"Desperate times require desperate methods", or does it?

Going through some of what has been broadcasted and written in the last month, about the #ClimateCrisis and some of the ideas to solve it, has made me started to wonder….

New Insights - aka challenges

Research Shows- Rising Seas Will Erase More Cities by 2050,

Rising seas could affect three times more people by 2050 than previously thought, according to new research, threatening to all but also erase some of the world’s great coastal cities.

The new research shows that some 150 million people are now living on land that will be below the high-tide line by midcentury.

John Castellaw, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general who was chief of staff for United States Central Command during the Iraq War, now on the advisory board of the Center for Climate and Security, a research and advocacy group in Washington, says that rising sea levels “threatens to drive further social and political instability in the region, which could reignite armed conflict and increase the likelihood of terrorism,” “So this is far more than an environmental problem,” “It’s a humanitarian, security and possibly military problem too.”

Higher concentration of CO2 than ever

“We found that Earth’s climate system has responded to increasing carbon dioxide concentrations as climate models predicted.” “Atmospheric water vapor is sensitive to the presence of carbon dioxide. The more carbon dioxide, the more the atmosphere warms due to the greenhouse effect. A warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor, which is itself a greenhouse gas. This is how water vapor triples the warming from increasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.”

This visualization is a time-series of the global distribution and variation of the concentration of mid-tropospheric carbon dioxide observed by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on the NASA Aqua spacecraft. For comparison, it is overlain by a graph of the seasonal variation and interannual increase of carbon dioxide observed at the Mauna Loa, Hawaii observatory. Please note, mid-tropospheric carbon dioxide shows a steady increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over time. Credit: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio

(Source: NASA Global Climate change)

Zambian President Edgar Lungu mentioned climate change 44 times when he addressed the annual opening of parliament in September 2019

Zambia, along with several of its African neighbours, ranks among the countries most exposed to climate-driven disruption. And the havoc has already arrived.

The worst drought in nearly four decades in the southwest of the country hasn’t just caused crop failures: it also drastically curbed output at hydropower dams on the Zambezi river and tributaries that Zambia relies on for about 80% of its electricity generation. (Neighboring Zimbabwe, which shares the output from some plants, faces a similar problem.)

Meanwhile in the northeast, agricultural output has been hit by floods—which also washed away bridges. The government has slashed its economic growth forecast for this year as a result, and it’s been pushed into considering some extreme responses.

Energy Minister Matthew Nkhuwa floated the idea of digging canals that could bring water from the Congo river, more than 100 kilometers away, to top up the levels at the Kariba dam on the Zambezi, the world’s biggest man-made freshwater reservoir.

Experts are skeptical. Even if the governments of the three countries involved could reach an agreement, elementary physics makes the idea a non-starter, according to Arthur Chapman, an associate at University of Stellenbosch’s Institute for Futures Research in South Africa.

(Source: Bloomberg)

Greenhouse gas emissions are rising in Sweden

Greenhouse gas emissions by the Swedish economy increased by 1.1 percent in the second quarter of 2019 compared with the same period in 2018. This increase is largely due to households’ increased fuel demand for private transport.

(Source: SCB)

New Insights - aka solutions

Increase Nuclear power?

As energy demand rises around the globe, so does concern about climate change. The science seems clear: Ninety-seven percent or more of scientists active in the field are convinced the climate has been warming over the past century, the pace of warming is accelerating and human activities — particularly the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels — are a primary cause.

Many of these scientists also concur that the best option to mitigate the potentially catastrophic consequences of climate change is to reduce the use of fossil fuels and speed up the transition to renewable forms of energy, such as solar and wind.

Without significantly increasing the use of nuclear power worldwide, it will be difficult to achieve the goal of reducing harmful emissions and fighting climate change,

says the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Cornel Feruta, the acting Director-General of the agency, was speaking in Vienna, at the opening of the first-ever International Conference on Climate Change and the Role of Nuclear Power.

The IAEA pointed out that nuclear power contributes around one-third of all low carbon electricity, producing practically no greenhouse gases, and some 10 per cent of the total electricity produced worldwide.

Thus, Radioactive waste and security concerns must be addressed. However, the IAEA accepted that there are persistent public concerns about the potential dangers to health and the environment caused by radioactive waste from nuclear plants, and Mr. Feruta said that advances concerning the disposal of such material may alleviate fears about the long-term sustainability of the energy source.

Mr. Liu Zhenmin, the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), echoed Mr. Feruta’s remarks, and said that the problem of radioactive waste is an "unresolved issue" that needs to be addressed.

 (Source: UN News)

Accelerate deployment of Renewables?

Renewables are already the world's second largest source of electricity, but their deployment still needs to accelerate if we are to achieve long-term climate, air quality and energy access goals

Dr Fatih Birol, Executive Director, IEA

IEA’s Renewables 2019 market report, which was released Oct. 21st 2019.

The report forecasts that the world’s total renewable-based power capacity will grow by 50% between 2019 and 2024. This increase of 1,200 gigawatts – equivalent to the current total power capacity of the United States – is driven by cost reductions and concerted government policy efforts. Solar PV accounts for 60% of the rise. The share of renewables in global power generation is set to rise from 26% today to 30% in 2024.

The report highlights the three main challenges that need to be overcome to speed up the deployment of renewables: policy and regulatory uncertainty, high investment risks and system integration of wind and solar PV.

(Source: IEA)

Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS)?

Retrofitting carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to fossil fuel-based power plants be one of the solutions? When it comes to climate change, most of us knows what the part of the problem is. There's too much CO2 in the atmosphere. This atmospheric composition lets energy from the sun in, but doesn't let it out, causing the planet to warm as a result. Mankind has found a way to collect and store the carbon. It's called carbon capture and storage (CCS), and it seems as though it would handle the symptoms of our problem fairly well.

This is how CCS technology works. There are a variety of methods, but one of the most common is to install a machine at the source of the pollution, like a coal plant, for instance, and pass the polluting gas through a liquid solution. This solution contains chemicals similar to ammonia which sticks to the CO2. Everything else bubbles through the solution, and the result is a CO2-free gas. Then, you can heat the solution up to unbind the CO2 molecules, allowing you to reuse the liquid and store the CO2 for whatever purpose you have in mind.

Researchers believe that when CCS technology like this is implemented at a coal plant, for instance, it can reduce CO2 emissions by 85 to 95 percent.

But - New research published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science shows that this reduction may actually only amount to between 10 and 11 percent. Then there's the fact that CCS technology also requires a significant amount of electricity to run, increasing our reliance on fossil fuels.

Rather than use CCS, the researchers found, it would be far more beneficial to just use renewable energy like wind or solar power in place of coal or natural gas. Back to deploying more renewables faster.

(Source: Bigthink)

There are already several projects being planned for CCS. One of them in the North Sea where a Large-scale CCS can be realised in four years. Several large companies have agreed to develop carbon capture traps to be buried under the seabed.

There is a capacity so large that Europe's emissions can be handled for a long time, says Sverre Overå, responsible project manager at the oil company Equinor. According to him, storage facilities under the North Sea are almost limitless.

This autumn (2019), test drilling will start in the area in the North Sea where storage will start around the turn of the year 2023-24. But this assumes that the Norwegian Parliament next year will say yes to a major investment in getting a the CCS process started.

Such a CCS process involves trapping carbon dioxide in discharging plants, transporting the concentrated carbon dioxide and finally injecting into the porous bedrock a few thousand meters below the bottom of the North Sea.

 (Source SR)

Wandering the thin line between hope and despair...

Is Nuclear the answer? Is CCS the answer? Yes, deploy more renewables faster, but also look for other renewables like #heatpower and #tidalpower – look for #energyefficiency.

 Does desperate times require desperate methods? What needs to be done? What do you think?