Climate Policy – Nov 16

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Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage

Turns out hydropower may not be as low-carbon as we thought
Gar Lipow, Gristmill
There is a major controversy brewing on how carbon neutral large scale hydroelectricity really is. It has been known for a long time that dams emit both methane and CO2. The question has always been, how much of those emission are net? According to the International Rivers Network (PDF), studies by ecologist Philip Fearnside of the National Institute for Research in the Amazon (INPA) have shown that net methane emissions from hydropower are slightly higher than those from burning natural gas.

Rivers generally have organic matter trapped in their silt and mud. This rots in the dark, wet environment, producing methane that’s dissolved in the water. In undammed rivers, bacteria consume the methane, converting it to CO2. (CO2 is a much less potent greenhouse gas than methane.) According to Fearnside’s research, the higher pressure created by large scale dams forces the dissolved methane out.

Author Gar Lipow describes himself. “As a long time environmental activist and sometime journalist with a strong technical background I’ve spent years immersed in the subject of efficiency and renewable energy.”
(13 Nov 2006)

No magic bullet for carbon pollution, says IEA chief
Agence France Presse via Yahoo!News
NAIROBI – The world’s economies have no alternative to boosting energy efficiency and lowering carbon emissions to tackle global warming, as clean energy lies decades away as a mainstream source, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said.

Claude Mandil, executive director of the Paris-based agency, issued what he called “a message of urgency” on the eve of a three-day meeting in Nairobi of the world’s environment ministers, tasked with charting the next steps in the fight against climate change.

“With current policies, our energy future is insecure and environmentally unsustainable,” Mandil told a press conference Tuesday.

“We can’t wait for a decade to make sure technology will solve the problem,” he warned. “We are not on a sustainable track.”
(14 Nov 2006)

French promise revenge for not signing protocol
Stephanie Peatling/Reuters, Sydney Morning Herald
FRANCE has threatened to tax imports from countries that have not signed the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions.
Its Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, told a meeting on sustainable development yesterday: “Europe has to use all its weight to stand up to this sort of environmental dumping.
“I would like us to study now with our European partners the principle of a carbon tax on the import of industrial products from countries which refuse to commit themselves to the Kyoto Protocol after 2012.” ..
The Prime Minister, John Howard, announced on Monday the establishment of a taskforce on emissions trading, but he said of Mr de Villepin’s remarks yesterday: “That is a thoroughly silly proposal and is totally out of touch with reality.”
(15 Nov 2006)
Prime Minister Howard was saying the same thing about emissions trading only weeks ago! This Australian citizen invites Mr Villepin to “bring it on”, ASAP, please. See next article for an example of why Australians despair of sanity from the Coal-ition government.–LJ

PM’s windy rhetoric denounced as a scare tactic
Richard Macey, Sydney Morning Herald
A SCIENTIST has accused the Prime Minister of frightening the public to undermine wind power’s potential.

Responding last week to a Herald/ACNielsen poll showing 91 per cent of people regarded climate change as serious, John Howard warned that wind power could become a key source of energy only if the coast was festooned with windmills.

“Unless you want to have a windmill every few hundred feet starting at South Head and going down to Malabar,” he said, “you simply won’t be able to generate enough power from something like wind in order to take the load of the power that is generated by the use of coal and gas and, in time, I believe, nuclear.”

Looking “years ahead”, the only means of generating the required energy were fossil fuels and nuclear power.

However, Mark Diesendorf, an expert in renewable energy at the Institute of Environmental Studies, University of NSW, dismissed Mr Howard’s comments as “just not true”.

He said the depiction of a coastline of windmills was “a straw man …designed to frighten people … It’s the same old misleading stuff.” ..
(13 Nov 2006)