Cancun: Climate Change and People

Posted on Thursday, 18 November 2010 by Carlos Bousoño

Climate change is an unquestionable reality. The 0.8ºC rise in average global temperature over the last century may lead to the death of around 300,000 people each year and the suffering of millions more. The deafening silence surrounding this crisis is perhaps the greatest obstacle to achieving a unanimous international agreement.

Although some communities are already suffering from the consequences, overall awareness of climate change still remains scanty, particularly among developing countries. In industrialized nations, perhaps as the result of the images of melting glaciers or polar bears floating atop ice floes beneath the sun, climate change is still considered a distant future threat of a solely environmental nature. The truth, however, is that countries like Australia are undergoing the longest period of drought in history, which has led to real social consequences: poor harvests, unemployment, fires, and greater risks to human life.

Climate change constitutes a social problem that will have an impact on the Third World in particular. This harsh reality contrasts with the fact that the 50 most underdeveloped countries in the world contribute to 1 percent of global CO2 emissions. If the pollution levels of the remaining countries were as low, climate change wouldn’t even exist.

Experts claim that the repercussions for human beings could be catastrophic if the planet’s average temperature were to rise by over 2ºC. In order to prevent this from occurring, global emission levels must drop to virtual non-existence by 2050. This brings to bear the need for the signing of an international agreement that will enable us to achieve these objectives.

Earth

The 16th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 16) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, under way in the Mexican city of Cancun, gives us the opportunity to drive forward a global alliance aimed at mitigating the serious consequences of climate change.

Paragraph 2 of the Copenhagen Accord specifies that the objective is “to hold the increase in global temperature below 2ºC” and, in order to do so, industrialized countries must achieve 40-percent emission cuts by 2020, and developing countries must deviate by between 15 percent and 30 percent from their anticipated emissions growth rate within the same timeframe.

The European Commission analyzed the repercussions of undertaking a commitment to lowering emissions by over 20 percent, and came to the conclusion that a higher European reduction target could be achieved at a moderate cost and would reap significant benefits in terms of job creation and innovation.

The current EU emission reduction target of 20 percent has been rendered insufficient within the context of today’s economic situation. The recession, coupled with the industrial transformation in Central and Eastern European countries, has led to a drop in emissions of almost 14 percent over 1990 levels. Therefore, Europe should undertake a reduction commitment of more than 30 percent by 2020.

In turn, the United States must take on the international struggle against climate change in a way that is tantamount to that of the other industrialized nations. And emerging powers, including China, India and Brazil, need to embrace commitments that are much more ambitious than those of developing countries, and accept that they will gradually gain equal footing among the industrialized nations. Altogether, this will not only make a vital contribution to minimizing the consequences of climate change, but will also create jobs and boost the economic growth of the world’s nations.

Finally, it is crucial that the Cancun conference bring forth a supplementary agreement to achieve a genuine reduction in global carbon emission levels. In order to forestall the imminent deterioration of the environment, and above all, the social consequences involved, we need a commitment from governments and the business community, and we need to promote a new paradigm based on the use of renewable energies, responsible consumption, clean production, and the basic tenet that the prices of goods and services must also include their environmental cost.

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Could Brazil be the Persian Gulf of the Future?

Posted on Wednesday, 10 November 2010 by Carlos Bousoño

In recent years, concern for the environment and alarm over global warming triggered by the rise in greenhouse gas emissions have stirred interest in renewable energy sources from all sectors of society.

Both Europe and the United States are in a situation of deficit in terms of energy; in other words, they are regions that import more energy than they produce. However, there is one country, Brazil, which is not only self-sufficient energy-wise, but also obtains 45.1 percent of the energy consumed from renewable sources.

Grafic 1

This information should give us pause and make us ask ourselves how it is possible that a developing country finds itself at the vanguard of renewable energy production, demonstrating greater respect for the environment and a higher degree of energy diversification than the most advanced countries in the world.

Furthermore, if we analyze the case of biofuels, we can see that, so far, Brazil has managed to meet the rising demand for ethanol from Europe and the United States in spite of growing internal consumption as the result of the increase in flexible-fuel car fleets (flex-fuel cars are able to run on any proportion of ethanol for fuel). Therefore, this naturally brings us to the question of whether this Latin American country will be able to provide enough ethanol for the rest of the world in the coming years. That is, whether Brazil will become the new Persian Gulf for renewable energies.

Imagen

From the agricultural standpoint, Brazil boasts nearly 105 million hectares of available cropland, which makes it unnecessary to use any of the land comprising the Amazon rainforest or other protected areas. Employing just five million hectares of the 105 million hectares of this available land to cultivate the dendê palm (an oleaginous plant) would suffice to meet Brazil’s diesel fuel requirements. If, moreover, 50 million hectares of sugar cane were planted, more than 450 million cubic meters of ethanol could be produced, thereby enabling virtual replacement of the gasoline consumption of a country such as the United States, where demand totals some 570 million cubic meters. In short, exploitation of the Earth for energy purposes is indeed compatible with respect for biodiversity and forest wealth.

Map

Sugar cane cultivation areas (Fermentec, 2006)

Biofuels, however, are not the only Brazilian source of renewable energy. Seventy-five percent of the country’s electricity comes from hydroelectric power plants. And even though this percentage may seem substantial, as we can seen in the table below, the potential is in fact much higher, given the tremendous number of available water resources that have yet to be employed.

Grafic 2

Therefore, given the determined political drive and the exceptional climatic conditions and natural resources the country enjoys, Brazil has the potential to become the source of renewable fuels the world needs, a modern and sustainable Persian Gulf.

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Deforestation: The Vulnerability of Trees

Posted on Saturday, 18 September 2010 by Carlos Bousoño

Forests constitute one of the most valuable ecosystems on Earth because of their tremendous biodiversity. However, their vulnerability to human action has led to their being wiped out in many different regions of the planet; this is what is referred to as deforestation.

The Amazon rainforest, the jungle of southeast Asia, the rainforests of central Africa, the temperate forests of South America, the primary forests of North America, the last European primary forests, and the forests of the Siberian taiga–considered to be the planet’s seven great natural forests that have not been affected by industrial activity–have eluded this devastation for the time being.
Fire

However, the threat still remains: in the 80s, global deforestation reached an annual rate of 15 million hectares, a figure which today is already close to 17 million hectares. Experts estimate that an area of rainforest about the size of six soccer fields is wiped out somewhere in the world each minute, even though mountain rainforests and dry forests show a higher rate of deforestation. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that 80 percent have either been altered or destroyed, with the remaining 20 percent still under threat. Today our planet’s area of forest land totals four trillion hectares; that is, 30.3 percent of Earth’s terrestrial surface.

How have we come to this point? The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the World Rainforest Movement cite the following as being among the chief direct causes: the transformation of forest land into farming land, livestock activity, crop change, expanding urban and industrial areas, inappropriate and indiscriminate logging, mining, oil exploitation, dam construction, industrial plants, and forest fires.

These institutions have warned that the so-called underlying (or indirect) causes actually determine the direct causes: government policies on land ownership rights and social inequality, as well as other political factors, including the lack of participatory democracy and models for production and consumption; highway construction, military conflicts. An extensive list to which can be added discriminatory trade legislation, ineffective investment regulation, structural adjustment programs, debt, and market distortions, among others.

And, inevitably, all of this has the effect of accelerating climate change. Forests play an essential role in climate regulation; moreover, they also act as carbon sinks, thereby impeding a rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and subsequent global warming of the Earth. A carbon sink is an ecosystem with the ability to absorb more CO2 than it emits, acting, therefore, as a carbon trap. For example, the sea and, in certain cases, land vegetation, are natural carbon sinks. A recent study to that effect published in the scientific journal Nature underscored the fact that old-growth forests constitute significant global carbon sinks.

The team of scientists from Belgium, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the United States analyzed data on 519 primary forests, and reached the conclusion that, rather than having a neutral carbon balance, most 15- to 800-year-old forests are excellent carbon sinks because they absorb more carbon than that which they emit. Moreover, in the case of the primary forests which represent 15 percent of the world’s total forest area, experts estimate that these ancient forests alone absorb around 1.3 gigatons of carbon each year, an amount equivalent to 10 percent of the net amount of CO2 absorbed throughout the world.

Combustion of oil and gas is frequently cited as the chief cause of global warming. As we have seen in previous articles, this claim has been amply contrasted and supported through solid scientific reasoning. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that logging also contributes to the greenhouse effect. Tree composition is 50 percent carbon, and consequently tree-felling leads to the return to the atmosphere of a portion of this chemical element. Experts estimate that deforestation alones produces 25 percent of the greenhouse gases; that is, over 1.6 billion tons per year. The Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) warns that each year 4 billion more tons of carbon build up in the atmosphere, approximately 30 percent of which are the result of the accelerated burning of rainforests.

Map

(Source: Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005; FAO)

This situation has led the international community, within the framework of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests under the auspices of the Commission on Sustainable Development to acknowledge the pressing need to identify the underlying causes of deforestation in order to pursue common solutions and save the forests on the planet that are still standing. Worthy of special mention among the proposed measures is the so-called “dynamic balance” intended to develop the principle of sustainability in an attempt to strike a balance between economic and social development and growth and productive and domestic activities in a way that will ensure the well-being of present and future generations. Therefore, it is essential that we recover all land showing serious problems of deterioration through conservation, protection, mitigation, compensation, rational use and sustainable exploitation, and enhancement of the processes that contribute to halting this deterioration.

In light of the fact that forest development and conservation are paramount to our well-being, we must work towards defining programs to promote land recovery and conservation, crucial for economic, social and environmental development. Moreover, this obligation is not exclusive to governments; it is the duty of our entire society to watch over the care and preservation of our forests, and we must all act as stewards of sustainable use of our land.

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Climate Change and the Economy

Posted on Wednesday, 18 August 2010 by Carlos Bousoño

On March 20, 2010 a thunderous roar broke the nocturnal silence in the Fimmvörðuháls region of Iceland. The frozen waterfalls of the Skógar route, popular for its beauty among the thousands of hikers who follow the trail during the summer months, shattered as a result of the force of the explosion. The volcano of Eyjafjallajökull, Icelandic for “island-mountain glacier”, had come to life.

The eruption began in a volcanic fissure that opened up on the eastern flank of the volcano. The volcanic plume of about 1,000 meters in height was pushed by the winds towards the west, covering the sky with a thin layer of ash. This compelled authorities to declare a state of emergency in southern Iceland and led to the evacuation of the inhabitants of the town of Fljótshlíð due to the risk of flooding. A few days later, the ash from the volcano had drifted to cover most of the European skies.

Photo of erupting volcano

Photograph by Christopher Lund from nationalgeographic.com

The worst consequences of the eruption of the volcano were neither its environmental impact nor the effect on neighboring communities (which was quite limited), but rather its economic repercussions. Hundreds of thousands of flights were cancelled for weeks due to airspace being closed in practically all European countries. This left hotels and restaurants without customers across the entire continent, while businesses saw their employees grounded, unable to close deals or complete pending projects. Estimates show that the effect of Eyjafjallajökull on the world economy exceeded 5 billion dollars during the first few months after the volcano erupted.

Do Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake in Haiti and the eruption of the Icelandic volcano have anything in common?

In different ways, the three natural disasters remind us how the effects of specific local events can become magnified, spreading their consequences globally through the economy. What would happen if changes to natural systems were global instead of local? As underscored by NASA scientist Richard Fisher, global phenomena such as the foreseeable increase in solar activity in the coming years, with the potential to leave present plane and ship navigation systems or our nations’ electrical infrastructure incapacitated, could lead to an impact on the global economy twenty times greater in magnitude than Hurricane Katrina.

When we examine the problem under this new light, climate change may not constitute a serious risk due solely to its effects on the environment; the impact of climate change on the world economic system may indeed have even greater repercussions. Fernando Martínez Salcedo and José Luis Arroyo Barrigüete analyze this in their article entitled “Climate Change and the Economy”, which, due to its relevance, I have reproduced below.

 

Climate Change and the Economy

By Fernando Martínez Salcedo y José L. Arroyo Barrigüete

Much has been written on the long-term impact on all human activities since the scientific community alerted us to the serious consequences of the anthropogenic climate change we are undergoing. However, there has been lesser depth in reflections on these consequences in the short and medium term, and, from time to time, these types of effects have even been underestimated.

The cause behind this slant in the analysis is none other than the fact that the environmental system boasts a certain capacity to make adjustments; and this capacity, while finite, indeed tolerates and has the ability to absorb moderate disturbances. Therefore, we have come to the erroneous conclusion that we are relatively safe, at least in the short term, and that our way of life will not suffer any substantial alterations. We trust that the resilience of the climate system will protect us over the coming years. This, however, undoubtedly constitutes a significant error in judgment. In practice, the environment interacts with another set of systems which, unfortunately, are neither as flexible nor as robust.

A good example can be found in the economic system. The complexities of the system, increased exponentially by the growing interconnection among all world economies, render it less resilient than the climate system; its capacity to absorb disturbances is far more limited. Furthermore, nature has a longer memory than that of the human community, and sometimes our activities are conducted in places or under conditions which nature has already questioned: we ourselves bring on our own crisis by accentuating the devastating effects of a natural phenomenon. The obvious conclusion is that minor environmental changes which the climate system is able to absorb more or less efficiently can extend to the economic system in a much more virulent fashion, significantly destabilizing even major economies. That is, one specific and localized event occurring in the physical system may lead to much greater impact on the economic system, turning local pressure into global economic strain. There is no pointless speculation involved here, for recent events lend support to this view.

Photo of plane flying over erupting volcano crater

Photograph by Christopher Lund from nationalgeographic.com

To cite just a few examples, at the beginning of 2010, just a few months ago, a cold wave caused serious damage to Florida orange crops, rapidly impacting financial markets, and leading to a substantial increase in the price of frozen orange juice. The sadly famous earthquake in Haiti not only caused significant damage to the region itself, but rather its repercussions were felt around the world, as many countries undertook commitments to provide assistance through economic aid, which necessarily takes resources away from other activities and geographies. And the recent European air traffic crisis resulting from the eruption of a volcano in Iceland is another example in this sense: a localized event leads to a world crisis accentuated by the rigidity of our actions and due to the fact that economic systems do not incorporate these types of situations into their analysis and lack the according flexible response capability. Along the same lines, in 2009 the lack of rainfall in India, amounting to 15 to 20% less rain than the average over the last 50 years, led to significant damage to rice, sugar and oleaginous crops, with the resulting effects on the price of these products. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina not only wreaked havoc on the population of New Orleans: fuel production in the Gulf of Mexico region, one of the most important U.S. production points, was seriously compromised, which led to a gasoline crisis across the country.

As we can clearly see from the previous examples, the physical system is able to rebalance itself quite quickly following a more or less intense event altering the usual conditions, but the damage this may cause to the economic system may not only be more serious, but also more lasting, and can sometimes even prove irreparable. The recovery curve of our economic systems is much slower than that of physical systems. For now, this effect of amplified transfer of climatic alterations to economic disturbances has only been observed on a small scale, with negative consequences in relatively limited regions. Nevertheless, as climate system modifications increase, we will see increasingly larger scales. Following this reasoning right to the end, in the short and medium term, climate imbalances could lead to dire effects on the world economy. In fact, it is possible for the economy to collapse as the result of climate change even before we are able to appreciate significant alterations in the environmental system.

In conclusion, we need to be aware that the fragility and rigidity of the economic system exceed those of the climate system. Moreover, given that both systems are interconnected in a very complex manner, climate change could move to our economies much faster than we would like to believe. We must therefore bolster the focus on sustainable development, not only as a more or less altruistic philosophy of ensuring the well-being of future generations, but also as the only possible way to maintain economic and social development. Working towards sustainability implies not only minimizing the environmental impact of the activities we carry out, but also constitutes in practice an effective means of making the economic system more robust, enhancing its resilience and ensuring greater capacity for recovery in the event of catastrophic physical events.

To sum up, given that we do not know for certain the maximum threshold at which the economic system begins to lose its capacity for recovery, and in view of the fact that we do know, in any case, that it is lower than that of the environmental system, we must be very careful with the physical alterations we cause through our activities. For the consequences of climate change are not something that will be seen by our children; rather, they are something we will no doubt experience ourselves, most likely in the form of severe economic crises characterized by the limitation of resources required for activity, or the inability to provide them where needed for production or to create well-being.

 

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Toward an energy New Deal [1]

Posted on Tuesday, 18 May 2010 by admin

The world is suffering today from total dependency on fossil energies. Accounting for over 80 percent of global energy demand, if oil and natural gas were to suddenly stop flowing from producing countries to consumers, our cars, trucks, trains and airplanes would no longer run; goods would stop moving to and from factories; people would not be able to get to their workplaces, and our economy and society as a whole would be rendered utterly crippled.

Although fossil energy can take the credit for having contributed to propelling our planet toward its present degree of development, today it nevertheless poses serious drawbacks that dictate an urgent quest for alternatives.

The first of these disadvantages is the fact that the fossil energy consumed cannot be replenished; that is, it is not renewable. Fossil fuels are the product of accumulated remains of plants (forests and marine plankton) that lived millions of years ago and which have fossilized to form coal or hydrocarbons (petroleum and natural gas). Solar radiation, captured by plants and trapped throughout the geological eras in the form of high-energy molecules, is what is found today in the hydrocarbons generated from the decomposition of plant matter through exposure to temperature, pressure and certain bacteria over the course of millions of years. This is what makes fossil energy irrecoverable, and hence its inevitable depletion. It has been estimated that it will take no more than 70 years for oil to run out as an economically viable source of energy.

Sky

Secondly, there is the matter of the energy and economic dependency endured by oil-consuming nations. With the exception of the twelve countries that make up OPEC, the body controlling half of world crude oil exports and holding three quarters of the oil reserves, the rest of the world’s nations produce much less oil than they consume, and  they are consequently forced to import at the price dictated by the organization, which usually gives rise to intense economic dependency.

Thirdly, there is the problem of escalating climate change. The greenhouse gases produced by hydrocarbons upon combustion lead to alteration in the composition of our planet’s atmosphere, magnifying the natural greenhouse effect, and therefore making the temperature of the earth’s surface rise. In just a few years, this can lead to melting of the polar ice caps, a rise in sea level and ocean acidification, coastal and island flooding, resulting, consequently, in a severe economic and humanitarian crisis of global proportions.

Fourth among the drawbacks of fossil energies is their negative impact on the environment. Hydrocarbon production and transportation entail serious environmental risks, such as, for example, those stemming from oil spills or explosions. Furthermore, oil well exploration and exploitation are the cause of serious problems, including loss of biodiversity, ecosystem degradation and ocean pollution.

And, finally, the fifth problem is the high level of air pollution caused by fossil fuels. Burning gasoline in an engine not only gives off carbon dioxide and water in the exhaust pipe, but also generates by-products that pollute the air, such as carbon monoxide (poisonous), nitrogen oxides (smog producers), or hydrocarbons resulting from partial combustion (giving off noxious ozone that is hazardous to health).

We need to take a giant step forward to get beyond the present fossil-based economic model, replacing it with a model based on clean, renewable energies with a guaranteed supply. However, in order to achieve this, the change must be gradual, as the substitution of humanity’s chief source of energy will obviously have significant political, economic and social ramifications.

The first in the series of steps required is to include the environmental impact of all products and services in their cost. This is something economists have known about for a long time, technically referred to as negative externality [2]: by consuming a given product or service we generate third-party costs without there being any kind of interceding economic compensation. The way to resolve this is through internalization of this cost by making the consumer bear it, by creating, for example, an emissions market the cost of which is attributed to the goods and services of the business involved. If this were to happen, fossil energies would lose a large part of their competitiveness with respect to renewable energies, since their price would rise substantially due to the tremendous economic cost for everyone of the environmental detriment entailed by their use[3].

After setting this new economic paradigm into motion, the change in economic incentives will give rise to a new model, the carbon economy, which will lead to exponential technological development of renewables. These energy sources offer the advantage of being non-polluting, free of greenhouse gas emissions, and having the capacity to reduce the political and economic dependency acquired with a handful of unstable nations that presently control the world’s oil. Many experts believe that solar power will prevail as the primary source of energy in the medium and long term. And it is quite likely that hydrogen will become the energy vector[4] of the future, as a complement to electricity. The combination of the two will instantly eliminate 65 percent of our planet’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Leaves falling

Solar energy boasts the advantage of being universally accessible (with the exception of the Poles), and unlimited in duration. In fact, covering less than five percent of our hot deserts with solar collectors would suffice to meet the electrical power needs of the entire world. Numerous alternative technologies are available today for producing energy from the sun. They can be categorized into two main groups. On the one hand, there is photovoltaic technology, which turns solar radiation into electricity by employing the photoelectric effect, and, on the other, we have solar thermal technology, based on turning the radiated energy into heat for subsequent use in a thermodynamic cycle. The use of one kind of solar technology or the other depends on the type of energy need involved. For example, in the case of supplying power to a large number of homes or industries located in an area with a high level of direct radiation, solar thermal technology makes sense, whereas as photovoltaic technology is a more sensible option for disperse population cores or for individual use.

In turn, in order for hydrogen to perform its function accordingly as the energy vector of the future, a few matters must first be resolved. The two most important issues to be addressed are determining how to produce it in large quantities from another primary energy source without producing any emissions, and finding a way to store it efficiently.

There are two economically viable mechanisms for extracting hydrogen: water electrolysis and fuel reforming. The former uses electricity to separate the hydrogen and oxygen molecules from water, and will enable citizens to produce it in their homes. The latter employs a reformer to separate the hydrogen molecules contained in the fuel. In order to render the hydrogen emission-free, the method used must not involve indirect emission of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases. Therefore, the electricity or fuel used cannot come from fossil derivatives, but rather from clean and renewable sources of energy. The electricity used today comes primarily from coal or natural gas plants; and the most commonly used fuels for obtaining hydrogen are gasoline and natural gas. But the inclusion of their environmental cost in the energy will bring about a shift toward generating electricity from solar energy and the production of hydrogen from biofuels or from solar power itself.

Hydrogen storage is no trivial matter. Although it is difficult to store due to its low volumetric energy density, almost 3,000 times lower than that of gasoline, there are three ways to make hydrogen denser and therefore more suitable for storage: compression, liquefaction, or by combining it with other elements. Each one of these has advantages and disadvantages, and none is currently efficient enough to stand out above the rest. Therefore, the most widely used option today is creating hydrogen in a distributed manner precisely when it is needed; for example, through the use of a reformer to process bioethanol in order to produce gas. These types of approaches are being studied for use in hybrid vehicles.

The transition from the present economic model, based on fossil energies, toward an energy New Deal, based on renewable energies, is vital in building a sustainable future. Given the economic interests tied to fossil energies, reaching the point where the sun and hydrogen meet 80 percent of our energy needs will not be an easy path to follow. We must embrace our knowledge of the advantages of renewable energies, confident in our belief that we are moving in the right direction, and continue to dedicate resources to their development. Our future generations will no doubt appreciate it.

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[1] The New Deal refers to the package of economic programs initiated between 1933 and 1938 by U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt to aggressively deal with the causes of the major economic crisis of 1929 and thereby promote recovery from the Great Depression in which the country was submerged.
[2] In economics, an externality is an impact (positive or negative) on any party that is not directly involved in a given economic transaction. Externalities occur when a decision made generates costs or benefits for third parties that are not directly involved in the transaction.
[3] According to the Stern Review, the total economic cost of climate change (caused by greenhouse gas emissions) exceeds one percent of global gross domestic product per annum. A significant portion of this cost is attributed to emissions derived from the use of fossil energies
[4] In this context, an energy vector is to be understood as a means of transmitting energy from primary so

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Bioethanol and Energy Security

Posted on Thursday, 18 February 2010 by admin

Petrol station

 

Energy security, defined as the capacity of a country to satisfy future domestic energy demand sufficiently, opportunely, sustainably, and at a suitable cost, is a crucial issue for any nation. With the exception of the twelve countries that make up OPEC, the organization controlling half of the world’s crude exports and in possession of three quarters of all oil reserves, the rest of the world’s nations produce far less oil than they consume and are therefore forced to import oil at the price dictated by the cartel. This has given rise to a situation of severe economic dependency. And even oil-producing countries will see their reserves run out by the end of the century.

Each year more than 30 billion barrels of oil are consumed throughout the world, which means -assuming a price per barrel of 100 dollars- a bill to be paid that totals more than 3 trillion dollars. Even for a small non-producing country consuming barely 500 million barrels per year, this amounts to over 50 billion dollars.

The United States, for instance, has become increasingly more dependent on crude imports, despite having a high production capacity. In fact, the U.S. currently imports 57 percent of the oil the country consumes, which attests to and explains the extreme political and economic dependence acquired with the handful of unstable countries that control oil today. Each year, the United States invests over 300 billion dollars in securing the transportation of imported crude oil.This entails an additional expense of $3.68 per gallon, more than one hundred percent of the present cost, and explains President Obama’s categorical statement to this effect: “Oil dependency is the most serious threat to our country.”

In short, energy diversification has become an important matter of foreign policy, and necessitates the quest for alternatives to fossil energy in order to dismantle more than a century of energy monopoly.

Among today’s renewable energies, biofuels are in the best position to replace oil in the short and medium term because they can utilize the same infrastructure. As a local renewable source of energy, bioethanol can help countries to drive down dependence on foreign oil and displace billions of barrels of imported crude, while helping to increase the ability of these nations to gain control over their economic future through an improved trade balance and the chance to invest this money in their own social and economic progress instead of financing totalitarian governments in the Middle East.

Fortunately, the global upsurge in the biofuel supply is helping to lower oil demand, thereby mitigating the devastating impact of escalating crude oil prices, which reached 140 dollars a barrel in 2008.

Furthermore, we must not lose sight of the fact that oil well exploration and exploitation are also the cause of serious environmental problems, including biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, contamination of seas and oceans, and greenhouse gas emissions. And there are even high indirect costs involved. According to the U.S. Accounting Office, over the last thirty years the U.S. government has allocated more than 130 billion dollars to subsidize oil exploration and production.

In conclusion, bioethanol stands out as the best short-term alternative to oil. The time will come for the electric or hydrogen car, although for that to happen we need to propitiate the right conditions to drive cleaner and inexhaustible forms of energy forward. Energy security is undoubtedly the major challenge for the 21st century, and history tells us that great progress is achieved through dialogue, cooperation, and political will. It is essential that our leaders secure a suitable regulatory framework and sufficient R&D investment, which ought to be the elements of the energy policy of any country, in order to foster the development of renewable energies.

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Biomass for generating energy

Posted on Wednesday, 20 January 2010 by admin

Leaves

Biomass is the organic material from trees, plants and animal waste that can be turned into energy; it is a renewable source of energy because it has a fast regeneration cycle and, ultimately, it gets its energy from the sun, since photosynthesis is the process by which plants generate carbohydrates from CO22, water and air. Moreover, biomass is an abundant resource (it is estimated that 170 000 million tons of biomass are available each year around the world[1]), which makes its use as a large-scale source of energy a valid approach, provided that this be carried out in a sustainable way, without causing soil erosion, desertification or deforestation of our ecosystems[2].

From the energy standpoint, biomass can be used to generate liquid fuels for the automobile industry (as we have already discussed in the articles on biofuels), to generate heat (the most primitive form of which, burning wood, dates back to the advent of Humanity), and as a source of electricity. It is estimated that between 10 and 14 percent of the energy consumed throughout the world comes from biomass[3].

A wide variety of biomass can be used for energy purposes:

  • Forestry waste.
  • Agricultural and livestock waste from crop pruning or animal excrement
  • Various types of industrial waste
  • Urban waste, among which noteworthy is biogas from urban wastewater treatment plants and from solid urban waste.
  • Energy crops, offering a high per-unit-of-surface-area production level.Los combustibles líquidos para la automoción utilizan la fermentación de las moléculas complejas de azúcar que contienen las plantas (celulosa y lignina) para producir etanol. Esta liberación puede obtenerse mediante procesos de transformación biológicos, que usan enzimas para descomponer las moléculas, o mediante procesos de transformación termoquímicos, que usan gases a elevada temperatura. Ambas vías permiten producir un amplio rango de biocarburantes como el bioetanol, el biometanol, el diesel sintético, o el dimetiléter.

The liquid fuels used in the automobile industry utilize the fermentation of the complex sugar molecules contained in plants (cellulose and lignin) in order to produce ethanol. This release can be obtained through biological transformation processes that make use of enzymes to break down the molecules, or by means of thermo-chemical transformation processes employing high-temperature gases. Both ways enable the production of a wide range of biofuels, such as bioethanol, biomethanol, synthetic diesel fuel, or dimethyleter.

Thermal applications, on the other hand, among which heat generation and hot sanitary water stands out, are the most common within the biomass sector. These applications range from boilers or individual heating units used in homes to boilers designed for residential buildings.Para usar la biomasa como combustible renovable es particularmente importante la logística de su suministro, que ha de ser continuo y en grandes cantidades. Por ello, es necesario trabajar en la promoción de cultivos energéticos e infraestructuras que permitan el suministro estable y sostenible de biomasa a las plantas generadoras de energía. En cualquier caso, existen cantidades suficientes de residuos agrícolas (tales como la paja) y forestales (como los restos de cortas y limpias) que permitirán las producción durante el período inicial transitorio.

And, finally, producing electricity from biomass requires complex systems due to its low calorific power and high percentage of humidity. A biomass-based electric power station burns this type of fuel to produce water vapor or heat a gas which, in turn, drives a turbine that is hooked up to a generator, thereby producing electricity.

In order to use biomass as a renewable fuel, the logistics of its supply are particularly important, as it must be continuous and delivered in large quantities. Therefore, efforts must be made toward promoting energy crops and infrastructures enabling a stable and sustainable supply of biomass to power generating plants. In any case, there is enough agricultural (such as straw) and forest (for example, pruning and clipping remains) waste to enable production during the initial transitory period.

The main challenges with respect to biomass are its low energy density in comparison to fuels, coupled with the fact that its caloric potential depends to a large extent on the humidity content and the density of the raw material. But biomass is an energy source that has considerable advantages over fossil fuels. It is a renewable source of energy, which, furthermore, does not contribute to global warming[4] and can even help to reduce it, since the capture of methane from agricultural waste and substitution of petroleum derivatives aid in mitigating the greenhouse effect. Furthermore, turning forest, agricultural and urban waste into energy solves the problems associated with handling these types of waste. And, in addition, biomass is a local resource, so its utilization reduces dependence on foreign energy, providing incentives to rural economies at the same time.

The White Book on Renewable Energies set the EU target for 2010 at 12 percent of primary energy from renewable sources, giving biomass a very important role. In order to meet these objectives, progress must be made in creating policies for promoting countries’ sustainable energy crops, encouraging the use of biomass, enabling the creation of logistical channels for its distribution, giving enough incentive to project profitability, and promoting research on biomass production through energy crops and efficient transformation technologies for turning biomass into solid fuel. If the right policies are put into motion, biomass will succeed in becoming one of our energy mainstays in the short and medium term, contributing through its renewable nature to future continuity of the energy supply.

[1] Whittaker, R. H.; Likens, G. E. (1975). “The Biosphere and Man”, en Leith, H. & Whittaker, R. H.: Primary Productivity of the Biosphere. Springer-Verlag, 305-328. ISBN 0-3870-7083-4. ; Ecological Studies Vol 14 (Berlin).

[2] Hall, D.O., F.Rosillo-Calle, R.H. Williams, J. Woods, Biomass for Energy; supply prospects. Renewable energy, source for fuels and electricity, Island Press, Washington DC, 1993.

[3] Gardner, G., Shrinking fields: Cropland loss in a world of eight billion, World Watch paper 131, World Watch Institute, New York, July 1996.

[4] Even though we may have to employ combustion in order to harness the energy of this renewable source, resulting, therefore, in the generation of CO2, we must bear in mind that the amount of this gas emitted is equal to that which was captured by plants during their growth. That is, there is no additional increase in the emission of this gas into the atmosphere.

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Globalization and Climate Change

Posted on Friday, 15 January 2010 by Carlos Bousoño

Is there any connection between globalization and climate change? There has been a great deal of discussion about climate change in previous blog articles, so there is no need to go into this issue further here. Nevertheless, I think we can delve into the topic of globalization a bit more. Globalization is basically an economic process, involving the integration of national economies into a single world capitalist market.

The globalization process ultimately accelerates the process of converging different economies, so that lesser developed countries progress more rapidly toward the level of first world countries. This process of convergence and rise in the standard of living results in higher demand of all kinds of products and services in general, and for energy in particular.

If greenhouse gas-emitting fossil technologies are chosen to meet this increased demand for energy, obviously these emissions will rise globally. But this does not have to be so. Certain mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol deal precisely with confronting these kinds of problems. These mechanisms promote investment by developing countries in clean technologies, such as solar power, wind power or other renewable sources of energy, thereby ensuring that the positive effect of economic growth is not shadowed by an increase in contaminating emissions.

In fact, for developing countries the exploitation of alternative energies proves to be the best option for boosting and sustaining their economic growth in a clean way, by becoming ideal scenarios for creating electricity and biofuel energy centers. Thus, the implementation of policies promoting clean technologies in these countries should be a priority of programs involving collaboration from developed countries. And we must not forget, moreover, that the development of alternative energies provides these countries with a unique opportunity to break free from the dependence on countries that control the energy supply and with which, for obvious reasons, they are at a disadvantage in terms of negotiating power.

In conclusion, therefore, globalization and the fight against climate change are not, as some claim, incompatible concepts.

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How to reduce energy consumption in transportation

Posted on Wednesday, 18 November 2009 by Carlos Bousoño

In Spain, transportation accounts for nearly 40 percent of the total amount of energy consumed. And within the transportation segment, highway transport represents close to 80 percent. Global figures are quite similar: 30 percent of energy consumption is due to transportation, and almost 80 percent of the energy consumption involving transportation is due to highway traffic.

Traffic jamThese data offer us two interesting ideas. The first is that the energy consumption associated with transportation takes on considerable significance in developed countries; and, secondly, within the area of transportation as a whole, highway transport accounts for the highest percentage. Therefore, measures that will have the greatest impact are those intended to reduce energy consumption, precisely, that of highway transportation.

Regardless of the fact that biofuel use is, in my opinion, one of the keys to sustainability, there are other measures associated with energy efficiency that must be approached. Let us examine a few that I consider to be crucial.

  • Promoting rational use of transportation. In this case there are three objectives to be met, which, in some way, must be approached at the same time. First, we need to heighten citizen awareness of the importance of public transportation, encouraging people to use the systems available instead of their cars. Secondly, development of infrastructures associated with public transportation. And, thirdly, fomenting rational use of personal vehicles, which once again entails citizen awareness and even the development of some type of economic incentive for promoting this kind of behavior.
  • Developing information systems to enable more efficient management of both individual and collective transportation systems. This is essential for air transportation and equally important in managing overland transportation.
  • Fomenting the replacement of highway transportation, of both passengers and goods, with other more efficient means of transportation. In the case of freight, by promoting sea and railway transportation; and, for passenger travel, through encouraging railway transportation.
  • Updating vehicle fleets, primarily in overland transportation, which, as we have seen, represents the largest percentage of energy consumption. This would bring about the utilization of newer vehicles that feature higher levels of energy efficiency. Achieving this might possibly entail the employment of economic incentives; through, for example, tax measures for acquiring flexible vehicles with the capacity to run on biofuels and featuring very low levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

In short, in order for the energy supply to meet the progressive rise in demand in a secure and sustainable manner while reducing the environmental impact of fossil energies, I believe that governments must set in motion, in a decisive and coordinated way, legislative initiatives which, on the one hand, will promote the renewable culture, and which, on the other, will provide citizens with incentives for following more sustainable patterns of consumption.

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Green is the New Big Deal [1]

Posted on Sunday, 18 October 2009 by Carlos Bousoño

The world economy is presently facing three major challenges: the financial crisis due to credit shrinkage, the high cost of energy, and climate change. These three facts put together could potentially lead to a global recession that may be sustained over time. Therefore, the world’s governments need to form an alliance in order to come up with a concerted and sustainable solution in light of these phenomena through a Green ‘New Deal’ [2].

Man with megaphoneAugust 9, 2007 was a dark day for the world economy. Banks realized the enormous amount of debt reflected in the balance sheets of other financial institutions, and this brought about a loss of confidence that made them stop lending money. And on September 29, 2008, over a year later later, more than a trillion dollars vanished from the New York Stock Exchange, representing the market’s worst plunge in history. That day marked the beginning of the harshest recession the world has seen since the Great Depression, this time with a differentiating characteristic: its globality.

The price of oil, furthermore, rose to nearly 150 dollars a barrel in 2008. And even though the price dropped to almost 40 dollars as a result of the financial crisis, a future fossil energy price escalation is still an inevitable reality. The International Energy Agency estimates that oil will hit 200 dollars per barrel by 2030 due to the constant rise in demand coupled with ever-increasing supply scarcity. With these prices, it is likely that many economies will no longer be able to import oil.

And, finally, the present concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is already causing real changes to ecosystems, with consequences that include the rise in sea level, coastal erosion, and a higher incidence of droughts and floods that have an impact on the availability of freshwater. Nearly 14 percent of the people who live in developing countries live in low-lying coastal areas, and 60 percent of the world’s largest urban areas, with populations exceeding five million, are located within a radius of one hundred kilometers from the coast. Climate change is beginning to affect the lives of a great number of people and the economies of many nations.

Overcoming the present situation requires a global impulse from our nations’ governments, a green “New Deal” to help bring on recovery of the global economy in the short term and lay the foundations for sustained growth in the medium and long term. Numerous analyses and other evidence show that “green sectors”, such as renewable energy production, have the capability of acting as drivers of economic recovery while helping to solve the problems of fossil energy depletion and climate change. The creation of millions of green jobs will enable protection of the environment that sustains life on Earth and offer meaningful work for the unemployed, thereby achieving well-being, social justice, and a balanced distribution of wealth. The renewable energy sector, for example, representing under five percent of the world’s total production of primary energy, today employs the same number of people as the entire global oil and gas industry.

According to the United Nations, the constitution of a global agreement among nations must include a set of common measures:

  • Tax incentives in key sectors (such as energy-efficient buildings, sustainable transportation, renewable energies or freshwater generation and conservation) to promote the development of efficient technologies
  • Internal policy reform (such as the attribution of environmental costs to all products and services or the development of a mechanism to enable transparent accountability of environmental impact) to facilitate the success of green investments in national economies, and
  • International agreements (such as the deregulation of international commerce, the creation of a global greenhouse gas emission market or the promotion of technology development and transfer), to enable coordination of the implementation of joint economic measures and a global response to address future crises.

Reaching a global agreement that will allow us to integrate sustainable economic expansion with protection of the environment is vital for our future. Turning the present fossil economy into a green economy is indeed possible, and the Copenhagen summit represents a tremendous occasion to realize this transition. It will take political will and financial investment. Allocating a third of the more than 2.5 trillion dollars agreed upon for investment in economic recovery from the recession (1 percent of global gross domestic product) to sustainable sectors would suffice. We now have the chance to take a critical step toward sustainability for everyone. We must not waste this opportunity.

Shaking hands

[1] “Green is the New Big Deal” refers to the campaign of the same name promoted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

[2] Seventy-five years ago, at the nadir of the Great Depression, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated the “New Deal”, a wide-ranging package of programs intended to provide employment and social security, reform tax policy and, in short, to stimulate the economy. The New Deal was a program that not only spurred the creation of millions of jobs, but also defined the policies that gave rise to the modernization of U.S. infrastructure and laid the foundations for the economic development which the country enjoyed during the second half of the twentieth century.

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