Re/Action on Climate Protection

Sonoma County Biomass to Energy Workshop

Sonoma County Waste Management Agency is sponsoring a workshop in January to explore systems that produce energy from organic waste. The generic technology is known as anaerobic digestion. This is a low tech method for producing and capturing methane or biogas from decomposing organic waste. Digesters exist for many different types of waste streams, such as manure, food waste and yardwaste. The workshop will focus on several technologies such as Kompogas and Biogas Energy. Harvesting energy from the waste stream is a critical piece of the strategy for reducing GHG emissions.

The CPC White Paper Wiki

Climate Protection Campaign has a comprehensive white paper devoted to local actions for GHG emissions reduction. This paper is on the web here. Although it is presently set up for browsing only, some of the pages are set up to comment.

The real value of the wiki is to enable group development of a document. The vision was to create a living document that could serve as a roadmap for techniques and planning to reduce GHG emissions at a local level. Anyone with a good idea or insight can contribute.

If you feel that you can contribute to this effort, email me: dave[at]climateprotectioncampaign.org, and we can discuss your contribution.

An Unorthodox Proposal - Outlaw the gasoline engine

Researching the production of biodiesel from solid waste feedstocks, I came across this article. It mentions diesel/electric hybrids. With biodiesel produced from algae, and only diesel/electric hybrid engines being installed in new vehicles, gasoline demand could be dramatically decreased, or even phased out.

The Biodiesel Controversy Continues

One of our commenters, Zeno Swijtink, faculty member at Sonoma State University, made the following statement:

...biodiesel is not a good choice for an alternative fuel, apart from the point mentioned by you that under the current cultivation regime fossil fuels are used to run farming equipment, make fertilizers, pesticides, and undergird advertisement campaigns to promote biodiesel, etc.

The burning of biodiesel shortens the time that the carbon would have spend in some solid form in the biosphere: the oxidation makes it quickly available as a infrared energy trapping gas in the atmosphere..

Let's examine Zeno's arguments, because he mentions several common misconceptions about biofuels.

Why Energy Efficiency for GHG Reduction?

Efficiency in energy use represents a technological approach to reducing energy use and GHG emissions without "sacrifice". Better technology, less energy use, same effect. Increased cost from new technology offset by savings from lower energy use. What's wrong with this picture?

Zero Carbon Building Process

Green building can give part of the answer for zero carbon emissions from the building sector. But what would a truly zero carbon building look like that had no carbon impact at all from construction, through occupancy through demolition?

Community Carbon Exchange?

The Chicago Climate Exchange is a non-Kyoto trading platform for carbon credits generated in the United States. It is a voluntary exchange, but once signed on the participation and carbon reduction committment is legally binding.

My question is, can this same model be applied on a small geographic basis? How well does this exchange concept scale down? Can it be used to create a business case for carbon reduction at a local level? Could a local exchange be set up that would allow carbon credits to be traded by local businesses and individuals?

Questions on efficiency

Here are some questions related to efficiency:

Can the market deal with energy efficiency in a way that slows down the growth in GHG emissions?

Is energy price alone sufficient to drive efficiency such that absolute emissions are decreased?

Is it necessary to subsidize (give away) energy efficient new technology to replace older, less efficient technology that is in place?

At what point do efficiencies backfire because reductions in emissions from improved efficiency are swamped by new growth?

Biodiesel Carbon Neutral?

Recently, we had one of our commenters, Zeno Swijtink, of Sonoma State University, say that biodiesel might not be all that great from a carbon neutral point of view. He said:

Running a vehicle on biodiesel does not give 100% GHG reduction in my bookkeeping. Biodiesel is a carbon fuel and the atmosphere does not care where the released greenhouse gasses came from. The usual argument that the biodiesel carbon partakes in the short carbon cycle while gasoline carbon partakes in the long carbon cycle is, I believe, fallacious. CO2 uptake thru both these cycles does not care how the CO2 was released. So to assess our progress towards GHG reductions we need to count release from biodiesel oxydation at their full value when we estimate anthropogenic GCC.

The way to answer this is to look at the carbon cycle:

Transportation Growth - The Big One

The countywide greenhouse gas inventory conducted by Climate Protection Campaign last year showed total growth in emissions of 28% between 1990 and 2000, double the national average. Although population growth during this period was 18%, growth in emissions in the transportation sector was a whopping 43%! Vehicle miles traveled or VMT, is the base statistic used to calculate emissions from the transportation sector. How can we reach our goal of reducing emissions by 25% below 1990 levels by 2015, when emissions are projected to grow almost as much in the next 10 years?