FOOD: Vertical Farming!

When a region starts to run out of space for their people, they go vertical. Considering the recent concern over food supplies and prices, partially caused by increased use of food for fuel, it makes sense that someone thought of 'vertical farming'! That someone is Dickson Despommier, a professor at Columbia University.

His class experiment's conclusion is that growing food in a 30-story building — one square New York City block — could supply a balanced diet for 50,000 people. One building could supply the same amount of food as 588 acres of land. One hundred and ten buildings could feed New York City.

The goal: Replace all traditional, horizontal farming including plowing, planting and harvesting with a vertical greenhouse that grows every crop including grains (ie., wheat, rice, barley), vegetables, fish (salt and freshwater, crustaceans), poultry and pork (not cows).

The farms would be supplied with renewable energy and the crops would be watered and fertilized with treated waste material. The carbon footprint savings would be substantial because most products would be distributed locally!

Michael Pollan, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, estimates that for every calorie of food, we burn 10 calories of oil! That means a head of lettuce that costs $1.49 a head has 75 cents of oil in it. If I don't have to transport it, store it or even wrap it in cellophane, I can sell it for half price and still make a lot of money.

According to professor Despommier, there will be a vertical farm within the next four years.

What's the Most Expensive Climate Policy? Doing Nothing

Policymakers are right to ask about the cost of climate change policy. But which path is more expensive: solving climate change or ignoring it? There is a growing understanding that ignoring climate change is the most costly and dangerous course for our economy.

But don't take our word for it. See what others are saying:

"Agriculture faces serious decline from global warming."
Center for Global Development report, 9/13/07

"Climate change impacts will place immense strains on public sector budgets."
University of Maryland study, 10/16/07

"If you don't take action on climate change, you can be sure that our economies will go down the drain in the next 30 years."
Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker

"Global warming threatens roads, rail lines, ports, airports and other important infrastructure." National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, 3/12/08

"Climate change poses a serious threat causing widespread political instability."
Center for Naval Analysis report, 4/16/07

US oil imports will be $20 billion higher each year without action to cap greenhouse gas pollution. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) analysis, 2/25/08

In confronting climate change, there is no option without costs. But we do have choices. We can invest a modest amount now - less than 1% of GDP in 2030, according to a survey1 of independent economic analyses - and get cleaner air, greater energy security, new energy jobs, and a brighter future for our children.

Or, by choosing to do nothing, we can pay much more later in rising insurance rates, greater government spending to maintain public infrastructure, agricultural damage from droughts, the spread of insect-borne disease, increased international instability, and more intense hurricanes and storms.

Acting now will allow us to manage those economic risks, while also enabling the U.S. to win the race for the clean energy jobs and technologies that will power the 21st Century. The most expensive thing we can do about climate change is nothing. It's time to cap emissions.

Source: Environmental Defense Fund

Harnessing Biology, and Avoiding Oil, for Chemical Goods

The next time you stop at a gas station, wincing at the $3.50-a-gallon price and bemoaning society’s dependence on petroleum, take a step back and look inside your car. Much of what you see in there comes from petroleum, too: the plastic dashboard, the foam in the seats. More than a tenth of the world’s oil is spent not on powering engines but as a feedstock for making chemicals that enrich many goods — from cosmetics to cleaners and fabric to automobile parts.

In recent years, this unsettling fact has motivated academic researchers and corporations to find ways to make bulk chemicals from renewable sources like corn and switchgrass. The effort to tap biomass for chemicals runs parallel to the higher-stakes research aimed at developing biofuels. Researchers hope that the two will come together soon to help replace petroleum refineries with biorefineries.

“As petroleum prices go up and climate change becomes a serious concern, the economy will have no choice but to switch to a chemical base derived from plant materials,” said Dr. Richard Gross, director of the Center for Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing of Macromolecules at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn.

The chemical industry is beginning to make that transition, at least for a few products. One success story is a method developed byDuPont, with Genencor, to ferment corn sugar into a substance called propanediol. Using propanediol as a starting point, DuPont has created a new polymer it calls Cerenol, which it substitutes for petroleum-sourced ingredients in products like auto paints.

Click here for the full NY Times article.

CLIMATE: Followup to Kyoto Continues

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (the group responsible for the Kyoto Protocols) held an Ad Hoc Working Group gathering in Bangkok last week. It was the first session following the December 2007 meetings in Bali (see our January 5, 2008 post for details).

As a followup to the Bali Action Plan from December 2007, at the session this week developing countries, led by China and India, requested the developed world (mainly the US and Europe) pay the bulk of the costs of curbing greenhouse gas emissions. The argument goes: in the process of developing, western countries have contributed the bulk of carbon dioxide emissions to date. Representatives from the developed world balked and talks will resume in June in Bonn. As a side note, China brings another coal-fired power plant online each week!

In a related story, indigenous peoples from Latin America, Congo, and Indonesia, dubbed Forest Peoples, met in Amazonas State, Brazil to demand a seat at the table when the UN discusses greenhouse gas emissions and to discuss compensation (see a New York Times article). This was also a followup to the Bali conference in December 2007.

They want to be compensated for incentive to keep the forests intact. In Brazil, forest people own 12% of the country's land. In Bali it was agreed that deforestation accounts for 20% of carbon dioxide emissions in the world. The cost would be around $530 million a year by the tenth year of the agreement for developing countries. If this ever comes to pass, keeping the money out of the government's hands will also be a neat trick.

CLIMATE: Arctic Melting Ice and Open Sea Channels

United Nations data show that temperatures in the arctic circle have increased twice as fast as the rest of the globe; that has led to shrinking ice sheet, i.e., 22% less in summer 2006 than in summer 2005.

As a result of this melting, large companies are preparing to benefit by the opening of sea channels near arctic circle; these companies are investing in the necessary reinforced vessels to take advantage of these openings.

These new sea channels will mean increased efficiency in delivering goods around the globe and therefore reduce the cost of some goods. A 11,000 mile trip will be reduced to 7,000 miles and will save over $800,000 in fuel and labor costs. Investment in reinforced vessels, needed to make these arctic journeys, continues to increase each year.

The number of Canadian arctic journeys increased from 78 in 2005 to 132 in 2006.

The dearth of resources for cleanup will undoubtedly contribute to ecological damage when the inevitable disaster ensues. Our oil, wheat, and mineral costs may come down, but at what price?

CLIMATE: EPA boss justifies Clean Air Act waiver denial, and off to court we go!

EPA administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, finally issued his justification for denying California's Clean Air Act waiver (the denial is discussed in a 1/24/08 PNL Stories post). The denial was issued last December after California requested permission to pass tailpipe emissions standards stricter than federal guidelines.

Mr. Johnson, against the recommendations of his staff scientists, denied the request and stated that the new federal fuel efficiency standards, passed in December, were sufficient to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and that there shouldn't be a patchwork of state's emissions standards.

EPA issued its long delayed 47-page report in the Federal Register, and that clears the way for California and 18 other state to proceed with a lawsuit in federal court to fight the denial.

Administrator Johnson wrote: "While I find that the conditions related to global climate change in California are substantial, they are not sufficiently different from conditions in the nation as a whole to justify separate state standards."

California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown dismissed Johnson's arguments as "obfuscating, sabotaging . . . specious, ill-founded. . . . We're going to fight him until he's sent packing by the next president." State regulators argue that by 2020 California's law would achieve twice the reduction as the federal fuel standards.

A document was released Tuesday by Senator Barbara Boxer who wants the denial reversed. She said the draft (written in conjunction with former administrator William K. Reilly), as well as internal agency e-mail messages she released, demonstrated that the E.P.A. was “in crisis.” Mr. Johnson’s decisions, she said, “went against the professional scientists and the professional legal experts.”

CLIMATE: EPA chief says no to California on tougher emissions rules!

On December 19, 2007 EPA administrator, Stephen Johnson, denied California a waiver from the Clean Air Act (CAA) that would have allowed the state (and others that wanted to follow) to enact stricter tailpipe emission standards than the federal government. In December, President Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act which mandated higher fuel efficiency standards for the first time in three decades.

The EPA denied the waiver based on these new federal standards, thereby saying that California has no 'compelling and extraordinary' needs above that of the rest of the country. California and 15 other states will sue the federal government to overturn the waiver denial. The EPA has granted over 50 CAA waivers in three decades.

EPA staff filed an endangerment finding at the White House today stating that greenhouse gases pose a threat to the nation's welfare. EPA staff concluded that the effects of climate change could hit California particularly hard, including by harming coastal communities and wildlife, increasing ozone levels, contributing to more wildfires, and reducing water supplies.

Approval of the finding by the White House would clear the way for states to enact their own stricter laws; but 16 states are suing to override, and a bill to override will be introduced in Congress.

Administrator Johnson made his ruling despite this finding by his staff. He testified today in front of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committees, chaired by Senator Boxer, that his decision was not politically influenced.

(classic Bacsik)

CLIMATE: Kyoto Protocol Milestone

In a January 5, 2008 post we discussed the most recent step in the United Nation's Conference of the Parties (COP) on climate change in Bali (COP13) and the incremental progress that was made toward replacing the Kyoto Protocol (COP3). (read about an interesting ending to the Bali conference!). The UN's goal is to have stringent emissions reduction targets in place by 2012.

In the interim, the 100 millionth certified emission reduction (CER) credit under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has been issued, marking an important environmental, development, and carbon market milestone on the road to a low-carbon future. The Kyoto Protocol began on February 16, 2005 (The US has never ratified the Protocol).

"The CDM has been up and running just two years, but in that short time it has shown its ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stimulate green investment in developing countries," said Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations.

There are currently more than 860 registered CDM projects in 49 developing countries, and about another 2000 projects in the project registration pipeline. The CDM is expected to generate more than 2.6 billion CERs by the time the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012, each equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide.

(classic Bacsik)

CLIMATE: Environmentally and economically sustainable future?

While the consumption rate of at least 1 billion of us (industrialized world) is 32, the rate for the rest of the world is quite low. Per Jared Diamond's article on consumption rates, assuming that our rate remains the same and the rest of the developing world reaches our rate by mid-century, consumption rates would be equivalent to a total population of 72 million people!! Crazy you say? Well, China and India are the largest of these developing countries and their consumption rates are still 11 times lower than ours, and if they both catch up to us the world's consumption rate 'triples'!

Consumption and pollution are inextricably linked, and the US is the largest contributer. To help mitigate our environmental damage, 190 countries met at the United Nations conference on climate change and global warming in Bali last month (the conference was the first international effort to replace the Kyoto Protocols that expire in 2012. Talks will continue until a followup conference scheduled for 2009).

The resulting, Bali Action Plan, contains no binding commitments but states that “deep cuts in global emissions will be required” and provides a timetable for two years of talks. Paula Dobriansky, the head of the American delegation in Bali, said that she was committed to obtaining an “environmentally effective and economically sustainable” agreement by 2009.

The United States cannot dictate behavior to the rest of the world, but we can lead by example.

Thinking about and reducing consumption everyday is a great first step.

(classic Bacsik)