Energy Exchange

Recruiting Tech Innovators to Find Climate Solutions

By Steven Hamburg / Published: May 21, 2014

54097_Circuit Earth.JPGAmerica is in the midst of two booms: one in sensor technology and another in natural gas. Recent innovations—specifically advancements in drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies—have dramatically increased the nation’s access to reserves of natural gas. While this influx of new technology has altered the energy industry, the resulting large-scale development has brought with it some real environmental and climate risks. Now is the time for the same ingenuity that transformed America’s energy landscape to help identify solutions to reduce the impacts caused by increasing supplies of natural gas.

Just this last month, two innovator programs were announced – one led by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and another from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) – both are focused on developing new technologies capable of minimizing methane emissions from the natural gas supply chain. The programs are different but complementary and together signal there is  momentum building to engage the best and brightest innovators to help address a consequential component of the climate issue. Read More »

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EDF Climate Corps Heads Overseas: Next Stop China

By EDF Blogs / Published: May 20, 2014

By: Liz Delaney, Senior Manager, EDF Climate Corps Operations

Reinhard Krause / Reuters

Reinhard Krause / Reuters

China is, in many ways, the epicenter of the world’s efforts to curb climate change. The rapidly growing nation’s need for energy is soaring – demand is expected to double by 2020 – and China has surpassed the United States to become the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

So it makes total sense for the Environmental Defense Fund to expand its unique fellowship program, Climate Corps, to China this summer to help leading global brands there find energy efficiency and sustainability solutions that help them thrive. EDF is partnering with Apple, Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, Cummins and Legrand in China, initially placing six graduate students to work with the companies. Read More »

Also posted in Air Quality, Clean Energy, Energy Efficiency / Tagged , | Comments are closed

Transition to Clean Energy will make the U.S. Military More Efficient, Effective, and Safe

By Jim Marston / Published: May 19, 2014
http://www.theburdenfilm.com/

http://www.theburdenfilm.com/

When most of us think about military operations, we think of tanks rolling across a desert, large aircraft carriers on the ocean, or long lines of Humvees in convoys. These vehicles, and their missions, take a lot of energy and are part of the large category of “operational energy use.” In fact, 75% of all military energy use is operational.

This operational energy use has created a massive dependence on fossil fuels, resulting in some unintended consequences, which:

  • Cause ships, planes and vehicles, like tanks, to cease operations during refueling. This takes time and keeps the vehicle from completing its mission. Fuel convoys are also prime targets for ambushes and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
  • Bind the military to a volatile commodity with changing prices and an unstable future.
  • Exacerbate climate change, an issue that U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel recently called a “threat multiplier.” According to Secretary Hagel, climate change will influence resource competition and “aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions.” These stressors will increase the frequency, scope, and duration of future conflicts and, by extension, U.S. military interventions around the globe.  Read More »
Also posted in Clean Energy, Energy Efficiency, Grid Modernization, Renewable Energy / Tagged | Read 2 Responses

The Energy-Water Nexus Faces an Up-Hill Battle…But at Least it’s on ‘The Hill’

By Kate Zerrenner / Published: May 15, 2014
Source: Argonne National Library

Source: Argonne National Library

The energy-water nexus has been gaining traction around the globe, including serving as the theme to this year’s World Water Day, and now we are finally seeing some movement on Capitol Hill.

In January, Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) introduced S. 1971, the Nexus of Energy and Water for Sustainability Act of 2014, or NEWS Act of 2014. Foremost, the bill would establish an interagency coordination committee focused on the nexus between energy and water production, use, and efficiency. The NEWS Act of 2014 also proposes a cross-cutting budget mechanism to allow policymakers to see where funding is needed across various energy-water initiatives.

While the bill faces a particularly steep slope to passage (7% compared to an average overall 11% passage rate, according to GovTrack, a government transparency tracker), that it has been introduced at all is the first sign of a more comprehensive approach to the energy-water nexus at the highest levels. Read More »

Also posted in Clean Energy, Energy-Water Nexus, Renewable Energy, Utility Business Models / Read 1 Response

The Many Benefits of Reducing Carbon Pollution from Existing Power Plants

By EDF Blogs / Published: May 15, 2014

By: Megan Ceronsky, EDF attorney, and Peter Heisler, legal fellow 

The newly-released Third National Climate Assessment has some eye-opening news about climate change.

The report confirms that if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced it is likely that American communities will experience:

  • increased severity of dangerous smog and particulate pollution in many regions[1]
  • intensified precipitation events, hurricanes, and storm surges[2]
  • reduced precipitation and runoff in the arid West[3]
  • reduced crop yields and livestock productivity[4]
  • increases in fires, insect pests, and the prevalence of diseases transmitted by food, water, and insects[5]
  • increased risk of illness and death due to extreme heat[6]

Source: Flickr/Eric Schmuttenmaer

Extreme weather imposes a high cost on our communities, our livelihoods, and our lives. The National Climatic Data Center reports that the United States experienced seven climate disasters that each caused more than a billion dollars of damage in 2013, including the devastating floods in Colorado and extreme droughts in western states.[7]

These are precisely the type of impacts projected to affect American communities with increasing frequency and severity as climate-destabilizing emissions continue to accumulate in the atmosphere.

Fossil fuel-fired power plants are far and away the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, emitting more than two billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2012 — equivalent to 40 percent of U.S. carbon pollution and nearly one-third of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.[8] Read More »

Also posted in Air Quality, Colorado, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy / Comments are closed

Germany is Revolutionizing how we Use Energy…and the U.S. could Learn a Thing or Two

By Peter Sopher / Published: May 14, 2014
"Green Power, not nuclear energy." Germany will fully transition off nuclear by 2022.

“Green Power, not nuclear energy.” Germany will fully transition off nuclear by 2022.

As the academic breeding ground of Einstein, Freud, and many other internationally-known scholars, it should come as no surprise that Germany is at the forefront of modernizing an industry as complex as energy. Over the last two decades, Germany has been revamping its electricity sector with the ambitious goal of powering its economy almost entirely on renewable energy by 2050. And last Sunday, the country broke a new record by acquiring nearly 75 percent of its total energy demand from renewable sources (mostly wind and solar). Even the European Union’s recent announcement that it will begin divesting in renewable energy by 2017 hasn’t shaken Germany’s ambition to forge ahead  in its quest to phase out fossil fuels.

Energiewende (the German term for ‘energy transition’) is by far the most aggressive clean energy effort among the G20 and could be as beneficial for other countries as it is for Germany. The German Institute for International and Security Affairs argues, “If the [German] energy transition succeeds, it will serve as an international model… The allure of the German energy transition represents an important foreign policy resource, of which full use should be made.”

At the moment, Energiewende is the closest thing the world has to a renewables-integration pilot on a national scale. If successful, this blueprint will expedite the broad scale integration of technologies that will be necessary to wean the world off fossil fuels and combat climate change. Read More »

Also posted in Clean Energy, Grid Modernization, Renewable Energy, Utility Business Models / Tagged | Comments are closed