Global Agreement On Cutting Mercury Pollution

Mercury is one of many ways we're polluting our environment.

It may seem like somebody else's problem, seeing as it's mainly a developing world issue, but it's increasingly everyone's problem.

Those coal fired power stations we still use to generate electric spew it out constantly because coal is often contaminated with it. There's so much mercury working it's way into our oceans from various human activities that the concentration of it has doubled over the last 100 years. As a result, it's working it's way up the food chain and into the fish we eat.

Mercury leads to birth defects, poisons our nervous systems, guts, kidneys and lungs, and can even kill.

So it makes sense to limit it.

And that's just what 140 countries have negotiated through the U.N. (More here).

Global Agreement On Cutting Aviation Emissions

Finally, after 15 years of negotiating, the world's governments have agreed a deal that means all airlines must join a global scheme to cut carbon emissions.

The EU is claiming that it's own Emissions Trading Scheme (They wanted all airlines flying into Europe to pay a carbon tax) has forced the lengthy negotiations over this issue to head. Whatever.

The problem is that details won't be agreed until 2016 and the result won't actually come into effect until 2020. So that'll be 22 years to come up with an emissions cutting plan for airlines. Whoopee do!

(More detail here)

When Will Hydrogen Cars Be Available?

It's long been my view that hydrogen cars are ultimately where 'green' motoring is headed.

Hybrids are the current trend, with electric vehicles (EVs) possibly set to take over, but I see hydrogen as being the final winner.

My main reason for thinking this is that hydrogen would use a similar infrastructure to petrol (Same fuel stations, similar tankers to supply them, it can even be extracted from hydrocarbons and coal, although it's hoped renewable sources will replace these). This is important, as society and, more importantly, the powers-that-be, are resistent to change.

It looks like the first hydrogen cars will made available between 2015 and 2017. Front runners in the race are Daimler, Honda, Hyundai, Toyota and VW. We even have small trials running here in Britain based on prototype vehicles from Riversimple.

However, these early arrivals are unlikely to sell in large numbers for several reasons: They use very expensive fuel cells (based on platinum); These cells can degrade quickly; and the re-fuelling network isn't there yet. Sounds a bit the like issues facing EVs doesn't it?

Whilst the re-fuelling issue is likely to go away with time, the other 2 issues need to be addressed before hydrogen cars get a reputation for being poor investments (Something that has plagued both EVs and hybrids, a little unfairly I must add).

Well, it looks like a small British company called Acal Energy may have the solution to both. They claim to have developed a fuel cell that is substantially cheaper and far more long-lived. It won't be available for the first generation of vehicles but will likely be there for the second generation come 2020 (More here).

I think it could be a game changer

Phoneblok: The Modular Phone

Does it ever annoy you when you have to throw out an electronic item because a single part has failed?
Like a cracked screen on a smart phone or no sound on your TV.

Or how about all those PCs you've got through because they gradually get slower and slower till they need replacing?

All that money blown on planned obsolescence or unrepairable (or too expensive to repair) gadgets. If only there was another way...

Well, how about this: Modular electronics.

Don't know what I mean? Then check out Phoneblok - A phone made up of easily replaceable blocks. It's just a concept at the moment but it's the way things should be going.

And here's why.

Update: Google owned Motorola have announced plans to do just this with help from the creator of Phoneblok, Dave Hakkens. Google know a good idea when they see one! More here.

Cheap Cooker That Saves Lives

Here's an update on my post about black carbon.

The BBC has reported on a cooker that costs just £40 but can save lives, slow deforestation, protect glaciers, and reduce global warming.

This simple device reduces the smoke that ruins the health of millions of women every year, helps warm our atmosphere, and actually speeds up the melting of glaciers by making them imperceptibly darker.

And since it burns wood more efficiently, less demand is put on forests.

Rolling out cookers like this to the millions of familys that depend on wood and dung burning ovens, would transform their lives and help save the planet.

The Future Of Carbon Capture?

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is thought to be a key technology in our search for ways to reduce our carbon emissions.

Unfortunately, CCS is in it's infancy and has yet to prove itself in terms of costs and scalability. Many a scheme has been abandoned before it has started, even when backed with promises of millions in subsidies from governments.

Yet it has huge potential: The company and/or country that develops a working, cost effective, large scale version of CCS will make a fortune from a world market that is desperate for a technology that means they can still get their energy from fossil fuels without producing carbon emissions.

Could U.S. company Net Power be the ones to do just that? (See here and here).

Their chief technologist, Rodney Allam, believes they can. Instead of focusing his attention on simply capturing waste CO2 from power stations after combustion (i.e. after burning the fuel), his idea is to make stations more efficient by using the CO2 in the combustion process. By doing this, they not get more energy from the same fuel, they also get much purer CO2 emissions that are far cheaper to capture.

End result: Power stations that cost no more than ones without CCS.

Net Power plan to trial the idea in Britain, with construction starting some time over the next year.


Could the revolution start here?

Norway Abandons Carbon Capture

A while ago I wrote here about Norway's attempts to become the go-to place for testing carbon capture and storage technology (CCS).

Unfortunately, that now appears to have gone belly-up due to spiralling costs and delays (See here).

That's a real shame because this is probably one of our most promising bets for stopping climate change.

I find it bizarre that the big fossil fuel companies, particularly in coal, aren't throwing everything at this technology as it may be the best hope their industry has of avoiding being phased out by the world's future attempts to tackle climate change.

Perhaps they're in denial?

Will EU Carbon Market Be Fixed?

This week the European Parliament voted to freeze the upcoming auction of up to 900 million carbon allowances, which, if it is endorsed by European governments, will finally push up the price of carbon emissions across the continent. Which should start forcing big emitters into finding ways of cutting their CO2 output the way the carbon market was intended to work,

Unfortunately there's a group of EU countries who may vote against the freeze. The main one being Poland, who are majorly commited to coal, and vote against anything that even smells of carbon cutting.

So, looks like that fix is out the window.

More here.

Update: Our Solar Panel System

I've just updated our stats for the system (See above tab entitled "Our Solar Panel System"). They now include a graph for the first 18th months.

The system is still on course to pay for itself in less than 5 months, has generated 4500 kWh, and has already saved 2.5 tonnes of carbon.

U.S. Joins The Battle Against Climate Change

Yes, it's true: President Obama has committed the States to cutting carbon emissions.

Up to now, Republicans have been blocking his every attempt, but he's now used his executive powers to bypass them altogether and bring in a bold package of measures.

I'm sure he would have preferred bi-partisan support for this but vested interests and political dogma have stopped him. So he's felt compelled to use his presidential powers. In a speech at Georgetown University in Washington DC, he said:

"As a president, as a father and as an American, I am here to say we need to act."

"While we may not live to see the full realisation of our ambition, we will have the satisfaction of knowing that the world we leave to our children will be better off for what we did."

Well put Mr. President, it's all about our children.

The measures will include: Expansion of renewable energy projects (with the aim of powering the equivalent of six million homes by 2020); emission limits on both new and existing power plants; and, crucially for me, a call for a global climate deal.

There's obviously been a storm of protest from Republicans. Senator Mitch McConnell said it was effectively "a war on coal". Well, d'uh! If you're going to get serious about climate change, the use of coal has got to be dramatically cut.

Either that, or you fit carbon capture and storage (CCS) to all coal fueled power stations. Oh, wait a minute...there's no viable CCS system available at the moment or any time soon.

Now, if only the global coal industry had read the writing on the wall and invested some of their profits in CCS years ago. Then they wouldn't have been under threat now.

Anyway, back to that speech.

Some might say the measures Obama announced don't go far enough (e.g. They will only cut emissions by 4% over 1990 levels by 2020), but they are an important start. Hopefully, the president has ability to the galvanise the American public, businesses, and universities into backing him and taking his country into a new era.

This could be a huge economic opportunity for the U.S.(See here for how) and a chance to gain a lot of respect from the rest of the world.

Don't blow it America.