Industrialized Cyclist Notepad


October 2021 VMT

United States, FHA. Cra-a-a-zy.



The Carbon Fallacy

Chris Martenson, smart about energy, busts the O administration for its disingenuous claims about lowering carbon emissions with natural gas:

To claim credit for lowered carbon emissions due to natural gas and then also support the idea of exporting LNG (where fully 25% of the base energy is combusted in order to simply liquefy the product) is hypocritical. These are two ideas that work against each other.  Either you use natural gas wisely and efficiently as you move away from coal resources and claim a carbon credit for these actions, or you support throwing 25% of natural gas’ energy right into the atmosphere just to cool it for transport.  

So it’s a fallacy to imply that exporting natural gas will help lower carbon emissions. In all honesty, total emissions will most likely be higher than otherwise – because let’s be realistic; the most likely path is for humanity to burn up all the natural gas and then burn up the coal next.

Further, where the U.S. carbon emissions have gone down due to less coal being burned, that happy circumstance resulted in Europe doing exactly the opposite:

[…]

Does natural gas help to lower carbon emissions?  No, it merely pushes the carbon emissions elsewhere while the U.S. feasts on relatively cheap natural gas domestically.  The only thing that lowers carbon emissions is NOT burning coal, natural gas, or petroleum – collectively.

via The Obama Administration's Policy on LNG Makes No Energy Sense | Peak Prosperity.



Refusing to move in the right direction

…on that whole renewable energy thing, let alone make real changes.

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency said Friday that it would delay issuance of a new rule limiting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from new power plants after the electric power industry objected on legal and technical grounds.

The rule, proposed a year ago and scheduled to be finalized on Saturday, would have put in place the first restrictions on climate-altering gases from the power sector in the United States. Agency officials said it would be rewritten to address the concerns raised by the industry, which said that strict new carbon standards could not be met using existing technology.

via E.P.A. to Delay Emissions Rule at New Power Plants – NYTimes.com.

If we did start moving in the right direction, people would complain bitterly about the ‘inconveniences’ caused.



Declining U.S. carbon dioxide emissions

CO2emissionsdown

And it’s worth remembering why that happened– we didn’t have a choice. Global field production of crude oil (excluding natural gas liquids, which are not used as transportation fuel) stagnated at about 74 million barrels/day between 2005 and 2008. It is up a couple of million barrels since then, but more than 100% of this increase has been consumed by China alone, forcing the U.S. and other countries to reduce our oil consumption.

via James Hamilton: Econbrowser: Declining U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.



Maybe number one on the list of things that aren’t smart
March 19, 2013, 20:34
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Forgetting to start our renewable energy project.

Global demand for coal is expected to grow to 8.9 billion tons by 2016 from 7.9 billion tons this year. China is expected to add about 160 new coal-fired plants to the 620 operating now, within four years. During that period, India will add more than 46 plants.

via China & India Are Building 4 New Coal Power Plants – Every Week | The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).

Oh well.



It would be cool if this were true

Carbon dioxide emissions fell by 13% in the past five years, because of new energy-saving technologies and a doubling in the take-up of renewable energy, the report compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) for the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) said.

via US carbon emissions fall to lowest levels since 1994 | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

Nah. It’s because we’re driving less. Look at the VMT chart. The drop in emissions is mainly due to the bad economy, not renewable energy.



The Heat

is on the street

via http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/06/30/509246/nbc-meteorologist-on-record-heat-wave-if-we-didnt-have-global-warming-we-wouldnt-see-this/#more-509246



“Green cars” will not solve the whole greenhouse gas thing

The impossibility of “green cars” must be apparent at this point. EVen to people at websites called “Green Car Congress:” http://www.greencarcongress.com/2012/02/mashayekh-20120212.html

After considering a wide range of possible strategies to reduce light-duty vehicle greenhouse gas emissions, a team from Carnegie Mellon University, RAND Corporation and the University of Toronto has concluded that no one strategy will be sufficient to meet GHG emissions reduction goals to avoid climate change. Strategies considered included fuel and vehicle options; low-carbon and renewable power; travel demand management; and land use changes.

However, they also found that many of these changes have positive combinatorial effects, “so the best strategy is to pursue combinations of transportation GHG reduction strategies to meet reduction goals.” As a result, they recommended that agencies need to broaden their agendas to incorporate such combinations in their planning. Their policy paper is published in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology.

So, if we still want to drive around everywhere , we’re left with all these non-effective strategies for reducing emissions. Solution? Implement all these non-effective strategies at the same time!



Fugitive methane

A new story in Scientific American by Frischetti. Fracking could release large quantities of methane into the atmosphere, accelerating global warming.



Cycling and CO2

The European Cyclists’ Federation just put out a study on CO2 emissions and the possible savings that might come from additional cycling in the EU.

QUANTIFYING CYCLING’S CO2 SAVINGS (pdf)

[just one of several interesting graphics from this report]