(image: damonclifford.com)

As the year closes, everyone is taking a look back, so this week’s roundup gives you the best of the “best of” stories.

At MIT Technology Review, Kevin Bullis offers up the top energy stories of the year. Some of the choices were expected—the rush for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale, carbon capture, and biofuel—but hamsters? Follow the links for a video demonstrating hamster power.

Energy analyst Robert Rapier compiled his top-ten list of energy stories this year, which you can find at The Oil Drum or his R-Squared Energy Blog. His choice for top story seems hard to argue with: volatility in the oil markets.

BusinessGreen.com’s James Murray crunched some numbers and found the most popular stories on the site from the past year. You’ll find green investment, solar panels, and lots about hybrid cars.

The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t stop at stories of the year—they take a look at the top science stories of the whole decade. The genome, stem cells, and pandemic flu all make the cut, as does one story with more relevance to this site: alternative energy. From peak oil to a post-petroleum world, from natural gas to electric cars, Sandy Bauer covers the highlights.

Ben Jervey at GOOD looks beyond 2009 as well to cover the top environmental news of the last ten years. Follow him as he goes in chronological order, when green became the new black, Al Gore became inconvenient, and Copenhagen was kind of a flop.

Embracing one of the many globe sculptures on display in Copenhagen. (image: xinhuanet.com)

Talks in Copenhagen struggled to get back on track Wednesday, after outrage continued over the leaked draft climate agreement known as the Danish Text. Day 3 of the conference saw a targeted attack on the west by Sudanese ambassador Lumumba Stanislaus Dia Ping, according to CNN.com.

Dia Ping told a news conference that the Danish Text was aimed at “preserving and advancing developed countries’ economic dominance and supremacy.” He went on to say that the “Empire” is making a ruthless grab for “60 percent of the global atmospheric space for 20 percent of the world’s wealthiest nations.” The declaration was a huge blow to the proceedings, given that the Sudan is one of the poor nations’ leading climate negotiators.

Meanwhile, U.N. leaders and former Vice President Al Gore worked to repair the damage done by the leak, saying that many such texts are prepared in advance of the conference, and serve as the basis of discussion. Gore said the situation was not unusual, and “ought to be kept in perspective.”

Likely in response to the Danish Text controversy, small island nation Tuvalu led a walkout from the summit today, forcing negotiations to stall for several hours. According to The Times of India, Tuvalu is among several island nations most vulnerable to rising sea levels due to climate change. The nation is favoring much stronger regulations than the current proposal calls for, as well as amending the Kyoto Protocol instead of drafting an entirely new agreement. The Kyoto Protocol is beloved by many small nations for the burden it places on rich countries as opposed to developing nations. Tuvalu and other such nations are intent on walking away from Copenhagen with a legally binding agreement.

Away from the negotiating table, Danish police found and seized protest equipment during a raid, the New York Times reported today. Found in a building that city officials provided as free housing for activists, the police confiscated nearly 200 makeshift shields, paint bombs, and material for “the making of leg protections.” The discovery indicated that protesters were ready to use some degree of force in a large-scale march planned for Saturday. While the police were unable to tie the equipment to any specific protester or cause, many of the protesters descending on Copenhagen this week are there to highlight what they see as consistent failures by the worldwide community in addressing climate change.

While there are a wide variety of particular viewpoints represented among the expected 50,000 protesters, many of them have little faith in the process and want to highlight the alternatives. For example, one group of activists plans an attempt to hijack the conference for a day and make it a “People’s Assembly.” It’s unlikely they will be able to break through the high levels of security at the conference, but their message is still heard.

As Day 3 winds down in Denmark, we’re still waiting for some real progress. It will be interesting to see, in addition to declaring the Danish Text no big deal, if developing nations really come to the table with substantial concessions. Here’s hoping we’re in a better position when the big brass comes in to town next week.

IEA Chief Fatih Birol addressed the Council on Foreign Relations earlier this week. (image: wikipedia.org and cfr.org)

Monday night at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Fatih Birol, Chief Economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA) presented the highlights of the recently released 2009 World Energy Outlook, which was recently completed. Yours truly was in attendance, and got the scoop just for you dear readers.

Mr. Birol knows his stuff- he worked for OPEC for six years, has written lots of articles about energy and energy policy, has won lots of awards for his work and is steeped every day in the numbers and analysis of global energy consumption and production. He’s known for being pretty plainspoken. So when he has something to say, we should listen.

And what he has to say isn’t pretty. Some samples:

• To keep up with global oil demand, the world will need to discover an additional four (yes, he said four) Saudi Arabia’s worth of crude production before 2030

• To keep up with global gas demand the world will need to discover an additional four Russia’s worth of natural gas reserves by 2030.

• Because of the financial crisis, global investment in oil production fell by $90B in 2009, or 19 percent- the first time this has happened in a decade.

• Existing oil fields will lose two-thirds of their productive capacity by 2030

• Between 2008 and 2030, the percentage of GDP spent on energy in the US will double, and in countries like China and India could increase three to six-fold.

• Oil prices were ‘not innocent’ in precipitating the financial crisis of 2008 and will remain a threat to global growth.

Whoa…Fatih…I’m trying to catch my breath here. What are we going to do?

Mr. Birol emphasized that the way to address these threats is to address climate change. In the IEA’s projections they use two scenarios, one they call the ‘Reference’ scenario (no change in our behavior) and the ‘450’ scenario (we keep carbon parts per million in the atmosphere under the critical 450 and thus will save the world- or so Al Gore tells me).

The changes he calls for to reach the 450 scenario are EXPENSIVE. They would cost many trillions—with a capital T. Renewables, electric cars, carbon capture, wind, solar, cap and trade, the works. But, he emphasizes, the cost of waiting will be even more expensive.

During the Q&A session that followed his presentation, someone asked him what his recommendations would be if climate change turned out to be an elaborate hoax (I paraphrase). He said he would still recommend 90% of the changes outlined in the review. Huh?

Birol explained that many people, especially in the developing world, view energy security as a bigger issue than climate change. Countries like China and India may not be very interested in spending money on climate change, but they may be extremely willing to spend on energy security. The same argument could be made to climate change skeptics. In his view, the changes we would make to reduce emissions are the same moves we would make to improve our energy security.

Interesting. Is it possible climate change zealots and national security hawks can fall in love on this? Who’s going to call Al Gore and Dick Cheney for the handshake photo-op? And is this really a way we can convince China it is in their best interest not to turn the planet into the air quality equivalent of my Grandpa’s apartment (Marlboro reds, two packs daily)? Sounds revolutionary to me.

Birol did have some other very interesting comments that we will touch on in future articles, among them:

• Hydrofracking in the US represents a silent energy revolution that no one is paying attention to, but will provide us with oodles of natgas for the next 20 years.
• Oil and coal usage in OECD (developed) countries peaked in 2009
• A natural gas glut is forming globally and will reach its apex in 2015

So put that in your pipe and smoke it. Be back in touch soon.

(image: Sean Scanlon via redinkphotography.com)

In a Guardian opinion piece published on Wednesday, John Elkington and Gary Kendall make the case for a massive transformation of our hydrocarbon-based economy by mid-century, in response to pressures of the geological, geopolitical, and climate change variety. They point to the fact that even Big Oil knows by this point that we are at the beginning of the end, that the Age of Oil is in irreversible decline. And while the “big six” oil companies seem to be doing well on the surface, they are going to have to drastically change their tune to adapt to a shifting market.

Elkington and Kendall focus on the three aforementioned main factors that are pushing the world away from a carbon economy: geology, geopolitics, and climate change. Geopolitically, there are tensions among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations cropping up in the fight for what’s left of the world’s oil. The pair cites Nigeria and China specially, who are at odds over China’s attempts to lock up oil supplies in African countries.

Geologically, Elkington and Kendall argue that the new market won’t support the lengths to which big oil will need to go in order to procure a continued supply of oil. While there is still oil left in the world, we are going to have to turn more and more to “difficult oil,” or oil trapped deeper in the earth or under the sea. In an effort to satisfy investors, oil companies will be forced to go after riskier, dirtier substitutes like the Canadian Tar Sands, gas-to-liquid options in Qatar, or coal-to-liquid options in China and elsewhere. These prospects will add increased amounts of carbon emissions to the air, which brings us to another source of pressure: the climate.

The pair rightly points out that to really, truly avoid catastrophic climate change impacts, we must take action and drastically decrease our carbon emissions by 2050. They posit that to realistically meet this requirement, we will need to transition to a zero-carbon energy system by mid-century. They imagine a world of energy efficient buildings and appliances, one where we aren’t allowed to burn fossil fuel with no plan to capture emissions. They even go so far as to say that by 2050, the actions of big oil to unearth carbon resources for market will be considered “strikingly primitive.”

Now, I would love to think that Elkington and Kendall are right, and that we’re all going to make this thing work and be carbon-free by 2050. And maybe I’m extremely pessimistic, but I just don’t see it happening. Given the enormous uphill battle it is to convince one country, let alone the whole world, to do what needs to be done…I just can’t imagine that 2050 will bring a resolution. As Elkington and Kendall point out themselves, this new vision of the future is pretty hard to swallow for Big Oil, who, let’s face it, have a lot of control. As Al Gore recently told Jon Stewart, there just isn’t enough monetary incentive for big oil to make the kind of changes needed for a zero-carbon economy, and governments move too slowly. I wish so much that I could agree with the very intelligent Elkington and Kendall, but I just can’t. I think we’re in for a bumpy ride.

Image courtesy Sean Scanlon at http://www.redinkphotography.com/galleries/california/

Copenhagen UN Climate Change Conference 2009 COP 15 logo. (image: en.cop15.dk)

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From Kyoto to Copenhagen

Debate over climate change legislation in the United States rages on, and even the Obama administration has conceded that a climate bill will not be finalized until 2010. However, a more important agreement on climate change could take place before the year’s end: a new carbon emissions treaty—a successor to the Kyoto Protocol—is the aim of the Copenhagen conference this December.

December 7 marks the opening day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. The conference is typically referred to as simply “Copenhagen” or abbreviated as “COP15,” which doesn’t stand for “Copenhagen” but for the fifteenth meeting of the “Conference of the Parties” to the UN Framework for Climate Change. The lofty goal of the conference, which closes on December 18, is to set new global standards to combat climate change, standards which can be adopted by superpowers like the US, as well as emerging economies like the fast-growing industrial nations of India and China.

The event will bring to the table virtually every country on the planet—192 countries are expected to be represented—making for, as the Independent’s environment editor Michael McCarthy estimated, roughly 10,000 to 15,000 advisors, diplomats, policymakers, and members of the media.

The Kyoto conference, 1997. (image: mofa.go.jp)

The Copenhagen conference is the biggest climate change meeting since the Kyoto Protocol, and has been preceded by a number of conferences that tried to build a foundation for agreement at Copenhagen. As the Kyoto Protocol is due to expire, Copenhagen offers the opportunity for a global climate change treaty to succeed Kyoto. As many onlookers have noted, much is at stake.

McCarthy, who’s been writing a series about the build-up to the summit for the Independent, said the conference “will have a far broader reach and potential impact on the world” than some of the most significant international political gatherings in history. He cited antecedents such as the 1814-1815 Congress of Vienna (which redrew the map in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars) and the 1945 Potsdam and Yalta conferences (which redrew the map in the wake of World War II). Those conferences, McCarthy elaborated, dealt with political structures and national borders, which change over time and can disappear entirely (Kingdom of Piedmont, anyone?). The issue at hand at Copenhagen is “something fundamental to life on earth: the stability of the biosphere.”

To maintain the stability of the biosphere, the Copenhagen conference intends to update the emissions standards set at the Kyoto conference. Kyoto, which took place in 1997, set emissions standards for nations that signed and ratified the Protocol. Each signatory agreed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% from the levels emissions were at in 1990. The pact was initially adopted by 37 nations but was famously (or infamously) never ratified by the US. (As of October 2009, the Protocol has been ratified by 184 countries.)

Despite Al Gore’s support, the Kyoto Protocol failed to win approval from US Senate, due to its lack of restrictions for developing nations—a hurdle still current. (image: biocrawler.com)

That the US never ratified the treaty that Al Gore signed in Kyoto has become a looming problem as Copenhagen fast approaches. In early October the press reported that the US was refusing to include any Kyoto Protocol targets on carbon dioxide emissions in any agreement reached at Copenhagen, because the Kyoto pact doesn’t include restrictions on developing nations.

Because of this history—the US as a champion of ideas that failed to put them into action–one of the biggest concerns many nations have about Copenhagen is that the US has not been able to pass strong climate change legislation of its own.

With a number of politicians in the US warning that significant climate change legislation might not get passed until 2010—well after Copenhagen has happened—concerns about the global ramifications of domestic policy talks are mounting. As Anne Petsonk, international counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, told the New York Times, the bottleneck here is sending a bad signal to the world. “The appearance to the international community,” she told the paper, “would be that the U.S. Congress is just adrift.”

The US Climate Bill

Which begs the question: Why is President Obama’s climate bill meeting with such opposition in Congress? (see video below: Senator Voinovich clashes with Senator Boxer over the Kerry-Boxer cap and trade bill.)

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Economic concerns trump environmental worries among opponents of climate legislation. Senators on both sides of the aisle have reservations about the climate bill. Whether their constituents face unemployment or high energy bills, legislators are loath to add to economic difficulties in their home states.

Additionally, big business is bringing out the big guns in Washington, lobbying hard to halt legislation they see as potentially harmful to the bottom line. Two such opponents of the climate bill are the Chamber of Commerce and the oil industry.

The Chamber of Commerce, which pushes a wide-ranging agenda, recently came under fire for putting significant funds toward defeating the climate bill. Companies like Nike, Apple, and Exelon Corporation have even left the organization, citing the Chamber’s stance on climate change as the reason.

Reporting on the Chamber’s hefty lobbying budget—and its efforts to stymie the climate change bill in Washington—the AP cited the stance of an executive from the Mohawk Fine Paper company, also a recent Chamber defector, who said it adversely affected the company’s credibility to “belong to an organization that vigorously opposed action on climate change.”

Another powerful corporate interest slowing climate change legislation in Washington comes from the oil industry. According to Capitol Hill publication Roll Call, oil companies were among the top spenders on lobbying in the third quarter of 2009. The American Petroleum Institute, which represents oil companies, shelled out $2.2 million on lobbying in the third quarter, up from $1.8 million over the three prior months, while ConocoPhillips spent nearly $4 million all on its own during the same period.

While some politicians claim that the fate of Copenhagen doesn’t hinge on the US passing climate change legislation—California Senator Barbara Boxer has come out publicly with this sentiment—many are wary. As the New York Times reported, those in the Boxer camp believe “that no agreement is better than a bad deal that cannot be ratified or endorsed.”

Who Picks Up the Tab?

The other obstacle at the Copenhagen conference will be who pays for any changes that come out of the climate conference. Aside from questions about whether the US will set an example for other countries to follow, there is the greater issue of how the economic impact of any potential global emissions plan will be met. As Elisabeth Rosenthal noted in a Times piece on the topic, the cost of an accord coming out of Copenhagen could be as much as $100 billion by the year 2020, with some economists estimating that costs will be closer to $1 trillion. That money is needed to help fast-industrializing nations convert to cleaner energy technology as well as help developing nations combat the natural disasters—droughts and famine, among other possibilities—resulting from climate change.

The support of developing nations like India, whose carbon emissions are rapidly increasing, is key to the success of any climate treaty. (image: article.wn.com)

Although companies ranging from Starbucks to Nike have noted that there’s more than an altruistic reason to assist third world countries suffering from the effects of global warming—natural disasters in these developing nations, after all, affect the flow of goods like coffee beans and cotton—the question of where the money comes from to support global efforts to combat climate change is still murky.

While Rosenthal noted that industrialized nations like the US have agreed in theory that any agreement coming out of Copenhagen will be financially underwritten by them, the lack of a clearly outlined plan is a major concern. “To date” she writes, “there is no concrete strategy to raise such huge sums. There is not even agreement about which nations should pay or in what proportion.”

Who will be underwriting the bill is, as Rosenthal aptly points out, the thing to watch: “Should contributors be only the industrialized nations, or should they include rapidly developing—and increasingly wealthy—polluters like China?”

(image: blogcdn.com)

On Wednesday, former Vice President Al Gore appeared as the guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to discuss his new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, and field questions from the famously satirical host.

Gore is known for his 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, an alarming look at the progressions of global warming and how humans are responsible both for the destruction of our atmosphere and for coming up with a solution.

On The Daily Show, Gore told Stewart, “We have all the tools we need to solve this – the only thing missing is political will.”Stewart, who shelved his typically comedic interrogation for smart, pointed questions, asked about the disconnect between the dire nature of the situation and our world’s slow, inefficient response: “Has the urgency of the language taken away from the message of the solutions?”

The urgency, Gore said, is no joke. There are some steps that have been taken, such as the development of a “super grid” that will transport solar energy across the US. But, he said, political cooperation, public participation and support from Big Oil is still missing.

Carbon dioxide levels are the highest they’ve been in a while. Say, 15 million years, says ScienceDaily, reporting the findings of a group of scientists at UCLA.

If you’re wondering whether or not there’s an easy fix to this carbon dioxide problem, Treehugger has an answer for you: no. According to Matthew McDermott, artificial trees that remove carbon dioxide from the air are prohibitively expensive–$20 trillion is the price tag to build enough artificial trees to make a dent in the problem.

We told you that solar power now made for pretty roofs. MIT is also working on keeping your good looking and environmentally friendly, too. Jeff St. John at Greentech Media reports that a team of MIT students have invented roof tiles that turn white when the sun is out (to reflect heat and curb global warming) and black when it’s cold (to absorb heat and cut down home heating bills). It’s like a Hypercolor t-shirt, but for your house.

Al Gore’s a busy guy, but William Kamkwamba of Malawi caught his attention. To do so, Kamkwamba brought electricity to his house by building a windmill by himself when he was a teenager, says Jillian Spiciarich at tcktcktck.org. Go there to watch him tell his story in his own words.

Pickens on stage with Reid and Gore at a clean energy summit. (image: zimbio.com)

T. Boone Pickens is a most unlikely darling of environmentalists.

T. Boone Pickens is a billionaire who made most of his fortune by purchasing and selling shares in energy companies. But, as detailed by Kambiz Foroohar for Bloomberg, Pickens is now touting the Pickens Plan, which would use natural gas to power the 6.5 million diesel trucks which drive up and down America’s roads. By doing so, Pickens says that the United States can save 2.7 million barrels of oil per day, which is over half of what the country imports on a daily basis from OPEC.

For the past year, Pickens has traveled across the nation touting this idea. Along the way, he has managed to unite both Republicans and Democrats behind legislation that provides incentives for the creation of natural gas vehicles and filling stations. This is a shocking turnabout; Pickens was an ardent supporter of President George W. Bush, put both his name and money behind the controversial “Swift Boat” attack ads against John Kerry, and has been described in the past by current US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as his “mortal enemy.”

But today, Pickens and Reid describe themselves as friends. And Reid has co-sponsored a bill that integrates portions of the Pickens Plan. The New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act—or, the “NAT GAS Act”—would provide a 10-year tax credit for natural gas vehicle makers in addition to a $100,000 credit for natural gas filling stations. Other senators sponsoring this legislation include Utah Republican Orrin Hatch and New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez.

Yet critics of this bill say that Pickens’s attempts to shape legislation are nothing more than an attempt to once again tilt the energy markets to his favor. And to be sure, Pickens certainly does have money tied into natural gas vehicles. He currently owns 5 percent of a Dallas-based natural gas exploration company. And he’s also partnered with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Beyers, a venture capital firm which has tossed money behind a company looking to build environmentally friendly cars. One of the partners in Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Beyers is former vice-president Al Gore.

In addition to gaining a foothold in Washington, The Pickens Plan has also won the backing of some major companies. Both AT&T and Wal-Mart have investigated the possibility of moving some of their trucks to natural gas.

However, there are major stumbling blocks that may prevent the development of natural gas vehicles. One is the price of oil. When prices nearly reached $150 per barrel, many legislators and pundits were clamoring for a major change to America’s energy policy. However, as prices dropped, America’s oil dependency no longer became a priority in Washington. The price of oil may have to rapidly increase before there’s a great demand for natural gas powered trucks. (On Tuesday, Pickens said on CNBC that he thinks the price of oil will reach the $75 per barrel mark this year and would average $80 next year. Further details about this were previously reported on HeatingOil.com.)

In addition, there must be a dramatic increase in the amount of natural gas produced in order to meet the increased demand natural gas vehicles would create. Another 20 billion cubic feet of a day of natural gas would be required to move all trucks to natural gas. Many natural gas exploration firms are concentrating on extracting gas from reservoirs in Colorado, Louisiana and Pennsylvania; however, gas in these regions is very hard, and costly, to reach. In order to make drilling in these states profitable, natural gas would have to rise from its current price of $4.89 per million BTUs.

The obstacles are large, but if a former oilman like Pickens can win over Harry Reid and Al Gore, his plan may reach fruition.