Business as usual

The US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA’s) latest Short-Term Energy Outlook says that economic recovery means US carbon emissions will rise over the next two years, so forget meeting the target of cutting emissions by 17 per cent on 2005 levels by 2020. Increased use of coal in the electric power sector and continued economic growth, along with the expansion of travel-related petroleum consumption, leads to a 1.7 per cent increase in CO2 emissions in 2011.

The good news is that UK is on course to over-achieve on its carbon reduction target of 34% and cut emissions by 36% on 1990 levels by 2020, according to the Government. No new coal power stations will now go ahead in the UK without carbon capture and storage, investment is being made in the electricity grid to bring online new renewable energy sources and the Government’s draft National Policy Statements covering a low carbon energy infrastructure has been published.

Meanwhile, scientists have recorded a massive spike in the amount of a powerful greenhouse gas seeping from Arctic permafrost. Experts say methane emissions from the Arctic have risen by almost one-third in just five years, and that sharply rising temperatures are to blame.

Previously frozen boggy soils are melting and releasing methane in greater quantities. Such Arctic soils currently lock away billions of tonnes of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

The new study, published in the journal Science, shows that methane emissions from the Arctic increased by 31% from 2003-07. The increase represents about 1m extra tonnes of methane each year.

Researchers have known for years that the Arctic landscape is being transformed by rising temperatures. Now, scientists are amassing growing evidence that major events precipitated by warming are leading to the loss of tundra in the Arctic.
Much of the Arctic has experienced temperature increases of 3 to 5 degrees F in the past half-century and could see temperatures soar 10 degrees F above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

In a new book, The Rising Sea, the authors build the case for how governments and coastal managers should assume the inevitability of a seven-foot rise in sea level. This number is is the most prudent, conservative long-term planning guideline for coastal cities and communities, especially for the siting of major infrastructure.

Among research used is how scientists now believe that the main drivers of sea level rise in the 21st century will be the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (a potential of a 16-foot rise if the entire sheet melts) and the Greenland Ice Sheet (a potential rise of 20 feet if the entire ice cap melts).

Any way out? Most of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases is in the ocean, so can this be tapped some way? Can the rising waters be used to irrigate deserts? Or can the heat be tapped through ocean thermal energy conversion, which is a method of generating electricity using the temperature difference between deep ocean water, and shallow ocean waters?