THE HANDSTAND | JANUARY 2008 |
environment latest data and
technology directives: U.N. issues landmark report on global warmingPanel offers dire warnings, establishes scientific baseline for political talksET Nov. 17, 2007 VALENCIA, Spain - Global warming is unequivocal and carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere commits the world to sea levels rising an average of up to 4.6 feet, the worlds top climate experts warned Saturday in their most authoritative report to date. Only urgent, global action will do, said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, calling on the United States and China the worlds two biggest polluters to do more to slow global climate change.I look forward to seeing the U.S. and China playing a more constructive role, Ban told reporters. Both countries can lead in their own way. Science News November 21, 2007 Britain's carbon strategy 'up in smoke'Published: 17 December 2007Britain's plans to build new coal-fired power stations as part of the country's efforts to address its looming energy crisis will completely undermine the Bali agreement on climate change and discredit Gordon Brown's commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, according to one of the world's leading climate scientists.The warning will be made directly to the Prime Minister this week in a letter from James Hansen, the director of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, who will urge Mr Brown to block plans to build up to eight new coal-fired power stations the first in 30 years. Dr Hansen, one of the first scientists to warn of climate change 20 years ago, said that coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel and that building new power stations that burn it without capturing waste carbon dioxide will tip the planet towards irreversible warming. He said that coal presents the biggest challenge in the fight against climate change because governments around the world appear to be dead set on using it as a cheap and easy source of energy without thinking about the long-term consequences. In an interview with The Independent, Dr Hansen said Britain has a special responsibility to lead the world in banning new coal-fired power stations and dismantling those already in operation because of the country's long history of burning the fuel. He claims that Britain, followed by the United States and Germany, has the highest per capita responsibility for climate change based on the cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide since the start of the Industrial Revolution 250 years ago. Dr Hansen warned that if Britain, Germany and the United States go ahead with their plans to build new coal-fired power stations it will undercut attempts to convince India and China to build cleaner, more expensive power plants that capture carbon dioxide emissions. But the technology of capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide from power stations chimneys where the waste gas is caught and then buried underground for thousands of years is still decades away, Dr Hansen warned. Until it had been shown to work there is could be no justification for burning coal because of its potential contribution to global carbon dioxide levels. Gordon Brown, who supported the Bali agreement last week, needs to understand that his entire strategy on climate change will unravel if he ignores coal, Dr Hansen said. "If he doesn't understand this, then he doesn't yet get it," he said. In his letter to the Prime Minister, Dr Hansen says that the energy departments of governments take it as a "God-given fact" that they can sanction the mining of all fossil fuels from the ground before moving on to other sources of energy. If that is done for existing coal deposits, we would end up creating a different planet to the one that has nurtured the development of human civilisation over the past 10,000 years with a relatively stable climate, he added. "Frankly, it's difficult to exaggerate the importance of phasing out coal use except where the CO2 is captured and sequestered because there is no viable strategy for stabilising climate without doing that," Dr Hansen said. "There is much more CO2 in coal than there is in oil, and oil is going to run out. There is enough CO2 in coal to take us far beyond the dangerous level to produce a different planet," he said. The Prime Minister is considering a call from his own advisers to build up to eight new coal-fired power plants over the coming decade. "The strange thing is that in the countries that talk the greenest, like Germany and Britain, the policymakers just don't yet get it. In Germany, they are replacing nuclear power plants with coal-fired plants that don't capture and sequester CO2. That's a recipe for disaster," Dr Hansen said. "It makes sense not to build new coal-fired power plants and it also makes sense to bulldoze those that we have already within the next few decades. That's when the science will tell us that we are close to the range of dangerous climate change," he said. Dr Hansen said that it is wrong to say that a few more coal-fired power stations in Britain, Europe or the United States will not matter when China and India are planning to build hundreds of similar power plants over the next 10 or 20 years. "We're responsible for most of what's up there already [in terms of atmospheric carbon dioxide] and China and India have every reason to expect us to take the first step. Unless we put a moratorium on our own coal-fired power plants we have no hope to sitting down at the same table as China and India. So I think this is the most important issue. "[There is] a critical need to shut down coal-fired power plants until we have the technology to capture and sequester the CO2," Dr Hansen added. A recent study by Dr Hansen and his colleagues suggests that it is possible to keep levels of carbon dioxide which currently have reached about 383 parts per million (ppm) from rising above a "dangerous" 450ppm if there is a moratorium on building new coal-fired power stations and if existing plants are phased out by mid-century. "We argue that a rising price on carbon emissions is needed to discourage conversion of the vast fossil reserves into usable reserves, and to keep CO2 beneath the 450ppm ceiling," he said. "We show that it is feasible to keep atmospheric CO2 from exceeding about 450ppm by 2100, provided that emissions from coal and unconventional fossil fuels are constrained. Coal-fired power plants without sequestration must be phased out before mid-century to achieve this CO2 limit." Extracts of James Hansen's draft letter to Gordon Brown "You have the potential to influence the future of the planet ... If we continue to build coal-fired power plants without carbon capture, we will lock in future climate disasters associated with passing climate tipping points." "If Great Britain and Germany halted construction of coal-fired power plants that do not capture and sequester the CO2, it could be a tipping point for the world. There is still time to find that tipping point, but just barely." "Coal and unconventional fossil fuels such as tar shale contain enough carbon to produce a vastly different planet than the one on which civilisation developed ..." Plant extinctions could cut ecosystem productivity in halfA meta-analysis of 44 experiments in natural habitats shows that plant extinctions reduce ecosystem productivity by up to 50%.The fate of life on earth is tied inextricably to plants: they absorb CO2, produce oxygen and food, and provide myriad ecosystem services. Now a study, published November 8 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A., indicates that the extinction of plant species diminishes the total amount of biomass in natural habitats by as much as 50%. The take-home message: diversity matters greatly if we are to maintain critical benefits from nature, the researchers say. Scientists investigating the effects of declining diversity on ecosystems are generally divided into two camps. One group holds that it's the loss of highly productive dominant species that is important in biomass loss; the other contends that dwindling numbers of species in unique and complementary niches are to blame. Following up on previous work, ecologist Bradley Cardinale of the University of California Santa Barbara and his colleagues analyzed 44 experiments that manipulated species numbers in plant communities to simulate extinctions. The experiments encompassed the global gamut of habitats, from tundra to tropical rain forest. Each included an average of 15 species and lasted on average 2.5 years. For each experiment, Cardinale's team compared the amount of biomass produced in the most diverse plant assemblage (i.e., the "natural" community) with the least diverse one (typically a monoculture). The analysis showed that, reduced to a minimum of species, natural communities forfeited on average about 50% of their productivity. Strikingly, the effect increased over time. "Because research generally is funded for short time periods, it's difficult to assess how long it takes to reach the maximum impact of diversity loss, but clearly we've underestimated the effects," Cardinale says. Perhaps more important, the analysis
revealed that losing dominant, highly productive species
accounted for just 34% of the biomass loss. The remainder
was attributable to the departure of suites of
complementary species. "Whether that's because the
species facilitate each other's growth or because each
occupies an irreplaceable niche isn't clear,"
Cardinale says. But, he warns, "as large areas
around the world are being converted to monocultures, it
behooves us to understand we may be compromising nature's
capacity to provide ecological services critical to
humanity." Global warming and shifting patterns of precipitation contribute to water problems.Lake Lanier, the sole source of drinking water for 3 million people in Atlanta's metropolitan area, has only a few months' water remaining if record drought continues. Australia is in the midst of the "Big Dry", the most severe drought in 100 years. Many farmers in New South Wales experienced record-breaking conditions in September and October and complete failure of the winter crop. Meanwhile, Chile is calling on its mining companies to curtail their massive consumption of process water from streams and wetlands and to begin desalinating brackish water. And the Ganges, the most sacred river in India, which is fed by ancient Himalayan glaciers, is predicted to disappear as early as 2030, according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007). The Ganges Delta is home to 400 million people in India and Bangladesh, more than any other river basin in the world. What do all these problems have in common? Seemingly little, except for the possibility that global warming and shifting patterns of precipitation contribute in some way. Otherwise, each is a separate regional-to-continental-scale problem unto itself. But taken together, they represent world water woes of considerable proportions. Overpopulation, poorly planned development, inefficiency, and climate change all advance these problems to varying degrees. Overpopulation is an obvious contributor. Demographers predict a peak global population of 910 billion near the middle of this century. But where will all the water needed come from? Much of the world already is withdrawing 2040% of the total available average freshwater, leaving people vulnerable to periodic droughts. Poorly planned development contributes, too. Everyone wants to live "on the edge" where seawater beckons, but it doesn't quench our thirst. Eighty percent of Australians and more than half of all people worldwide live along the coast. The trend is rapidly increasing. Megacities develop where droughts once were not a problem. But now, tens of millions of people are crammed into a limited coastal region. The Los Angeles megalopolis from San Diego to Santa Barbara has enough water of its own to support ~1 million people, but soon the area will have >20 million inhabitants. Interbasin transfers are required, in this case, from Sierra Nevada snowmelt and the distant Colorado River. Inefficiency runs rampant. One mayor in Georgia recently told people not to drink so much tap water. How foolish! Did he never think instead to tell them to stopper their bathtubs and showers to collect the gray water and to use it to flush their toilets? Then, by all means, drink your full allotment of 2 L of H2O per day. For that matter, why don't we constantly reuse gray water and prohibit outdoor irrigation of lawns entirely? Water reuse should become the norm. More than 400 irrigated golf courses are located in the desert of metropolitan Phoenix, Ariz. Need I say more? In the U.S., we heavily subsidize farmers with direct payments to irrigate crops such as corn and cotton from the already overdrawn Ogallala (High Plains) Aquifer. Does this make any sense in a country that espouses free trade? Irrigation consumes 70% of all water that's withdrawn. The U.S. should follow the technological lead of Israel, the global conservation leader. Evidence of a worsening world water shortage is found in the increasing number of countries importing >10% of their grain supplyan indirect importation of water. Climate change is the thread that potentially runs through all of these problems. A warmer world melts continental glaciers, the source for life in many arid regions of the world. Water may be plentiful for a while as glacier melt swells rivers and streams, but it's only ephemeral. A warmer world also causes changes in the distribution of rainfall and in the frequency of floods and droughts, both of which burden nations of people. For example, witness the wicked cycle of drought and flood in recent years in Mozambique and central Africa. It's impossible to attribute any specific regional problem directly to climate change, but the hydrologic "flywheel" is spinning faster as the earth's surface and oceans warm. In total, global warming will produce greater worldwide precipitation. But if rainfall patterns shift and floods increase, we will not benefit. By 2025, 1.8 billion people will live in countries with absolute water scarcity, according to UN estimates. Rich countries can adapt. But the future of developing countries is at stake. Taken together, these forces foreshadow a world water crisis if nations fail to directly address overpopulation, poor planning, inefficiency, and climate change. Jerald L. Schnoor Technology News November 21, 2007 Coordinating water researchA new NRC report presents an overview of the current state of measuring, monitoring, and modeling U.S. water resources across multiple federal agencies.Despite the dearth of stream gauges for monitoring water, stagnant technology for measuring snowpack, and a general malaise in water-resources funding, the future is bright for water research in the U.S., according to Integrating Multiscale Observations of U.S. Waters, a new report by a National Academies committee. The committee, sponsored by the Water Science and
Technology Board of the National Research Council, is
optimistic that researchers and managers can use current
water monitoring and management tools, such as satellites
and biogeochemical sensors, to track sources and quality.
The report highlights case studies on the Neuse River,
the Arctic, sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere to
illustrate what can be done now. It exhorts Congress to
boost funding and encourages various agencies involved in
water research to cooperate more to address challenges,
such as observing and understanding ecosystems in real
time with in situ, wireless observation stations. Technology News November 21, 2007 Removing emerging contaminants from drinking waterA side-by-side comparison of treatment technologies finds that many significantly reduce concentrations of endocrine disrupters and other recently discovered compounds.Trace concentrations of endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs), household chemicals, and pharmaceuticals and personal-care products (PPCPs) are showing up in streams and other water sources all over the world. So the potential for these contaminants to reach drinking-water taps is high, especially because treatment plants weren't designed to remove them. However, a recent one-of-a-kind report on the effectiveness of current drinking-water treatment technologiesspanning conventional to advanced processesoffers some reassurance to utility officials grappling with this issue. Clark County Water Reclamation District UV disinfection kills microbial pathogens such as Cryptosporidium, and, when combined with hydrogen peroxide, it also removes endocrine disrupters. "The findings are encouraging because they show that supply waters aren't as contaminated as we thought, and when these compounds are there, many are removed by our existing treatment processes," says Djanette Khiari, a project manager with the Awwa Research Foundation (AwwaRF), which funded the study and is the research arm of the drinking-water industry. The report, Water Removal of EDCs and Pharmaceuticals in Drinking and Reuse Treatment Processes, evaluates physical, chemical, and biological treatment methods at both bench and pilot scales to determine removal potential at environmentally relevant concentrations of less than 100 nanograms per liter (ng/L). The researchers spiked natural waters from several sources across the U.S. with 36 different EDCs and PPCPs, including those known to occur or likely to occur in source waters, and subjected the waters to various treatment methods. They also analyzed raw and treated drinking water from 20 full-scale drinking-water utilities and 6 water-reuse plants. "No single process was able to remove absolutely every chemical," says Shane Snyder, an environmental toxicologist at the Southern Nevada Water Authority and lead author of the study. "The findings demonstrate, though, that certain processes can greatly reduce the concentration of many classes of contaminants, while others have little impact on removal." For example, conventional coagulation, flocculation, and filtration removed few of the target compounds when used at full scale. Magnetic ion exchange also had little effect. Chlorine disinfection processes, on the other hand, removed roughly half of the compounds. Ozone, another disinfectant, proved extremely effective, removing most of the compounds even at relatively low ozone doses. Ultraviolet (UV) disinfection at typical drinking-water dosages was largely ineffective. However, when UV was combined with hydrogen peroxide for advanced oxidation, it offered the same removal rates as ozone. Similarly, granular activated carbon provided good removal as long as it was replaced or regenerated regularly. Reverse-osmosis membranes and nanofiltration membranes removed all of the target analytes, with reporting limits of 110 ng/L, whereas ultrafiltration and microfiltration membranes did not. Currently, only a handful of drinking-water utilities use membrane and advanced oxidation treatment processes. For those considering upgrades, the report "gives them a better understanding of what chemicals they can expect to remove with these processes," Snyder says. Although several studies have investigated the fate of trace EDCs and PPCPs through water treatment processes, "this is the first really comprehensive study," says Jörg Drewes, an environmental engineer at the Colorado School of Mines. It provides drinking-water utilities with a great foundation and reassurance about the effectiveness of certain treatment processes, he says. Mic Stewart, water-quality manager at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, agrees. His utility is putting in ozone treatment to control disinfection byproducts. "It's nice to know that an incidental benefit of that is control of these other compounds," he says. What's still missing, Snyder acknowledges, is information about just how important these compounds are to human health. He notes that the study finds the insect repellent N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide (DEET) in 90% of treated water samples. Several pharmaceuticals, including the tranquilizer meprobamate, the antiepileptic phenytoin, the anti-inflammatory ibuprofen, and the X-ray contrast medium iopromide, occurred in more than 65% of the treated samples, although rarely at concentrations greater than 10 ng/L. Atrazine, a widely used herbicide and known EDC, occurred at the highest concentrations of any contaminant tested (up to 430 ng/L), but still far below the U.S. EPA's maximum contaminant level of 3 micrograms per liter. Hormones, which garner the greatest amount of concern for public health, occurred infrequently or not at all, Snyder notes. "Until we have toxicologically based health limits, utilities have no real treatment goal," Snyder notes. "So until we chase down what it all means to public health, we're just running after analytical detection limits." AwwaRF released the report to its members earlier this
fall The Clarity will get an equivalent combined city and highway fuel economy of 68 miles per gallon twice that of the Honda Accord and a driving range of 270 miles, according to Dan Bonawitz, head of logistics at American Honda, who added that the fuel-cell car is for drivers who want to be on the absolute cutting edge of gasoline-free technology. For now, those drivers will have to stay in Southern California where they will have access to the limited number of hydrogen fuel stations. Chevrolets parent General Motors said Wednesday it will put 100 hydrogen fuel cell-powered Chevy Equinox compact SUVs on the road in California, New York and Washington, D.C., next year, giving them to hand-picked users. Ultimately, GM says it aims to have vehicles running on hydrogen in showrooms by 2011 or 2012, and expects to ramp up production to about 1 million vehicles a year worldwide after 2012. |