Tag archives for coal
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The city of Glasgow sits above old caverns filled with hot water. Could it be used to heat homes?
Posted by Guest post by Muhammad Makki In this guest-post, Muhammad Makki, a doctoral candidate at the University of Queensland, presents his reflections on a field visit to the remote Tharparkar coal region of Pakistan and the challenges of communal harmony and a diversified approach to addressing Pakistan’s energy crisis. The field visit was supported by the…
European Union Rejects Carbon Market Solution
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on April 18, 2013 The European Union Parliament rejected a proposal to backload the auctioning of credits within its Emissions Trading Scheme this week. The proposed “backloading” plan would have removed a surplus of emissions permits from the world’s largest carbon market—potentially saving it from collapse and making fossil fuels more expensive for utilities and factories to burn. The surplus, partly a result of the…
EPA Proposes Clean Air Measures for Gasoline, Finalizes MATS Rules
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on April 4, 2013 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday announced its proposed Tier 3 rules, which would reduce allowable amounts of sulfur in gasoline and help automobiles’ catalytic converters capture more pollutants. The new measures would reduce sulfur in gasoline by more than 60 percent—from the present average of 30 parts per million to 10 parts per million by 2017—an environmental benefit comparable to taking 33 million…
Details of Obama’s Plan to Reduce Dependence on Foreign Oil Emerge
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on March 21, 2013 The White House has released more details about the Energy Security Trust that President Barack Obama first mentioned in February’s State of the Union address. Obama introduced the plan—which aims to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil, improve vehicle fuel efficiency and protect consumers from gas price spikes—during a speech at Chicago’s Argonne National Laboratory. “By investing in our…
Carbon Tax Is a Popular Topic in Washington
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on March 14, 2013 Since China announced it will hold off plans to introduce a carbon tax, the idea has generated some activity on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers on Tuesday proposed a draft bill that would charge the largest industrial polluters a fee for, or carbon tax on, their fossil-fuel emissions. The plan, proposed by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Rep. Earl…
Obama Announces Leaders of His Energy, Environment Team
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on March 7, 2013 After weeks of speculation, President Barack Obama officially announced his selections to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on Monday. Gina McCarthy was chosen to lead the EPA, replacing Lisa Jackson, while Ernest Moniz will take over as energy secretary, replacing Steven Chu. Together, Obama said, they are charged with “making sure that we’re investing in…
As U.S. Carbon Dioxide Footprint Falls, Report Looks at Ways to Continue Emission Decline
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on February 7, 2013 As Vice President Joe Biden reaffirmed the Obama administration’s commitment to combat climate change, new data indicates carbon dioxide emissions in the United States in 2012 dropped to their lowest levels since 1994. The report found expansion of renewables, increased efficiency and the increased availability of unconventional natural gas all contributed to the reduction in climate pollution. In fact, by the end…
Global Temperature Rises in 2012, Climate Conditions Questioned
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on January 17, 2013 Just days after the announcement that last year was the warmest in history for the continental United States, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found global temperatures are rising too. In their separate annual analyses of surface temperatures, NASA and NOAA ranked 2012 among the 10 warmest years on record globally (NOAA showed 2012…
Scientific Papers Share Lessons Learned from the BP Oil Spill
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on December 6, 2012 A collection of papers now out in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) looks at the response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in 2010, examining whether it was successful and how it could be improved. The release of the reports comes just days after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suspended BP from obtaining new U.S. contracts due to…
North Carolina Legislature Mulls Ban on Sea Level Rise Projections
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on June 7, 2012 The link between climate change and sea level rise, already well established, has been reinforced by recent studies. But sea level rise also made headlines in a more unusual way recently after some North Carolina legislators introduced a bill that would call into question some of the scientific projections related to sea level rise in the state. Specifically, their draft legislation would…
EPA Makes Historic Announcement: First Greenhouse Gas Rule for New Power Plants
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on March 29, 2012 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released long-awaited greenhouse gas rules for new power plants this week. Using the Clean Air Act, the agency standard would set the first national limits on the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions new power plants can emit. The EPA proposed the rule after delaying it several times since July 2011. Power plants are the largest…
More than 100 Coal Plants Shutting—But How Much Difference Will It Make?
Posted by Mason Inman on March 8, 2012 After public pressure, Chicago will shut two aging coal-fired power plants, and the owner of one of the power plants, Midwest Generation, may shut its other four coal plants in Illinois. Since the start of 2010, more than 100 coal plants have been slated for early retirement. A major reason for coal plants shutting has been public opposition to…
Australia’s Wild Weather May Have Helped Push Carbon Tax
Posted by Mason Inman on October 13, 2011 Although Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard had promised before to not enact a carbon tax, floods, bush fires, heat waves, and drought reawakened discussion about putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions. This week, Australia’s House of Representatives narrowly passed a carbon tax, sending the bill to the country’s Senate, where observers say it is almost certain…
Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies May Be the Way to Jumpstart Climate Finance
Posted by Mason Inman on September 22, 2011 A leaked World Bank document, due to be presented at the G20 meeting in November, proposes that rich countries eliminate their fossil fuel subsidies and instead contribute the money to climate aid for poor countries to help with green energy and adaptation measures. The paper also said donor countries are unlikely to come up with the…
Tar Sands Pipeline Gets Green Light in Environmental Review
Posted by Mason Inman on September 1, 2011 Hundreds of protesters—including famed climate researcher James Hansen—have been arrested in protests in front of the White House over the past two weeks, in an attempt to stop the construction of a pipeline from Canada to Texas to carry diluted tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries, mainly over concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and risks of…
Scrambling to Head Off Power Outages Caused by Heat Waves, Rapid Growth, and Disaster
Posted by Mason Inman on August 18, 2011 Texas has suffered through the worst drought and one of the worst heat waves on record, pushing electricity use to a record high in an attempt to cope. Texas is the state with the largest installed wind capacity, and recently installed wind farms came through to boost the state’s electricity generation just in time. However, even this jump was…
Worldwide Energy Shortages Triggered by Drought, Subsidies
Posted by Mason Inman on July 7, 2011 As the summer heats up, energy shortages are striking around the world—including the oil-rich Middle East. Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), stopped supplying gasoline to the other emirates, because the government can’t afford to continue subsidizing gasoline, which it currently sells at far below global market rates. Now a UAE company has hashed…
OPEC Discord May Be “the Beginning of the End” of the Oil Cartel
Posted by Mason Inman on June 9, 2011 With oil prices high, the International Energy Agency (IEA) last month made a rare plea for the world to produce more oil. So the latest meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), where they set their production quotas, was closely watched. After a rancorous meeting, most member countries refused to raise quotas. Before the…
Record-breaking Greenhouse Gas Emissions, but Carbon Market Failing
Posted by Mason Inman on June 2, 2011 Greenhouse gas emissions dropped in 2009 in the wake of the Great Recession. Research now shows emissions rebounded quickly in 2010, setting a new all-time record. In a press release, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said the prospect of limiting the global increase in temperature to no more than 2 ºC is getting bleaker. Commenting on the…
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Is there a positive side to consumption? One of our Great Energy Challenge advisers, Dan Kammen, of the World Bank and UC Berkeley, raised that thought in a brainstorming session on questions to ask the panelists here at Aspen Environmental Forum 2011. The sessions are focused on the strain on the planet as population nears…
After Fukushima, Japan Vows to Boost Renewables
Posted by Mason Inman on May 26, 2011 In the wake of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan pledged to boost renewable energy to at least 20 percent of its consumption in the next decade. This would double the share of renewable electricity in Japan, which gets most of its electricity from nuclear, coal, and oil. Nuclear power had supplied…
Posted by The already blossoming green jobs sector may get an added growth spurt with the U.S. Department of Energy‘s recent announcement that the FutureGen project is back on track. A novel coal-fired, near-zero-emissions power plant in Mattoon, Illinois, FutureGen was first proposed by the Bush Administration in 2003 as a way to control carbon dioxide emissions,…
Posted by We are years or even decades from a viable system of carbon-free coal-fired power stations. But have you noticed how much activity there is in this field these days? The world’s first carbon capture and storage (CCS) power plant began operations in Germany last month. Built by the Swedish utility Vattenfall, the pilot facility is…
