Curblog

Opening Soon: Fusion Fitness Center in Newark, DE

2006-02-14T12:03:00.000-05:00

Fusion Fitness Center - Newark, DE

Allow me a little family promotion. My brother-in-law, Nic DeCaire, is opening his own gym in Newark, DE. He is interviewed in the Health Section of the February 14, 2006 issue of the Delware News Journal (Get Fit). Check out the News Journal article to learn more about Nic and how he got interested in fitness training.

If you live in Newark, go check out Fusion Fitness Center.

Do cash incentives alter driving habits?

2005-12-28T11:18:00.000-05:00

From the Seattle Times:

Do cash incentives alter driving habits?

The 400 volunteers in the Puget Sound Regional Council's "Traffic Choices" study have been paying virtual tolls since July. Devices mounted on their dashboards track where they travel and transmit the information to a central computer. Charges are deducted from prepaid "endowment accounts."

Those accounts are just play money. But if there's anything left in them when the experiment ends in February, participants get to keep it — in real dollars.

Aerosols and warming

2005-12-22T09:11:00.000-05:00

news @ nature.com - Aerosols cool more than expected

The team concludes that the cooling effect of aerosols is probably at the high end of IPCC estimates. So cleaning the air will lead to substantial warming. Without aerosols for example, since 1900 the planet might have warmed at least an additional 0.3 C above the 0.7 C rise that actually happened.

COP 11 side event on CCS

2005-12-20T13:48:00.000-05:00

World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) hosted a side event at COP 11 on CCS, they have posted a summary online.

Carbon Capture and Storage Side Event

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) can reduce the overall climate change mitigation costs by 30 percent or more. However carbon capture is still an expensive technology, and carbon emissions tariffs would need to exceed 25-30 USD before further investments to scale up this technology be considered viable, says Leo Meyer from IPCC. So what’s in it for the future? A joint WBCSD/IETA side event at COP 11 looked at the current status CCS and the possible impacts that its use could have on the emissions reduction market.

Googlezon

2005-12-20T13:36:00.000-05:00

How did I miss this?

Is 'Googlezon' in our future? | csmonitor.com

An eight-minute video by Matt Thompson and Robin Sloan called 'EPIC 2014' - a faux documentary that purports to look back from 2014 to tell how the mainstream media died - made waves at newspaper seminars and in journalism classrooms when it was released in early 2004. But when the pair released the video on the Internet - with no explanation as to who had created it or why - it made a worldwide impression.

The Perception and Valuation of the Risks of Climate Change

2005-12-19T09:11:00.000-05:00

A paper by Viscusi and Zechauser that includes willingness-to-pay and attitudes toward climate change. (The Perception and Valuation of the Risks of Climate Change: A Rational and Behavioral Blend)

State clean coal plans

2005-12-12T21:14:00.000-05:00

A friend asked me about a Stateline.org article summarizing some state clean coal plans (Pa. leads push for new coal plants) and I thought I might as well post my thoughts. He specifically asked about the environmental impact of the Rendell plan.

Note that I haven't read all the specifics of the Rendell plan or the other plans - these are general reactions.

Figuring out the environmental impact is a little difficult because the article mixes together a few different technologies and initiatives. There are two different technologies discussed: coal gasification and coal liquifaction. Coal gasification is part of a coal-combustion technology called IGCC (integrated gasification combined cycle). IGCC is currently used at two electric generating
plants in the U.S. IGCC is recognized as being a cleaner way to burn coal but it is more expensive that pulverized coal combustion. IGCC allows the user to separate many of the pollutants before combustion, resulting in fewer emissions. It is also easier to separate out the CO2 from IGCC - meaning that the CO2 is easier to capture and store in geologic formations (in a future where that is routine).

Coal gasification is the subject of the Nov 28 Rendell plan. Generally speaking, retiring old power plants and building IGCC plants is a good thing - assuming we are going to be burning coal for decades to come. However, Rendell is asking for a delay in meeting the pollution reduction requirements of CAIR - that is where it gets fuzzy. An extension for plants in PA could muddle the entire plan.

Coal liquifaction is the process of turning coal into oil or diesel fuel. That process is also expensive but has similar benefits. If you can get the pollutants out before combustion it is easier to control them. Also, if (or when) capture and geologic storage becomes viable, some CO2 from the process could be captured. However, you are still burning the fuel in cars - so CO2 is still going to be coming out of the tailpipe - uncaptured.

I would have to see the data but I have heard NGO folks contradict what the NRDC person said about the quality of the fuel from this process. The diesel from this process may actually be cleaner burning than the diesel products sold at gas stations.

Final note, the other NRDC comment is about the environmental impacts of mining coal. That is a different ball of wax and certainly needs to be addressed. Note that the liquifaction process in PA is converting coal waste - already mined stuff that is (quite literally) just sitting around.

Cool Boston maps

2005-12-06T10:09:00.000-05:00

Bostonist has coverage.

Lacking the stomach

2005-12-05T10:21:00.000-05:00

On Climate Change, a Change of Thinking - New York Times
Today, in the middle of new global warming talks in Montreal, there is a sense that the whole idea of global agreements to cut greenhouse gases won't work.

This article, about the current state of climate negotiations is worth a read - and worth a reread by me. It is negative about Kyoto and anything beyond Kyoto. In support of the idea that the economic impacts are a source of the stalling, the article quotes PM Blair.

As Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, a proponent of emissions targets, said in a statement on Nov. 1: 'The blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that no country will want to sacrifice its economy in order to meet this challenge.'

Is this a classic first mover problem? Isn't the purpose of an international agreement to try to overcome the economic obstacles? I think Blair's quote is out of context.

Also interesting, the discussion of how the climate change negotiations are different than the Montreal Protocol.

RGGI moving ahead without MA

2005-12-02T09:30:00.000-05:00

States to move on cutting emissions - The Boston Globe
Seven Northeast states decided yesterday to move forward without Massachusetts on a landmark agreement to limit power plant emissions, because of the Romney administration's reluctance to act on the pact, according to two government officials involved in the negotiations.

After leading the charge with NY on RGGI, it appears MA is pulling out. Not good for the initiative.

British nuclear review

2005-11-30T09:54:00.000-05:00

Guardian Unlimited | Blair gives nod to nuclear review
The prime minister today put a new generation of domestic nuclear power stations at the centre of the government's energy review, saying there was now 'feverish rethinking' of energy policy around the world.

This is a step required (well, required might be too strong a word) by the Energy White Paper a few years ago. Nuclear proponents were frustrated that the Energy White Paper did not include a recommendation for new nuclear build. Instead, the white paper punted and said that another review would have to occur before new nuclear could be built. This is the first step in that review.

Nuclear plants to reduce climate change impacted by . . . climate change?

2005-11-29T10:13:00.000-05:00

Global warming scuppers Blair’s nuclear power plans - Scotland Sunday Herald
This week, Blair will announce an energy review, which is expected to back up to 10 nuclear stations at existing sites around the UK coast, but a study by nuclear waste agency Nirex reveals that most of them are threatened by climate change.

If those sites are ruled out, reactors will have to be built inland on new, greenfield sites – some in Scotland – which will provoke a furious outcry.

The Nirex report, unearthed by the Sunday Herald, reveals that at least 11 of Britain’s preferred nuclear sites are so low-lying that they could be drowned or damaged by rising seas, causing radio active waste to leak.

Energy Research Council White Papers

2005-11-28T10:58:00.000-05:00

The MIT Energy Research Council solicits brief white papers describing major multidisciplinary research areas MIT should pursue in the short (5-10 years) and long term (10-30 years).

Looks like some of these white papers might be worth reading.

Romney waffles on RGGI

2005-11-22T10:05:00.000-05:00

Romney doubts seen delaying emissions pact - The Boston Globe
A group of Northeast states has postponed the announcement of a landmark agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants after Governor Mitt Romney raised objections to the pact late last week, two government sources familiar with the agreement said yesterday.

Tony Blair on the future of Kyoto

2005-10-31T14:24:00.000-05:00

The Observer | Comment | Get real on climate change
We also have to recognise that while the Kyoto Protocol takes us in the right direction, it is not enough. We need to cut greenhouse gas emissions radically but Kyoto doesn't even stabilise them. It won't work as intended, either, unless the US is part of it. It's easy to take frustrations out on the Bush Administration but people forget that the Senate voted 95-0 against Kyoto when Bill Clinton was in the White House.

We have to understand as well that, even if the US did sign up to Kyoto, it wouldn't affect the huge growth in energy consumption we will see in India and China. China is building close to a new power station every week. They need economic growth to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty but want to grow sustainably. We have to find a way, as a start, to help them.

Kerry Emanuel FAQ on Anthropogenic Effects on Tropical Cyclone Activity

2005-10-26T15:30:00.000-04:00

This is a great resource.

Kerry Emanuel: Anthropogenic Effects on Tropical Cyclone Activity

6.) Q: You say that reliable records of hurricane wind speeds go back only to about 1950, so how can you say that there were not even more intense storms before 1950? How can you assert that the upswing in the last 50 years is a consequence of global warming?

A: We cannot say for sure. What we can say is that everywhere we have looked, the change in hurricane energy consumption follows very closely the change in tropical sea surface temperature. When the sea surface temperature falls, the energy consumption falls, and conversely, when it rises, so too does the energy consumption. Both theory and models of hurricane intensity predict that this should be so as well. In contrast to the hurricane record, the record of tropical ocean temperature is less prone to error and goes back 150 years or so. Moreover, geochemical methods have been developed to infer sea surface temperature from corals and from the shells left behind by micro-organisms that live near the surface; these can be used to estimate sea surface temperature for the past several thousand years. These records strongly suggest that the 0.5 degree centigrade (1 degree Fahrenheit) warming of the tropical oceans we have seen in the past 50 years is unprecedented for perhaps as long as a few thousand years. Scientists who work on these records therefore believe that the recent increase is anthropogenic.

7.) Q: Does this mean that we are seeing more hurricane-caused damage in the U.S. and elsewhere?

A: There is a huge upward trend in hurricane damage in the U.S., but all or almost all of this is due to increasing coastal population and building in hurricane-prone areas. When this increase in population and wealth is accounted for, there is no discernible trend left in the hurricane damage data. Nor would we expect to see any, in spite of the increase in global hurricane power. The reason is a simple matter of statistics: There are far too few hurricane landfalls to be able to discern any trend. Consider that, up until Katrina, Hurricane Andrew was the costliest hurricane in U.S. history. But it occurred in an inactive year; there were only 7 hurricanes and tropical storms. Data on U.S. landfalling storms is only about 2 tenths of one percent of data we have on global hurricanes over their whole lifetimes. Thus while we can already detect trends in data for global hurricane activity considering the whole life of each storm, we estimate that it would take at least another 50 years to detect any long-term trend in U.S. landfalling hurricane statistics, so powerful is the role of chance in these numbers.

8.) Q: I gather from this last discussion that it would be absurd to attribute the Katrina disaster to global warming?

A: Yes, it would be absurd.

Hurricanes and Climate Change Links

2005-10-25T14:55:00.000-04:00

ES&T Online News: The evidence linking hurricanes and climate change Interview with Judith Curry
What we looked at was the global data set that is available from 1970 through 2004, and it’s a satellite-based data set, so we’re able to look at every single tropical storm and hurricane. And what we looked at was the frequency, intensity, and number of hurricane days for each ocean basin where they have hurricanes.

We looked concurrently at the sea surface temperature over that same period for each ocean basin. What we find—again, the increase of tropical sea surface temperature in these regions is well known—is that there was an increase in the frequency, almost a doubling, of the most intense hurricanes—the category 4s and 5s. And a similar increase in the number of hurricane days.

Curry's paper (Webster, et al.): Changes in Tropical Cyclone Number, Duration, and Intensity in a Warming Environment

Trenberth's paper: Uncertainty in Hurricanes and Global Warming

Emanuel's paper: Increasing Destructiveness of Tropical Cyclones Over the Past 30 Years

Real Climate: Hurricanes and Global Warming - Is There a Connection?
Thus, we can conclude that both a natural cycle (the AMO) and anthropogenic forcing could have made roughly equally large contributions to the warming of the tropical Atlantic over the past decades, with an exact attribution impossible so far. The observed warming is likely the result of a combined effect: data strongly suggest that the AMO has been in a warming phase for the past two or three decades, and we also know that at the same time anthropogenic global warming is ongoing.

LA Times: Managing the next disaster
By Roger A. Pielke Jr. and Daniel Sarewitz
The implications are clear: More storms like Katrina are inevitable. And the effects of future Katrinas and Ritas will be determined not by our efforts to manage changes in the climate but by the decisions we make now about where and how to build and rebuild in vulnerable locations.

Pielke's paper: Hurricanes and Global Warming
...it is reasonable to conclude that the significance of any connection of human caused climate change to hurricane impacts necessarily has been and will continue to be exceedingly small.

American Meteorological Society’s Environmental Science Seminar Series
Past seminar's are listed on the left, two are on hurricane's and climate change. One, remarkably, is from June and on hurricanes and New Orleans. Pretty crazy.

Is Katrina a Harbinger of Still More Powerful Hurricanes?
Mounting evidence suggests that tropical cyclones around the world are intensifying,perhaps driven by greenhouse warming,but humans still have themselves to blame for rising damage

It appears as though Science as lifted the wall for all their research, reviews, and articles on climate change and hurricanes. Kudos to Science.

Daily Links

2005-08-30T09:42:00.000-04:00

Salon.com News | Katrina's destructive waves
An MIT global warming expert argues that the damage wrought by Atlantic hurricanes in the past decade has more to do with rampant development than a vengeful Mother Nature.

CARB Doubts Medium-Term Diesel Bus NOx Improvements; Considers Mandating Alternative Fuels: Green Car Congress

Scientific Savvy? In U.S., Not Much
While scientific literacy has doubled over the past two decades, only 20 to 25 percent of Americans are "scientifically savvy and alert," he said in an interview. Most of the rest "don't have a clue." At a time when science permeates debates on everything from global warming to stem cell research, he said, people's inability to understand basic scientific concepts undermines their ability to take part in the democratic process.

Daily Links

2005-08-29T11:30:00.000-04:00

GreenBiz News | Report: Young Sell-Side Analysts Fail to Fill Void in Sustainability Research
A survey expecting to find the upcoming generation of securities analysts eagerly assessing environmental, social, and governance issues in their recommendations discovers the exact opposite.

To Play Is the Thing - NYT

Daily Links

2005-08-26T09:07:00.000-04:00

Trees don't suck up carbon dioxide as hoped: nature.com
'Some scientists and politicians cling to the idea that a carbon-dioxide-rich future might favour the greening of planet Earth. It's time to disillusion them,' says Christian Korner, a plant ecologist at the University of Basel who led the study. 'What remains is the greenhouse gas effect,' he adds.

Washington to be sued over global warming - The Independent
A judge in San Francisco gave permission for the two groups, along with four US cities, to sue two federal development agencies that provide billions of dollars in loans to fund projects overseas. Some of the projects are power plants that emit greenhouse gases while others include pipeline projects that allow the transfer of oil.

Mill to cut emissions, odor
Georgetown residents could be breathing easier by 2007 when International Paper Co. starts a new air-pollution-control device that also will cut the plant's traditional burnt-cabbage scent.

Daily Links

2005-08-25T10:25:00.000-04:00

Federal Judge OKs Global Warming Lawsuit - SF Gate:
Environmental groups and four U.S. cities can sue federal development agencies on allegations the overseas projects they back financially contribute to global warming, a judge has ruled.

3 States Seek Emissions Pact - Washington Post
A day after nine northeastern states pledged to reduce local electric utilities' carbon dioxide pollution by 10 percent over 15 years to combat global warming, California officials said they hoped to outpace their eastern counterparts in a yet-to-be-negotiated pact with Oregon and Washington. Representatives of the three western states plan to meet in Sacramento in mid-September to hash out the details.

Mayors Seek Regional Plan on Power Plant Gas Emissions - New York Times
The mayors of more than 40 cities in the Northeast have urged the governors of New York and eight other states to quickly adopt a regional plan to regulate greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, saying in a letter yesterday that climate change "poses significant threat to the people and communities of the Northeast."

Nine states review proposal to enforce emissions cuts - Financial Times

US states bypass Bush to tackle greenhouse gas emissions - Guardian

US states plan to cut emissions - BBC
Officials in nine north-eastern US states have reached a ground-breaking preliminary deal to reduce power plant emissions, a US newspaper has reported.

Daily Links

2005-08-24T09:41:00.000-04:00

9 States in Plan to Cut Emissions by Power Plants - New York Times
Officials in New York and eight other Northeastern states have come to a preliminary agreement to freeze power plant emissions at their current levels and then reduce them by 10 percent by 2020, according to a confidential draft proposal.

Relax, Bill Gates; It's Google's Turn as the Villain

Daily Links

2005-08-23T09:46:00.000-04:00

A Techie, Absolutely, and More - New York Times
"'If you have only technical knowledge, you are vulnerable,' said Thomas W. Malone, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of 'The Future of Work' (Harvard Business School Press, 2004). 'But if you can combine business or scientific knowledge with technical savvy, there are a lot of opportunities. And it's a lot harder to move that kind of work offshore.'"

New Fuel-Economy Standards To Require Modest Improvements

The $10,000 Question

Baseball Diversion

2005-08-23T08:38:00.000-04:00

Ever since reading Moneyball, I have been interested in using stats and baseball. Last week, Allen St. John wrote an article (Closing Knights) in the WSJ about using a stat he calls off-base percentage (OFB) to rank pitchers. I did this little analysis on the Phils and posted it as a comment on Swing and a Miss.

To calculate these numbers, I used ESPN's game log page for each pitcher and calculated:

[1-((Hits+BB)/BF)]

I'm assuming BF is batters faced. These numbers do not include last night's game. I included starters even though the article only talks about the bullpen.

Anyway, my results:

Pitcher (OFP)
Wagner (0.773)
Fultz (0.740)
Madson (0.720)
Lidle (0.715)
Myers (0.714)
Urbina (0.709) - includes DET
Lieber (0.695)
Geary (0.686)
Tejeda (0.684)
Cormier (0.667)
Padilla (0.656)

Daily Links

2005-08-22T09:36:00.000-04:00

Search is on way to trap planet-heating carbon dioxide

Climate change sceptics bet $10,000 on cooler world

WSJ.com - Google Helps Clients Get Personal
The free program, known as Sidebar, presents consumers with a pane of customized information -- such as weather forecasts, stock quotes, news headlines, text feeds from favorite Web sites, photo slideshows and email alerts -- that sits alongside whatever else the user is viewing.

New on Amazon: Short Stories For 49 Cents

Closing Knights
Off-Base Percentage, or OFB. To get a reliever's OFB, take the number of batters he retires, and divide that by the total number of batters he faces. Functionally, OFB is the inverse of on-base percentage, and the guys with a high OFB are the ones you'd like to have on the pitcher's mound in the late innings with a one-run lead. With that in mind, here are this season's leaders in OFB.

GAELIC DICTIONARY - FACLAIR

Daily Links

2005-08-21T17:22:00.000-04:00

Be Warned: Mr. Bubble's Worried Again

Daily Links

2005-08-19T10:10:00.000-04:00

WTNH.com - Mayors pitch switch to clean energy
The wager is over which town will have more people sign up for the clean energy option by Earth Day, April 22nd. Clean energy does mean a few extra dollars a month on your electric bill. The losing mayor has to wear the other town's t-shirt for a day.

Some Summer Air Is Cleaner, EPA Says

Daily Links

2005-08-18T14:57:00.000-04:00

Record-Breaking Heat: Is Global Warming to Blame?
"But Trenberth said global warming likely underlies the heat. 'One way to say it is, It's summer weather with a clear touch of global warming thrown in,' he said."

Daily Links

2005-08-15T15:53:00.000-04:00

Web access may be as close as an electrical outlet | csmonitor.com

Philadelphia Story: The Next Borough - New York Times

Associate Press Surveys

2004-01-20T15:04:00.000-05:00

The AP conducts regular public surveys using Ipsos-Public Affairs. This link takes you to a page listing all the AP Surveys.

Out survey of public opinion on energy issues was fielded from Sept 24, 2003 through Oct 13, 2003. The close AP survey was from Sept 16 through Oct 9, 2003.

The question that lines up with our survey is Question 7a, "In your opinoin, what are the most important problems facing the U.S. today?" The most important problem was the economy.

Carbon Sequestration Research Projects

2003-10-06T13:58:00.000-04:00

Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research study assessing the potential for geological carbon sequestration in the UK. The Centre has a follow up project currently underway.

Here is a summary of a conference of European NGOs discussing carbon capture and storage. The conference was hosted by Climate Action Network, or CAN Europe. The conference website is here.

News Summary

2003-09-09T20:15:00.000-04:00

Well, "news summary" is a bit ambitious a title, I am back at school and have too much to do. I want to get back in the habit of using this site to track my research.

In the meantime, here are some random carbon sequestration news from the DOE Carbon Sequestration Newsletter:

DOE names regional partnerships

Japan’s geologic sequestration field test. An experiment to store captured CO2 1,100 meters underground is underway in Nagaoka, Niigata Prefecture. The five-year experiment, conducted at the Iwanohara oil storage site of Teikoku Oil Co., is led by the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth, a Kyoto-based foundation. The experiment involves injecting about 20 tons of CO2 a day into onshore and offshore aquifers through wells, while monitoring the movement of CO2 through three observation wells. The plan is to inject 10,000 tons of CO2 over 18 months. “Experiment under way to store CO2 1,100 meters,” Japan Economic Newswire, August 7.

How electricity works in the US

2003-08-24T15:42:00.000-04:00

I think there is going to be a bunch of information on this. I'm going to keep it short and sweet.

National Transmission Grid Study

Here

How electricy works in the UK

2003-08-23T14:21:00.000-04:00

Another project. I need to figure out how electricity is moved about in the UK. The Grid. Something that the US has come to understand a little bit better recently.

The Department of Trade and Industry have an energy group that oversee electricy and management. I have not found much that could be used in the classroom on their site but I did find this interesting FAQ (I think the ending demonstrates a bluntness that you just don't see in the US):

Ahh, I wrote off dti too soon.

Here is information about network access to the electricity grid. It sounds like what they define as "embedded" generators are distributed generators in the US.

Some of those documents led me to the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (ofgem). They have all the grid information one could possibly need. Here are some of the facts:

There are 14 Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) in Britain. Two are in Scotland. The 14 DNOs are owned by 8 companies.

Ofgem is currently reviewing DNOs in response to the growing amount of distributed (or embedded) generation. They are trying to find ways to maintain reliability, security, and the environment during the movement to DG.

The Network Information page contains links to a ton of information about each DNOs. The information is provided in long term development statements written by each of the DNOs (as required by ofgem).

Here are some more sites:

Electricity Association

UK FAQ

I think I am reaching the end of this little project.

British press on US air pollution

2003-08-23T13:53:00.000-04:00

The Guardian picked up the weakening of the Clean Air Act story. The title of the article, Bush's pollution charter, sort of gives away their take on things.

It is interesting that they connect the weakening of the clean air standards in the US to undermining "attempts to persuade other countries to stick to the targets laid out by Kyoto." I had never heard that take on it before.

Shedding Light on Energy Policy

2003-08-22T13:12:00.000-04:00

A friend just sent me a link to McKinsey Quarterly's Special Collection - I don't know anything about it but it looks like it will be worth reading. It requires free registration.

Mixing urban redesign and energy politics

2003-08-22T09:05:00.000-04:00

Daniel Gross has an interesting article on Slate (posted yesterday), Degenerating Situation - Why blackouts and gas shortages are very modern inventions. At the begining, it follows on theme of the Slate Chatterbox piece of last week that knocked Bill Richardson by saying it was, indeed, a first-world blackout and not a "third-world electrical grid" blackout. The Gross piece says that the blackout problem is a 21st century problem and not a 20th century problem.

OK, maybe it is a stretch comparing those two articles but the first brought to mind the second and I hadn't posted the second. I like the Gross article because it brings in the complexity of the energy problem. We want cheap, reliable fuel and electricity to run our increasing number of appliances and larger automobiles but we don't want the air pollution or the industrial development that is required to keep them cheap and reliable.

In a way it is an environmental victory that people will not accept power plants and power lines in their backyard. People understand that pollution lowers their quality of life. People understand that they don't want to live under a power line or dine next to a power plant.

But I see it as a problem that people do not seem to connect their choices to the environmental impacts. If we want 3AM in Times Square to be lit up like it is the middle of the day, we need to burn more of something somewhere. As I see it, we can keep on fighting having the generation capacity or the pipelines or the powerlines in our backyards and have more blackouts or we can start connecting consumption with power and make difficult decisions about how much we value our goods over pollution.

Air Rules

2003-08-22T05:28:00.000-04:00

Today's New York Times has an article about the new air rule that just might be released by EPA. The article mentions that one of the motivations behind pushing it through now is so Gov. Leavitt, the nominee for EPA administrator, would not have to make the decision. I think cleaning the air out west is something Leavitt touts as one of his strong points.

The NRDC is quoted in the article as the source. It is worth browsing the NRDC Air Pollution page for more on their take on the issue. For the government side, check out the EPA's New Source Review page.

Note that it all goes back to the National Energy Policy Report, led by VP Cheney.

More on South America

2003-08-21T10:37:00.000-04:00

I need to find out some more things about South America. I'm using Brazil as a source of data for a fictional project involving oil exploration in South America. I'm not at particular fan of oil drilling in South America and I have learned quite a bit about the troubles that arise from oil drilling in South America (eg Ecuador's oil pollution fears). Oil seems to cause problems just about everywhere. And that is an incredible understatement.

Anyway, I've given away too much about my task already, let me throw a few more sites at you...

Map of Recoverable Crude Oil Futures (South America)

South America Oil and Gas Fields

Global GIS

Maps of oil fields

2003-08-20T11:04:00.000-04:00

I am looking up maps of South America right now - well, maps of South America and maps of oil fields in South America. I'm going to put them here so that they are easier to reference in the future. Fun stuff.

Online Map Creation

USGS Maps showing Geology, Oil, and Gas Fields in South America

Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources

here

GIS

land cover

CMG InfoBank Atlas: Brazil region

biological data

I think that is about all the map searching I can do today.

Carbon Capture and Storage in Great Britain

2003-08-20T10:15:00.000-04:00

The Department of Trade and Industry (dti) in the UK has a site set up with information about their review of carbon capture and storage potential in the UK.

Changing sizes

2003-08-20T08:51:00.000-04:00

In the meantime, that power outtage in the US got some interesting coverage over here in the UK. The coverage led me to believe that the media spend a little bit too much time in New York City. Maybe that is why flash mobs and trucker hats become news stories.

Here are two of the most interesting sites I found in the days that followed the power failure:

The Blackout History Project

TPM

Current Energy Report

Slate

the nuclear option

2003-07-28T13:29:00.000-04:00

This summer, I have been learning quite a bit about nuclear energy and the idea of "keeping the nuclear option open" - it is a phrase said so often in British energy circles that it has become a cliché. It's utterance results in groans from the assembled multitude.

But it is a good phrase because it succinctly describes the idea. What needs to be done to keep the nuclear option open? Oh, and before you answer that, there is the trickier: Should we keep the option open?

Two questions I'd like to address on this blog sometime.

2003-07-25T14:37:00.000-04:00

OK. Well, I changed the description of this blog and I am going to see what happens when I try to track information about carbon capture and storage (my research interest). I'm also going to through in information about global climate change and topics on energy and the environment. It is really all tied together. That is what I am finding.

I am becoming convinced that the obstacle to implementing large scale carbon dioxide abatement technologies is realization of the problem. I guess it is an education thing - but it can't only be an education thing - I'm in England right now and it seems like there is better coverage of the idea that something bad might happen.

But it is a classic motivational problem. Maybe the classic motivational problem. How do you motivate people to do something to prevent the potential for future harm? The future harm is way off - although not as way off as it once was - and it is unlikely we will be able to do anything about it once it gets here.

So, addressing global climate change is an attempt to tackle a potentially massive problem that everyone agrees is relatively far off. By far off, I'm talking 50 years in a world that thinks in 15 minutes. Maybe 50 years is too optimistic - but 20 years is still a long way off when we discount the costs (as my law professor Nick Ashford likes to cynically point out).

That is what I am thinking about right now. In a world concerned with yellowcake and the dead son's of ruthless dictators, I am trying to figure out how much we are supposed to worry about the environment. What resources should we devote to fixing the environment? And, for that matter, how dangerous is excess CO2? Should we switch to nuclear energy? Is wind power enough? Where does carbon capture and storage fit in all this? And carbon taxes and trading? Does a cap and trade system work?

I wonder if these questions really have answers. And if they do have answers - they are not certain answers. But we have to make decisions without certain answers, that is the way it goes.