COP14

Is Geothermal Energy a Good Alternative to Powering the Planet? -A COP14 Insight

It has been estimated that within the continental United States there is a sizable resource of accessible geothermal energy, which could supply about 3,000 times the current annual U.S. consumption. With fossil fuel sources depleting and global warming on the rise, exploring alternative means of powering human civilization is becoming of dire importance.

But now researchers are saying that it’s not just the sky via wind harnessing, or various forms of water power that offer hope. There is another clean, renewable energy source that is being largely overlooked: deep within Earth is an untapped source of abundant geothermal energy.

One major reason this storehouse of energy has not been tapped is that locating these energy hot spots is difficult, time-consuming and expensive.

“Since many geothermal resources are hidden, that is, they do not show any clear indications of their presence at the surface, locating them by just using observations made at the surface is difficult,” explains researcher Matthijs van Soest of Arizona State University. “Often when people thought there might be a geothermal resource below the surface the only way to determine if their assumption was correct was drilling and drilling is extremely expensive,” he says.

Now a new breakthrough is poised to radically alter the prospects of geothermal energy exploration.
Van Soest and B. Mack Kennedy of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have found that an effective new method of geothermal exploration may not require any drilling at all.

Helium-3, whose nucleus has just one neutron, is made only in stars, and Earth's mantle retains a high proportion of primordial helium-three (compared to the minuscule amount found in air) left over from the formation of the solar system. Earth's crust, on the other hand, is rich in radioactive elements like uranium and thorium that decay by emitting alpha particles, which are helium-four nuclei. Thus a high ratio of helium-3 to helium-4 in a fluid sample indicates that much of the fluid came from the mantle.

“We wanted to show that certain surface indicators, specifically the ratio of helium isotopes, can be used to identify areas with high resource potential for geothermal energy,” says van Soest, co-author of a research report that appeared in the journal Science.

This incredible discovery that leftover stardust can provide a relatively cheap and fast method of locating geothermal energy without drilling makes this form of energy a much more viable option. With exciting new discoveries, such as this one, surfacing daily—soon there won’t be many good excuses left for not powering the planet through means that aren’t simultaneously destroying it.

Posted by Rebecca Sato

"Technologies For Climate Protection" Exhibition Opens

As part of this year's UN Climate Conference, COP14 conference, the government of Poland has put together a 7000 square meter exhibition hall containing 120 devices from 20 countries that decrease our impact on the environment, including fog catchers that pull water from the air, dance floors that can power dance halls, a solar-powered internet cafe from Gambia, hydrogen cars and ultra-insulating materials.

The hall also has exhibits that will let participants build their own solar collectors or play out different scenarios in which the UN does (or does not) take adequate steps to control climate change.

A COP14 Insight: Planet's Ecological Diversity -Explanations Still Elude Scientists

In their attempts to properly predict what will come next to our planet as a result of climate change, scientists have been attempting to understand as much as possible. Predictive models can only provide accurate predictions when they are filled with all the data; without it, there are gaps.

Subsequently, scientists have been attempting to understand the ecological diversity of our planets flora. From rainforests to arboreal forests, researchers are busily trying to understand how everything works together.

It is similar to the attempts in another science, physics, to unify all that we know in a Grand Unifying Theory. While we understand a lot of aspects, all that we do know doesn’t necessarily match up with everything else.

"The global reach of the CTFS/SIGEO forest monitoring network, and the power to test theories of biodiversity depend entirely on independently motivated researchers who study trees in places from Yasuni to Papua New Guinea, on the other side of the world," said Eldredge Bermingham, director of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

So in a new report in the October 24 issue of the journal Science, researchers claim that trees in a hyper-diverse tropical rainforest interact with each other and their environment to maintain the diversity.

2001 saw a scientist from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Stephen Hubbell, professor at the University of California, LA, propose a neutral theory of biodiversity that suggested that all species are equal in terms of their ability to survive and reproduce. Hubbell’s research, based on 20 years of data, suggested that it was chance events that drove change.

Those 20 years of data was sourced from a long-term forest dynamics plot on Barro Colorado Island, which Hubbell co-founded in 1980. It was set aside as a nature reserve, and with an area of 54 square kilometers was set aside for research dedicated to studying the environment.

However Renato Valencia, professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador and lead investigator of the Science journal article, disagrees. "If the neutral theory is correct, we would expect these traits to be distributed at random throughout the forest, but that was not the case.”

Valencia’s data came from a similar yet younger plot, based in the Yasuni forest dynamics plot of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. One of the most diverse tropical forest sites, Yasuni is comprised of 600 species of bird, 170 mammals and 1,100 species of trees across the 25 hectare plot.

There are more than 30 forest dynamics plots in 17 countries involved in the Center for Tropical Forest Science/Smithsonian Institution Global Earth Observatory, and all are striving to resolve the conflicting evidence that is being found.

Posted by Josh Hill.

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Jeffrey Sachs on Climate Change

A COP14 Insight: Are Global Warming Models Accurately Predicting Our Future? New Study Reveals the Answer

The essay that follows is an attempt to provide background context for the the historic COP14 Conference on the threats to the global environment being held in Poznan, Poland.

There are a lot of competing theories out there when it comes to climate change. It seems that for every expert opinion there is an opposite opinion, and for every piece of evidence there are contrary views. Politicians, scientists and environmentalists alike can’t seem to agree on all of the facts. But what about all of these computerized climate models coming out? Are they reliable and accurate? Can we trust the predictions these models generate?

In the recent study "How Well do Coupled Models Simulate Today’s Climate?” which will be published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, meteorologists analyzed a wide range of existing models. Co-authors Thomas Reichler and Junsu Kim from the Department of Meteorology at the University of Utah researched how well climate models actually do their job in simulating climate by comparing the output of the models against observations for present climate. Using this method, the scientists analyzed about 50 different national and international models that were developed over the past two decades at major climate research centers in China, Russia, Australia, Canada, France, Korea, Great Britain, Germany, and the United States, including the very latest model generation used for the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The results of this study conclude that current climate models are quite accurate in terms of present climate, and can therefore act as valuable tools in predicting future trends. If so, that would mean that the models used for the recent IPCC report are realistic. Of course, unknown future variables, such as how we choose to respond to climate change, could change these projections, hopefully favorably. However, the data we have now is reliable, concludes the study. The research also found that most of the existing models project a global warming trend of about 7 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 100-year period. Such a dramatic rise in temperature would likely have a devastating impact on many forms of life, including humans.

But what about the various claims from some experts that the Earth isn’t getting warmer, or the even more contrary claim that we may actually be entering into a cooling phase in the Earth’s climate cycle? The Daily Galaxy interviewed the lead author of the study, climate expert Thomas Reichler, to hear what he has to say about it. According to him, anyone claiming that the Earth isn’t getting warmer, or that it’s perhaps even getting colder, simply isn’t looking at the actual data, and very likely isn’t even a real scientist.

“I don’t think there is any scientific evidence to support such an idea. People may be coming up with those kind of ideas, but I don’t think it’s coming from scientists,” Reichler told the Daily Galaxy.
Reichler pointed out that most scientists agree that climate change is a real and critical issue, because that is what the scientific evidence accumulated thus far suggests. Climate change is expected to cause a wide range of weather and temperatures fluctuations including some areas becoming colder, but the overall trend is warming. According to Reichler, people can have an opinion that climate change isn’t real, but that doesn’t change the reality of it.

“There is absolutely no doubt that the world is in a warming phase,” Reichler told the Daily Galaxy, “and that conclusion is supported by 99% of all serious scientists, so I’m certainly not alone in that certainty. ”
But what about those who claim that climate change is part of an inevitable climate cycle that has little to do with humans? Is global warming a man-made phenomenon, or part of an inevitable climate cycle? According to Reichler, nearly all scientific evidence to date suggests that humans do play a role in the issue.
“Of course, there are some other contributing factors but the main factor involved is the many human activities that significantly increase levels of greenhouse gases.”

The Daily Galaxy asked Reichler what he believes average people can do on a day-to-day practical level to make a positive difference. Reichler says that, on the most basic level, people can make a significant difference by consuming less fossil fuel and by making our homes and lifestyles more energy efficient.
“Drive smaller cars, drive less, and insulate your house well. Things like this can make a difference.”

Posted by Rebecca Sato.

View the full study on climate models

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"Green": The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

With the COPI4 Conference in progress in  Poznan, Poland, The Daily Galaxy will be featuring not only the latest conference new, but also original insights on the issues confronting the planet's environmental future.

Spearheading what appears will be a dramatic change in the global  green initiatives, President-elect Barack Obama is arguing that there is no better time than the present to invest heavily in clean energy technologies. An investment, he says, would confront the threat of unchecked warming, reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil and help revive the American economy.

Meanwhile, disguising environmental harm eases only our conscience warns psychologist Albert Bandura of the Department of Psychology at Stanford University. He points out that no matter how we disguise environmentally harmful practices and smooth them over with positive words that ease the conscience, such practices will nonetheless continue to have a negative impact on the planet and the quality of life of future generations. In other words, a rose by any other name is still a rose.