opportunity for everyone to become a power plant unto themselves.

Changers recently introduced a portable solar charging system for everyone that aims to reduce global warming by shifting society to the use of a currency backed by the sun. The Changers System gives electronics users (so pretty much everyone!) a way to harness the sun’s energy, liberate ourselves from the grid, recharge our devices, socialize our energy production, and compete with each other to earn credits that can be spent in an online marketplace.

The Changers Starter Kit includes the Kalhuohfummi solar battery and the Maroshi solar module. The Changers Kalhuohfummi is a simple, one-button device that communicates with Changers.com. It can accurately measure how much energy it captures and stores in the built-in battery, ready to charge any smartphone or tablet. The Changers Kalhuohfummi solar battery is powered by the Changers Maroshi flexible solar module, which generates up to four Watts per hour — enough to charge the Kalhuohfummi battery in four hours. The Changers Maroshi solar panel, which is produced in Colorado, USA, can be attached to any window or sunny surface.

Basically, Changers allows people to generate their own energy, eliminate the fear of dead mobile devices, and then make the C02 savings visible to their friends in the same way they would share a new coffee shop or must-listen band.

“Each of us takes it for granted that we have limitless energy on tap, and as a result we have become completely disconnected from how our actual energy usage impacts the planet,” said Markus Schulz, co-founder and CEO of Changers. “The Changers System aims to shift our attitudes and behavior by enabling each of us to produce our own energy, measure and visualize the real effect of this simple act, and then share our contributions with others. We think that if you can unite people in the pursuit of renewable energy — even small amounts of energy — it will lead to a dramatic transformation in how we source and consume energy.”

Heads up: We were so intrigued by the Changers effort to combine the addictive nature of social media with the need to generate more renewable energy, we asked them if we could give the solar charging kit a test drive in 2012…and they agreed! So be on the lookout for a detailed review of the charging kit to be published in the new year.

Article by Beth Buczynski, appearing courtesy Crisp Green.

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Go ahead — call me a hypocrite. I claim to be a cleantech venture capitalist yet I tell you here and now that I am not convinced of anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change (aka global warming). And I will audaciously tell you that my convictions on climate change in no way run contrary to my strong belief in the need for a cleantech revolution.

Many supporters of clean technologies make it seem as though anthropogenic climate change is an absolute fact. To some of them anthropogenic climate change is almost like a religion where any debate or doubt is not tolerated. Some of them may call me a heretic just for writing this post.

At the same time, those on the other end of the spectrum are equally religious in their fervor and certainty that anthropogenic global warming is a fraud. They are certain that human emissions of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse” gases could never impact our climate. And they may twist this post to use it as yet another data point against claims of global warming and added rationale to do nothing except increase fossil fuel exploration.

In both groups, it is my perception that most have read little about the topic other than the popular press. And I find both groups equally sad in their myopic viewpoints. If both of these camps would open their eyes, I suspect there would be much greater agreement on the need for action on clean technologies rather than the divisiveness that their polarizing views create.

There are solid scientific theories and extensive data, anchored by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report, that indicate the possibility that over time man-made emissions of greenhouse gases could impact the global climate and may have already begun to do so. To dismiss them out of hand because there is some reasonable doubt is irrational.

Similarly, to speak about anthropogenic climate change as a certainty or to claim that there is no disagreement among scientist is simply incorrect. There are large numbers of reputable climate scientists who remain unconvinced. The reality is that all predictions of global warming are based on very complex climate models. We can forecast the weather a few days out with reasonable accuracy but if you try predicting next year’s summer temperature — let alone long-term global climate conditions — things fall apart quickly. Long-term climate models are anything but accurate.

We know with certainty that past natural occurrences have caused significant changes to the atmosphere, resulting in climate changes. So, there is little question about whether changes in the atmosphere can cause climate changes. Rather, the question is whether man-made emissions are significant enough to cause a change on their own and to overcome the large natural forces on our climate that include sun spots, variations in the earth’s orbit, and volcanoes all of which have not been taken into account in forecasts of global warming.

Often there is a focus in the media on recent variations in climate as a source of evidence for anthropogenic climate change. Variations in climate over short periods of time are highly suspect as evidence. While most scientists seem to agree that there have been increased temperatures and other climate changes over the past century or so, what cannot be said with certainty is that the increased CO2 levels caused this as opposed natural climate change events that have and continue to happen regularly to our planet. Even the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which is the backbone of support for anthropogenic climate change, found that its confidence in human contribution to such measured weather events (e.g., temperature, severe storms, sea level, etc.) could be as low as 50% for most of the events and 66% for the others (pages 23 and 52 of the Technical Summary).

Climate change is measured over extremely long periods of time – not a few years or tens of years. Some of the best long-term data on historic CO2 concentrations and temperatures is derived from glacial ice core data that spans back 400,000 years. This data shows that the concentration levels of CO2 in the atmosphere today are strikingly more than 20% higher than any level measured in the past 400,000 years (See Figure 1). The recent rapid increase corresponds well with the industrial age and temperature variations are in high correlation with CO2 concentrations. This is hard data to ignore or simply write-off.

Figure 1 – Data from Vostok Ice Core (400,000 years)

Figure 2 –Estimated CO2 and Temperature Changes over 500+ Million Years

But interestingly over longer periods, the level of CO2 today is far below the estimated levels during many times in history (Figure 2) raising the possibility that the current spike may have other natural contributors. And the correlation between temperature and CO2 that seems so apparent in the 400,000-year ice core data becomes much less clear when looking over many millions of years.

While most scientists seem to believe that, in isolation, increased CO2 concentrations create an increased “greenhouse” effect whereby the CO2 acts like a blanket, preventing more of the heat radiated by the earth from going back into space, at what concentration level and over what time period remains a point of uncertainty and debate. In addition, how other factors that may occur with warming such as increased moisture and clouds as well as changes in absorption of CO2 into the ocean at varying temperatures will affect the warming dynamic and other climate change is much more uncertain.

The bottom line is that we won’t truly know if man has caused climate change until after it has already occurred for a very long period of time.

And that’s the rub. The theoretical costs to the human race of global warming are high: rising ocean levels, decreased polar ice, increased severe weather and significant changes in precipitation patterns. If they occurred to a significant degree, all could have sizeable economic and health implications. But there is no certainty that we will ever pay such a price. More compelling is what we know with near-certainty:

· Fossil fuels are a finite resource and they do pollute. Reduction of pollution is always a good thing. And with booming energy demand in China and India, fossil fuels are a resource that will become scarcer and more expensive. You can argue about the pace, but few argue that it will happen. Even oil rich countries such as Saudi Arabia have begun to accept this fact.
· Increased sources of cost-effective energy and more energy-efficient consumption have and will continue to lead to increased standards of living.
· Nations with greater diversity of energy sources have greater economic and national security.
· The U.S. Defense Department believes that climate change will impact our national security.
· If anthropogenic global warming is real, by the time we start paying the price for the damage we have done it will be too late to turn things back quickly.

To claim with certainty that man is causing climate change or to claim there is no risk of anthropogenic climate change are equally incorrect and equally polarizing.

While it is not certain, there is evidence that suggests that human emissions of greenhouse gases may be changing our climate in ways that could have dramatic impacts. We can do nothing and roll the dice that everything can be OK. Or we can take steps to diversify our energy sources away from fossil fuels and increase our energy efficiency, thereby not only reducing the risk of anthropogenic climate change but also increasing the robustness of our economy and our national defense.

Although there should be debate about the specifics of how to best advance the availability and utilization of cleaner technologies, support for cleantech innovation should be the ultimate bipartisan issue without the divisiveness created by talking about anthropogenic climate change as if it is a fact or as if it is fiction.

David Gold heads up cleantech investments for Access Venture Partners. He is also the author of the GreenGoldBlog.

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The increased use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in the production of refrigerators, air conditioners, and other products could play a significant role in accelerating global warming, a new UN report warns.

Without stricter regulations, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report says, the projected emissions of HFCs by 2050 could equal pouring nearly 9 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — or about one-third of current CO2 emissions.

While introduced in the 1990s to replace ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), HFCs are also potent greenhouse gases — about 1,600 times more powerful in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

And with the increase in world population and the continued growth of emerging economies, annual consumption of HFCs has doubled over the last decade to about 400,000 tons, according to the UNEP report.

The most common type of HFC increased 10 percent annually from 2006 to 2010. “Without intervention, the increase in HFC emissions is projected to offset much of the climate benefit achieved by the earlier reduction in [ozone-depleting substances],” the report says.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

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A new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that an increase in heat waves is “virtually certain” as a result of global warming and that extreme weather events — including hurricanes, floods, and droughts — will likely become more intense in the next century.

The IPCC’s “special report on extreme weather,” which includes a range of possible scenarios based on future greenhouse gas emissions, urges governments worldwide to draft plans to minimize the likely human and economic costs of these events.

The report contains grim warnings for developing nations, in particular, which will be more vulnerable to the effects of global warming and have less economic resilience to respond to extreme events.

“Some important extremes have changed and will change more in the future,” said Chris Field, co-chair of the IPCC working group that produced the report. “There is clear and solid evidence (of this).” The report, compiled over two years by more than 200 scientists, was released ahead of global climate talks to be held next month in Durban, South Africa.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

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While deforestation is considered a critical factor in global warming since it causes the release of carbon, scientists say that in northern latitudes tree loss may actually have a net cooling effect.

In an analysis of temperature data collected from Florida to Manitoba, researchers from 20 institutions found that in the boreal region — north of 45 degrees latitude — the surface temperatures in open grassy areas were cooler than in adjacent forests because the snow reflected the sun’s rays back into space.

In those areas, researchers say, the darker forests absorbed the sun’s heat. “The cooling effect is linear with latitude, so the farther north you go, the cooler you get with deforestation,” said Xuhui Lee, a professor of meteorology at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the lead investigator of the study, published in the journal Nature.

For instance, in regions north of Minnesota (45 degrees latitude) temperatures in deforested areas decreased by an average of 1.5 degrees F, while in areas south of North Carolina (35 degrees latitude), deforestation appeared to cause warming.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

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Greenhouse gases are such materials as Carbon Dioxide and Methane that are implicated in global warming. From a permitting point of view it is a new phenomena. Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the first Texas Greenhouse Gas (GHG) permit for the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) Thomas C. Ferguson Power Plant in Llano County, Texas. LCRA is modernizing and expanding its plant by replacing its 37 year old unit with a new more efficient and reliable natural gas powered unit.

The Lower Colorado River Authority or LCRA is a nonprofit public utility that was created in November 1934 by the Texas Legislature. LCRA’s mission is to protect people, property and the environment by providing public services for more than one million people in Central and Southeast Texas. These services include electricity, water, flood management, water and wastewater utilities, public parks along the Highland Lakes and lower Colorado River, and community and economic development services to rural and suburban communities.

“The new LCRA plant will use improved environmental controls and install modern high efficiency equipment,” said EPA Regional Administrator Al Armendariz. “LCRA is leading the way by providing Texans an efficient and reliable source of clean power.”

LCRA is the first company in Texas to complete the GHG permit process and obtained a final permit in about 8 months. Earlier this year, the company proposed to replace an old 440 megawatt electricity generating boiler with a new reliable 590 megawatt combined cycle gas-fired plant. The new plant relies on an advanced electric power generation system that reduces nitrogen oxide emissions and also includes advanced environmental monitoring of GHG emissions.

“We appreciated EPA’s work on our project,” said LCRA General Manager Becky Motal. “We believe that replacing our aging Thomas C. Ferguson Power Plant with this new combined-cycle natural gas plant benefits everyone. The region will benefit from the latest environmental controls and our customers will benefit from our ability to better manage costs with a plant that will use about 35 to 40 percent less fuel than traditional gas-fired plants.”

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state agency that should be responsible for issuing such permits, said it was pleased the Lower Colorado River Authority’s would now be able to move forward.

But “we see no need for — or any environmental benefit from — EPA’s greenhouse gas permit,” said Andy Saenz, a TCEQ spokesman. “The TCEQ authorized the project on Sept. 1, 2011 after careful review that determined the permit was protective of the environment and fully compliant with all state environmental regulations.”

The EPA took over the state’s greenhouse gas permitting program after Texas refused to comply with new regulations designed to decrease air pollution believed to contribute to climate change. Texas, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and industrial pollution in the nation, was the only state that refused to comply, arguing among other things that the regulations would be too costly for businesses in a weak economy.

Article by Andy Soos, appearing courtesy Environmental News Network.

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This week, as Vice Chairman of the Review Committee for the Zayed Future Energy Prize, I had the chance to assess firsthand many great examples of renewable energy and emissions reducing technologies and solutions from SMEs & NGOs, large corporations and individuals from around the world.

In fact I was very encouraged to see that in addition to energy efficiency and carbon reduction initiatives, quite a few of this year’s submissions were from influential groups or organizations that advocate green transparency among companies around the world. What’s more, companies – particularly the larger ones that have been shortlisted for the Prize – are already accounting for their carbon footprint and notably taking action to reduce the same.

This is encouraging, but there’s still a long way to go till we reach that green dream! There’s a significant gap between the potential for deployment and impact of carbon reduction technologies – particularly CCS – and where we are at today.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies have the potential to achieve substantial reductions in global energy-related CO2 emissions, and dramatically slow down global warming – if deployed at a significant scale, in a timely manner and at competitive costs (essential to attracting firm and robust investments).

In fact, the International Energy Association (IEA) estimated that by 2050, CCS could reduce the total global energy-related CO2 emissions by 50%, and help meet the overall goal of keeping the global temperature increase below 2°C.

The technology and technical know-how exist. Whether it’s adding chemical scrubbers to existing coal or gas fired power plants, or building new plants that gasify the coal before burning it, or ‘carbon recycling’ (cap¬ture and process the CO2) for onward use in industrial and energy and power generation applications that create a ‘closed loop’ carbon cycle – it is evident that we have the knowledge and there is a diversified portfolio of advanced technologies available.

Back in 2008, the G8 group (which includes the U.S., Russia and Japan) made plans to launch 20 large-scale CCS demonstration projects by 2010 with ‘broad deployment’ of the technology by 2020. Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported that governments worldwide committed some $22.5 billion to support CCS since the beginning of 2008.

The reality today is quite a different one compared to three years ago: one fifth of the world’s CCS projects have been delayed or canceled according to the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute.

The odds appear to be stacked against CCS, but as with any new wide-reaching technology, this is due – to a large extent – to the fact that there’s currently no precedent to follow in this new emerging sector, no global operational framework adopted yet (no explicit policy that sets limits, and hence a price tag, on greenhouse gas emissions), and there’s a high degree of experimentation that comes with that.

Still, with all its challenges, no other technology comes close to matching the potential of CCS in the fight against global warming. The most pressing issues for CCS are in the research, development and demonstration (RD&D) & policy making area. The completion of several larger-scale demonstration plants over the next few years is critical for CCS to gain market share and become commercially viable.

How will we get there?

The climate crisis requires that we act now. For every five years of inaction, there’s an extra gigatonne of gas emissions waiting to be reduced.

The CCS industry stands to benefit from the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) which can potentially stimulate growth and provides additional incentives for CCS projects around the world to become economically feasible.

No doubt, this is a prolific time for energy technologies. I think the critical factor lies in stronger collaboration and commitment between all the parties involved: governments and the private sector, the companies developing alternative carbon-capture approaches and the ones creating the infrastructure intended to sequestrate the carbon dioxide.

This is precisely what the Zayed Future Energy Prize aims to fuel globally: collaboration and a community of innovation, knowledge and best practice sharing.

I am a passionate supporter of the Prize and I am proud that the UAE has committed to taking a leadership role in renewable energy and sustainability, its role in the CCS sphere is particularly notable as the potential for the deployment of such technologies is tremendous, here and around the world.

I firmly believe that over the next few years CCS will emerge as an economically attractive technology for mitigating carbon emissions on a large scale, and I’m looking forward to hearing over the coming years about more and more new CCS solutions from the Zayed Future Energy Prize – the world’s stage for future energy innovations!

Article by Bader Al Lamki, Director of Masdar Carbon

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Carbon sequestration is the capture of carbon dioxide (CO2). This is the process of carbon capture and storage, where carbon dioxide is removed from flue gases, such as on power stations, before being stored in underground reservoirs. There are also natural sequestration processes such as the ocean. Carbon sequestration describes long-term storage of carbon dioxide or other forms of carbon to either mitigate or defer global warming. It has been proposed as a way to slow the atmospheric and marine accumulation of greenhouse gases, which are released by burning fossil fuels. The lack of a settled legal framework that balances private property rights while maximizing the public good ultimately hinders the large-scale commercial deployment of geologic carbon sequestration, according to research by A. Bryan Endres, a professor of agricultural law at the University of Illinois.

In order to justify the extensive up-front capital investment by firms, issues with the property rights of the subsurface pore space that would permanently house the captured carbon dioxide must be resolved first, says A. Bryan Endres, a professor of agricultural law at Illinois.

“You have a new technology that requires a lot of upfront capital investment, but you don’t have a legal framework for how you’re going to be able to implement this technology with regard to property rights,” said Endres, who also is the director of the university’s European Union Center. “What’s unique about property rights is they’re usually pretty well settled, and yet here we are dealing with a situation where ownership isn’t quite so clear. That’s a key question, because a firm isn’t going to invest money in a carbon sequestration plant before they are confident about who owns the area underneath.”

According to the study, published in the University of Illinois Law Review, ownership of the pore space at the depths necessary for permanent geologic carbon sequestration is still an open question in the vast majority of states.

“Right now, only Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota have assigned the property rights of the pore space to the surface property owner,” Endres said. “While that might make good political sense, I don’t think that makes good policy sense because it creates a patchwork of small land-holdings. With carbon sequestration, the geology is going to determine the limits, not some grid-based property system. This is why we need to have legislative involvement to clarify the situation.”

Like air transport, carbon sequestration should be thought of as a public good — one that has the added potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and curb global climate change.

“It makes more sense to treat it as you would airspace for an airplane, in that it belongs to the state and they can decide who’s going to access it,” Endres said. “It would be a much more efficient system if the state had ownership of it.”

Endres notes that there’s also the potential for states to generate a significant amount of revenue from carbon sequestration, either through an auction or a royalty system.

While this isn’t necessarily the silver bullet to reverse carbon dioxide emissions, Endres says it’s one of many ready-made and already available tools that could slow the growth rate of global climate change.

“This is a technology that will allow us to utilize natural resources like coal while also shrinking its carbon footprint,” he said. “So it’s important to get this framework in place so the industry can really take off, because now you just have a lot of speculation, experimental labs and pilot projects. This is something that needs to get developed sooner rather than later.”

The question of legal rights will be a sharply debated issue for decades still. Both sides will use the facade of property right for their own positions.

Article by Andy Soos, appearing courtesy Environmental News Network.

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