The CIA Wants To Control the Climate!!!!

Jamais at Open The Future has a look at the recent Mother Jones report on geoengineering funding - The CIA Wants To Control the Climate!!!!11!.

This is an entirely appropriate use of a very small amount of money (in government terms) and the resources of the intelligence services. As I've gone into multiple times, the global political risks around geoengineering are massive, likely greater than the environmental risks. A better understanding of an emerging complex geopolitical issue is precisely what I'd want an intelligence service to be doing. It's a lot better than operating killer drones and reading our email.

This is an entirely appropriate use of a very small amount of money (in government terms) and the resources of the intelligence services. As I've gone into multiple times, the global political risks around geoengineering are massive, likely greater than the environmental risks. A better understanding of an emerging complex geopolitical issue is precisely what I'd want an intelligence service to be doing. It's a lot better than operating killer drones and reading our email. People who don't want to see geoengineering happen should be glad that the US government is taking this seriously as a potential issue. I had an opportunity a couple of years ago to participate in a "wargame" project run by the CIA Center on Climate Change and National Security -- see souvenir above -- and watched as a climate-focused exercise turned into a geoengineering-focused game. As far as I could tell, this was not the designer's intent, but an organic result of player actions. And over the course of the game it came very close to leading to armed conflict between the US and China, a conflict over uncertain (and unsettling) consequences of a geoengineering effort. [The CIA Center on CCNS is now closed, in part due to climate issues being integrated across the spectrum of CIA research, and in part because House Republicans cut funding. Can't have the government studying climate change as if it were a real thing, you know.]

There's no question that geoengineering needs to be thought of as a potential global political risk. I'm glad to see a project like this. And I hope that the intelligence and strategic risk analysis services of other governments around the world are doing the exact same thing. ...

People who don't want to see geoengineering happen should be glad that the US government is taking this seriously as a potential issue. I had an opportunity a couple of years ago to participate in a "wargame" project run by the CIA Center on Climate Change and National Security -- see souvenir above -- and watched as a climate-focused exercise turned into a geoengineering-focused game. As far as I could tell, this was not the designer's intent, but an organic result of player actions. And over the course of the game it came very close to leading to armed conflict between the US and China, a conflict over uncertain (and unsettling) consequences of a geoengineering effort.

[The CIA Center on CCNS is now closed, in part due to climate issues being integrated across the spectrum of CIA research, and in part because House Republicans cut funding. Can't have the government studying climate change as if it were a real thing, you know.] There's no question that geoengineering needs to be thought of as a potential global political risk. I'm glad to see a project like this. And I hope that the intelligence and strategic risk analysis services of other governments around the world are doing the exact same thing.

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Methane Hydrates Could Be Disastrous For The Planet

Climate Progress has a look at methane hydrates, which are seeing a fairly continuous stream of interest over the years - ‘Fire Ice’: Buried Under The Sea Floor, This New Fossil Fuel Source Could Be Disastrous For The Planet

Methane is a potent carbon-based greenhouse gas that is emitted from decaying organic matter (i.e. landfills, cow digestion, and melting permafrost). The natural gas industry has been harvesting methane buried deep underground for decades to supply their product, despite persistent climate and safety concerns. Yet there’s an even more dangerous collection of methane hidden at the bottom of the sea. Though it’s somewhat easy to forget about it, a potentially enormous source of carbon pollution: methane hydrate.

Fossil fuel companies have not forgotten and they are extremely interested in finding an economical way to extract it from the sea floor. The reason is that the latest estimates put the amount of methane hydrate at 700,000 trillion cubic feet, or more energy than all oil and gas that has ever been discovered. It’s extremely hard to extract, and all known methods are very risky.

Also known as methane clathrate, or “fire ice,” methane hydrate is created when decaying organic matter under the ocean floor emits methane. This seeps up and mixes with seawater at the bottom of the ocean. It forms a cement-like icy compound within and on top of the ocean sediment, which actually stops more methane from seeping into the ocean. If the water above it gets warmer, some of the methane hydrate melts as methane, which bubbles up through the water column. In shallow water, it bubbles straight to the atmosphere but in deeper waters, the methane bubbles bond with the dissolved oxygen and water, creating carbon dioxide which bubbles to the surface, or stays in the water and makes the already-acidifying ocean more acidic.

But new research suggests that slow melting is not the only fate of methane hydrate. A study published in Nature Geoscience on Sunday found that undersea earthquakes could speed up this process. The researchers suggested that seismic activity fractures the seafloor, causing the methane below the surface to bubble up and get trapped within methane hydrates and sediment on the ocean floor. An earthquake could also cause methane to percolate through the water, either oxidizing in shallow water or escaping the ocean as methane emissions. ...

Earlier this year, Japanese researchers successfully tested a new process that extracted methane hydrate from the ocean floor for the first time. The director of Japan’s Agency for Natural Resources compared this to the way shale gas was viewed a decade ago — too expensive for commercialization — but concluded “now it’s commercialized.” This process does have similarities to fracking, but instead of pumping fracking fluid into the earth and exploding the rock, it drills down to the seabed, relieves pressure on the hydrates, and dissolves the crystals into gas and water for collection.

However, harvesting methane hydrates poses the same risks faced by offshore oil drillers — pressure, drilling at depth, and the catastrophic ramifications of failure. If the drilling causes an underwater landslide, the methane could erupt to the surface all at once, a scenario called the “methane gun hypothesis.” This could release massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere, dealing a serious blow to cutting carbon emissions.

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Growth of Global Solar and Wind Energy Continues to Outpace Other Technologies

Renewable Energy Focus has a look at this year's Worldwatch report on renewable energy - Solar and wind dominate world market.

According to “Growth of Global Solar and Wind Energy Continues to Outpace Other Technologies”, published by Worldwatch, global solar power consumption increased by 58 percent to 93 terrawatt-hours (TWh), and the use of wind power increased by 18 percent to 521 TWh. Although hydropower remains the world's leading renewable energy, solar and wind continue to dominate investment in new renewable capacity and are quickly becoming the highest-profile renewable energy sources.

This was despite the fact that new investments in these energy sources actually declined during 2012. Global investment in solar energy in 2012 was US$140.4 billion, an 11 percent decline from 2011, and wind investment was down 10 percent, to US$80.3 billion. But due to lower costs for both technologies, total installed capacities grew sharply.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) installed capacity grew by 41 percent in 2012, reaching 100 gigawatts (GW). Over the past five years alone, installed PV capacity grew by a massive 900 percent, from 10 GW in 2007. The countries with the most installed PV capacity today are Germany (32.4 GW), Italy (16.4 GW), the United States (7.2 GW), and China (7.0 GW). Installed capacity for concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) reached 2.55 GW, with 970 megawatts (MW) alone added in 2012.

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Duke Energy shelves major nuclear project in Florida

Reuters reports that another nuclear power project has been halted - Duke Energy shelves major nuclear project in Florida.

Duke Energy Corp said on Thursday it will not proceed with a $24 billion nuclear power project in central Florida because of licensing delays and doubts about cost recovery ... The announcement was the latest blow to nuclear power investment in the Sunshine State and reflected the boom in natural gas development nationwide.

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Fracking Could Help Geothermal Become a Power Player ?

Scientific American has an article on the use of fracking to develop geothermal power projects - Fracking Could Help Geothermal Become a Power Player.

Here's another use for fracking: expanding access to hot rocks deep beneath Earth’s surface for energy production. In April Ormat Technologies hooked up the first such project—known in the lingo as an enhanced geothermal system, or EGS—to the nation's electric grid near Reno, Nev.

"The big prize is EGS," enthuses Douglas Hollett, director of the Geothermal Technologies Office at the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE). "The key is learning how to do it in a reliable way, in a responsible way."

By some estimates, the U.S. could tap as much as 2,000 times the nation’s current annual energy use of roughly 100 exajoules (an exajoule equals a quintillion, or 1018 joules) via enhanced geothermal technologies. With respect to electricity, the DoE concludes at least 500 gigawatts of electric capacity could be harvested from such EGS systems. Even better, hot rocks underlie every part of the country and the rest of the world. Australia's first enhanced geothermal system, spicily named Habanero, began producing power in May, and Europe has brought three such power plants online.

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Flying a kite for aerial wind power

The Guardian has an article on airborne wind turbines - Flying a kite for aerial wind power.

According to Schmehl, airborne energy production can be cleaner, cheaper and more effective than conventional wind power generation. "It's now clear that the world needs more energy from renewables. And we need the progress to be faster. Wind is an important resource that so far has been limited, because conventional wind turbines just scratch off the bottom layer of what is actually available in the atmosphere."

While a normal wind turbine is up to 200 metres tall, a kite can catch much higher currents. "We operate between 100 and 300 metres but kites can in fact fly much higher. So far, the altitude record is 9,740 metres," says Schmehl.

Kite wind generation overcomes the problem of intermittent power, typical of conventional wind technologies, for one simple reason: the higher you go, the more constantly the wind blows. Airborne wind turbines provide a more stable energy flow, and they are much cheaper as they need less material than a wind turbine. Instead of a steel tower, you have a system that looks and works like a yo-yo.

"You have a cable going into the sky with a flying harvesting device. Our group has focused on kite power, and specifically the pumping kite power system. We use the traction power of a kite sail to pull a cable from a drum that drives a generator on the ground.

Once the cable has completely unwound it needs to be reeled in again, which requires a certain amount of energy. "You have to design the pumping cycle so as to have a traction and a retraction phase," says Schmehl. He and his team came up with a solution to minimise energy losses. "We rotate the kite into the wind as we pull it back, so essentially the airstream does part of the work for us. This way, we need less energy to reel in the cable."

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World's Biggest Offshore Wind Farm Switched On in Britain

IEEE SPectrum reports that the long awaited London Array wind farm has commenced operation offshore England - World's Biggest Offshore Wind Farm Switched On in Britain.

Around a year and a half ago, the Walney wind farm in the Irish Sea started spinning and prepared to relish the title of being "biggest in the world." It ended up enjoying that status a bit longer than expected, but the London Array, off the coast of Kent, now leaves Walney and its 367 megawatts in the dust.

Some numbers: 175 turbines. 630 megawatts. Half a million homes. 100 square kilometers. 450 kilometers of offshore cabling.

In other words, it's pretty big. The speed at which these enormous projects are popping around in the waters around the U.K. is impressive, especially considering the ongoing difficulties with getting even a single offshore turbine up and running in the U.S. (Cape Wind might have one by next year! Maybe!) There are now around 20 distinct offshore wind farms around the U.K., generating enough power for 2.3 million homes; when all offshore turbines that are spinning, in construction, or planned are combined, they total 15 gigawatts of capacity—about a quarter of the entire U.S. onshore wind power capabilities.

The London Array, owned by DONG Energy, E.ON, and the U.A.E.'s Masdar, looks to keep it's world's-biggest title for a bit longer than Walney held out, thanks to its already massive size and a phase 2 plan to bring it up to a full gigawatt. And some of the other big projects underway in the region won't be able to compete with that sort of girth: West of Duddon Sands farm will get to 389 MW, for example, while the Gwynt y Mor farm off the coast of Wales will reach 576 MW.

ReNews also has a report on a new 1.2GW wind farm planned for offshore the east coast of England - Hornsea enters the fray.

Smart Wind has submitted its application for the 1.2GW Hornsea phase one wind farm off the east coast of England. ... Hornsea Project One formally consists of the 600MW Njord and the 600MW Heron project. Offshore construction on both projects could start as early as 2016.

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